Conversations With A Twin Cities Muslim Cab Driver

Update: Too bad I didn't ask him about 24. I suspect he might like it. Heh!

"The overwhelming impression you get is fear and hatred for Muslims," said Rabiah Ahmed, a spokeswoman for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Perhaps you recall a recent story regarding Muslim taxi drivers at the Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport refusing fares. One leg of a recent business trip put me in the back of an M-SP airport cab being driven by a Muslim from Somalia. He provided me his phone number and agreed to speak with me about the controversy. It appears as though there may be a bit more to it than the MSM let on - another side, if nothing else.

Islamic taxi drivers at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport are refusing passengers carrying alcohol and blind folks with seeing-eye dogs because the animals' saliva is sacrilege according to Sharia law.

The enterprising Muslims during the past year have stranded 100 passengers a month, sometimes for more than an hour, according to the Metropolitan Airports Commission, since three-fourths of the 900 taxi drivers servicing the airport are Somali Muslims who have decided to participate in the new discipline.

"Why do they even go there?" he said, meaning geographically. "It makes no sense."

I didn't understand, as most cabs often frequent local airports, so I inquired some more.

"No, no, not the airport," he explained. "Downtown on Friday night. They don't even have to go down there if they don't want, ... if they don't like the alcohol."

Thinking this was only an airport issue, I was surprised to learn that some of the complaining cab drivers actually sought out weekend night fares in areas of the city where it would be obvious there would be alcohol involved, especially in this age of designated drivers. Evidently these areas are home to significant portions of Twin Cities' night life.

As he told it, it appears at least some go out of their way to work in areas with potential fares who would be expected to have been drinking, only to then turn them down. Was it really a misguided defense of a religious belief, or more like a pro-active campaign against individuals who didn't follow Islamic law? The answer wasn't clear.

"Crazy," was the word this one particular Muslim cabbie, who I will not name, used to describe the protesters. He used it more than once. "They are always talking, talking, making trouble. They do nothing but talk, talk ... talk!" Clearly my contact wasn't pleased.

He told of incidents of which he was personally aware when some Muslim taxi drivers would confront would be fares, "What's in the package, (or the luggage) open it up? Do you have alcohol in there? Open it up! I want to see!"

Having recently passed through airport security in more than one city, I could relate. I told him I didn't much like the government searching my things, I don't know how I'd feel if a cab driver demanded the right.

"Exactly," he agreed. "Why did these people even come to America if that was what they want? They should have stayed where they were." I laughed, wondering if this particular Somalian Muslim sounded more like a Right wing blogger, or some classic native American cabbies I've known over time.

I wanted to be fair to him and even open the door for him to criticize the Uniter States, talking some of how our policies haven't always benefited other parts of the world. He wasn't as interested in the meme, as liberal academia, or the MSM.

"It's our leaders. It's greed. Always, it's about the money, or the power in Africa. Why can't we have elections every four years? That's what Africa needs, elections. Then everything will be alright. Look at Egypt? Everywhere. No elections, just the same leaders, over and over, again. Give us elections ... every four years. Until then, it will be nothing, everyone will leave"

He was sad when he spoke of Somalia, of what his family had lost before some fled at the height of civil war. "It's all gone now. Everybody is leaving, to Britain, to France, to America ... no one wants to stay." He sends home a good portion of his earnings to support an extended family, which he named. His immediate family was dead.

"I hope Kenya and Ethiopia and some decent nations will send in more men," he said. "We don't want war. It's been too much, already. We just want to be free. We need elections, that's the key."

We talked about family, his and mine - his girlfriend and some other mostly personal things. And when we said goodbye, we both expressed the same wish - that the future children and grandchildren of Somalia won't have to continue to suffer as the current population does. I also said I'd get in touch with him next time I was in Minneapolis, and that I hope he owned 3 or 5 cabs by then. It was clear from our conversation that my particular Somali Muslim cab driver was a die hard capitalist and a good American, too.

The UN never came up in our conversations and he must have repeated the one thought I'll never forget a half a dozen times .... "Elections are the key."

I didn't ask him about other issues, or Iraq. But all things being equal, perhaps what we have accomplished there in four short years may yet prove to be the one thing it needed most.

If nothing else, that might be what one Minneapolis Muslim cab driver originally from Somalia might say. Assuming anyone from the MSM ever asks him, of course.

Comments

[DRJ]

What a great post. I'm going to remember his words: Elections are the key. I hope he gets his wish.

[Jeha]

Right on; "It's our leaders. It's greed".

And it is easier for "leaders" to feed the braying masses some dhimmi blood that to implement some real reforms.

[Sheila]

Not surprising if the M-SP Muslim cab driver incidents are a put-up job AND involve CAIR. Just how is the average American Joe supposed to discern fact from fiction when we can no longer trust an honest, fair, balanced, OBJECTIVE, free press which is NOT in some politician's back pocket to just simply REPORT THE NEWS???? I hate the talking heads on most of what passes for news programming. Just tell me what happened, OK? I'LL decide for myself what I think about it!!