Dearborn Celebration Sends Iraqis Into Streets
Detroit Free Press ^ | April 10, 2003 |
BY JIM SCHAEFER, NIRAJ WARIKOO AND TAMARA AUDI
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS
Hundreds of Iraqis in Dearborn celebrated the apparent fall of Saddam Hussein's regime Wednesday, spilling into the streets, honking horns, waving flags and partying into the night at a city park.
About 1,000 people congregated at 5 p.m. in Hemlock Park near Schaefer and Ford roads, dancing, hooting and hastily scrawling signs that praised the United States and condemned Hussein.
One read: "Bye-Bye Saddam Forever."
Another declared: "FROM DICTATORSHIP TO FREEDOM."
Chanting "Down with Saddam," the crowd was mostly jubilant. But at one point, dozens of people confronted a camera crew from the Al-Jazeera satellite TV network, accusing the crew of being against the war.
"Shame on you. Shame on you," one man yelled. The crowd booed loudly; the crew retreated behind police lines, where many still heckled them.
The revelry had begun in the morning, shortly after 11, when U.S. troops in Iraq helped civilians topple a large, metal statue of Hussein in a Baghdad square. The symbolic fall of the regime set off jubilation in Dearborn and abroad.
In the predominantly Arab-American neighborhoods of east Dearborn, 75 to 100 men emerged from homes and businesses to congregate on West Warren, many with tears streaming down their faces.
Some chanted "U-S-A! U-S-A!" and "Thank you, George Bush!"Hachem Alswaychet, 40, of Dearborn led some with a cry of "Saddam is a scared mouse!"
The crowd paraded east on Warren to Schaefer, past groceries, restaurants and bakeries topped by colorful Arabic-language signs. Police corralled the group on Schaefer, and the men retraced their steps to Warren near Greenfield, the boundary with Detroit.
By midday, as women, children and others joined the group, the crowd swelled to about 300, police said. There were no reported problems.
Some men chopped a wooden portrait of Hussein to pieces with their hands.
They took turns punching, karate chopping, and breaking it over their knees. An elderly woman draped in a black robe took off her shoe and pounded on it. Some spit; one man splashed hot coffee on the painting.
"Today's the best day of my life," said Ahmad Al-Aboudi, a 16-year-old from Detroit wearing a baseball cap and baggy black jeans. "I've been in America 15 years. This is my best day."
Al-Aboudi said he was brought to the United States after Hussein's police killed his father in 1991. "I'm going to go back and kill Saddam myself," he said.
An old man in brown robes threw toffee candy to others, saying "Peace be with you" with each toss. Women hugged each other, saying in Arabic, "A thousand congratulations," a phrase usually reserved for weddings and births.
Many in the crowd left Iraq after Hussein's regime squashed a 1991 uprising of Iraqi Shi'ites after the Persian Gulf War. Metro Detroit is home to one of the largest populations of Arabs outside the Middle East, and Dearborn, on Detroit's western edge, is the center of the community.
During business hours in Detroit, along 7 Mile near Woodward, the mood among Iraqi Chaldean shopkeepers and others was more restrained.
At the Chaldean Iraqi American Association of Michigan, group president Adhid Miri, 53, of West Bloomfield said,
"In my view, it is parallel to the collapse of the wall in Germany."
The leaders of two of the largest Shi'ite mosques in metro Detroit -- one who had supported the war and one who had protested against it -- were unified on Wednesday in their joy.
"I spoke against the war, but I did not have any sympathy for this regime," said Imam Mohammed Ali Elahi, head of the Islamic House of Wisdom in Dearborn Heights. "Today, this is happy news that this regime built on oppression, execution, torture and crime is coming to an end."
Imam Sayed Hassan Qazwini, the head of the Islamic Center of America in Detroit, said he could scarcely find words.
"I am so jubilant, and I cannot even express how relieved I am that Saddam is gone," said Qazwini, who supported the war.
He was born in Iraq and said he lost 14 relatives to the Baath Party's deadly purges of Shi'ite clerics, so there also was a bittersweet tone to his celebration.
By 1:30 p.m. in Dearborn, the crowd on West Warren had thinned considerably, as people anticipated the later gathering.
In the doorway of the nearby Karbalaa Islamic Center, a woman watched people leaving the celebration.
Her eyes were teary, her face covered with lipstick from kisses.
"This day, this moment, is like a fantasy," she said.
By 8 p.m., the celebration had moved from Hemlock Park to Warren Avenue, the heart of Dearborn's Arab-American community. Hundreds of cars cruised Warren from Southfield to Wyoming, and back. People honked horns and waved flags as they rolled along, bumper to bumper. Along the route, many held up signs and waved at the cruisers.
The Walgreens drug store at Warren and Schaefer had just sold out of American flags. In the parking lot, Mahdi Aljabery, 43, of Detroit was attaching a newly purchased flag to his car.
"We are very happy today. I think all the people in the United States are happy today," he said. |
