PRI19980303.2000.2550
NEWS STORY
Tomorrow the board of supervisors of Loudon county, Virginia, will vote on
whether a school now located in Mount Vernon can relocate to their county.
In some respects, that's typical county business, but tomorrow's vote has
international implications. The board will decide whether the Islamic Saudi
Academy, funded by the government of Saudi Arabia, can move to Ashburn village,
Virginia. But local residents have not exactly laid out the
red carpet for their would be neighbors. The World's Nancy Marshalll has
our story.
Inside the Islamic Saudi academy in Mount Vernon, Virginia, many of the
girls wear head scarves and some of the neatly dressed children are in uniforms.
The instruction is in English for most classes, in Arabic for language and
religious studies. The school says it teaches the children to be good
Muslims and good students. They're learning a civics lesson from the residents of
Loudon county. The Islamic Saudi Academy has twelve hundred mostly American
students but would take thirty-five hundred if it had the room.
The academy bought a hundred acres in Loudon county, Virginia, and asked for permission
to build a fifty million dollar campus. In the nearby suburban housing
tracts, someone dropped off leaflets warning the school could bring
thousands of Middle Eastern strangers and terrorists. Some residents of the mostly
white, mostly middle class area became alarmed. James Zogby of the Arab
American Institute says it's a familiar story.
There is, a- at a very deep level in our culture, um I think, a sense of, of
ignorance about Islam, a fear about who Muslims are and what they're doing.
Many local residents denounced the bigotry, but opposition to the school
then shifted. Now critics of the academy are targeting its owner, the Saudi
government. Pastor James Allmen of the fellowship church and school in
Ashburn has led the anti-Saudi campaign. James Allmen says he has no problem with a
privately funded academy, but he has a big problem with a Saudi funded school.
The Saudi Arabian government has an atrocious record on human rights and is known to be one of the worst offending countries when it comes to religious
persecution.
That's correct.
And that is a condition of the application, then.
That is a condition of-
At a public hearing on the Islamic Saudi Academy's application, the split
in county opinion was obvious, supporters of the academy, including Ann
Robinson, said the Saudis were just providing a service and it was unfair
to penalize children.
We do not further the purpose of human rights in the world by violating
the human rights under our own constitution.
But opponents said the school might be a target for terrorist attacks,
complained about its tax exempt status, and wondered why the Saudis are not compelled to allow Christians to worship in their country. Virginia Welch
delivered this message to the county board of supervisors.
I urge you to do the right thing and send a message to the Saudis that the
citizens of Loudon county embrace religious and human freedom.
Loudon county officials say they'll rule on the application based only on
land use issues and ignore all the other objections. What's really behind those
objections, some say, is Loudon county's collision with a new reality in
America that the country is changing religiously as surely as it is racially and ethnically. According to the Arab American institute, Islam will one
day be the second largest religion in the country. For an indication of the
problems that could face Muslims as they integrate into American life, one
need look no farther than Loudon county, Virginia. For The World, I'm
Nancy Marshalll.