Pubdate: Fri, 05 Aug 2005 Source: Detroit Free Press (MI) Copyright: 2005 Detroit Free Press Contact: http://www.freep.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/125 Author: Erin Chan Cited: New Detroit Science Center http://www.detroitsciencecenter.org ARABIC FLAG TO REMAIN IN DRUG EXHIBIT The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration will not change portions of an exhibit at the New Detroit Science Center about the dangers of drugs and their connections to terrorism -- even though it has offended several Arab-American and Muslim groups in metro Detroit. The decision by a DEA panel to do nothing prompted the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee of Michigan this week to call for community action. "As long as people are concerned enough to ask us to do something about it, as long as people are offended by it, we are not to rest before this is solved," says Imad Hamad, director of ADC Michigan. An e-mail message sent to thousands of ADC members in Michigan asked people to contact the Detroit Science Center and insist that it put pressure on the DEA to modify the exhibit. The message, sent by ADC Michigan deputy director Rana Abbas-Chami, says "the exhibit has created false, negative impressions of Islam." Of particular concern to groups is a handmade flag purportedly confiscated from the Taliban displayed near rubble taken from the 9/11 attacks at the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. The white flag reads in Arabic: "There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah." Representatives from ADC Michigan and the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services who have viewed the exhibit say the flag makes inaccurate connections between Islam, terrorism and drug trafficking, given the paramount importance of the phrase to Muslims. But Garrison Courtney, spokesman for the DEA, says the flag is meant to represent a regime and not a religion. "To take down the flag would be to take down a large part of history," Courtney says, adding that "the best way we can show who the Taliban is is through their flag." The Taliban, the former ruling party of Afghanistan, was ousted by U.S. forces. Courtney emphasized that drug money taken by the Taliban was used to fund terrorist activities. Shawn Kahle, the president and chief executive officer of the New Detroit Science Center, says she has spoken to DEA leaders in Detroit and Washington to raise the concerns of Arab-American groups and to make a plan that would address ways to modify the exhibit. She says the DEA "is committed to their decision not to modify the exhibit." "I do not believe there is any action that I can take that I have not taken to try and share the feedback and emphasize the concerns that were shared by the Arab-American community," she says. "We have taken all of this very seriously." She adds that the science center will continue to share feedback from Arab-American groups with the DEA. Science center officials and the DEA's Detroit Field Division have agreed to meet with ADC Michigan to discuss its concerns. The science center first invited Arab-American groups to tour the exhibit after two employees told their bosses about the potential insensitivity of parts of the exhibit, including the flag and a panel titled "What is a narco-terrorist?" that also lists Hezbollah, which some see as a legitimate political and military organization in Lebanon, as a terrorist group. Along with ADC Michigan and ACCESS, representatives from the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Arab American and Chaldean Council also viewed the exhibit, Kahle says. The exhibit, called "Target America: Opening Eyes to the Damage Drugs Cause," has been touring the country since its premiere at the DEA Museum & Visitors Center in Arlington, Va., in September 2002. Sean Fearns, director of the DEA museum, has said the exhibit traveled through New York and Dallas without raising serious concerns from Muslim and Arab-American groups. It runs in Detroit through Oct. 2. The majority of the exhibit deals with how illegal drugs affect communities and how they damage the human body, which Arab-American groups acknowledge plays an important role in education. But it violated that role, Hamad says, when his 10-year-old daughter, Nadeen, came home from a field trip to the science center last spring complaining that some of her classmates connected Arab Americans to terrorism and drugs. Says Hamad: "If we continue to allow such respectful agencies and institutions to display misleading information, I wonder what would be the future of this greater understanding that we all reach for?" 'Target America: Opening Eyes to the Damage Drugs Cause' Through Oct. 2 Detroit Science Center 5020 John R, Detroit 9 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays, 10:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Sat. $7; $6 seniors and children ages 2-12 313-577-8400 (http://www.detroitsciencecenter.org) - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake