Swinging Door

"When we become truly ourselves, we just become a swinging door and we are purely independent of and at the same time dependent upon everything."

My mother has always told me I say too much, by which she means she would appreciate if more of what is in my head stayed inside my head. I have only followed her advice when I have done or seen things which have been outlined to require grave consequences if revealed, and in regard to those instances, I feel like I oppressed my soul for having taken part in something that must be hidden. Listen, I know that I wouldn't feel that way if those things hadn't been outlined as such, but they were and I do. So here's everything else.

If you don't do drugs, you will learn other ways to step back and look at your own life. You realize that's what you wanted in the first place, when you still had control. You will remember you always knew how to tear yourself away, if necessary, to open your laden arms and stop time to take stock-- what exactly are you carrying? Do you need all that? The questions have changed, and I'm getting better at making the assessment, but this act remains essential to maintaining sanity. It does matter what you step back into, too.

I need a close look, so I'm up late tonight. It's only 1:22AM in California. Still late for me these days, but I don't have to work tomorrow or the next day, I'm not tired because I didn't work yesterday or the day before. I don't have to worry about falling asleep late and missing the dawn prayer because I'm on my period, so excused this week. I'm not studying for a certification exam and I'm not in school or recovering from being in school. I haven't been in love in about 18 months. And my life has taken shape recently (read: I got my shit together) in a way that I had once imagined over twelve years ago and then completely forgotten about. Oh, and the world seems to be going to shit and I have never felt more calm about it. In other words, the universe has aligned and conditions for reflection are perfect. And I'm going to do that publicly because, don't you want to know how I did it all?

Awh, internal laudatory chorus. Stawpppp. It wasn't narcissism. I swear.

We've come a long way since the two whitest kids at my school asked me if I was related to Osama Bin Laden and if I believed in god, respectively. The other day, the whitest person at work asked me what the Muslim community thinks about ______. Chicken? Printer cartridges? Toilet Paper? I'm not actually sure. I faded out for a second and for that paranoid second, I wondered if he was asking me for A Reason and reassured myself-- this is not something I need to hide. Whatever he asked, I recovered in time to read him the first sentence of this paragraph, minus the bit about white kids. I think he got my point because he went on to express a bunch of sympathy for the disenfranchised (while maintaining a fiscal conservative stance). At least the one time that a non-Muslim POC bullied me, he had the awareness, in 2002, as a pre-teen, to put a towel on his head and imitate a muezzin. If I hadn't been terrified, I might have been impressed.

I've lost track of details. Are things worse now than they were fourteen years ago? I think so. But I can't say I've been trying to keep track of everything. It takes a considerable amount of work to go from literary studies (academic analysis of written cultural artifacts) to maintaining and building data systems. (That's a horrible description of it. My profession is not good at descriptions of our work. I apologize. I work on distributed databases. Sometimes I say, hey, it's still a matter of understanding the organization of information. Or, like, you know, the basic human experience of understanding.) First, I had to change from being a person who engages through only observation, however creatively or intelligently I did so, to a person who takes initiative and moves both ideas and resources. I also needed both an art degree and a science degree. I also fell in love and broke my heart a bunch of times. I swallowed my pride. I treated depression with unsanctioned drugs. I moved halfway across the country, and then entirely across the country. I pursued esoteric religion.

So I can't fully tell you how I ended up back on the path I meant to take when I was fifteen, the person I wanted to be before I realized how complicated global politics was going to make my life. You can't contain my whole life. You don't need to. No one can. But there are some parts that are critical for us to share.

I do still occasionally catch the news. Sometimes it can't be helped. I don't exactly avoid it, but I also don't feel constantly threatened. I do care. I pray for the dead. I pray for the living. I give what I can to people who have lost their homes, their families, their livelihood. I hope to do more of that. I work because I can and it's okay that some people can't do as much.

But I don't have all the defensive arguments down. I refuse to. I understand why they're important to some people. But I need more than that, deeper and wider. Yet, I already have everything I need.

I'm not who I'm not. I'm not even who I am. Identity, or what I project, where I feel I belong or who I show alliance with or however you want to define it, is only a small part of the self. I think most people only use a small part of the self. And when you have very little, you are likely to hold what you have very tightly. And probably spend all your money on it. But that's not the point of self. The point is to let it go.



the quote at the beginning is from a zen member of my family

Harem Pants: Yes or No?

I am conflicted about harem pants.

On one hand, I've owned "harem pants" for as long as I've lived. Only, I call them salwars and always wear them with a long tunic called a kameez in a traditional South Asian outfit. As modestly flattering and comfortable as I think they are, I only ever wore them that way as pajamas and thought of bedtime as Hammertime. According to Wikipedia, even Hammer pants take inspiration from "harem pants." Had it been socially acceptable for me to wear salwars without invoking images of genies, belly dancers, and MC Hammer (we'll talk some other time about why Hammer was rocking them) to white people and looking like I was fresh off the boat to brown people (dude, what's wrong with being new here?), I would have totally rocked them. Now that harem pants are trendy, I can do that without worry, right?

Wrong. The thing is, it's socially acceptable for fashionistas and hipsters so everywhere outside of a big city, I will still invoke those same images, especially since I don't want to come off as either a fashionista or a hipster. I regret not wearing salwars in high school, where I knew practically everyone. I don't think it would've come off as a failure to assimilate, as I was afraid it would, but, given my honors class taking bookworm reputation, as an experiment of a quirky, budding intellectual (I flatter myself). These days, people will initially perceive a fashion zombie tendency and/or a failure to assimilate, giving them options to choose from for steering clear of me. Eventually, if they still decide to give me a chance, the quirky (still budding) intellectual will shine through.

But then there's the fact that I think the social acceptability of harem pants is a racist turn of culture, which is sadly often the case when it comes to the appropriation of subaltern peoples' culture. The term invokes a cultural monolith, spanning from the Middle East out to South Asia. The harem, a Turkish social construction, did not exist in India, where the style originates. Therefore, the term implies that the entire region that was once the Islamic empire had a homogenous culture, which was untrue then and remains as greatly untrue today. Even sadder still, people consume racist culture without even realizing it's racist.

By the way, America, please don't wear harem pants if you protest against the lack of women's rights in the Middle East. I know you just want to look worldly and exotic despite your overwhelming whiteness, which means you already look ignorant, but it also looks like you're rubbing your supposed freedom from the harem in the faces of people you fancy being stuck in them.


So, if I, a brown girl who is often a hijabi these days, wears "harem pants," will it challenge or confirm the rampant stereotypes? First of all, I would call them salwars and correct anyone who referred to them otherwise. Maybe I just need a pair with "SALWAR" stamped on the ass. Yes.

One day, I'm going to be a famous poet

In my last post, I said I applaud Mona Eltahawy for gaining the readership she's gained. Not only that, as explained by Altmuslimah, she got a discussion going. Not only THAT, but I hope she's paving the way for Muslim, feminist journalists and writers on the world stage. That part is only a hope so far because to do so, she can't sacrifice her identity for success. That said, she doesn't need to represent every Muslim feminist out there but selling herself out will likely only cause a barrier for anyone wanting to follow in her footsteps.

I've been thinking recently about gaining a wider readership. And by thinking, I mean thinking of trying to get to that point myself. I don't intend to go via news or publishing corporations. That's not the only way to mass communication. At least, if those corps don't come to own the entire internet, it's not. And I'd like to come at it from a community organizer's point of view, where successful mass communication isn't muddled with the attitude of "trying to make a splash" like it has been for Mona Eltahawy.

In the meantime, I don't want to get lost in Muslim feminism. There's more to me than that. I've had the fortune of growing up in country where ideas flow freely and I can't forget that side of myself. I want to be a part of that free flow of ideas and there's more to my ideas, more to ME than my Muslim and feminist ideas. I want to be a poet so I can take those pieces apart and sew them back together into my favorite outfit. And when I figure out how to be a poet, I want to know how to get people to listen. The people who need it, at least. Who wants to sit around at home in her favorite outfit?

These are big dreams considering my current readership (I appreciate each of you deeply) but I've always been a big dreamer.

To touch base with another side of myself, (but mostly to direct you to something wonderful) I recently watched the premiere episode of HBO's Girls. I had to see what all the hubbub in the female and feminist blogosphere was about. Unfortunately, I was pretty upset about it. I don't even want to talk about it. I'm not watching any more of it if I can help it. I'd rather re-watch ABG.

Who is confused?

I seem to be taking a turn for the topical lately so, yes, let's talk about Mona Eltahawy. While I applaud her for gaining such wide readership, I think she needs to heed Uncle Ben's words that, "With great power, comes great responsibility."

A few weeks ago, I read her article, "Let me, a Muslim Feminist Confuse You," and found it highly relatable. Though she breaks down the Muslim feminist experience into milestones, including a "headscarves and hymens" moment, I don't entirely fit into, I agree that Muslim feminism causes confusion in most people and I like that confusion can and should function positively when it comes to busting stereotypes. For a long time, I wore hijab mainly for the performative aspect. I felt it was my duty to give people the chance to interact with a hijabi with a personality contradictory to the submissive, reclusive, even handicapped woman they perhaps expected. I wasn't sure then if hijab itself is empowering in some way but we can at least safely say that it pushed me to stand for something. From Eltahawy's article, it seemed she stood for something similar.

In the same article, she explains that her experience in Saudi Arabia caused her to be "done with Muslim men." Her Foreign Policy article, "Why Do They Hate Us?" appears to continue that thread of her Muslim feminist experience. However, two paragraphs later in her earlier article she says (emphasis her own),

"When I returned to Egypt at 21, I learned Muslim men were not the enemy after all, as progressive, liberal Muslim women and men helped me define my own place in Islam."

If that is the case, what can Eltahaway's reason be for taking a leap backwards by reinforcing the stereotype that makes Arab men criminalized others? Because she both her decision to be "done with Muslim men" and later find some of them to be "not the enemy after all" were both out of experiences with Arab men but men from different countries, I have to recognize that she is not creating an evil Arab male monolith. I believe she is addressing a general cultural feeling that pre-dates Islam and expands beyond Arab culture. I have experienced it myself from all kinds of men. And from women, too. It's called misogyny, or the hatred of women.

It's extremely difficult to confront misogyny in someone like you care about. However, if you have a misogynist loved one, it becomes especially difficult to deal with the issue when they are also a member of a minority for which there exists demeaning stereotypes you don't want to further aggravate. Do you help yourself or do you help the minority community? At this point, Muslim feminists should read up on black feminist thought because there's a lot there that's relevant to this conversation. Whether Mona Eltahawy has done so or not remains unclear but her answer seems to be that you save yourself. In my personal opinion, I believe a woman (or man) has a right to chose who to save but that Eltahawy has a point in her inclusive tone if she means we should not alienate those who choose to save themselves.

Minority feminism aside, I have a few bones to pick with Eltahawy. First, the title, "Why Do They Hate Us," rings of post-9/11 "why do Arabs hate Americans." While I don't think believe that question has been properly addressed by anyone, I don't think this is the right place to bring it up. This is a stretch perhaps, but it seems to imply that the real hatred comes from conservative Muslim and Arab men and women and is directed toward progressive, liberal types such as Eltahawy. The implied Muslim/Western separationism also seems to imply liberals/progressives (or "westerners" in general. Or are all westerners liberal/progs?) are free of the yoke of sexism and that is direly untrue. It struck a thunderous chord with me when she says,

"...women are silenced by a deadly combination of men who hate them while also claiming to have God firmly on their side."

"claiming to have God firmly on their side"?! Well, a judgmental note like that doesn't seem to imply progressive liberals are on the side of all Muslim women. It seems to imply that being a religious Muslim woman who looks to God for help means you can't be feminist, save yourself, or even have feminists on your side.  So much for the confusion you promised, Eltahawy.

We'll talk about why Mona's target audiences needs to hear both from Muslims feminists (the types who oppose niqabs, though) and want to think of Muslim men as criminal others in another post.

Yale's "Call the NYPD" Protest and the role of the MSA in the American University

I haven't posted in a very long time! I've been pretty busy corralling application forms and figuring out the next step for myself. Which is close to being figured out, by the way. I'll explain some more in my next post because, in the interest of aforementioned corralling and figuring, this post will have to be a short one.

Side note: That title sounds like a paper title. Maybe I do miss being in school.

So, getting to the meat of today's topic. Recently, my sister's college MSO hosted a lecture by Ingrid Mattson, former president of ICNA. After a girl, claiming she was a photography student, asked to take a picture of my father, my sister brought up the recently publicized NYPD investigation of Muslim college student organization that, shockingly, pervaded the east coast much further than NYPD jurisdiction does.

While I am disappointed, and slightly confused since Bloomburg openly supported the Park51 Mosque, I would prefer to call attention to Yale's response because the way we respond to what gets thrown at us is what defines us and the way Yale students have responded is highly respectable.

To protest racial profiling, Yale students are posting pictures captions "Call the NYPD" of people on campus holding signs declaring "I'm a Muslim," "I'm a feminist," "I'm just trying to help," "We used to be Muslim," or simply, "I'm against racial profiling." The wide range of photos posted and wildly varying signs proclaiming personal identity effectively condones racial profiling.

Further, I believe that this act reflects the desire in the American Muslim community to be addressed as an individual. Though Muslim culture is generally collective, American Muslims have a tendency to either flout or walk the line between individualism and collectivism. I first noticed this after reading a ton of Sherman Alexie last summer, particularly his novel Reservation Blues, because I believe it's an experience shared by most minorities strongly associated with enduring stereotypes.

I was never an MSA member myself, though my school's chapter was the largest organization on campus. Most members were fairly conservative Muslims. There weren't any non-Muslims as far as I remember and being a female, semi-practicing Muslim who was grew up pretty American, I didn't feel like I fit in. I don't think the MSA was intentionally exclusive but I think the Yale protest certainly hints at a need for more diverse involvement within similar organizations across America.

Afterall, the MSA is not the campus mosque/masjid. Though it can certainly function as that as well, in the end, it is a campus organization and has to address the needs of the campus as well the Muslim community at the school. It has the opportunity to serve as a platform of discussion between Muslims and non-Muslims an intermediary is sorely needed there. Though mosques can do this as well, as a campus organization rather than a house of worship, this is a responsibility of the campus MSA.

Finally, I don't think the response from the Yale community at large can be dissociated from the character of the Yale MSA. The Yale MSA has a reputation for what some would call "liberalism." But this is a place where Americans Muslims walk a similar line as that between individualism and collectivism and should not be mistaken, though it often is, as counter to good religious practice. Islam, like other religions, historically adopted the culture of the land and mixed religious expression with cultural expression. I don't think that men and women praying side by side on a college campus, though it contradicts Islamic orthodoxy, can so easily be condemned as the religiously conservative are wont to do.

All in all, in my book: Yale 1, NYPD 0.

Is the Occupy movement over yet?

I am an extreme opponent of "Occupy Wall Street," and the "movements" it has "inspired." As demonstrated by the number of quotation marks in that last sentence. The opinions expressed in this post are meant to be inflammatory.  So, here are some reasons I think OWS would be better off dead:

1. Occupy Wall Street was, itself, a complete failure. Protesting "corporate greed," the greed that gobbled up tuition money and gave students nothing in return, so vaguely produces no results. It put the ball in the capitalist court, because blaming is the same as appointing responsibility. Occupy Wall Street's protesters took no responsibility. What if they instead protested the Higher Education Bubble, which was a far more immediate cause of their problems? Or the marketing/advertising industry? Trade and finance overall is not problematic, as OWS's founding Adbusters claims. General unrest is nothing new and nothing to protest.

2. Occupy Wall Street was inspired by the Arab Spring. The Arab Spring did it better than it's American copycat movement. Of course, they had more obviously corrupt leaders to overthrow while even most college educated Americans, after years under a subversively repressive government (felt only by people the government declared war upon such as Muslims, American and otherwise, via the War on Terror), had only vague feelings of injustice. The Arab inspiration behind Occupy Wall Street is widely recognized but rarely does OWS seek advice from the movement that inspired it. Why not?

3. Occupy Wall Street highlights the lack of employment opportunities for the college educated, who refuse to stoop to the level of working at Wal-mart. My dad, who worked as a "sales representative" at a Sony outlet store even after completing two master's degrees and nearly a PhD, sympathizes with this aspect of the movement. However, rather than protesting the degradation of having to work under your qualification, have any of the occupiers thought to protest the degrading nature of working class work? Have they ever thought that their adversity to joining the working class is devoid of endowing any dignity to the working class?

4. Occupy Wall Street is a manifestation of the fear of losing a middle class standard of living, more than anything. Or a fear of never gaining it. It's a fear of being ashamed that you can't afford to do what your friends are doing. It's a fear of going back home after college and being the least successful of your friends. Or even of having to go back home after college. It's a fear of no longer being able to imitate the bourgeoisie with middle class earnings. 

5. Occupy Wall Street propagates the facade of American democracy and opportunity. The world sees America as an emblem of democracy and opportunity. In this arena, America is more or less a "has been." We stopped being so as soon as we began to force that image upon other countries. That's when we became imperialist. America is also internally imperialist. Any sense of us being otherwise is a sense of entitlement. This is evidenced by the fact that everyone else is now doing what we claim to do better than we are*. Their protests are more successful. Their music and art is revolutionary. They wear their hearts on their sleeves and we can only manage to be sarcastic. We need to look to other countries for inspiration now. The movement's illusory nature is also evidenced by the fact that the media has largely been its proponent. I might've put some faith in this movement had it been named the American Spring (some have suggested calling it American Autumn but it didn't stick).

6. Occupy Wall Street sold souvenirs to participants and had visitors. Do I need to explain this one? 

I am critical of this movement largely because I care deeply about protest and reform. However, the culture of the people participating in the largest protest movements in America acts as a blinder to their success. People who got good grades in school and completed college degrees, the people of the movement, are generally too institutionalized to understand what it means to protest and reform. I think there's a good reason behind "anti-intellectualism" in America. Know that in occupying in order to put your degree to work means you are using something designed against your best interests to pursue your interests.


*Does this also mean that countries emulating what they think of as being "American freedom" are going to have some issues to face, too? Yes.

On Habibi, Graphic Novel

I almost didn't read Craig Thompson's Habibi. After reading a media critique article from a Muslim perspective media watch, I was assured it perpetuated stereotypically western interpretations of both Arabs and Muslims. What Thomspon does was labelled "self-conscious orientalism." Thompson is quoted to note on his orientalist aesthetic as being superficial, saying,

“it’s almost better to not see the words when you’re looking at them and you can just appreciate them for their visual aesthetic, rather than have the meaning of the words get in the way.”

which is exemplified by the filling of a woman's body with Arabic text, as if, says the article, "the meaning of the imagery will get in the way of appreciating the aesthetic." However, what rang most true to me was one criticism stating that Thompson's portrayal of Arab brutality is never "justified or made to face consequences."

I dread stereotypically western interpretations of Islam, especially since it has a tendency of confusing Muslim with Arab. But since I'd been interested in it before reading the criticism, I went with my gut and didn't cancel the inter-library loan I used to request it. When it arrived, I began reading it on a slow day at work.

I was hooked. Thompson is a talented story-teller and artist. Though it is true that there a few Arabs who are portrayed as bad guys, there a lot of Arab good guys, too. For example, Zam, one of the main characters, becomes a eunuch in order to understand his sexual attraction to Dodola, his beautiful childhood rescuer, whose rape he witnessed after learning that she sold her body to feed them. Dodola is also a storyteller and the audience's source of an incredible amount of Islamic tradition, through the telling of stories from the Quran. Many stories serve to compare and contrast Islam and the other Abrahamic faiths, but many just serve to glorify Islam's value of storytelling and creative thinking. Though her child marriage to a scribe is the source of Dodola's literacy, in the scribe's insistence on teaching his young wife to read and write, he treats her as an equal and gives her the tools she needs to save her life over and over after he is killed by thieves. 

Things like that make me think Thompson's comment on having "the meaning of the words get in the way" was taken out of context. I don't really see him using orientalism merely as an aesthetic in much of the novel. The Quran itself is a written version of oral tradition, and in a lot of ways, Thompson's Habibi is the graphic version in addition to an interpretation for contemporary audiences, both on account of its format and messages conveyed. I also like that Thompson's narrative includes Islam in both the problems and the solutions faced by the world today, such as environmentalism and racism.

The reason I say that the criticism on Arab brutality spoke loudest to me is because I feel like many people are overly sensitive to negativity in nuanced portrayals of Muslims. True, the newsmedia usually zeroes in on negativity to the point where nuance is squeezed out of the picture. However, limiting media to only glowing portrayals of Muslims stifles nuance AND internal criticism, which can certainly be suggested by non-Muslims, such as Thompson, as well as Muslims.

Learning To Draw Again

I'm going to learn to draw again.
I'll learn to look things straight in the eye
and memorize the gesture
of being seen.

I have grown too accustomed
to the pursuit of
the gaze of
privilege.

I have grown too accustomed
to seeing and not being seen.

I have grown too accustomed
to my supernatural position
as a ghost.

I'm going to learn to draw again.
I'll learn to look things straight in the eye
and internalize the gesture
of being seen.

The Miseducation of Me

Yesterday, I started working as a clerk at the public library. In a library, organization is very important. Things are classified a certain way and need to be kept accordingly so they can easily be located when needed. When something slips through the cracks of the obsessive structure of order, due to human error or subterfuge, it is tracked down and the situation is cleanly rectified.

Having studied post-colonial and vernacular English Literature, Gender Studies, and Philosophy in college, I am not trained to put things in a preordained order. I'm trained to question order. I'm trained to analyze, deconstruct, and reassess as exhaustively as possible and I am trained to defend as innovative a reassessment as I possibly can.

I wasn't really made for that sort of training. I'm a South Asian immigrant, I am a Muslim, I am a woman, and I am poor. College was a training that mostly sees the world for its disorder and dissonance. Despite the questioning of order, believe it or not, it is hard to avoid Western, patriarchal*, elitist values, since they are the values that get an American college its credibility. I at least attended a Catholic University that wore its Christian values on its sleeve and did not worship secularism.

While college helped me see my place in society, which I had previously felt I was lacking and that I needed to work hard and be creative to earn, it is a place in society where I increasingly feel like I am trespassing, a place I cannot earn no matter how hard I work. But it's a place that is rightfully mine. My college degree mostly made me painfully aware of the possibility that I struggle in futility. This is not something I am willing to easily accept.

Questioning order is infinitely constructive for the privileged, for people that order benefits. But of course they are the least likely to do so. That leaves it for those who order has forsaken. But after a certain point, for those that order has forsaken and has left to question it, all order becomes an enemy, life becomes meaningless and their questions become a threat to no one but themselves. This becomes a sort of order itself, created and supported by human error and subterfuge. It is unsettling to realize that you are not of the former group, though you've been a confident, straight "A" student your whole life, when you are in the middle of college.

I have to believe that order can be good. I have to see it. When a library patron is scanning a shelf that I ensured was organized, when someone comes in for something and I know exactly where it is, when I can learn from my mistakes rather than feel like everything I do is a mistake, it helps me feel that I can earn my place as a positive aspect of a constructive order.

Obviously, I don't think the objective way that libraries are ordered is a way that people can be ordered because people are not objects and what is just for objects is not just for subjects. Order should contain justice because a belief in order requires a belief in justice. This belief in justice is apparent in religion, and so religion has been called "The opium of the masses," and "slave mentality," Marx and Nietzsche respectively, for it's support of unjust order through a belief in cosmic justice. But that's what's called "blaming the victim," in my book, and it's ridiculous to blame disenfranchised people who can empower themselves by believing in any greater order.

So as it turns out, not all minimum wage jobs are soul-crushing.



*You can be a patriarchal feminist. You probably are one if you think matriarchal societies and lesbians are all feminists. Chew on that now.

9/11: 10 Years Since And It's Time for A Muslim President

Good afternoon, my fellow Americans.
Well, actually, I should be honest,
I’m not an American citizen.
I’m a permanent resident, by chance,
patiently awaiting citizenship since I was a child of two.
But, please, hear me out:

Imagine me,
ten years ago,
seventh grade gym class,
the teacher comes in late,
interrupting my musings
over whether my sneakers made my feet look big,
saying, to the other teacher,
“No, they need to know.”

We fall silent.
He says,
“Guys, a plane flew into the Twin Towers
down in New York. It’s really bad.”

Imagine,
the words meant nothing to me.
I didn’t hear anything else he said.
Gym class moved through its usual motions.
As the day went on, I saw it on TV.
A friend of mine said he was worried
because his dad worked nearby.
As the day went on,
I wrote a poem, watching the second plane,
for the thousandth time.

Later, I was asked to read it at a school assembly.
I was nervous, but that day, I understood I had a responsibility.
I joined the school newspaper
to answer questions from people I didn’t know.
Was I was related to Osama bin Laden?
Did I have explosives hidden in my basement?
Did I believe in Jesus Christ?

The next year,
I joined school government and was elected into office.
The next year,
a friend told me she wanted to be trusted and,
in an act of self preservation,
shed her most protective layer; her hijab.

The next year,
I wrote poem after poem,
trying to understand.
The next year, I began volunteering in my community.

The next year, I watched Fahrenheit 9/11,
and completely distracted from Michael Moore’s snark
by the violent war imagery,
I cried like a baby.
The next year,
I became a media junkie,
holding my breath at every Muslim name,
praying to God,
that this person
was someone like me.
The next year,
my teachers chose me
for the Frederick Douglas and Susan B. Anthony Award.

The next year,
I went to college.
I wanted to study civil rights
and this made my parents very nervous.
The next year, Barak Obama was elected
and my mom said,
“May God protect him.”

The next year,
I wanted to be a writer,
but I didn’t want to write about exotic food,
or men with beards and guns,
or women who were a pair of kohl darkened eyes.

Last year,
some people demonstrated against the construction of a community center,
because it would house the prayer of Islam,
prayer of, in English, peaceful surrender,
which they believed could taint the sanctity
of the nearby sacred space known as Ground Zero.

The Pew Poll found, this year,
Muslims are the most diverse religious group in America,
the most optimistic religious group,
and a group as loyal to America as they are to their religion.
This year, a GOP hopeful said on television
that any Muslim serving under him
would have to take a special loyalty oath.

I read somewhere,
that you aren’t culturally considered American
unless your family has been here at least two generations before your birth.
Every morning, all through school,
I pledged allegiance to the flag
Of the United States of America,
And to the Republic, for which it stands,
One nation, under God,
With liberty, and justice for all.

I’d like to thank you, my fellow Americans,
who’ve been as good on their pledge as I have.

Radical Heritage

In Bangladesh, it's considered patriotic to be radically political. If you don't have any passionate political opinions, it's because you don't care about your country. If anyone's tried to kill you because of your provocative ideas, you are considered a hero in general consensus for having made people think. This basically being Humayun Azad's life story and him being my relative, no wonder my mom is wary of my literary and political leanings.

Though my literary aspirations are in vernacular English and my political aspirations are in American local government, I am after all, a Bengali educated in English and raised in America.

Azad wrote the Bengali equivalent of The Second Sex, was an anti-military, anti-religion satirist and wrote both adult and young adult fiction in addition to political criticism. He also wrote on and studied Bengali language linguistics. The political bent in his fiction is to be expected because Bangladeshis well know, as everyone should, that language is political. His form, therefore, suits his function, which is always a selling a point for me. Though I don't necessarily see eye to eye with him across the board, I have to admit that the man was a badass.

Bengali language is seeped in literary tradition well beyond Tagore (who Azad claimed to be a misogynist/chauvinist) and Arundhati Roy. Merely exposure to the language, apparently, can cause literariness, such as with immigrant Jhumpa Lahiri (and, I suspect, Rohinton Mistry although I'm not 100% positive on his first language). I'm just scratching the surface here. If I mention Bharati Mukherjee, I'm probably crossing into the realm of writers most people have never heard of, if I haven't been there for awhile already. I just wanted to add another person, Humayan Azad, to my readership's consciousness. If you had doubts about my writing capacity before, now you can rest assured that it's in my blood.

Park 51, Muslim America and my purpose in life

 Park 51, also known derogatorily as the Ground Zero Mosque, recently asked its Twitter followers, myself included, to email their website's editor if they were interested in blogging for them. I decided I might as well shoot them an email. My email, which was perhaps inappropriately long, described my own relationship with Ground Zero, how it was similar to that of Park51's, how it was formative to my identity as an American Muslim and how all this might be pertinent to Muslim Americans and Americans at large.

Writing that letter reminded me of the way I felt when I was in seventh grade, the way I felt when I was in high school and my intensively formative relationship with 9/11-- a relationship I'd unknowingly and unwillingly grown out of. I don't think my parents understood the impact of 9/11 on a young Muslim hijabi just finding her place in the world, considering their protests to my interests. I know I could have tried to persevere in my interests regardless--and I kind of did, but I really had no idea what to do or any system of support to guide me. It was not an abandoned interest, it was a dream deferred. And you know what happens to those.

Whether I am given the chance to blog for Park51 or not. writing that letter to them revived my dream and reminded me of what I believe to be my purpose in this life. Whether I had known it as exactly as I know it now, I'm not sure, so maybe articulating my blog ideas actually made me realize my purpose. Derailed from my purpose, I had no motivation.

In my letter, I said,

Whether we like it or not, 9/11 and it’s enduring aftermath are an integral part of the American Muslim identity. However, the historical evocation of our entrance into the general American consciousness is still in our hands to mold and this is an opportunity that must not elude us.

I may have less options for how to approach this than I might have had if I had pursued this in college. However, I do well with making do with what little I have. Thank you, Park51.

Guess who's back?