#book review author interview Islamophobia

[garudabluffs]

In this incisive account, leading scholar of Islamophobia Deepa Kumar traces the history of anti-Muslim racism from the early modern era to the “War on Terror.” Importantly, Kumar contends that Islamophobia is best understood as racism rather than as religious intolerance. An innovative analysis of anti-Muslim racism and empire, Islamophobia argues that empire creates the conditions for anti-Muslim racism, which in turn sustains empire.

“Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire”: Deepa Kumar on How Racism Fueled U.S. Wars Post-9/11

"You say this is about racism, it’s not about religious bigotry."

"So, my argument basically is that it’s not enough to understand Islamophobia simply as hate crimes, although hate crimes do exist; it’s not enough to understand it as religious intolerance or microaggressions or hate speech and so on, although we do know that all this exists; but to look at the roots of where it comes from, because what happens when you don’t do that is that people accept the rhetoric coming from people at the top of society."

"So, the war on terror was sold to the American public using Orientalist and racist ideas that these societies are backward. They don’t value their women, so we must go in and liberate them. Or in the case of Iraq, when no weapons of mass destruction were found, it was “We should bring democracy.” Never mind, of course, that we don’t have a very good form of democracy right here in the U.S. and that women continue to fight even today to hold serial rapists and harassers accountable in our court system. And yet, this white man’s racist argument, white man’s burden argument, was the one that was mobilized for U.S. intervention around the world."

+And I just wanted to say that that study says “direct war violence.” Right? It does not include deaths due to the destruction of infrastructure, deaths that are not counted in official statistics, as Anand Gopal points out in a really great piece in The New Yorker which is from the point of view of Afghan women, that the deaths in the ones and twos in Afghanistan are typically not counted in official statistics, which is why somebody like Malalai Joya, who you’ve had on this program, puts the deaths at over 1 million. So, all of that is going to be papered over, unfortunately, as the U.S. continues its counterterrorism policies."

"And I’ll end with this, which is that we know also that between 2018 and 2020, the U.S. was conducting counterterrorism operations in 85 countries around the world. That’s practically half the world. And so, terrorism has become a very useful way to establish U.S. hegemony and control on the global stage. So, I do think that there’s going to be more attention on China, but, at the same time, the war on terror is far from over."

LISTEN 45:16 READ MORE Transcript https://www.democracynow.org/2021/9/14/deepa_kumar_islamophobia_politics_of_empire

[naptimeissacred]

Cover Reveal for the Novel Tight Rope

Cover Reveal for the Novel Tight Rope

Cover Reveal for the soon to be released Novel ‘Tight Rope’ by Sahar Abdulaziz who is also the author of The Broken Half, As One Door Closes, and Secrets That Find Us. In ‘Tight Rope’ American Muslim Nour Ibrahim prepares to deliver a speech at an anti-hate rally condemning the surge of attacks against people of color, immigrants, Muslims, and anyone else deemed different or disposable. As her…

[yourownpetard]

This Veterans Day, we’re honoring those injured, sexually abused, and killed by and within the United States military — and celebrating those organizing to prevent future violence.

This past year, thousands of veterans leveraged their social capital (and put their bodies on the line) to support people of color organizing at home. Over 4,000 veterans joined Native Americans at Standing Rock last winter to protest the Dakota Access Pipeline, rise against fellow military members attacking civilians, and seek forgiveness for past and current military violence against Native Americans. Others joined Colin Kaepernick to protest police brutality: read this interview with former Army Ranger Rory Fanning about protesting the military and why Fanning was on anti-recruitment tour of the Chicago Public Schools.

Veterans who are survivors continue to fight hard to bring attention to rampant (and increasing) sexual violence within the U.S. military. ICYMI, this 2013 ACLU report is an important look at one especially disturbing part of the problem: the enduring health consequences and bureaucratic battles survivors face while seeking disability benefits. (Fun fact: our president thinks this is all because of the women themselves.)

As uncomfortable as this may be to admit, women within the military are nowhere near as vulnerable as women, queer, and trans people of color in the third world, who bear the brunt of U.S. military violence (at the hands of female soldiers themselves). These organizing resources by INCITE! are a great place to start reading about the need to organize against militarism at large. Next on my list is Saba Mahmood’s piece on the role of Western feminism in justifying military interventions and Sylvanna Falcon’s chapter in the Color of Violence anthology about militarized border rape at the U.S. Mexico border. After that, read the whole anthology itself.

After reading these, let’s keep in mind that men in the third world are victims, too. Maya Mikdashi’s piece on how gendered concern for “women and children” in Palestine but not men is racist and destructive is still relevant. So is the New Yorker’s 2004 piece on one of the most visible displays of gender violence against men by the U.S military at Abu Ghraib.

While we’re in the midst of renewed attention to gun violence, let’s not forget that the U.S. military orchestrated the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history  — often against Native communities. No feminist analysis of the U.S. military then can exist then without rigorously engaging with this history. This primer by INCITE! is a good place to start. Next, read this review of Benjamin Madley’s An American Genocide, which maps out how the U.S. army often participated in mass killings in California. When you’re ready for something longer, Andrea Smith’s book (online here) Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide.

The impact of the United States military clearly extends then to women within our borders: Andrea Ritchie’s co-authored report on behalf of over 100 national and local organizations to the United Nations and Sabrina Alimahomed-Wilson’s article Invisible Violence: Gender, Islamophobia, and the Hidden Assault on U.S. Muslim Women both detail how the “War on Terror” has exacerbated violence against, respectively, black and Muslim women at home.

In sum, to quote Andrea Smith:

If we acknowledge the state as a perpetrator of violence against women (particularly indigenous women and women of color) and as a perpetrator of genocide against indigenous peoples, we are challenged to imagine alternative forms of governance that do not presume the continuing existence of the U.S. in particular and the nation-state in general.

In other words, if we truly honor those harmed by and within the United States military, let’s organize to abolish it.

That last link goes to a site that’s celebrating the October Revolution....

So literal Communists...inextricable from feminism.

[techcrunchappcom]

New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/the-white-house-is-pushing-a-conspiracy-theorist-fired-fromthe-nsc-for-a-top-pentagon-position-cnn/

The White House is pushing a conspiracy theorist fired from the NSC for a top Pentagon position - CNN

Rich Higgins, a former aide who says he was fired from the National Security Council in 2017 for sending a conspiratorial memo, is currently being considered to serve as chief of staff to retired Brig. Gen. Anthony Tata, the White House’s nominee for the under secretary of defense for policy at the Pentagon.

A Pentagon spokesperson referred questions from CNN to the White House. A White House spokesperson said it “does not comment on personnel.”

When asked for comment, Higgins wrote in an email to CNN, “Not going into DOD. No offer has been made,” and in a follow up email, “I don’t know what the WH is pushing. Ask them. I am not at the Pentagon in any role.”

But Higgins confirmed he was under consideration in a YouTube show posted last night.

“It’s still under consideration, it is true,” Higgins said. He added, “I think it’s the type of thing where if they get the current nominee, who is a guy named Tony Tata, into the position where I would be a direct report to him — it would probably be worth going in.”

CNN followed up with Higgins after discovering the YouTube show confirming his consideration as Tata’s chief of staff. Higgins did not respond.

Higgins, who served in the Army and later in the Pentagon as a career official in the Bush and Obama administrations, according to his biography, was fired from the NSC in 2017 after authoring a memo claiming that a “deep state” band of officials and movements were opposing President Donald Trump. He defined the opposition as the media, Islamists, Black Lives Matter, the ACLU, the United Nations and cultural Marxists leading a coordinated effort to delegitimize and subvert the President.

Since Higgins left the NSC in 2017, he has continued to promote and spread conspiracy theories, according to a CNN KFile review of his media appearances. Higgins said that former Obama administration officials were communists, that the Black Lives Matter movement is “Marxist” and “an agent” of China, and that “left wing” organizations invented the term Islamophobia only 15 years ago.

The push to hire Higgins, a conspiracy theorist, and Tata, a frequent and ardent defender of the President on Fox News, to senior positions at the Pentagon comes as the White House seeks to install loyalists, many of whom hold extremist views, throughout the administration.

The White House nominated Tata to become the third highest official at the Pentagon in June, but his nomination has come under scrutiny since CNN reported that the retired general pushed conspiracy theories and made anti-Muslim comments on social media, including calling former President Barack Obama “a Muslim” and claiming former CIA director John Brennan sent a coded tweet to order the assassination of Trump in 2018.

Like Tata, Higgins derided Islam in tweets, writing in one tweet disparagingly of military generals who said to “accept Islam and all their other bullschiff [sic].”

In another, he wrote, “Consequences for ignoring threat doctrine. Communism and Islam are blind spots for the national security community for decades,” and that “we who warned were called ‘racists.'”

Despite almost half a dozen Democratic senators opposing Tata’s nomination, Tata’s nomination is still in play. A Congressional source told CNN that Tata is expected to get a nomination hearing before the August recess. The committee also expects to hold a private executive session on Tata before the hearing, too.

Spokespersons for the Senate Armed Services Committee did not respond to requests for comment.

Tata’s expected nomination hearing comes amid a report that the administration is considering naming Tata to an acting role to skirt the confirmation process.

A source familiar with Tata’s nomination disputed that account to CNN. “Gen. Tata looks forward to discussing all the relevant policy issues during his Senate confirmation hearing. Skirting that process is not an option,” the source said.

Tata’s White House support remains strong, the source added.

A history of conspiracy theories

Higgins is a prolific tweeter to his more than 31,000 Twitter followers, and frequently shares conspiracy theories or fringe rhetoric on the platform.

One theory Higgins frequently and repeatedly falsely claimed is that many government officials are communists, specifically saying many members of the Obama administration and the former President himself were communists. In other tweets, he claimed left wing organizations or movements were “Marxist.”

In other tweets from 2019, Higgins repeatedly wrote that Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who was a key witness in Trump’s impeachment inquiry, was “a spy and was trying to spark an OP against POTUS.” There is no evidence Vindman was a spy.

“We had our first openly communist president in Obama,” Higgins said in a 2019 YouTube interview. “This open communist who ran identifying himself as a community organizer, right out of Saul Alinsky’s book ‘Rules for Radicals’ — the communist community organizer. You know, he brings in all these open and some, you know, some more closeted Marxists. I mean, Comey has a communist history. Brennan has a communist history. Clapper has a communist history just across the board.”

“What if communists were in charge of CIA, FBI, DNI and the WH under Obama?” he tweeted in November 2019.

Higgins has also targeted social justice movements as “communist” movements and encouraged his followers to boycott companies, schools, organizations and politicians who support them. On Twitter, he frequently referred to Black Lives Matter as “Marxist revolutionaries” and “Marxist.“

In another tweet, Higgins dismissed the nationwide protests held in the wake of George Floyd’s death as “not organic” and claimed that Venezuela, Cuba and “other marxist state assets” were “operating inside these protests.”

After a user asked for proof, Higgins responded, “I have sources on the ground. Does the fbi [sic]? Nope. They’re busy chasing white supremacists and running a coup.”

“The fact that Congress doesn’t know that BLM is an agent of communist China doesn’t bode well for the country,” he tweeted in June 2020.

In June, Higgins linked to an article on former Defense Secretary James Mattis, suggesting Mattis was “compromised” by communists in the Obama administration.

“In a police state many people are compromised and forced into actions that they would not normally perform,” Higgins wrote. “One has to wonder how many of our leaders were compromised by the communist President, CIA Director, and FBI Director. Serious question.”

He also accused prominent officials and institutions of “treason” or “misprision of treason” on Twitter, including the media, Congress and ex-officials.

“The legacy media is 100% part of this coup attempt and Congress as well as DOJ needs to take action and INDICT them as co-conspirators in this sedition and possible treason,” Higgins wrote in November 2019.

In other tweets, Higgins said former CIA director John Brennan was guilty of treason and that former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley was a “complete fraud and she knows that she is guilty of misprision of treason.”

Comments on Islam

Higgins also made Islamophobic comments and questioned if Islamophobia was a legitimate concept.

In a video interview, Higgins said that the “left wing political narrative” invented the concept of Islamophobia 15 years ago to “marry our perception of who” the “enemy” is.

“They put together a concept like, for example, Islamophobia. Fifteen years ago, we never heard the term Islamophobia. And we have to ask ourselves, where did that come from? And when you walk it back, you realize that Islamophobia is a term concocted by the generators of these narratives,” Higgins said.

“The purpose of a term like Islamophobia is to enforce the Islamic law of slander on Westerners, to shut down critical thinking and reason that would actually enable us to understand why the enemy fights, why Omar Mateen was drawn to shoot 100 people, 49 whom passed, at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida,” he added, referring to the Orlando Pulse nightclub shooter who killed 49 people and wounded at least 53 people in 2016.

[the1975hqs]

Matty’s Interview with The Sunday Times Style

I wish I had a teenage daughter. Why? Because here I am with Matt Healy, the frontman of the 1975, who has just offered to take his shirt off in order to give me a tattoo tour. There’s the one dedicated to his nana; his mum, Denise “Loose Women” Welch, is on his foot; his dad, Tim “Auf Wiedersehen, Pet” Healy, is on his arm; and his brother, Louis, on the back of a calf; there’s the one dedicated to William Burroughs, the author of his favourite ever book, Queer; then there’s the one on the inside of his left wrist… of his passport number. “I got bored of being constantly woken up by a woman offering me a landing card while my tour manager, who always carries my passport, is conked out somewhere behind me. I thought it would be useful. It’s really all I need on a plane.”

Welcome to the world of the 1975, whose second album, I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful yet So Unaware of It (yes, really), went straight to No 1 in both America and the UK last year, and who won the best band award at the Brits in February. They have just announced that their third album, Music for Cars, will be out next year, and when we meet they are about to go on tour, kicking off in Mexico and ending in July at Latitude Festival in Suffolk, where they will headline alongside Fleet Foxes and Mumford & Sons. If you’re not familiar with their music — think Pete Doherty mixed with One Direction, maybe — it’s probably because, like me, you’re too old. That said, Mick Jagger, whom the band supported when the Stones played Hyde Park in 2013, is a huge fan — so fond of their hit single Chocolate, he has been known to put it on after dinner for guests.

“Yeah, I remember that gig,” says the 28-year-old Healy, with a faint Northern accent. “It was before I had my eyes lasered and I wasn’t wearing my glasses. Pointless. There were 50,000 people there and I could only see about four of them, but out of the corner of my eye I could just make out this gyrating figure and it was Jagger dancing to Chocolate. Mick Jagger — can you f****** believe it?”

Dressed this afternoon in a billowing silk shirt and tartan drummer-boy trews (“Not sure where they’re from, we rent a lot of stuff from the costume-hire department at the National Theatre”), Healy cuts the perfect figure of postmodern pop star: a kind of hybrid of Adam Ant and Robert Smith of the Cure, but sexier somehow, with those pouchy eyes and chiselled curls. Sprinkled across his fingers are an assortment of knuckle-dusters by Gucci, at his feet a women’s saddle bag, also by Gucci, all part of the vague Louis XV look, as he calls it, that the band are currently channelling. Gucci, McQueen, Loewe — these are some of his favourite labels at the moment. “Although if you are talking a label for life, it’s probably Dries [Van Noten]. He’s my Sir Alex Ferguson of fashion — beaten once or twice in his career, but always the best.” Then there’s his “mate” Erdem, with whom he likes to discuss “Fellini, contemporary dance and the concept of elegance”. Oh yes, Healy likes his fashion, although he admits he’s not mad about going to the actual shows. “They make me realise I’m more famous than I think I am. It’s like, ‘Don’t take pics of me, I’m here to look at the bloody clothes!’ But I’m not sure how you’re going to write that without making me sound like a dickhead.”

The pair of us are sitting in the spotlessly tidy, pine-surfaced kitchen of Healy’s east London townhouse, which he shares with the artist and creative director Sam Burgess-Johnson and Allen Ginsberg, his beloved year-old bull mastiff. Like Healy himself — a sylphy 5ft 8in and 10st who can fit into his girlfriend’s vintage clothes — the house is small and perfectly formed, and it is filled with well-tended spider plants, candles and stuffed birds. The only blot on this exemplary tableau of millennial domesticity is the unmistakable smell. (If you saw the grainy film that emerged the day after the Brits, of him and fellow band member George Daniel sharing a, um, “cigarette” under their table, you will know what I mean.)

“Like the inside of Bob Marley’s sock, right?’ he sighs apologetically. “Yeah, I know I’ve got to be careful here, haven’t I? But, yes, if I’m honest, I do like to smoke.”

Brought up on a farm in Northumberland, before moving to Cheshire at the age of 10, Healy likes to describe his upbringing as middle-class suburban, but obviously that’s not quite accurate. Regular visitors to the family home included his dad’s mates Rick Wakeman, Jeff Lynne of ELO and Mark Knopfler, and there was never any question that Healy, who got his first drum kit when he was only five, was going to do anything other than perform. When his mother was struggling with a dependence on cocaine and alcohol, he wrote a song about it (he proudly tells me that she and her third husband, the painter Lincoln Townley, have been clean and sober for six years; his parents divorced in 2012). Healy has referred to his own struggles with addiction when the band first rose to fame. “But I don’t drink any more, or at least I don’t drink at home. And although I still smoke weed, I consider it a lesser of many evils.”

Healy is a master provocateur: during the band’s Brits performance, lines from the some of their worst reviews flashed up on screen — “Pretentious”, “shallow”, “punch-your-TV obnoxious” and so on — causing some of the audience to think they had been hacked. That’s his role, as the Mick of the band, but not everything he says, and goodness does he have a lot to say, is merely for effect.

In the two hours plus I’m at his house, he treats our interview a little like a therapy session, talking about how he struggles with his “carnal impulses — a beautiful woman, that’s the closest I’ve ever come to divinity”, and how he is all too aware of his messianic influence over a certain demographic, girls between the ages of 13 and 17. Upstairs he has a suitcase full of the gifts he has been showered with on tour: artwork, books, knickers, you name it. One of his most treasured is a rare signed copy of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood that was pressed into his hands after a gig in Sheffield.

“I wouldn’t accept it until she brought her dad backstage to say it was OK,” he says. “I’m not sure she realised what a find it was. But then look at Mary Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein when she was only 18. The desires of a teenage girl can be as sophisticated as mine, and when they are looking to me as a source of information, that’s a big responsibility. You can see where impostor syndrome sets in.”

Self-aware, in other words, doesn’t describe the half of it. But then, like Stormzy with his depression and Zayn with his anxiety and even Riz Ahmed with his views on Islamophobia, public emoting is part of Healy’s schtick. As he shared in his acceptance speech at the Brits: “In pop music … they tell you to stay in your lane when it comes to talking about social issues — but if you have a platform, don’t do that, please don’t do that.”

“Well, that whole ‘I don’t give a shit’ thing has never really gone far with me,” he says. “It’s why indie is my most hated [music] scene — a scene where you pretend you don’t care in order to not get judged on how bad you are as a musician. But times have moved on. I’m a privileged middle-class kid from Macclesfield. I can’t pretend to be what I’m not.”

Back, please, to his love life. He was rumoured to have dated Taylor Swift, but I can confirm they never even kissed, they “only fancied each other”. At the Brits there was a Lily-Rose Depp lookalike in a silver dress sitting next to him — Gabriella Brooks, an Australian who, yes, is a model, “but not a model model. She’s a chilled-out surfer chick who has never once asked to go out to an event, which is just amazing because I hate those big red-carpet events.” So, is this the future Mrs Matt Healy? Might he, at the tender age of 28, be settling down?

“Oh, bless. I’ve put her through the mill, brought her closer, pushed her away, brought her closer. See, although I know now I don’t need my equal on the intensity spectrum, I enjoy fantasising. What if someone like, say, Rihanna wanted to marry me? Am I shutting myself off from the opportunity of marrying someone like Rihanna?

“Oh, I don’t know,” he says suddenly looking terribly young.“I’m still trying to figure it all out.”

[buscemigirl]

REVIEW: The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2012) dir. Mira Nair Starring: Riz Ahmed, Liev Schreiber, Kate Hudson, Kiefer Sutherland Rating: 4.5/5

Review Summary: I’m not going to be friends with anyone who won’t watch this movie.

SOME SPOILERS AHEAD

The Reluctant Fundamentalist, based on the book of the same name by Mohsin Hamid shares the story of a Pakistani man living in America post-9/11. It opens with the kidnapping of an American professor, Anse Rainer, in Lahore, Pakistan. American journalist/CIA informant, Bobby Lincoln (Liev Schreiber), interviews Rainer’s colleague, Changez Khan (Riz Ahmed), who the CIA suspects is involved in the kidnapping.

Caption: Bobby Lincoln, left, (Liev Schreiber) and Changez Kahn, right, (Riz Ahmed) sit at a table in Lahore, Pakistan discussing Changez’s life.

Changez is a very intelligent and determined young man who moves to the United States to attend Princeton University on scholarship, and eventually, to New York City to work for a Wall Street valuation company, Underwood Samson. He works on a fairly diverse team and thrives very easily at the company, rising quickly to the level of Associate.

Caption: A conference/meeting room at Underwood Samson. Changez Kahn is pictured middle left

Changez also falls very deeply in love with a white American photographer, Erica (Kate Hudson) who he meets by chance one day by stumbling into her outdoor photoshoot of skateboarders.

Caption: Changez and Erica (Kate Hudson) kiss and embrace in Erica’s apartment.

After the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center by Al-Qaeda, Changez experiences many different forms of racism and Islamophobia. Immediately after the attacks, Changez and his co-workers are arriving back to New York from Manila, Philippines. There, he is subjected to a humiliating strip search by authorities which ends with the man inspecting his anus. The film portrays this in a way in which makes you focus entirely on how Changez feels humiliated and degraded.

Caption: Changez bends over naked in a private room in the airport as he is inspected by authorities.

The entire film does just such an amazing job of focusing on how deeply traumatic these experiences of racism and Islamophobia are for Muslims living in America. In addition to being strip-searched at the airport, Changez is also mistakenly arrested on the street after calls were made to the police about a different Pakistani man. He is interrogated intensely and not allowed to contact his lawyer. In another instance, his tires are slashed after a meeting and a white man pulls up next to him in the parking lot (assumingly the same man who slashed his tires), spits at him, and says “Fuck you, Osama!”

One scene that is particularly unnerving is when his girlfriend, Erica sets up an art show that is based on their relationship. It features several fetishistic elements and appropriates many aspects of Islamic culture. Changez is outraged when he sees it, feeling as if he was just a prop in her artistic endeavors. Riz Ahmed’s acting here is really amazing here too! (He is never one to shy away from political comments and recently released a song called “Englistan” about his experience as a British Pakistani man which you should listen to!) You can really feel Riz’s true emotion behind it. Here is the full reaction scene:

Full transcript Changez: You’re the one goddamn person I trusted in this city and now I get this shit. I get this fucking shit from you too, now? Hmm? Erica: I don’t...I thought...I thought...I thought you’d be proud of me. Changez: Why would I be proud? What? Proud of being your own little pet artistic project? Erica: Can we please take this outside? Changez: No, what? Was that the idea? Huh? How chic! How chic! “I’m gonna date a Pakistani after 9/11 and it’s gonna be great for my bohemian street cred!” Erica: That is completely unfair! Changez: “I fucked the 20th hijacker!” Huh? I’m like the ultimate downtown status symbol right now.

Another thing that The Reluctant Fundamentalist does that is interesting is display everyday microaggressions or ingrained Islamophobic ideals that we as Americans exhibit towards the Muslim community. Changez consistently has his name pronounced incorrectly and by people that he works with. These are people that he spends the majority of his day with and they can’t even learn how to pronounce his name - a name that is really not at all hard to pronounce even for the most redneck American. He gets called “Changes” or “Chain-jeez” multiple times.

By one coworker, he is even called Saddam on more than one occasion. Multiple coworkers comment on the fact that they dislike his beard and urge him to shave it, despite the fact that Changez says that it reminds him of where he comes from. These are things that Americans, particularly white Americans, do, sometimes without even realizing it. But still, The Reluctant Fundamentalist shows us that these things impact Muslims living in America negatively.

Furthermore, often while at work, after the attacks, Changez overhears his coworkers speaking ignorantly about Muslims. Here is how one conversation went down:

Wainwright: All I'm saying is, before I'd start a full F-16, tank-ass war against the entire Muslim world, I'd give the CIA, INTERPOL, whoever, a chance to track these motherfuckers down. Mike: We got hit first. It's Pearl Harbor all over again. It's common fucking sense. Wainwright: I'm not saying you're wrong, but what nation-state attacked us? Mike: Nation-state, my ass! You're splitting hairs. Wainright: Am I? Mike: Yeah. They believe God told them to blow us up. It's in their book. Wainright: It's in their book? Mike: Yeah. Whatever it's called.

The film does an incredible job of articulating how American patriotism can easily cross the line into xenophobia. I think that a major point to take away from this is that white fear and American nationalism breeds terrorism (though Changez is not a terrorist, that’s not what I’m implying). But, we as Americans ostracize Muslims to the point where we make them resent us. We tell them that America is the place where dreams come true and anyone can thrive, but then despise anyone who we don’t think fits our very Eurocentric standards. And when tragedy strikes or anything happens that makes us feel threatened, we blame anyone who looks like the people we are angry at. I think that Changez says it best himself:

Changez: You picked a side after 9/11: I didn’t have to. It was picked for me.

So, are there any negatives to the film? Only slightly. I found the present day plot with Anse Rainer a bit confusing to follow. I just think that it could have been simplified a bit for the film. And as for women in the film, of course, I wish there were more women because I literally always wish that there were more women. However, I was pleased with the way the women were represented. His sister Bina (Meesha Shafi) is a carefree and confident woman who dresses in her own unique style. It’s a contrast to the typical Muslim women that are typically displayed in Western media. We need more honest and real portrayals of Muslim women in popular media, which is why we really need more incredible filmmakers who are women of color like Mira Nair (Mississippi Masala, The Namesake).

I give this film a 4.5 out of 5 because I really think that the plot taking place in the present day was very confusing and hard to follow. That being said, this is truly one of the most incredible films I have seen recently. I’ve been so serious this whole review because I just couldn’t bring myself to try and be funny. This topic isn't funny. It demands to be taken seriously. I wish every single American, especially white American, could watch The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Maybe then we could understand our impact of the hatred and trauma that we inflict on Muslims living America every day.