Constructivism is the way to go. For real.
This afternoon, I went to a lecture on the Palestinian-Arab minority in Israel sponsored by the Middle East Institute, Foundation for Middle East Peace, and Americans for Peace Now featuring two professors from the University of Haifa: Asa’ad Ghanem and Sammy Smooha. The discussion itself became pretty lively as it was clear the panelists fundamentally disagreed on whether Israel could possibly be both a Jewish and democratic state, and whether or not it should be any of those possibilities.
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More important than any of the conclusions that they drew was the fact that there are multiplicity of identities in this conflict. Within those adenoiditis are sub-classifications that over time become even more divisive. When it comes to peacebuilding, it doesn’t make sense to impose one interpretation of an identity over another. To ask Israelis to give up their idea of Israel as a uniquely Jewish state or to ask Palestinian citizens of Israel to accept that a status that is unequal to their Jewish neighbors in Israel sounds like it would solve the conflict, but it won’t. Giving people a new name, a new identity, that is fundamentally different from the one they ascribe to will only serve to place a band-aid over an increasingly gaping wound.
The different ways in which people describe themselves is more important than the identity structures those on the outside think the individuals fit into. Whether its “Palestinian citizen of Israel” or “secular Ashkenazim citizen of Israel” or any number of other labels, if a group shares them then they are all equally legitimate.
Peacebuilding in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will mean creating a space in which all the identities involved can coexist, and even contradict each other, without deteriorating into violence. It is of course one among many challenges, but a commitment to creating this “safe space” will have a positive spill-over effect in religious, political, and economical areas of the conflict.
Originally published at BoomGen.TV, The Blood of the Martyr
For most Americans, the idea of a Muslim martyr can cause quite a bit of anxiety. Some immediately imagine a brown “towel-headed” man with an explosive device duct-taped to his chest, or sewn into his under garments, and a crazed murderous look in his eyes. Unfortunately, this kind of act in the name of Islam, an act that kills both Muslims and non-Muslims indiscriminately, is all too common.
The frustrations many Muslims across the world experience in their (real or imagined) political crises and their desire to affect change are easy prey for those looking to fulfill their own dreams of power and influence, often under the guise of martyrdom. But as we look at the role of Islam in the Green Movement of Iran, we see that an Islamic martyr can be, and has been at different times in history, a champion of justice and human rights.
Looking at photos taken of the streets of Tehran on December 27, 2009, one would think they are viewing images of war: bloodied people on the arms of their comrades limping away from scenes of rising flames, passing dead bodies and debris while men in uniform aim their guns and wield their batons at unruly citizens. It was the Day of Ashura, a holy day for Shi’as to remember the slaying of Imam Husayn in the seventh century and a day when historically no violence has been permitted. It was a day when the Green Movement in various parts of Iran took to the streets and identified themselves with their slain hero and his oppressor with the autocratic Islamic Republic.
The regime has sullied their hands with the blood of protesters before, but to kill and severely injure more people than on any other demonstration and to do so on a national Islamic holiday is an act of hypocrisy that is difficult to spin. So difficult, in fact, that Iran’s deputy police chief, Ahmad-Reza Radan, has claimed that of the protesters killed, one “fell from a bridge, two others were hit by cars and one other was shot dead by an unknown assailant”.[1] As Roger Cohen states in a recent opinion piece for the New York Times, “the emperor has no clothes”.[2]
Not only has the Ashura demonstrations and those in the following days signaled a crucial turning point for the government, but for the opposition as well. Witnesses report that the protesters fought back, though not as lethally, by setting police property on fire and attacking the Basij with their bare hands.[3] There are also reports of guards who surrendered or refused to open fire and joined the opposition instead.[4] One journalist who spoke to Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty is quoted as saying, “Protesters stood against the repressive forces and plainclothes agents and they demonstrated that they have the ability to confront them and even make them retreat. This is, I think, the new message of the Green movement… I hope that those who are concerned about the country listen to this message and prevent more bloodshed.”[5]
This idea of a community being brought together and even strengthened by the murder of one of its own in the name of a noble cause is one that has had a particular resonance in Iranian history. Persian society is seeped in a tradition of martyrdom as a celebration of life and redemption of the community in both its Islamic and pre-Islamic history. Tragedies culminating in martyrdom were prevalent in the pre-Islamic popular myth and culture as is exemplified in the tenth century Persian epic Shahnameh. The subsequent dominance of Shi’a Islam in the Persian Safavid Empire reinforced these ideas within the culture and continued to hold sway long after the age of empires had passed.
The Day of Ashura is practiced by both Sunni and Shi’a Muslims but has taken on a particular significance in Shi’a tradition. The day is meant to commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Husayn, a grandson of the Prophet, who was killed at the Battle of Karbala in a bloody dispute over who should succeed the Caliphate. As Shi’ites became a persecuted sect, this day of mourning became an expression of present suffering under oppression. The Shi’a Buyyid dynasty, which ruled over what is now modern day Iran and part of modern day Iraq, popularized Ashura by instituting a public ceremony of commemoration. In his article on martyrdom in Iranian politics, Professor Manochehr Dorraj notes that the celebration of Ashura has also served to functionally instill a sense of Shi’ite identity in the people of Iran and create a sense of communal solidarity.[6]
Though the idea of martyrdom and redemptive suffering was used mostly in an Islamic political context in Iran, secular political movements of the 1960s and 1970s also kept with this tradition. In the days before the Iranian Revolution, these groups were small in number and mostly of a Marxist persuasion. For them, it was the love of the people, rather than love of the divine, that demanded their willingness to sacrifice themselves. These secular populists could never have competed with their Muslim counterparts, for Islam was a more potent symbol for garnering the support of the masses. During the Revolution, clerics like Ayatollah Khomeini and Ayatollah Mutahhari used the tradition to mobilize millions against the Shah. The funerals of those who were killed in the demonstrations only served to mobilize even more people, spelling doom for the Shah as the death toll rose. Even after the Revolution, the tradition still served a functional purpose as Iran entered into a bloody war with Iraq. The Islamic Republic even set up a foundation that ensured the families of those martyred would be given financial security and preferential treatment in various areas of society.[7]
One of the many lessons the world can take from the recent Ashura demonstrations is the enduring power of Islamic symbols and traditions in Iranian society today. As it becomes more and more likely that the Islamic Republic will fall, we must accept the possibility that the new regime will still maintain a strong Islamic character and that there may not be anything to fear from that. What is even more encouraging is that within the Green Movement is the possibility of an Islamic politic that does not rely on a hatred of the West and Israel as tools to stay in power and that has grown independently of any foreign influence.
The redemptive quality of martyrdom in social and political contexts is not unique to Islam. In the Christian tradition, Jesus readily submitted Himself to death for the salvation of the world. Many of His disciples would follow his example, including Saint Peter who, according to Catholic history, was sentenced to crucifixion but considered himself unworthy of a death in the likeness of Christ and specifically requested to be crucified upside down. Though, martyrdom is not unique to religion either, as may be seen by the great American Revolutionary rallying cry, “Give me liberty or give me death!”
Martyrdom is one of the many human responses to death, which can seem bereft of any meaning or purpose, and preserve the life of the individual. Given our human inclination to revere the dead and honor their memory, the martyrs of the Green Movement are unlikely to be forgotten anytime soon.
———————–
[6] Manochehr Dorraj “Symbolic and Utilitarian Political Value of a Tradition: Martyrdom in the Iranian Political Culture” The Review of Politics, Cambridge University PressVol. 59, No. 3, (Summer, 1997), pp. 489-521 (503)
[7] Dorraj, 519
Hey, y’all: check out my latest piece on the American media’s inconsistency in its portrayals of Islam on BoomGen TV entitled The American Media: Gatekeepers of Religious Truth?* Here’s an excerpt:
“When news broke out in November that a US Army psychiatrist and self-identified devout Muslim shot his colleagues at the Fort Hood military base in Texas, it didn’t take the American media long to start speculating on what role Islam played in the massacre. But five months earlier, when the American media began covering the post election protests in Iran where many invoked the name of Islam in a quest for human rights, this sort of speculation was mostly absent.
As more details of the Fort Hood story were surfacing, there was already a fierce debate on what the shooter’s motivations were. The American right and left even took it as an opportunity to blame the other’s approach to radical Islam and for allowing, or at least silently encouraging, this sort of atrocity. Always at the heart of the debate was the question of who had the correct view of Islam and how to respond to radicalism…
Nearly six months after the protests began, the American media has displayed either little to no interest in discovering just who these protesters are or has simply forgotten that the opposition includes many Muslims who deem their faith important to their politics…
The American media is playing a dangerous game in directly and indirectly telling the public what is and is not “orthodox” in Islam. Constant repetition of violent images with significant emphasis on the religious language involved will reinforce the idea that the only true Muslim is some wild-eyed fanatic with guns and bombs. If that is the message that is sent we will be placing ourselves in a position to make it a truth and essentially take on a good portion of the proselytizing for militant Islam. It is essential that we take ourselves out of this game if we are to revitalize our policies towards Muslim engagement and quell the threat of Islamic radicalism in Iraq and Afghanistan as well preventing it from gaining ground at home the way it is in many European countries. Much of American media is already in poor journalistic shape; we don’t need it to play God too.”
Please join me in the discussion of the American media’s attitudes towards violence and nonviolence in the name of Islam and how the media can also engage in “truth-making” instead of “truth-telling”.
While you’re on the site, please check out some of the other great articles on the politics of human rights resolutions, the successes of the women’s movement for freedom and democracy in Iran, and daily video updates on the situation in Iran. Why not even take some time to send BoomGen a Christmas gift in the form of a donation?
Special thanks to the BoomGen team!
*I know its tempting, but don’t get distracted by the photo of Charles Krauthammer looking like a very unhappy snapping turtle.
The most important interview on any global affairs issue the Daily Show has ever had happened last night with the appearance of Mustafa Barghouti and Anna Beltzer, both advocates for a nonviolent solution in the Israel Palestine conflict. There are so many great sound bytes in the unedited version that appears on the Daily Show website. Here are my favorites:
- Barghouti says the Palestinians are victims of a system of segregation that is totally unjust. Someone from the audience shouts “Liar!” Neither Barghouti or Baltzer seem thrown off in the slightest, and Barghouti even expresses a wish to sit down with the man and explain his position to him.
- “This severe reaction sometimes reflects a nervousness on the side of people who are afraid of change, and the change is happening, the change is coming. Palestinians are entitled to the same freedom that the Jewish people should have.” Barghouti
- “The controversy around our appearance here shows that people don’t want to hear from nonviolent activists and [yet] people say ‘Where are the Palestinian nonviolent activists?’” Beltzer
- “Palestinians are not only Muslims, they’re also Christians. We have Palestinian Muslims and Christians.” Barghouti
- “I don’t tend to think that the Palestinian issue today is an Arab issue or a Muslim issue, its a human issue.” Barghouti
- “The Israelis will never be free until the Palestinians are also free.” Barghouti
- “There’s nothing defensive about denying Palestinians water. There’s nothing defensive about preventing people from having materials to build their homes. So much of the institutions that I understood to be defensive cannot be justified by security anymore.” Baltzer
- Another man, or possibly the same man as before, shouts while Baltzer is speaking. I think he’s announcing that he’s leaving because something Baltzer said was so offensive to him. Still, neither of the guests are really thrown off.
- “I don’t think the question is should Israel be singled out for criticism. I think the question is should Israel be held to the same standards that every other country has held.” Baltzer
- “You know a lot of people don’t realize how much, first of all, cooperation there is on the ground. That so many Israelis oppose…the settlements, the majority of Israelis oppose the settlements. And that busload after busload of Israeli activists are coming in to stand in solidarity with the Palestinians.” Baltzer
- “I personally believe that the best peace that will last, like in the experience of other countries, is the one between two democracies where a solution is not imposed from one side on the other but it is accepted by both people and I think that is achievable.” Barghouti
- “Remember that Jews lived better in the Arab world than virtually anywhere in the Western world … and the important thing is this shows us a precedent. That these things are not unachievable, that these are not peoples who are somehow fundamentally incompatible.” Baltzer
However, I’m not 100% behind everything that was said. For instance, I have trouble believing that 90% of the Palestinian struggle is nonviolent. Simply because I have no idea what is being included in “the Palestinian struggle”. Is he talking about the struggle of the Palestinian National Authority? Or is he including the PNA, the various resistance groups that have been formed over the years, and the everyday struggles of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories? We could come up with a variety of different statistics based on what we consider part of the struggle. And then of course we can slip into the debate over whether or not stone throwing or property damage can be considered part of nonviolence.
But Barghouti is a politician, and so it only follows he speaks in the language of politicians. However, none of that invalidates what he’s trying to do.
Both of these people are incredibly brave and incredibly necessary to the global struggle to ensure human rights for all. w00t!
The Obama administration has come under a lot of fire from people outside of the neo-conservative political spectrum for continuing many of Bush’s foreign policy initiatives. But recently, the administration cut off funding to Iran Democracy Fund conceived by the Bush administration to distribute money to opposition forces in Iran.
Is this a slap in the face to all those working for human rights inside Iran? The BBC reports that many Iranian activists find this a blessing.
Critics like Iranian dissident and journalist Akbar Ganji have maintained that the program made virtually all Iranian NGOs targets of the hardline government in Iran:
“The US democracy fund was severely counterproductive. None of the human right activists and members of opposition in Iran had any interest in using such funds, but we were all accused by Iran’s government of being American spies because a few groups in America used these funds.”
And
Abdolfattah Soltani is a well-known Iranian human rights lawyer, and spokesman for the Defenders of Human Rights Center, which was founded by the Nobel Peace Prize-winner Shirin Ebadi.
He welcomes the change in policy: “These US funds are going to people who have very little to do with the real struggle for democracy in Iran and our civil society activists never received such funds. The end to this program will have no impact on our activities whatsoever.”
Could this really be a move worth making? I think it is. One of the ways in which the Iranian government holds on to its power is by blaming the US and the UK of undermining Iranian sovereignty. It continues to serve as a plausible, if many times far fetched and deceitful scenario. The current Iranian opposition is made up of many young educated men and women. And like many young people we tell our well meaning elders to back off because we want our achievements to truly be our own. I think that is one of the messages that is coming from the Green Movement in Iran: thanks, but no thanks.
Its about time I brought up the A-Bomb again. The A word that is everybody’s favorite polarizing political talking point: Abortion! If you haven’t already, please review my opinion on this issue.
I was reading an article (and here) on how bans on abortion don’t actually decrease the amount of abortions actually occurring. Based on the statistics in the above shown graph, we can see that there’s still a pretty large number of abortions occurring even when it is illegal.
The article goes on to talk about the dangers of unsafe abortions to women which many pro-Choice are bound to pick up and use as a reason to have legal safe abortions. To me, that’s a pretty weak argument. Its akin to the argument for legalizing drugs so that people won’t incur any danger in attempt to procure them. I’m all for keeping women alive and healthy, but you can’t use that as leverage for gaining support for an act that is essentially a tragedy for all involved.
Josephine Quintavalle of the anti-abortion Comment on Reproductive Ethics in the UK is quoted in the article as saying:
“Abortion – back street or front street – is not the answer. Ensuring women have the means to end their pregnancies is not liberating them – they should be able to make real choices before they fall pregnant in the first place.”
Pro-Choice and pro-Life in the US should be picking this up, but likely won’t. When it comes to mainstream discussions of this topic most people seem to forget that something has to occur before a child is conceived. Pro-Choice gets wrapped in arguments over women’s rights and pro-Life can’t seem to stop themselves from yelling “baby killer!”.
But if this strategy of contraception is going to be embraced by anyone, it will be the pro-Choice. I doubt pro-Life will ever get behind it in significant numbers because it goes against their unrealistic sexual world view. Abstinence is wonderful and totally realistic, but abstinence only is not. Sometimes, it makes me roll my eyes and wonder if the majority of pro-Life don’t really want to save babies, they just want to make sure the women who want them get severely punished.
I invite you all to prove my cynicsm about your respective camps unjustified. Please, tell me what you’re doing to protect women and stop abortions from occurring. You can tell me off too, but please be nice to each other.
Way to go Norwegians!
I need to go on the record as saying that I’m not in favor of Obama being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. There are so many many reasons why I think it was a bad idea. Please enjoy a nice little list of those reasons as said by various news outlets and bloggers.
Martin Indyk of Brookings, though not explicitly condemning it, shows that the award was given for strategic purposes. Which is one hell of a gamble.
“President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize should be seen as an acknowledgment of the promise that his presidency holds for leading the world into a new era of cooperation. Critics who argue that he hasn’t earned it miss the point. The Nobel committee clearly wanted to boost support for Obama’s world view and, judging from the overwhelmingly positive international reaction, they succeeded at least for the moment.”
The Economist on how the award is incredibly premature:
Although the prize may be given in the spirit of encouraging Mr Obama’s government, it might have been better to wait for more solid achievements. With so many good intentions, and so many initiatives scattered around the world (and an immensely busy domestic agenda, including health-care reform and averting economic collapse), Mr Obama appears to be racing around trying everything without yet achieving much…Mr Obama’s aspirations may be laudable, but he has several tough years ahead. The Nobel committee evidently wants to encourage him but it might have been wiser to hold judgment until he has achieved more. In America itself, the decision has already infuriated conservative commentators, ensuring there will be no peace on the home front, at least.
Peter Beinart of The Daily Beast on highlighting the gap between hype and accomplishments:
I like Barack Obama as much as the next liberal, but this is a farce. He’s done nothing to deserve the prize. Sure, he’s given some lovely speeches and launched some initiatives—on Iran, Israeli-Palestinian peace, climate change and nuclear disarmament—that might, if he’s really lucky and really good, make the world a more safe, more just, more peaceful world. But there’s absolutely no way to know if he’ll succeed, and by giving him the Nobel Prize as a kind of “atta boy,” the Nobel Committee is actually just highlighting the gap that conservatives have long highlighted: between Obamamania as global hype and Obama’s actual accomplishments.
And on the damage this has done to the Nobel Commitee and actual peacebuilders on the ground:
The Nobel Prize Committee should be in the business of conferring celebrity on unknown human-rights and peace activists toiling in the most god-forsaken parts of the world; the people who really need the attention (and even the money). It should be in the business of angering powerful tyrants by giving their victims a moment in the sun. Choosing Barack Obama, who practically orbits the sun already, accomplishes the exact opposite of that. Let’s hope Obama eventually deserves this award. And let’s hope the Nobel Committee’s decision meets with such a deafening chorus of chortles and jeers that it never does something this stupid again.
Now here are some of my favorite tweets.
@abuardvark : Based on conversations in Amman there’s not going to be much Arab enthusiasm for Obama peace prize
@dandrezer : New blog post: EXCLUSIVE transcript of internal Nobel Peace Prize deliberations!! http://bit.ly/CY4EW. Must credit Drezner!!
@dandrezer : In move to restore credibility, Nobel committee announces Neil Patrick Harris will host awards presentation.
@AfPakChannel : RT @basseyworld: Mr. President, I’m happy for you & I’m gonna let you finish but Nelson Mandela was the best Peace Prize winner of all time
@FP_Magazine : Seven people who that never won the Nobel Peace Prize, but should have. http://bit.ly/1mCp42
@wonkette : NASA Moon-Bomber Left Hanging On High Five: Just as the President of the United States was accepting the Nobel.. http://bit.ly/1wTzc2
@EugeneMirman : Congratulations Mr. Obama! You won fair and square, even though I’ve been texting Hamas & Isreal requesting peace for weeks.
@anamariecox : YouTube of Nobel announcement…. http://bit.ly/XFmPO (And, uhm, clearly giving it to Obama for being notBush.)
@anamariecox : Update: Nobel Prize awarded not just to those who are not George Bush; must also not be John McCain.
@anamariecox : RT @12minds: While I haven’t fixed your iphone yet, I’ve THOUGHT about it and I hope to in the future. // Now just CLAIM to have fixed it.
For those of you who keep track of my discussions on the Arab-Israeli conflict both in and out of the blogosphere, you’ll note that I tend to bring up famous Israeli author Amos Oz. A lot. A whole lot. And I’m about to do it again.
Prime Minister of Israel Binyamin Netanyahu’s speech to the UN this week was almost like a revival of David Irving’s Holocaust on Trial. Bibi came with an impressive array of valuable historical documents proving that the Holocaust did take place and waving them in front of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s face and recounted his own family’s tragedy during the Holocaust at the hand of the Nazis.
Then came the moment we had all been waiting for, the inevitable Nazi comparison. With all the Hitler allusions our nation has endured with conservatives and their theater of the absurd, you’ll forgive me for having some Hitler fatigue. But when Israel brings up the Fuhrer in the context of the Arab (+ the one non-Arab neighbor) Israeli conflict, the comparison becomes truly profound in a very unexpected way. Its not because Arabs truly resemble the Nazis, its because the Jews as a traumatized society cannot see it any other way. As Oz so wonderfully puts in page 343 of his memoir A Tale of Love And Darkness, the Palestinians and the Jews are the children of a tyrannical parent who do not see each other as fellow victims but as a reflection of their abuser.
“The Europe that abused, humiliated, and oppressed the Arabs by means of imperialism, colonialism, exploitation and repression is the same Europe that oppressed and persecuted the Jews… But when the Arabs look at us, they see not a bunch of half-hysterical survivors but a new offshoot of Europe, with its colonialism, technical superiority, and exploitation, that has cleverly returned to the Middle East—in Zionist guide this time—to exploit, evict, and oppress all over again. And when we look at them, we do not see fellow victims either; we see not brothers in adversity but pogroms-making Cossacks, bloodthirsty anti-Semites, Nazis in disguise, as though our European persecutors have reappeared here in the land of Israel, put keffiyehs on their heads, and grown mustaches, but they are still our old murderers, interested only in slitting Jew’s throats for fun.”
And there you have it my friends, Netanyahu demonstrating Oz’s point exactly and further solidifying my admiration for this author. Additionally, for all you Holocaust history buffs, you may enjoy Gideon Levy’s article on how Netanyahu’s speech actually cheapens the Jewish experience under the Nazis. Click here for a full text of the speech.
Now, who wants to get busy and publish an article on the merits of mutual recognition of loss to peace processes (written by yours truly)? I wanna be internet famous.
“It seems, as one becomes older,
That the past has another pattern, and ceases to be a mere sequence—
Or even development: the latter a partial fallacy
Encouraged by superficial notions of evolution,
Which becomes, in the popular mind, a means of disowning the past.
The moments of happiness—not the sense of well-being,
Fruition, fulfilment, security or affection,
Or even a very good dinner, but the sudden illumination—
We had the experience but missed the meaning,
And approach to the meaning restores the experience
In a different form, beyond any meaning
We can assign to happiness. I have said before
That the past experience revived in the meaning
Is not the experience of one life only
But of many generations—not forgetting
Something that is probably quite ineffable:
The backward look behind the assurance
Of recorded history, the backward half-look
Over the shoulder, towards the primitive terror.
Now, we come to discover that the moments of agony
(Whether, or not, due to misunderstanding,
Having hoped for the wrong things or dreaded the wrong things,
Is not in question) are likewise permanent
With such permanence as time has. We appreciate this better
In the agony of others, nearly experienced,
Involving ourselves, than in our own.
For our own past is covered by the currents of action,
But the torment of others remains an experience
Unqualified, unworn by subsequent attrition.
People change, and smile: but the agony abides.
Time the destroyer is time the preserver,
Like the river with its cargo of dead negroes, cows and chicken coops,
The bitter apple, and the bite in the apple.
And the ragged rock in the restless waters,
Waves wash over it, fogs conceal it;
On a halcyon day it is merely a monument,
In navigable weather it is always a seamark
To lay a course by: but in the sombre season
Or the sudden fury, is what it always was.”
“The Dry Salvages“, The Four Quartets, TS Eliot
In times of great suffering, we are presented with great opportunities. We may choose to spread our agony through vengeance and hate or we may join with others who share in our pain to bring healing and justice. The legacy of September 11th means different things to different people. To some it is a great swell of patriotism, a reason to wage wars, or an excuse for wrongful actions. We are a traumatized society who cannot afford to let our trauma separate us from the rest of the world. We must share our sadness with victims of violence everywhere, from the Holocaust to Rwanda, from the Congo to Iran, from Cambodia to Colombia. We are all united by our suffering and from this we gain the strength to work together and let justice and democracy prevail.
This Fourth of July I had the extreme pleasure of going to the world premiere of Islam in America, the latest project of Dr. Akbar Ahmed and his wonderful team of motivated youngsters. The film takes a look at the various Muslim communities across America, from big cities in the East to small towns in the Midwest, and focuses heavily on the voices of these ordinary American Muslims. It is done in a very low-tech style that may not be for everyone, but certainly it helped capture a very down-to-earth and intimate feel.
My own feelings going into the film were mixed; I was excited by the mission of the project itself yet nervous that I would be assailed by stories of discrimination and victimization leaving me with little hope for the future. My fears were not eased by the opening, in which a stream of protesters shouted offensive epithets at participants in a Muslim parade. As a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (or WASP), I often cringe when I see my ethnoreligious kin demonstrate their own hate-fuelled ignorance. Even more embarassing was the scene in which a woman with unfortunate teeth started talking about the Somalian Muslims in her community going with “the American way”, as though the Muslim way and the American way were mutually exclusive lifestyles. I imagine this is how many Muslims, not just in America but across the globe, feel when the ugliest aspects of their community are put on display as though they were the only face of Islam.
As the film proceeded, I was pleasantly surprised and inspired by the positive stories of friendship and cooperation between non-Muslim and Muslim Americans. There was the story of a bishop and an imam in Las Vegas who find ways to work together and support each other in serving the local poor and underprivileged. There was also the story of a little town in Alabama, ironically named Arab and to be pronounced as Ay-rab, whom the team was expecting to react rather badly to Hailey dressed in hijab. Instead of what we might have expected (i.e. some barely comprehensible Deliverance-esque hill billy telling them he didn’t take kindly to their folk, which really should reveal a lot about my own prejudices) Hailey, Dr. Ahmed, and the team were greeted with genuine southern hospitality.
Islam in America touches on so many different layers of American and Islamic identity, and while we never quite come to a conclusion in reconciling the different characterizations of these social constructs we nonetheless conclude that they are varied and equally legitimate. It would be impossible to survey the full history of Muslims in America or even list all the different views Muslims have of their own American communities and how they relate to non-Muslims, but the most important feat of this film is that it broke the surface. And in breaking that surface, we are confronted with a challenge to look deeper into ourselves in order to better relate to those who we perceive as an other. What better way to engage the rest of the Muslim world than to take a critical look at our own Muslims, our own diversity and pluralism?
More than a nation of immigrants or (as some consistently claim) Christians, America is a nation of human beings. The American experience is the human experience: complex and often contradictory, full of noble ideals and actions and plenty of shameful ones too. But if nationalism is anything, it is an optimistic drive towards the better qualities of our human nature. We as Americans must accept our strengths and our weaknesses while continuously pushing toward a “more perfect union”.
For more information on the team, the documentary, and the project itself please visit Journey Into America.
