Collateral damage....
For Spain's Muslim families, grief may turn to fear of backlash
14-03-2004
By Charles M. Sennott
Madrid, The Boston Globe:
The Islamic prayer for the dead and the sobbing of mourners echoed within the towering white marble walls of the capital's central mosque yesterday. Family and friends were gathered to say a last goodbye to Sanae Ben Salah, a 13-year-old Moroccan girl killed in Thursday's terrorist bombings. She was taking the early morning train from her home in an outlying suburb to get to her school in Madrid.
At the sprawling Islamic Cultural Center, which houses the central mosque, mourners gathered for prayers before Ben Salah's body was to be flown back to her native Morocco for burial. "She was a precious girl. Beautiful and kind," said Amina Saruk, 45, a Moroccan immigrant whose daughter, Iman, was best friends with Ben Salah.
Her eyes swollen from tears, Iman, also 13, shook her head when asked about her friend and then began crying.
Ben Salah was one of at least seven Moroccan Muslims who were killed in the Madrid train bombings that took 200 lives and left 1,400 wounded. She and two Moroccan men were given funerals at the mosque yesterday before their bodies -- in gray metal crates covered in black cloth -- were wheeled out on gurneys, loaded into a van and transported to the airport for the flight to Morocco.
The estimated 200,000 Moroccans in Madrid have shouldered their share of the sorrow and the loss from Thursday's attacks. Many in Spain's Muslim community fear they may also have to shoulder a backlash against them if, as investigators believe, the attacks involved Islamic militants.
"I have raised four children here," said Saruk, who was wearing a traditional Islamic head scarf. "People have always been beautiful. Our children are integrated. But whoever committed this crime should pay for it. The people killed were working people, just normal families like ours," she added.
Three of the five suspects arrested yesterday were Moroccan residents of Lavapies, a Madrid neighborhood of narrow streets and run-down apartment buildings teeming with illegal immigrants from North Africa, India, Bangladesh, and Latin America.
The 42-year-old owner of an international call center on Tribulete Street in Lavapies, who gave his name only as Mohammed, said he feared the arrests could fuel a new wave of animosity toward Spain's Muslim population.
"Muslims have gotten along pretty well in Spain," he said, although a recent crackdown on illegal immigration has recently resulted in random police checks for residency cards. "But I am worried that things will change now. Yes, there could be problems if this was Al Qaeda," he said.
He added that he knew two of the suspects, who he said owned a call center just down the street. "I know them well. They are not criminals. They are people like you and me," he said.
If Muslim extremists were behind the bombings, old prejudices of Spain could surface. Those prejudices are grounded in a history of conflict with the country's Muslim neighbors dating back centuries.
For nearly 800 years, southern Spain was under occupation by Moors from North Africa until Spain's Catholic monarchs sacked the beautiful Moorish castle of Al Hambra and reconquered the southern city of Granada in 1492. In the 16th century, Muslims were expelled from Spain unless they converted to Christianity.
But the sprawling Islamic Cultural Center just off the M-30 highway in Madrid is in many ways a testament to the confidence and integration of Spain's modern Muslim community.
With its elegant Arabesque design, the massive structure was built with donations from the Saudi royal family, and the Saudi king attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony when it was opened in 1992.
Saif Ben Abdanour, an administrator of the Islamic Cultural Center, said, "Most people in Spain understand the Islamic community. Most people understand that the face of our whole community has changed to sadness. They understand we have suffered, too."
One of those who understood was Lorena Sirvia, 25, a student of psychology from Barcelona, who took time off to volunteer to help grieving families.
She was at the Islamic Cultural Center yesterday after spending the last two days assisting three Moroccan families through the grim process of identifying the remains of their loved ones.
"People in Spain can be very prejudiced against Islam," said Sirvia, who was raised Roman Catholic. "But I think this experience for us has brought all of us together."
Then a Moroccan woman came into the mosque crying and holding a photograph of her son and saying in Arabic, "I can't find him. Can you help me?"
Sirvia put her arm on the woman's shoulder and began listening.
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