Two and a half weeks ago, citizens around the United States and the world looked on in horror as two explosions erupted throughout Boston at the end of the city’s annual marathon. By the end of the day, three deaths and nearly three hundred injuries marked the physical scars of two pre-planted bombs along the race’s route – to say nothing of the emotional and psychological scars lingering upon the survivors. Actions like these seldom remain free from a rational response: the atmosphere of mourning and loss was quickly replaced by one of outrage and vengeance. Despite the fact that very little evidence of the attacks had yet come to light, a groundswell of unofficial attention began to be directed towards the Muslim community to hold the religion of Islam responsible for the actions of an unidentified few. Unfortunately, this mindset that presumes Islamic guilt has expanded far beyond this single circumstance to almost any manmade disaster since 9/11, reflected in a recent CNN poll showing that 47% of non-Muslim Americans believe that the values of Islam are at odds with American values– a mindset that I, until recently, shared.
Growing up in the rural town of Tehachapi, California, I can say that most of my life has been characterized by an easily accepted type of ethnocentrism: any mindset not belonging to myself or to those around me was inherently held in suspicion and doubt. This was only strengthened in high school as I began to develop a thirst for learning other worldviews purely for the purpose of apologetics, seeing different religions and beliefs as hostile to my own. While my years in college have served to almost completely temper that mindset and encourage a far more balanced curiosity, I retained a deep-seated hesitation to engage with Muslim culture because of my preconceptions. For my stretching project and for my own personal growth, therefore, I decided one day to walk into a local mosque and see what lay in store for me and my American prejudice.
Communications professor Kathryn Sorrells outlines six steps of action to approach Intercultural Praxis, or “a process of critical, reflective thinking and acting… that enables us to navigate the complex and challenging intercultural spaces we inhabit.” By the time I arrived at the mosque, I assumed that I had already inquired into my own assumptions, framed my personal background and position with regard to others, and was now approaching the fourth step of dialogue with someone not of my own culture. I had so much to learn.
My first impression as I stepped into the La Mirada Masjid was that of a student walking into a classroom: the front room was sparsely furnished with a few portable fiberglass tables, metal chairs, and a wall-mounted whiteboard. Gathered around this whiteboard were four people whom I would later come to know as a Hindi college student, a Christian African-American single mother, a middle aged Pakistani Muslim, and an elderly Indian Muslim. Although my first few steps into the room brought the attention of all four people, it quickly became apparent that the elderly Muslim man, a UCLA professor named Dr. Zia Khawaja, retained authority over the group. I had actually walked in on a private math tutoring session led by the professor free of charge – one of the many community services the mosque offers. I frankly told him that I was a nearby student interested in learning about Islam and watched as his face lit up with a smile. “First thing is,” he stated strongly in heavily accented and slightly broken English, “we do not believe in blowing people up.” I was surprised that this was the first point he would convey to me, but when I reflected back upon my own previously held assumptions, I understood why. He had been questioned by many students in the past and in all likelihood, each had brought this accusation to the forefront of their “investigation” into Islam. For my part, however, I simply waited and listened to the wizened professor.
Although I expected to be surprised at Dr. Khawaja’s theological beliefs, I was not expecting his subtle redirection of my questions. I had come to the mosque to learn about Islam, but Dr. Khawaja wanted to tell me about life. He spoke of poetry and economics and religion and gardening, all the while showing me that his worldview was far less obsessed with asserting the legitimacy of his belief system and far more concerned with being a good man to the people around him. “God gives each of us gifts, you see,” he pointed out to me for what must have been the fifth time, “and with these gifts, we can either be responsible – good people. Or bad people.” His is a collectivist viewpoint, focused on providing the most benefit to the most amount of people, regardless of race or religion or wrongs. It was a far more developed perspective on “Love your neighbor” than I have heard in many years; a perspective that he adhered to relentlessly. I later found out that Dr. Khawaja was hired by the UN out of college to design curriculums for electrical engineering programs in Cambodia, Mexico, Canada, South Korea, Italy, Nigeria, and several others countries, yet he spends his retirement giving his brilliant knowledge back to the community free of charge. This is not the decision of an extremist, but the choice of a man who seeks to serve and to love wherever and whenever he can.
As our impromptu interview began drawing to a close after an hour of conversation, Dr. Khawaja offered to give a tour of the mosque, since I had never been in one before. As we got up, the other Muslim man with us smiled and said, “Make sure he understands professor.” As Dr. Khawaja chuckled out a merry, “He will be enlightened – Don’t worry,” I felt an enormous rush of fear. I have traveled and lived in many places and in many cultures around the world, yet at that moment I felt more afraid of my friendly professor than I have in far more dangerous situations. Every movie I had watched on the War on Terror, every media commentary, every social networking post expounding upon the stereotypical Islamist extremist slammed to the front of my mind as I fought to remain some appearance of normalcy next to my new friend. Obviously, I was not attacked or kidnapped or threatened. The exchange had simply been a personal joke between two longstanding friends that I interpreted according to my own perceptions of Islam, despite the evidence before my very eyes. Rather than attack me, Dr. Khawaja led me out of the mosque and promptly invited me to a community dinner the following Friday: a chance to see more about his faith and meet the people he loved most.
As I left the mosque that day, I couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed with the reality of my own inhibitions. I, like many others that I know, can preach the tenets of healthy intercultural behavior and conflict resolution from memory, but I cannot disregard the reality of my presuppositions and the simple truth that I have avoided Muslims because I didn’t understand them. It is far simpler to disagree with someone when you don’t understand them than to subject your own biases to scrutiny and – God forbid it – the chance of being wrong.
Last night I attended the mosque’s community dinner and felt more welcomed by its congregation than I have in many Christian churches. I was given food and water and a good seat from which to listen to several visiting “brothers” discuss the legal and societal hardships faced by the majority of Muslims in our country. Organizations such as the Muslim Legal Fund of America, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, and Upreach focus on protecting Muslim-American citizens from the same reprisals their political enemies fear: preemptive prosecution based on profiling, unlawful surveillance, agent provocateurs and entrapment, and even the use of anonymous “Expert” witnesses used by the prosecution in a court of law. These violations aren’t justified because of the actions of a few, with whom the majority of Muslim Americans (nearly 80% according to a poll recently released by the Pew Research Center) disagree with as much as the average Christian. Yet the perception remains within our country that Muslims should be feared and treated as hostile, because “they must be out to get us.”
I sat a table squashed between Dr. Khawaja and several other new Muslim friends, all of us gorging on delicious native Pakistani food and sharing quick smiles and insights from the night. With his usual penchant for quick redirections of the conversation, Dr. Khawaja solemnly broached the recent Boston bombings: “it does not matter if you are Christian or Muslim or Jew. What matters is whether you are a good person with the responsibility God has given you. These people did not do what they did because they were Christian, or because they were Muslim. They did what they did because they were bad people.” Dr. Khawaja understands that the healing of our country requires the vulnerability of all citizens, regardless of race or gender or religion, to acknowledge wrong and strive for reconciliation and community.
Following the Boston Bombings, however, many in the United States have not reflected this advocacy for praxis, choose instead to focus hatred and aggression on underserving Muslims seeking to find a home for themselves in the “Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.” Heba Abolaban, a Syrian physician practicing in Massachusetts, faced this hatred when she took her daughter on a play date to a nearby park, where she was assaulted by a man who then proceeded to shout at her, “Fuck you. Fuck you Muslims, you are terrorists, you are the ones who made the Boston explosion.” Rather than learning from a culture that mourns over this tragedy, much of America has chosen instead to separate themselves from the “other,” the next step along the dark road to discrimination and hatred.
As I reflect upon my own experience and the cultural tornado surrounding Islam, I realize that intellectual assertions and exploration mean very little when the will to act upon them stagnates in the face of fear. I was told this project would be one that stretched me beyond my comfort zone and beyond my assumptions, but hindsight more aptly names it the Accordion Project: I was forced into myself and the preconceptions I hadn’t even realized existed before I could return to a new culture with appreciation and enthusiasm. The Muslims of La Mirada Mosque saw every human being as inherently worthy of care and service. While I believe the same, I cannot help but wonder if I truly approach every individual, whether Muslim or Christian, European or Mexican, rich or poor, homosexual or heterosexual, as equally deserving of my attention and understanding. My intellect yearns to respond with a resounding yes, but I now understand: it make take several more accordions – and extra helpings of God’s grace – for me to love my neighbor as myself. I doubt that cultural ignorance and discrimination will ever achieve complete reconciliation as long as humans remain humans, but perhaps we can move a long way towards this goal by remembering the words of a wise old man: “God gives each of us gifts, you see, and with these gifts, we can either be responsible – good people. Or bad people.”
