Discussion Points
“To Any Would-Be Terrorists”
by Naomi Shihab Nye, Arab-American
Poet
I am sorry I have to call you that, but
I don’t know how else to get your attention. I hate
that word. Do you know how hard some of us have worked to
get rid of that word, to deny its instant connection to the
Middle East? (Rhetorical Question) And now
look. Look what extra work we have.
Not only did your colleagues kill thousands
of innocent, international people in those buildings and scar
their families forever, they wounded a huge community of people
in the Middle East, in the United States and all over the
world. If that’s what they wanted to do, please know
the mission was a terrible success, and you can stop now.
(Appeal to Emotion)
Because I feel a little closer to you than
many Americans could possibly feel, or ever want to feel,
I insist that you listen to me. Sit down and listen. I know
what kinds of foods you like. I would feed them to you if
you were right here, because it is very very (Repetition)
important that you listen. (Urgency)
I am humble in my country’s pain
and I am furious. (Word Choice/Diction)
My Palestinian father became a refugee
in 1948. He came to the United States as a college student.
He is 74 years old now and still homesick. He has planted
fig trees. He has invited all the Ethiopians in his neighborhood
to fill their little paper sacks with his figs. He has written
columns and stories saying the Arabs are not terrorists, he
has worked all his life to defy that word. Arabs are businessmen
and students and kind neighbors. There is no one like him
and there are thousands like him — gentle Arab daddies
who make everyone laugh around the dinner table, who have
a hard time with headlines, who stand outside in the evenings
with their hands in their pockets staring toward the far horizon.
(Plain Folks Appeal; Appeal to Emotion)
I am sorry if you did not have a father
like that. I wish everyone could have a father like that.
(Sympathy)
My hard-working American mother has spent
50 years trying to convince her fellow teachers and choir
mates not to believe stereotypes about the Middle East. She
always told them, there is a much larger story. If you knew
the story, you would not jump to conclusions from what you
see in the news. But now look at the news. What a mess has
been made. Sometimes I wish everyone could have parents from
different countries or ethnic groups so they would be forced
to cross boundaries, to believe in mixtures, every day of
their lives. Because this is what the world calls us to do.
WAKE UP!
The Palestinian grocer in my Mexican-American
neighborhood paints pictures of the Palestinian flag on his
empty cartons. He paints trees and rivers. He gives his paintings
away. He says, “Don’t insult me” when I
try to pay him for a lemonade. Arabs have always been famous
for their generosity. Remember? My half-Arab brother with
an Arabic name looks more like an Arab than many full-blooded
Arabs do and he has to fly every week.
My Palestinian cousins in Texas have beautiful
brown little boys. Many of them haven’t gone to school
yet. And now they have this heavy word to carry in their backpacks
along with the weight of their papers and books. I repeat,
the mission was a terrible success. But it was also a complete,
total tragedy and I want you to think about a few things.
(Appeal to Emotion)
-
Many people, thousands of people, perhaps even millions
of people, in the United States are very aware of the
long unfairness of our country’s policies regarding
Israel and Palestine. We talk about this all the time.
It exhausts us and we keep talking. We write letters to
newspapers, to politicians, to each other. We speak out
in public even when it is uncomfortable to do so, because
that is our responsibility. Many of these people aren’t
even Arabs. Many happen to be Jews who are equally troubled
by the inequity. I promise you this is true. Because I
am Arab-American, people always express these views to
me and I am amazed how many understand the intricate situation
and have strong, caring feelings for Arabs and Palestinians
even when they don’t have to. Think of them, please:
All those people who have been standing up for Arabs when
they didn’t have to. But as ordinary citizens we
don’t run the government and don’t get to
make all our government’s policies, which makes
us sad sometimes. We believe in the power of the word
and we keep using it, even when it seems no one large
enough is listening. That is one of the best things about
this country: the free power of free words. Maybe we take
it for granted too much. Many of the people killed in
the World Trade Center probably believed in a free Palestine
and were probably talking about it all the time.
But this tragedy could never help the Palestinians. Somehow,
miraculously, if other people won’t help them more,
they are going to have to help themselves. And it will
be peace, not violence, that fixes things. You could ask
any one of the kids in the Seeds of Peace (Allusion)
organization and they would tell you that. Do you ever
talk to kids? Please, please, talk to more kids. (Appeal
to Emotion)
-
Have you noticed how many roads there are? Sure you have.
You must check out maps and highways and small alternate
routes just like anyone else. There is no way everyone
on earth could travel on the same road, or believe in
exactly the same religion. It would be too crowded, it
would be dumb. (Word Choice) I don’t
believe you want us all to be Muslims. My Palestinian
grandmother lived to be 106 years old, and did not read
or write, but even she was much smarter than that. The
only place she ever went beyond Palestine and Jordan was
to Mecca, by bus, and she was very proud to be called
a Hajji and to wear white clothes afterwards. She worked
very hard to get stains out of everyone’s dresses
— scrubbing them with a stone. I think she would
consider the recent tragedies a terrible stain on her
religion and her whole part of the world. She would weep.
She was scared of airplanes anyway. She wanted people
to worship God in whatever ways they felt comfortable.
Just worship. Just remember God in every single day and
doing. It didn’t matter what they called it. When
people asked her how she felt about the peace talks that
were happening right before she died, she puffed up like
a proud little bird and said, in Arabic, “I never
lost my peace inside.” To her, Islam was a welcoming
religion. After her home in Jerusalem was stolen from
her, she lived in a small village that contained a Christian
shrine. She felt very tender toward the people who would
visit it. A Jewish professor tracked me down a few years
ago in Jerusalem to tell me she changed his life after
he went to her village to do an oral history project on
Arabs. “Don’t think she only mattered to you!”
he said. “She gave me a whole different reality
to imagine — yet it was amazing how close we became.
Arabs could never be just a ‘project’ after
that.”
Did you have a grandmother or two? (Rhetorical
Question) Mine never wanted people to be pushed
around. What did yours want?
Reading about Islam since my grandmother died, I note
the “tolerance” (Word Choice)
that was “typical of Islam” even in the old
days. The Muslim leader Khalid ibn al-Walid signed a Jerusalem
treaty which declared, “in the name of God, you
have complete security for your churches which shall not
be occupied by the Muslims or destroyed.”
It is the new millennium in which we should be even smarter
than we used to be, right? (Rhetorical Question)
But I think we have fallen behind.
-
Many Americans do not want to kill any more innocent
people anywhere in the world. We are extremely worried
about military actions killing innocent people. We didn’t
like this in Iraq, we never liked it anywhere. We would
like no more violence, from us as well as from you. HEAR
US! (Word Choice) We would like to stop
the terrifying wheel of violence, just stop it, right
on the road, and find something more creative to do to
fix these huge problems we have. Violence is not creative,
it is stupid and scary and many of us hate all those terrible
movies and TV shows made in our own country that try to
pretend otherwise. Don’t watch them. Everyone should
stop watching them. An appetite for explosive sounds and
toppling buildings is not a healthy thing for anyone in
any country. The USA should apologize to the whole world
for sending this trash out into the air and for paying
people to make it.
But here’s something good you may not know - one
of the best-selling books of poetry in the United States
in recent years is the Coleman Barks translation of Rumi,
(Allusion) a mystical Sufi poet of the
13th century, and Sufism is Islam and doesn’t that
make you glad? (Rhetorical Question)
Everyone is talking about the suffering that ethnic Americans
are going through. Many will no doubt go through more
of it, but I would like to thank everyone who has sent
me a consolation card. Americans are usually very kind
people. Didn’t your colleagues find that out during
their time living here? It is hard to imagine they missed
it. How could they do what they did, knowing that? (Rhetorical
Question) (Appeal to Emotion)
-
We will all die soon enough. Why not take the short time
we have on this delicate planet and figure out some really
interesting things we might do together? I promise you,
God would be happier. So many people are always trying
to speak for God - I know it is a very dangerous thing
to do. I tried my whole life not to do it. But this one
time is an exception. Because there are so many people
crying and scarred and confused and complicated and exhausted
right now - it is as if we have all had a giant simultaneous
break-down. (Word Choice/Diction)
I beg you, as your distant Arab cousin, as your American
neighbor, listen to me.
Our hearts are broken, as yours may also feel broken in
some ways we can’t understand, unless you tell us
in words. Killing people won’t tell us. We can’t
read that message. (Appeal to Emotion)
Find another way to live. Don’t expect others to
be like you. Read Rumi. Read Arabic poetry. Poetry humanizes
us in a way that news, or even religion, has a harder
time doing. A great Arab scholar, Dr. Salma Jayyusi, (Appeal
to Authority; Allusion) said, “If we read
one another, we won’t kill one another.” Read
American poetry. Plant mint. Find a friend who is so different
from you, you can’t believe how much you have in
common. Love them. Let them love you. Surprise people
in gentle ways, as friends do. The rest of us will try
harder too. Make our family proud.
Naomi Shihab Nye
Source: Islamic Studies, Islam, Arabic
and Religion Web site of Dr. Alan Godlas of the University
of Georgia |
