I watched Angel Beats over the past couple days. WAY better than I was expecting. There was some general anime bullshit, but the vast majority of it was stunningly good. Very different from what I was expecting, in a good way.
Hey there, sorry for the postless week! Been super busy, semester is ramping up to the end. This is the essay I wrote for my class on Islam in America. In the class, we read the novel The Submission by Amy Waldman, and then combined what we knew with the book to write an essay. Here's the prompt:
With that assignment, I'm just gonna post the essay.
Why do Muslims in the United States face challenges in identifying with the mainstream American culture in the early twenty-first century? The best essays will include a thesis (or argument) responding to this question in the introduction to the essay. In the body of the essay, please draw on evidence from The Submission to support your thesis. You should also draw on selected historical evidence from lecture and from other course textbooks to support your thesis. The goal is to construct a seamless essay that provides a compelling argument about why the Muslim characters in The Submission feel alienated, as well as evidence of that alienation drawn from the book and from other historical sources.
As usual, this is my essay, made available so I can potentially recieve feedback and to help others learn what I'm learning myself. I'm no expert, so seriously, none of the would-be paper thieves out there should use or even cite this. Still, I think I learned a lot to be able to write the essay, and hopefully you learn something too!
And if you know something about the subject, let me know if I got something right/wrong, or if you have interesting insights or thoughts about it! Same with folks who know things about writing essays! And I do love hearing when just other regular folks get some education out of my work.
Max / Ego
WC: 1022
Cultural identities
held in common by communities are an important force in the world.
For an individual, they give a sense of belonging, a shared
understanding and experience that allows people to support each other
and engage on a closer level. On a wider scale, these identities
provide a patchwork of viewpoints and perspectives that gives rise to
diversity and fosters debate and discussion. However, sometimes there
are cultural identities that have problems interacting with each
other, that come into conflict with one another, and this causes
confusion and alienation, both to individuals and to the society as a
whole. The identity of being a Muslim and that of being an American
have just that relationship. Amy Waldman's book The Submission
helps us to understand this relationship through its plethora of
liminal characters, stuck somewhere in between American and Muslim
without knowing how to resolve the inconsistencies between the two.
Specifically, the book highlights how the lack of a consensus on
whether Islam and American democracy are compatible leads people
caught between the two to find themselves alienated and lost.
Laila
and Mohammad are two sides of the same problem – they both identify
themselves as both American and Muslim, but have different approaches
on how to reconcile the images. Laila's take on the problem is
adaptation.
What is meant by this is that she's taken the stance that a
re-reading of the Islamic texts allows for new interpretations that
more smoothly meld with typical western democracies. She's forward
and headstrong, implied when she suggested that Mohammad use her as a
public face for the proceedings (Waldman 90). Her most obvious change
to the fundamentalist version of Islam is that she's interpreted the
Quran as not requiring the wearing of a hijab, or at least considered
that she needn't wear one to the American public. She considers
herself a professional, but still a practicing Muslim. Visually, she
doesn't appear Muslim – a passerby on the street would never know.
That's one of the benefits of not wearing the headscarf in America,
that one can blend into the crowd without drawing attention to
themselves. This isn't a perfect solution though. While it finds
acceptance in the eyes of the American culture, it is the Muslim
culture that often rejects those who make Laila's decision. For them,
the re-interpretation of the Quran is tantamount to a betrayal of the
true religion, which has a vocal fundamentalist front. Laila faces
this challenge even from the members in the organization she works
with. While at the MACC, after leaving the meeting while talking with
Khan, she mentions that “It's a big deal for me to even be in that
room...Malik got me in there because I've been getting high-profile
cases involving Muslims. Because I'm good. But it's tense, as you
noticed.” (Waldman p91). Laila faces the challenge that, in
adapting her beliefs to allow her to better accept her American
identity, she distanced herself from her Muslim identity and
alienated herself from that community.
Mohammad
Khan is afflicted with the same sort of identity confusion as Laila,
but handles it very differently. Khan doesn't act to change the
Muslim identity to fit within his American identity, and he doesn't
try to shift his American culture to be open to his Muslim one.
Instead, Khan slingshots back and forth between the two, unable to
decide what path he should really follow. To begin with he completely
denies the Muslim portion of his identity. He still considers himself
Muslim, but, as he tells the MACC, he's “basically secular”
(Waldman 89). However, he's not willing to disavow the Muslim portion
of himself, and he especially isn't willing to do so just so he can
win. It's not precisely clear what drives him to be so steadfast on
this point; whether it be principles or sheer stubbornness. What is
clear is that Khan planned to be this way from the very beginning,
and he confirmed it to himself after speaking to Paul Rubin, he
refused to “reassure anyone that he was 'moderate' or 'safe' or
Sufi” (Waldman 86). Khan's very name is representative of his
struggle; he goes by Mohammad and by Mo, one name linked to his
Muslim identity and another to his American one. In the end Mohammad
doesn't really figure out how to put his two identities together,
instead creating his own third identity, a secular form of the
culture practiced in the Muslim world, and he steeped himself in that
culture so he no longer really had a major identity crisis like he
did during the events surrounding the memorial incident.
The division between the two identities goes even further than is
explored in the book. One of the fundamental dividing lines between
American democracy and Islam is the idea of Sharia. Sharia law
is a concept from the Quran that blurs the line between state and
religion. In concept, Sharia demands that the government be
able to support and enforce the precepts of Islam, a concept which is
completely antithetical to the government system of the United States
and other “western” nations. The separation of church and state
that the States prides itself on is meant to preserve the opportunity
for freedom of religion, while Sharia law doesn't allow for
this freedom under its restrictions. American Muslims such as those
in the book are required to take a side in the debate: support the
separation of church and state and further the American identity, or
promote American Sharia and put forward a strong Muslim
identity. Some individuals, like Laila, would want to adapt the
standards of Sharia and find a compromising moderate ideal,
but that would be opposed by the more extreme side of both
identities. The idea of Sharia is an incredible divisive
force, and a primary point of concern for American Muslims trying to
reconcile their identities while avoiding alienation from both their
fellow Muslims and American society as a whole. The book's characters
provide an excellent window into this gap between the cultural
identities of Americans and Muslims and the societal alienation that
gap creates.
Works Cited
There we go. Hope you enjoyed it, totally open to any feedback. I don't like this essay as much as the other one I wrote last night, but that's due later in the day and I only post after an essay is due. That one will drop next week. Later!
End Recording,
Ego.
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