It is probably an understatement that ever since the war on terrorism started, the Muslims have been in the spotlight and will probably stay there for a long time. We are six million in the US, but a very sensitive six million thinking twice about our identities before doing a lot of things which three years ago would have been attributed to normal reflex responses.
We have to put ourselves beyond that situation now. By 2015 Islam could be the second largest religion in the US surpassing Judaism. According to some estimates, Islam has reached that goal already. The Muslims are the second largest religious group in the world with more than a billion members worldwide — some figures putting it close to two billion. In the US at the moment, with the war on terrorism going on, Islam and the Muslims find themselves in the middle of a strange situation.
I live 30 miles east of San Francisco in the green foothills of Pleasanton. The population of the city is 95 per cent white. A couple of months back, my daughter and I were waiting at a busy intersection when a rather large chicken strolled out on the road and stopped 10 yards in front of my car. I wasn’t thinking at all where the chicken came from. All I was thinking about was that there’s a chicken standing in front of my car and hundreds of eyes are focused on me waiting to see my reaction. The chicken looked like it was in no mood to budge.
My daughter, for the moment oblivious to the fact that we’re very identifiable Muslim women with our scarves on, started telling me to honk. I, on the other hand, was thinking, ‘If I honk and scare this chicken and it flies onto a driver’s windscreen and causes an accident then people will forever remember this incident and link it to the Muslim woman who scared the bird and hence caused a hullabaloo on the busy intersection.’ As I mentioned earlier, anytime before 9/11, scarf or no scarf, I would have honked that bird straight into a deep fryer, but now we’re walking on egg shells.
I waited and waited. The signal was green, but I refused to budge. The bird stood there for a few minutes longer before deciding that this was no fun and strolled to the side of the road. We heaved a sigh of relief on not displaying a spontaneous response and using our heads to think out the situation. Later, when I told my friends the story their first reaction was ‘why didn’t you honk?’ And then they added quickly: ‘Good thing you didn’t because if that bird had gotten scared ...’ I nodded in the affirmative. I think we all understood the situation. I live in a small city. Muslim women with scarves are conspicuous entities. Especially the ones who honk and scare large birds into running traffic.
Personally, I was fighting with a double-edged sword. True, I didn’t want to stand out as an impulsive Muslim who doesn’t think twice about the consequences when faced with split-second decisions. But subconsciously I was also upholding the responsibility I take upon myself to dispel the stereotypical image of Muslim women wearing scarves. The common one being that they are an uneducated, easily aggravated, non-English speaking bunch. To me, even seemingly insignificant incidents like this make a huge difference.
About a week later, my children and I saw that same chicken again. I take the liberty to assume it was the same one, at the other end of our city. I was again stopped at an intersection and this time right in front of our eyes, that chicken strutted across the road in the centre of the lines of the crosswalk. In its trip across town it had learnt how to cross the street, thus giving a whole new perspective to the riddle: why did the chicken cross the road ...
So, why did the chicken cross the road?
Perhaps, not to give Muslim women the tough choice of whether to honk at them at a busy intersection.
