Notice: Trying to get property 'ID' of non-object in /code/wp-content/themes/thenation-2023/functions.php on line 3332 Chantal Montellier’s Prescient Dystopiashttps://www.thenation.com/article/society/chantal-montellier-social-fictions/Laila LalamiSep 18, 2023

A new volume collects the pioneering French comic artist's work.

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Culture / Books & the Arts / September 18, 2023

In Wonder City

Chantal Montellier’s vision of the future.

Chantal Montellier’s Prescient Dystopias

A new volume collects the pioneering French comic artist’s work.

Laila Lalami
Copyright © 2023 Chantal Montellier
(Copyright © 2023 Chantal Montellier; translation copyright © 2023 Geoffrey Brock; courtesy of New York Review Comics)

Why do we turn to dystopian fiction when disaster looms? Last year, after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, protesters showed up to rallies dressed in the blood-red cloaks and white bonnets that Margaret Atwood conceived in her novel The Handmaid’s Tale. When we hear about robot dogs designed to patrol the southern border or generative AI systems giving podcast interviews, we think of Black Mirror’s “Metalhead” episode or Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun. And it’s nearly impossible to go a week in politics without someone bringing up George Orwell’s 1984 or Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. In fictional dystopias, we look for language to express real fears, we find unexpected twists and complications, we echo alarm about the future.

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But novelists aren’t prophets, and the future often turns out to be both more complicated and more banal than we imagine. Instead of firefighters burning books, we have groups like Moms for Liberty taking over school boards and removing novels from library shelves. Instead of the Party watching us through telescreens, we willingly use devices and download apps that follow our movements and capture every word we say.

Dystopian fiction often has less to tell us about the future than it does about the era in which it is written. When The Handmaid’s Tale was published in 1985, for example, conservative activists had already persuaded five state legislatures to revoke their ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment; Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority was pushing a national “family values” platform that opposed abortion, feminism, and gay rights; and Ronald Reagan was serving his second term as president. In building the Republic of Gilead, Atwood offered her readers a warning wrapped inside a thought experiment.

The future that the French artist Chantal Montellier imagined in the 1970s and ’80s, when her dystopian comics ran in the magazine Métal Hurlant, is likewise ominous. Montellier envisioned a society in which the government requires loyalty oaths, culture is drenched in vulgarity, and women have lost their reproductive rights to gestational innovations. In this work, she explores French anxieties about the end of the trentes glorieuses (a period of unprecedented economic prosperity that lasted from 1945 to 1975), the rise of decadent consumerism, modern technology, and a new world order. Yet even in her bleak visions of the future, Montellier’s focus remains on her characters’ struggle for dignity and liberation.

Montellier is an unusual figure in French comics. Less famous than Claire Bretécher, who satirized bourgeois life in her widely popular Agrippine comic strip, and Marjane Satrapi, whose memoir Persepolis was adapted into a César-winning movie, Montellier is a politically engaged artist and a pioneer of the feminist movement in French comics. Born in 1947 near Saint-Étienne, she trained at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts but found the school stuffy and the students apathetic. After completing her degree, she began teaching visual arts at a high school in Haute-Savoie, a job that left her little time to pursue her passion—painting. She fell into comics in 1972, almost by chance, when a friend offered her a job as an editorial cartoonist for Combat syndicaliste, an anarcho-syndicalist newspaper that covered the concerns and interests of French workers.

Over the next 50 years, Montellier produced an impressive and wide-ranging body of work: political cartoons, comic books, art portfolios, essays, novels, and collections of stories. She developed a reputation as a rebel, unafraid to call out misogyny and fearless in her commitment to her ideals. Although some of her dystopian comic strips were released in the United States in the 1980s in the sci-fi magazine Heavy Metal, she remains largely unknown here. But US audiences may finally get to know her work this year, as three of her bandes dessinées, translated by Geoffrey Brock and collected under the title Social Fiction, have just been published by New York Review Books.

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In France, bandes dessinées are part of a tradition that dates back at least a century, to newspaper strips like Les Pieds Nickelés, which relied on text beneath black-and-white drawings of three slackers, or Zig et Puce, which used speech balloons to convey the dialogue of its teenage heroes. Belgian artists like Hergé, Morris, and Peyo broadened the appeal of comics through their use of the adventure genre in Tintin, the western in Lucky Luke, and fantasy in The Smurfs. By 1959, when René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo debuted Astérix, about a village of indomitable Gauls fighting Roman invaders, comic book sales had skyrocketed. To date, Astérix has sold 385 million copies worldwide.

Bandes dessinées aren’t just a popular export. A recent poll found that 75 percent of French people consider Astérix and Tintin to be a part of their cultural heritage as prestigious as literary classics like Les Misérables or The Count of Monte Cristo. French comics are published in handsome hardcover editions that make collecting a pleasure as much as a compulsion. They’re reviewed in literary magazines and celebrated in venues around the country, including the prestigious Angoulême International Comics Festival, a four-day event that draws hundreds of thousands of attendees.

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Yet tradition can easily mask inequity. In 2016, Angoulême was plunged into controversy after festival organizers published their annual prize shortlist of 30 artists, none of them women. The oversight illustrated a long-standing sexism within the industry, with women cartoonists receiving less attention for their art and fewer professional opportunities. There was also the stereotypical characterization and objectification of girls and women in the work of male cartoonists.

Chantal Montellier was not one to await recognition via a prize at the Angoulême Festival. Her pioneering work in comics appears to have taught her that it’s a fool’s errand for marginalized artists to expect recognition from establishment systems; instead, they have to find ways to nurture their work themselves. A decade before the brouhaha at Angoulême, Montellier and another pathbreaking comics illustrator, Jeanne Puchol, established the Artémisia Prize (named for the Italian Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi), which recognizes outstanding work by women cartoonists in multiple categories, including memoir, humor, and fiction. Since its founding, the prize has brought attention to artists like Laureline Mattiussi, Ulli Lust, and Sandrine Revel.

Montellier’s commitment to feminism has been unflagging, no doubt owing to the sexism she encountered as a trailblazer in French comics. In an interview with the social scientists Marianne Cailloux, Françoise F. Laot, and Anne Monjaret, she described the blunt refusal of her editors at L’Humanité dimanche to run a cartoon she drew in 1975, after abortion became legal in France, in which she criticized hospitals that allowed doctors to opt out of performing the procedure. “It was as if I was breaking a taboo without meaning to,” Montellier recalled. The problem, she felt, wasn’t so much that she was a woman cartoonist in a male newsroom, but that she had made feminine concerns visible.

Not long after this incident, Montellier went to work for Ah! Nana, a graphic magazine drawn entirely by women. It lasted only nine issues, because the editors were accused of publishing “pornography” after they ran comics that explored the female body, child prostitution, domestic violence, homosexuality, and other subjects considered taboo. The fact that actual porn was being sold freely in kiosks only seemed to prove the point that women were to be seen and drawn solely for the pleasure of male readers. But like her peers at Ah! Nana, Montellier wanted to show women through the gaze of one of their own, a feminist sensibility that is evident throughout Social Fiction.

Social Fiction features three self-contained graphic novellas. The first, Wonder City, begins with a splash page that shows a massive street poster, on which a glamorous couple is locked in an embrace, beneath repeated commands to “Love yourselves, love Wonder City.” In the background are the skyscrapers of a metropolis, while in the foreground, an armed policeman has raised his truncheon to strike unseen protesters. The symmetrical lines and juxtapositions of this visual quickly establish the themes that Montellier will set against each other in her story: state control and human rights.

An epidemic has just broken out in Wonder City, a state of emergency has been declared, and communications have been cut. These new restrictions come on the heels of mass censorship and the suspension of civil liberties. The only solace that city resident Freddy Foster has is live music, and it is while attending a jazz performance one night that he meets and falls in love with Angie Parker, a militant and musician. When the couple seek permission to have a child, they are denied it on the grounds that Angie’s tests show she is infertile. But is this denial based on her test results, or is Angie being punished for her activism?

Although Wonder City begins with Freddy at work in his lab at the Institute of Demographic Control, it is Angie who drives the narrative. She’s highly critical of the government, gets arrested after talking back to a cop, and encourages Freddy to use his security clearance to snoop through her genetics file and find out why she’s been denied permission to have a baby. Freddy uncovers a government conspiracy to manage the city’s gene pool by allowing only a select few to have children and sterilizing everyone else. Later, standing under a one-way sign, he realizes that those affected “belong to the so-called lower classes. Almost all are from nonwhite backgrounds.”

Control of women and minorities looms large in this bande dessinée, with Montellier continually highlighting the connection between white supremacy and restrictions on reproductive rights. She draws the female body from Angie’s perspective, both in terms of her pleasurable experiences of sex and her nightmares about eugenicist experimentation. As the story unfolds, we come to see Angie in the role of outsider, dissident, and eventually rebel.

Shelter, the second comic in Social Fiction, originally appeared in Métal Hurlant in 1978. In it, a bourgeois couple, Theresa and Jean, stop by a subterranean mall on their way to a dinner party and find themselves marooned inside it during a nuclear attack. “You have nothing to fear,” the mall director reassures the shoppers. “This shelter is designed to function perfectly autonomously and can support 15,000 occupants for one year.” Armed security officers shepherd the stunned patrons to the auditorium, where they receive orders to sign up for jobs that will ensure the survival of the community. (The premise will seem familiar to readers of Hugh Howey’s Silo books, recently adapted into a series on AppleTV.)

The mall authorities provide everyone with not just food and shelter but also clothing, books, and movies—all for free. “To each according to his needs, in a way,” Theresa quips. She has been assigned the position of librarian, but in short order she notices that security officers show up with lists of books they borrow, only to never return. “Bookburning without fire,” she remarks to Jean.

Cold War worries permeate the narrative, with the survivors having to balance their fear of the unknown against their desire for safety. Theresa’s continual criticisms attract the attention of two acolytes of the security forces, who assault her in a brutal scene rendered in four panels on a single page. The only word spoken is Theresa’s “No,” set in large, bold type and repeated across the panels. As in Wonder City, the violence that is visited on the female protagonist crystallizes her anger and drives her to liberatory action.

The third section of Social Fiction is taken up by 1996, a series of comics set mostly in a future United States where people are subjected to lab experiments, women are shot for sport, and, even in death, white corpses are treated with greater dignity than nonwhite ones. Montellier told the comics journalist Paul Gravett that 1996 was inspired by the “visual shock” she felt after watching American movies like THX 1138 and Blade Runner, which gave her the impression of “something irredeemably ferocious, cruel, crass, violent and perverted.” A visit to New York in the 1980s apparently did nothing to change this view.

Authoritarianism and resistance to it are twin threads that run through the dystopias of Social Fiction. In Montellier’s vision of the future, control seems to reside almost exclusively with the political elite, and what violence is committed is executed by the government and its sympathizers rather than driven by personal grievances. Women’s bodily autonomy is another recurring theme, with contraception, pregnancy, and abortion serving as points of tension throughout the comics in this collection.

Montellier’s drawings favor clean, symmetrical lines and a meticulous attention to detail. In the pre-Internet days, she had to take photographs of sites of interest and draw them by hand to achieve her signature nouveau realist style. (The mall in Shelter, for example, is based on Belle Épine, a massive commercial center outside Paris.) Here and there, she adds comic touches, such as the three cats that follow and comment on Angie’s adventures in Wonder City. The dialogue is beautifully and idiomatically rendered in English by the poet Geoffrey Brock, who also contributes an introductory note and an interview with the author.

Seen from the vantage point of the late ’70s and early ’80s, the future appears full of violence—much like our present. Yet in her bandes dessinées, Montellier also offers us hope for liberation. “You don’t seem too worried,” a colleague remarks to Freddy at the start of Wonder City. “That’s right. I’m not worried,” he replies. “There will always be people to fight against that kind of stuff.” Perhaps this is another appeal of dystopian fiction: It shows us that we are always living through the apocalypse, and that we will always look for ways to survive it.



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The America We Want to Behttps://www.thenation.com/article/society/travel-ban-trump-nigeria/Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiFeb 17, 2020

Three years ago, when President Donald Trump signed an executive order barring people from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States, he was met with immediate defiance, as thousands of protesters gathered at the nation’s airports. Although the so-called travel ban was ultimately declared legal—the Supreme Court upheld a revised version in June 2018 that applied to five of the original countries along with North Korea and Venezuela—those protests helped to stake out a moral position on the issue. Yet when the president issued a more recent proclamation in January expanding the ban to six other countries, the news barely made a ripple. Many Americans seemed more preoccupied with the Senate’s impeachment trial or the increasingly rancorous Democratic primary race. Trump, usually quick to brag about his policies, didn’t even bother tweeting about it. Nor did he mention it during his State of the Union address, though he found the time to award the Medal of Freedom to a radio talk show host.

Though it’s shrouded in silence, this new ban, like the old one, will destroy many lives. Starting on February 22, nationals of Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Nigeria, Sudan, and Tanzania will no longer be eligible for immigrant visas to the United States. In effect, a Nigerian who resides legally in this country—perhaps your coworker or neighbor—will not be able to bring her spouse or children to live with her. A Rohingya refugee, whose picture you might have seen on your news feed, will not be able to seek asylum here from the ongoing genocide against Muslims in Myanmar.

The expanded ban affects Africans the most. In fact, the four African countries on the list account for nearly a quarter of the continent’s population. I can’t think of an immigration prohibition this wide-ranging since the days of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which evolved into the Immigration Act of 1924 barring all Asians from immigrating. Slowly but surely, Trump has shaped immigration policy to favor “more people from Norway,” as he famously put it, and fewer from everywhere else.

The same principle applies to the first ban, which closed America’s doors to immigrants from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen. Many of Trump’s surrogates have argued—and the Supreme Court agreed—that the policy was not aimed at Muslims because it also includes Venezuela and North Korea. But the only Venezuelans barred from entry are government officials, and North Korea rarely grants exit visas to its citizens in the first place.

Taken together, the two bans demonstrate that the administration’s immigration policies are not, as it claims, driven by concerns for the safety of Americans or by concerns about vetting standards and information sharing. For example, while it’s true that Nigeria is home to Boko Haram, it is far from the only country with a homegrown terrorist problem. Not long ago, a Saudi aviation student killed three US service members and wounded eight others at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida—which Attorney General William Barr deemed “an act of terrorism.” Yet Saudi Arabia is not included in the ban.

And while Nigeria has a high rate of people overstaying their visas, it is, again, not the only country with this issue. In 2018 more Canadians overstayed their visas than any other foreign nationals. Canada is not listed, either.

Perhaps the biggest indicator that this new ban was not driven by urgent threats is its timing. It was issued on the last Friday in January on the third anniversary of the old ban, as though it were some kind of commemoration. It’s clear that the president is celebrating his success on immigration, a central issue of his platform.

Aside from the bans, Trump has reshaped immigration policy in significant ways. In July his administration announced that it would deny asylum to refugees who did not apply for it in the countries they passed through on their way to the southwestern border of the United States. Under this rule, migrants from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras are virtually barred from seeking asylum in this country. In August the administration established a wealth test for immigrants, which would deny green cards to those who have used public benefits or might use them at any point in the future—a determination that is made at the discretion of the immigration agent handling the application. The rule would disproportionately affect lower-income applicants. And just last month, Trump began to conceal immigration agency records. As The Nation reported, the administration quietly designated Customs and Border Protection a security agency, shielding many of its documents from public scrutiny.

Each time Trump changes immigration policy, civil rights groups like the ACLU raise legal challenges in the federal courts. But the Supreme Court regularly allows the president to implement his policies while lower courts hear the challenges. It’s clear that the executive and the judiciary are working together to reshape immigration and, by extension, to determine who gets to be American. Meanwhile, our legislators are watching idly.

The Trump administration’s cruelties toward immigrants have grown so frequent that they seem to have depleted many Americans’ capacity for compassion or action. Instead, we seem stuck in a cycle of denunciation. Every time immigrants are degraded, some people say, “This is not America.”

Well, it is. It will continue to be, unless we muster the courage to do something about it. What is at stake right now is nothing less than the kind of country we want to have. Americans must make their voices heard, whether through public protests, civil disobedience, or the voting booth.



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Thanks to Republicans, Iran Is Another Iraq Waiting to Happenhttps://www.thenation.com/article/world/iran-trump-soleimani-iraq/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiJan 17, 2020

Despite long lines on the weekends, the port of entry in Blaine, Washington, is ordinarily a quiet border crossing. Its most memorable feature is the Peace Arch, a monument honoring the friendship between the United States and Canada that has become a popular spot for Instagram photos.

This month, however, it was a site for the mass detention and questioning of Iranian Americans. As many as 200 travelers who were returning to the United States were held by Customs and Border Protection agents in Blaine and asked for details about their families in Iran, their parents’ military service, and their social media accounts. The incident appears to be one of the first domestic consequences of the Trump administration’s decision to assassinate Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani.

The killing of Suleimani, Iran’s most senior security and intelligence official, has essentially plunged the United States into another calamitous war. A diplomatic resolution to the 40 years of conflict between the two countries seemed possible in 2015, when the Obama administration negotiated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, easing economic sanctions on Iran in return for meaningful limits on its nuclear program. But when Donald Trump pulled out of the deal in 2018, tensions between the two nations started to rise, culminating in the US drone strike that killed Suleimani just outside Baghdad International Airport in Iraq.

Anyone who lived through the early 2000s will recognize the early signs of a massive foreign policy debacle, and this past month bore all of them. The administration fumbled repeatedly as it tried to justify the assassination. Trump announced, in his usual bombastic style, that the Iranian general was the No. 1 terrorist in the world, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans. Vice President Mike Pence tweeted that Suleimani arranged the travel of “10 of the 12 terrorists” who carried out the attacks on 9/11. (In fact, there were 19 hijackers, all of whom had sworn allegiance to Al Qaeda, a Sunni terrorist organization that views Shias like Suleimani as heretics.) Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared that Suleimani was planning “imminent” attacks against the United States, before redefining the word to mean “this was gonna happen.”

With few exceptions, Republicans immediately rallied around Trump, repeating his claims that American diplomats and military personnel were under immediate threat and lambasting anyone who expressed skepticism as a traitor to the United States. This would be farcical were it not so dangerous. Republican legislators seem to think war with Iran would be a brief and easily winnable conflict in which indeterminate bad guys will die and everyone else will be safe and go on peacefully with their lives. But war is not tidy, and it isn’t fought on the battlefield only. It can affect civilians near and far, including hundreds of millions of people who had no say in this conflict.

We’ve heard this all before, back in 2001 and 2003. Remember Dick Cheney’s promise that American troops would be greeted as “liberators”? Remember Donald Rumsfeld’s prediction that the war in Iraq would last “five days or five weeks or five months”? Yet here we are. The disastrous invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have taught the political class only one thing: that there are no legal, professional, or even social consequences for leading the country into war, for torture and extrajudicial killings and indefinite detention, for sending troops to die by the thousands, for wrecking other countries and killing, wounding, or displacing millions of civilians. These days, George W. Bush paints dogs and hangs out with Ellen DeGeneres and Michelle Obama. Rumsfeld released a game app. Condoleezza Rice and John Yoo hold faculty positions at prestigious universities. David Frum writes cover stories for The Atlantic. Joe Biden is running for president. The list goes on and on.

Those who warn about the dangers of war, on the other hand, face a different reaction. When Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) announced that legislators at a classified security briefing on Iran had not been shown any evidence of an imminent threat, she was attacked by Representative John Rutherford (R-FL), who wrote on Twitter, “You and your squad of Ayatollah sympathizers are spreading propaganda that divides our nation and strengthens our enemies.” Similarly, when Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) said that the events in Iran had given her post-traumatic stress disorder, Representative Jim Banks (R-IN) responded that her statement was “a disgrace and offensive to our nation’s veterans who really do have PTSD after putting their life on the line to keep America safe.”

This juvenile understanding of patriotism must stop. Given the lives at stake, Jayapal has every right to treat US intelligence with seriousness and skepticism. Nor are Omar’s traumatic experiences as a refugee any less real than those of troops on the battlefield. Jayapal and Omar are doing their country a great service by refusing to accept the administration’s claims in the absence of compelling evidence.

It’s important to keep in mind that Trump faces an election in less than a year and the Iranian regime is dealing with popular protests at home. So tensions between the two governments are not likely to abate soon. War with Iran will affect hundreds of millions of Americans, Iranians, Iraqis, and others. It will shatter the lives of troops and civilians. It will cost American taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, even as they are denied universal health care and relief from student debt. And it will exacerbate global warming. The time to raise questions is now.

As we’ve seen with Afghanistan and Iraq, the architects of the war with Iran will not be the ones paying the price. Instead, that cost will be borne by service members and civilians, some of whom—like the travelers in Blaine, Washington—will pay it here at home.



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‘Bothsidesism’ Is Poisoning Americahttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/trump-impeachment-journalism/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiDec 17, 2019

The media is “biased,” the president often complains. It’s also “fake,” “lame,” “dishonest,” “the enemy.” These accusations aren’t exactly surprising, coming from a man with a long track record of lies, racism, sexual assaults, and tax evasion who clearly fears more press scrutiny of his past. What is surprising is how far many in the media are willing to go in order to prove that they’re not biased against him.

So they give space to both sides of any story, no matter what the facts show, leaving them open to manipulation by surrogates acting in bad faith and, more worrying, making it harder for ordinary citizens to remain informed and engaged.

The impeachment proceedings unfolding in the House of Representatives provide a good illustration of the danger of reporters practicing “both sides” journalism. In September, when Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House would open a formal investigation of Donald Trump, The New York Times covered the breaking news under the headline “Impeachment Inquiry Is High-Stakes Showdown for Both Sides.”

In fact, the inquiry was opened only after weeks of hearings uncovered evidence that Trump had attempted to pressure Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, to investigate former vice president Joe Biden, one of Trump’s political rivals. Yet the headline made impeachment seem like an abstract game indulged in by Democrats and Republicans alike rather than a concrete remedy provided by the Constitution to address criminal behavior. (The Times has since removed the headline.)

More recently, testimony from four legal scholars on the value of impeachment was somewhat eclipsed by a pun one of them made. Speaking about the historical differences between kings and presidents, Stanford University law professor Pamela Karlan pointed out that a king could do no wrong but a president was bound by law and could not, for example, grant titles of nobility. She said, “While the president can name his son Barron, he can’t make him a baron.” First lady Melania Trump took to Twitter to complain that “a minor child” had inappropriately been invoked in the hearings, a charge echoed by other Republicans. Fox News host Tucker Carlson chimed in with insults aimed at Karlan. But this was a clear case of bad faith. The first lady, you’ll recall, wore a jacket that read “I really don’t care. Do u?” to visit a child migrant detention center on the border with Mexico at the height of the family separation crisis. Yet several media outlets dutifully covered Karlan’s pun as though it were as serious and consequential as the matters being considered by the Judiciary Committee.

Bothsidesism is hardly confined to the impeachment coverage. It happened last year during the government shutdown over funding for the border wall, a decision that Trump declared he was “proud” to make. Before long, however, pundits began placing responsibility on both parties for the standoff and urged them to come together to end it. Nor is bothsidesism restricted to this administration. The slogan “fair and balanced,” coined by former Fox News head Roger Ailes in the late 1990s, was an early indicator that false equivalence would become part of the daily news. But Trump, who has proved to be extremely savvy with social media, has benefited tremendously from it.

The truth is that most people have neither the time nor the luxury to read the newspaper from front to back or to watch television coverage all day. They have jobs to do, classes to attend, families to take care of, which means they have only a few minutes each day to catch up on what’s happening in the country. And if what the media tells them is happening seems entirely disconnected from their lives or muddied by bothsidesism, they have no reason to care. There is more to political life than the competition between the two major parties. Zealous coverage of the political points being scored by either side isn’t going to help anyone outside Washington, but it will certainly ensure that the media becomes ever more remote from the electorate it is meant to serve.

Another consequence of bothsidesism is that there are no repercussions for spreading lies and arguing in bad faith. Sean Spicer, who when he was the White House press secretary defended the conspiracy theory that 3 million fraudulent votes were cast in the 2016 election, has since appeared at the Emmy Awards and on Dancing With the Stars. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Spicer’s successor, admitted to investigators that she had lied—she called it “a slip of the tongue”—when she said that “countless” FBI agents had told her they agreed with Trump’s decision to fire James Comey as the bureau’s director. Sanders is now a paid Fox News contributor, is working on a memoir slated to be published next year, and is reportedly considering a run for governor of Arkansas.

In the best of times, I get frustrated with bothsidesism because it fails to properly hold policy-makers to account. But with the next presidential election less than a year away, I’m increasingly concerned about the effect it will have on all our futures. From the West Coast to the East, climate change is affecting people’s lives and livelihoods. Health care continues to be a leading cause of bankruptcy, and the number of uninsured Americans is on the rise. A white nationalist is helping to write our immigration policy. Migrant children are dying in Customs and Border Protection custody. Convicted war criminals are getting pardoned. Food stamps are being cut back. Students’ college debt has passed $1.5 trillion. By any measure, the United States today is a country in crisis, which is why engaging in bothsidesism is so dangerous.

This is not to say there isn’t value in providing different perspectives on an issue. News stories are vastly enriched by the relevant context supplied by sources, experts, and observers. But to give print space or airtime to surrogates who repeat dishonest talking points or engage in bad-faith arguments only distorts that context. Handing a bullhorn to “both sides” isn’t objective; it’s merely relinquishing the responsibility to inform the public.



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What It Feels Like to Be Watchedhttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/surveillance-muslim-technology/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiOct 28, 2019

Nearly every day in my neighborhood, I walk by signs placed at eye level outside homes and businesses, warning me, “This property is under surveillance.” Despite their ubiquity, these signs always make me pause. If what is surveilled is property, then what does that make those of us who live under the constant scrutiny of cameras at the grocery store and the bank, in hallways and elevators, at street intersections and public parks? My resentment at being observed wherever I go strikes some of my friends and family as a strange quirk. Even my teenager rolls her eyes at me.

But as Assia Boundaoui shows in her chilling documentary The Feeling of Being Watched, I have reason to be concerned. Boundaoui, the daughter of Algerian refugees who settled in Bridgeview, Illinois, recalls waking up at 3 am when she was 16 to find two men atop a telephone pole outside her window, fiddling with equipment and soldering wires. Terrified, she ran to her mother to report the incident, expecting that the police would be called. “Calm down,” her mother replied. “It’s probably just the FBI. Go back to sleep.”

The year was 2001, but the surveillance of the Arab community in Bridgeview started years earlier, under an FBI probe known as Operation Vulgar Betrayal. Boundaoui interviews her family, friends, neighbors, and members of the congregation at her local mosque. Some of them relay disturbing anecdotes, like having cars parked outside their homes for hours on end and men in suits going through their trash cans. Others refuse to speak to her on camera. An effect of decades of law enforcement surveillance is a sense of paranoia that has become pervasive in the community, as well as a deep fear of speaking out about anything political.

To fight this fear and silence, Boundaoui filed Freedom of Information Act requests with the FBI and, when they were rejected, sued to compel the release of the requested documents. She eventually prevailed in court, and more than 33,000 redacted pages have since been given to her, documenting years of surveillance of the entire Arab community in Bridgeview. The Feeling of Being Watched, which was shown at several film festivals and recently screened on PBS, made me reflect on how the government violated the privacy rights of hundreds of people with impunity. It managed to do this because the surveillance targeted a vulnerable constituency: Arab refugees and immigrants, along with their American children.

This is by no means the only surveillance operation focusing on nonwhite communities in the country. A few years ago in a Pulitzer Prize-winning series, the Associated Press revealed how the New York Police Department conducted secret surveillance of Muslims in the city. Plainclothes officers were sent into largely Muslim neighborhoods, where they visited mosques and businesses, infiltrated student groups, and gained access to private homes in order to collect data. The program originated with a CIA officer in 2003 when he started working with the NYPD. After a decade of surveillance, however, the police failed to generate a single credible terrorism lead and shuttered the program when it came under public scrutiny.

Other victims of targeted surveillance include Black Lives Matter activists in New York, whose smart devices mysteriously switched off—as if controlled remotely—while they were recording BLM demonstrations in 2014. New York City police took and circulated pictures of the marchers protesting the killing of Eric Garner, a black man who was arrested by police for selling loose cigarettes and placed in a lethal chokehold by an NYPD officer. And in October an investigative report by Univision showed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents tracked the mobile phones of undocumented immigrants, using stingray spying devices ordinarily seen in counterterrorism probes. These secret programs are part of a long history of covert government surveillance going back at least to CoIntelPro, an FBI program that began in 1956 and was directed against communists, Black Power activists, anti-war demonstrators, feminists, and many other domestic groups.

Some people might justify these surveillance programs as necessary for security. Others might dismiss them as harmless, especially in the context of omnipresent technologies with embedded tracking capabilities. But if you haven’t committed a crime or given your consent to being watched, then law enforcement agencies have no business monitoring you. When the government does otherwise, it subjects communities that it perceives as undesirable to a form of social control.

Increasingly, however, surveillance is the work of private companies—Facebook and Google, for example—that share data with law enforcement. Since tech companies are accountable to shareholders rather than users, their mechanisms of data sharing fall outside the realm of democratic oversight. Facebook has flouted so many laws and been fined so many times that it is frankly alarming to have the company in possession of so much private data. Yet our lawmakers seem to be in no hurry to force it to abide by basic standards of privacy.

My apprehensions about surveillance stem from experience. I grew up in Morocco during a period of state surveillance and repression that came to be known as the Years of Lead. Hardly a week went by when my parents didn’t warn us that walls have ears, by which they meant that we should watch what we said in public and steer clear of anything remotely political, lest we get reported to the king’s intelligence services. It is the great irony of my life that although I now live in the “land of the free,” the warning still applies.

If American constitutional protections mean anything, then we need greater transparency and accountability when it comes to government surveillance programs. And considering how rapidly the technology changes, it is imperative that we bring corporate surveillance under democratic oversight as well.



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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/surveillance-muslim-technology/
Congressional Races Are Our Best Shot at Gun Controlhttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/gun-control-legislation-congress/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiSep 12, 2019

Four days before the shooting, my husband asked me whether I’d ordered guns online. This story takes place in the United States, which means I need to be more specific about the shooting. As a matter of fact, there were two that week—one in Gilroy, California, and one in El Paso, Texas. We had this conversation after Gilroy but before El Paso. “What are you talking about?” I asked, a chuckle forming in my throat at the absurdity of the question. My husband was looking at his phone, squinting as he tried to decipher an e-mail alert about a package from a gun dealer. “It says here that your delivery was redirected. It’s waiting for you at the UPS facility in downtown Los Angeles.”

Someone was shipping me guns? What a sinister joke, I thought. But try as I might, I couldn’t figure out who might do this. The UPS delivery alert listed the sender as a gun shop in Arkansas, so I looked up its phone number and called. The customer service rep, a young man with a lilting accent, pulled up the order for me. “Yup,” he said. “I have it all right here.” Then he rattled off a list of gun attachments and accessories, totaling $1,304.63. I told him that my credit card number must have been stolen, because I hadn’t placed the order. “Oh.” He sounded annoyed. “Well, I need to get off the phone and try to get this shipment back before it’s picked up, or else we’re going to lose money.”

California, where I live, has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation. It bans assault weapons and large-capacity magazines, has a 10-day waiting period for firearms sales and transfers, and doesn’t recognize concealed-carry permits issued elsewhere. But gun manufacturers have found ingenious ways to circumvent such state restrictions: They’ve modified gun designs to allow for tactical attachments. As my story shows, it’s not terribly difficult for someone to turn a gun purchased legally in California into an assault weapon by buying modification kits and accessories from out of state. And with stolen credit card information, the purchase is not even traceable to the person who made it.

Out of caution, I called my local police department. I was curious whether the officers would be able to do anything about what was clearly a suspicious purchase. I was fearful, too, because I happen to be Muslim, and I worried that someone might go on a shooting rampage under my name. The officer I spoke with let out a bitter laugh. “That kind of fraud is rampant,” she said.

I tried to imagine the man—for it is usually a man and usually a white one—who did this. Did he have something in common with other mass shooters? Was he, perhaps, a white supremacist intent on starting a race war? An anti-Semite who blamed Jews for hosting immigrant invaders? A xenophobe who feared that Hispanics would take control of the local and state governments? Was he consumed with hatred for women, as so many of these men are? Did he have grudges against his neighbors? Or was he an aimless man like the one in Thousand Oaks, California, who murdered 12 innocent people because, as the shooter posted on social media, “Life is boring so why not?”

Whatever the motivation or lack thereof, a simple fact connects these atrocities: The ease with which it is possible for anyone in this country to own a weapon. There are 393 million firearms in the United States, a statistic so staggering that it is necessary to render it in simpler terms. For every 100 Americans—regardless of age, criminal history, mental health, or physical ability—there are 120 weapons. Last year nearly 40,000 people died in gun-related violence, two-thirds of them from suicide. So far in 2019, there have been at least 38 shootings with three or more deaths.

The script that follows each act of public gun violence is hackneyed: sorrow and anger from the citizenry, thoughts and prayers from lawmakers. Year after year, even modest and widely supported reforms stall somewhere in the Capitol. At the moment, the people who are leading the fight to bring sanity to gun legislation are to be found in grassroots organizations. For example, Moms Demand Action, which has 6 million supporters, pushed 20 states to tighten their gun laws and successfully lobbied major retailers and restaurant chains to ban open carry.

Every move is being met with a countermove by the gun lobby. Gun manufacturers have shown a remarkable ability to adapt their deadly products to changing state laws. Gun fanatics who live in states with strict legislation can procure their weapons from nearby states with looser laws. (That is what Santino Legan, the mass shooter in Gilroy, did when he traveled from California to Nevada to buy an AK-47-style assault rifle.) In the meantime, the violence continues at such a pace that an entire generation of children is as familiar with the ritual of active-shooter drills as it is with the Pledge of Allegiance.

It’s time to bring federal resources to the fight against gun violence. There is no shortage of ideas—an assault weapons ban, a national gun buyback program, firearm licenses and registry, universal background checks, liability insurance, limits on ammunition purchases. But there is a shortage of political will, thanks to the influence of the National Rifle Association on some lawmakers. As the presidential race consumes massive amounts of money, energy, and attention, it’s important to remember that Senate and House races will determine whether we will finally have some leadership on gun control.

After I phoned my credit card company to report the theft, I got a call from the gun dealer in Arkansas. This time, the customer service rep sounded relieved; he’d managed to get the package intercepted before it was picked up. “That’s good,” I said, still baffled by the fact that weapon parts could be sold online with little oversight; I hadn’t received so much as a phone call to verify the purchase. “Yeah,” he replied. “You never know who might have gotten it.”

Exactly.



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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/gun-control-legislation-congress/
Trump Has Brought Back ‘Conditional Citizenship’https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/race-trump-citizenship-ilhan-squad/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiAug 2, 2019

Go back. If you’re a nonwhite American, chances are that you’ve heard this taunt at some point in your life. Maybe it came from bullies in the schoolyard. Go back. We don’t want you here. Or it was delivered as a joke, told by colleagues around the watercooler. Hey, if you don’t like it here, you can always go home. Or it came from one of your own relatives, in the middle of a heated argument during Thanksgiving dinner. America, love it or leave it. The locale may change, the wording may be different, but the idea remains the same. You’re not fully American.

The president gave this racist message his executive approval when he tweeted that four progressive female representatives—all of them from racial, ethnic, or religious minority communities—should “go back” to the “totally broken and crime-infested” countries “from which they came.” This was followed up by a rally in Greenville, North Carolina, where he once again dressed down the four duly elected legislators, focusing his ire on Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN). The predominantly white crowd responded to his rant by chanting, “Send her back!”

The demand to “go back” rests on an assumption that the archetypal American is white—an idea that dates back to the early days of this nation. The first piece of legislation to delineate the boundaries of Americanness was the Naturalization Act of 1790, which limited citizenship to “free white persons.” Some of the rights that came from this status, such as the right to vote, were further restricted to propertied white men. Under this view, rich white men were to be governed by consent, and everyone else was to be governed by force.

Over the next 230 years, restrictions on citizenship—and the rights and liberties associated with it—were incrementally loosened and tightened and loosened again. For example, the 14th Amendment granted citizenship to all people born in the United States, including formerly enslaved people, but it was followed by a slew of laws in the South that made it virtually impossible for black people to vote. Other limitations on citizenship flowed from immigration laws, like the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924, that sought to prevent or decrease the arrival and eventual naturalization of different groups of nonwhite people.

So when the president tells his supporters that four female representatives of color should “go back,” he’s articulating this antiquated idea, rooted in settler colonialism and white supremacy, about who gets to be American. It’s a philosophy that regards whites as full citizens, who are entitled to all rights and protections under the law, and nonwhites as conditional citizens, whose rights are subject to challenge if they dare to express criticism of their country.

Donald Trump is the man who titled a book Crippled America, complained that “the American dream is dead,” and called our country “stupid.” But when Omar and Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib speak candidly about government policies and their effects on the most vulnerable among us, he tells them to “go back.” America is their home only if they are silent or in agreement with him.

This racist approach to citizenship has been central to Trump’s political career. Three years ago, for example, when Gold Star parents Khizr and Ghazala Khan appeared at the Democratic National Convention to share the story of their son and to denounce Trump’s proposed ban on Muslim immigration, the Republican nominee and his allies attacked their son’s allegiances. Capt. Humayun Khan, who died in the Iraq War in 2004, was smeared as a stealth jihadist. At the time, I wrote in this space about the conditionality of the Khans’ citizenship: Even after their son made the ultimate sacrifice for his country, they did not have the right to speak freely.

Much of what the president has done or championed since taking office—the Muslim ban, the border wall, the family separation policy, the metering of asylum entries at the southwestern border, the proposal to tighten immigration laws—can be explained by his desire to preserve white dominance in the United States. This is likely to be a losing fight: If demographic trends continue, whites may well be a statistical minority within a generation. The only way to maintain the political dominance of whites is to enshrine a view of citizenship that ties it to race or, failing that, to magnify the power of white voters.

Indeed, the administration spent months fighting—and ultimately failing—to add a citizenship question to the US census, which would have given an enduring electoral advantage to Republicans and non-Hispanic whites. But the Republicans won another battle when the Supreme Court ruled that federal courts could not stop partisan gerrymandering and that state legislatures were free to redraw electoral districts however they wished. As a result, permanent minority rule is now a possibility in several states.

None of this is to say that whites, particularly those who are poor or without a college education, don’t struggle. Of course they do. The loss of manufacturing jobs and the opioid crisis, to name just two issues, are urgent challenges that demand lasting solutions. But it is to say that when white Americans blast the government for not solving these problems, they are not told that they should be silent or that they should “go back.”

Americans must decide whether they want to live in a past in which the rights and privileges of citizenship are ranked depending on one’s race, ethnicity, or creed or if they want to step boldly into a future in which citizenship is enjoyed equally by all who claim this country as a home.



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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/race-trump-citizenship-ilhan-squad/
Abortion Bans Have No Respect for Life, Fairness, or Equalityhttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/abortion-restriction-women-alabama-georgia-ohio/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiMay 17, 2019

ell, we can take Emory off the list,” my husband said to me last week when I told him about HB 481, the new anti-abortion law that is set to go in effect in Georgia in 2020. We had been discussing universities our 16-year-old daughter might apply to in a couple of years, when she’s a high-school senior. Although we have very different ideas about college, we agree on one thing: We can’t send our daughter to live in a state that would strip her of her autonomy to make her own medical decisions.

What’s in HB 481? Signed into law by Governor Brian Kemp, it criminalizes abortion when a fetal heartbeat can be detected, usually at six weeks of gestation. Because it relies exclusively on the heartbeat as a defining marker of human life, HB 481 reclassifies embryos as “unborn children” who are entitled to “full legal recognition,” including the right to be counted as a dependent and to receive child support for medical expenses. The law allows for a few exceptions, including in cases of rape or incest, but only if a police report has been filed first. In all other cases, aborting an embryo past six weeks of gestation, whether willfully or negligently, becomes a homicide, for which the assisting physician or medical professional is criminally liable.

The official name of HB 481 is the Living Infants Fairness and Equality Act, but it does not apply to living infants and, in my view, will result in neither fairness nor equality for anyone else. Medical science distinguishes between embryos, fetuses, and infants, with different milestones for each stage. A heartbeat alone does not mean a baby has developed, because vaginal ultrasounds detect flickers of activity before the heart is fully formed. Some women may not even know they’re pregnant at six weeks of gestation, which means that HB 481 deprives women and couples of the time necessary to seek medical consultation, think through options, and make fully informed medical decisions.

The Georgia anti-abortion law also has severe implications for racial and class justice. The Life Act was sponsored by six state representatives, all of whom are white; three of the six are women. But the law will affect communities of color the most. Black and Hispanic women seek the procedure at higher rates than white women, and almost half of abortions are sought by women who live below the poverty line. Forcing poor women to have babies—without providing free birth control, free pre- and postnatal care, paid family leave, universal child care, and other policies that truly support life—is nothing but a new form of racist and sexist social control.

Even the exceptions that the law makes for rape and incest will end up harming girls and women by adding traumatic, unnecessary steps to obtaining an abortion. Imagine, for instance, a 14-year-old girl who was raped and impregnated by a family member. Noticing the changes in her body, she finally gathers the courage to tell an adult, perhaps one of her parents—only to be forced to file a police report and face prosecutors before she can end her pregnancy. Ultimately, HB 481 discourages victims of sexual abuse from coming forward: It takes away their right to decide whether and when to share their trauma in a public setting.

The Georgia bill has attracted significant notice, but it is by no means unique. At least two other states have passed so-called heartbeat bills: Mississippi in March and Ohio in April. Governor Kay Ivey just signed a bill outlawing abortion in Alabama, with no exception for rape or incest. There is rapidly building momentum in GOP-controlled state legislatures on this issue, with the goal of getting it to the Supreme Court. In fact, Georgia State Representative Ed Setzler, one of the sponsors of HB 481, admitted as much when he told reporters, “We’ve laid the groundwork that, should it make it to the Supreme Court, I think it’s going to find a very favorable reception.” With Justice Brett Kavanaugh on the bench, anti-choice activists clearly feel that their time has come.

The backlash against HB 481 has prompted several film-production companies—Duplass Brothers Productions, Killer Films, and David Simon’s Blown Deadline—to announce they will no longer use the state as a filming location. In the past, such boycotts had an impact. Two years ago, North Carolina was forced to rescind its anti-trans bathroom law after artists, sports leagues, and businesses canceled deals, costing the state billions of dollars in revenue. (That law was replaced by another that allowed transgender people to use the bathroom that matches their gender identity but deprived them of recourse if they were ejected by a business.) But I’m not convinced a boycott is the most effective way to fight HB 481. For one, it won’t hurt the law’s wealthy and middle-class supporters, who can afford to travel quietly to get abortions in another state. Poor women won’t have that option. And there are other states that have restrictive abortion bills, which means a principled stand would have to include them, too.

Because HB 481 won’t go into effect until January 2020, however, we have time to organize against it. The ACLU and Planned Parenthood have said they plan to challenge the law in court. Georgia clinics that are currently providing the procedure could use donations.

For now, what is clear to me is that the women of Georgia are in this position because the state legislature and the governorship are controlled by the GOP. Three of the law’s Republican sponsors—Ginny Ehrhart, Darlene Taylor, and Setzler—faced Democratic challengers in November 2018, but the other three—Jodi Lott, Micah Gravley, and Josh Bonner—ran unopposed. In other words, a small minority in power has managed to dictate reproductive rights for the majority. These are some of the statehouse races we can work to flip in 2020 and beyond.

A lot of attention goes to the presidential race, but nothing will change on the ground for women, especially poor women and women of color, until there is a change in statehouses.



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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/abortion-restriction-women-alabama-georgia-ohio/
John Lanchester’s Eerily Resonant Novel About Borders and Rising Sea Levelshttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/john-lanchester-the-wall-novel-book-review/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiMay 20, 2019The Wall, imagines a dystopian future but offers us a warning about our present. ]]>

n the beginning, the wall was an experiment. To see if a show of force might deter illegal crossings, the Clinton administration authorized the Border Patrol in 1993 to position hundreds of agents and vehicles along the border between El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. Within weeks, the number of apprehensions at the El Paso station dropped significantly, and although unlawful border crossings in nearby areas rose, the agent-and-vehicle blockade, later referred to as Operation Hold the Line, was considered a success. A year later, the administration tried something new: a 12-foot-high steel fence at the border between San Diego and Tijuana, along a stretch of land that leads to the Pacific Ocean. The number of illegal crossings in the area fell dramatically, an outcome that Janet Reno, then the attorney general, called “just excellent.” However, the flow of immigrants did not stop; it was merely redirected eastward, to remote areas that were much more dangerous to cross. Soon, smugglers became involved. But the steel fence served as tangible proof that action was being taken, and by 1995, Clinton could report in his State of the Union address that his administration had “moved aggressively to secure our borders.”

Securing the border, it turned out, was an ongoing process. It meant an almost yearly increase in the Border Patrol’s budget, a severe expansion of penalties on undocumented immigrants, and the construction of more physical barriers. In 2006, George W. Bush signed into law the Secure Fence Act, which provided funding for 700 miles of fencing along the border between the United States and Mexico. The fence took the form of vehicle checkpoints and steel barriers, which were erected over the next 10 years. The number of illegal crossings on the southern border declined steadily during that decade, a fact that Barack Obama cited as evidence of his own administration’s seriousness on the issue of securing the border. At the same time, the number of migrant deaths in the borderlands continued to rise. Accurate figures are difficult to come by, but the Border Patrol estimates that more than 7,500 migrants have died in remote mountains and deserts since the first wall was erected.

Of course, the word “wall” was rarely used, either by elected officials or in the media. For a long time, the preferred terms were “fence,” “barrier,” “border defense,” and “border-protection system.” But all of these euphemisms were stripped away in 2015, when Donald Trump made one of his campaign slogans a simple three-word chant: “Build that wall.” This would be a structure, he assured his audiences, to keep out the “criminals,” “rapists,” and various “bad hombres.” He promised that it would be “big,” “beautiful,” and, above all, “impenetrable.”

What would happen if an impenetrable wall was completed in America—or, for that matter, any other country? This is the question that the British writer John Lanchester explores in his new novel, The Wall. It takes place in an unnamed island nation sometime after “the Change”—presumably the kind of climate catastrophe that scientists have warned us about for the past three decades. Parts of the world are submerged under rising seawater, forcing an untold number of “Others” to seek refuge on the island, where they are met by a 16-foot-high concrete wall.

The story is told from the point of view of Joseph Kavanagh, a young man who has just arrived at the Wall to begin his two-year military service as a “Defender.” Like the others conscripted into this role, he is tasked with protecting the homeland from outsiders. The increasingly draconian laws that the government has enacted to deter people from coming have had little effect on the number of migrants: They keep trying to reach the island. If an Other somehow manages to get past the Wall, the Defender responsible for the breach is immediately put out to sea as retribution.

The conceit of The Wall is simple, and the rules are straightforward. Yet Lanchester spends a lot of time discussing the daily minutiae of life there—again and again, he tells readers how cold it is at the Wall, how long a Defender’s shift is, how welcome the coffee breaks are, and how terrible it is to have to go back into the cold after a night at the barracks. By contrast, the main characters’ inner lives receive less attention, leaving readers with little insight into their pasts, their hopes, or their impulses. For this reason, The Wall is best read as an exploration of the immediate consequences and logical implications of a punitive border machine.

t the Wall, Kavanagh becomes acquainted with other Defenders, including the Captain, a mysterious figure with a knack for showing up exactly when he is least expected; the Sergeant, who laughs at his own jokes; and the Corporal, whose hobby is whittling. “Don’t look so worried,” the Corporal tells Kavanagh. “You know that thing they say, don’t worry, it might never happen? This is different. You’re on the Wall. It already has.” Defending the border means standing guard in 12-hour shifts, waiting for the slightest hint of movement on the water.

The first time a group of Others tries to breach the Wall while Kavanagh is there, he is on his coffee break. It takes him a moment to realize what’s happening, but he grabs his rifle and manages to repel them. The confrontation results in the deaths of several Defenders and all of the Others in the group. “So none of us would be put to sea,” Kavanagh says, with evident relief. He has been seriously injured, though, and has to spend a few days in the hospital, where he becomes close with a fellow conscript, a woman named Hifa. “Do you want to Breed with me?” she asks him, somewhat abruptly. Love and romance aren’t absent from the novel’s dystopian future, but life after the Change is so bleak that birthrates have fallen, and the government provides incentives—including exemption from service—to encourage people to become Breeders.

The story becomes more propulsive from this point forward. Kavanagh, Hifa, and the other Defenders return to active duty on the Wall, where they wait for more border crossings. There are rumors that the Others have sympathizers, island citizens who think the Wall should keep out the rising water, not human beings, and who object to turning the refugees into “Help”—that is, slaves of the state, which contracts them out as servants to individual citizens. Of course, the sympathizers are characterized as “traitors” by an ambitious politician Kavanagh meets, a “shiny young man with a mop of blond hair,” who assures the Defenders, “You are the best in the world. This country is the best in the world. We have prevailed, we do prevail, we will prevail.”

Lanchester is at his best when he examines this dystopia through the lens of class and privilege. As a citizen, Kavanagh enjoys a few freedoms, including freedom of movement, that the Others do not have. But he has no wealth or social connections, which means that serving a two-year stint at the Wall is inevitable. Still, he has ambition. Although he is unclear about his plans once his service is done, he believes that if he can distinguish himself somehow, opportunities might open up:

I used to have secret ideas about what I wanted to do: secret in the strong sense that I had never told anyone. I wanted to get away from home (that part was no secret), to get as much education as I could, to get a job where I made lots of money, and to become a member of the elite. All this was too vague to count as a plan. I didn’t know anyone who had done it; I didn’t know the details of how to do it; but I knew that it could be done. Elites have to let in some outsiders; that is a basic rule of how they work. It’s how they renew themselves and how they spread just enough of the benefits around to stop disorder rising from below. Also, elites need new blood because it’s the newly arrived members of the elite who know how the rest of the population is thinking, right now.

While breaking into the elites’ circles may be possible for someone like Kavanagh, those on the other side of the Wall aren’t as lucky: If they are caught crossing the border, they face a choice of being euthanized, returned to sea, or becoming Help. Even if they’re not apprehended at the Wall, Others who breach the border are likely to be arrested later (because everyone else on the island has been implanted with microchips) and then forced to make this impossible choice—a choice that does not bother Kavanagh all that much. “Wanting to have Help was on my secret wish list,” he confides. “Having Help was like having a life upgrade.”

anchester is the author of four previous works of fiction, most notably The Debt to Pleasure, a darkly comic story framed as a cookbook/memoir, and Capital, a novel set in London during the 2008 financial crisis. He is also a prolific writer of nonfiction whose essays and reportage on food, finance, technology, and British politics appear regularly in the London Review of Books, The New Yorker, and elsewhere. In his writing, he displays a phenomenal ability to absorb highly specialized material (on financial markets, for example) and make it intelligible to the general reader. While The Wall is a work of dystopian fiction, it contains all the ingredients of his intensively researched nonfiction.

The conceit of the novel—a nation walled off from the rest of the world—rests on hypotheticals that are already a reality in many countries: dangerously high sea levels, militarized border walls, declining fertility rates, mass surveillance, buffoonish politicians. Even the idea of the Help is not new; in the United States, for instance, some immigrant-detention facilities already use forced migrant labor. There are also those who argue, like Eric Posner and Glen Weyl in their recent book Radical Markets, that the United States should go one step further and allow US citizens to personally bring in migrant labor from abroad at a mutually agreed-upon price. (Politico covered the book under the obscene headline “What if you could get your own immigrant?”) So The Wall cannot be faulted for a lack of plausibility. Rather, this is a book that asks readers to consider the logical results of the border systems under which they currently live.

In a novel about climate change and the refugee crisis, it is easy for a writer to slip into moralizing. But Lanchester steers clear of the temptation. Kavanagh’s daydreams about wanting to have Help are presented matter-of-factly, as are his observations about his parents’ generation, which “broke the world” when it failed to stop global warming. Lanchester is also adept at exploring the power differentials between the Defenders and the Others and between the Defenders and civilians.

The landscape of speculative fiction allows for exactly this kind of unfettered exploration, taking readers in unexpected directions or revealing connections they might not have noticed. Novels like Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Octavia Butler’s Kindred, and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go give us more than conjecture about future or parallel worlds: They explore the inner lives of ordinary people caught in extraordinary circumstances and give us a new language to think about dissent, freedom, and mortality. By comparison, Lanchester remains so focused on the brutal apparatus of border enforcement that he neglects those who are caught up in it, whether Defender or Other. In one chapter, Kavanagh spends a few days with his parents, from whom he feels alienated; in another, he goes with Hifa to visit her mother, from whom she feels similarly alienated. But these brief forays into the characters’ relationships feel too slight and schematic to contribute much weight to either of their stories.

espite these weaknesses, Lanchester deserves praise for telling a story of climate change and migration in the speculative mode at a time when reality itself can seem like a dystopia. In 2018, for example, the Trump administration announced a zero-tolerance policy on undocumented immigration. Almost immediately, US Customs and Border Protection began separating migrant and asylum-seeking children from their parents, placing them in detention facilities or in foster care, without the necessary paperwork to keep track of them. We may not yet have the Wall as Lanchester (or Trump) has imagined it, but new horrors are revealed every day: a 5-year-old child persuaded to sign papers forgoing her right to a bond hearing, a 2-year-old girl forced to appear in federal immigration court alone, detained siblings being told they are not permitted to hug each other. And yet we all seem to carry on as if this were acceptable.

Last summer, while on a trip to Arizona, I drove through Calexico, a small city on the border between California and Mexico. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but what I found was a sleepy town, where Border Patrol trucks sit next to beat-up Honda Accords in the Applebee’s parking lot. At the hotel, the clerk politely asked me about my day. He looked to be in his early 20s; he must have been no more than a baby when the first wall was built on the southern border. Noticing my soccer jersey, he asked me which team I was rooting for in the World Cup. It was a day like any other. What Lanchester captures perfectly in The Wall is that nothing about this is normal.



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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/john-lanchester-the-wall-novel-book-review/
Why Focusing All Our Energies on the Presidency Is a Big Mistakehttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/democrats-2020-elections/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiApr 15, 2019

What are you looking for in a presidential candidate? I want someone with fresh proposals on health care or the environment, you might say. A track record that testifies to experience and effectiveness. Or you might say: Listen, I’m just looking for anyone who can defeat Donald Trump in 2020. Whatever your position, you’re likely to have already gotten into spirited conversations about it with family and friends. And as the race for the Democratic nomination heats up, the debate has become increasingly acrimonious. In fact, it’s threatening to turn into a search for a savior.

This search manifests itself in two ways. The first is the belief that electing the right person will result in immediate solutions to the multitude of systemic problems that plague the country. If only we had the perfect person in the Oval Office, the thinking goes, then we would finally be able to fix our disastrous health-care system, or take serious action on global warming, or counteract the rightward shift of the Supreme Court. But this thinking runs counter to the reality that each president inherits problems from the previous administration, as well as constraints or even obstruction from the legislative branch.

It wasn’t so long ago that a Democrat who was viewed as a savior by millions was elected president. Among other things, Barack Obama promised a public health-care system and an end to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. What he delivered instead were Obamacare, limited engagement in Iraq, and a continuation of the war in Afghanistan. No matter what a candidate may promise, the reality is that he or she will have to work with a Congress that is unlikely to share his or her agenda. We ought to take our experience with Obama into account: Spending all of our energies on the presidency—while neglecting Congress—will not result in effective or systemic change. Republican Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell will be up for re-election in Kentucky. So will Senators John Cornyn in Texas and Susan Collins in Maine. Martha McSally is trying to keep her appointed Senate seat in Arizona. Working on those races will be every bit as important as working on the presidential election.

The second manifestation of saviorism is the belief that only one candidate in the current field of 19 is any good and that skepticism about, or even scrutiny of, this candidate is, at best, ill-advised and, at worst, tantamount to heresy. Recently, for example, South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg came under fire for remarks he made in 2015 suggesting that, in addition to racial bias in the criminal-justice system, people needed to take seriously the risks that police officers face when doing their jobs, because “all lives matter.” He claimed he didn’t know the phrase had been used as a right-wing counter-slogan to “black lives matter.” When I expressed doubt on social media that a mayor who speaks several languages and runs a city where a quarter of the population is black could really have been so out of touch about the phrase, I met with furious responses from his supporters, including one who told me, “Democrats are going to eat each other alive and let Trump stick around for 4 more years.”

A different interaction with a Bernie Sanders supporter led to a similar overreaction. After I suggested that Sanders should release his tax returns, one of his admirers flippantly replied, “The world will be a better place when America elects someone who votes to make rain water private and bombs the shit out of Palestine but who does release their tax returns.” Rather than placing the onus on presidential candidates to show that they don’t have conflicts of interest and won’t enrich themselves from the office, this superfan chose to view my demand as a tacit disregard for concrete policy matters. This person seemed unaware that I supported Sanders in the 2016 primaries and likely had a similar set of goals. But the moment I dared to criticize the candidate, I was disparaged.

I like passionate supporters—heck, I’m passionate about Elizabeth Warren—but when I hear reactions like this, I wonder what these supporters think will happen if their candidate wins the Democratic nomination and faces Trump in the general election. Do they expect that he or she will be shielded from criticism? Do they think the GOP will not exploit any flaws, real or imagined, to their fullest? Politicians are neither saints nor saviors; they are fallible human beings who have ambition, political agendas, and a range of policy ideas that may or may not work for the country. The very purpose of the primaries is to learn about the candidates, scrutinize their records, and choose the best one to face the incumbent.

Whatever happens in 2020, expecting transformative change from the top is a recipe for disappointment. If Democrats want to deliver on their big promises, they have to work on the small ones first. Last month, for example, I attended a fund-raiser for the Virginia House of Delegates’ Danica Roem. As far as political events go, this one wasn’t huge or loud or flashy. It was simply an opportunity to hear from Roem, who made history in 2017 as the first trans woman to be seated in a statehouse—and who did so by defeating a 26-year GOP incumbent who has called himself Virginia’s “chief homophobe.” Her winning strategy? Focusing on the needs of her district, specifically traffic issues on State Route 28. It’s this unglamorous work that we need to be doing if we want to have any chance of making serious change.

Let’s leave salvation to the prophets and work on saving ourselves. And that begins by treating our candidates like the public servants we expect them to be.



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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/democrats-2020-elections/
The Man With the SS Tattoohttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/white-nationalism-hasson-breivik-king/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiMar 14, 2019

Some years ago, while on a camping trip with my family in Joshua Tree National Park, I stopped by a local grocery store to get some firewood. At the checkout counter, I found myself behind a white man buying diapers and baby formula. As he reached for a pack of gum from the display rack, his shirt sleeve lifted, revealing a tattoo of SS lightning bolts. I recoiled in horror, but he seemed entirely unconcerned. To him, I was just another tourist in hiking clothes. To me, though, his presence was indelible—the white supremacist in the checkout line.

I thought of him again last month, when federal officials announced the arrest of Christopher P. Hasson, a Coast Guard lieutenant who planned to “murder innocent civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country.” A self-proclaimed white nationalist, Hasson had reportedly admired the Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik, pondered the use of biological weapons and attacks on food supplies, and created a spreadsheet of targets that included prominent reporters and Democratic politicians. Hasson had previously spent five years in the Marines and two in the Army National Guard, slowly rising through the ranks without attracting notice for his dreams of a “white homeland.”

The Hasson case is but one example of white extremism in the United States. Two years ago, hundreds of white nationalists—including six active-duty and former members of the military—marched through Charlottesville, Virginia, chanting: “Jews will not replace us!” Last year in Kentucky, Gregory A. Bush tried to enter a black church but, after failing at this goal, shot and killed two black customers in a Kroger supermarket, while sparing the white one. (“Whites don’t kill whites,” Bush told him.) Also last year, Robert D. Bowers, angered by the involvement of the Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue in refugee resettlement, killed 11 people there during a bris ceremony. It was the largest anti-Semitic attack in the country’s history.

The trend is extremely worrisome. According to the Anti-Defamation League, the overwhelming majority of fatal attacks by extremists in the United States last year were perpetrated by right-wing domestic extremists. Yet white nationalists continue to evade detection, and it’s not exactly difficult to figure out why. Between 2002 and 2017, the Department of Homeland Security spent an astounding $2.8 trillion on counter-terrorism efforts, most of it to fight Islamist groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS, both at home and abroad. Domestically, the Countering Violent Extremism Task Force has focused on immigrant organizations and Black Lives Matter activists.

By comparison, elected officials seem uninterested in the threat posed by white extremists. The House of Representatives held multiple hearings on the 2012 attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, once grilling Hillary Clinton for 11 hours, but it has not tackled the white-nationalist attacks in this country. Likewise, the Senate Armed Services Committee routinely hears from experts about foreign threats, but it has not requested an official investigation into the white nationalists in the military.

At a news conference held after Hasson’s arrest, a reporter asked Donald Trump if he thought he should moderate his rhetoric. “No, I don’t,” the president replied. “I think my language is very nice.” Trump, of course, has referred to the neo-Nazis who marched through Charlottesville as “fine people” and has called the news media “the enemy of the American people.” He has run an anti-Semitic campaign ad, retweeted white-nationalist accounts on Twitter, and won the praise of former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke.

Yet it is Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar who has made news concerning the rise of anti-Semitism in this country. In a tweet she says was intended to criticize AIPAC’s lobbying on behalf of Israel, Omar invoked “the Benjamins” and, a few days later, blasted those who would “push for allegiance to a foreign country,” leading members of both parties to accuse her of spreading hateful tropes. “It is shameful that House Democrats won’t take a stronger stand against [a]nti-Semitism in their conference,” Trump tweeted. He was joined by a growing chorus of Republicans, who insisted on Omar’s censure and even resignation from her committee seats. In the end, House Democrats passed a resolution condemning hate in all its forms—with 23 Republicans opposed.

As the controversy took over the headlines, I wondered again about the white supremacist in the checkout line. Was he paying attention to the language in the House resolution? He might be a man of action rather than words. Perhaps, like Christopher Hasson, he used his work computer to study the manifestos of mass shooters. Or perhaps he had no immediate plans but took the long view, working to elect people who would represent his positions. Earlier this month, leaked chat logs from members of the white-supremacist group Identity Evropa revealed that they had donated to Congressman Steve King’s campaign and called members of Congress to express support for him. (King is the nine-term congressman from Iowa who recently wondered when phrases like “white nationalist” and “white supremacist” had become offensive.)

White supremacy has always been part of this nation’s history. The US Constitution, written by wealthy white landowners, was designed to keep power in the hands of white men. Although that power has continually been contested, it has never been relinquished without a struggle. Only in the last few decades have Americans of different national, religious, and ethnic backgrounds begun to enjoy the full rights and privileges of citizenship.

In fact, America is becoming increasingly diverse: A child born today is as likely to be white as nonwhite. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, white nationalism is back with a vengeance. Defeating it will be the moral, electoral, and educational challenge of a generation.



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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/white-nationalism-hasson-breivik-king/
Fiction Can Help Us Deal With Trump’s Chaoshttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/fiction-trump-novels-burnout/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiJan 24, 2019

“I can’t keep up,” a friend complained to me recently, when the news broke that the FBI had opened an inquiry into whether Donald Trump was an agent of Russia. Who could blame her? As the Mueller investigation slowly unfolds, each day brings a fresh scandal for the president. It’s impossible to keep track. The frustration is exacerbated by social media, where snippets of information, devoid of history or context, contribute to the chaos. How can anyone maintain sanity?

The answer, I think, lies in reading fiction. Stories help us see the world through the eyes of others: We see what they see; we’re provoked or inspired or amused; we take sides or withhold judgment—but in the end, we find order in disorder. We make sense of the world around us through the language of stories. When we follow a narrative thread, we experience, at least for a while, a feeling of control. Reading fiction also allows us to expand the limits of our imagination and helps us develop empathy—qualities that seem to be in short supply at the moment.

Take immigration, an issue that the president has almost single-handedly turned into a “crisis.” On his Twitter account, Trump regularly rants about drugs and criminals streaming across the southern border, enabled at every step by the “Obstructionist Democrats” who refuse to fund his wall. He speaks in clichés and slogans, which are dutifully parroted by people across the political spectrum. Meanwhile, journalists who cover this beat struggle to keep up. They refer to obscure legislation, include graphics, or cite numbers. We get data and sound bites, but rarely do we get a story.

To really understand how immigration affects people on either side of the border, we have to turn to fiction. In The Leavers, for example, Lisa Ko writes powerfully about a Chinese-American boy who returns home from school one day to find that his mother, an undocumented worker at a nail salon in the Bronx, has disappeared. Ko explores the trauma of family separation through the perspective of this child, showing us the additional damage done to him by the well-meaning white family that later raises him in upstate New York. Chang-rae Lee’s Native Speaker explores migration from a different angle altogether. Here, we meet a Korean American who works as an industrial spy and has been hired to collect information about a politician, also a Korean American. In quiet, precise language, Lee examines the challenges of assimilation in America, as well as the lengths to which someone will go in order to truly feel at home.

Of course, not every story of migration is tragic. There is joy and humor, too, as in Luís Alberto Urrea’s road-trip novel Into the Beautiful North. In this rollicking book, a taco-shop worker from a small village in Mexico gathers her own posse of women to travel north, where she hopes to recruit seven men—los siete magníficos—who will return home with them to protect the town from bandidos.

The rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people are another area where the president’s policies (not to mention those of his vice president) are dismal. Like many people of my generation, I grew up in a time and place where casual homophobia was widely accepted, but reading novels like James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room changed the way I related to people who were different from me. In the book, an American expat slowly comes to terms with his identity following his encounters with an Italian bartender in Paris. Baldwin explores the many pressures, both personal and societal, that push people to deny their true selves and spend their lives trying to please others.

A more recent favorite of mine is Sarah Waters’s The Paying Guests. Set in 1920s London, the story follows a mother and daughter who are forced to take in lodgers in order to make ends meet. Their quiet lives are upended when a married couple moves in and the daughter begins an affair with the wife.

These novels showed me what life does to all of us, how it tests and humbles and reveals us, regardless of our private history or public identity. And fiction does so much else, too: It gives us the infinite pleasures of prose, the surprise of encountering something unexpected on the page, and an escape from the tedium and stress of our daily routines.

“Now, wait a minute,” I hear you say. “Turning to fiction at this moment in time means turning away from a reality where awful things are happening. The president is a racist, for God’s sake. Civil rights are being violated every day. The forever wars are raging. An alleged rapist has just been seated on the highest court in the land.”

All of this is true. But we also have a president who manipulates social media to keep the attention on himself at all times: He announces major policy shifts on Twitter, then leaves everyone guessing about their meaning. Instead of spending my time reading the tea leaves of his pronouncements, I choose to spend it on novels. Making time for fiction helps me to stay out of the news bubble and ultimately enables me to be more engaged as a citizen.

During the midterms, for example, I used the hours that I would ordinarily have spent keeping up with this or that wrinkle in the Mueller investigation to volunteer. The group I worked with was focused on flipping congressional seats in California, and over the course of several weeks, I managed to donate, raise funds, work the phone bank, and write postcards to voters. As Election Day approached and we became better trained, we expanded our efforts to races in other states. As I watched the results roll in, the helplessness I had felt so often over the past couple of years disappeared, replaced by a feeling of pride that I had contributed, in my own small way, to making change happen.

The reality-show presidency of Donald Trump is designed to keep us glued to our devices, all the while complaining, “I can’t keep up!” Maybe we can’t. It’s time to put down that phone and read a book.



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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/fiction-trump-novels-burnout/
Trump’s Housekeeper Airs His Dirty Laundryhttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/trump-immigration-undocumented-housekeeper/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiDec 13, 2018

Last week, when I read the story about Donald Trump’s undocumented housekeeper, I was filled with rage and sadness. Rage because it was yet another example of the president doing something he’d campaigned against; sadness because many politicians demonize immigrants to win votes, while relying on their labor for profit.

During her five years as a housekeeper, Victorina Morales washed the president’s clothes, ironed his underwear, and cleaned his villa at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey. She was even awarded a certificate from the White House Communications Agency in recognition of her performance. But throughout this entire time, she lacked the official papers necessary for her employment.

In an interview, Morales told The New York Times that a supervisor had helped her procure fake documents. She said she knew the risks of going public with this, but was moved to speak out because of the derogatory remarks that Trump regularly makes about immigrants, which—combined with comments from one of her managers—made her work life unendurable. “We are tired of the abuse, the insults, the way he talks about us when he knows that we are here helping him make money,” she said.

It might seem surprising that someone in a position as vulnerable as Morales’s would dare to tell the truth about the most powerful man in the world. After all, it’s not just a job or deportation that this brave woman is risking: In her native Guatemala, her attorney told The Washington Post, her family received threats, and her father-in-law was hacked to death. When you have little money and few prospects, though, the one thing you can always hold on to is your dignity—and Morales had clearly reached her breaking point.

Trump is by no means unique in publicly vilifying undocumented immigrants while privately profiting from their work. The family of Republican Congressman Devin Nunes, who represents California’s San Joaquin Valley, quietly moved their dairy farm to Sibley, Iowa, where it reportedly employs undocumented workers. Both Nunes and the congressman who represents Sibley—that would be the openly racist Steve King—have supported Trump’s draconian immigration policies. A year before that, Andrew Puzder, a fast-food executive whose nomination as Trump’s secretary of labor was being scrutinized for labor violations, found himself under criticism for employing an undocumented housekeeper. Puzder claimed that he was unaware she was undocumented, and said he’d paid back taxes for that worker to the IRS—after he was nominated.

Nor is the hypocrisy on immigration restricted to Republicans. Remember Nannygate? In 1993, two of Bill Clinton’s nominees for US attorney general, Zoë Baird and Kimba Wood, had to withdraw because they had employed undocumented domestic workers. The story of Donald Trump and Victorina Morales, then, is emblematic of a much larger dynamic in the United States: We have a system that uses cheap, undocumented labor to deliver goods or services to consumers and vast profit to employers.

No American today can claim to be unaffected by undocumented immigration. The meatpacking industry relies on such workers, as does the service industry. Nearly half of the field workers on US farms are undocumented—and that’s a low estimate. Fifteen percent of construction workers are unauthorized. If you’ve ever eaten a hamburger, snacked on almonds, or stayed at a hotel, chances are you’ve used undocumented labor.

Unauthorized workers are frequently portrayed as freeloaders who come here to “steal” jobs. But many immigrants do pay taxes on their income. The IRS issues individual-taxpayer identification numbers to people who don’t have Social Security numbers, enabling them to file returns. In that respect, Victorina Morales has done something that her employer, the president of the United States, didn’t do: She paid her taxes.

Nevertheless, Trump has looked for new ways to punish and abuse undocumented immigrants: separating babies and children from their parents at the border, diverting money from scientific research to fund detention camps, and sending thousands of troops to the southern border to stop a “migrant caravan” that was hundreds of miles away.

In a transparent effort to scare voters ahead of the midterm elections, he also released a Willie Horton–style ad about an undocumented immigrant named Luis Bracamontes. That strategy doesn’t seem to have worked: The Republicans suffered losses in Congress in November. Still, white voters’ views on immigration have been shown to be a strong predictor of their electoral choices, so Trump will probably deploy more of his hateful rhetoric ahead of the 2020 elections.

Since Morales’s revelations, two more undocumented workers at Trump’s club have spoken out, confirming that management knew about their status when they were hired. In each case, the women have been attacked as unreliable narrators of their own stories. In a statement to the press, the Trump Organization said that it had “tens of thousands of employees across our properties and…very strict hiring practices. If an employee submitted false documentation in an attempt to circumvent the law, they will be terminated immediately.”

In a few days or weeks, Victorina Morales’s story will disappear from the headlines, but the legal and moral issues that contributed to it will not. Undocumented immigrants help the elite make money, only to be used and abused by that same elite to win elections. We must do better. We must demand comprehensive immigration reform that provides a path to legalization, punishes labor abuses, and protects undocumented workers.



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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/trump-immigration-undocumented-housekeeper/
How the Trump Administration Is Normalizing Immigrant Internment Campshttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/trump-administration-normalizing-immigrant-internment-camps/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiJul 20, 2018

This is where we stand: A few months ago, a president who lost the popular vote introduced a “zero tolerance” policy on undocumented immigrants. In order to implement it, his attorney general—a man with a known history of racism—began detaining and prosecuting all immigrants and asylum-seekers who unlawfully crossed the southwestern border. Armed agents forcibly separated immigrant parents from their children, some as young as 3 months old, and redesignated them as unaccompanied minors. The children were put in chain-link cages, foster homes, tent camps, and detention centers. Some of the parents were deported without their kids. Others were pressured to give up their asylum claims in exchange for getting their children back. At least one asylum-seeking father committed suicide. The administration did not keep proper records about the children it took away and, in some cases, even destroyed records that could make family reunification possible. And the worst part? This is just a trial run.

Immigration is Donald Trump’s core issue: It’s what got him elected in 2016 and what he hopes will get him reelected in 2020. As long as his supporters continue to respond to his words and deeds on this issue, he’s not going to back down. This is why he lies about crime rates among immigrants, spouts off hateful language about “animals” and “not so innocent” children, and collapses distinctions between violent gangs and the people seeking safety from them. His intention has always been to halt brown and black migration to the United States, while encouraging newcomers from “places like Norway.”

In the face of something as morally repugnant as the mass kidnapping and jailing of children, it is tempting to think that the crisis cannot last. After all, media coverage and a popular outcry forced the president to sign an executive order rescinding the policy. A federal judge ordered the government to reunite the families without delay. And NGOs and ordinary citizens organized to pay bail for some of the parents. But the fact remains that around 2,500 children still await reunification with their parents. Toddlers are being brought to immigration court without legal representation. Older kids in migrant shelters are told not to hug a sibling, not to cry, not to write a letter in their dorm rooms. If they “misbehave,” they are injected with sedatives. Every day that goes by compounds their trauma.

And every day also gives the administration a new chance to adjust its policy until it becomes viable. Although he formally ended family separation, Trump was very explicit that he intends to keep the zero-tolerance policy. This means that every person who crosses the southwestern border outside of a port of entry will continue to be prosecuted, regardless of individual circumstances. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen has told refugees that they should present themselves only at designated ports of entry, but border agents at some of these ports have been turning asylum-seekers away. At the same time, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has imposed sharp new limits on who can qualify for asylum. The result is a massively punitive approach that puts thousands of migrants and refugees in immigration jails. Family separation was just one tool in this vast apparatus, and now that it has been taken off the table, the administration wants to replace it with indefinite family detention.

We have seen this incremental strategy before with the Muslim ban. Its first version, which went into effect in January 2017, targeted seven Muslim countries and led to absolute chaos at the airports, followed by massive protests and legal challenges. So the administration modified its initial order by adding a few exceptions, such as current green-card holders, and put forward a second ban. When that second version was also challenged in court, the president signed a proclamation that barred North Korean visitors and some Venezuelan government officials from entering the country, along with nationals of Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen. It was this final version that the Supreme Court upheld this June.

In other words, a proposal that seemed completely insane when Trump was a candidate (“a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States”) has now, after enough test runs and with Trump firmly ensconced in the White House, become acceptable. All it took was the addition of a few dozen visitors from North Korea and Venezuela for the Roberts Court to rule that a policy that affects 135 million people from five Muslim countries was “facially neutral toward religion.” Now that the principle has been established, Trump can add any Muslim country he wants to the list. Voilà—Muslim ban.

There is no reason to expect that indefinite family detention (i.e., immigrant internment) will be any different. The administration has already asked the Pentagon to prepare housing at military bases for 32,000 migrants, of whom 20,000 would be children. That immigrant internment is immoral is quite clear. That it is hugely costly and likely ineffectual will be revealed soon enough. But that it is even being discussed suggests a disregard for nonwhite life that is not foreign to this country’s bloody history, nor even its recent past.

The question is: What will each of us, in our own limited way, do about this? Well, we need to fight on more than one front. There’s a Supreme Court seat whose confirmation is not at all certain. There’s the effort to flip Congress in November. There’s the struggle to take back the statehouses. It’s not enough to sign a check or attend a march. We have to put in the actual labor—of knocking on doors, making phone calls, and showing up for one another. If Trump wants to impose zero tolerance, we have to fight back with zero tolerance.



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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/trump-administration-normalizing-immigrant-internment-camps/
Who Owns Public Space?https://www.thenation.com/article/society/the-social-shaming-of-racists-is-working/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiMay 24, 2018

Some years ago, while we were getting ready to move out of state, my husband and I held a garage sale. We’d advertised it in our community newspaper and on flyers around the neighborhood and had a huge turnout as a result. Dozens of bargain hunters milled about, asking about this or that item. “Cuanto quiere usted por el sofá?” an older gentleman asked me, pointing to our old green couch. I quoted him a price, adding, “Es un sofá cama.” Hearing our exchange, a white woman turned around and yelled, “Speak English! You’re in America.” “Hey—” I said, but she walked away in a huff, got into her car, and drove off.

I’ve been thinking about that moment, and the fiery anger behind it, as I hear about incident after incident in which white people lash out at people of color in public spaces. There’s the white lawyer who berated the workers at a Manhattan deli for speaking Spanish—insisting that “I pay for their welfare. I pay for their ability to be here. The least they can do is speak English”—and then threatened to report them to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. There’s the white student who reported a black student for taking a nap in the common room of their dorm at Yale, saying, “I have every right to call the police—you cannot sleep in that room.” And there’s the white mother who called the police about two Native American students taking part in a campus tour at Colorado State University, telling the dispatcher that “they are not, definitely not, a part of the tour.”

The language in these complaints—“I pay,” “I have every right,” “they are definitely not”—is quite illuminating. It indicates a belief on the part of these white people that they are the custodians of public space and can enlist the police to enforce its boundaries. The offenses committed by people of color are arbitrary and nearly limitless: waiting too long at a Starbucks in Philadelphia, having a barbecue on Lake Merritt in Oakland, playing a leisurely game of golf at a club in Pennsylvania, checking out of an Airbnb in Rialto, California. And once police officers get there, anything can happen, ranging from an arrest on charges of trespassing to the installation of a police perimeter and the arrival of a police helicopter.

To be sure, the belief that public space belongs exclusively to white people is not new, and this redlining has been inflicting trauma on people of color for a long time now. Whether it’s on the street, in a café, or at an airport, the visibility of people of color in public is tolerated only so long as it does not disturb the comfort of the dominant group. But the ubiquitous presence of smartphones with cameras has helped to document such incidents, and social media have brought them to national attention. That’s a useful development: The assertion of private authority over public space now comes with a social cost.

That is what happened to Aaron Schlossberg, the Manhattan lawyer who threatened to call ICE on the Spanish-speaking food workers and customers in New York. His law practice soon plummeted in customer ratings; he was hounded by reporters seeking comment; and his corporate landlord terminated his business lease. Protesters even brought a mariachi band to perform outside his apartment building. The public shaming that followed his rant could have a salutary effect: Maybe, just maybe, racists will think twice before making frivolous reports or issuing threats.

Few people have come to Schlossberg’s defense, yet there are some who say that the popular outcry against him is “unnerving” and constitutes harassment by modern mobs who demand nothing less than “conformity of thought.” Online mobs are scary, no doubt about that. But Schlossberg’s rant doesn’t amount to a civilized difference of opinion; it’s racism, pure and simple, followed by threats.

Schlossberg’s assertion of authority over public space is, of course, protected from government interference by the First Amendment. But that right doesn’t protect him from the social consequences of his speech, including disruption and discomfort. Those protesting Schlossberg’s actions are, in fact, exercising their own free-speech rights to object to his racism and nativism. The simple truth is that if racist behavior is insulated from social shaming, it will likely continue and multiply until it becomes accepted. What happens when a majority of Americans hold views like Schlossberg’s?

The history of this country is replete with examples of how public space was regulated to ensure that one racial group was made comfortable at the expense of others. This is why it’s important to speak out, and speak out now. Allies can help to stop the harassment, or at least deflect it. In the cell-phone footage of Schlossberg’s rant, for example, an Asian man can be seen interposing himself between the lawyer and one of the Spanish-speaking women he’s verbally abusing. In the Philadelphia Starbucks incident, an older white man repeatedly challenged police officers about why they were arresting the two black men when they’d done nothing wrong.

At the garage sale that day, after the woman took off in a huff, I turned to my husband in disbelief. “Did you just hear what that lady said?” I asked him. This question, I now realize, was an attempt at documenting the moment by having a witness for it. It was my first intimation that people’s relationship to public space is political, and that some of us move through it under surveillance by others. “I heard,” my husband replied, and then told me of many similar experiences he’d had as a Cuban American here in Los Angeles.

But public space belongs to everyone. If racists don’t like hearing Spanish being spoken in a deli, or having Native American teens on a campus tour, or seeing black folks going on about their lives, they should just stay home.



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https://www.thenation.com/article/society/the-social-shaming-of-racists-is-working/
How ICE Puts a Generation at Riskhttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/how-ice-puts-a-generation-at-risk/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiApr 19, 2018

Last January, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers raided dozens of 7-Eleven stores nationwide, arresting 21 workers. In February, ICE detained 100 people across several counties in Southern California and arrested another 232 over the course of a four-day sweep in the Bay Area. These raids attracted national coverage, but relatively little attention has been paid to the aftermath of these mass arrests. How are families and communities affected?

A recent case in rural Tennessee provides the clearest evidence yet that ICE’s raids, supposedly a deterrent to undocumented immigration, are instead causing lasting damage to an entire generation of young Americans. Early on the morning of April 5, federal immigration agents raided the Southeastern Provision meatpacking plant in Bean Station, Tennessee, a town of about 3,000 people. Officials arrested 97 Latino workers, put them in white vans, and transported them to a National Guard armory in nearby Morristown, where they were processed. The effect on this small community was felt immediately: The next day, about 550 children missed school, a number that represents more than 20 percent of the county’s Hispanic student population.

The children, some of whom could be native-born citizens, might have missed school because they depended on a parent to drop them off. Or they might have needed to be at home to watch a younger sibling. Or they might simply have been too distraught to go to class after being separated from a parent or relative. The absences are likely to taper off, but research has shown that the detention or deportation of a parent increases a child’s risk of mental-health problems. Students with detained or deported parents can also become disengaged from academic and career goals, which can have lasting effects on their future adjustment and achievement.

In addition, children whose parents are detained face the economic uncertainty that comes with a sudden and dramatic loss of income. One recent study found that families lost, on average, 70 percent of their earnings within six months of a parent’s detention or deportation. This abrupt change is not distributed equally along gender lines. ICE tends to be a bit more lenient with people who are primary caretakers, and that often means women. For example, of the 97 meatpacking-plant workers who were arrested in April, 32 were later released, many of them mothers of young children. The fathers who remained in immigration detention will now be absent from their children’s lives.

The Bean Station ICE raid also affected families with no direct connection to the meatpacking plant. For instance, in the days following the arrests, some 300 immigrant parents set up power-of-attorney documents to grant custody rights over their children to a third party in case they too were detained by federal agents. A climate of such pervasive fear affects the entire town’s safety, because it makes it unlikely that crimes witnessed or suffered by immigrants will ever be reported.

It’s easy to see, then, how a single ICE raid can have cascading consequences for hundreds of young Americans. Perhaps most distressing of all is that what happened in Tennessee has happened before. It is happening now in every part of the United States, and it will keep happening unless we are prepared to approach immigration not as a law-enforcement issue, but as a family issue and a labor issue.

The Southeastern Provision plant first came under investigation when it was discovered that the managers, James and Pamela Brantley, withdrew large amounts of cash from the local bank every week, presumably to pay their employees. In a federal affidavit, the IRS alleges that James Brantley had been evading payroll taxes and filing false tax returns for years. A confidential informant also reported that plant workers faced unsafe labor conditions, including exposure to harsh chemicals without suitable protection.

And yet, while the workers were rounded up and placed in Tennessee’s immigration jails, the plant’s president and general manager was not arrested. It’s entirely possible that Brantley will not face any criminal charges, but will instead have to pay fines. He may even be able to go back to operating his meatpacking business. In this way, the cost of food production in the United States continues to be borne by undocumented workers.

The outcome of the ICE raid on Southeastern Provision exposes the disturbing dynamic between labor and law enforcement. When undocumented workers are free to work, they provide cheap and unprotected labor. When they are detained in immigration jails, they become sources of revenue for private prisons, where they can be forced into unpaid labor. Either way, they make money for others, while they and their families remain vulnerable to being broken up.

Slowly but surely, the immigration crackdown that the Trump administration promised, and that ICE is carrying out, is giving rise to a permanent underclass. I don’t just mean the obvious—the undocumented workers who are being underpaid and exploited, and who must live under constant risk of detention and deportation. I also mean these workers’ children, who are starting out in life with significant disadvantages, including growing up in broken homes and dealing with psychological trauma, loss of income, and educational disruptions.

We have seen what mass incarceration has done to African Americans in the United States: The “tough on crime” approach to minor drug offenses contributed to the breakup of hundreds of thousands of families. We may be witnessing the early signs of a similar disaster with 
Hispanic Americans. An entire generation is coming of age while their undocumented parents are being detained and deported. These young people are conditional citizens, their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness curtailed through no fault of their own.



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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/how-ice-puts-a-generation-at-risk/
Under Trump, ICE Has Become a Vast, Cruel Bureaucracyhttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/under-trump-ice-has-become-a-vast-cruel-bureaucracy/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiMar 22, 2018

Why is the United States separating asylum-seeking children from their parents? Kirstjen Nielsen, the secretary of homeland security, has avoided answering this question, which makes a recent lawsuit by the ACLU so important and so necessary. The suit is based on the case of a Congolese woman and her 7-year-old daughter—identified in court papers as “Ms. L.” and “S.S.”—who fled the violence in their home country, traveled to Mexico, and then crossed into California last November, turning themselves in to border agents. Ms. L. was processed and detained in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in San Diego, while her child was torn away from her and taken to a different facility in Chicago—2,000 miles away. They were not brought before a judge or given a chance to be heard.

The case has rightly drawn public outrage, as well as a renewed focus on the Trump administration’s immigration policies. In a sense, Donald Trump is the great revelator: His vulgarity brings attention to practices that would otherwise have been hidden beneath a veneer of respectability. But, as it happens, the case of Ms. L. is not the first time that ICE has separated a child from his or her parents. This occasionally happened under the Obama administration, too, though immigrant-rights activists say there has been a noticeable and significant increase in the practice under Trump. The rationale that the Department of Homeland Security has offered for this horrendous practice is that there is a high risk of human trafficking at the border, and thus US officials need to ensure that a minor is indeed accompanied by his or her parent.

But if a concern for the safety of the child is foremost, then a simple DNA test could have established Ms. L.’s maternity, and the pair could have been kept in the same facility as they awaited the result of their hearing. Instead, S.S. was held in Chicago for more than four months. She spent her first Christmas in this country in detention, separated from her mother, in a strange, snowy city. It was only after the ACLU lawsuit drew nationwide attention that a DNA test was completed; it proved that Ms. L. was indeed S.S.’s mother. It’s important to note here that mother and daughter turned themselves over willingly to Customs and Border Protection agents when they arrived in the United States, because they wanted to prove to the authorities that they have a compelling claim to be granted asylum and should be able to remain in this country legally. In short, they did exactly what asylum seekers are supposed to do, and have been met with shocking cruelty.

Anti-immigration activists (or “restrictionists,” as they euphemistically call themselves these days) often argue that the arrival of undocumented immigrants is unfair to people who come here the legal way. But asylum seekers rarely have the leisure to file an application and wait months, or even years, for it to be processed. Civil wars, political assassinations, and religious persecutions are often unpredictable events, so it’s unreasonable to expect people to risk their lives and expose themselves to retaliation as they wait for the paperwork to be completed. The reality is that refugees flee their homeland first and look for asylum later, which is what Ms. L. and her daughter did.

When asylum seekers turn themselves in to US border guards, they are immediately arrested and processed through the court system. In her searing book Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions, Valeria Luiselli explores what happens to refugees as their cases are heard in federal immigration courts. Luiselli, a Mexican novelist and essayist, volunteered in New York as a translator and helped undocumented Central American children fill out a questionnaire required by the government for adjudicating their appeals. The first question on the questionnaire is “Why did you come to the United States?” Others ask for details about their journey, the dangers they faced in their home country, and the names and legal status of their family members here.

The children answer, and Luiselli translates and fills out the form, but very often the children give her only terse replies or play with crayons. They have fled gang violence and journeyed thousands of miles, often under extremely perilous conditions, to seek safety. Or they’ve lost parents or caretakers and are trying to reunite with a living relative in the United States. Even when their answers clearly show that the children are afraid for their lives, this is not enough to build a strong case. Some kind of documentation is often necessary to secure a pro bono lawyer—which, given the nature of the journey they’ve just endured, is arduous if not impossible.

Luiselli’s book, and the case of Ms. L. and S.S., highlight the mistake in handling asylum applications as a law-enforcement problem. Nielsen’s DHS is treating refugees as a priori criminals, denying them the protections of due process. Far from deterring future refugees, the practice of separating asylum-seeking families is instead inflicting unbearable trauma on children who have already suffered so much.

Over the past few years, the enforcement of immigration policy in this country has slowly shifted from the corrective to the punitive, and now to the abusive. We see this with the construction of walls around border cities, which has resulted in a shift of migratory trails to deserts and mountains and a rise in migrant deaths. We see this in the raids and arrests that ICE has conducted outside schools, places of worship, and soccer fields. We see this in the effort by Attorney General Jeff Sessions—previously a staunch advocate of states’ rights—to stop places like California from declaring themselves sanctuary states. And we are now seeing this in the practice of breaking up asylum-seeking families. None of it has worked. But it has created a vast, cruel bureaucracy that has, step by step, diminished our collective humanity.



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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/under-trump-ice-has-become-a-vast-cruel-bureaucracy/
What We Talk About When We Talk About Immigrationhttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-immigration/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiFeb 15, 2018

Last spring, as challenges to the Trump administration’s immigration ban were making their way through the federal courts, Saturday Night Live produced a spoof ad starring Scarlett Johansson as Ivanka Trump. Wearing a gold lamé dress, Ivanka walks across a softly lit room and waves to her admirers, while the voice-over introduces her new signature perfume, Complicit. The sketch was an instant hit and led to so much commentary that the president’s daughter was asked about it on CBS This Morning.

I was reminded of the sketch when I saw the commercial that Donald Trump released on the first anniversary of his inauguration. This new ad features Luis Bracamontes, an undocumented immigrant recently convicted of killing two Sacramento-area sheriff’s deputies, telling the courtroom that “the only thing that I f— regret is that I f— just killed two.” An unseen narrator ominously warns that Trump is right about illegal immigration and that a border wall should be built, but Democrats stand in the way. The title of the ad? “Complicit.”

The contrast between these two ads couldn’t be sharper: One pokes fun at the president’s daughter, the other points a finger at the Democrats over a specific policy. This turn of events is perhaps unsurprising—Trump has a talent for subverting any critical narrative directed at him and mobilizing his nativist base around it—but it is significant that the focus of one of his first reelection ads is an undocumented immigrant who committed a violent crime. The Bracamontes commercial uses the same ingredients as the infamous Willie Horton ad of 1988, which is to say fear and racism, and applies them to what has always been this president’s core issue: immigration. If you happen to think that spending billions of dollars on a border wall is an ineffective or wasteful policy, this ad paints you as complicit in murder.

The language here is important. From the beginning, Trump has tried to change the terms under which this country debates immigration. Remember that “bad hombres” cross the border from Mexico. Remember that “illegal aliens” come here to “steal” jobs. Remember that Muslim immigration needs a “complete and total shutdown.” Remember that immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador, and Africa come from “shithole countries.” Now the president has begun to complain that “chain migration” should be stopped because it allows a single immigrant to “bring in virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives.”

That these labels aren’t rooted in actual facts hasn’t stopped Trump from using them. “Chain migration,” for example, is an academic term that refers to a specific migration pattern in which people from a particular town or area hear of a local’s success in another country and decide to follow the same path. This can often mean family members: Think about the Vietnamese nail salons in California, which grew out of a few businesses started by refugees in Sacramento, or the Irish and Italian immigrants in Boston and New York. But Trump is using the term “chain migration,” with its connotations of shackles and fetters, to refer to family reunification, which is the program that allows immigrants to sponsor their spouses and children and allows citizens to sponsor their parents and siblings. Annual caps already exist on the number of such visas, and the waiting lists are so long for some relatives, such as parents and siblings, that it takes many years for them to be processed.

Family reunification has been part of US immigration policy for decades. Unless you’re an indigenous person, chances are that you or someone in your family came to the United States through this program. It was the principle of family reunification that allowed Mike Pence’s grandfather, Richard Cawley, to come here in 1923 to join his brother. It’s what also allowed Donald Trump’s mother, Mary Anne MacLeod, to join her sisters here in 1930. And it is family reunification that will likely allow Viktor and Amalija Knavs, Melania Trump’s Slovenian parents, to live here permanently.

Each time the president introduces new terms to the immigration debate, many reporters dutifully repeat his words for their dramatic value but fail to correct their application. To make matters worse, after each new round of angry rhetoric, well-meaning liberals share stories about the extraordinary success of immigrants in this country. They point out, for instance, that a number of technology companies—including Apple, Amazon, Google, and Tesla—were founded by immigrants or their children. They share newspaper profiles of everyday heroes like Jesus Contreras, a paramedic and DACA recipient who was part of the relief efforts after Hurricane Harvey, or Emmanuel Mensah, a soldier and immigrant from Ghana who died trying to rescue people from a burning building in the Bronx.

This is a tempting response, and I admit to having used it, too. But the problem with these competing portrayals is that the overwhelming majority of immigrants are neither “bad hombres” nor the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. If they are exceptional, it is only because being an immigrant requires them to have the courage to leave home, travel thousands of miles to a new place, and start over, sometimes with little or no support. This is not a journey for the faint of heart. People who are willing to undertake it have already proved their mettle.

The United States is home to more than 40 million immigrants. Of these, nearly half are naturalized citizens, and the other half are either permanent residents, temporary workers, or undocumented immigrants. These people do not live apart from other Americans. On the contrary, they are linked to them by bonds of marriage or family, through school or work. Their success is everyone else’s success, their failure everyone else’s failure. Until this simple fact is understood, the immigration debate is destined to be mired in demagoguery. And we will all be complicit.



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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-immigration/
The Reality-Show President, Season Onehttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/the-reality-show-president-season-one/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiJan 15, 2018

Imagine: A real-estate heir with a fake tan and no qualifications invites the viewing public to join him on an unprecedented adventure. He will, he says, drain the swamp in Washington, DC. Over the course of a few short weeks, he selects contestants for his show, prizing style over substance and fealty over independence. Once the work starts, however, he spends much of his time in a gaudy mansion in Florida, where he plays golf, meets with foreign dignitaries, and tweets his angry meltdowns. Contestants are regularly eliminated. He feuds with several nemeses, but the one he hates the most is the one he has known the longest, and the one who nearly stole the spotlight from him. At the end of the first season, he has failed to drain the swamp, but he is making money for himself through tie-ins and merchandising. The second season promises even more twists and turns, with members of his own team questioning his mental capacity, to which his response is that he is “a very stable genius.”

What would have once been merely an exercise in the suspension of disbelief is now our national nightmare. This president appears to have neither the interest nor the ability to govern. He is said to favor pictures and charts over long blocks of text, and White House staff have had to adapt their briefings accordingly. Rather than pore over reports and analyses from his intelligence agencies, he watches pundits on Fox News, then tweets his thoughts. Decisions are made on the fly, and then sometimes unmade or revised in an effort to help him save face. He lies almost constantly, even about matters of no importance, and his lies travel around the world before corrections can be made. He refers to the media as “the enemy of the American people” and bullies or insults anyone who doesn’t fall in line with him. Yesterday’s friends become enemies, as Steve Bannon, his former chief strategist, found out recently when the president dismissed him as “Sloppy Steve.” His views about race are perhaps best summarized by the fact that David Duke and members of the Ku Klux Klan have embraced him.

So where do we stand after a year? Donald Trump’s 12 months in office have been short on achievement and long on frustration. Although his party controls both the House and the Senate, he couldn’t repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, couldn’t make Mexico pay for the border wall, couldn’t prove that “millions” had voted illegally in the last presidential election, couldn’t defund Planned Parenthood, and, perhaps most frustrating of all for him, couldn’t stop the federal investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russian government agents.

And yet the president has managed to wreak a lot of damage in a short amount of time. The Muslim ban, which he signed a week after taking office, was famously and memorably blocked by federal courts, but by September of last year it had been modified to include two non-Muslim countries, Venezuela and North Korea. With this sleight of hand (North Korea already bans most of its nationals from leaving, and the restrictions on Venezuelans only apply to government officials and their families), the ban on Muslims from Iran, Syria, Libya, Chad, Somalia, and Yemen was allowed to proceed. Unless challenges in the federal appeals courts succeed, and unless the Supreme Court eventually rules against it, this immoral policy is now the law of the land.

Animus against Muslims is just one pillar of Trump’s promise to “Make America great again”; the other is xenophobia. After he became president, he ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement to speed up deportations of undocumented immigrants, including those who have been in the country for decades and have not committed serious crimes. But he has made it clear that he’s opposed to legal migration from certain countries as well: The New York Times recently reported that Trump has complained to his staff that immigrants from Haiti “all have AIDS” and that those from Nigeria would never “go back to their huts.” He has also thrown his support behind the so-called Raise Act, a bill introduced by Senators Tom Cotton and David Perdue that would cut legal immigration by 50 percent and significantly favor people from English-speaking countries. And let’s not forget that his administration’s response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico has been dismal: Four months after the disaster, nearly half of the island’s people are still without power.

Trump’s rhetoric has had a significant effect on the culture. The Dreamers are living in limbo, while the fascist right, now emboldened, seeks to expand the window of acceptable discourse, both on and off college campuses. The country looks more divided than at any time in recent memory. How bleak the future seems when, on the second day of the new year, the president tweets, “I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!”

Not only have Republicans been remarkably silent about Trump’s behavior this past year; they have enabled it. They confirmed his appointments, dismissed his critics, and smiled through photo ops with him. The reason for their silence and acquiescence is clear: “He’ll sign anything we put in front of him,” says Mitch McConnell in Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury. In order to get the tax cuts that will significantly benefit them and their corporate friends, the Republicans have been willing to endanger the entire country.

We now enter the second year of the reality-show presidency. Each morning, we wake up with the familiar dread of what the president might do next. Nuclear war is no longer a remote possibility; it is the potential outcome of an angry outburst. But despair is not an option. It’s time to be daring, to demand better of our representatives and to work harder—much harder—at holding them to account. And if they don’t listen, it’s time to put them out of work. How are you preparing for the midterms in November?



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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/the-reality-show-president-season-one/
We Can’t End Sexual Harassment if We Make It a Partisan Issuehttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/we-cant-end-sexual-harassment-if-we-make-it-a-partisan-issue/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiNov 15, 2017

Revolutions take people by surprise. Who could have predicted a month ago, when Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey broke the Harvey Weinstein story in The New York Times, that we would see so many sexual predators publicly named and shamed? As it turned out, Weinstein was just a drop in the bucket, and that bucket had long ago been filled to the brim. We’ve now seen hundreds of women come forward about the sexual crimes they’ve suffered at the hands of prominent men. The harrowing violations they’ve described range from harassment to rape, and took place as far back as the 1970s or as recently as a few months ago, but these crimes all have in common the fact that they went unpunished. When the women reported the assaults, they were often told to stay quiet lest they hurt their careers. And so they maintained their silence. Until now.

The parade of horribles that the Times report helped bring out includes Hollywood executives (Roy Price of Amazon Studios), film directors (Brett Ratner, James Toback), A-list actors (Kevin Spacey, Dustin Hoffman, Ben Affleck), popular comedians (Louis C.K.), media figures (Mark Halperin, Leon Wieseltier), and a former president (George H.W. Bush). Because a single accuser is often dismissed, the reporters who’ve been working on these stories have gone to great lengths to find multiple corroborative accounts. Yet each time a new offender is named, we see the same pattern of reactions: Fans express shock and disappointment, while the offender issues a denial. Only very rarely do we see an apology.

The men who have been named in these scandals represent a very broad range of backgrounds: Republican and Democrat; Christian, Jewish, and Muslim; gay and straight. You would think that with such a wide spectrum of abusers, we would finally understand and treat sexual harassment and violence as the systemic problems they are. In reality, however, the issue has turned partisan. For example, after the news broke that Spacey had assaulted a 14-year-old actor, Donald Trump Jr. gleefully tweeted: “Why don’t we simplify this greatly and publish a list of those in Hollywood who aren’t creeps??? Apparently a much smaller group.” So confident was he in this smug assessment that he tweeted it again 10 days later: “Time to bring this back to the top. It’s more true every day.”

Yet this same Donald Trump Jr. remained stubbornly silent when The Washington Post reported that Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore had fondled a 14-year-old girl in 1979, when he was a 32-year-old district attorney. Not only did Trump Jr. fail to condemn this assault, he retweeted people who dismissed the allegations for being 30 years old, compared with the ones against Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, which date from just five years ago.

Some Republicans, like Maine Senator Susan Collins, have said that Moore should step aside from the race if “there is any truth at all to these horrific allegations.” On November 13, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell finally said: “I believe the women.” But many other Republicans have remained silent, in the hope that Moore will still win the special election in December and that they will keep their majority in the Senate. It’s important to note here that the original Washington Post report on Moore quoted four women who shared similar stories about his approaching them when they were underage, as well as an additional 30 corroborative sources. Moore himself must have been aware that he was engaging in illegal and immoral behavior, because he allegedly asked the 14-year-old to meet him around the corner from her house.

And let’s not forget that the entire Republican Party has enabled a man who not only was repeatedly accused of sexual assaults but even bragged about them: President Trump himself. So this is where we are now: Sexual assault has become a partisan issue. It falls under the category of crimes that some people are willing to forgive and forget, so long as they are perpetrated by those on their own side.

This is not just a problem for Republicans. Take the case of the Swiss-born Oxford professor Tariq Ramadan, who was accused of rape by two women. Ramadan hasn’t spoken directly about these accusations, except to issue a denial and to blame “a campaign of slander clearly orchestrated by my longtime adversaries.” Since then, several young women have come forward to say that he made unwanted advances toward them when they were his teenage students in Geneva. The cases are now being investigated by the police, but Nadia Karmous, president of a cultural association of Muslim women in Switzerland, defended the scholar by claiming that he was pursued by female fans at his conferences. “You would think you were at a Beatles concert,” she declared. “These women are fragile, they think that Tariq Ramadan has the answer to their problems.” Meanwhile, Eugene Rogan, the head of Oxford’s Middle East Centre, fretted about the effect that the accusations might have on Muslim students, saying that the allegations could appear like “just another way for Europeans to gang up against a prominent Muslim intellectual.”

What we are witnessing at the moment is nothing short of an uprising of women against sexual assault. They are revealing its epidemic frequency in our society and all the ways in which it is enabled by a culture of silence. If we allow sexual misconduct to become a partisan issue, we risk obfuscating these causes and leaving the problem to fester for the next generation. In order for this revolution to be successful, we must listen to the victims of sex crimes whether the perpetrators share our politics or not. We must call out predators even when—especially when—they are beloved or respected figures.



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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/we-cant-end-sexual-harassment-if-we-make-it-a-partisan-issue/
The Color of Terrorism and the Whiteness of the Lone Wolfhttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/the-color-of-terrorism-and-the-whiteness-of-the-lone-wolf/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiOct 11, 2017

Here we are again: one man, a cache of assault weapons, innocent victims. This time it happened in Las Vegas, where a 64-year-old gambler broke through the windows of his room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel and, from that vantage point, fired into the crowd at an outdoor country-music concert, killing 58 people and injuring nearly 500 others. When I heard about the massacre on the radio, I knew, even in the midst of my horror, that the suspect was a white man, because the reporter referred to him as a “gunman,” not as a “terrorist.” The difference has far-reaching consequences for how the country responds to mass shootings, which have claimed hundreds of lives and are most often perpetrated by white men, many of whom espouse extremist right-wing ideologies.

Consider how our media talk about mass shootings and terrorist attacks. Stephen Paddock, the murderer in Las Vegas, was called a “lone wolf,” a “gunman,” and even a “sniper,” while Omar Mateen, who killed 49 people in Orlando, Florida, in June 2016, was almost immediately dubbed a “terrorist.” But did the men and women who frantically sought cover from the hail of bullets at the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival feel less terror than those who were trapped in the Pulse nightclub? Do families who lost loved ones in Las Vegas grieve any less than those who did in Orlando?

Of course, it can be argued that terrorism is not just about inducing fear and inflicting violence, but doing these things in the service of a greater political cause. Mateen was said to have pledged allegiance to ISIS on a 911 call during the shooting, whereas Paddock’s motives remain, as of this writing, unknown. “Right now,” said Sheriff Joe Lombardo of Clark County, Nevada, “we believe it’s a sole actor, [a] lone-wolf-type actor.”

Notice that the emphasis on the solitary nature of the act encourages us to think of it as unavoidable: We are supposed to accept that mass shootings can happen because no one can predict when an armed man will “snap” and go on a shooting spree. Bill O’Reilly, the former Fox News personality, made this argument in a blog post the day after the shooting. “This is the price of freedom,” he wrote. “Violent nuts are allowed to roam free until they do damage, no matter how threatening they are.”

Yet when it comes to terrorism, we are repeatedly told that every effort will be made to keep us safe, whatever the cost to our rule of law or sense of morality. Days after the terrorist attack by Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik in San Bernardino, California, for example, Donald Trump, then still a presidential candidate, called for “a complete and total shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” Last summer, after Mateen opened fire in a gay nightclub, Trump gloated that he “appreciated the congrats for being right on Islamic terrorism.”

At the same time, Trump remains conspicuously silent when the attacker is a white man. When Jeremy Joseph Christian killed two people in Portland, Oregon, who had objected to his anti-Muslim rant on a Metropolitan Area Express light-rail car, Trump didn’t suggest banning white men from trains. Instead, he spent the weekend tweeting about the Russia investigation and leaks from the White House. Likewise, the neo-Nazis and white nationalists who marched through Charlottesville, Virginia, this past summer and killed a young counterprotester did not attract Trump’s ire. There were “some very fine people on both sides,” he said. And all Trump could manage about the massacre in Las Vegas, reportedly the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history, was that Paddock was a “sick” and “demented” man.

It’s tempting to dismiss these reactions as distinctly Trumpian, but I fear that Trump is merely saying out loud what remains politely unspoken in the culture. The United States doesn’t talk about mass shootings in the same way that it talks about terrorist attacks. One type of violence is viewed as unavoidable, the other as preventable. One requires no change in our laws; the other does—up to and including no-fly lists, religious bans, and mass surveillance. One results in no discomfort for the white people who
happen to share the race or faith of the shooter; the other culminates in the treatment of brown and black people as criminals-in-waiting.

If you think I’m exaggerating, consider the language that the National Rifle Association uses in framing the debate about gun control. Guns cannot be legislated, we are told, because this would simply deprive “law-abiding citizens” of their constitutional rights while “criminals” continue to arm themselves illegally. This is a position that only makes sense if you believe that criminals are always born, never made. The NRA and its supporters treat the categories of “criminal” and “law-abiding” as inflexible and inherent. That is the language of race.

But how much would the national conversation about guns change if people of color suddenly decided to arm themselves en masse? There is no need to wonder, because it already happened once, in California. In the 1960s, members of the Black Panther Party legally purchased firearms and conducted armed patrols and “cop watching” in Oakland. The movement so alarmed legislators that they crafted the Mulford Act, which prohibited the public carrying of loaded weapons in California.

We all know the script: When a mass shooting happens, we feel horror at the number of casualties, engage in speculation about the suspect, hear our leaders offer their “thoughts and prayers,” watch the NRA’s Twitter feed go quiet for a few days. What we can hardly claim anymore is shock that the shooting happened. Not only did it happen, but it will happen again and again and again until we do something about it. And that can only begin with a frank reckoning of how white supremacy enables and maintains our current gun laws.



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Natural Disasters Call for Good Governance, Not Charityhttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/natural-disasters-call-for-good-governance-not-charity/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiSep 6, 2017

The map of disasters is immense, and the suffering often anonymous. As I write, firefighters are battling a blaze that has spread across huge swaths of dry land in the San Fernando Valley, 15 miles north of my home in Los Angeles. Monsoon rains in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Niger have resulted in the deaths of over a thousand people. Mudslides in Sierra Leone claimed 500 lives, and many victims are still missing. And in Texas and Louisiana, Hurricane Harvey caused flooding and devastation on a scale rarely seen on the Gulf Coast. Faced with calamities like these, the natural human impulse is to ask: How can I help?

We’ve already seen heroic answers to that question in the aftermath of Harvey. Texans volunteered at shelters and food banks, donated bottled water and supplies, and searched for survivors in flooded neighborhoods. Several Houston-area mosques opened their doors to evacuees. Jim McIngvale, a local businessman who calls himself “Mattress Mack,” turned his furniture stores into shelters for those in need. The Cajun Navy, a group of volunteers from Louisiana, brought their boats across state lines to assist in rescue efforts. And reporters rushed into the eye of the storm to bring us the news. But while these stories inject us with hope, we must also ask why volunteer efforts are so desperately needed in the first place.

A disaster like Harvey raises important questions about the role of government and the effectiveness of its response. All of us depend on a range of local, state, and federal agencies to prepare for an emergency, show leadership as it unfolds, and provide relief in its aftermath. Unfortunately, the record of our current leadership fails to inspire any confidence whatsoever. On the evening of August 25, for example, while Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas, President Trump pardoned Joe Arpaio, the Maricopa County sheriff who was accused of racial profiling and systematically violating civil rights in his jails, including an immigration facility often referred to as a “concentration camp.” In his announcement of the pardon, Trump called Arpaio an “American patriot” who “kept Arizona safe.”

Perhaps hoping to distract from this shockingly inappropriate response, Trump traveled to Texas, ostensibly to witness the devastation caused by the hurricane. Yet it seems he couldn’t help but treat the disaster zone as though it were one of his campaign rallies. He showed up in Corpus Christi on August 29 in a branded hat that he sells on his website for $40. Standing between two fire trucks, he promised Texans that “We’re gonna get you back and operating immediately. Thank you, everybody. What a crowd! What a turnout!” At a meeting with local leaders, he joked that Harvey “sounds like such an innocent name…right? But it’s not, it’s not innocent.”

This performance was widely criticized, so Trump flew down to Texas on September 2 for a do-over. This time, he went hatless, met with people at shelters, hugged a few children, and vowed (via Twitter, of course) that “we will prevail in the GREAT state of Texas.” He also pledged to donate $1 million of his personal fortune to hurricane-relief efforts. Whether any of that money will actually be paid remains to be seen. Trump has—how shall I put this?—a mixed record on charity. The Washington Post’s David Fahrenthold reported on several cases in which Trump didn’t come through on his pledges, or else paid them through the Trump Foundation—which is to say, with other people’s money.

But Trump’s financial pledge can’t make up for what he has done to the government’s disaster-relief agencies. The Federal Emergency Management Agency had no administrator between January and June, when Brock Long was finally sworn in as the new director. Furthermore, Trump’s proposed 2018 budget includes $667 million in cuts to FEMA grants that help cities and states prepare for disasters, as well as a 32 percent cut to NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, whose scientists study environmental phenomena such as (you guessed it) hurricanes and tornadoes. These and other budget cuts are being made in order to provide initial funding for Trump’s border wall.

Of what use is a border wall to people who are drowning? This question should be asked of all Republicans who are going along with Trump’s upside-down priorities, even though they are well aware that his “beautiful” wall is costly, inhumane, and ineffective. As the floodwaters rose in Houston, many people rushed to help, including people targeted by Trump’s immigration plans. Alonso Guillen, a 31-year-old beneficiary of DACA (or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the policy that provides relief for the children of undocumented immigrants), drowned while trying to rescue others. Jesus Contreras, another DACA recipient who was brought to the United States when he was 6 years old, continues to work as a paramedic in Houston. But now that Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions have announced the “orderly wind-down” of DACA, Contreras and 800,000 other young people could be deported, perhaps as early as March of next year, many to countries they’ve never lived in.

When they return from recess, members of Congress will face the task of voting for federal relief to survivors of Hurricane Harvey. Ted Cruz, who built his career as an advocate of small government, says he hopes he can count on bipartisan support for relief to his state. But it’s worth remembering that 23 representatives from Texas, including Senators Cruz and John Cornyn, voted against Hurricane Sandy relief in 2013. There are no atheists in foxholes, as the saying goes, and I am tempted to add that there are no small-government advocates in hurricanes.

We may not be able to prevent natural disasters, but we can prepare for them in a variety of ways, including through proper funding of scientific research and agencies like FEMA. This is the work of the federal government, which Trump and his Republican enablers seem so intent on dismantling.



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Trump Has Declared a Culture War—This Is How to Fight Backhttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/trump-has-declared-a-culture-war-this-is-how-to-fight-back/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiAug 10, 2017

At the grocery store the other day, I found myself in the checkout line behind an old man whose T-shirt showed an electoral map of the country. The caption for red states said “United States of America”; for blue states, it said “Dumbfuckistan.” Like me, this man lives in California, which has a strong economy, low unemployment, the nation’s best public-university system, and some of the most innovative tech companies. But along with other blue states, it was being assaulted as a land of “dumbfucks,” while red states were praised as the “real” America.

In the parking lot afterward, as the man loaded his groceries into a luxury SUV, I stared at him, unable to get past the message he was trying to convey to people like me: that he and I were not fellow Americans, working to form a more perfect union, but rather citizens of two battling nations. This wasn’t just a political statement, it was propaganda—and it was emblematic of the current culture war.

The trenches of this war are getting deeper. In July, two Republican senators, Tom Cotton and David Perdue, introduced the RAISE Act, a bill that would effectively cut legal immigration by 50 percent over the course of a decade. According to its sponsors, the bill would spur economic growth and raise workers’ wages by limiting competition from newcomers. It would establish a point system for all prospective immigrants, place restrictions on the type of relatives they can sponsor, add an English-language test, eliminate the diversity visa lottery, and limit the number of refugees.

But this legislation will not necessarily help the economy, simply because employers’ needs range widely, depending on the industry. In California, for example, tech and agricultural workers are both vital to the state’s economic health. Furthermore, automation and declining unionization, not just immigration, have been shown to be strong contributing factors to declining wages. What the bill will do, however, is limit the arrival of relatives through family reunification, close our doors to refugees, and give an immediate advantage to immigrants from English-speaking countries. The RAISE Act may or may not make the economy stronger, but it will probably make the country whiter.

Outside the Senate, the culture war is being fought on many fronts. At the Justice Department, Jeff Sessions has been critical of consent decrees—reform agreements with police departments that are accused of abuses—saying they “reduce the morale of police officers.” Sessions’s attorneys have also filed a brief in federal court arguing that the 1964 Civil Rights Act does not protect workers from discrimination on the basis of their sexual orientation. At the Education Department, Betsy DeVos is currently reconsidering the responsibilities that colleges and universities have under Title IX to investigate campus rapes. And on July 26, Donald Trump abruptly announced on Twitter that transgender service members would be banned from the military.

There is one kind of discrimination, however, that the administration seems keen on investigating. On August 1, it informed the Justice Department’s civil-rights division that it would be redirecting resources toward investigating and suing colleges for discrimination against white applicants. The reason for this is no great mystery: Trump is trying to appeal to his shrinking base. He is also trying to cover up his failures as president. The first six months of his administration have been remarkable for their incompetence. The “big, beautiful” wall he promised along the southern border has not received funding. The Muslim ban he championed resulted in chaos at airports and was rejected by federal courts. His vow to repeal and replace Obamacare led to multiple bills in the GOP-controlled Senate, all of which ultimately failed. His presidential campaign is under investigation for potential collusion with the Russian government. So Trump resorts to what he does best: waging a culture war.

Some people believe that the culture war is a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing, that it distracts from tangible issues like health care, the economy, education, and the environment. Every time Trump sends a tweet or endorses legislation that targets a minority group, a few good souls can be relied upon to cry, “Distraction!” But for those at the receiving end of insults or attacks, there is only the searing pain of rejection. The culture war cannot be ignored, or even avoided. Trump has brought the white-resentment battle to Democrats, while insisting to his supporters that Democrats are the party of identity politics.

How should Democrats respond? The chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Ben Ray Luján, has said there would not be “a litmus test” for candidates. To win back Congress in 2018, he said, the party needs a broad coalition, and candidates who oppose abortion rights could receive funding. The Washington Post’s Fareed Zakaria advised Democrats to “rethink their immigration absolutism” in order to appeal to Trump voters.

This is like saying that you can win a war by switching sides. If Democrats give up on women’s reproductive rights and immigrant rights, then what will they give up next—and what will they stand for? It makes far more sense, morally and strategically, to energize the eligible voters who didn’t bother casting ballots last fall. This doesn’t mean that discussions of abortion or immigration ought to be avoided. On the contrary, Democrats should make a better case for how their policies can reduce the rate of unwanted pregnancies or bring about progressive immigration reform.

In other words, instead of trying to convince the guy in the “Dumbfuckistan” T-shirt, try talking to his neighbor. Large segments of the public already know that Trump is a boor unfit to be president, but they haven’t yet heard what they might gain under a fresh, fearless leadership: universal health care, higher wages, and better opportunities, in 
a nation that does not compromise on its ideals.



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The Senate Health-Care Bill Is Morally Indefensiblehttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/the-senate-healthcare-bill-is-morally-indefensible/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiJun 27, 2017

The United States is a rich country, and whether because or in spite of that fact, it treats the poorest and most vulnerable of its people with contempt. The Trump administration’s proposed budget calls for cuts to food-stamp programs that help 43 million people. The Secretary for Housing and Urban Development has made it clear that he doesn’t expect federal housing to be too comfortable and has called poverty a “state of mind.” At a rally in Iowa, Donald Trump declared that “I just don’t want a poor person” serving the country in a cabinet position instead of “brilliant business minds.”

But nowhere is this contempt for the poor more evident than in health care. This week, the Senate will vote on a bill that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, will lead to 22 million people losing their health coverage in a decade, including 15 million people on Medicaid. The bill also slashes funds for preventive care, allows states to let insurance companies charge more for preexisting conditions, and revokes the requirement to cover maternity and emergency services. The Republican senators who drafted this bill are doing more than reforming health care; they are deciding who deserves to receive it.

How does this bill work? Like the House bill that was narrowly passed in May, the Senate bill makes deep cuts to Medicaid, a program that currently covers 74 million people, or about one in five Americans. These are the poor, the elderly, the disabled, and those who spent their life savings on health care and have no other resources to pay for it. Approximately 64 percent of the people who are currently in nursing homes depend on Medicaid. Without it, they will be left to die. And the bill doesn’t just affect Medicaid; it also makes it easier for states to allow health-care companies to cut maternity care and emergency services. A new baby or a car accident could mean severe financial hardship or even bankruptcy.

Now consider who benefits from this bill. Health-insurance companies will collect premiums from a smaller but somewhat healthier pool of people, without having to deliver as many of the services that many of us take for granted. Health-insurance CEOs will no longer be subject to the nominal tax penalty previously imposed by Obamacare on their salaries. But, most tellingly, this bill includes nearly $1 trillion in tax cuts, about half of which will flow to those who make more than $1 million per year.

In short, the bill provides tax cuts to the rich, and pays for them by taking away health coverage from the poor. It makes an equivalence between affording care and deserving care. It is morally indefensible, which is perhaps why Mitch McConnell wrote it behind closed doors and dodged questions about it until the moment it was unveiled. Doctors and patients were not consulted, nor were women’s groups, advocates for the disabled, or other stakeholders. Media coverage remained anemic—a Media Matters study found that, in the first two weeks of June, the three major broadcast networks gave just three minutes of airtime to the bill. Only when it was published by the Senate Budget Committee on June 22 did it start to attract news attention.

You might think that a piece of legislation that affects the health of millions of Americans and nearly one-sixth of the economy should be debated at length, but McConnell refused to commit to a detailed floor debate about the measure. The rush appears to be part of a tactic to get it swiftly passed: the less Americans know about what’s in the bill, the less likely they are to call their representatives about it.

Currently, I have employer-provided health insurance, and it has paid for things like an emergency-room visit (cooking, shears) and a cancer scare last year, but I still remember what it was like to be uninsured. A few years ago, when my husband was between jobs and I was freelancing, I applied for coverage with Blue Cross Blue Shield and was denied it. I was perfectly healthy: in my 30s, a non-smoker, and with no history of chronic illness in my family. But the paperwork I’d filled out required me to list the date of my last menstrual period, and I had answered, truthfully, that it was more than a year prior because I was still breastfeeding my infant baby. Whether the insurance company didn’t believe me, or whether it deemed a nursing mother a higher risk, I don’t know. But both my husband and my baby were covered, and I was denied. For months, I lived in fear that the slightest health mishap could drive my family into financial ruin.

By contrast, when I was a graduate student in London, I fell ill with a migraine that lasted days, and then weeks. My primary-care doctor couldn’t figure out what was wrong, and neither did the neurologist he referred me to, but another specialist finally diagnosed me with an eye condition. It took nearly two months to figure out what was wrong, during which time I was in so much pain that I couldn’t sleep or read or eat. After a few weeks of therapy, the migraines disappeared. The cost of all this to me was a grand total of zero, thanks to the UK’s National Health Service.

The fundamental problem with health care in the United States is that it is treated as a for-profit enterprise, with little recourse or protection for those who cannot afford it. Obamacare did not change this; it simply tried to accommodate it, and as a result, it created a vastly imperfect system. That system should be improved through the expansion of subsidized components like Medicaid and Medicare, rather than through the major cuts provided for in the disastrous Senate bill.

As we have seen with the original House bill, it is possible to put enough pressure on lawmakers to convince them to change their minds. The 2018 elections are not that far off. Several senators, including Dean Heller of Nevada and Susan Collins of Maine, have already signaled that they will not support the bill in its present form. Given how little media coverage the bill received prior to its unveiling, this is encouraging. Health care is a winnable fight.

Have you called your senator today?



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Donald Trump Is Enabling Attacks on Journalistshttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/donald-trump-enabling-attacks-journalists/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiMay 31, 2017

Thus far, Donald Trump’s presidency has been characterized by a series of crises. His campaign is under investigation for its ties to Russian agents; his Muslim ban has been blocked by the courts; his health-care legislation is being rewritten by the Senate; and his forays into diplomacy have embarrassed the United States and its allies. But as we lurch from scandal to scandal, let us not lose sight of the fact that we are witnessing a dangerous, sustained, and increasingly violent assault on the free press.

On May 24, The Guardian’s Ben Jacobs approached tech multimillionaire Greg Gianforte, the Republican candidate for Montana’s seat in the House of Representatives, to ask his position on the American Health Care Act after the Congressional Budget Office determined that it could strip as many as 23 million Americans of coverage. Instead of answering the question, Gianforte slammed Jacobs to the ground and broke his glasses. Later that night, his campaign issued a statement claiming that Gianforte had been attacked by a “liberal journalist.” The next day, he won the special election.

Before the incident, Gianforte and outside groups had vastly outspent his Democratic challenger, folk singer Rob Quist, and as many as half of the votes had already been cast by mail. But it remains deeply disturbing that a candidate who physically assaulted a reporter is now headed to Congress—and also that, in the 24 hours following the attack, Gianforte’s campaign raised almost $100,000. For a certain section of the electorate, it would seem, violence against the press isn’t a disqualifier in a congressman; it’s a bonus.

After an audio recording emerged that corroborated Jacobs’s account, and after Fox News reporters who were present also confirmed it, the Gallatin County sheriff cited Gianforte for misdemeanor assault. That didn’t stop Vice President Mike Pence from congratulating Gianforte on his “great win,” adding that he looked forward to having him “Make America Great Again.” The president himself was abroad during the election, but he took time on his first day back home to tweet that this was a “Big win in Montana for Republicans.” Perhaps the most candid assessment of the administration’s position was offered in a tweet by Grover Norquist: “Congratulations to tax pledge signing Greg Gianforte who just body slammed tax hiking Democrat pol.” In plain English, this means that violence against the press is fine, as long as it results in tax cuts.

There’s a distinct whiff of privilege about this sorry incident. Imagine if Gianforte had been black and had assaulted a Fox News reporter. How do you suppose conservatives would react? Or imagine if he’d been an undocumented immigrant: How would the Gallatin County sheriff have handled the case? There appears to be no political price to pay for violence, as long as it’s committed by someone like Gianforte. (Coincidentally, Gianforte is one of several Montana Republicans who donated money to a suspected white nationalist running for a seat in the State House.)

What happened in Montana isn’t an isolated case. In Washington, DC, last month, another reporter was manhandled by security guards at the headquarters of the Federal Communications Commission. (The FCC has since apologized.) In Charleston, West Virginia, a journalist trying to ask Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price a question about preexisting conditions was handcuffed and arrested. And in Lexington, Kentucky, the windows of the Herald-Leader were shattered by possible gunfire.

It’s not just physical violence that reporters have had to face: Increasingly, their access is being restricted as well. During his trip to Saudi Arabia, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson held a briefing at which no American reporters were present—because they were never told about it. Before that, Trump granted access to Russian state media for his meeting with the Russian ambassador, but the American press was snubbed. And in April, the White House decided it would keep its visitor logs secret, reversing an Obama administration policy.

This antagonism toward the press has been preceded by months of vilifying rhetoric. During his campaign, Trump regularly described the media as “fake,” “biased,” “dishonest,” “failing,” “unwatchable,” “distorted,” and “inaccurate.” At his rallies, he kept the press in a designated pen and encouraged his supporters to heckle them. In October, he started accusing the media of rigging the election. By February of this year, he declared that the media were enemies of the American people.

These threats can’t be dismissed. According to a recent report by The New York Times, Trump asked then–FBI director James Comey to “consider putting reporters in prison for publishing classified information.” Comey has since been fired and will be replaced by someone of Trump’s choosing, who may in fact carry out that order. This is especially relevant because Trump’s treatment of the media has been embraced by many others around him. For example, at the Coast Guard Academy’s commencement last month, a live microphone captured Homeland Security chief John Kelly joking to Trump about a ceremonial sword: “Use that on the press, sir.” Also last month, while visiting a gun range, Texas Governor Greg Abbott hoisted a target sheet riddled with bullet holes and said, “I’m gonna carry this around in case I see any reporters.”

No doubt these officials would say this is just humor—“Lighten up, liberals!” And no doubt they would dismiss what happened to reporters in Montana, Washington, and West Virginia as nothing more than isolated cases. But those of us who come from parts of the world where reporters are threatened, harassed, jailed, or murdered find neither humor in the jokes nor justification for the violence. Either the press can, as the saying goes, afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted, or it is not free at all. Threats against the free press are threats against democracy itself.



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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/donald-trump-enabling-attacks-journalists/
Americans Everywhere Benefit From the NEA and NEHhttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/americans-everywhere-benefit-from-the-nea-and-neh/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiMar 30, 2017

Long before it was unveiled, there was little doubt that Donald Trump’s first budget would increase spending on police and the military and slash funding to the arts, scientific research, and environmental protection. Yet the president still managed to surprise with the scope of his proposed cuts. Along with massive reductions in funding for the Environmental Protection Agency, the State Department, the Department of Labor, and other federal agencies, Trump’s budget calls for the elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

How does this affect you? If you’ve ever attended a free program at your neighborhood library, enjoyed a summer concert at a public park, caught a movie or two at your town’s film festival, read a classic book from the Library of America series, taken a high-school or college humanities course, or watched Sesame Street with your children, chances are that you have the NEA, the NEH, or the CPB to thank for it. Imagine losing all of that overnight.

Public funding for the arts and humanities is a popular target for a particular breed of conservative. Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, argued that the government can’t ask steelworkers and coal miners for money. “Can I really go to those folks, look them in the eye, and say, ‘Look, I want to take money from you and I want to give it to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’?” Pat Buchanan, the twice-failed presidential candidate, was gleeful about the cuts: “The Lord has been good to me late in life, my friend,” he told an interviewer. And Fox News personality Tucker Carlson foolishly declared, “The NEA is, in effect, welfare for rich liberal elites. That’s who consumes the products that they produce.”

To hear these guys tell it, you’d think funding for the arts was hobbling the federal budget by taking money from coal miners and using it to pay for artists to sunbathe in Cancún. In reality, 40 percent of funds from the NEA go directly to states to finance arts programs, particularly in rural areas that don’t have a robust arts infrastructure. Furthermore, the combined budget for the NEA and the NEH is under $300 million per year. That’s 0.008 percent of the federal budget. If you add in the CPB, which gets another $445 million annually, the cost is still under 0.02 percent of the total budget—a pittance, especially compared with what nations like Germany or Sweden spend. France recently increased the budget of its Ministry of Culture to $3.2 billion. (Yes, billion with a “b.”)

The simple truth is that cutting the NEA and the NEH will do nothing to help balance the budget, although it will severely affect states that depend on these agencies to fund cultural or educational programs. Often, it is through such programs that children from poor or underserved communities get access to arts or music education, which in turn boosts school performance. And that includes the children of the coal miners and steelworkers that Mulvaney claims to care about so much.

The federal budget is a reflection of an administration’s policies and priorities, so it is useful to look at how money that might be cut from the arts and humanities would otherwise be allocated. Consider the F-35, a fighter jet developed for the government by Lockheed Martin, at a cost of $102 million to $132 million per plane. That staggering cost might be acceptable if the F-35 proved to be successful, but almost from the start it has been plagued with serious safety and performance problems. The entire F-35 program will end up costing taxpayers $1.5 trillion. Why is it that we can always find money for defense projects like these, which have failed to meet their goals, but not for arts programs that have a proven track record?

Or take a look at the president’s extravagant spending on travel. He flies frequently to his resort in Mar-a-Lago, where he golfs and dines with dignitaries, celebrities, and members of his private club. The Washington Post reported that Trump’s trips to the resort have cost taxpayers as much in one month as the Obamas’ trips averaged in one year. Are we expected to continue to pay for the president’s extravagant lifestyle by cutting poor or underserved communities’ access to arts and the humanities?

Not only are these programs beneficial to communities and private citizens; they also often result in huge financial benefits for states. It was with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts that Robert Redford launched the Sundance Institute for independent filmmakers in 1981. Over the past 36 years, the institute and its associated film festival have generated millions of dollars in revenue for hotels, restaurants, and other businesses in Utah.

Look, I’m not an unbiased party to this debate. Arts funding matters a great deal to me. In 2006, for instance, I received a grant from the Oregon Institute of Literary Arts that was partly funded by the NEA. It was a grant of $1,300, which I used to pay for child care so that I could work on my second book, Secret Son. I’ve also taken part in panel discussions sponsored by Oregon Humanities and Nevada Humanities, both of them funded by the NEH. The University of California, Riverside, where I teach, has received fellowships from the NEA and the NEH, which have been used to fund projects like cataloging and preserving Southern California newspapers, developing a humanities curriculum for the School of Medicine to help doctors communicate better with patients, and using facial-recognition software to identify unknown subjects in portrait art.

The arts and the humanities are not partisan. You don’t need to be a Democrat or a Republican to enjoy them. Nor are they a luxury. They are essential to our lives, enabling us to connect with one another and enriching the range of our critical conversations. In the Trump era, we need them more than ever.



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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/americans-everywhere-benefit-from-the-nea-and-neh/
Donald Trump Is Making America White Againhttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/who-belongs-in-america/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiMar 2, 2017

On a frigid evening in February, Srinivas Kuchibhotla and Alok Madasani, two software engineers originally from India, were having a drink at a bar in Olathe, Kansas, when Adam Purinton, a desktop-support specialist, reportedly shouted racial slurs and demanded to know whether they were here legally. Management asked him to leave. Moments later, Purinton came back with a gun, allegedly shouted, “Get out of my country!” and opened fire. Kuchibhotla was killed; Madasani and Ian Grillot, a bar regular who tried to intervene, were injured. Purinton fled the scene, crossing state lines into Missouri, where hours later he stopped by an Applebee’s and told an employee that he needed to hide because he had just shot “two Middle Eastern men.”

That bar is America. On an ordinary night, it might host anyone who wants to buy a drink and catch the Kansas-TCU basketball game. But on another, it might turn into a crime scene because one man thinks he has the right to decide who belongs here and who doesn’t. Where did Adam Purinton get the idea that this was his country alone? And what gave him the right to tell people to get out? The answers to these questions have their roots in white supremacy.

Donald Trump spent the last two years telling voters—particularly white voters—that they were losing their jobs and their culture. He cautioned that “bad hombres” were crossing the border, “rapists” and “drug dealers.” He pledged to stop immigration from Muslim countries “until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”

These promises are now being fulfilled. In January, Trump signed an executive order that banned immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries for 90 days. The ban was rejected by the courts, but the White House plans to bring it back in modified form soon. And in February, Trump directed the Department of Homeland Security to speed up deportations, loosen the definition of the term “criminal” as it applies to immigrants, publish a list of crimes committed by undocumented people, strip them of their privacy protections, and build more prisons.

Unsurprisingly, the White House and its allies have insisted that this has nothing to do with race or religion, and everything to do with protecting Americans. When asked about the immigration ban, House Speaker Paul Ryan responded that “we need to make sure that the vetting standards are up to snuff, so we can guarantee the safety and security of our country.” As for the deportations, the president explained, in his idiosyncratic style, “We’re getting really bad dudes out of this country. And at a rate that nobody’s ever seen before. And they’re the bad ones. And it’s a military operation.”

In fact, the deportations have not been restricted to “bad dudes.” Consider what happened to Sara Beltrán Hernández, an asylum-seeker from El Salvador. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested her at a hospital in Texas where she was seeking treatment for a brain tumor. She is now being held at a privately run prison 40 miles from Dallas. Or take the case of Guadalupe García de Rayos, who came to the United States when she was 14 and has lived here for 21 years. She was caught using a fake Social Security number and ordered to check in with ICE annually in Phoenix. At her most recent meeting, she was arrested and deported to Mexico. (Pause for a minute to consider the crime for which she was separated from her husband and two children: By using a fake Social Security number, she contributed to the retirement benefits of others, while not being able to receive them herself.)

ICE maintains that it is only deporting immigrants who have committed crimes, but its agents have also seized people without criminal records. That’s what happened to Manuel Mosqueda Lopez, a house painter from Los Angeles. In mid-February, agents came to his home looking for someone else, but in the process checked his papers, found he was undocumented, and put him on a bus to Mexico—until lawyers filed an appeal.

No one is being made safe by these arrests. The only thing they accomplish is to deprive families of a mother or a wife, a husband or a father. They disrupt the lives of children and create generational trauma.

The reaction to these deportations among Democrats has been relatively subdued. One reason is that these policies were first tested under Barack Obama, who deported more than 2.5 million people—more than all of the presidents in the 20th century combined. A significant percentage of those deported under Obama had committed only minor offenses, such as traffic violations or drug possession. Only after a huge outcry by immigration advocates did the administration change course and begin restricting its deportation orders to serious criminal offenders.

During his presidential campaign, Trump promised to turn this well-oiled deportation machine on all 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the country. Now that he’s in office, ICE agents have conducted raids in at least 12 states, sparking widespread fear in immigrant communities. People have begun to avoid soccer games and church services, worried that they might be swept up in a raid. The Los Angeles Times reported that, after a raid on Asian restaurants in Mississippi, some undocumented immigrants stopped going to work and are pulling their children from school. Trump’s policies, and the hateful rhetoric that accompanies them, have an undeniably racist element. The president has never proposed building a wall along the Canadian border. ICE is not raiding white neighborhoods in Boston looking for undocumented Irish immigrants. This is simply an assault on those immigrants who are steering America away from a white majority.

Which brings me back to that bar in Kansas. “Get out of my country” may as well be the slogan of the Trump administration, directed at anyone who is not white or Christian or straight. But this country doesn’t belong to Trump; it belongs to all of us. We must stop it from being turned into a crime scene.



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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/who-belongs-in-america/
Don’t Give In to Donald Trump’s Shock-and-Awe Campaign—Stand Up and Speak Outhttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/dont-give-in-to-donald-trumps-shock-and-awe-campaign-stand-up-and-speak-out/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiJan 29, 2017

In the two weeks since he raised his right hand and swore to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, Donald Trump has shut down the entire refugee program for 120 days; pledged that Christian refugees would be given priority when the program resumes; blocked visas to visitors from seven Muslim countries; granted immigration officials power to deny entry to green-card holders from those Muslim countries; promised to publish a weekly list of crimes committed by immigrants; redefined the category of “criminals subject to deportation” to include people whoICE considers a security risk even if they haven’t been charged or convicted of a crime; and threatened to withhold federal grant money from sanctuary cities if they don’t comply with his executive orders.

All this is immoral. There is reason to believe that it is illegal as well. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 abolished the use of national origins in immigration quotas, choosing instead to make skills and family relationships the primary criteria by which an applicant can be judged. Establishing a religious test for refugees runs counter to the values of a country founded on the idea of religious freedom. As for permanent residents, they’re entitled to the protections guaranteed by the Constitution. A federal judge in New York agrees: A day after the ban went into effect and Muslim travelers were detained at airports, she issued an emergency stay.

Trump’s ban currently affects seven countries: Syria, Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Libya, and Yemen. At least since 1975, not one fatal terrorist attack inside the United States has been committed by a national from these countries. In fact, with the exception of Iran, the United States has bombed every one of these countries. The administration’s position is clear: We will destroy your homes in our search for terrorists, and if you flee either the bombing or the terrorists, we will close our borders to you. This executive order does not improve the safety of Americans. Quite the opposite: It endangers Americans, because it serves as a recruiting tool for terrorists.

On the day Trump announced his ban, my daughter’s class went on a field trip to the Holocaust Museum in Los Angeles. She returned from school deeply affected by the experience. It seemed incomprehensible to her that people stood by while members of a religious group were marched to death camps. At dinner, when our conversation turned to the executive orders, she worried that the president might deport us. “He can’t deport you, you were born here,” I said. “But what about you?” she asked. “He can’t,” I insisted, “I’m a citizen.”

I only said this to comfort her. The truth is that I am not at all confident that my US passport will protect me. Who is to say what other countries Trump might target next? Who is to say that the ban might not be expanded to naturalized citizens? Some of my friends tell me the president can’t do anything. It would be unconstitutional, they say. But we have known for many months that Trump’s businesses around the world pose conflicts of interest, which would put him in violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution. He promised several times to resolve these conflicts, but he hasn’t. In addition, he reportedly continues to use an unsecured Android phone inside the White House, which puts him at risk of surveillance from foreign powers and violates the Presidential Records Acts.

It’s nice to be able to appeal to the Constitution, but if our representatives have done nothing to enforce it so far, why should I believe that they’ll do something if Trump comes after people like me? The executive orders are not a surprise: They’re a fulfillment of promises he made during his campaign. Back then, when Trump was nothing more than a charismatic reality-television star, Mike Pence declared, “Calls to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. are offensive and unconstitutional.” Mitch McConnell said the ban was “completely and totally inconsistent with American values.” And Paul Ryan said, “A religious test for entering our country is not reflective of America’s fundamental values. I reject it.” Where are they now?

For that matter, where are the Democrats? On the day of Trump’s inauguration, I flew with my family to Washington to take part in the women’s march. We wanted to take a stand against the president’s sexism and bigotry. Our message was Resist. But the message Senate Democrats seemed to have received was Enable. Many of them voted in favor of some—or  even all—of Trump’s nominees. To be clear, Trump’s appointees will be confirmed anyhow by a Republican-controlled Senate. All Senate Democrats could do was take a stand. And they didn’t. Now, with protests starting at many international airports, several Democrats have issued statements against the ban (and a few have joined the protests). But we need more action, not just condemnation.

Meanwhile, Trump froze all pending federal regulations, pledged to cut taxes “massively,” suspended government hiring, brought back the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, forbade the EPA and USDA from sharing information with the public, barred American aid from being given to groups that provide abortion overseas, repeated his lie that “millions” voted illegally and ordered an investigation into voter fraud, told Congress he plans to build a wall along the Mexico border at a cost of at least $15 billion, shut down the White House comment phone line, and sent out a press release filled with praiseful quotes about himself.

We are living under a form of shock and awe. The goal of this administration is to overwhelm us with so many punitive orders, racist policies, outright fabrications, and silly controversies that we lose the spirit to fight. Many a morning since the election, I’ve woken up with the paralyzing fear of what the president might have done overnight, some new fight he might have picked with a nuclear power, a diplomatic agreement he might have abrogated, journalists or press organizations he might have attacked. I know I’m not alone. The worse the news gets, the more tempting it is to turn away from it. But what we’re facing is the rapid dismantling of political norms and the destruction of an open democracy.

If Trump can do all this and face no opposition, he’ll do more. Silence will not protect you. If you think what is happening to Muslims will never happen to you, you’re mistaken. We will either survive together or perish separately.



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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/dont-give-in-to-donald-trumps-shock-and-awe-campaign-stand-up-and-speak-out/
What Happened to the Change We Once Believed Inhttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/what-happened-to-the-change-we-once-believed-in/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiDec 15, 2016

Denials, as any linguist will tell you, can be more revealing than admissions. “I’m not a crook,” Richard Nixon declared during the Watergate scandal. “We did not—repeat, did not—trade weapons or anything else for hostages,” Ronald Reagan insisted, though the Iran-contra affair would prove otherwise. “I did not have sexual relations with that woman,” Bill Clinton maintained, despite mounting evidence to the contrary. “This government does not torture people,” George W. Bush proclaimed after the news emerged of a secret Justice Department memo authorizing the use of waterboarding. And in March 2013, when Senate Democrats confronted him about the legal justification for his use of drones, Barack Obama reportedly told them, “This is not Dick Cheney we’re talking about here.”

That statement sounded at best self-evident, and at worst like a cry of frustration. The truth is that Obama had been elected as the polar opposite of Dick Cheney. In 2008, the United States was five years into an unprovoked and disastrous war in Iraq. The war in Afghanistan was already in its seventh year, and the Taliban insurgency was raging. Hundreds of terrorism suspects were being held without charges or trial at the military prison in Guantánamo Bay; torture was an accepted form of interrogation; and American citizens were subjected to warrantless wiretapping. Obama was elected on promises to change all this.

But eight years later, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are still being fought. Using drones, air strikes, or both, Obama expanded the War on Terror to several more countries—Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, Somalia, and Syria. There appears to be little public interest in these new military engagements; as long as US troops aren’t directly affected, most people seem content to be told that “militants were targeted.” If the occasional wedding party or funeral is bombed, the administration’s statements of regret appear to be enough to quell any outrage. Since 2010, Obama has used a “kill list” to track and assassinate terrorism suspects with drone strikes. He has also approved billions of dollars in weapon sales to Saudi Arabia, which for the last 20 months has been waging war on Yemen. On Israel and Palestine, his efforts have resulted in no detectable improvement. And although the number of terrorism suspects detained at Guantánamo Bay has been steadily declining, the prison remains open.

To be fair, Obama inherited two of his biggest challenges—the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—from the previous administration, and it is much harder to end wars than to start them. But it seems to me that within the margins of what he realistically could have done while in office, his record on this front is one of failure. The United States will soon send young men and women who were toddlers on 9/11 to fight in the wars that Obama could not or would not end.

But he has managed successes in other areas for which he deserves great credit. Through an executive order, Obama banned the CIA from using torture to interrogate suspects. Breaking with Washington orthodoxy, he negotiated a deal that averted a potential war with Iran and kept it from acquiring nuclear weapons. He also broke with 55 years of isolationist policy toward Cuba and ushered in a new era of diplomatic engagement. After Edward Snowden’s leaks brought public attention to mass surveillance, he finally ended the bulk collection of phone records.

Domestically, Obama couldn’t keep his promise to deliver universal health care. Instead, he pushed through the Affordable Care Act, whose rollout was marred: The online enrollment system was clunky and confusing, and the premiums were onerous in some states. But for all its faults, the ACA expanded coverage to 20 million Americans. It is no longer possible for a health-care company to deny insurance to someone with a pre-existing condition, and millions of women have access to free contraception. That is a substantial achievement.

For most of his presidency, Obama faced an uncooperative and obstructionist Congress. When Republicans won the midterms in 2010, Senator Mitch McConnell told them: “Our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny President Obama a second term.” And yet Obama managed to have two solidly liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, confirmed to the Supreme Court. He ended the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. He established 23 national monuments and protected public lands. He enacted new measures, like the Clean Power Plan, to reduce carbon emissions and fight climate change. He expanded overtime pay for 4.2 million workers making under $47,476 per year (a rule that a Texas judge recently blocked, to Republican cheers). The economy grew, and unemployment dropped.

These policies have changed many lives for the better. But Obama’s mere presence in office has also altered our culture. We’ve seen a resurgence in the struggle for civil rights, with protests against police brutality and mass incarceration, as well as increasing acceptance of LGBTQ rights. We’ve also witnessed the horrifying racist attacks against Obama, including the claim that he was born in Kenya and secretly practices Islam, which is another way of saying that he isn’t a true American. Throughout it all, Obama has maintained his poise and, like his hero Abraham Lincoln, tried to appeal to the better angels of our nature.

I can find much to fault and much to praise in Obama’s performance, but his leadership can’t be fairly judged except in the context of all the others who have held the office before (and after) him. For all my own disagreements with his administration, I’ve never doubted that Barack Obama tried to put his country’s interests above his own. What the 2016 election has shown me is that this cannot be taken for granted. For that reason alone, I will miss him.



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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/what-happened-to-the-change-we-once-believed-in/
The Trump Voter You Knowhttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/divided-we-stand/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiNov 11, 2016

It has only been a few days since the stunning election. It will take a lot more time to understand the full implications of what happened in America on November 8. But one outcome is already clear: Half of Americans are convinced their country is on a steadier path, and the other half are filled with fear and despair about its future. Half think they have avoided catastrophe; the other half know they have collided with it head-on. These divisions will not disappear simply because one side won and the other lost. So where do we go from here?

I’ve been asking myself this question for a long while. Eight months ago, before Donald Trump secured the Republican nomination, I was in Boca Raton, Florida, for a literary festival. The man who drove me to the airport after the event asked me if I was a writer. “I have a story for you!” he said. He proceeded to tell me how, when he was 15 years old, he met the love of his life, but didn’t dare ask her out because he felt she was out of his league. He never forgot her, though, and 44 years later, he met her again; this time, he asked her out and wound up marrying her. “It’s a romance,” he said. I was still drunk on the sweetness of this story when we passed an election sign and he announced that he intended to vote for Donald Trump. The driver was white, in his late 60s, and ran his own car service, so it seemed that the lottery of life had not been ungenerous to him. Why Trump, then? “I think the world is a business, and this country is a corporation,” he told me. “And when I look around, the best guy for the job is someone like Trump.” When I asked him how he felt about the hateful statements that his candidate spouted, he dismissed them: “Oh, that’s all just talk.”

Eight months ago, it was still possible for me to think this way about Trump voters: that they were mostly strangers, people I met when I left my little bubble in California. But since then, I’ve discovered Trump supporters in my own extended family. These people do not live in neglected industrial towns, nor are they suffering economically. One complains about his high taxes, another loves guns, and yet another is vehemently opposed to abortion and same-sex marriage. Our conversations haven’t been easy, because they dismiss, almost always out of hand, anything critical about Trump that appears in the major newspapers (the “liberal media,” in their parlance). When citing a particular news article or study as evidence fails me, I try a different approach: I mention that I fit the profile of everything Trump hates—as a woman, an immigrant, a Muslim, a progressive—and that voting for him means, by extension, rejecting someone in their own family. But they show no empathy. Their response is the same as the one given to me by that stranger in Florida. “Oh, that’s all just talk,” they say. “He doesn’t mean you—you’re fine.”

It is not just talk. Words matter. They are all we have for making sense of the world around us. This presidential campaign has lasted 18 months (at times, it has felt more like 18 years), during which time we’ve been flooded with revolting, even sickening, sound bites. I’ve seen many of my friends on social media unfollow or unfriend those on the opposite end of the political spectrum. “If you support Trump, unfriend me,” was a common refrain leading up to this election. I’ve resisted this impulse because it seems to me to be no different than shuttering myself up at home and never talking to anyone.

But I confess to a great deal of apprehension about the Trump voters I do know. I’m not sure what will happen when we sit down across the table from each other at Thanksgiving this year. Will my relatives bring up their victory over “Crooked Hillary”? Will I take the bait and say that, regardless of my policy disagreements with her, studies showed her to be the most truthful candidate of the entire presidential field? I fear I may end up exhausted hours later without having convinced anyone. Even if we don’t argue about the election, as we have for the last year, politics is likely to come up. Talk about the weather, I tell myself. But what if someone says something about climate change? OK, then, talk about sports. What if Colin Kaepernick’s protest against police brutality comes up? And isn’t that football team from Washington with the racist name playing on Thanksgiving? Compliment the food, then. All right, that’s easy—let’s just hope no one asks for the green-beans recipe; my husband got it from The New York Times. The liberal media strikes again!

Politics is everywhere, and we can no more escape it than we can escape ourselves. It would be a lie to pretend that I don’t care about climate change or police brutality or the forever war. So I expect that I will continue to talk, and to argue, with the Trump voters I know. Just as I expect that my representatives in Congress will continue to talk, and to argue.

There is a difference, however, between dialogue and demand. When the Senate Judiciary Committee refused to hold hearings for a Democratic president’s judicial picks, that was not dialogue; it was a dereliction of duty. When John McCain vowed to block any Supreme Court nomination made by Hillary Clinton, that was not dialogue; it was blackmail. When Congress shut down the federal government, and in the process denied benefits to the neediest among us, that was not dialogue; it was bullying. Dialogue is essential to democracy, but you cannot have it with people who say, “Give me everything I want or else I’ll hold the entire government prisoner.”

Such a stance results only in further division, further isolation. The business of government cannot be a hostage negotiation. Nor can it be a surrender to the demands of bigots. What we need after this election is to make dialogue possible again, and that can happen only when we defeat the bigots and end the obstructionism that has plagued Congress. If this election is any indication, the fight has only just begun.



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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/divided-we-stand/
Why It Took Republican Leaders 16 Months to Denounce Trumphttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/the-gop-empathy-gap/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiOct 12, 2016

“They’re rapists,” Donald Trump said last year when he announced his presidential candidacy. Back then, he was speaking about Mexican immigrants who had crossed the border into the United States illegally. The claim was not backed by any evidence, nor did it need to be, because its purpose was not to appeal to logic, but to emotion. It’s one of the oldest tricks in the racist’s handbook: to warn that white women are in danger from unknown numbers of dark others and that only a strong male can offer protection. “It’s coming from more than Mexico,” Trump continued, warming to his theme. “It’s coming from South and Latin America, and it’s coming probably—probably—from the Middle East.”

In the 16 months since his announcement, Trump has made dozens of hateful remarks, each more outrageous than the last, without losing the support of the Republican Party’s leaders. He has promised to build a wall to keep out immigrants; proposed a ban on Muslims entering the country; suggested that the US military engage in war crimes; claimed not to know who David Duke was, despite having written an op-ed about the former Ku Klux Klan leader; retweeted anti-Semitic images; dismissed a federal judge’s ability to do his job because of his ethnic heritage; attacked the Gold Star family of a Muslim US Army captain; insisted that the Central Park Five—black and Latino men who were exonerated of rape charges years ago—were guilty; and, until the eve of the first debate, insinuated that the country’s first black president was not really American.

But it was only when Trump—that outspoken defender of women from Mexican rapists—bragged about sexual assault that some of his party’s leaders finally seemed to find the courage to break with him. In a tape obtained by The Washington Post, Trump can be heard telling Access Hollywood’s Billy Bush that he moved on a married woman “like a bitch.” The conversation was recorded in 2005, when the two were on a bus heading to the Days of Our Lives set. Upon seeing the actress who was to host him for the day, Trump said that he needed “to use some Tic Tacs” because he might start kissing her. “I’m automatically attracted to beautiful—I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”

It’s fair to say that Trump’s record on women has been consistently horrific. In the past, he’s called Rosie O’Donnell “a slob,” Arianna Huffington “a dog,” Megyn Kelly a “bimbo,” and Alicia Machado, a former Miss Universe, “Miss Piggy.” He has been no less vulgar with his political opponents. “Look at that face,” he said of Carly Fiorina. “Would anyone vote for that?” And he has blamed Hillary Clinton for her husband’s infidelity, incited Russian hackers to find and release her e-mails, and suggested that the “Second Amendment people” could act against her.

This latest incident seems to have struck a nerve, however. After the tapes became public, House Speaker Paul Ryan announced that he would no longer defend Trump or campaign for him; Condoleezza Rice and Carly Fiorina called on him to drop out of the race; and Senators John McCain, Kelly Ayotte, and Dan Sullivan withdrew their endorsements, as did former Governor Tim Pawlenty. Many others have since joined the chorus. But this is not a stance born out of moral necessity. 
The decay that’s been growing inside the “party of family values” has been plain for quite some time, and all these Republican leaders have been willing to accommodate it.

No, this is nothing more than a statistical calculation. There is hardly a woman in this country who has not experienced some sort of assault at some point in her life. Hearing Trump speak so casually about the violations he inflicts on women is likely to damage his candidacy in the eyes of a huge portion of the electorate. (Recently, Nate Silver showed that if only women in America voted, Trump would get just 80 votes in the Electoral College.)

Furthermore, Trump’s poll numbers have been falling since his performance in the first debate, where, among other things, he claimed that not paying taxes made him smart and answered a question about cybersecurity by talking about his 10-year-old son’s love of computers. His performance in the second debate wasn’t much better: He characterized his taped comments as mere “locker-room talk” before raising the threat of ISIS in a complete non sequitur. He later threatened Hillary Clinton with jail if he were elected. It was, to borrow one of Trump’s favorite words, a disaster. So it is only the prospect of a resounding electoral defeat that has Republicans suddenly swaddling themselves in virtue and denouncing the despicable behavior of their nominee.

And the way in which they’ve denounced Trump is particularly telling. Here is his running mate, Mike Pence: “As a husband and father, I was offended by the words and actions described by Donald Trump.” Here is Mitch McConnell: “As the father of three daughters, I strongly believe that Trump needs to apologize directly to women and girls everywhere.” Here is Jeb Bush: “As the grandfather to two precious girls, I find that no apology can excuse away Donald Trump’s reprehensible comments.”

Two points are worth making here. The first is that women are not vessels of male honor. Sexual assault ought to be condemned on its own terms, not for its connection to a man’s mother or wife or sister or daughter. The second is that the empathy for women that these Republicans are suddenly finding in their hearts was sorely missing when other groups were being attacked or demeaned or harassed. Immigrants, Mexicans, Muslims: All of these people were thought to be expendable, but now that Trump has risked the votes of the largest section of the electorate, he has become condemnable.

At long last.



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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/the-gop-empathy-gap/
The Only Way for Muslim Americans to Be Considered Patriotic: Stay Silenthttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/the-only-way-for-muslim-americans-to-be-considered-patriotic-stay-silent/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiSep 14, 2016Khizr Khan to Fareed Zakaria, Muslims who speak out are smeared as un-American.]]>

This election season has been bruising and divisive, but it has had the one advantage of clarifying for Muslims that we are conditional citizens. We must constantly prove our allegiance by showing gratitude to America, muting criticism of the government and its foreign policy, and denouncing any Muslim, anywhere in the world, who takes it upon himself to commit an act of violence. If we fail to abide by these rules, our loyalty is called into question.

July’s Democratic National Convention provided a clear example of what I mean by “conditional citizenship.” On the final night of the convention, Khizr and Ghazala Khan, a Muslim couple from Virginia, took to the stage to speak about their son Humayun, an Army captain who was killed in the Iraq war in 2004. Mr. Khan praised America and eulogized his son, but he also criticized Donald Trump for his proposal to ban Muslims. Pulling out a copy of the Constitution from his breast pocket, he asked, “Have you even read the United States Constitution?” It was an electrifying moment, and it turned the Khans into instant media sensations.

Had this challenge about the Constitution been made by a non-Muslim, Trump’s response would likely have been a dismissive “Yes, I’ve read it many times, believe me,” perhaps followed by an insult of the kind he frequently levels against his critics. But because the challenge was made by a Muslim, Trump resorted to bigotry. He insinuated that Ghazala Khan, who stood silently by her husband’s side, had been prevented from speaking because of her religion and that Khizr Khan had “no right” to say what he did. Four days after the convention, a Trump surrogate began circulating rumors online that Khizr Khan had “ties” to the Muslim Brotherhood and that Captain Khan was a jihadist who had joined the Army in order to kill Americans. This was how, in less than a week, Humayun Khan went from being remembered as a war hero to being cast as a stealth terrorist. Captain Khan’s citizenship had been conditional on his service and his silence, but when his father spoke up to demand equal rights, the entire family was smeared.

The Khans are not alone. Whenever Muslims become politically prominent, their views are scrutinized and their visibility is challenged. In July, when Fareed Zakaria criticized Donald Trump’s speech at the Republican National Convention, Ann Coulter immediately mocked his “thick Indian accent.” I do not recall anyone attacking Fareed Zakaria for his accent back in 2003, when he argued forcefully in support of the US invasion of Iraq. But now that he has become more critical of that war, publicly embraced his Muslim identity in a Washington Post column, and become outspoken about Trumpism, he is being accused of promoting the “jihad rape of white women,” a claim so ridiculous that it is hard to believe anyone would put any stock in it. And yet the accusation continues to circulate online.

Then, in August, the New York Post ran an article claiming that Huma Abedin, an aide to Hillary Clinton, had connections to the Muslim Brotherhood because she worked as an assistant editor of a “sharia newspaper.” In fact, the newspaper in question was an academic journal on Muslim minority affairs, founded by Abedin’s father and now edited by her mother. The claim that Abedin had connections to the Brotherhood had no factual basis, but that did not stop Roger Stone, an advisor to Donald Trump, from calling Abedin a “Saudi asset.” Pause for a moment and consider what this term implies. Whatever Abedin’s religious views, the very fact that she identifies as a Muslim has made her, according to Stone, an agent for a foreign government and a traitor to her own country.

To be considered properly American, then, Muslims must serve their nation and remain silent. American Muslims have it much better in this country than anywhere else in the world, the logic goes, and therefore we ought to be quiet. If we become critical of establishment figures or dare to challenge political orthodoxies, our patriotism is disputed.

So rooted has the traitor/patriot dichotomy become that it can be used to attack non-Muslims as well. When Colin Kaepernick, the quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, refused to stand for the national anthem as a protest against police brutality, rumors spread that he had converted to Islam. It did not seem to matter that Kaepernick identifies as a Christian or that he has Bible verses tattooed all over his body. The fact that his girlfriend is Muslim was sufficient to give weight to the rumors. Kaepernick’s refusal to stand for the flag could only mean that he was not really American, and thus he became Muslim.

None of this is new. For the last eight years, the conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not born in the United States has fed on—and, in a vicious circle, been fed by—the claim that he is a secret Muslim. By linking Obama to Islam, the far right has found it easier to argue that he is weak on terror, that he has ties to the Weather Underground, or even, as Donald Trump recently claimed, that he founded ISIS.

Anti-Muslim sentiment is stronger in the United States today than it has been at any time in the last fifteen years, including immediately after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Many more Muslims are in the public eye than there were back then, however, not just in politics, but also in film and television, in arts and culture, in music and sports. This increased visibility is what is being challenged. So Peter King holds House hearings, Newt Gingrich proposes loyalty tests, Ted Cruz suggests monitoring our neighborhoods, and Donald Trump wins the Republican party’s nomination on a platform that includes a Muslim ban. The message to Muslims could not be clearer: We are guilty until proven innocent.

Conditional citizens are treated with fear and suspicion. We are expected to demonstrate our allegiance and offer blind support. But the true measure of patriotism is not silence or acquiescence; it is dissent and debate.



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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/the-only-way-for-muslim-americans-to-be-considered-patriotic-stay-silent/
Letter From the Palestine Festival of Literaturehttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/letter-from-the-palestine-festival-of-literature/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiJun 28, 2016

“What’s the purpose of your visit?” the officer asked. The epaulets on his blue button-down shirt hung over his narrow shoulders. His eyebrows joined above the bridge of his nose.

“I’m here to give a reading.” I had come to Palestine with a group of poets and writers for a literary festival, with scheduled stops in Ramallah, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nablus, and Haifa.

The officer glanced at the line behind me. “How many are in your group?”

“I don’t know.”

“How many US passports?”

“I don’t know.”

He raised a suspicious eyebrow. “Everything is ‘I don’t know’ ?”

But I really didn’t know. I had met the other writers at a hotel in Jordan the night before, and it hadn’t occurred to me to count their number while we were on the bus from Amman to the Allenby border crossing, nor to ask how many were American. He swiped my blue passport in the machine, then looked up at me with surprise. “You were born in Morocco?”

Here we go, I thought. It had taken me 20 hours to travel from California to Palestine. I dreaded being deported by Israeli immigration, as had happened to some of my Arab friends. “Yes, that’s right.”

“My grandparents were born in Morocco.”

“Whereabouts?” I asked, grateful for the diversion.

“Casablanca,” he said. Then he looked at the screen again. “How old were you when you moved to the United States?” he asked. “Did you move with your parents or by yourself?… Is your husband American?… Are your children American?… Do you miss your husband and children?”

Then it occurred to me that I could ask questions of my own. “Your grandparents are from Casablanca, you said. Do they go back to Morocco for Hiloula?”

His face lit up with a smile. “You know Hiloula?”

“Of course.” The veneration of saints is part of Jewish Moroccan culture.

“Do you know this song?” He sang a few words in Hebrew.

I took a wild guess: “‘Sami al-Maghribi’?”

I don’t think I got it right, but he nodded anyway. Then he typed a few words into a smartphone and held it up to the glass window. It was a YouTube video of Moroccan Jews dancing at a party. A minute later, he printed out my visa and handed me my passport.

Not a dozen steps behind me, another writer from our group stood waiting. His name was Ahmed Masoud, and he was traveling on a UK passport. But because he had been born in Gaza, he was taken to a special room where he was asked for his Palestinian ID and interrogated for several hours. There was no discussion of music for him, no YouTube videos or fond remembrances of distant lands, only more forms and more questions about the purpose of his visit. When he insisted that he was a UK citizen, like several other writers in our group who had been let through, he was told, “Enta Falesteeni, khabeebi.” You are Palestinian.

Ahmed Masoud was deported that afternoon. He was prevented from reading his work to audiences at the cultural center in Ramallah or walking through the Old City of Jerusalem or taking selfies by the beach in Haifa, the way all the British and American writers did that week. Instead, he was sent back to London.

I had gone to Palestine fully expecting to see occupation and degradation, but I had not expected to witness my own privilege so swiftly or so starkly. My birth in Morocco had made the Moroccan-Israeli immigration official see me for who I was, while Ahmed Masoud’s birth in Palestine had been enough to strip him of his individuality, enough to make the immigration official label him a threat.

The next morning, at the Qalandia checkpoint, I was stuck in line while the soldiers argued with another writer ahead of me. There, at eye level on the blue metal railing, I saw white and pink stickers displaying the Ayat al-Kursi, a Quranic verse that Muslims recite in times of extreme fear or distress. Every morning, Palestinian workers line up to go through these metal cages, and there is never any guarantee they will make it through. I thought of the people who had put the stickers on the metal, to give themselves courage or to inspire it in others.

In the Old City of Jerusalem, I was walking down the street with the journalist Sharif Abdel Kouddous when policemen stopped us and demanded to see his passport. What was his crime? Nothing. They just didn’t like the look of him.

In Bethlehem, I saw the wall, an abomination that rises 25 feet and is covered with graffiti. One spray-painted message read “Happy Christmas From Bethlehem.” I was so busy looking up at the wall that I tripped on some empty tear-gas canisters.

In Haifa, which is within Israel’s 1948 borders, I saw a beach. I did not see soldiers.

In Hebron, I saw Palestinian shops with gates that had been welded shut by military order, and I strolled down a street where Palestinians are not allowed to walk, even if they live there. The families who still own homes on this street are forced to enter them from the rear, like servants in a segregated city of the American South. There were no signs warning about this rule, however. Signs can be photographed and distributed. Still, even in the absence of signs, the sight of a street in which the only people standing around are soldiers or settlers is indelible in my mind. I listened to a Palestinian activist talk about the extreme economic hardship brought on by store closures, and then I heard him say, “Despair is a luxury.”

Later, I saw the word “Hope” scrawled on a wall that led to yet another checkpoint.

If despair is a luxury, what is hope? Maybe it, too, is a luxury.

Before leaving Hebron, I bought artwork on Shuhada Street, where shopkeepers had to put up netting to protect themselves from the trash thrown at them by settlers living in the apartments above. In some Native American tribes, dream catchers are used to to keep out bad dreams, allowing only the good ones to enter. But the black mesh that the shopkeepers had put up could not keep out the urine, bleach, or wastewater that the settlers sometimes dumped on them. The Palestinians in Hebron are locked in a nightmare. “Now that you have seen this,” a white-haired shopkeeper said to me, “tell the world about us.”

I am trying.



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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/letter-from-the-palestine-festival-of-literature/
We Are Each Other’s Keepershttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/we-are-each-others-keepers/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiJun 13, 2016

Blood is on my mind today. Forty-nine people: 49 bodies moving to the beat of the music, 49 hearts pulsing with joy on a dance floor. But the bullets, shot at high velocity from an assault weapon, put a stop to all that life, all that revelry.

This could have happened in any club in the United States on any Saturday night, but this was a gay club in Orlando on a Saturday night in June. Pride Month.

And this could have been any other mass shooting in America—there have been 126 this year alone—but the perpetrator was Omar Mateen, a security guard who, his father told news sources, became angered by the sight of two men kissing.

Every time I hear about a mass shooting, my mind reels with incomprehension. How is it still legal to buy an assault rifle in this country after Columbine, or Aurora, or Sandy Hook? The answer, I know, lies in the millions of dollars that so many of our representatives in Congress take from the National Rifle Association. That’s why we get thoughts and prayers after every mass shooting instead of gun legislation.

And we get speculation. If the shooter had access to mental healthcare, he might not have done it. If a good guy with a gun had been there, the bad guy might have been stopped.

But the attack in Orlando—where the shooter was Muslim and a security guard at the nightclub did have a gun—has shifted the script. Instead of speculation about guns or mental health, we get speculation about the shooter’s religion. If Mateen hadn’t been inspired by ISIS, he wouldn’t have done it. If his religion didn’t condone killing, he wouldn’t have done it. So much rides on a conditional clause.

Early on Sunday morning, an Indiana man by the name of James Howell was arrested in Santa Monica after residents called the police to report suspicious behavior. Howell told investigators that he was on his way to the gay-pride parade in West Hollywood. In the trunk of his car were three assault weapons and chemicals that can be used to make explosives. When I heard this news, I felt relieved for all the people who were able to march safely in West Hollywood. But I also wondered what would have happened if Howell hadn’t been caught. Would he have been called a terrorist, too, or just a crazed lone wolf?

Because Mateen told police that he’d pledged allegiance to ISIS, Islamic fundamentalism was initially considered to be his sole motivation. But it later emerged that he had a profile on a gay-dating app, that he was a regular visitor to the Pulse nightclub, and that when he was still in school, he had asked one of his male classmates on a date. Similar revelations about James Howell followed. An ex-boyfriend told authorities that Howell had struggled over their relationship and had pointed a gun at him. Whatever complicated mix of factors motivated both men, one thread ties them together: access to assault weapons. Eliminating bigotry, toward the self or toward the other, is a lifelong struggle that has to be fought on cultural, social, and religious grounds. But we must not lose sight of the fact that assault weapons can turn any bigot into a mass murderer.

What makes the Orlando attack especially painful is that it was aimed at a community that is already vulnerable. In spite of the political gains and cultural shifts of the last few years, LGBT people are still targeted. Under the guise of protecting religious freedoms, state lawmakers have introduced as many as 254 bills aimed at restricting the civil rights of LGBT people. Some of the most prominent of these have been the marriage-refusal bills, which became unconstitutional last year after the Supreme Court’s decision on same-sex marriage. But other bills have since been enacted, like the North Carolina law that bars transgender people from using public restrooms that match their gender identity. In Florida, where the shooting happened, sexual activity between people of the same sex was illegal until 2003, and in much of the state it’s still possible to fire someone or deny them housing because they identify as LGBT.

The shooter’s identity is also bringing unwelcome attention to a Muslim community that is equally vulnerable. From the talk of special IDs to an outright ban on Muslims, this has been our most difficult year since September 11, 2001. In the wake of the violent rhetoric from Republican presidential candidates, hate crimes against Muslims and attacks on mosques are on the rise again. Throughout all this, we’ve had allies in the progressive movement, including LGBT allies. That’s why it’s important for Muslim organizations, both civil and religious, to not only denounce the rhetoric aimed at them from the likes of Donald Trump, but also to work to end the discrimination and hatred directed at LGBT people. Justice is a fundamental tenet of Islam. We Muslims cannot demand respect for ourselves if we are willing to look the other way when LGBT people are targeted. Gay rights are civil rights, and civil rights are Muslim rights. And, of course, the two communities are not mutually exclusive; LGBT Muslims are the fabric that unites them. They mourn doubly today.

Omar Mateen left behind no manifesto, no indication of what he thought he might accomplish through the murder of innocents. He lashed out at people who are as vulnerable as members of his own community. The violence he unleashed might well create a fault line between people—a fault line that forces us to pick sides, to choose one tribe, to reject the others. But only if we let it. We can choose, instead, to strengthen our foundation.

A few hours after the identity of the shooter became known, Muslims in Florida donated blood to help those injured in the attack. I’ve been thinking about the blood that was spilled on Saturday night, and about the blood that was collected on Sunday. The blood of Muslim donors will course through the veins of gay victims. Because we are each other’s keeper.



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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/we-are-each-others-keepers/
Why, in a Season of Hate, I Have Hopehttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/why-in-a-season-of-hate-i-have-hope/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiMay 16, 2016

A specter is haunting America—the specter of change. Hispanics make up 17 percent of the nation’s population. The largest share of recent immigrants to the United States is Asian. Fifteen percent of all newlyweds are interracial couples. Same-sex marriage has become legal in all 50 states. Eight years ago, the country elected its first black president. The Congressional Progressive Caucus is now cochaired by a Muslim and a Latino.

Change is never easy; it is the result of years of toil and patience and sacrifice. But as inspiring as change can be for many, it can be terrifying for some.

So it is not a coincidence that a reality-TV star and real-estate billionaire—who questions the validity of Barack Obama’s birth certificate, promises to build a wall to keep out Mexicans, retweets neo-Nazis and anti-Semites, thinks women who get abortions should be punished, wants to ban Muslims from entering the country, threatens journalists, and throws out protesters from his rallieshas become the presumptive nominee of a major political party.

A similar fear has gripped Europe. France’s National Front earned a record 6 million votes in the first round of regional elections held last December. The far-right nationalist party Sweden Democrats now holds 14 percent of the seats in the Swedish Parliament; this clout recently helped it force a budget crisis. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, once an atheist, now asserts that “Europe and European identity have Christian roots.”

We are told that this xenophobic trend, this anguish about national identity, this insistence on Christianity in societies that are supposed to be secular and democratic, is really a response to economic grievances, including the effect of the global recession on jobs and opportunities; falling incomes for workers, even as corporations enjoy tax breaks; and the corruption of political elites. But economic grievances alone do not explain the trend even in places that have been spared the worst of the recession. After German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed to provide safe haven for refugees in her country, the far-right Alternative for Germany party has climbed in the polls. One of its leaders is Frauke Petry, who says that “the singularity of German guilt [over its Nazi past] has stood too often in the forefront.” In Denmark, new laws were passed to allow police to confiscate jewelry and cash from refugees and to prosecute anyone giving them a ride.

Nor do economic grievances fully explain how well Trump performs among relatively affluent voters here in the United States. An analysis by Nate Silver put the median household income of Trump voters at $72,000 per year, distinctly above the national average, and certainly above that of Sanders and Clinton voters. In fact, the 2016 survey of the American National Election Studies showed that some of the most powerful predictors of support for Trump are an attachment to white racial identity and the belief that whites are being treated unfairly and losing opportunities to minorities.

None of this is new. The implicit appeal to racial fears has been used to garner votes before: from Richard Nixon’s Southern strategy to Ronald Reagan’s welfare queen driving a Cadillac, from the elder Bush’s Willie Horton ads against Michael Dukakis to the younger Bush’s flyers denouncing John McCain’s “black child.”

It is easy to give in to fear. Some people are afraid of immigrants or refugees, others are afraid of Muslims, and yet others are afraid of transgender people. But immigrants, Muslims, and trans people all experience fear, too: fear of discrimination, fear of rejection, fear of hate crimes. I am well acquainted with some of these fears—I’m an immigrant, a Muslim, and a feminist. I’m under no illusions about how I would fare if Trump is elected president.

But instead I want to insist on hope. Unemployment is at 5 percent, half of what it was in 2009. California and New York have passed a $15 minimum wage. The flow of undocumented immigrants across the southern border, which seems to concern so many voters, is in fact down. High school graduation rates are rising. This isn’t to say that there are not a lot of problems. Of course there are. Wealth inequality, housing affordability, lack of access to healthcare (including reproductive care), environmental destruction, national security—all these remain pressing challenges. But it is to say that these problems can be tackled without resorting to hate.

There are so many signs of hope, if we care to notice them. Despite blatantly racist and Islamophobic attacks by his opponent, Sadiq Khan was elected mayor of London on a platform of affordable housing, jobs, and better transportation infrastructure. In Canada, Justin Trudeau won the premiership and proceeded to appoint the most diverse cabinet in his country’s history. In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Front ended up losing regional elections after a record number of voters turned out against it. Here in the United States, the Democratic Party will nominate a woman or a Jew as its candidate for the presidency.

These changes were made possible because people chose to work together rather than fear one another. Coalitions that may at first seem unlikely are being created everywhere. Three years ago, for example, the Islamic Society of North America announced its support for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, the LGBT anti-discrimination bill. Since last year, veterans of the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been staging protests against Islamophobia at Trump rallies.

There is always resistance to change, of course. When Governor Jerry Brown named Halim Dhanidina to the Los Angeles County Superior Court, making him the first Muslim to be appointed as a judge in California, Browns office received hate mail. Dhanidina was derided by fearmongers as the “Sharia judge of Mexifornia.” But perhaps to the disappointment of Dhanidina’s detractors, sharia did not become the law in California. In fact, earlier this month, Dhanidina indicted the Long Beach Police Department for targeting gay men and lying about reports of lewd conduct. In other words, he upheld the Constitution, as stated in his job description.

It is sometimes convenient to be silent in the face of fear. But even when we are silent, we are not voiceless. We have voices. And we have votes. We must stop clinging to the past, and leap into the future.



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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/why-in-a-season-of-hate-i-have-hope/
Why Republicans Cry Political Correctnesshttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/why-republicans-cry-political-correctness/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiApr 7, 2016
Dressing up bigotry and authoritarianism as truth-telling is the right’s favorite talking point.
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To hear some people tell it, there is no greater threat to the Republic at the moment than political correctness. It forces dissenters to cower before views they would ordinarily reject, out of fear that they will be labeled as bigots. It thwarts attempts at finding common-sense solutions to the country’s problems. It stifles open debate and free inquiry. So negative has the term become that no one is ever heard saying, “I’m proud to be politically correct.” Admitting to political correctness is tantamount to admitting that there are limits on one’s speech and, by implication, on one’s thoughts. Conversely, refusing to bow to standards of respect demanded by various groups is supposed to convey a deep commitment to unadorned truths.

What truths are so sorely missing from our national conversation? Undocumented Mexican immigrants are, according to Donald Trump, potential drug dealers, criminals, and rapists. The businesses that severed ties with him over these incendiary statements have taken “the weak and very sad position of being politically correct,” Trump declared. Banning foreign Muslims from entering the United States is “probably not politically correct,” he said, “but I don’t care.” In February, Trump lamented that ISIS terrorists are “cutting off the heads of Christians,” but we’re “too politically correct to respond in kind.”

But political correctness isn’t a bête noire for Trump alone. At a presidential town hall in February, Texas Senator Ted Cruz insisted that having women serve in the front lines of combat “makes no sense at all” and that “the military should [not] be governed by political correctness.” Ohio Governor John Kasich, the supposed moderate in the race, claimed that the March terrorist attacks in Brussels could have been foiled if not for—you guessed it—political correctness. And last month, North Carolina passed a law that bars transgender people from using bathrooms and locker rooms that don’t match their gender identity at birth. When confronted about the discriminatory aspect of the legislation, Governor Pat McCrory complained that “political correctness has gone amok.”

These responses work like wild cards, played at convenient moments in a political game. And like wild cards, they have no inherent merit. For example, when Trump suggests that the United States “respond in kind” to ISIS terrorists, he is not only proposing that we bring back torture—an immoral practice, not to mention an illegal and ineffective one—he is also legitimizing other punitive measures favored by ISIS like beheading, crucifixion, and sexual slavery. How many voters would be willing to take political incorrectness and “responding in kind” to that level? Similarly, when Cruz says that women should not register for the Selective Service, he is clearly implying that the ability to fire a weapon or pilot a fighter jet is limited by gender. And when McCrory says that North Carolina’s new law doesn’t take away existing rights, he means that it doesn’t take away the rights of men and women who unambiguously present as such.

The resurgence of the war over political correctness has coincided with the rise of Trump. (Google Trends shows an uptick in the usage of the term in July 2015, right after he announced his candidacy.) In the last few years, the country has undergone changes that have created a well of anxiety about the future among people who once enjoyed, if not economic or educational advantages, at least racial and gender privileges. Trump has managed to tap into that anxiety and to recast the loss of privilege as a form of oppression. As a result, his blunt and offensive statements are greeted with good humor, while his authoritarian proposals are mistaken for some kind of painful yet necessary truths.

But while Trump demands the right to openly insult others, he appears to be curiously sensitive to criticism about himself. At a rally in Fort Worth in February, he promised that, if he were elected president, he would expand libel laws. “When The New York Times writes a hit piece, which is a total disgrace, or when The Washington Post…writes a hit piece, we can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning because they’re totally protected.” In Trump’s view, therefore, the First Amendment protects him when he refers to undocumented immigrants as rapists, but it must be curtailed when the media writes critically about him.

The other Republican contenders have struggled to keep up with Trump’s outlandish statements, but their records are just as checkered. Kasich, for instance, once demanded that Blockbuster remove the Oscar-winning film Fargo from its shelves because he deemed it “graphic and brutal.” (I tend to think that the Iraq War, which Kasich supported, was far more graphic and brutal than any movie by the Coen brothers, but maybe that’s just me.)

On his campaign website, Cruz says that liberal campuses are kowtowing to political correctness and asks voters to join him in ending liberal “safe spaces.” This is a familiar complaint in conservative publications, where college campuses are frequently portrayed as places where young people are coddled, given trigger warnings about emotionally upsetting material, and generally prevented from hearing difficult or dissenting views. So one might expect Cruz to be a staunch defender of open debate at universities. But in a speech to AIPAC last month, Cruz said he would cut off federal funding for any schools that financially support the BDS movement. Not only is Cruz suggesting that nonviolent opposition to Israeli policies isn’t an acceptable form of free speech, but he has also promised to prosecute those who dare to support such views.

If political correctness has “gone amok,” it is because Republicans like Trump and Cruz have relentlessly invoked it as a straw man to justify bigoted comments about immigrants, Muslims, women, and others. But doing so cannot hide the fact that they cannot abide by the very free-speech values they claim to cherish.



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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/why-republicans-cry-political-correctness/
Who Is to Blame for the Cologne Sex Attacks?https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/who-is-to-blame-for-the-cologne-sex-attacks/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiMar 10, 2016

Who is to blame for a sexual assault? The answer would seem to be obvious: It’s the perpetrator. But the public debate over the recent sex attacks in Germany suggests that when the criminal is a refugee or a migrant, the blame shifts to any number of other factors: race, culture, religion, and even politics. The attacks in question took place on New Year’s Eve in Cologne and elsewhere. As revelers were heading home through the train station, women found themselves surrounded by men described as having a North African or Middle Eastern appearance. Several hundred women were groped and robbed; two were raped. For several days, neither the police nor the newspapers made any reference to the attacks, fueling criticism of a cover-up. Only when the victims came forward and protests were staged did media attention begin to focus on the assaults. A woman identified as “Muriel” tearfully told the BBC: “We were fondled. I was touched between my legs.” Another woman, identified as “Busra,” said: “They felt like they were in power and that they could do anything with the women out in the street partying.”

Even as the attacks were being investigated, however, blame was immediately put on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to welcome 
1 million refugees and migrants into Germany, with still more to come. In mid-January, the German weekly magazine Focus featured on its cover a naked white woman whose body was dirtied by muddy handprints, meant to signify, I suppose, the defiling touch of brown and black men. The caption read: “Women complain of sex attacks by migrants: Are we tolerant or are we blind?” The Munich-based newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung published an interview with a psychologist on the “mentality” of Arab men, illustrating it with a picture of a black hand reaching between a pair of white legs. The Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad put a 1910 painting called The Slave Market on its cover, along with an article asking whether culture played a role in the Cologne sex attacks. The answer was conveniently provided by the painting itself, which depicted Arab men disrobing white women, presumably in preparation for selling them as sex slaves. And a February cover of the Polish magazine W Sieci depicted a white woman whose blonde hair and European-flag dress were being pulled by brown and black hands. The accompanying article was titled “The Islamic Rape of Europe.”

These sensationalistic stories quickly shifted the debate from sexual attacks on women to German and European tolerance toward foreigners; that is to say, from actual crimes for which the perpetrators are individually accountable to potential crimes for which migrants and refugees should be held collectively responsible. That shift was evident even in more substantive articles. In February, for example, the Algerian novelist Kamel Daoud wrote an opinion piece for The New York Times that critiqued sexual mores in the Arab world and argued that “people in the West are discovering, with anxiety and fear, that sex in the Muslim world is sick, and that the disease is spreading to their own lands.” In his view, what happened in Cologne has its roots in an Arab sexual culture that is poisoned by religion. Formerly an Islamist, Daoud is now a devout secularist—an intellectual journey that has taken him from believing that Islam is the only solution to believing that Islam is the only problem. Any serious discussion of sexual culture in the Arab world, however, cannot simply begin and end with Islam.

Like Daoud, I was born and raised in North Africa. I’ve been the victim of sexual assault several times: When I was barely 13 years old, I was molested on a crowded bus; when I was 17, I was groped on the street in broad daylight on my way back from school; and when I was 22, a coworker grabbed my wrist and told me to sit on his lap. The first two attacks were by Muslims; the third was by an atheist. Were the first two motivated by Islam and the third by atheism? Rather, it seems to me, power was at the core of all three. Morocco is undeniably a patriarchal society, where women’s rights lag behind. But to contend that sex in the Muslim world is “sick” and that “the disease” is spreading is to suggest that rape and sexual assaults were unknown in Europe prior to the arrival of migrants and refugees. (In fact, a 2014 survey found that 35 percent of German women have experienced some form of sexual violence.)

This rhetoric about sex-crazed migrants and refugees is nothing new; it’s been used for many years by neofascists in Europe, and it can have violent consequences. Already there have been reports of mobs attacking migrants in “revenge” for the Cologne assaults. Nor is this rhetoric unique to Europe. In the speech announcing his run for the presidency last June, Donald Trump said that Mexican immigrants are “bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” When confronted about his comments by CNN’s Don Lemon, Trump insisted he was right, adding: “Well, somebody’s doing the raping, Don! Who’s doing the raping? Who’s doing the raping?” Many men, and of all backgrounds, as it turns out: One out of every five women in the United States has been sexually assaulted.

I know well the emotional and physical toll that a sexual attack creates. And I happen to be an immigrant, which means I’m also acquainted with the pain of being seen as a label, not as a person. So I have watched this controversy unfold with a mix of horror at the violence and weariness at the racism. I want to see the perpetrators of the attacks in Cologne—as of this writing, three Germans, two Syrians, one Iraqi, 25 Algerians, 21 Moroccans, and three Tunisians stand accused—be put on trial for what they have done. Sex crimes are not, nor can they ever be, justified by race, religion, or culture. Sex crimes are exactly that: crimes. They ought to be swiftly investigated and severely punished, no matter the perpetrators.



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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/who-is-to-blame-for-the-cologne-sex-attacks/
Donald Trump’s Campaign Has Turned Into One Long Hate-Inhttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/donald-trumps-campaign-has-turned-into-one-long-hate-in/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiFeb 18, 2016

Whether Donald Trump will win the Republican nomination, no one can tell—but what’s already clear is that he’s brought fascism back into the mainstream. At his rallies, Trump promises to make America great again by pouring scorn on women, Mexicans, African Americans, Asians, immigrants, LGBT people, the disabled, his opponents, and reporters who dare to criticize him. Every time he comes up with a new insult, his supporters whoop and cheer, seemingly confident in the belief that they are not now, nor would they ever become, one of his targets. Lately, he has taken to picking out individual protesters—a Black Lives Matter activist, a Muslim woman, a Sikh man—and offering them up to the jeering crowd, before having security escort them out. The message is unmistakable: There is no room at these gatherings for anyone who isn’t white and Christian. A Trump rally is nothing more than a hate-in.

Perhaps no community has been demonized more by Trump than Muslims. A week after the November 13 terrorist attacks in Paris, Trump suggested that mosques in the United States might have to be shut down, and he said that he wouldn’t rule out requiring Muslims to be registered in a database or carry special IDs. The statements were initially met with disbelief and dismissed by the media, but they gave him a solid bump in the polls. Then, in December, Trump called for a complete ban on Muslims entering the United States until, he said, “our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.” (In fairness, while Trump is extreme, he isn’t alone among the Republican candidates: Ben Carson, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Jeb Bush have all indulged in anti-Muslim bigotry as well.)

Contrast this with how Trump has spoken about a different but no less visible community: the men and women who served in the United States armed forces. After pulling out of a debate in Des Moines because Fox News’s Megyn Kelly was scheduled to moderate it, Trump held a fund-raiser for veterans instead. “You veterans are incredible people, brave beyond comprehension,” he told the crowd. In New Hampshire, where he won the primary, he vowed to take care of vets. “They’re our greatest people,” he said. Trump has repeatedly promised to handle the mismanagement problems that have plagued the Department of Veterans Affairs. “That will stop, I will fix this quickly! ” he tweeted. (Again, Trump is not alone: All of his rivals have proclaimed their own unstinting support for vets.)

So it is that at Trump’s rallies, as in much of America, Muslims and veterans are spoken about in drastically different ways—the former as potential traitors and monsters, the latter as steadfast patriots and heroes. In the process, both are stripped of their agency and individuality. What this rhetoric disguises, however, is a deeply cynical strategy on the part of a candidate who has never held political office, has no experience with foreign policy, and has never served in the armed forces.

Aside from suggesting that he’d fire incompetent executives, Trump has offered no specifics on how he would fix systemic problems like the long wait times for medical appointments or the huge backlog of disability claims. Furthermore, the policies he has suggested for dealing with groups like the Islamic State, including torture and the murder of families of suspected terrorists, amount to war crimes—crimes that, if elected, he will ask service members to carry out for him. The VA has already been under fire for its record on PTSD treatment and suicide prevention. Sending troops into a war where, in Trump’s words, they will be asked to do things that are “a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding” doesn’t suggest care or concern for our veterans.

Trump’s open contempt for Muslims may play well at his rallies, but his proposed ban amounts to a new form of segregation, one based not on race but on faith. It would isolate the United States from the rest of the world and deprive millions of Americans of contact with family and friends, business partners, artists, athletes, and academic or professional colleagues. (This isn’t merely a theoretical argument for me: My cousins, uncles, and aunts would not be able to visit if Trump is elected.) This ban is simply immoral—and because people’s passports are not indicators of their beliefs, it is also unenforceable.

Though veterans are revered and Muslims reviled, the two communities are not mutually exclusive, and it’s been heartening over the last few weeks to watch them call Trump out on his bigotry. Sgt. Tayyib Rashid, a Marine from Chicago, tweeted a picture of his military ID along with a challenge to Trump: “I’m an American Muslim and I already carry a special ID badge. Where’s yours?” There are also examples of solidarity between the two groups. In November, a mosque in Seattle held its ninth yearly Day of Dignity event for the homeless, including homeless vets, providing them with food and supplies. And in December, an Army veteran started #IWill- ProtectYou, a Twitter campaign in support of an 8-year-old Muslim girl who was afraid that the military might remove her from her home under a President Trump.

The truth is that veterans and Muslims have much in common: They bear the costs of distant wars at home. For veterans, these costs include having to face the medical and psychological effects of combat. And yet vets suffering from PTSD have been turned away by VA clinics that can’t take in new patients. For Muslims, the burden of America’s wars in the Middle East comes in the form of hate crimes. In the Bronx last month, two teenagers beat up a Muslim man while screaming “ISIS! ISIS!” at him.

I don’t know if Trump will win the GOP nomination, but I do know that all of us have lost when a political gathering becomes a hate-in. Over and over, Trump has intimated to his supporters that the key to solving this nation’s problems lies in blaming or rejecting others. He has contaminated our public discourse with bigotry and poisoned the hearts of many Americans. The next president, whoever he or she may be, will have to find an antidote.



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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/donald-trumps-campaign-has-turned-into-one-long-hate-in/
An Open Letter to Congress: Do Not Cede to Fearhttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/an-open-letter-to-congress-do-not-cede-to-fear/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Reza Aslan,Geraldine Brooks,Teju Cole,Aleksandar Hemon,Marlon James,Phil Klay,Laila Lalami,Yiyun Li,Tom Lutz,Maaza Mengiste,Gary Shteyngart,Jane SmileyNov 20, 2015

Four years ago, the people of Syria rose up to demand democratic reforms and the release of political prisoners. Bashar al-Assad’s response was to brutally repress the protesters, pushing his country into a civil war that has attracted local and foreign rebels, among them the terrorists of ISIS. This long and bloody conflict has already cost the lives of a quarter of a million people, displaced 8 million civilians internally, and caused another 4 million to flee.

While Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan have taken in hundreds of thousands of refugees, and while Germany opened its doors to them, the United States has said it would take in only 10,000. Now, in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris, even that small number is in question. Republican governors from 30 states have said they will not take in refugees. The House of Representatives has passed a bill that aims to stop resettlement of both Syrian and Iraqi refugees. Yet the United States, too, bears its share of responsibility for this crisis. The disastrous invasion of Iraq has been a catalyst of the events that ultimately led to the creation of ISIS, from whom Syrian refugees are now fleeing.

Refugees are not the enemy. Refugees are our spouses, our parents, our grandparents. Some among us are refugees themselves; others have experienced the violence of war. But we are all writers. As such it is our duty to bear witness. Together we call upon the government of the United States to take in Syrian refugees, to act with humanity, and to honor Emma Lazarus’s words, chiseled on the Statue of Liberty: “A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles.”

Add your name to the voices calling on Congress to act with humanity and take in Syrian refugees.



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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/an-open-letter-to-congress-do-not-cede-to-fear/
To Defeat ISIS, We Must Call Both Western and Muslim Leaders to Accounthttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/we-cannot-defeat-isis-without-defeating-the-wahhabi-theology-that-birthed-it/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Reza Aslan,Geraldine Brooks,Teju Cole,Aleksandar Hemon,Marlon James,Phil Klay,Laila Lalami,Yiyun Li,Tom Lutz,Maaza Mengiste,Gary Shteyngart,Jane Smiley,Laila LalamiNov 15, 2015

What happened in Paris on November 13 has happened before, in a shopping district of Beirut on November 12, in the skies over Egypt on October 31, at a cultural center in Turkey on July 20, a beach resort in Tunisia on June 26—and nearly every day in Syria for the last four years.

The scenario is by now familiar to all of us. News of the killings will appear on television and radio. There will be cries of horror and sorrow, a few hashtags on Twitter, perhaps even a change of avatars on Facebook. Our leaders will make staunch promises to bring the terrorists to justice, while also claiming greater power of surveillance over their citizens. And then life will resume exactly as before.

Except for the victims’ families. For them, time will split into a Before and After.

We owe these families, of every race, creed, and nationality, more than sorrow, more than anger. We owe them justice.

We must call to account ISIS, a nihilistic cult of death that sees the world in black and white, with no shades of gray in between.

We must call to account Bashar al-Assad, whose response to peaceful protesters in the spring of 2011 was to send water cannons and military tanks to meet them.

We must call to account the governments of the United States, France, Britain, Russia, Iran, and many others, who lent support and succor to tyrant after tyrant in the Middle East and North Africa, and whose interventions appear to create 10 terrorists for every one they kill.

We must call to account George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, whose disastrous invasion of Iraq in 2003 and subsequent disbanding of the Iraqi army destabilized the entire region.

We must call to account the Saudi kings—Salman, Abdullah, and Fahd—whose funding of Wahhabi doctrine gave rise to the scourge of Islamic extremism.

When I was a child in Morocco, no clerics told me what to do, what to read or not read, what to believe, what to wear. And if they did, I was free not to listen. Faith was more than its conspicuous manifestations. But things began to change in the 1980s. It was the height of the Cold War and Arab tyrants saw an opportunity: They could hold on to power indefinitely by repressing the dissidents in their midst—most of them secular leftists—and by encouraging the religious right wing, with tacit or overt approval from the United States and other Western allies. Into the void created by the decimation of the Arab world’s secular left, the Wahhabis stepped in, with almost unlimited financial resources. Wahhabi ideas spread throughout the region not because they have any merit—they don’t—but because they were and remain well funded. We cannot defeat ISIS without defeating the Wahhabi theology that birthed it. And to do so would require spending as much effort and money in defending liberal ideas.

I am a novelist. Every year, I spend a great deal of my time giving readings or lectures at which, almost unfailingly, I am asked about Islam and Muslims and the wars now consuming the Middle East. I try to explain and contextualize, remind people about history and politics, bring in some culture and art into the mix. But every few months, when another terrorist attack happens, the work I do seems to be for nothing. What chance does someone like me have when compared with the power of well-funded networks?

The beheadings, the crucifixions, the destruction of cultural heritage that ISIS practices—none of these are new. They all happened, and continue to happen, in Saudi Arabia too. The government of Saudi Arabia has beheaded more people this year than ISIS. It persecutes Shias and atheists. It has slowly destroyed sites of cultural and religious significance around Mecca and Medina. To almost universal indifference, it has been bombing Yemen for seven months. Yet whenever terror strikes, it escapes notice and evades responsibility. In this, it is aided and abetted by Western governments, who buy oil from tyrants and sell them weapons, while paying lip service to human rights.

I have no patience anymore for people who claim that Muslims do not speak out. They do, every day. Muslims are the primary victims of ISIS, and its primary resisters. It is an insult to every one of the hundreds of thousands of Muslim victims of terrorism to lump them with the lunatics who commit terror. The truth is that ISIS unleashes its nihilistic violence on anyone—Muslim, Christian or Jew; believer or unbeliever—who doesn’t subscribe to their cult.

I wish I could do something for the victims of terrorist violence. But I am a writer; words are all I have. And all I know is that I want, with all my heart, to preserve and celebrate what ISIS wishes to destroy: a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-cultural life.



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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/we-cannot-defeat-isis-without-defeating-the-wahhabi-theology-that-birthed-it/
Frankfurt Shootings: The Making of a Terrorist?https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/frankfurt-shootings-making-terrorist/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Reza Aslan,Geraldine Brooks,Teju Cole,Aleksandar Hemon,Marlon James,Phil Klay,Laila Lalami,Yiyun Li,Tom Lutz,Maaza Mengiste,Gary Shteyngart,Jane Smiley,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiMar 3, 2011What the debate over terrorists seems to miss is the personal dimension: personal failures and personal grievances of the lone gunmen.

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It seems to be a ritual we go through, every few months, when a lone gunman commits an act of terror: talking heads ask why he did it and then immediately provide a simple answer. The shooting of two American servicemen in Frankfurt yesterday by Arif Uka, a 21-year-old Kosovar, is already being called an act of terrorism, with various pundits stressing that the suspect is Muslim.

Robert Spencer, for instance, called the shooting a “jihad attack” and said that Al Qaeda has been active in Kosovo “for over a decade.” The Washington Post helpfully identified him as “devout Muslim” who had shouted “Allahu Akbar” before firing at a bus full of American soldiers.

If these details feel familiar, it’s because they form part of a story we’ve been given frequently over the last few years. Neo-conservative thinkers have consistently argued that it is an inherent hatred of “our freedoms” that causes young men to kill people who have done them no harm. This hatred stems solely and directly from the Islamic faith, a faith, the public is reminded at every opportunity, whose holy book promotes violence against non-believers. These men, the argument goes, are merely taking what Richard Dawkins once called the “logical path” between religion and violence.

This theory was used to explain why Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who came from a wealthy Nigerian family, went to a private school in Togo, and received a degree in mechanical engineering from University College London, disguised a syringe and explosive powder in his underwear and then attempted to detonate them as his airplane approached Detroit Airport on Christmas Day in 2009. But the trail of posts to social networking sites he left behind did not suggest he was angry with “our freedoms,” and still less with modern technology. His grievances appeared to be nebulously political, though powerful enough to get him to seek out terrorist training.

Meanwhile, some on the left have argued that it is Western involvement in Muslim countries—including, but not limited to, the propping up of dictators and monarchs throughout the Middle East; the unconditional support for Israel; the military bases; the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and now Yemen; the use of torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay—that motivates young men to become suicide bombers. In this view, the bombers are soldiers in a war not just against Western governments but also against the leadership of many Muslim countries.

Such an explanation was put forth when Shehzad Tanweer, Hasib Hussain, Germaine Lindsay and Mohammad Sidique Khan blew up a double-decker bus and three underground trains in London on July 7, 2005. In a video he left behind, Tanweer stated that he wanted British troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan and that attacking fellow Britons was justified so long as the government “continues to oppress our mothers, children, brothers and sisters in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq and Chechnya.”

An even smaller contingent ties this type of terrorism to a range of social issues. The terrorists tend to be from poor, disenfranchised segments of Muslim societies. They may or may not be educated, but the plutocracies that rule their countries offer them no prospects of jobs and no possibility of living a life of dignity and self-respect. This despair leads them straight into the hands of radical groups, which convince them to take action against a mythical victimizer.

This, at least, was how some Moroccan commentators accounted for the dozen bombers who, in May 2003, staged coordinated attacks against hotels and nightclubs in the city of Casablanca. The bombers were extremely poor. They all lived in the sprawling slum of Sidi Moumen. Of the three bombers who survived the attacks, one, Rachid Jalil, was a welder, and another, Yassine Lahnech, was a street peddler. In these conditions, several Moroccan columnists wrote, young disenfranchised men turn to violence.

The debate over what makes a suicide bomber is likely to continue for quite sometime, because none of these explanations feels entirely satisfactory. We should not merely ask what makes a terrorist but what makes a specific terrorist act, against a specific target, at a specific time. A bomber may believe he is fighting foreign occupation of his homeland, or retaliating against occupation of another country, or exacting revenge for the loss of a loved one, or participating in what he sees as a religious war between Muslims and non-Muslims, or fighting back against the ruling class, or trying to regain a lost honor, or any number of other things.

There are plenty of Kosovar Albanians who live in Germany, but they don’t shoot at buses full of American soldiers. There are plenty of Nigerian men who study abroad, but they don’t join terrorist networks and attempt to blow up an airplane. There are plenty of British Muslims who disagree with their government, but they don’t carry bombs into trains. There are plenty of Moroccan men who have small jobs or no jobs at all, but they don’t blow themselves up at nightclubs and hotels.

What the debate over terrorists seems to miss is the personal dimension, personal failures, personal grievances, personal desires to lash out violently at others. As Joseph Conrad put it in The Secret Agent, “The way of even the most justifiable revolutions is prepared for by personal impulses disguised into creeds.” Discussing all the bombers as if they all fit a simple profile—that of the Islamic terrorist—is a conveniently simplistic way of looking at a complex problem; it fits into the “Islam versus the West” narrative that has already led the United States into wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan.

And, most tellingly, when the terrorist is not Muslim—when his name is Jared Lee Loughner or Eric Harris or Dylan Klebold—the personal dimension of his crime, his mental health, say, is finally a matter of interest.

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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/frankfurt-shootings-making-terrorist/
Arab Uprisings and American Interventionhttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/arab-uprisings-and-american-intervention/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Reza Aslan,Geraldine Brooks,Teju Cole,Aleksandar Hemon,Marlon James,Phil Klay,Laila Lalami,Yiyun Li,Tom Lutz,Maaza Mengiste,Gary Shteyngart,Jane Smiley,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiMar 2, 2011The young people protesting in Arab capitals right now want a meaningful break with the status quo and, in many ways, that means a break from American support.

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The news and images from Cairo three days ago were so strange I nearly did a double-take: John McCain, the indefatigable supporter of US military intervention for regime change in Iraq, had suddenly discovered in himself a strong fervor for the homegrown uprising against tyranny in Egypt. There he was, with his good friend Joe Lieberman, mingling with Egyptian youths in Tahrir Square. “This revolution,” he said, “is a repudiation of Al Qaeda. This revolution has shown the people of the world, not just in the Arab world, that peaceful change can come about and violence and extremism is not required in order to achieve democracy and freedom.”

But less than a month ago, when protesters were fighting for their lives in Tahrir Square, McCain told Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren that “this virus is spreading throughout the Middle East…. This, I would argue, is probably the most dangerous period of history in—of our entire involvement in the Middle East, at least in modern times. Israel is in danger of being surrounded by countries that are against the very existence of Israel, are governed by radical organizations.”

McCain isn’t the only politician suddenly afflicted with amnesia. From Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama, our elected officials changed their positions to suit the events unfolding in North Africa and the Middle East. But I doubt if anyone in the region is fooled by this. The Arab publics can see exactly how much the current US administration cares for freedom and democracy when it backs the Bahreini royal family, in spite of the horrific violence the ruling clan unleashed on protesters in Pearl Square, or when it praises the Moroccan king for allowing the February 20 protests, even though demonstrators were beaten some days later in Rabat.

And now that Libya is in open revolt against Muammar el-Qaddafi, John McCain finds nothing better to do than to suggest that “we’ve got to get tough” and that the administration should arm the Libyan rebels. (The rebels do not want direct US intervention.)

Many in our political class, it seems, have completely missed the message that the Arab uprisings have sent them: American intervention is neither required nor needed. The young people protesting in Arab capitals right now want a meaningful break with the status quo and, in many ways, that means a break from American support.

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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/arab-uprisings-and-american-intervention/
Fadoua Laroui: The Moroccan Mohamed Bouazizihttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/fadoua-laroui-moroccan-mohamed-bouazizi/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Reza Aslan,Geraldine Brooks,Teju Cole,Aleksandar Hemon,Marlon James,Phil Klay,Laila Lalami,Yiyun Li,Tom Lutz,Maaza Mengiste,Gary Shteyngart,Jane Smiley,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiFeb 27, 2011A Moroccan single mother has earned the sad distinction of being the first Arab woman to commit political self-immolation.

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On December 17, when he set himself on fire in Sidi Bouzid, Mohamed Bouazizi could not have guessed that his act would prompt a series of copycat self-immolations or that it would launch the revolutions we are currently witnessing in the Arab world. It is two months later now, and yet the connection between deep personal despair and meaningful political change is being made evident once again, this time in Morocco.

Last week, Fadoua Laroui, a 25-year old woman, doused herself with gasoline in front of the town hall in Souq Sebt, and lit a match. According to newspaper reports, the local government destroyed the shack in which she lived with her children and later denied her access to replacement social housing because she was a single mother. She died in a Casablanca hospital two days later.

A graphic video purportedly showing Fadoua Laroui’s self-immolation has been widely distributed on social media websites. On it, a young woman can be heard yelling against injustice and asking what will happen to her children, before setting herself on fire. A police officer watches the scene, but he makes no attempt to come to her rescue. Instead, a young man tries to put out the fire by alternately pouring water over the victim and covering her with his jacket.

Like Mohamed Bouazizi, Fadoua Laroui was not known to be part of any political party; she was not asking for political reforms. She was simply crying out against injustice, in a country where her status as a single mother made her a second-class citizen. But, unlike Mohamed Bouazizi, the plight of Fadoua Laroui has attracted little press coverage. Indeed, aside from a couple of reports in Attajdid and Akhbar Al-Youm, and a short news brief from Reuters, her death has gone largely unnoticed and unreported. Even in pain, it seems, there are hierarchies. Some deaths are noted and remembered, some aren’t.

The people who remember her most today appear to be the activists of the February 20 movement in Morocco. But what does meaningful constitutional reform—the central demand of the February 20 movement—have to do with the case of Fadoua Laroui? Nothing, some people might say. And yet: in a state in which all citizens are equal under the law, Fadoua Laroui would have been able to appeal her case and receive justice.

“Most of us are about as eager to be changed as we were to be born,” James Baldwin famously said. But without meaningful political change in Morocco, Fadoua Laroui’s personal plight will merely be compounded to that of that of thousands of others. And there is no telling what could happen when they finally decide to demand change.

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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/fadoua-laroui-moroccan-mohamed-bouazizi/
Who’s Responsible for the Arab Uprisings? A Non-Exhaustive Listhttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/whos-responsible-arab-uprisings-non-exhaustive-list/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Reza Aslan,Geraldine Brooks,Teju Cole,Aleksandar Hemon,Marlon James,Phil Klay,Laila Lalami,Yiyun Li,Tom Lutz,Maaza Mengiste,Gary Shteyngart,Jane Smiley,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiFeb 25, 2011I don’t know about you, but I’m having a hard time keeping track of who is responsible for the Arab uprisings.

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I don’t know about you, but I’m having a hard time keeping track of who is responsible for the Arab uprisings.

Back in January, when the self-immolation of a desperate fruit vendor sent thousands of protesters into the streets of Tunisia, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali blamed “hooded gangs who have attacked public institutions during the night and even assaulted citizens at home, in a terrorist act that cannot be tolerated.” That didn’t quite foot the bill for him, because later on in that televised speech, he went on to fault “a small group of hostile elements who are offended by the success of Tunisia, and are filled with resentment and grievance, because of the progress and development achieved by the country”; “ill-intentioned elements who have used the issue of unemployment, and exploited an isolated act of desperation”; and, last but certainly not least, “those who are deliberately harming the interests of the country.”

As for Hosni Mubarak, he seemed to think all the ruckus in Tahrir Square on January 25 was due to “some infiltrators who tried to force slogans,” “those who entice chaos and looting public and private property,” those who “knock down what we have been building” and those who instigate “further plots that shake the foundation and stability of the country.” In his interview with Christiane Amanpour a few days later, Mubarak blamed “the Muslim Brotherhood”—I suppose it’s important to offer just the right scapegoat for the right audience. Mubarak also repeatedly warned Egyptians that they should be cautious of the example of other countries, which have sunk into “chaos.” On that point, at least, Mubarak seemed to agree with much of the American pundit class: Egypt is not Tunisia.

Well, we all know how that turned out.

Then there is Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of Muammar, graduate of the London School of Economics, and apparently the intellectual of the Gaddafi clan. In his speech to the Libyan people earlier this week, he blamed the popular uprising in Benghazi, Zawiyah and elsewhere on “opposition figures living abroad,” on people who “try to use Facebook for a revolution to copy Egypt,” on those who “want to storm the police stations,” on protesters who were “drunk” and “on hallucinogens or drugs” and on those who “want to establish an Islamic emirate.”

Still following? There’s more. Saif al-Islam also felt that “the Arabic media is manipulating these events” and warned that he wouldn’t let “Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya and the BBC trick us.” Then he finished it off by saying that “Libya is not Tunisia or Egypt.” It’s almost as if all these Arab autocrats are reading from the same script.

Perhaps fearing that his son’s speech hadn’t served up enough boogeymen, the elder Gaddafi went for the big O yesterday. “It is bin Laden,” he said.

Which raises the question: whom will the next Arab dictator blame?

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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/whos-responsible-arab-uprisings-non-exhaustive-list/
Morocco’s Day of Dignity: An Updatehttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/moroccos-day-dignity-update/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Reza Aslan,Geraldine Brooks,Teju Cole,Aleksandar Hemon,Marlon James,Phil Klay,Laila Lalami,Yiyun Li,Tom Lutz,Maaza Mengiste,Gary Shteyngart,Jane Smiley,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiFeb 22, 2011Two days ago, thousands of young people held street protests throughout Morocco to demand constitutional reforms. What's next?

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Two days ago, thousands of young people held simultaneous street protests throughout Morocco to demand constitutional reforms and a transition to a parliamentary monarchy.  Reports from the ground are now trickling in, giving us an idea about the turnout and its impact. In the Wall Street Journal, Marc Champion writes:

 The protests attracted 37,000 people around the country Sunday and were generally peaceful, Interior Minister M. Taieb Cherqaoui said at a press conference. He said looters had damaged more than 100 buildings, including a bank in the port town of Al Hoceima, where five people died in a fire. He also said 128 people were wounded, mostly police. It wasn’t possible to verify those figures independently Monday.

And, in the Guardian, Giles Tremlett reports

Sporadic outbursts of violence have continued in Morocco after Sunday’s peaceful pro-democracy protests gave way to rioting, with five people killed in a fire at a bank in the northern port of Al Hoceima. Interior ministry figures showed that the protests were far more extensive than first thought, with nearly 40,000 people turning out in 57 towns and cities. Protest organisers condemned the rioting and looting that followed the demonstrations, blaming it on thugs and football hooligans returning from matches.

On Monday, a group of people gathered again in Rabat in what appears to be a follow-up protest, but they were swiftly and brutally dispersed by the police.  Khadija Ryadi, director of the Moroccan Association of Human Rights, suffered some injuries and was taken to hospital.  Also on Monday, King Mohammed gave a speech—which had been scheduled some time ago—but he did not mention the February 20 movement by name or indicate if he would listen to their demands.  Instead, he stressed that he would not give in to “demagoguery and improvisation.”

 

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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/moroccos-day-dignity-update/
Rocking the Casbah: Morocco’s Day of Dignityhttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/rocking-casbah-moroccos-day-dignity/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Reza Aslan,Geraldine Brooks,Teju Cole,Aleksandar Hemon,Marlon James,Phil Klay,Laila Lalami,Yiyun Li,Tom Lutz,Maaza Mengiste,Gary Shteyngart,Jane Smiley,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiFeb 20, 2011A new generation of Moroccans wants dignity—and that is only possible in a true democracy.

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In spite of the Moroccan government’s campaign—through its official media, its ministers and its allies—to discredit the February 20 movement, peaceful protests took place today throughout the country. Thousands of protesters gathered simultaneously in Rabat, Casablanca, Tangier, Tetuan, Beni Mellal, Kenitra, Agadir, Marrakech, Essaouira and in other, smaller cities such as Bouarfa, Sefrou, Bejaad and Jerada.

As I explained in an earlier post, the campaign against the movement included accusations that it was led by agents of the Polisario Front; by atheists and other assorted non-Muslims; by republican revolutionaries; by Moroccans living comfortably abroad; or by people who are disorganized, unclear about their demands and leaderless. But even before the democracy protests got underway today, it was clear that the tide was turning and that the virulent government campaign had only served to bring about support from a wide cross-section of Moroccan society.

Thus, Abdellah Hammoudi, the well-known and widely respected professor of anthropology at Princeton, wrote a letter expressing his support for the peaceful march, which, he said, is “the only way we have left to demand the kind of reforms that can solve the problems of our country.” A group of independent journalists—including such household names as Aboubakr Jamai, Ali Amar, Ali Anouzla, Nadia Lamlili, Ahmed Reda Benchemsi, Driss Ksikes and Kenza Sefrioui—signed a petition in favor of the movement and calling on the government to allow local reporters to cover the events. The majority of business leaders remained studiously quiet, but Karim Tazi, now the president of the Banque Alimentaire, was among the protesters in Rabat. “We are at a historical moment,” he said, “and we must not miss it.”

Support also came from people who are associated with the monarchy. Hicham Alaoui, the rebellious crown prince of Morocco, gave an interview to France24 in which he, too, expressed his admiration and support of the movement. The historian Hassan Aourid, a former spokesperson for the palace, also declared himself in favor of a constitutional monarchy, giving the example of Great Britain as a good model.

Today, the peaceful protests that took place throughout the kingdom put the lie to all the accusations that the pro-government forces had been spreading. No one held signs demanding the ouster of the king or offering support to the Polisario Front or any other foreign entity. Instead, protesters denounced corruption and oppression, and demanded democracy and freedom: “Yes to a parliamentary democracy.” “In favor of a democratic constitution.” “Accountability for thieves / of money and dignity.” “The king reigns, but doesn’t govern.” My personal favorite was the multicolored banner that quoted the famed lines of the Algerian poet Tahar Djaout: “If you speak, you die. If you stay silent, you die. So speak, and die.” (You can view some of the signs here.)

The influence of the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings could be felt in some of the slogans. “The people want / a change in the constitution,” the crowd chanted. And while socio-economic concerns were definitely on people’s minds, the demands focused on the larger issue of power for the people: “Bread, liberty, dignity, humanity.” Lastly, some of the chants indicated that people feel that a threshold may have been crossed: “Either today or tomorrow, change is coming.”

The February 20 movement was started by a group of young activists, who have used social media to organize simultaneous protests throughout the country, thus proving to the old guard that they are serious about change. Their demands may be attacked, but their presence and their seriousness cannot be denied. This new generation of Moroccans wants dignity—and that is only possible in a true democracy.

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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/rocking-casbah-moroccos-day-dignity/
Arab Uprisings: What the February 20 Protests Tell Us About Moroccohttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/arab-uprisings-what-february-20-protests-tell-us-about-morocco/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Reza Aslan,Geraldine Brooks,Teju Cole,Aleksandar Hemon,Marlon James,Phil Klay,Laila Lalami,Yiyun Li,Tom Lutz,Maaza Mengiste,Gary Shteyngart,Jane Smiley,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiFeb 17, 2011Morocco, long considered one of the most stable Arab countries, is not immune to the unrest sweeping the region.

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With the ouster of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak, the Arab world has erupted in popular protests in favor of democracy and dignity. Morocco, long considered one of the most stable Arab countries, is not immune to this regional trend. Inspired by the cases of Tunisia and Egypt, a group of young activists are using social media to spread the word about a protest in Casablanca on February 20. A video they have made to promote the protests has already gone viral. It features thirteen young Moroccan men and women, speaking in their native Arabic or Berber. “I am Moroccan and I will take part in the protest on February 20,” they all say, and then go on to explain their reasons for marching: freedom, equality, better living standards, education, labor rights, minority rights and so on. (You can view the video, with English subtitles, here.)

The February 20 movement was started by a group calling itself Democracy and Freedom Now. Their demands include constitutional reforms, the dissolution of the present parliament, the creation of a temporary transitional government, an independent judiciary, accountability for elected officials, language rights for Berber speakers and the release of all political prisoners. Democracy and Freedom Now was soon joined by a loose coalition of cyber-activists, traditional lefties, Islamists and twenty human rights organizations, including the Moroccan Association of Human Rights and Amnesty Morocco.

The reaction to the planned protests has been as predictable as it has been depressing. Though the Moroccan government has nearly doubled its food subsidies for 2011, it has not acknowledged the need for meaningful political change. Instead, the communication minister, Khalid Naciri, insisted that Morocco “has embarked a long time ago on an irreversible process of democracy and widening of public freedoms.” On his Facebook page, the youth minister, Moncef Belkhayat, posted a long statement calling on the demonstrators to use dialogue instead. “My personal position,” he wrote “as a Moroccan citizen who lives in Casablanca, and not in Paris or Barcelona, is that this march is today manipulated by the Polisario, with the goal of creating street clashes that will weaken the position of our country in the United Nations regarding the human rights situation in the Sahara.” In other words, while one minister denies that there are any serious problems, the other blames foreign agents provocateurs.

Pro-government activists have also staged a campaign against the young people who appear in the video, uncovering supposed alcohol use, distributing a photo of one of them inside a church or of another one posing with Saharan activists. The implication is simple: the people who are organizing this march are traitors to their faith and to their country. As for the Francophone elite, they seem for now to be mostly ambivalent about the protests, pointing out that the institution of the monarchy is 1,200 years old and asking whether the marchers really want a revolution. But nothing in the February 20 platform or its promotional video suggests that anyone is asking for the toppling of the monarchy; the focus, however, has been on meaningful constitutional reform.

Throughout all this, the king has remained silent.

When King Mohammed rose to the throne in July 1999, he had relatively little to do in order to fill a huge reservoir of goodwill. His father, King Hassan, had left the nation with an appalling human rights record, which included extralegal detentions, torture and censorship; a high level of corruption in virtually all state institutions; a literacy rate that hovered below 50 percent, one of the lowest in the Arab world; a territorial conflict with the Polisario Front; and tense relations with Algeria. Upon the death of the monarch who had ruled Morocco for thirty-eight years, most commentators used some form of the expression “end of an era.”

In his first official speech as head of state, King Mohammed outlined his plans for the country: constitutional monarchy, multiparty system, economic liberalism, regionalism and decentralization, building the rule of law, safeguarding human rights and individual and collective liberties, and security and stability for all. He defined his role as one of arbiter—one who does not side with any parties—as well as architect—giving general orientations and advice. He renewed his father’s commitment to alternance, a system that had allowed leftist parties, after nearly thirty years in the opposition, to finally hold cabinet positions and influence policy. The speech gave a lot of Moroccans great hope that their country would emulate Spain, their neighbor across the Mediterranean, and transition toward a democracy.

The king made many symbolic decisions in the early months of his reign. He allowed Abraham Serfaty, the Marxist politician and longtime foe of the regime, to return home to Morocco. He freed Abdesslam Yassine, the leader of the banned Islamist group al-Adl wal-Ihsan (Justice and Charity). He fired Driss Basri, King Hassan’s fearsome right-hand man and one of the most despised men in the country. He established an Equity and Reconciliation Commission, which investigated cases of disappearance and torture during the infamous Years of Lead and offered reparations to survivors. A reform of family law, which feminist activists had been working on for many years, was finally adopted. He instituted quotas for women’s representation in parliament: today, ten percent of Moroccan members of parliament are women. He desegregated one of the country’s theological seminaries, thus allowing female religious leaders to work in mosques and provide community services.

But the honeymoon period was over very quickly. Although he defined his role as architect and arbiter in his coronation speech, the king’s role has in fact been that of absolute ruler. The constitution of Morocco grants him the discretionary right to name a prime minister and cabinet, without regard for election results. He can also dismiss parliament at any moment and exercise emergency powers. Between 1999 and 2009, Morocco held two major legislative elections, but it has had three prime ministers, five interior ministers, three ministers of education and two ministers of foreign affairs, coming from various parties of different, and often divergent, political persuasions: socialists, religious conservatives, independents and technocrats. The current prime minister, Abbas el-Fassi, is best known for his role in a disastrous scheme to offer 30,000 job contracts on an Emirati cruise ship to unemployed Moroccans. Tens of thousands of people were officially registered by el-Fassi’s ministry, and asked to pay a 900-Dirham fee (about $100) for a medical exam. The jobs turned out to be a mirage. And no restitutions were ever made. That this man is now the head of the cabinet only serves to show that the cabinet is not accountable to the electorate; it is accountable to the king alone.

For the last ten years, the Moroccan government has insisted that it was “on the right track”—on the right track to where, it was never specified, but one was led to believe that this was an ongoing process of democratization. Still, there were some details in this story that didn’t quite add up. Take, for instance, the fact that the earliest crackdown on freedoms came just six months after King Mohammed’s ascension to the throne, in December 2000, when a demonstration in Rabat demanding the legalization of al-Adl wal-Ihsan was repressed. Take the fact that, after ten long years, the literacy rate hovers a little above 50 percent, as opposed to a little below it. Take the fact that 15 percent of Moroccans live on under $2 per day. Take the fact that 70 percent of Moroccans think that corruption levels have stagnated or increased. Take the fact that, in the most recent United Nations Human Development Index, a composite measure of health, literacy and standard of living, Morocco ranked 130, behind Gabon, Fiji and even the occupied Palestinian territories.

Or take the fact that, between 1999 and 2009, the Moroccan government arrested, charged, prosecuted and sentenced nearly thirty journalists, including Ali Lmrabet of Demain; Aboubakr Jamaï, Ali Amar and Fahd Iraqi of Le Journal Hebdomadaire; Ahmed Reda Benchemsi and Karim Boukhari of Tel Quel; Driss Chahtane, Mustapha Hirane and Rachid Mhamid of Al Mish’al; Driss Ksikes and Sanaa el-Aji of Nichane; Abderrahim Ariri and Mostapha Hormatallah of Al Watan al An; Rachid Nini, Said Laajal and Youssef Meskine of Al Massae; Taoufik Bouachrine and Khalid Gueddar of Akhbar al-Youm; Ali Anouzla and Bouchra Eddou of Al-jarida Al-Oula; Noureddine Miftah and Meriem Moukrim of Al Ayam.

For a long time now, there have been many signs that Moroccans do not think that things are on the right track. Sit-ins by unemployed university graduates have become regular fixtures on the main avenues of major cities, and make for a particularly memorable sight in Rabat, the capital. Two years ago, jobless protestors blocked the port of Sidi Ifni for several days, preventing goods from being loaded or unloaded. A police force of 8,000 officers entered the city and engaged in beatings, theft and even, allegedly, rape and murder. A group of university students taking part in a peaceful demonstration in Marrakech in 2008 were imprisoned and held without charge for several months. The only woman in that group, a 21-year-old by the name of Zahra Boudkour, was stripped naked, beaten and tortured in the prison of Boulmharez. She was released last year.

But government abuse is not directed solely at political activists; it is also directed at ordinary citizens. In September 2010, for instance, Fodail Aberkane, a Moroccan construction worker, was arrested by the police in the Hay Salam district of Salé, on suspicion of being under the influence of cannabis. He was released on judge’s orders, but when he returned to the station to pick up his moped, he was detained again after an argument about paperwork. He never left his cell again. Two days later, he was turned over to Ibn Sina Hospital in Rabat, where he was pronounced dead.

Which brings me back to the February 20 movement. I love my homeland. And it is because I love it that I want it to be a place where everyone is treated equally under the law; where the legislative, judiciary and executive branches are independent of one another; where human rights are respected; and where the government is accountable to the people. This makes me a supporter of the February 20 movement and, I suppose, the kind of person the youth minister was denouncing on his Facebook page.

For now, the Moroccan government is allowing the protest to go forward, though its proxies and allies are already hard at work, calling the protestors a ragtag group of agitators with divergent and unreasonable demands. But dismissing the February 20 movement because its supporters have different personal agendas is no different from signing on to the status quo in Morocco. And for the sake of the unemployed and the illiterate, for the sake of the poor, for the sake of the victims of police abuse, for the sake of all those who have been rendered in secret prisons: the status quo cannot go on.

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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/arab-uprisings-what-february-20-protests-tell-us-about-morocco/
The Attack on Lara Logan: War of the Wordshttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/attack-lara-logan-war-words/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Reza Aslan,Geraldine Brooks,Teju Cole,Aleksandar Hemon,Marlon James,Phil Klay,Laila Lalami,Yiyun Li,Tom Lutz,Maaza Mengiste,Gary Shteyngart,Jane Smiley,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiFeb 16, 2011In the mounting rhetoric, what is getting lost is the fact that a reporter has been sexually assaulted.

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A woman has been sexually assaulted—what should the reaction to such a heinous crime be? Blaming its victim? Disparaging the country she’s in? Looking for a scapegoat? 

Stunningly enough, all of these reactions have been voiced since yesterday, when it was revealed that Lara Logan, the chief foreign correspondent for CBS, had survived sexual assault in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. The network has released few details about the attack, except to say that, when Hosni Mubarak’s resignation was announced and crowds filled the square, a mob surrounded Logan and her crew. She was separated from them in the ensuing frenzy and suffered “a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating before being saved by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers.” Logan flew back to the United States the following day and is now recovering in a hospital.

Not two hours after the statement was made, Debbie Schlussel, the pundit for whom every conflict can be reduced to Islam’s inherent evil, turned in this gem: “Too bad, Lara.… This never happened to her or any other mainstream media reporter when Mubarak was allowed to treat his country of savages in the only way they can be controlled.” The formulation is disgustingly racist, but a more polite form of it is already circulating—the idea being that Egypt’s new revolution is doomed and that the country needs what Lee Smith once termed a “strong horse.”

In Slate, for instance, Rachel Larimore wondered if the attack on Logan was a bad omen for Egypt. “I wish I could say I was surprised by the news,” she wrote.  “But amid the cacophony of revolution, however, quieter voices expressed concern about what life would be like for women after the revolution, drawing comparisons to the Iranian revolution of 1979, when the ouster of the Shah led to reduced freedoms for women." What Larimore doesn’t mention is that sexual assaults occurred frequently enough during Mubarak’s secular thirty-year rule that some Egyptian women openly expressed fear for their safety. In fact, what made the Egyptian revolution successful was that the women who took part in it did so at grave risk to themselves.

Meanwhile, some Egyptians who took part in the protests in Tahrir Square argued that, up until the announcement of Mubarak’s resignation, the demonstrations had been peaceful and remarkably free of sexual harassment. Activists such as Mona Seif and Nadia El-Awady camped in Tahrir Square night after night during the uprising. So the news of Lara Logan’s attack was greeted with shock. “I believe it was a deliberate act,” wrote a popular blogger, who goes by the name of Zeinobia. The implication here seemed to be that the perpetrators could only have been the police or baltagiya—i.e., the “bad guys” in the new Egypt. But whether the attackers were Mubarak thugs or pro-democracy activists is completely beside the point. The attack is horrific, no matter who perpetrated it. 

In the mounting rhetoric, what is getting lost is the fact that a reporter has been sexually assaulted. As Judith Matloff explained in a Columbia Journalism Review article, female foreign correspondents are often subjected to sexual abuse, and rarely report it for fear of losing assignments. Lara Logan has broken a powerful taboo by coming forward about her assault. And the only reaction to this horrific crime, wherever it took place and whoever the perpetrators may be, ought to be disgust and condemnation.  

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Against Easy Storieshttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/against-easy-stories/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Reza Aslan,Geraldine Brooks,Teju Cole,Aleksandar Hemon,Marlon James,Phil Klay,Laila Lalami,Yiyun Li,Tom Lutz,Maaza Mengiste,Gary Shteyngart,Jane Smiley,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiJan 14, 2015

Two armed men in balaclavas attacked Charlie Hebdo’s office in Paris and opened fire on the editorial staff, in the end killing five cartoonists, a columnist, a copy editor, a maintenance worker, an economist, a visitor and two police officers.

To make sense of the senseless, we tell ourselves stories. In this case, the story is that the attack on Charlie Hebdo is the latest salvo in an ongoing clash of civilizations between Islam and the West. The story is that the satirical magazine was the last bastion of free thought in an otherwise cowed press—a press that has given in to political correctness and is now too afraid to criticize Islam. The story is that Muslim leaders remain silent about this atrocity. The story is that France has failed to integrate its Muslim citizens, the descendants of immigrants from its former colonies. The story is that France has sent troops to fight in Muslim countries. The story is that there are double standards.

None of these stories will do, at least not for me. I find myself reading them in different guises in the national press, hoping they will satisfy or enlighten me, but something is always missing.

Begin with the clash of civilizations. The morning after the attack, Ayaan Hirsi Ali wrote in the pages of The Wall Street Journal that the killings were not the work of “mentally deranged, lone-wolf gunmen” but were instead inspired by a political ideology that can be traced back centuries, to the Koran itself. Yet this tragedy does not reflect a world neatly divided between Muslims and non-Muslims. The victims included not just cartoonists like Charb and Cabu, whose work mocked Islam and orthodoxies of all kinds, but also a copy editor, Mustapha Ourrad, and a police officer, Ahmed Merabet, who had ancestral roots in Muslim North Africa. As for the terrorists, they were born and bred in France, and although they claimed to avenge the Prophet Muhammad, they did not hesitate to kill men who could have been their own brothers, their own flesh and blood. When I think of that morning in Paris, I don’t doubt where my allegiance is. It is with victims, whether they are believers or nonbelievers. It is with writers and artists, whether I like their work or dislike it.

In Europe and America, so the story goes, political correctness has taken hold everywhere and to such an extent that people no longer dare to criticize Islam. In that sea of conformity, we are told, Charlie Hebdo stood out as an equal-opportunity offender. It ran covers that mocked Jesus, Moses, Muhammad, the pope, François Hollande, Nicolas Sarkozy and Marine Le Pen. At its best, Charlie Hebdo afflicted radicals and defended free speech. In 2006, after an editor at the daily France Soir was fired for reprinting the twelve Muhammad cartoons that had led to violent protests around the world, Charlie Hebdo republished them. On the cover was one of Cabu’s best cartoons: it showed the prophet crying, with his hands covering his face. The caption read: “C’est dur d’être aimé par des cons…” (“It’s tough to be loved by morons…”). This was the magazine’s bestselling issue, with 400,000 copies sold, compared with the usual run of around 70,000 copies.

But it seems to me that Charlie Hebdo did not offend with equal frequency. Over the last fifteen years, Islam became a primary target for the magazine, out of all proportion with the number of Muslims in France or their political weight in the country. And it wasn’t hard to pick out the Muslims in the cartoons—the men were bearded and turbaned, the women veiled and submissive. Charlie Hebdo’s editors deemed any criticism of these portrayals to be a bow to political correctness and an attack on their right to criticize religion. Freedom of speech became synonymous, in their work, with the right to offend, but not with the right to call out bigotry. I would invite those who insist that the magazine was always and exclusively satirizing ideas to consider the geographic origins of turbans and veils, as well as France’s history in North Africa. I remember one cover last fall that depicted the Nigerian schoolgirls who were abducted by Boko Haram as pregnant welfare queens demanding that no one touch their payments. An image that mocks the victims of kidnapping and rape and has them voice right-wing stereotypes about the descendants of immigrants receiving welfare payments is not one that I find amusing or instructive.

Almost immediately after the terrorist attack, the usual claims were made that Muslims are silent about radicalism. At home in Santa Monica, California, I watched my social-media time lines fill with calls for Muslims to denounce the tragedy, even as Muslims did exactly that. Dalil Boubakeur, the head of the French Council of the Muslim Faith, condemned the attack as “barbaric.” Tariq Ramadan, the influential professor of Islamic studies, declared: “It is not the Prophet who was avenged, it is our religion, our values and Islamic principles that have been betrayed.” Al-Azhar University, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Arab League all condemned the attack, as did the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Muslim Public Affairs Council, the Islamic Society of North America, and thousands upon thousands of ordinary people online. But I doubt this will suffice. In a few weeks or a few months, we will once again hear some pundit or other demand that Muslims speak out against radicals, a standard that is not applied to any other community when one of its members perpetrates a violent act.

The story is that France has failed to integrate approximately 5 million Muslims who call the country home. Under the ideals of the French republic, citizens are to be treated equally under the law, with no regard to religion or race. For this reason, the government does not keep statistics on citizens of Muslim descent. But academic studies have repeatedly shown that French Muslims are twice as likely as non-Muslims to be unemployed. They graduate from high school at lower rates and are imprisoned at higher rates. Many of them live in densely populated housing projects, with little access to the kinds of opportunities that other French citizens enjoy. While it is hard to overstate the level of disenfranchisement among French Muslims, this cannot explain what happened either. That morning in France, millions of Muslims went about their own business, regardless of any political grievance or private injustice.

Something else separated the two perpetrators of the Charlie Hebdo attack from the rest of their community. Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, both in their early 30s, were born in Paris and orphaned at a young age. The younger of the two brothers, Chérif, was a rapper trying to make a name for himself through his music. When that failed, he turned to drugs and petty crime. Eventually, he met a radical preacher who encouraged him to go fight in Iraq, but Chérif was arrested in 2005, before he could carry out his plan. Those who put the blame for the Charlie Hebdo attack on France’s involvement in Muslim countries should remember that France did not support the American invasion of Iraq in 2003; nor did it send troops there. Charlie Hebdo ran cartoons that criticized the war, including one that portrayed United Nations inspectors studiously searching for weapons of mass destruction, while behind them missiles labeled “USA” were poised to strike. Whatever anger the Kouachi brothers felt about the invasion of Iraq, it makes no sense to direct that rage at the magazine.

Then what about the double standards? This is a refrain we hear all the time with satirical publications like Charlie Hebdo—and not without cause. Under French law, the magazine could run cartoons mocking Islam, but it could not run cartoons mocking the Holocaust. In fact, in 2009, Charlie Hebdo fired Maurice Sinet (known as Siné), one of its most famous cartoonists, because of a column in which he suggested that Nicolas Sarkozy’s son would “go a long way in life” after marrying a Jewish heiress. But murdering cartoonists will not put a stop to such double standards. Instead of tolerating less speech, we must ask for more speech. And here is where we must work for greater diversity in newsrooms: the more voices we have, the more complex our understanding of one another will be. The best response to offense is not murder. It is life. It is resilience. It is art.

I don’t know which of the stories around Charlie Hebdo are true—none of them, or perhaps all of them. But I am tired. Tired that the drawing of a cartoon about Muhammad attracts more anger than the spilling of blood. Tired that casual bigotry is equated with serious criticism. Tired that providing context is seen as providing an excuse. I’m also afraid for the rights of writers and artists. Afraid of the restrictive legislation that is sure to follow. And afraid for all the innocents who will suffer.

All I know is this: we are in this together. We must accept that we cannot go through life without being offended. We must accept that the right to say offensive things is a fundamental part of free speech. But we must also accept that we have a responsibility for one another. We must speak out against racism, sexism and bigotry in all its forms. Let us use reason, but let us use our hearts too.



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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/against-easy-stories/
Why We Must Resist Simple Explanations of the ‘Charlie Hebdo’ Massacrehttps://www.thenation.com/article/archive/why-we-must-resist-simple-explanations-charlie-hebdo-massacre/Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Reza Aslan,Geraldine Brooks,Teju Cole,Aleksandar Hemon,Marlon James,Phil Klay,Laila Lalami,Yiyun Li,Tom Lutz,Maaza Mengiste,Gary Shteyngart,Jane Smiley,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila Lalami,Laila LalamiJan 10, 2015Tidy stories reducing the atrocity to a clash of civilizations or a problem with integration are neither enlightening nor satisfying.

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Two men in balaclavas burst into Charlie Hebdo’s office in Paris and opened fire on the editorial staff, killing five cartoonists, a columnist, a maintenance worker, an economist, a visitor, a copy-editor and two police officers.

To make sense of the senseless, we tell ourselves stories. The story is that this is the latest salvo in an ongoing clash of civilizations between Islam and the West. The story is that the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo was the last bastion of free thought in a cowed press, a press that has bowed to political correctness and is now too afraid to criticize Islam. The story is that Muslim leaders remain silent about this atrocity. The story is that France has failed to integrate its Muslim citizens, descendants of immigrants from its former colonies. The story is that France has sent troops to fight in Muslim countries. The story is that there are double standards.

None of these stories will do, at least not for me. I find myself reading them in different guises in the national press, hoping they will enlighten or satisfy me, but something is always missing.

Begin with the clash of civilizations. The morning after the attack, Ayaan Hirsi Ali wrote in the pages of The Wall Street Journal that the killings were not the work of “mentally deranged, lone-wolf gunmen” but were instead inspired by a political ideology that can be traced back centuries, to the Koran itself. Yet this tragedy does not reflect a world neatly divided between Muslims and non-Muslims. The victims included not just cartoonists like Charb and Cabu, whose work mocked Islam and orthodoxies of all kinds, but also a copy-editor, Mustapha Ourrad, and a police officer, Ahmed Merabet, who had ancestral roots in Muslim North Africa. As for the terrorists, they were born and bred in France and, although they claimed to avenge the prophet, they did not hesitate to kill men who could have been their own brothers, their flesh and blood. When I think of that morning in Paris, I don’t doubt where my allegiance is. It is with victims, no matter whether they are believers or nonbelievers. It is with writers and artists, no matter whether I like their work or dislike it.

In Europe and America, so the story goes, political correctness has taken hold everywhere and to such an extent that people no longer dare to criticize Islam. In that sea of conformity, we are told, Charlie Hebdo stood out as an equal-opportunity offender. It ran covers that mocked Jesus, Moses, Muhammad, the Pope, François Hollande, Nicolas Sarkozy and Marine Le Pen. At its best, Charlie Hebdo afflicted radicals and defended free speech. In 2006, after an editor at the daily France Soir was fired for reprinting the twelve Muhammad cartoons that had led to violent protests around the world, Charlie Hebdo republished them. On the cover was one of Cabu’s best cartoons: it showed the prophet crying, with his hands covering his face. The caption: C’est dur d’être aimé par des cons… (“It’s tough to be loved by morons…”). This was their best-selling issue, with 400,000 copies sold compared with their usual run of around 70,000 copies.

But it seems to me that Charlie Hebdo did not offend with equal frequency. Over the last fifteen years, Islam became a primary target for the satirical magazine, out of all proportion with the number of Muslims in France or their political weight in the country. And it wasn’t hard to pick out the Muslims in their cartoons—the men were bearded and turbaned, the women veiled and submissive. Charlie Hebdo’s editors deemed any criticism of these portrayals to be a bow to political correctness and an attack on their right to criticize religion. Freedom of speech became synonymous, in their work, with the right to offend, but not with the right to call out bigotry. I would invite those who insist that the magazine was always and exclusively satirizing ideas to consider the geographic origins of turbans and veils, as well as France’s history in North Africa. I remember one cover from last fall, which depicted the Nigerian schoolgirls who were abducted by Boko Haram as pregnant welfare queens, demanding that no one touch their payments. Mocking victims of kidnapping and rape and having them voice right-wing fears about welfare payments to descendants of immigrants is not an image I find amusing or instructive.

Almost immediately after the terrorist attack, the usual claims were made that Muslims are silent about radicalism. At home in Santa Monica, I watched my social media timelines fill with calls on Muslims to denounce the tragedy, even as Muslims did exactly that. Dalil Boubakeur, the head of the French Council of the Muslim Faith, condemned the attack as “barbaric.” Tariq Ramadan, the influential professor of Islamic studies, declared, “It is not the Prophet who was avenged, it is our religion, our values and Islamic principles that have been betrayed.” Al-Azhar University, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Arab League all condemned the attack, as did the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Muslim Public Affairs Council, the Islamic Society of North America and thousands upon thousands of ordinary people online. But I doubt this will suffice. In a few weeks or a few months, we will once again hear some pundit or other demand that Muslims speak out against radicals, a standard that is not applied to any other community when one of its members perpetrates a violent act.

The story is that France has failed to integrate approximately 5 million Muslims who call the country home. Under the ideals of the French republic, citizens are to be treated equally under the law, with no regard for race or religion. For this reason, the government does not keep statistics on citizens of Muslim descent. But academic studies have repeatedly shown that French Muslims are twice as likely to be unemployed than non-Muslims. They graduate from high school at lower rates and are imprisoned at higher rates. Many of them live in densely populated housing projects, with little access to the kinds of opportunities other French citizens receive. While it is hard to overstate the level of disenfranchisement among French Muslims, this cannot explain what happened either. That morning in France, millions of Muslims went about their own business, regardless of any political grievance or private injustice.

Something else separated the two perpetrators of the Charlie Hebdo attack from the rest of their community. Said and Cherif Kouachi, both of them in their early 30s, were born in Paris and orphaned at a young age. A decade ago, the younger of the two brothers was a rapper trying to make a name for himself through his music. When that failed, Cherif Kouachi turned to drugs and petty crime. Eventually, he met a radical preacher who encouraged him to go fight in Iraq, but he was arrested in 2005, before he could carry out his plan. Those who put the blame for the Charlie Hebdo attack on France’s involvement in Muslim countries should remember that France did not support the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 and did not send troops there. Charlie Hebdo ran cartoons that criticized the war, including one that portrayed UN inspectors studiously searching for weapons of mass destruction, while behind them missiles labeled “USA” were poised to strike. Whatever anger the brothers felt about the invasion of Iraq, it makes no sense to direct that rage at the magazine.

Well, then, what about the double standards? This is a refrain we hear all the time with satirical weeklies like Charlie Hebdo. And not without cause. Under French law, the magazine could run cartoons mocking Islam, but it could not run cartoons mocking the Holocaust. In fact, in 2009, Charlie Hebdo fired Maurice Sinet (known as Siné), one of its most famous cartoonists, because of a column in which he suggested that Nicolas Sarkozy’s son would “go a long way in life” after marrying a Jewish heiress. But murdering cartoonists will not put a stop to double standards. Instead of tolerating less speech, we must ask for more speech. And here is where we must work for greater diversity in newsrooms: the more voices we have, the more complex our understanding of one another will be. The best response to offense is not murder. It is life. It is resilience. It is art.

I don’t know which of the stories around Charlie Hebdo is true. None of them, or perhaps all of them. I am tired. Tired that the drawing of a cartoon of Muhammad attracts more anger than the spilling of blood. Tired that casual bigotry is being equated with serious criticism. Tired that providing context is seen as providing excuse. I’m also afraid for the right of writers and artists. Afraid for all the innocents who will suffer. Afraid of the restrictive legislation that is sure to follow.

All I know is this: we are in this together. We must accept that we cannot go through life without being offended. We must accept that the right to offense is a fundamental part of free speech. But we must also accept that we have to take responsibility for each other. We must speak out against racism, sexism and bigotry in all its forms. Let us use reason, but let us use our hearts too.



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https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/why-we-must-resist-simple-explanations-charlie-hebdo-massacre/