Japanese-Americans, Arab-Americans, US Muslims Say "Never Again"

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JAPANESE-AMERICANS, ARAB-AMERICANS, MUSLIMS SAY "NEVER AGAIN"

by Jon Hillson

LOS ANGELES, Jan 28 (NY Transfer)--"We join all of those who will not
be silenced," Lillian Nakano told 150 people who packed the
Japanese-American Cultural and Community Center in the heart of this
city's Little Tokyo district at a January 26 forum protesting
Washington's continuing efforts to impose pariah status on
Arab-Americans and Muslims.

Nakano was 13 years old in 1942, when she and her family were seized
by the U.S. government in their home in Hawaii and shipped first to
an internment camp in Arkansas, and later a camp in Montana, where
they remained until the end of World War II. They were among 120,000
Japanese-Americans held as a "threat to national security" under
Order 9066, issued by President Franklin Roosevelt.

"We must do everything possible to make sure this never happens
again," the silver-haired fighter said in a clear, firm voice.

Nakano was a leader of Japanese-American community efforts to force
the U.S. government to recognize its mass violation of human rights.
"We fought back and won," she said, referring to the measure of
justice achieved when Washington announced $20,000 payments to
survivors of the camps, along with an apology, in the late 1980s.

The forum was sponsored by the Nikkei for Civil Rights and Redress
September 11 Committee and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination
Committee, in conjunction with Muslim Public Affairs Council, the
Council on American Islamic Relations, and the Asian Concerns
Committee of the Asian Bar Association. The diverse audience included
veterans of the redress struggle, student and youth activists from
the Los Angeles Asian community, Arab-Americans, and Black, Latino,
political, antiwar and civil liberties activists.

Fred Okrand, an attorney for interned Japanese-Americans during World
War II, and currently director emeritus of the American Civil
Liberties Union, described the differences between then and now. "The
Japanese-Americans were virtually alone," he said. "I can remember
walking down Third Street to my office, and people who knew me would
cross the street to avoid me. Or, they would walk by and say
'traitor.' Today, the atmosphere is absolutely different. Today,
people have cried out [against anti-Arab repression]. You must work
hard for freedom and civil liberties."

Michel Shehadeh, one of "LA 8" -- seven Palestinians and a Kenyan who
have successfully fought off Washington's efforts to deport them
since their 1987 arrest -- told the crowd, "If we don't fight today,
30 years from now our children will look back, as we look back to
World War II, and ask what happened." Shehadeh is the west
coordinator of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. He
has spoken out widely against the U.S. war in Afghanistan. "I am glad
to be in front of an audience where I don't have insist that we
really are opposed to the terrorist attacks of September 11," he
said. There is no contradiction at all, he explained, between such a
condemnation, and "defending the rights of the Palestinian people,
and opposing U.S. policy in the Middle East."

The speak-out, the third event organized by the groups since
September 11, is proof that "the memory [of the concentration camps]
is not lost," Ra'id Faraj, public relations director of the Council
on American Islamic Relations told the group. "The torch of the
American Muslim community is being lit by the Japanese-American
community. We will go forward together defending each other."

The event, entitled "Civil Liberties and National Security: Must One
Negate the Other?" dovetailed assertions of "patriotism" from several
panelists."Some people ask me, 'how can you be patriotic if you are
Muslim?' I tell them that I am patriotic, not in spite of being a
Muslim, but because I am a Muslim," Faraj said.

"We have sincere desire for national security against terrorism,"
Omar Ricci, a board member of the Muslim Public Affairs Council said,
as he spoke out against stepped-up harassment of Arab-Americans.
Terrorism should be attacked by "serious investigative techniques,
not racial profiling," he said. His organization has proposed to
Congress that it conduct "quarterly oversight hearings on civil
liberties, repeal the use of secret evidence in deportation hearings,
and reject racial profiling."

Several in the audience disagreed sharply with the use of patriotic
language and the danger of embracing Washington's formulation of the
"war against terrorism."

"I don't love America," one youth said, to a smattering of applause
and murmurs of agreement.

"Who and what put those people in the Twin Towers in harm's way?" an
Asian political activist asked.

"When we get into legitimizing the 'national security' argument, we
just set ourselves up," another activist explained. "This war is
aimed at us and our rights."

Civil liberties attorney and National Lawyers Guild counsel Carol
Sobel warned of the "retroactivity" clause in the USA Patriot Law.
Under this heading, Washington can "exclude" from entering the United
States anyone who fits its "intentionally broad and vague"
description of supporting "terrorism" or "undermining U.S. efforts
against terrorism," she said.

"This enables foreign governments to crack down on domestic dissent,"
Sobel warned. The definition can be used, she explained, against
those who engage in globalization or environmental protests. She
likened such language to the use of government campaigns waged under
the rubric of "national security" or "subversive activitites."

"When my family was rounded up, when the Japanese-Americans were
taken to the camps, we were tainted with the stigma of being 'spies.'
In my school, only one person spoke up for us, my history teacher,"
Lillian Nakano said. "He was a socialist. He said. 'This is terrible.
We will keep in touch with you.' He was ousted from his job during
the McCarthy period."

Nakano was responding to a question from the floor about the
ascendancy of fascism in the United States. She disagreed,
emphatically. "It was very scary period then. Things are different
now. There are different groups [speaking out]. There are different
events."

"People have protested," Fred Okrand explained. "The administration
has backed off from some plans. Some of its efforts, like the
military tribunals, have backfired. There needs to be more protest,
especially against the secret immigration hearings."

Kathy Masaoka, a leader of the Nikkei for Civil Rights and Redress
concluded the event with a brief report on the summer 2001 tour of
Cuba her grouporganized. "We learned a lot about Cuba, and about the
Japanese-Cubans," she said. Hundreds of male Japanese immigrants to
Cuba, and their Cuban-born sons, were imprisoned in a concentration
camp on the Isle of Pines -- now called the Isle of Youth -- that was
later used to jail Fidel Castro and other revolutionaries who
survived the July 26, 1953 attack on the Moncada barracks.

"We also learned about the case of the Miami 5, who were convicted on
espionage conspiracy charges last year in the United States," she
said, introducing a representative of the defense effort for the
five, to report on the current status of the case. Winning freedom
for the five, she said, "is a top priority for the Cuban people."

"Everything we have heard here today," the representative said,
"about illegal detentions, COINTELPRO-style investigations, and
frame-up charges was implemented against these five Cubans who sought
to gain information about terrorist actions organized with U.S.
complicity from U.S. soil, against Cuba. Whether waged under the
banner of national security, subversive activity, espionage, or
fighting terrorism, Washington's real war at home is against the Bill
of Rights. Defending the Miami 5 is all about defending those rights
in the United States today. They are innocent. The precept we should
apply to all of our activities -- from the secret detentions of the
'disappeared' Arabs in U.S. jails to the five Cuban patriots -- is
labor's slogan, 'an injury to one is an injury to all.'"

Supporters of the defense committee for the Miami 5 distributed
literature about the case, along with information about a
mid-February southern California campus tour by Cuban Interests
Section first secretary Fernando Garcia Bielsa, the topic of which is
"What Cuba Stands For." The tour is sponsored by 19 academic
departments, campus, community and political organizations.

The NCRR, along with the Japanese-American Citizens League/Pacific
Southwest District and the Japanese-American National Museum, are
sponsoring an annual Day of Remembrance in Los Angeles that will mark
-- to the day -- the 60th anniversary of the presidential order for
internment.

Entitled "1942-2002 Without Due Process: Japanese American Internment
to Arab American Detention," the event will take place in Little
Tokyo's Japanese-American National Museum on February 16.
 
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nytas-01.29.02-09:17:54-5094