danacara
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This is by John Farmer, a political editorialist based in NJ. It's 9/11 related, and it's telling and nonjudgemental. It's not really debate material, and I thought it was generally interesting, so I'm putting it on the CB.
Dana
___________________________________________________
Ceremonies for Sept. 11 leave some in middle
Monday, September 16, 2002
John Farmer
Call him Ishmael.
It's not his only name or even his real name. He has many names. He lives in many places in America -- Detroit perhaps, or Buffalo, or Jersey City. He's an Arab-American and last week's observances of the 9/11 tragedy were an ordeal for him as they were for most Americans. Maybe more so for him than for most Americans.
For the range of emotions he experienced as he watched the daylong memorial services and somber commemorations on television must have been far more complex, even contradictory, than those of Americans who are not of Arab or Middle Eastern heritage.
He surely felt sorrow for the innocent victims of terror at the World Trade Center; some, he knew, were Arabs. He may have felt shame that this barbaric assault on Western civilization -- on his country, America -- was the work of his ethnic brothers. But he felt other emotions, too. A new sense of isolation, for one.
He was not, he knew, quite as much a part of the 9/11 commemoration as were other Americans. How could he be? Too many of his fellow citizens regard him and his kind differently now, with suspicion in many cases and with hatred in a few -- but even a few is too many. He senses the difference. He feels it not merely in airports or sporting events, in crowds and on the street, but even at work, among people who have known him well.
The awareness of his difference from those around him has grown in his own mind as well as in the minds of other Americans. He's often uncomfortable now in his own country.
He's not alone. At home, in the mosque and in the neighborhood's Middle Eastern restaurants he hears similar expressions of isolation and alienation. He also hears condemnations of America and the West in general. He knows young Arab-Americans who silently sympathize with alQaeda and regard Osama bin Laden with reverence. And he's aware that in some U.S. mosques, hatred of America, Americans and the West is preached even today. In others, it is tolerated if not overtly preached.
He doesn't share these sentiments. But he understands them. And he bitterly opposes American policies that he believes not only favor Israel and punish Palestinians but look the other way at Israeli brutality in the West Bank. He buys the argument of Arab intellectuals here and abroad that the Bush administration's Middle East policy is driven by the political power of American Jews.
He has, at best, ambiguous feelings about American Jews. He resents intensely their influence in American public and political life and its impact on his people in the Middle East. He knows the story of Jewish suffering in the Holocaust. But that merely makes it more difficult for him to comprehend what he sees as Israeli indifference to Palestinian suffering today.
At the same time he has to admire, however grudgingly, Jewish achievement and success in America -- in art, music, literature and business -- and yearns for the same for his people. Such achievement was all too evident during last week's commemorations, many enriched by the music of Jewish composer and performers.
He knows the history of his own people and their luminous past. A millennium ago the Muslim Arab world boasted civilization's greatest achievements in art, science, literature, mathematics and government. That's all gone now. How did it happen? he must wonder. Arabs and Jews claim much the same ancient heritage, after all. His namesake, Ishmael, from whom Arabs claim descent, also was a son of Abraham. What went wrong?
Although an American, maybe even an ex-U.S. serviceman, he feels estranged from the new surge of patriotism in the country. He knows anti-foreigner fervor may not be directed at him personally, but he knows, too, that it is directed at people who look like him, who share his culture as well as his religious beliefs.
He does not support suicide bombers. But he understands them and the terrorist groups that foster them. He knows what drives them, the long Arab deprivation of pride and a proper place in the world. What he feels may be a bit like the sympathy and support some Irish-Americans, maybe many of them, gave the Provisional Irish Republican Army. It too was officially labeled a terrorist organization by the American government.
It's not likely to get much better any time soon for Ishmael and Americans like him, not with America readying for war with Iraq. He may have little use for Saddam Hussein, whose war with Iran produced 2 million Muslim deaths, more than the West has ever inflicted. But he fears for Iraqi civilians. And he dreads the added suspicion and hostility such a war could generate here at home toward American Muslims.
Count Ishmael among the Americans most conflicted and troubled by the events of the last week and indeed the last year. But count him also among the victims of 9/11.
Dana
___________________________________________________
Ceremonies for Sept. 11 leave some in middle
Monday, September 16, 2002
John Farmer
Call him Ishmael.
It's not his only name or even his real name. He has many names. He lives in many places in America -- Detroit perhaps, or Buffalo, or Jersey City. He's an Arab-American and last week's observances of the 9/11 tragedy were an ordeal for him as they were for most Americans. Maybe more so for him than for most Americans.
For the range of emotions he experienced as he watched the daylong memorial services and somber commemorations on television must have been far more complex, even contradictory, than those of Americans who are not of Arab or Middle Eastern heritage.
He surely felt sorrow for the innocent victims of terror at the World Trade Center; some, he knew, were Arabs. He may have felt shame that this barbaric assault on Western civilization -- on his country, America -- was the work of his ethnic brothers. But he felt other emotions, too. A new sense of isolation, for one.
He was not, he knew, quite as much a part of the 9/11 commemoration as were other Americans. How could he be? Too many of his fellow citizens regard him and his kind differently now, with suspicion in many cases and with hatred in a few -- but even a few is too many. He senses the difference. He feels it not merely in airports or sporting events, in crowds and on the street, but even at work, among people who have known him well.
The awareness of his difference from those around him has grown in his own mind as well as in the minds of other Americans. He's often uncomfortable now in his own country.
He's not alone. At home, in the mosque and in the neighborhood's Middle Eastern restaurants he hears similar expressions of isolation and alienation. He also hears condemnations of America and the West in general. He knows young Arab-Americans who silently sympathize with alQaeda and regard Osama bin Laden with reverence. And he's aware that in some U.S. mosques, hatred of America, Americans and the West is preached even today. In others, it is tolerated if not overtly preached.
He doesn't share these sentiments. But he understands them. And he bitterly opposes American policies that he believes not only favor Israel and punish Palestinians but look the other way at Israeli brutality in the West Bank. He buys the argument of Arab intellectuals here and abroad that the Bush administration's Middle East policy is driven by the political power of American Jews.
He has, at best, ambiguous feelings about American Jews. He resents intensely their influence in American public and political life and its impact on his people in the Middle East. He knows the story of Jewish suffering in the Holocaust. But that merely makes it more difficult for him to comprehend what he sees as Israeli indifference to Palestinian suffering today.
At the same time he has to admire, however grudgingly, Jewish achievement and success in America -- in art, music, literature and business -- and yearns for the same for his people. Such achievement was all too evident during last week's commemorations, many enriched by the music of Jewish composer and performers.
He knows the history of his own people and their luminous past. A millennium ago the Muslim Arab world boasted civilization's greatest achievements in art, science, literature, mathematics and government. That's all gone now. How did it happen? he must wonder. Arabs and Jews claim much the same ancient heritage, after all. His namesake, Ishmael, from whom Arabs claim descent, also was a son of Abraham. What went wrong?
Although an American, maybe even an ex-U.S. serviceman, he feels estranged from the new surge of patriotism in the country. He knows anti-foreigner fervor may not be directed at him personally, but he knows, too, that it is directed at people who look like him, who share his culture as well as his religious beliefs.
He does not support suicide bombers. But he understands them and the terrorist groups that foster them. He knows what drives them, the long Arab deprivation of pride and a proper place in the world. What he feels may be a bit like the sympathy and support some Irish-Americans, maybe many of them, gave the Provisional Irish Republican Army. It too was officially labeled a terrorist organization by the American government.
It's not likely to get much better any time soon for Ishmael and Americans like him, not with America readying for war with Iraq. He may have little use for Saddam Hussein, whose war with Iran produced 2 million Muslim deaths, more than the West has ever inflicted. But he fears for Iraqi civilians. And he dreads the added suspicion and hostility such a war could generate here at home toward American Muslims.
Count Ishmael among the Americans most conflicted and troubled by the events of the last week and indeed the last year. But count him also among the victims of 9/11.
