Nike Shoe Corp. Builds Playground for Mosque Atones for Offensive Logo
Falls Church (in the neighbourhood of Washington D. C.):
Shoe manufacturer Nike Corp. began building a playground for Muslim children on November 22 and a bridge with the Islamic community — and making amends for one of its biggest marketing embarrassments, according to Washington Post.
Post staffer Alice Reid said about two years ago, Nike came up with a new shoe and emblazoned the rear edge of its sole with the word “Air” written in what looked like flames. The only problem was that the squiggly lines made the word look like Arabic script for the word Allah, and many Muslims object. Under threat of a worldwide boycott of its products by 1 billion Muslims, Nike recalled more than 38,000 pairs of the offending shoes last year. Now, the playground, to take shape at the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Centre over the next two months, is part of the company’s agreement to include Muslim educational centres among the recipients of its $34 million annual community grant program.
“We wouldn’t have objected if the logo had been on a hat,” said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, which protested the logo last year and negotiated the agreement with Nike. “But on shoes, it was very disrespectful.”
Now, working with the council, Oregon-based Nike is building playgrounds at the Falls Church Islamic Center, as well as other centres on the West Coast and in Michigan, company representatives said yesterday.
“We certainly never intended to offend,” said Nike spokesman Roy Agostino, who was on hand with other corporate representatives for the groundbreaking. “Our company has to be more vigilant and work more with communities on issues of sensitivity.”
Omar Ahmed, president of the council, said Dar Al-Hijrah in Falls Church had been chosen for the first of the Nike-built playgrounds because “this community is one of the most racially and ethnically diverse in the nation, with Somalis, Arabs, Egyptians, African Americans and whites,” he said.
The centre — one of the largest Washington area mosques — draws 1,200 worshipers to its Friday prayer services and enrolls 700 children, ages 4 to 14, in its weekend Muslim education programs. In 1992, there were barely 200 children attending the centre’s lessons in Arabic language and Qur’anic studies, school administrators said.