On a hot July night, a few dozen Somali men were kneeling shoulder-to-shoulder in prayer at a storefront mosque here when the door opened and the frozen head of a pig, an animal considered unclean in Islam, rolled across the floor.
Men fled in fear. A child fainted. Some called the police and others ran after the person who had rolled the head in. A suspect, Brent Matthews, was then quickly apprehended and was charged with desecrating a place of worship. Matthews, 33, said that the incident was a prank and that he did not know the significance of a pig's head.
Now, weeks later, Somali leaders say the incident has left a lasting scar on their community of about 3,000 immigrants.
PHOTO: NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE
While they admit the act was the work of one man, it has heightened simmering tensions in this overwhelmingly white, working-class city of 35,000, where Somali refugees started flocking about five years ago after first settling in more urban areas of the US.
Many said they came here because housing was inexpensive and Lewiston seemed like a safe place to raise their families.
While much of Lewiston has been welcoming, some Somalis here believe the pig's head incident reveals an undercurrent of suspicion and lack of understanding about their culture. According to the US Census Bureau, Maine is 96 percent white.
"We're not saying all of Lewiston is part of this," said Imam Nuh Iman, the eader of the Lewiston-Auburn Islamic Center's mosque.
"But this is the biggest impact you can have on a mosque, in the time of praying, to put in a pig's head. It could have been a goat's head, or a cow's head. But it was a pig's head," he said.
Phil Nadeau, Lewiston's assistant city administrator, believes the incident was isolated but underscored the growing pains this city -- where mills and shoe factories, now closed, welcomed French-Canadian workers a century ago -- is now going through.
"I think it's a reflection of where we are right now. There's a small group of people that will never accept this type of change in their community, ever," said Nadeau, whose French-Canadian grandmother spoke only five words of English.
"The second wave of non-English speakers to Lewiston is now the Somali population," he said.
Hussein Ahmed, 31, said the mosque incident came as Somalis here felt that they had finally started to move on from a 2002 open letter written by former mayor Laurier Raymond that asked them to stop other Somalis from coming to the city. Raymond contended in his letter that the city was "maxed-out financially, physically and emotionally."
Somali leaders condemned Raymond after the letter, saying he was "bent toward bigotry."
Raymond met with Somali leaders but did not apologize. Three months later, a white supremacist group held a rally in Lewiston but was overshadowed by a counter rally that drew 4,500 people.
The incident with the pig's head brought a similar response. About 150 people, including Maine Governor John Baldacci, a Democrat, and leaders of other faiths, gathered at a park shortly after the incident to condemn it and to support the Somali community.
"After we heard about what happened at the mosque, many of us in the local interfaith clergy group felt that an attack on anybody's house of worship is an attack on all houses of worship," said Rabbi Hillel Katzir of Temple Shalom Synagogue Center in nearby Auburn.
"This is not OK. This is not approved of by the majority of the community. He might think it's funny, but the rest of us don't, and it's not acceptable," he said.
Ahmed, who spoke at the rally, said it affirmed his trust in residents of Lewiston: "The message was clear: They don't tolerate hate," he said.
Matthews' lawyer, James Howaniec, said his client had intended to play a prank. Matthews decided to plant it outside the center, thinking it was simply a gathering place, the lawyer said.
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