Beyond Marginalization — Part 1: Intrusive Curiosity
This is part one in a series presenting some aspects of my personal account of marginalization in America as I encounter it, Raw and often overlooked as ignorance or romanticized as a curiosity.
I am an Arab-Muslim migrant living in Texas. Muslims and Arabs are beyond marginalized. Conversations about racism and discrimination barely ever include Muslims (for obvious to state reasons.) Arabs are confused with Persians and labelled under a strange open-wide stereotype called “middle-eastern.” Migrants are exploited by political demagogues. Some are upset that we are stealing their jobs. And some, the liberals, say they need us to clean public bathrooms and brush their toilets. I am yet to find an American who realizes that immigrants are displaced from their homes due to American intervention in their homelands. For instance, folks often approach me with the seemingly curious question of “So how was it in Cairo? And why did you move to America?” I like to give them an honest answer “There are way too many American F-26 jets hovering over Cairo, it is terrifying.”
Being a minority in America, I have developed a strong sense of racism. Racism is always novel and often disguised. It is ever-changing. But always revealing an underlying assumption that Americans come first, and the rest of the world follows. There is always a dehumanizing platform for other races and nations as lesser. Depicting them as ignorant crowds who need American enlightenment. Portraying them as a backward bunch who can’t help but destroy themselves. Even during the Trump presidency, Americans assume an entitlement to the meanings of freedom and democracy. Many of my American peers feel they must help their poor brown immigrant friend understand what democracy means.
I have learned how to adapt to marginalization. Regardless of its cruelty, I always take it lightly. And I always mind my own business as it happens. In that, I follow the Minhaj (teachings) of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him.) When someone would outright insult Muhammad, Muhammad would turn away, overlooking the offender. This is how I deal with it in my personal life. And I leave the grand scale mission of defeating racism to the activists and politicians. Speaking of which, racism can sometimes come disguised as anti-racism. I am speaking of when I come across a strong proponent of political correctness who wishes to enlighten me about my rights and educate me about how I must speak up, assuming inferiority in my personal capacity for holding my own boundaries, dismissing the fact that I have outperformed the standards and measures for a strong sense of self. Merely by being here, by crossing oceans and continents to redefine my destiny in a world that kept telling me from birth to adulthood that “Americans are soon to come and destroy your home.”
Last September, I went to Sulphur Hot Springs, White River National Forest with two of my dearest friends, my mountain tribe. All I wanted that day was to watch the sunset while swimming in the springs. But America had something else ready for me. As we get to the springs, we find a crew of average white Americans swimming in the springs. Looks on their faces expressed utter ignorance. I just wanted to avoid becoming a learning treadmill for someone else. I chose to avoid them in hopes of keeping my discomfort internal. This is what I thought to myself, and I wish I was wrong. Everything seemed to be going well and my avoidance has proved successful. Until we left the springs and took on the steep climb up towards the parking lot. A bland blonde girl approached me with a conspicuous smile asking:
-So your name is really “Awesome” (pronouncing it with an obnoxious nasal inflexion)?
-(Thinking to myself, here we go!) That’s close to the correct pronunciation.
-How is it spelt though?
-Een Alef Saad Meem (عاصم)
-(inarticulate look)
-I am Arab, we have a different alphabet.
-haha that’s cool, where are you from?
-I am Egyptian.
-Oh My God! I always want to go to Egypt. Y’all have so many camels, right?
-Oh yeah, we ride camels instead of buses back home. That’s all we got.
-(Inarticulate for 10 seconds.) Sorry, that’s just what I heard. My friend lived there and said there were so many Camels everywhere.
-Really? She did?
-Yes! She lived in Saudi Arabia for two months.
-Ahh that’s right! Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Singapore, all the same! Countries where brown people live haha.
-Oh I am so sorry, I… I… (trying to reconcile with her offensive words) I just didn’t know
-Take it easy my friend. Isn’t it, in the first place, strange that we have such a high expectation of how much one should know?
-Thank you (walks away and gives me room to breathe.)
There has got to be someone who would read this dialogue and quickly think “How is this racist?” And my dear friend, let me explain to you a few things: whether you find this racist or not, is insignificant. Racism is a symbol, a rational category that abstracts reality. It is merely a label. And I am less concerned about the label. What matters here is the pattern of American inward misconception of the rest of the world.
The rest of the world in the contemporary American consciousness oscillates between two dehumanizing extremes. The backward bunch in dire need of enlightenment. And the romanticized exotic world history museum. It appears to me that the American mind views the rest of the world with extravagant wonder and pointed curiosity. Arabs are assumed to be riding camels and living in a reenaction of One Thousand and One Nights. This attitude is often overlooked as benign and romanticized as a passionate curiosity. The seriousness of this attitude mainly arises from the relationship of dominance that Americans have over the rest of the world, and particularly over the Middle East. As I told the blonde ignorant chick, it is unfair to expect anyone to know so much about places so far away from them. However, it is extremely dangerous to couple such ignorance of a place with power over it.
This coupling is strikingly embodied in the American middle east so-called-specialists that don’t know how to speak عربي nor فارسي (two of the dominant languages in that region.) Such experts, of course, understand where the oil wells are in relation to American military bases in the region. However, they lack any humane understanding of the peoples they displace in transporting the oil from my home to theirs. While less directly obvious, the blonde chick participates in the same cycle of dominance and ignorance. Her voice affects American Foreign affairs (Whether she reckons that or not.) And because of her reductive view of the middle east as a world museum of camels, she demands cheaper oil of her government (and economy) without any considerations of any afflictions arising from cheaper oil. She views the middle east in distance and the oil in closeness. She fails to realize that the collective cost of a gallon of gas in America ranges between $2 to $5 plus the blood of 2 to 3 innocent Iraqi civilians and the erosion of cultural heritage in the Arab world.
Setting aside the roots of American predatory violence in the middle east, this interaction is still dehumanizing on a personal level. Which after all, is what deeply matters to me. I am not your tour guide. I am not an object in your exotic museum to examine. I am not another subject in your Human Zoo. I am a human belonging to an interconnected web of relations. I am a human with private life, friends and family. I have a personal narrative that I exist and flow through. So, keep your extravagant curiosity about my homeland and religion away from me. I refuse to be defined by your stereotypes and I refuse to be constantly set in a position of defending myself against your stereotypes of Islam and the Middle East.
I find it appropriate to state that I have faith in cultural fusion: The mutual exchange of cultural goods and norms on the basis of compassion and authentic relating towards one another. The society-wide counterpart of getting along and working together. I lead a life of hope and faith in human communities and their ability to relate to each other. We are more alike than we think. Besides that, we are the descendants of the most altruistic hunter-gatherers that survived the cruelty of wilderness. As a migrant, I can’t help but participate in such cultural fusion. After all, migration is, ipso facto, a platform for the everlasting human tradition of cultural ambassadorship. Hence, I openly offer my cultural goods to my friends and encounters in a peaceful, mutually respectful exchange. This is very different from form the rude, pointed, inquisitive curiosity that some of my encounters (and sometimes friends) direct at me.
It is not a coincidence that the common excuse for the inquisitive attitude has been curiosity. This is the very same attitude that the colonizers had towards the world, and now their grandkids get to practice and perpetuate it further. The colonizer valued his curiosity about the world and assumed it transcends all good. A generalization of his juridical practice. A violent attitude of entitlement to knowing. Such attitude is clearly reflected in Bacon’s word in The Advancement of Learning: “when by art and the hand of man she is forced out of her natural state, and squeezed and moulded,” “to examine nature herself and the arts upon interrogatories,” and “nature exhibits herself more clearly under the trials and vexations of art than when left to herself.” This attitude didn’t stop at nature as a material object but extended towards humans and nations that were held in a subordinate inquisitive stance to be studied and exploited.
Today, contemporary American culture perpetuates the same pattern of inquisition. Minorities and migrants suddenly become the object of the privileged’s anthropology homework. They reach to feel the touch of my traditional galabia, rudely comment on how Arabs treat women and stupidly question how many times a Muslim prays per day. A human from a minority group gets reduced into an object to be examined, admired or disregarded momentarily during the privileged temporary visit to the site.
It is worth pointing to a different attitude towards the unknown and the private that we share back home. We have a word for it. And unfortunately (or quite ironically) it lacks a literal translation in English. This word is الاستحياء (pronounced: Estehyaa). Which means approaching the unknown with humility and respect. It is a cultural norm in Egypt to dampen one’s own curiosity to show respect for the other. We collectively avoid pointed questions to our family, friends and acquaintances. This attitude has been reflected in the way Muslim scholars during the high tide of the Islamic Empire did not torture animals to learn of their nature, nor did they suppose a right to question other belief systems. They rather approached the external world with استحياء. They had sensitivity in asking questions not to offend or demolish. Quite beautifully, the word استحياء also means to breathe life into. So, when we approach the unknown with humility, we give it room to breathe and thrive.
