On this day, the newspaper is, as always, folded in half and free at the entrance to the many oriental restaurants that line the avenues to the east and west of Detroit. The Arab American News. Grab it, sit on Skai benches, order ogdat, a delicious Yemeni stew, or lentil soup when the cold sets in, turn the pages according to the local and distant news, under the too-white light neon lights, all part of the flavors and habits of the main city of Michigan and its surroundings.
This is where the largest Arab and Muslim community in the United States lives. There, that, over the last forty years, invasions and wars more or less directly American in the Near and Middle East, Lebanese, Palestinians, Yemenis, Iraqis, Afghans, Syrians have come to revive rust and abandonment, where the once emblematic lands of Henry Ford were sinking.
At the beginning of November, a month has passed since the bloody attack and hostage-taking by Hamas in Israel. The intensive Israeli bombardments on Gaza plunge many Palestinian-American families into anguish, then, more and more often, into mourning.
An electoral weapon
Injured and dead by the tens of thousands there, so much so that, one day, it is the brother, the daughter or the cousin who is affected. Killed by an army largely equipped and financed by the United States. The “one” of Arab American News lets out a slogan: “Abandon Biden” (“let go of Biden”). Anger has acquired an electoral weapon, one year before the presidential election.
But anyone who reads from right to left and in Arabic turns the newspaper the other way and comes across another “headline”: a photo of the ruins of Gaza, under a headline that simply says “No respite.” Netanyahu rejects ceasefire.” The Arab American News is two-headed. Written in two alphabets. Talk to those who vote as well as those who don’t vote. To those who immerse themselves in American society and to those who remain closer to their traditions. To those who watch American channels and to those who are tuned into the stories of Arab channels, Al-Jazeera or Al-Mayadeen.
Its readers do not necessarily understand the other side of the newspaper. At its midpoint, page 14, the two languages come together. “It’s the only place where Arabic and English meet. Otherwise, they never meet,” explains Osama Siblani with a smile.
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