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Essay Excerpt / A Kashmiri in America : The Lucky Shade of Brown /
Muzamil Jaleel, the Indian Express bureau chief in Kashmir during a tumultuous decade, has taken his sharp eye and sharp wit from Cambodia to Northern Ireland, from Afghanistan to the Middle East. On fellowships, he studied briefly at the University of California at Berkeley and worked at the Guardian and the Observer in London. He has written on terrorism and suicide for Mother Jones. In December and deep into the winter of 2008, he did the reporting job he has long wanted to do: In America.
On a chilly January evening in 2004, as the Austrian airliner hovered over Washington, my heart pounded fast and my legs went numb. It was my first visit to the United States, and I tried to calm myself before the questions of an immigration officer. Again and again I’d been told the same thing: A young Muslim from Kashmir - a conflict zone where Islamic militant groups on the U.S. terror list operate against India - is going to raise suspicion.
For the first time, my identity and my Arabic name made me anxious. I had learned America’s colors of threat: red, orange, yellow, blue. Curiously, the Islamic color, green, signified the lowest risk. There wasn’t any color for no threat. I couldn’t believe the official term for foreigners in America was “aliens.” So I prayed and hoped that I would be able to hide my anxiety and answer every question with confidence.
But I didn’t face any questions. The officer looked at my papers, smiled, and politely asked me to face the camera for a headshot. He then guided my hands for the compulsory fingerprint. As I walked out to Union Station, still wary, I listened to fellow passengers. They complained about increased airport security and discussed the war. I said nothing.
“Silence,” I had been told, “is your only permit to security in the United States because the threat of terrorism has created a culture of suspicion and paranoia about anything Muslim.” I had been advised never to join a discussion, never ask questions, never to discuss Kashmir.
America has changed and even an innocent opinion about the war can get you in trouble, my friends and relatives had warned. Sitting in the shuttle, I locked my lips and felt awkward when a random glance was met with a smile. I didn’t know how to behave. I didn’t know how to describe myself if someone extended a handshake.
The evening had cast dark shadows, and I looked out to see the city that I always thought to be the undisputed capital of the world. Soon we reached Union Station. As I pulled my heavy suitcase to the entrance, I saw soldiers in fatigues standing outside the door. Forgetting for a moment I was thousands of miles from Kashmir, I raised my hands for a body search, a routine security drill in my native land. The soldiers, unarmed, looked at me with surprise and burst into laughter.
“Where are you coming from, man?” one asked. “This is not a checkpoint.”
I was embarrassed. “Kashmir,” I whispered.
“We understand, we just returned from Iraq.” One of the soldiers put his hand on my shoulder. I panicked, did my best to avoid a conversation and I hurried away.
During that first brief stay in America, I never joined a “controversial” discussion. I always weighed my words and never mentioned al Qaeda. I never asked strangers how they viewed the war, the world or their lives. Talk about war and America’s place in the world was taboo. The threat of terror seemed so real that any counterargument was seen only as a liberal view, an exception to patriotic American discourse.
When I did muster the confidence to ask friends about this, they blamed the ignorance of common people and the arrogance of the Bush administration. For them, the president was a comical symbol of a self-absorbed and inward-looking electorate. President Bush jokes were not new to me. His lack of world knowledge inspired comedians, even in our distant Himalayan hills. One had Colin Powell briefing him about nuclear threat from India and Pakistan because of Kashmir. “Cashmere!” Bush exclaimed. “Why are they fighting over sweaters”
Three years later, with my questions about America and Americans still unanswered, I decided to take a longer trip across the vast landscape of the United States. This time, I felt palpable change. I heard honest discussions about the war and America’s role in the world. The nation was at a crossroads in its history: a woman and an African American whose father was Muslim contested the Democratic nomination while even some Republican candidates opposed the war.
My identity would be a part of this journey. Like many Muslims, I always complained that America had simplified a divide with Islam in reaction to 9/11. I disliked a U.S. policy that viewed all conflicts in Muslim societies through the prism of al Qaeda. Now I would confront my uneasiness about a people whose image of Muslims was that of elusive terrorists whose pictures were splashed again and again across TV screens and newspapers.
America’s relationship to Muslims is a complex phenomenon. America is an enemy in the Middle East but a messiah in Bosnia and Kosovo. I was prepared to argue that Muslims are not one homogeneous mass, and U.S. intervention has different meanings across the Islamic world. If Iraqis see invasion as occupation, U.S. attention to Kashmir encourages Muslim separatists who fight India. The United States supported the biggest jihad of the 20th century, the arming and financing of Afghan mujahideen who defeated the Soviet Union just a few decades ago.
Soon I realized that I, too, had oversimplified. Plenty of Americans understand these complexities. War and terror are hardly their only worries. In such a vast nation, dreams and nightmares cover a lot of ground. But what struck me hardest were America’s divisions over dogmas of faith. Having traveled through the Middle East and much of Asia, I found the United States to be most religious nation I’ve ever visited. Along with anti-war crusaders I met people who found reasons for Middle East war in the pages of the Bible. People who had never spoken to a Muslim before were shocked to learn that Muslims also believed in Jesus. I read from the Torah at a Jewish friend’s dinner table and was amazed to see the same stories of prophets I learned growing up Muslim. In the South, I found two synagogues named Ben Israel; no one knew the Arabic translation, Bani Israel, is a verse from the Quran.
Often, in my travels, I didn’t have to ask questions. People struggling to earn a livelihood are essentially the same, whether in southern Louisiana or southern India. For a curious outsider, Hollywood images and Wal-Mart are not reliable guides. There is no single America. A good, long look would take months.
In America / Essays / Muzamil Jaleel