SIGNS ARE BAD

Everyday at ICNA Relief, I meet with men and women with a range of terrible problems. These are our neighbors, and these are your friends and family, sometimes too embarrassed to ask for your assistance. But our brothers and sisters are in crisis and need your help.

As you know, we are in the final days of Ramadan. And on your street, at the house a few doors down, the electricity is off, and no money to pay. Still, your neighbor has her phone, and has her health, thanks to Allah. So she doesn’t make a fuss. Through the windows, the light outside is fading. The sister adjusts her hijab and prepares to do her evening prayers, but stops, alone in the room. She listens, and suddenly a cold feeling takes over her body. Is someone there? What if he has come to beat her again? Last year, when she went to report the trouble, one city worker said to her, “So go back where you come from.” They have no idea—she was born here! But she did not go back to the agency. No more insults please, she thinks; and sighs, to clear her mind for prayer.

Final count-down to Eid. The taxi driver gets into his cab outside the halal restaurant. Time to work again. He had lost some of his regular clients in the World Trade Center disaster, and business was bad for almost a year. He took in more friends into his house to pay the rent, but then one day, immigration officers came to the door and picked up one of the brothers. Now he is scared he might be punished for helping them get a job. Sometimes he sees the ICE officers go into the buildings on his street, and take out men early in the morning while the neighbors were sleeping. He remembers how cold he suddenly felt, standing by the window looking out into the blue morning. Cold.

He thinks of his friend Ahmed who was shot to death last month in his store because he could not hear the gunman’s demand that he open the cash box. And also about Irfan, that funny guy who would drive the limo, who finally got permanent status but was robbed and murdered in his town car just before he went to visit his parents in Lahore. The taxi driver is finding it very hard to sleep these days. His friends say he looks like he is on crack. But no, he just feels so tired, so tired, so tired.

Waiting for Lailat al Qadir. The woman feeds her children, alone in the house. Her husband was detained 6 months ago, and now is in a jail so far away-- so far, that he has never seen his young son. He cries on the telephone sometimes, and she had never seen him cry. It is strange. They all had been happy together sometimes. After that terrible immigration lawyer lost her husband’s asylum case, they had been waiting for the amnesty. Waiting and Hoping for a long time. Her oldest child was born here ten years ago. He is now growing up to be an angry boy without his father. Now the woman is both father and mother, and also working for the first time. But oh, when will the family have iftar meal together again? She will cook his favorite curries with most loving hands.

Almost time to break fast. The businessman looks at his watch. Time to close the door to his office. His co-workers are respectful, though they really do not understand why he loves his religion. He loves it but feels strangely disconnected. Tonight he needs to finally decide about Zakat and all that. But who to write the checks to? He has made money, thanks to Allah, he has worked for it, but after that other charity was shut two years ago he just did not know what to do, or how to give. All of these charitable men seemed decent, and in fact some were his friends since school. Yes, he knew and liked them. But he could not make himself trust again. Still, he wished his own son was growing up to be more like them. His son, with the shameless girlfriends! And the lack of respect! “May Allah be merciful,” he thinks, and without realizing, checks his watch again.

We are now in the final stretch of our holy month. Every single day my ICNA Relief colleagues Br Musa Abdulsalam, Sister Rasheeda and Br. Hasan offer a sympathetic ear, problem solving and, sometimes, direct financial help to Muslims like these. We have had hundreds of clients. But because few donors give specifically to local services, ICNA has unfortunately run out of money to pay the Case Managers. This is Muslim work. How can we not value it?

And as I write, US planes bomb Fallujah, hit the Nazzal hospital, run by a Saudi Arabian Islamic charity, and destroy it to rubble. Charities get targeted everywhere! And there are many other developments overseas that pull our attention away. Bit some say that help starts at home. Our staff helps a lot of homes in crisis to keep the faith, to pay the bills, to get legal and other help. Charity at home means sharing the mercy and compassion of Allah. Muslims have to do it. And I remind you, and invite you to join us in service to humanity. Please donate generously to our local services!

There may be no easy solutions, but there is help for the sister in the house without electricity, for the brother wearing himself out with driving his taxi, for the domestic violence victim, for those facing eviction, stress, and a range of family problems.

We are all reminded that it is time to pay more attention to our state of soul. When we pay attention, we can notice: how am I when I am with my family, how am I affected by what I read, what do I think I am and what am I really? With prayer and practice we can see beyond our own small restless, reactive point of view. Allah tests us with happiness and with pain; all praise to Him. We gain perspective. We open our hearts.

Insha’Allah in the coming weeks I will rest my head and take a break from my column. With the election results, the signs from Washington are not good at all. And the signs in Albany are also worrisome. Most legislators across the state won re-election so easily, and now they may vote themselves a pay raise. To add further insult, these fat cats have yet to over-ride Governor Pataki’s veto of an increase in minimum wage. The growing gap between rich and poor is obscene. No one should be living on only five dollars an hour. And as you know some earn less! Insha’Allah, we Muslims will work for a better future, and leaders will offer service to those in need, and not simply seek power as they so often do. Let us make our demands on leadership. Let us rise up. This also requires funding! But we Muslims cannot afford to give up the struggle for social justice.

Consuming Youth in America

He is hungry. And angry, unhappy that he is fat. And thinking about that container of ice cream in the freezer. He worries about his image at school, and wonders about his will power. Samr (Rocky) Tayeh recorded a long and moving reflection about his obesity and the difficulty he has had coping with family and friends. It played on November 2, and other occasions on WNYC radio. Sometimes hearing such personal confessions you realize how much we all have in common. Whether it is food, or some other issue, we all have insecurities and weaknesses.
Samr is a 15 year old New Yorker participating in Radio Rookies 2003 workshop at Council of Pakistan Organizations (COPO) on Coney Island Avenue. In addition to legal advice, preparation for citizenship tests, and job training COPO has hosted students for this 12-to-15-week in which they research, record, edit and refine their own radio pieces. "Rookies" is the brainchild of WNYC reporter Marianne McCune, a former documentary and educational filmmaker who has also traveled to Pakistan to interview deported Pakistani immigrants. (see www.wnyc.org and click the "Radio Rookies).
We see and hear how community radio can give a voice to an adolescent from our own midst. Participation empowers. Also participating, Rizwan Aslam profiles a homeless man in his neighborhood who is being cared for by area merchants; Munir Karim questions reality through conversations with an imam, an astronomer, a philosopher and a psychiatrist. Muslim and non-Muslim youth. We all share such questions.

And we all sometimes wonder, “Why do they hate me?” But speaking of an entity obsessed with public and self image, tortured by insecurity and by this same question, Uncle Sam says “hi”. Hi??? Well “hi” with some nice packaging. “Hi” is a 4 million dollar venture developed by the State Department and media consultants to "build bridges of communication" between Arabs and the United States.

Described by its editors as a non-political, lifestyle magazine targeting young Arab men and women, Hi magazine seeks to win Muslim and Arab hearts and minds. As an experiment in “building civil society” this project may possibly do some good. But it is a strange American mix of idealism and Madison Avenue image-consulting. It is quite a contrast to community radio of “Radio Rookies.” And to the sincerity of Karim and young Samr.

Like so many other American magazines, this glossy magazine worships celebrity and trends, and according to Middle East Reports (www.merip.org/mero/interventions), “asks younger Arabs to dream of affluent American lifestyles -- and to shut off other brain functions.”

During the Cold War the CIA funded a number of fairly good intellectual magazines to help counter the appeal of communism. Publishing since summer, Hi magazine apparently represents an “MTV-version” of this propaganda war. And there is more of this to come-- just this week, the House of Representatives agreed to fund the creation of a 24-hour radio and television news network aimed at promoting American values in the Middle East. But one wonders if these values still include intellectual fairness and honesty in communication.

According to Middle East Reports, this magazine strips musicians like Cheb Khaled and activist poets of their political content, certainly of anything pro-Palestinian, even misrepresenting New York’s own Suheir Hammad's work; “Hi attempts to present Hammad as just another pop Arab artist who is gaining popularity in the US. The charged racial context of her Arab-American poetry is literally whitewashed by scribes under the supervision of the State Department.”

The magazine editors claim that selling “American” culture— in a happy, secular media version— is, “a new phenomenon in the Arab world…. a lifestyle magazine that doesn't touch on the political." While this claim is debatable—there are many western influenced magazines, TV shows, movies-- obviously this is a very political approach in itself. (see www.himag.com).

Yet at a time when the US should be engaging in honest dialogue about ideas it instead substitutes the media equivalent of bread and circuses. "The problem with young Arabs is not how they perceive U.S. culture or the American way of life," says Professor Mohammed Nawawy, quoted in an Islam On line article. "They're watching American movies and wearing American jeans and lining up to get visas to come to the United States. The problem is how they perceive United States foreign policy, and that can only be changed by actions on the ground in Iraq and Israel," he added. May Muslim youth find their Truth without compulsion; even if it is an imperfect, personal truth to start. We can do much better without the brainwashing of “Joe” Camel or of “Sam” bin Laden. May Allah guide us all to his freedom from Iftar to Suhur, from Maghreb to the sweet peace of Fajr.