How Does It Feel to Be a Problem by Moustafa Bayoumi - Essay Example

How Does It Feel To Be A Problem An Analysis of How Does It Feel To Be A Problem By Moustafa Bayoumi Book Report The How Does It Feel To Be A Problem by Moustafa Bayoumi is a book that deals with suffering of seven young Arab-Americans who found themselves unavoidable tangled in a web of deceit, patronization, racial segregation and persecution. Bayoumi has penned down this book by intimately interviewing all the seven subjects of his book and has endeavored to portray their affliction. His, is an attempt to extenuate the circumstances in which the Arab-American community has found itself since 9/11. The thesis deals with the summarized and analyzed events occurred in the book along with the character similarities and themes present. The author's been critically analyzed and a personal opinion is also included. How Does It Feel To Be A Problem 9/11 is an incident the changed not only the course of history but uncountable lives. It gave the world a reason and a new direction to be vigilant. But most of all, 9/11 also became a crusade, a holy war, a war to purge the world of the evil that changed the way Americans looked at things. Everything has been tinged in the shade of suspicion since them. The world has been torn asunder in two, Us or Them which can be taken as a euphemism for the World or the USA. The US war on terror that started out as the war against those who caused the country the mighty suffering of 9/11 has been spilled from the battlefields and war zones into the houses of ordinary people. It has been seeped into the lives of ordinary people, people who had nothing to do with the atrocities committed on the fateful day of 9/11. aside from taking the war on terror to the arid lands of Tora Bora and or the fertile banks of Tigris and Euphrates, United States have initiated a war on its on ground and in the heart of one of the greatest cities in the world; Brooklyn, New York. Moustafa Bayoumi's How Does It Feel To Be A Problem, is an endeavor to delve deep into a war United State has waged against some of its own citizens and how the mounting paranoia at Pentagon has shattered the lives of some of the innocent bystanders that got caught in the crossfire. Bayoumi has utilized copious amounts of ethnographic data using the lives of some of the collateral damage the war on terror has caused. Using the first hand account of the lives of seven young Arab-Americans, Bayoumi explores the dark crevices of this new war, whose victims are indicted and trialed only because of their ethnicity and religion, hence coining the new term Islamophobia. Using a very simple and heartwarming dialect, Bayoumi tells us of the struggles these seven innocent people whose crime was to be from the same creed and ethnicity that was at war with the United States. Their lives are the testament of this new breed of hate crimes and racial segregation that has swept not only all across America but also has taken the whole world into its ugly clutches. After painstakingly interviewing and observation, Bayoumi draws a very intimate narrative of the lives of seven young Arab-Americans who may have Arab blood in their veins but are American by all aspects and narrates of how their worlds turned upside down after 9/11 when their ethnicity became the reason for them being ostracized and profiled not only by the populace but the state itself. How Does It Feel To Be A Problem, tells of the paranoia that gripped United States after 9/11 and the how it gave birth to a new breed of racial profiling and hate crimes, where everything that has anything to do with the East has been eyed with fear and suspicion. How Does It Feel To Be A Problem, introduce us to Rasha, Sami, Lina, Akram, Yasmin, Omar, and Rami, all young, all American-Arabs who either spent their entire lives in United States or moved here for the prospect of a better future. All of them belongs to Brooklyn, NYC, home to the largest number of Arab Americans in the United States and also termed as "Mecca of Arab America" (Brooklyn Ron, 2009). The lives of all these seven individuals are propelled out of normalcy when the first plane hits the WTC and are narrated in an agonizingly truthful manner of how it feels when one becomes a stranger in his own land. Their stories deal with painful subjects like workplace discrimination, warfare in their countries of origin, brutal surveillance and interrogation, being treated like an alien, infiltration and by far the most horrible, the disappearance of a friend or family member without any trace. Throw in copious amounts of stereotypical segregation and ridicule, even fear and their lives are but living hells. Though true to their roots and heritage, Bayoumi has chosen to portray the lives of Arabs that are "coherent and self contained" in their aspects of living, some even agnostic in their beliefs (Bayoumi, 2008, p.7). Instead for going after the whole Arab community scattered throughout US, Bayoumi use the lives of these "second generation Arabs" who are pretty much detached from their cultural heritage and forms the faade of the secular America, the land of the free. Bayoumi deftly portrays the lives of seven Brooklyn based youngsters who struggles to maintain a normal life in a country that views them from a very foggy and dusty lens. Ranging from high school student to a member of the Marines Corps, Bayoumi's subjects are ordinary and everyday people trying to go through their lives normally and unobtrusively, as if they aren't already aware of their ethic descendance. His narration starts from Sade in the books preface who is deeply agitated for being duped by an undercover official who pretended to be his friend for four years. His frustration and loss of reality is just as he simply doesn't know who to trust, people he knows around him or his Palestinian heritage And the preface is barely the tip of the iceberg. The lightning struck life of Syrian-born Rasha tells of the atrocities that were committed in the name of Homeland security as she along with her family is detained by FBI in 2002 without any trial or allegation at Metropolitan Detention Centre, Brooklyn. Bayoumi describes her suffering while being detained, the abusive attitude of guards and lack of facilities, even a doctor when she develops a rash of sleeping under an abrasive blanket that she calls "a hairy cardboard" (Bayoumi, 2008, p. 25). Then there is the attitude of the world she gets to face after here release from the detention centre, treated like a branded leper. Then there is the story of 15 year old Yasmin, a popular kid at high school who gets forced to resign from the students' council as she couldn't attend a school dance probably because of her religious beliefs. She was given the trite excuse of being absent from school and student activities. Bayoumi skillfully depicts her silent fury as he goes through her life and sentiments, her observation of a world that's getting claustrophic for her every passing day. The young Yasmin is seen going through an identity crisis as blatant acts of racial profiling gets committed right before her eyes and all she can do is to get "annoyed with herself" (Bayoumi, 2008, p.85) The story of Sami tells us of the behavior of his superiors as his loyalty has always been doubted for being an Arab, even though Sami happens to be a Christian. As a member of the Marines, he always gets under suspicion for being sympathetic towards his kinsmen in his two deployments to Iraq. Such scathing behavior and treat at work makes him contemplate about his identity whose contorted forms become vivid as he gets pushed every day towards the precipice of an epiphany. Then there is the story of Akram, a Palestinian-American who wants to leave the country. As is the usual trend, everyone wants to move to USA, for the prospect of freedom, safety and a prosperous future. Akram instead wants to go to Dubai where he wishes to teach English. How come a bright college student like Akram, with decent pop-grocery store in Brooklyn and a family is unwilling to stay. Bayoumi gleans this answer from the hint of melancholy in the voice of Akram as he wistfully says "America is not what it used to be anymore" (Bayoumi, 2008). The rest of the stories aren't much different either. Omar, the Arab with a Chilean visage, is having trouble in the mainstream media and professional world because of being an ex-internee at the Al-Jazeera. Lina faces sanctions into Iraq in order to be de-americanized as she juggles between her birthplace Kuwait and her parents home Iraq. Rami, a mosques Imam, finds solace in faith when his presence anywhere attracts condescending glares. All of the seven are perturbed somehow, either due to their faiths or the genes, but what binds them all is the experience that they all share together. All Brooklynites, all descending from the Arab heritage, the turmoil these ordinary people face after 9/11 transform them from ordinary into extra-ordinary. They come out as completely new people after these ghastly experiences albeit the prospects to startover look bleak. They do not flinch or falter. They don't recriminate after being unrightfully incremented. They don't go to the extremes after being pushed to the extreme. Rasha's bond with her family gets stronger, Yasmin fight for rights and doesn't quaver despite her and tender age and wins back her lost pride and respect. Sami struggles but he is not willing to give up. So is with the rest. It is said that the true character of a person shines when he's been put through a lot. War hungry nations unite in times of destitute and chaos to bring order and status quo back. So does the individuals in How Does It Feel To Be A Problem, who shows a tremendous amount of courage in the face of plights they face. And the paradoxical part is that they are not the figment of some fiction writer's creative mind. They are real people; facing real troubles and inspiring hope in the hearts of their kinsmen who suffers from the same oppression that always stand tall and never tremble in the face of fear. Bayoumi has tediously chosen his subjects and has done a commendable job in painting a very vivid picture out of a scattered pile. And in doing so, he has evoked questions of more sensitive nature. The post 9/11 has been hard and difficult for the entire world and particularly on Muslims all across the globe who are now being viewed as Jews were in the 3rd Reich. Is the US government trying to link all middle-eastern immigrants to the deceitful nets of Al-Qaeda or is the Government genuinely paranoid Does the world see the rise of another Ku Klux Klan or has there been some sort of holy war being waged against the Muslims Bayoumi implicitly asks and alludes to the whole theme or plot of the book in the books preface: Anti-Semitism drove Jewish Americans out of universities and jobs and fueled wild and pernicious conspiracy theories concerning warfare and world domination. Japanese Americans were herded like cattle into internment camps during World War II (as were smaller numbers of German, Italian, Hungarian, and Romanian Americans). Chinese Americans were commonly suspected of harboring Communist sympathies during the McCarthy era, frequently losing careers and livelihoods. And Hispanic Americans have long been seen as outsider threats to American culture, even though their presence here predates the formation of the present-day United States (Bayoumi, 2008, p.3). Such scalding queries are not the first one to be asked. USA's history is littered with activist authors as such as Bayoumi who particularly drew inspiration from W.E.B Du Bois and Barbara Ehrenreich and expounded the post 9/11 scenario. Being an Arab and Brooklynite, Bayoumi has the first hand experience of the perturbed lives his interviewed subjects and that's one of the major reason he has been able to peer so deeply and intimately into their lives. He sees murky reflections, victims of culture and politics in his subjects and is not only able to scrape information out of them for his project but also empathize with them. Bayoumi does not write America as a bleakly racist country, but instead calls into sharp relief the difference between the country's originary values and the disturbing political climate we have now found ourselves in (Loudis 2008). And that's an impediment; Bayoumi probably wants to overcome as he wishes his readers to see those of Arab decent as living breathing persons capable for so much good and love and wants to alleviate the stereotypical image that has plagued them since 9/11. Apart from that, Bayoumi also asserts that the immigrants should balance themselves on an even keel with the world that they have immigrated to live in which is only prudent as the one's identity remain intact. Muslim teenagers must negotiate between the world of their parents and life outside their front door, which in New York includes constant and varied encounters with the non-Muslim world. The challenge, say those growing up between the two, is to find the right balance (Bharampour 1999) Over all, Bayoumi's work is heart warming and erudite. His easy and eloquent narration, soft, steady and sympathetic style and astute analysis makes the book a memorable journey, despite the fact that Bayoumi steer clear from going deep into the racial discrimination history in America, The history of race and racism involved in American Islamophobia is long and dense, and Bayoumi unfortunately obscures this history in his analysis. In framing his Arab American narratives, Bayoumi largely neglects the vast history of racialized discrimination against Arab Americans and people from North Africa, West Asia, and the broader Muslim world before 2001 (love 2008, 6). But regardless of these academic and scholarly miscalculations, How Does It Feel To Be A Problem bring us closer to the lives of these extraordinary people that one can easily relate to. The book invokes hope in the hearts of those who suffer similar afflictions and is an extremely erudite attempt project the intellect and character of the Arabs. The book itself is a very humble and sincere attempt to set things right and palliate the colossal rift that has formed between the people at helm in USA and the entire Arab and Muslim world. References. Bayoumi, M. (2008). How Does It Feel To Be A Problem. Penguin. Bharampour, T. (1999, December 12). Scarfless in Sheepshead. The New York Times. Brooklyn Ron. (2009, January 13). How Does It Feel To Be A Problem Being Young. Retrieved from http://www.brooklynron.com/how-does-it-feel-to-be-a-problem being-young/. Loudis, J. (2008, October). Souls of Arab-American Folk. The Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved May 15th, 2009, from http://www.brooklynrail.org/2008/10/express/souls-of-arab- american-folk Love, E. (2008) "Book Review: How Does It Feel To Be A Problem By Moustafa Bayoumi", Spaces for Difference: An Interdisciplinary Journal: Vol. 1: No. 2, Article 11. Retrieved May 15th, 2009, from http://repositories.cdlib.org/ucsb ed/spaces/vol1/iss2/art11 Read More