Emir Abdelkader in the Good Ol' U.S.A.

Imagine a world in which Americans proudly named their town after a Muslim "freedom fighter," battling against the invading armies and government of a powerful Western country that was after its resources.

Back in 1846, a group of men in central Iowa did just that.

The town of Elkader, Iowa (pop. 1,465) is named after the Algerian national hero Emir Abdel Kader, who rallied the Algerian towns and villages to fight against the French who in 1830 were invading just as Abdelkader was reaching manhood. They fought for over fifteen years.

Now, your basic primer on French colonialism* will show that though remarkably successful in the face of superior technology, Abdelkader's mission to expel the French failed, and he fled to the Middle East to pursue the honorable pastimes of poetry and diplomacy.

Something of a media darling in the international press at the time, Abdelkader was honored by Abraham Lincoln for personally saving a number of levantine Christians under attack by the Druze in Damascus, receiving a passel of guns** as a nice thank you gift.

According to this article, while some Elkaderites were a bit dismayed, after 9/11, to still see proud displays of Algerian artifacts in their local museum, all surveyed by the steady gaze of this bearded Algerian, many locals there saw it as something to be proud of.

"Abd-el-Kader was the George Washington of Algeria," Betty Walch tells visitors at the Carter House Museum. Walch stood recently in front of a display case of El-Kader memorabilia and portraits. An Algerian wool rug, sheared from a shipment of Iowa sheep sent to Algeria by a cadre of Girl Scouts, hangs on the wall. -Source

Well before then the town had already received from Algerian officials, including Abdelkader's great-great-grandson and Algerian ambassador, Idriss Jazairy, and exchanged visits with its sister city in Mascara, Algeria -- Abdelkader's birthplace.

I was floored to discover this little trivia of American heartland nomenclature , and I have Mabrouck Rachedi's blog to thank for it.

Of course, Abdelkader is still quite popular. Just not here in the States, where, let's face it, nobody's ever heard of the guy. But there is that catchy song...And I can't even count how many Abdelkaders I met when I was a student in France. Let's just say a lot of (Franco-)Algerian mothers a few decades ago still had a lot of nationalistic feeling...

I admire the man who, to those who wanted to remove the remembrance of Elkader's past, said "'As part of the Sister City's philosophy...we should cross borders in friendship, not war.'"

I think this is something to be proud of as a part of our national history, reflective of an era when even though intolerance was common, to say the least, a number of men were open-minded enough to link their community to a Muslim man because they admired his mission to pursue freedom for his country. It gives me a lot more to be proud of than this.

*Apparently the folks at Portland International Airport are quite well versed in French colonial history.
**Some things about presidential gifts never change...