Muslim, American, and Silent

Years ago, when the sun came up on Eid (the end of Ramadan), my sister and I used to get up, shower, put on our new clothes that my parents had saved up for and bought and that we had carefully laid out the night before. My mother used to make a breakfast spread full of delicious fritters and milky, caramelled sweets. We had tea and exchanged presents. This was our tradition, what my parents had carried over from Bangladesh. We couldn't afford much in our shoebox apartment in Queens, New York. But this was absolutely the best part of the year for us. We didn't get Christmas or Easter like all our classmates did. We didn't even get the whole week off for Eid--but we DID get to skip school and get to continue the day going from house to house, eating, hugging, exchanging presents.

"This is your culture as well as it is your religion," my parents told me over the years. I didn't get what that meant then but at twenty-six I’m beginning to understand. My family isn't very religious, thrusting Allah and his words into my sister's and my every day life. But we embraced the Muslim culture. that meant I didn't need to have the answers as much as I needed to enjoy and practice the little traditions--the fried pakoras and samosas, sweet date fruits, new salwar kameezes to wear, accepting money from uncles and aunts, and of course, the endless hugging and "Eid Mubaraks." These are living, breathing practices, changing with time and as new members from other countries and religions were welcomed in. We are all spiritual, respecting how each of us in the family approach Islam. There are about a hundred of us now in Houston, ranging from newborns to senior citizens. And every year we do what we always do--cook all day, gather in different houses for different meals, and just have a damn good time.

"This is your culture as well as your religion."

That is the phrase I have carried with me since, believing in the spiritual connections between me and a higher power rather than the five pillars most Muslims believe in. I’ve accepted that I am a Muslim in a very loose sense, a Bangladeshi in the racial sense, and American in every aspect of the word. So I have never understood how just being Muslim--a small part of who I am--put me in the same box as those "other" Muslims--the ones who hate Christianity and Americans, hate this country, disrespect anyone--including me and my family--who does. We do not even call them Muslims. We refer to them as "oy gula"--"those others."

When a very conservative, Republican, and Christian co-worker of mine recently asked me why "my people" tend to be terrorists, I tried explaining to her the different aspects of Islam, the different cultures, the different people that are put under that umbrella. When she still insisted that all Muslims needed to take responsibility for that small group of extremists, I finally told her, "No, you’re right because you should admit Christianity breeds pedophiles." Her stammered and shocked response was that she was Christian, but not Catholic--which is a small part of Christianity--and those were a small group of individual priests and they were extreme--and then she stopped mid-sentence and I let the argument rest.

A few weeks ago when we first heard of the "Ground Zero mosque" in the news my family did not discuss it. We were silent on the topic. We claim being Muslim, yes, but we also have become Muslim Americans. And when an angry (white and presumably “Christian”) man on the news shouted, "This is OUR Ground Zero!" I remember thinking to myself, "It's my Ground Zero too." but I couldn't say that out loud--I felt like I wasn't allowed to. We all felt like we weren't allowed to. And then of course it came out that it was not a mosque but a community center. And it was not at ground zero but several blocks away. And the imam in charge of it was a Sufi, a spiritual, less strict version of Islam. "'Real Islam,' he has been quoted saying (and by this he meant Sufism), 'is about experience, not Shariah (law). It is about a heart-and-soul connection between the individual believer and God—the sort of love that sets your whole being into dance." (CNN.com ) The men and people who support the terrorism of 9/11, I can tell you right now, would NOT agree with him.

He too, like my family and me and probably about 99% of the other Muslims living here in America, believe there is us, the Muslims who came here for a better life freely, with dreams and toddlers and our lives in suitcases, and then there are the "others." and we don't accept the others, we don't claim them as our own. But here we are, fighting tea baggers and pastors who tell us that we are "others" too. We apparently don't belong on the side with the non-Muslim Americans.

Then came the Bangladeshi cab driver (something my own father was at one point) who was stabbed for saying he’s Muslim and it was like we were under war just for being, for existing as we always have—and how does one fight that?

When the planes crashed on 9/11, every Muslim American I knew was just as devastated and frozen in fear early that morning. But that was before we knew that the culprits were people who claimed to be Muslim like us. We were on the same outraged, angry, scared side as every other American glued to tv's at the beginning. We were just as in shock as everyone else, crying, waiting, shaking our heads. It wasn't until the names of the terrorists surfaced and the reports of al-Qaeda involvement came out that we were silenced. All of a sudden, the country we had made our own, the country we brought our traditions into freely and without fear, was a place of hate and criticism. All of a sudden, our anger at the twin towers falling, at the murders of all those people, was no longer valid. Our houses were getting egged, people looked at us in disgust at grocery stores, and our children couldn't even go to school.

It has been nine whole years and yet we're still not allowed to be American because we're Muslim. In fact, the ideology that if you're Muslim, you cannot also be American has been a fight our own (rather Christian) president has been faced with. (discovery.com) I stop myself from saying, "So what if he is Muslim?" all the time because the part of me that is still hurting from 9/11 realize that there are several hurt Americans who cannot and will not distinguish the "others" from the rest of us. Take that pastor down in Florida. This past week General Petraeus warned that if Pastor Terry Jones from Gainesville, FL burned those Qurans, there would be backlash across the ocean on our troops. A CNN poll showed that over 80% of Americans agree. And yet Pastor Jones insists it's to show radical Muslims "that we will not bow our knees to them." (cnn.com)

Really? Is that the message burning those Qurans is going to send? REALLY?

The Quran isn't the enemy, Mr. Jones. No one is blaming the Bible for your stupidity. Burning those Qurans will be like making fun of a bully's mother, a bully who has weapons and was already circling the playground waiting to beat the crap out of you. It’s simply NOT a good idea. And the bully's peaceful siblings may not condone the bully's actions but will still hurt when you insult their mother too. And that's not a good idea either.

"I don't pick up the Quran everyday and I can't recite it to you line by line," an aging relative told me the other day, "but someone burning it--no, no. that would hurt my HEART. It would hurt all of our hearts."

Tonight, Friday, September 10, 2010, my family and I--all 40-something cousins and second cousins and aunts and uncles and family friends--will put on our new clothes, eat amazing meals, and hug each other, thankful we're together, that we have homes and love and jobs and health. But underneath it there might be a tiny bit of fear and the feeling that we are doing something wrong. This growing Islamiphobia in this country is going to dampen what has always been a wonderful celebration of faith, of culture, of who we are. But then again, maybe it won't. Maybe for one day at least we'll forget the intolerance and the hate we keep hearing about and just be--just be Muslim, American, and not silent about any of it.

And on September 11th, just like any other American, we will remember what those "others" did, how they caused us to be part of a fight we never agreed to. We will pray too for the lost lives and families left behind. But we may do this silently. Whether those Qurans burn or not, whether Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf gets to build his community center or not, we as Muslim Americans are already heartbroken. And we are, quite frankly, tired of fighting a fight we never signed up for.