In this column for Asharq Alawsat, former Editor-in-Chief Al-Rashed takes up the story of a former State Dept. employee, Patrick Syring, who was recently indicted in federal court for threatening James Zogby and others at the Arab American Institute. [Disclosure: I have worked and corresponded with Zogby both professionally and personally.] I’ll leave the merits of the case to the courts, but will point out that Syring is not your typical Foreign Service Officer! Some press reports note him as having served in the Middle East (one site identifies him as a Commercial Officer in Lebanon in the mid-90s). If that is so, I’ve not run across him in my career.

Al-Rashed raises this story to note that bigotry is not an exclusive club, but neither is an individual instance of it an indictment of any class of people or nationality to which the bigot may belong. Bigotry and hatred, Al-Rashed says, is the ‘easy way out’ as it excuses one from having to think through complicated issues.

For those who might wonder where the line between freedom of speech and threatening speech is found, I point you to this piece at the Volokh Conspiracy. The comments to the post include not only a decent discussion of the issues, but also a good number of bigoted pieces showing the antipathy in which Arabs are held by some Americans.

A Good Arab is a Dead Arab!
Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed

It is rare for a diplomat to so spiteful and audacious. This was the case when Patrick Syring, a US State Department employee, chose to express his personal feelings via e-mail and voice-mail messages that were both offensive and provocative towards Arabs and the Arab American Institute.

He was indicted on charges last week, for making statements such as, “The only good Arab is a dead Arab.” Voicing his twisted thoughts through messages, this diplomat believed he could remain unidentified and that he would not be held accountable for the content of these messages.

But his venomous statements penetrated past the dark rooms and those who sympathized with his views and were revealed through the facilitations offered by modern technology. Communications has made it possible for hostile adults to scribble on walls as do the young boys, or the spiteful people who write in public bathrooms.

However, this is not a specific trait that characterizes a nation or a specific race, rather; it is one that is shared by all those whose thoughts are vicious and inhumane in all the different societies. But the strange thing about this story is that it goes against the common trends of those who are afflicted by the disease of hatred and malice. The majority of those who vent such hostility and hatred are usually young of age, after which they later discover how poisonous and ugly their ideas were.
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