Community of Interest, Community of Others

Ramadan is coming. What will it bring? How will it be different this year? What will we each learn as a member of the community and what as an individual?


The train stops at the subway station. An unknown person boards the train, clutching a black bag, wearing dark sunglasses and a coat –despite the heat. Then one perhaps notices the skin is fairly dark, hard to know what ethnicity. It is even hard to know the gender of this person, who sits just across from me. I recall the warning: “If You See Something Say Something.” Oh dear, I cannot even see the eyes or what this person is looking at.


Of course I think of the descriptions of suicide bombers dressed in bulky garments, and sniff the air for the smell of manure or other explosive materials. What to do? Shall I stay seated or move my seat to the far end of the train?


Just as I am about to move my seat, I realize that this person is not a terrorist. Rather, this person is homeless, clutching a few pathetic worldly possessions and prepared to sleep with dark glasses protecting against the glare of the train lights. This person is wearing protective covering almost like a person in hijab. Could someone like me have reported this person as a national security threat?


We all know that over six years have passed since the terror attack of 9/11. During this time there have indeed been other terror attacks around the world, and a variety of plots and conspiracies. However, right wing agitators have fanned a fear of Muslims way out of proportion to any existing threat. We have become the new “Other.” Through the internet, a range of misguided vigilante groups are able to spread fear and misinformation just as other extremists do. This fear is helpful to maintain pressure on the government to maintain the neo-conservative agenda.


In Germany last week, some young Muslim converts were arrested as terrorism suspects. While it is too early to judge the relative strength of this case, or assess the role informers apparently played in this plot, one noted with some surprise the news reports that 32,150 German residents are categorized as radical threats, but only 100 of these are considered dangerous. Assuming this categorization even makes sense, one might indeed agree to the surveillance of a few. But then how does one treat the so-called “threat” of the much larger number? Do they all lose a certain number of rights? We have heard that the German government is using this opportunity to ask for surveillance of all Muslim converts. And what rights are we losing here? What is the standard for surveillance? In New York City, we have been asking such questions following the recent publication of the NYPD report on Muslim radicalization, indicating a very wide net of planned surveillance.


And throughout the USA, the telephone and communications companies have been providing information to the Federal Government not only on persons of interest but on “communities of interest.” Recent reports indicate that data mining is affecting enormous numbers of people associated or casually connected with radical Muslims. Since “radical” is a rather subjective term, it seems that we are all in this community of interest. Data mining is all fairly automatic intelligence gathering. It is not very intelligent. The computer does not judge us—it simply looks for links. We are all connected— a new reflection on the slogan of AT&T.


Perhaps we perceive the rationalizations for surveillance of the entire Muslim community. Perhaps this wide-angle focus goes towards understanding why so many millions are on lists to be flagged at airports. But in the process we as Muslims are being made to feel homeless and suspect in our own country. And some of us also see Non-Muslims as “others” as well. Therefore we all become “Others.” And as Americans we are all wearing dark glasses, blind to the reality in front of us.


This reality cannot be known through ideology alone or understood through fear. So how to understand each other in a more comprehensive way, to move beyond the clash of extremisms and media hype? We may study anthropology and psychology to know the “other” as ourselves. And insha'Allah religion may help us understand. Along with other tools, music and art may embody and express deep human knowledge and open our minds and hearts to larger realities.


Even through their artifice, theater can prepare us to better see reality. And as theater, our public rituals represent and even transform a community’s collective identity through negotiation of symbol and space and power relationships. And parades and conferences provide multicolored mirrors for us all—out in the open for all to see.


At New York’s Muslim day Parade yesterday thousands of Muslim men and women turned out to show their pride in face of attacks by the right wing. Walking past the counter protestors with their misleading signs and hateful cries, many of our brothers and sisters became energized and glowed with light. It was, as one speaker observed, a wonderful opportunity to show our better side to those who fear and even hate us.


On the other side of the street, as a mirror image of the counter-protestors, the Islamic Thinkers group hoisted their provocative signs, separate from the main parade celebration. But Messages of hate and Holocaust denial have no place at such an event. Extreme views, like support for 9/11 terror, should have no place in the wider Muslim community either.


This Ramadan let us be careful not to drink the Kool-Aid of extremist political ideology of any flavor. Instead, this Ramadan we as a “community of interest” will come together to quench our deepest thirst in positive and fearless ways, not as Others, but as our deepest selves. Insha’Allah, in this world of injustice and confusion, we will find someone “other” to whom we give the last word; we will find an “other” to love; and Creation will smile back at us all.