A Nation (Still) Scared Of Its Own Shadow:
A college student who came to the United States as an Iraqi refugee was removed from a Southwest Airlines flight in California earlier this month after another passenger became alarmed when she heard him speaking Arabic.
Khairuldeen Makhzoomi is a Senior at UC Berkeley. He was sitting on his Southwest Flight before takeoff, calling his Uncle to gush about a series of events he had just attended, including a speech by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki- Moon. He was thrilled because he got a chance to ask the Secretary General a question. His uncle lives in Baghdad, which you might remember as the capital of the country we “liberated." So, like 420 million other people in the world, he was speaking to his uncle in Arabic.
But today was not the day to be speaking in Arabic on a Southwest Flight. Because Nervous Nellie was seated directly in front of him. Nellie understood some Arabic, but apparently not well enough that she would consider herself a terrorist:
Mr. Makhzoomi, 26, knew something was wrong as soon as he finished his phone call and saw that a woman sitting in front of him had turned around in her seat to stare at him, he said. She headed for the airplane door soon after he told his uncle that he would call again when he landed, and qualified it with a common phrase in Arabic, “inshallah,” meaning “god willing.”
“Oh no,” thought Khairuldeen (we surmise). “I bet she’s going to report me, and I’m not even wearing a turban!” (OK I made that part up).
Yep, that’s exactly what happened. Nellie went straight to security brandishing her accusatory finger and an imperfect understanding of Arabic. Southwest immediately sent their Arabic-speaking heavy on board, who started grilling Khairuldeen immediately. Khairuldeen said he was treated like an animal by this guy, who sounds like he found employment with Southwest after “renditions” fell out of favor. The New York Times tried to contact him but couldn’t.
Then Khairuldeen said something that really pissed the Southwest guy off.
“I said to him, ‘This is what Islamophobia got this country into,’ and that made him so angry. That is when he told me I could not go back on the plane.”
That’s when things got ugly. That's when the cops and dogs showed up. Some Arab guy is speaking up for his rights, let’s humiliate him in front of a crowd:
He was brought into the terminal and searched in front of a crowd of onlookers while half a dozen police officers, including one with a dog, stood watch.Three agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrived and brought him into a private room where they questioned him, he said. They asked about his mother, who lives with him and his younger brother in Oakland. They also asked about his father, Khalid Makhzoomi, a former Iraqi diplomat who was jailed in Abu Ghraib prison by Saddam Hussein and later killed by the dictator’s regime, according to Mr. Makhzoomi.
So Khairuldeen's family must have been one of those who greeted American troops with flowers. Khairuldeen himself arrived here as a refugee. You’d think that might merit some special consideration, but you’d be wrong. The FBI determined no action was necessary, though, so after his humiliating experience Khairuldeen was allowed to book a new flight on Delta. He made it to Oakland eight hours late. He wants an apology, but no, he does not intend to sue:
“My family and I have been through a lot and this is just another one of the experiences I have had,” he said. “Human dignity is the most valuable thing in the world, not money. If they apologized, maybe it would teach them to treat people equally.”
Nervous Nellie was never identified. She’s rumored to be back home, watching Fox News.