September 11, 2009

This September 11th, read a book about a Muslim

Share: posted by Sara Haji at 08:52 AM

Today is the 8th anniversary of September 11th, 2001--a day that radically altered the lives, world-views, and perception of safety of millions of Americans. The healing process has been fraught with tumult, but it has also recently been infused with a hitherto-unheard voice: that of Muslim-American artists. I won't go into the ability of art--of writing, and the arts in general--to heal and inspire and uplift, but I will, for a moment, express how unprecedented it is that the writings of Muslim-Americans about Muslim-Americans are being read across the nation. One of the struggles of the American people these past eight years has been to reconcile the World Trade Center attacks with a largely underdeveloped awareness of their Muslim neighbors. On the other side, Muslim-Americans were thrust into an unwelcome spotlight back in 2001, and they found themselves floundering for ways to undermine the Clash of Civilizations theory largely taking precedence in the public mindset. As mosques were desecrated and veiled women jeered at, the moderate Muslim majority had little recourse or method by which to indicate that they, too, ascribed to the values of their non-Muslim neighbors. 

Today, Wajahat Ali, a 29-year-old writer from the Bay Area, debuts a play Off-Broadway. "The Domestic Crusaders" attempts to depict the experiences of three generations of a Muslim, Pakistani-American family that gathers to celebrate the 21st birthday of the family's son. The play has been compared to American classics like "Death of a Salesman" and "A Raisin in the Sun." Says Ali:

You dissect all their "strange" customs, take away their Urdish and Arabic they mix in with their English, remove the Islamic piquancy, and replace biryani with an ethnic food of your choice, and they could - or should- resemble you, your family, or your friends. If they do not, I have failed and deserve to be called out for creating cardboard stereotypes instead of authentic human beings with all their glory, flaws, and warts for the world to see.

Ali's artistic success reflects the mainstreaming of Muslim-American identity, though he claims TV and movie producers have offered him production contracts contingent upon his making the characters "a little less brown or Muslim." Closer to home, Austin-based author Shaila Abdullah writes about the experiences of a Muslim woman in the United States after 9/11. Her newest novel, Saffron Dreams, follows Arissa Illahi, a Muslim artist in New York City whose husband is killed in the attacks on the World Trade Center. The novel's cheesy exterior, which somewhat unfortunately plays to an exoticized portrayal of the mysterious, veiled Muslim woman, nevertheless belies its incredibly pertinent subject matter and the question at its core: what it means to be an American after attacks that brought to the foreground simmering dichotomies of race, culture and religion in U.S. society. 

Some may find today's post disrespectful to the nearly three thousand Americans who lost their lives on September 11th, 2001. I shouldn't be writing about the conflicted identities of Muslim-Americans; I should instead be writing about the innocent people who suffered that day. With the utmost respect, I disagree. September 11th, 2001, can never and will never be forgotten. But, art and dialogue and activism have heralded a new beginning for this country: one in which these selfsame media mark proactive attempts to bridge cross-cultural misunderstanding and bring to the foreground the incredible pluralism showcased by the American people. The violence, extremism and separatism exhibited elsewhere needn't exist in this, the country that actually weathered the chaos and tragedy of 9/11. And, as Wajahat Ali writes, "[C]atharsis never comes by inaction and silence."

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