Muslim community coming together to face post-election fears

Rasa - Saeed – who is an American citizen originally from Sudan – said she’s had a hard time with the election’s outcome. She didn’t know what to say to her 5-year-old son, who was crying on Wednesday morning and saying, “How can he win? He hates us.”

News ID: 425055

Date: 15 November 2016 - 07:36

RNA - Pembroke teacher Ahlam Saeed is afraid to leave her home at night.

“I’ve already heard about some friends getting harrassed,” she said.

Saeed, a 44-year-old Muslim woman, heard that one of her friends, who was wearing a head scarf, had someone spit in her face while shopping in the Mall of New Hampshire this past week. In the wake of Donald Trump winning the United States presidency, there have been numerous news reports of Muslim women and other minorities being attacked.

Muslim men and women are meeting in Manchester today to address this issue, and the Islamic Society of Greater Concord took their own steps too, on Saturday. In the meantime, members of the local interfaith community and school teachers have voiced their support for Muslim friends and students following Tuesday’s election.

Saeed – who is an American citizen originally from Sudan – said she’s had a hard time with the election’s outcome. She didn’t know what to say to her 5-year-old son, who was crying on Wednesday morning and saying, “How can he win? He hates us.”

“We felt like the country was going forward, but now it’s going backwards,” Saaed said. “Even the kids know.”

She said she reminded her kids that their father, her husband – also an American citizen originally from Sudan – is in the United States Air Force.

“I told them, ‘Your father is serving this country, so you should obey,’ ” she said. “Where else can we go?”

Saeed spoke following a service at the Concord mosque Saturday, where she said she and other women exchanged numbers.

“We feel we’re going to be targeted so we need to find somewhere to turn,” she said. Talking to her neighbors – many of whom have Trump signs on their lawn – was not an option, Saeed said, but she’s not going to hide out or stop her daily activities, either.

Faizah Mask, a Pittsfield resident, an American citizen originally from Malaysia, and the wife of the mosque’s president, Hubert, said she strangely felt nothing about the election outcome.

“I’m shocked,” she said. But she added, “We just have to take it in stride.”

Mask said she hasn’t heard about any incidents towards the women in the Concord mosque, and she wants it to stay that way.

“Sometimes when you see people with big trucks driving around with their big Trump signs – it’s a little nerve-wracking,” she said. But, she added, “hopefully things will stay the same.”

Come Jan. 20, however, she isn’t sure. Getting ready to depart for a visit with family in Canada today, Mask said, “I realized I’m worried they won’t let us back in.”

Mask said she is concerned about some of the young girls and boys running around the mosque Saturday night, who might be subject to harrassment in school.

“The sad thing is kids just follow what you put on TV – unfortunately, kids are just becoming (Trump’s) little mouthpieces,” Mask said.

Some of the middle school-aged girls attending Saturday night confirmed this. They said they have been called “terrorists” for wearing their hijabs to school.

Basma Ahmed, a 12-year-old student at Rundlett Middle School who moved to the United States from Iraq when she was 2, said that for her part, she’s too uncomfortable to wear religious dress to school.

“I feel like people would judge me for that,” she said. She did add, however, that she has good friends in school who are supportive of her, her faith and where she comes from – so much so they were worried for her after Trump winning the election.

On Wednesday, Ahmed said, “My friends – I got there and everybody was crying like, ‘Oh My God I don’t want you to leave.’ And I was like, ‘I’m a citizen. I’m not going to leave.’ ”

Ahmed and others received notes from teachers on Wednesday, too, telling them they were there for them and to report any harrassment.

The Concord Muslim community as a whole has received numerous notes of encouragement in the last few days said the mosque president, Hubert Mask.

He read one that said, “. . .as fellow members of the Concord community, we stand by you and support you. We can’t imagine what it’s like, with the recent election, to feel the sentiment you are not welcome in this country. Please know you are. You have us as allies.”

“We’re really blessed in the Concord area,” Mask said.

That being said, Mask has asked members of the mosque to be strong, come together and report any incidents of harrassment or violence towards them.

“We need to report it, be civil, and take legal action versus physical action,” Mask said.

In the meantime, the mosque’s Imam Mustafa Akaya said the members of the local Muslim community must now reach out.

“This is time for us to get out and be stronger,” he said. What ignorance there is about Muslims, Akaya added, is “because of us. We have to go out and reach out and build this bridge and teach them about us.”

A good start was when Akaya said he was walking through a Concord park in his white, full-length traditional dress this week and received greetings from strangers passing by.

More progress is being made within the interfaith community, Akaya said, where the Concord mosque is increasingly involved. And Mask said after a big push to get Muslim-Americans out to vote in 2016, there will be more and more members politically active.

“You’re going to see candidates from the Muslim community emerge,” Mask said. “We’re not going to hide behind our sorrow but move forward.”

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