Some years ago,in response to a piece critiquing the endless US shenanigans in the MiddleEast, an American reader wrote back: “Why do you hate America?”
As some of myperceptive readers might have already deduced, I get loads of fan mail inresponse to my weekly rants, especially from my own kind, some of it not veryflattering. Yet the accusation “why do you hate America?” from an all-Americanwhite reader was a little unsettling, as I do not see myself as anAmerica-baiter. Indeed, I grew up admiring and adoring America.
The influence ofAmerican literature, Hollywood and their collective glorification of ambition,grit and hard work left an indelible imprint on an impressionable young IndianMuslim. Those influences are still very much part of my consciousness. Just asthey are a part of people of my generation and those who followed later.
After all, noneof us, wherever we are and whoever we are, can escape the far-reachinginfluence of Pax Americana. You do not have to be a Star Wars fan, drink Cokeor sport Levi’s and Nike to be a part of the empire of mind created by UncleSam. There is a little America in all of us. And we all love and admire invarious degrees what America ostensibly stands for or once stood for:Democracy, freedom, civil liberties, freedom of speech and action and acelebration of individualism and doing your own thing.
If you are bornwith imagination, crazily original ideas or just happen to be a plain hardworking guy, then the land of the free is for you. No matter where you wereborn or where you come from, America would embrace you – or at least did untilrecently. If you have guts for glory, patience and persistence, it’s notimpossible for anyone to get your slice of the American pie. Life is beautiful!
This is what we oncebelieved about America. Many of us still do. At least, I still do. I like myshare of Hollywood potboilers, Westerns and John Grisham’s legal thrillerswhere small, insignificant men are pitted against big, bad corporate leviathansand who ultimately prevail over their far more powerful opponents.
Despite thewatershed transformation that America has undergone after 9/11, there has beenlittle change in the essential character and soul of the country apparentlydiscovered by Columbus. It might have changed in the way foreigners arereceived at US airports. The punishing frisking, scanning and dauntingquestioning certainly make all visitors to the land of the free feel verywelcome! This gets all the more unpleasant when visitors happen to be or look like,you know, who. But then that is how it is in the rest of the world these daystoo — from European airports to Asian holiday destinations.
The welcomeceremony doesn’t vary much whether you are at LaGuardia airport in New York orpassing through Charles de Gaulle of Paris. That now infamous date in September2001 has forever changed the way we fly and the way we look at each other.Especially the way the Americans view the rest of the world–the Muslims inparticular.
Yetnotwithstanding the unprecedented curbs imposed on freedom at home and theusual suspects around the world, Muslim Americans are still better off thantheir counterparts, say, in Europe. This is borne out by several recent opinionpolls.
This may come as a surprise but Muslim Americansstill feel and see themselves as an essential part of the US mainstream. Thisis despite the pathological aversion of this administration for all thingsMuslim and the disastrous war on terror under Bush & Co. In total contrast,the European Muslims, long paraded as a model of the continent’s fabledmulticulturalism and tolerance, are dangerously angry and unhappy with theWestern policies in the Muslim world in general and their host countries inparticular. Unlike the Muslim Americans who are a healthy part of themainstream, Muslims in Europe have been living on the sidelines of theirsocieties.
Unlike theirfellow believers across the Atlantic who’ve been enjoying the fruits ofAmerica’s economic progress, Europe’s Muslims live in deprivation and isolationin their ghettos and enclaves. So it’s no coincidence that the US hasn’twitnessed any major incidents involving US Muslims since 9/11. On the otherhand, Europe has reported several terror plots, not to mention the beelineEuropean Muslims made to join the sham “caliphate” of ISIS.
The US Muslimsresponded remarkably swiftly to the challenge posed by 9/11 developments.First, they closed their ranks. Secondly, they reached out to the Americansaddressing the accusations and misconceptions vis-à-vis Islam and Muslims.Instead of withdrawing into their shells, they have tried their best to presentthe true face of their noble faith.
But this is alsolargely thanks to the US model of assimilation and acceptance. If the USMuslims today identify themselves with America without compromising theirreligious and cultural identity, the credit goes in no small measure to the USspirit of embracing newcomers. It’s only in the US that an Austrian immigrant,Arnold Schwarzenegger, can scale the heights of success in Hollywood and becomegovernor of California. Or a Barack Hussain Obama, born to a Kenyan Muslimfather and white American mother, can occupy the highest office in theland.
As Mohsen Hamid,the author of Reluctant Fundamentalistwrote some time back: “If you speak with an American accent, you’re an American(it doesn’t matter whether you are a Muslim or Hindu). In Europe, although I’ma British citizen, they still refer to me as a Pakistani novelist. In the US,even though I’ve never had an American passport, I am called a PakistaniAmerican.”
I love andadmire this side of America. The America of Robert Frost, Mark Twain andHemingway. This is the land of Thomas Jefferson, Abe Lincoln, Martin LutherKing Jr. and my beloved hero Mohammed Ali. This America is different from the one that the punditocracy obsessesover day after day. The America that repels and agitates you and me is like adifferent country altogether. Represented by neocons, Zionist lobbies andpowerful corporate interests, this entity is self-centered and most oftendoesn’t seem to see beyond its nose. It seeks to run the whole world as itsextended colony.
It doesn’t losesleep over a couple of million innocent lives wasted here and there. It’s thisleviathan that you see throwing its weight around in the Middle East and aroundthe world. Unfortunately, this America controls and manipulates the Americathat we all know and love. For like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Uncle Sam appears tosuffer from the disorder of a split personality.
You don’t quite know which side indeed represents the real America. But it is not for us — the outsiders — to determine which side of America is cosmetic and which truly represents its values, ideals and spirit. It is for the Americans to decide once and for all which America really represents them and which they would like the world to see: The America of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay or the freedom-loving and humane America that comes forward to help the helpless, as it did during World War II and more recently in the Balkans? Will the real America please stand up!
(Aijaz Zaka Syed is a former newspaper editor. Email: Aijaz.syed@hotmail.com Twitter: @AijazZaka)