Alia Malek, Patriot Acts. Book - Essay Example

Alia Malek, Patriot Acts Stories in this book consist of Adama Bah’s, a secondary school arrested on midnightand indicted of planning to a suicide-bomb people at a local event, as well as forced into juvenile detention (Malek 13). Mothers such as Shaheena Parveen and Talat Hamdani tell of losing their sons whereas, others like Rima Qamri explain their sudden and unexpected duty of becoming a single mother and raising children in potentially hostile societies (Malek 13).The American society is filled with bullies of all kinds; from the government to the law enforcement to the normal citizen (Bacon 34 and Malek 67).

Where of how law enforcement officers bully normal citizens, as well as how normal citizens bully other citizens who they consider are much lesser than them in a number of aspects such as race and colour. We hear of bullying stories every day in our schools. Students from different races (rather than whites) and deprived backgrounds among others fall prey to mostly white students who consider themselves more superior to other races (Bacon 35). I also fell prey to some of the worst bullies while in high school.

It shows so evidently the role of our lack of knowledge as a country and as humans. I find both enraging and heartbreaking that parents, teachers, as well as schools, can be the major persecutors in a majority of these stories. The stories of Gurwinder and Rana truly drove the cultural unawareness home, but my own ignorance, as well: I echoed on the rage of my Sikh or Muslim friends and how immature I was of what they were enduring from the entire nation while they were going through persecution in other regions of the globe I am delighted to have stumble upon this volume.

The stories in Patriot Acts cope with one basic issue: what defines an American? Can United States citizens put on turbans? And can they pray openly? The storytellers in this volume are being deprived of their Americanism (which is that different when compared to citizenship) and, in the United States, that means that they are being shorn of their humanity (Malek 56). I marvel if this tendency to link Americanism with basic humanity is exclusive to the United States or if other nations are no different.

A brand of American patriotism is to associate America with liberty, as well as freedom with ones fundamental rights (Bacon 40). However this principle, the highest confidence Americans have in this thought, depends on that liberty being indivisible from their citizens and not only the government. So how do individuals’ freedoms get deprived from them so effortlessly in the U.S.? How is it so simple to distinguish between the Americans who are "American" and the Americans that can be ousted, persecuted or disavowed?

I think this is the basis of Patriot Acts. The stories are personally heartbreaking, striking, empowering and infuriating. Jointly, they show a strong country, which is out of reach for various individuals. Accounts like Ranas reveal how much option there is for an act in the regime, as well as in nonprofits, but reaching them in any significant way seems to be often unworkable.Works CitedBacon, David. Illegal People: How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2009.

Malek, Alia. Patriot Acts: Narratives of Post-9/11 Injustice (Voice of Witness). San Francisco, CA: McSweeneys Press, 2011. Print.