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2008-06-17 issue:

Shallal brings ‘Busboys and Poets’ vision

Iraqi-American entrepreneur offers perspective at Summer Peacebuilding Institute.

by Chris Edwards

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The Iraqi-American founder of a popular Washington, D.C., eatery shared his fresh perspectives on both entrepreneurship and the immigrant experience during the Summer Peacebuilding Institute (SPI) at Eastern Mennonite University (EMU), Harrisonburg, Va., on May 19.














Nadia Bazzy, left, talks with Andy Shallal, right, following his presentation. Adeola Ojeniyi, center, is an SPI participant from Nigeria. Photo by Jim Bishop.

Anas “Andy” Shallal, proprietor of the Busboys and Poets Café, took the title for his talk, “Let America Be America Again,” from a Langston Hughes poem. His café is also named for that famous African-American poet, who worked as a Washington busboy during the 1920s, Shallal explained to an audience of 160—including faculty, local visitors and 104 workers in humanitarian and conflict-resolution fields attending SPI from 40 nations.

“I never thought of America as a country as much as a dream,” said Shallal, who arrived in the United States with his family in 1966, at age 11.

Following Martin Luther King’s assassination, Shallal’s family, living in the Virginia suburbs, saw smoke from the fires of protest in Washington, D.C. The café sits in the now-thriving U Street corridor, epicenter of that unrest four decades ago.

“I miss the old country,” Shallal said. In 1983, the year he attained U.S. citizenship, the new government invaded Grenada. Yet he retains faith in the America of Hughes’ vision “as an ideal, not as a fact.”

“As an Arab and a Muslim, I still get uncomfortable traveling through airports,” he said, citing a friend being barred from a flight because of his t-shirt—not for its message (in English, “We will not be silent”)—but for its accompanying Arabic translation.

Shallal said the Iraq war “has made the job of SPI all the more important.” He cited hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed, another 5 million forced into exile, and the shame of U.S. government-authorized torture.

Nevertheless, he retains faith in America’s values of freedom, equality, justice and the rule of law. “I want to hold this country to its ideals, “ he said.

With a backdrop of Shallal’s murals celebrating the Civil Rights movement, between 1,000 to 1,500 daily visitors to Busboys and Poets find progressive gatherings, theater productions, dialog groups including the Jewish/Arabic Peace Café and events held by EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, of which SPI is a part. A smaller Busboys and Poets has opened in Arlington, Va.

A former immunologist, Shallal entered his family’s restaurant businesses but wanted to work for social change. Finding bankers skeptical of the latter intention, he emphasized the business aspect in loan applications.

Yet he said with a smile that the goals complement each other: “You can’t bring people together without food. It’s like mice; you set out food and they will come.”

Many attending SPI work for nongovernmental organizations. Shallal named two NGO’s that partner with the café: Teaching for Change, which operates a bookstore, and a cooperative that markets fair-trade coffee.

“I provide the space free,” he said, “They provide an added value for my customers.” He shares his business model at no cost and is advising a group from the Ivory Coast on it.

The entrepreneur also hopes to initiate an opportunity for customers to “buy social justice” by adding a donation to a selected NGO when they pay their tabs.

When Shallal spoke in a large Washington synagogue, congregants said they ha never met an Arab before. He finds a common paradox in urban communities where people “all live together, but they don’t all live together. They don’t interact.”

He said he considers it worthwhile to bring social-justice groups together, even when that seems like “preaching to the choir.”

Shallal continued, “The choir leads the singing, so it’s OK to preach to them sometimes.”—Chris Edwards is a free-lance writer living in Harrisonburg, Va.

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