Turkish man feels pinch of prejudice Customers eschew Madawaska business

loading...

MADAWASKA – Cetin Abdurrahman, 36, has been living in the United States for 12 years.

Eight days before the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City, he opened a dry cleaning business in Madawaska.

A Muslim from Turkey, Abdurrahman fears that he now may have to sell his business and move out of northern Maine to escape the prejudice which has cut his business by 60 percent since the attacks.

Abdurrahman has worked and operated businesses in New York City and Myrtle Beach, S.C., since he arrived in the United States as a 24-year-old. He has been in the dry cleaning business, a family business, since he was 16 years old in his native Turkey.

Raised in Sinop, Turkey, the home of a U.S. Air Force base, the businessman remembers playing golf and baseball with American airmen stationed there. He also participated in NATO exercises when he was in the Turkish army.

Abdurrahman is a Turkish citizen living in the United States with permanent visa status. He said he has discussed becoming a U.S. citizen with immigration personnel and is waiting for papers from New York to continue the process.

He said he intends to seek U.S. citizenship in the near future.

All that does not seem to have allayed local fears about his new business venture, as few people know anything about him except that he is from the Middle East and a Muslim.

“I get strange looks when I go to [night]clubs,” Abdurrahman said Wednesday afternoon. “Someone stole an American flag I had on the side of the building, but I put up another one.

“Prejudice does not make sense to me,” he said. “I may have to sell the business and start up another business somewhere else.”

Besides the flag he has on the side of the building, there are others placed in a front window and inside the customer area at the front of the building.

Abdurrahman bought Rite-Way Cleaners, located on 13th Avenue, in August and opened his business on Labor Day weekend, a week before the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington. His former wife and 3-year-old daughter live in New York City, and he has a brother in Myrtle Beach. The dry-cleaning establishment in Madawaska is the only enterprise he owns.

Business has been light, a lot slower than when the previous owners, Clifford and Claudette Gagnon, owned the dry-cleaning shop. After her husband died, Claudette Gagnon sold the business, which had been for sale for six months before Abdurrahman bought it.

Abdurrahman arrived in Madawaska two months before opening the store. He said he originally wanted to buy the equipment and move it elsewhere. Tired of big cities, however, he decided to reopen the business after seeing how nice northern Maine, and Madawaska, was.

“I found it quiet and peaceful here, and I was tired of the big-city rush,” he said Wednesday afternoon. “I came here to make a life because it’s a nice place, and I am happy, for the most part, being here.”

With little to do, however, he was sitting behind the counter with his feet up on a stool. A small shelf behind his counter holds several postcards from cities in Turkey. On top of the counter are two small photographs, one of Abdurrahman wearing a turban and another of him in a Turkish army uniform.

“People have come in here asking to see the picture of [Osama] bin Laden, but that’s me at a festival in Turkey,” he said showing the photograph. “I am Muslim, but I dislike terrorism, like most people.

“I support U.S. troops in their efforts against terrorism,” he said. “Turkey has been an ally of the United States since the Korean War where our peoples fought side by side.”

Madawaska Police Chief Ronald Pelletier said Abdurrahman was checked out by federal law enforcement officials last month. The Police Department also has received several inquiries about the businessman. Abdurrahman also crosses the border into Canada frequently and said he has had no problems at the border.

“He checked out all right,” Pelletier said. “Everything seems to be on the up and up.”

Pelletier said community members have some concerns because Abdurrahman is not one of them. The police chief said the businessman is “a victim.”

The Rev. John Audibert, pastor of the St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church in Madawaska, asked parishioners at weekend Masses to be understanding and charitable with Abdurrahman and the situation.

“I asked parishioners to welcome each other without prejudice and without being judgmental,” the pastor said Thursday. “We need to give each other a chance.”

Audibert said he visited with Abdurrahman, “and he expressed disappointment with the community fearing him, but that he understood somewhat because of what happened on Sept. 11.”

“I encouraged people to be more accepting, and to put their fears aside and to trust,” the priest said. “I tried to reassure people.”

Abdurrahman knows he may have to sell his new business and move back to a city, but he said he doesn’t want to do that.

“Some people have told me to go back to where I belong,” he said. “People in New York City would not treat me like this.”

Two previous owners of the business did well with the small shop. Abudurrahman knows that people are taking their dry cleaning to Canadian shops in neighboring Edmundston, New Brunswick. Some have told him so, and that bothers him.

He also knows that a French Canadian person would do well again with the Madawaska business if he moves away. He firmly believes that local people would come back to the business if someone else owned it.

On the other hand, Abdurrahman said he has loyal customers.

“Some people here are very open-minded, and I appreciate that,” he said. “I just wish people would not judge me.

“That’s God’s job,” Abdurrahman said. “Different people have different religious beliefs, and that’s OK.”