islamophobia

Poetry is Dangerous

Kazim Ali
 
On April 19, after a day of teaching classes at Shippensburg University, I went out to my car and grabbed a box of old poetry manuscripts from the front seat of my little white Beetle and carried it across the street and put it next to the trashcan outside Wright Hall. The poems were from poetry contests I had been judging and the box was heavy. I had previously left my recycling boxes there and they were always picked up and taken away by the trash department.

A young man from ROTC was watching me as I got into my car and drove away. I thought he was looking at my car which has black flower decals and sometimes inspires strange looks. I later discovered that I, in my dark skin, am sometimes not even a person to the people who look at me. Instead, in spite of my peacefulness, my committed opposition to all aggression and war, I am a threat by my very existence, a threat just living in the world as a Muslim body.

President George Bush's "war on terror" rhetoric has strengthened terrorist groups by helping them to create a shared identity, the development secretary, Hilary Benn, warned yesterday.The Foreign Office reportedly asked politicians and diplomats to drop the phrase last year.

As a former New Yorker who once had the honor--I have to call it an honor, having read the article below--of waiting in line for tickets at a cinema in The Village a few places behind him, and a Sunni Muslim to boot, I have to say: Here's my kind of mensch! One who stands up and calls it like it is--even when one of "his own" is the offender:

Aziz P of City of Brass explains.

Sunday's UK Observer had a good story about ethnic and religious polarization in France, which provides a useful context in understanding the current fuss over Zidane's red card.

It's hardly surprising that more right-wing elements of the press would come down hard on Zidane's head-butt; one has to find racial epithets and religious stereotyping objectionable in the first place to understand how upset the guy must have been. 

The UK public was made very uncomfortable this week by the Times' widely-reported poll of British Muslims' views on terrorism. Certainly I was concerned about the revelations that 16% of respondents thought of the 7/7 bombers as martyrs, that 7% believed suicide bombing against UK civilians to be acceptable, and that a further 2% would be proud if a member of their family joined Al-Qaida. However, it's important to keep the above results in perspective. It's easy for an angry young man to talk big in a poll; but certainly only a small proportion of the most dangerous 2% mentioned above are actually psychopathic and suicidal enough to act on their views. Polls are inherently biased towards the views of the angry and alienated, who wish to make their dissatisfaction heard. Giving a radical answer in a poll is the safest kind of protest vote, since it doesn't change anything other than the contents of a database somewhere. This is why this sort of poll should be reported with restraint and a grain of salt, which unfortunately is not how this one has been treated by some of the tabloids.