THE subway station was crowded with commuters mostly Hispanics and blacks. This was the Bronx, so that was not unusual.
It was just days after a self-confessed killer was ruled out as the murderer of a six-year-old girl, so while waiting for the train, teacher Pamela P. was chatty about the Colorado whodunit which had riveted America for a decade.
“Colorado seems like another country when you live in New York. But the crime had hit us deeply because it was such a horrible murder of a beautiful girl,” said Pamela, a native New Yorker.
But Pamela, upon prodding, let it known that she worried more about terrorism than crime.
As she spoke, an announcement came that subway commuters with huge luggage bags might be subjected to random checks.
The T word might be on the mind of Americans but for people here, Muslims included, the wheel of life turns as usual even as the country marks the fifth anniversary of Sept 11.
As the imam of a mosque in Manhattan’s Upper East Side said, Muslims in New York have had no fear of hate crimes or a backlash from people who linked the faith with terrorism.
“Muslims here enjoy a great measure of freedom. There’s no interference from anyone when we go to work, worship or when we demonstrate against the attacks on Lebanon,” said Sheikh Omar Saleem Abu-Namous, a Palestinian who has been on US soil since 1998.
It has been business as usual in the mosque. On Fridays, for instance, the azan can be heard as an estimated 1,500 worshippers attend prayers there. It is a mixed congregation of mostly African-Americans and others like Pakistanis, Arabs and Afghans.
“The locals here do not mind the azan. However, we do try to keep the volume within the vicinity. We had a complaint only once,” said Sheikh Omar.
He dispelled talk about discrimination against Muslims but added that depending on certain circumstances, “the longer the beard, the stronger the suspicion,” he said, laughing.
During an interview behind closed doors inside his small office, the 70-year-old imam wore what he called a dishdasha.
“However, I don’t go to the streets in this. I only wear it in the mosque,” he said.
He was not surprised by a report in a magazine on Sept 4 that estimated that 20,000 Americans convert to Islam each year.
“There’s a spiritual vacuum that needs to be filled,” he said, noting that most of the converts were Hispanics and blacks. By his estimates, there are about 100 mosques in New York City alone.
His Sept 11 message to the faithful is always the same, he said. “Be nice, be positive and be cooperative.”
In a way, that explains why youths like Abdul-Allah, 24, was diligently handing out booklets titled Muhammad – The Messenger of Allah to passers-by outside the mosque.
Born in Brooklyn to a Palestinian father and Jamaican mum, he said he had never faced problems with his schoolmates.
“I think they merely target immigrants who can’t speak English. In my case, I speak just like an American,” he said.
Other Muslim converts like graphic designer Omar Raul, a white American-born French, had personal encounters to share.
“I was inside the subway train and a woman kept looking at me. Finally, she asked me about a box that was near my feet. I told her that it wasn’t mine. She opened it and found that it was empty,” said Omar, whose previous name was Jacques Blanche.
He concluded that the woman was just being paranoid.
New York mayor Michael Bloomberg was quoted in Rolling Stone magazine saying that there should be more worries about dangers from bad habits such as smoking and jaywalking, rather than “freaking out about terrorism”.
A just released poll conducted by New York Times/CBS News found that 29% of New Yorkers think about Sept 11 every day and that most Americans were resigned to the fact that they would often have to live with the threat of a terror attack.
But the polls also found a drop in the number of people who were “very concerned” of another attack (69% now compared to 74% five years ago).
Life has to go on even in New York, where Sept 11 remains a fresh, painful wound.
(Sunday September 10, 2006)
