Yemeni Fight Negative Image

posted on: Jan 23, 2010

Abdulkareem Saleh left his homeland to come to the United States to start a new life.

When he heard authorities say Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab received training and explosives from al-Qaida in Yemen before a failed bombing attempt on a Detroit-bound airplane Dec. 25, Saleh was angry and in shock.

“We are not with this,” said the 59-year-old Hamtramck man, who is a chef at the Yemen Café in Hamtramck. “We are against any terrorist coming to this country from anywhere.”

Yemen, a poor country that borders Saudi Arabia, has been thrust into the spotlight after the thwarted attack.
Though the Yemeni government is trying to combat violent extremists, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said this week that the country must show results for counterterrorism and development aid to the country to continue.

Abdulhakem Alsadah, honorary consul general of Yemen in Michigan, said the help would create jobs in manufacturing and infrastructure and provide education and social projects.

He said this would provide Yemeni work opportunities instead of joining al-Qaida because they are economically and socially desperate, and eventually push the terrorist group out of Yemen.

“We are not asking for any direct military intervention but security cooperation and economic and social help because we think the problem has to do with the economy,” said Alsadah.

Khadigah Alasry, 23, of Dearborn, whose parents came to the U.S. from Yemen for work in 1982, said “a country without opportunity and resources like Yemen should concern us, not that someone who came out of a school there that did something very stupid.”

Local Yemeni describe their country and community as supportive, open and close-knit. They said they are a proud, peaceful people and law-abiding U.S. citizens who are concerned about safety and security here.

“I think people are weary, weary of being the focus of the media attention,” said Sally Howell, an assistant professor in the Center for Arab American Studies and the Department of Social Sciences at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. “It’s frustrating for people.”

Christina Hall
Detroit Free Press