How do writers discuss Trump's "ban on Muhammad"?

On January 27, Donald Trump issued an executive order claiming to be aimed at "prohibiting the entry of foreign terrorists and protecting the security of the United States," but the order was widely condemned by the writers' community. The Writers Guild of America slammed the order as "unconstitutional and grossly wrong." Ammar Ali Hassan, an Egyptian novelist, said the order made the United States "no longer a place to chase dreams." Iranian-American scholar Reza Aslan harshly condemned the words of U.S. House speaker Paul Lane, who was "the first member of Congress" to stand up for Trump. Mr. Aslan, who has written a biography of Jesus Christ, notes that Mr. Lane's Irish ancestors were plagued by famine and bravely fought against anti-Catholic forces when they came to the United States in 1851. Mr Aslan criticised: "You have forgotten who you are. You forget where you came from. ”

The United States was founded to welcome "people who desire to breathe the air of freedom" to settle here, and the order is a blasphemy against the american spirit of freedom, an extreme manifestation of years of discrimination against Muslim travelers. After 9/11, Muslims who flew to the United States became accustomed to extremely harsh censorship, and Muslim men were the focus of suspicion. In 2016, India's Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan tweeted: In the current world situation, I fully respect and understand the security measures of the United States, but I get caught by the US Immigration Department and go to the small black room for questioning, which is really terrible. ”

In 2002, the famous Canadian novelist Luo Yindeng. Rohinton Mistry (a Zoroastrian) repeatedly "was singled out for censorship at the airport because he looked like a terrorist" and cancelled the tour of the work in the United States. The Moroccan-American novelist Laila Lalami often encounters body searches at the airport, and what shocked her most was that once at the Los Angeles airport, her husband was asked by immigration officials how many camels had bought her.

The writers use delicate brushstrokes to depict the poignant stories between immigration officers and Muslim travelers. Mohin Hamid's 2007 novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist, which depicts the story of Changez, a young Pakistani man, who enjoys the lifestyle of the metropolis of New York. A few days after the World Trade Center was attacked, he returned to the United States from a business trip, only to find that it was no longer the same America it had been. At the Manila airport, he was searched and stripped off only a pair of pink boxer pants. At the New York airport, an immigration officer who "didn't speak as well as Changez" questioned him about his "purpose" of entering the United States, and he was very distressed. Changez instantly understood that the international identity he cherished, his Ivy League education background, and his exquisite underwear were all worthless. For the border prosecutor and some Americans, he was from the same denomination as Osama bin Laden, and nothing else mattered. The novel was a wake-up call that Changez eventually became a fundamentalist, and the airport encounter led him to become more and more radical.

Mr. Hamid is not alone in focusing on the story of what happened at the airport customs, believing that this is the fuse that changes human nature. In the 2014 novel "In the Light of What We Know," author Zia Haider Rahman writes that a friendly immigration officer can make a big difference. The novel tells the story of an obscure Pakistani-American who excitedly tells a friend that when he crossed customs at the airport, the immigration officer's simple "welcome home" deeply touched him, and these 4 warm words touched his heart more than the American national anthem. He said: "I felt a breeze gently kissing my neck, and a warm current flowed into the atrium of my heart, which is probably what is called patriotism." His friend, an Englishman who has preserved the Traditions of Bangladesh, replied: "If the immigration officer at Heathrow could say to me, 'Welcome home,' I would be willing to die for Britain, and I would be loyal to Britain on the spot." How I wish Britain could one day welcome me like this. In just four words, those who get it become loyal citizens, and those who don't get it are angry and go radical.

Novelist Aatish Taseer was so touched by this that he published a moving essay in the Wall Street Journal titled "The Day I Got My Green Card." Mr Taseer described: "I have half Indian and half Pakistani origin, and I have a British passport. Last year, he returned to the United States with her "tall, white" husband, and immigration officers said "six very heartwarming words" to him — "Welcome home, sir." It made him feel very comfortable, an experience that had never been experienced before in the UK, India, or Pakistan. "As a South Asian man with a Muslim name, I have entered the United States ten times, and nine times I have to be taken away alone for re-examination," he wrote. And now, I'm married to an American, and I'm entering the country for the first time as a permanent resident. He felt his heart occupied by an emotion that "is one of the least popular emotions of our time: an infinite, unreserved love for America."

And this kind of boundless, unreserved love is indeed very unpopular in the United States under Trump, and writers may continue to document this dark period in history in various forms for decades to come. Nor can they forget the lawyers who came to the airport to help stranded passengers on a pro bono basis, the thousands of people who marched in the streets, the judges who overturned Trump's executive order, and the American Muslims at various airports in the United States. This is the American way of embracing the poet Emma Nasha Rochi's poems engraved on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. This is how the United States calls for "Welcome Home."

(Translator: Wu Yue)

……………………………………

Welcome to find us on Weibo, please click here.

You can also pay attention to our WeChat public account "Interface Culture" [ID: BooksAndFun]