Fearful Verses: Trapped Between Bush and Bin Laden
(Download Flyer)
A literary and artistic event exploring Arab and Muslim America
after 9/11
Date: October 31, 2002
Time: 7pm
Place: Open Book, 1011 Washington Avenue South, Minneapolis
For information call: 612.215.2575
Cost: $5
Mizna, a Twin Cities based cultural organization dedicated to promoting
Arab American culture through Art, literature and community events, is proud
to present the second in a series of events exploring the realities of life
for Arabs and Muslims in America through arts and creative work.
Following the events of September 11, the Arab and Muslim communities in
the US found themselves subject to racist reprisals in their neighborhoods
and workplaces, media vilification of their cultures and religions, and
governmental encroachments on their civil liberties. For the Arabs and Muslims
of America, the months following September 11 carried intense feelings of
fear and helplessness.
Although the task felt overwhelming, the board members of Mizna were in
agreement that the cultural work we do through creativity has taken an added
sense of urgency. “We felt the need more than ever before,” says
Executive Director Kathryn Haddad, “to come forward and claim the right
to speak for ourselves and represent ourselves instead of having others
speak for us and about us.” On this basis, Mizna decided to organize
a series of public readings, the first one of which was Beyond Belly dancers,
Bombers and Billionaires: Arabs and Muslims Outloud. “We wanted to
offer a platform” says Mizna Board member Fouzi Slisli, “for artists
of Arab and Muslim descent to present, through literature, film, visual
and performance art, a complex image of their heritage and their communities
that is often lost amid the flood of simplistic and negative stereotypes
promoted by sections of the media and public opinion.” The event was
a success. It played to a sold out audience at Intermedia Arts in March
2002. Mizna has subsequently been featured on Minnesota Public Radio (MPR),
National Public Radio (NPR), Channel 9 television, KFAI radio, the Star
Tribune, various Community papers, and Middle Eastern papers like the Daily
Star of Lebanon.
One year after the events of September11, the atmosphere both in the US
and the Middle East has seen many changes. In Afghanistan, the US killed
an estimated number of 3000 people (most of them civilians), and made the
war torn country more unstable than it already was. The army of Israel invaded
the West Bank on a scale unseen since the invasion of Lebanon, and committed
war crimes against the indigenous Arab population of Palestine. In the US,
the government still refuses to release the names of more than a thousand
people (mostly Arabs) who have been rounded up since September 11, and the
ideas of military courts and the secret TIPS program are a concrete reality.
In the mainstream media, bigoted speech describing Islam as an ‘evil
religion’ and calls for the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians are
still a regular feature, and in the background, the whispers about rounding
up the Arabs and Muslims in camps can still be heard. Whether they want
it or not, the Arabs and Muslims of America are caught in the middle of
President Bush’s so called “war on terrorism.”
If one looks for an accurate expression to describe the current atmosphere,
no other would be more fitting than “Orwelian nightmare”. For
this reason, we thought it was appropriate to organize our second public
reading on October 31st; the night of Halloween. First of all, because it
offers interesting (and comical) parallels to our reality that we hope would
be more inductive to creativity. Second, because the traditional vampire
and alien looking characters of Halloween are more and more being noticeably
replaced by nasty Arab and Muslim looking caricatures and we hope to offer
a creative input on this phenomenon. Third, because we want to encourage
our community to enter-act in a critical, creative and positive way with
aspects of the American culture like Halloween that are traditionally not
ours, instead of dismissing them. So what is scarier these days, Halloween’s
bloodthirsty vampires, evil looking aliens, and diabolical sorcerers? Or
Osama Bin Laden threatening mass terror on prime time television? Is it
G. W. Bush bombing our homelands in the Middle East, Asia and Africa and
reducing them to lakes and parking lots, or John Ashcroft plotting to round
up the Arabs and Muslims of America and lock us up in concentration camps?
Does our post 9/11 reality look like a perpetual scary Halloween nightmare?
Do the stories of Halloween look like cute fairy tales compared to the prospects
we face as a community?
Mizna has the pleasure to invite the public to Fearful Versus: Trapped Between
Bush and Bin Laden. The event will take place at the Loft Literary Center
(Open Book, 1011 Washington Avenue South, Minneapolis) on Thursday October
31st at 7pm and will feature funny, serious, and scary stories, poems, performance
pieces and visual arts.
For more information contact:
Fouzi Slisli or Kathryn
Haddad
651-766-2364 or 612-706-6125
This event is co-sponsored by SASE, The Loft, and the Muslim Student Association
at the University of Minnesota.