For the past few days, as a result of the bombing of the Boston Marathon, we have all been concerned with identity. Mainly, our collective concern has been with who did it? By “who did it” I don’t just mean a name, I mean a cohesive identity: what is his ethnic background? Where are his parents from? What does he do for a living? Is he rich? Is he poor? Is he religious? And most surprisingly: what color is his skin?!
What color is his skin? Is this a real question from real journalists on real news networks in the real world of 2013? It is. The NY Post launched it all with their bold headlines underlining the national heritage of a “person of interest” who was, under the trauma of injury, trying to get away from the scene. When that was debunked, the NY Post was dismissed as a mere tabloid rag and people who fell for it were dismissed as tabloid sensationalism junkies who lack patience and fall for everything. Then the more acclaimed news organizations (I’m speaking of CNN) claimed to have a source that led the journalist to the conclusion that there is a suspect, who is dark-skinned and possibly has a foreign accent. He even went on to strongly imply that there will be those amongst society who would be ridiculous to be offended by this characterization.
Then images of the suspects were released, with the hope that information would come forth about the identity, and a Muslim teen (Salah Eddin Barhoum) was fingered as a possible match. Perhaps his skin was dark enough and his accent foreign enough.
And last night, for a good six hours or so, 25 % of our Earth day, the suspects were thought to be a missing student from Brown University and some other individual, also of foreign ethnicity. (And by foreign, I do not mean Irish or German.) At one point, it was thought that one suspect was light-skinned and one was dark-skinned, and neither were Muslim. So certain was everybody of these vague and unconfirmed facts, that some breathed a huge sigh of relief and others were not so happy: Muslims were relieved because it wasn’t one of ours; melanin-challenged folks were concerned with whether it was a right-wing thing or a left-wing thing; folks with children in Ivy League schools were probably thinking, “What will happen of our kids?” and parents of children in state universities were more than likely quite relieved. And everyone witnessed the abrupt disappearance of the discussion on the role of religion (well, Islam).
Now, five days and one sleepless night later, we realize that all this speculation was for naught. For the individuals are Caucasian and they are also Muslim. They belong to you and they belong to me. By you, I mean those of the light-skinned European non-Muslim persuasion. And by me, I mean they are my brothers in Islam.
While we now know “who it was”, it is more important that we know even more about who we are. Do you look at these individuals and say, “I am Pakistani and they are not my problem so it’s unfair that they are linked to me just because we share the same religion!” Or do you say, “They have done such things that they are not even Muslim anymore!” Or do you say, “They are Muslim so their Caucasian-ness is irrelevant!” Or do you say, “I am a Muslim of the Caucasus too and I am ashamed, they have brought shame onto our people!”
No. These lines of reasoning, and the many more that you have probably come up with, are all incorrect. Because just like this might have been a brown problem, so it is a white problem. Because just as it would not have been a Hindu or Christian problem, so it is not a Muslim problem. Just as it could have been a lone wolf situation, so it could still be a lone-wolf problem. We all shared in the utter bafflement of how people can inflict such horror upon their fellow human. We all shared in the ghoulish fascination of who did it. So we must all share in the unfortunate realization that this could have been anybody: there is a flaw in the way our fellow human beings dealt with whatever issues they were confronting. They did not do it as Chechens. They did not do it as white people. They did not do it as Muslims. They do not shame all Muslims, or all Caucasians, or all Caucasian Muslims. They shame themselves, and they dishonor their own humanity while violating the sanctity of human life. Think about it: for six hours last night, everyone lost sleep over the fact that someone from somewhere wearing some clothes having eaten some food had a city under lockdown…which still continues. Gunfights on the streets. IEDs aimed towards taking out innocent people. Door-to-door searches for a suspect. These are things that happen elsewhere to other people. But here we are, and they are happening to us. Today, discussions about skin-color are irrelevant, in the same way that yesterday discussions about religion was a non-starter.
Who are we? What are we concerned with? What do we believe in? How do we deal with our problems? And how do we help our fellow brothers and sisters with their problems? Are our problems more or less real than their problems? Are our solutions more or less reasonable than their solutions? All of these answers will determine far more who we are than “issues” like our skin color, or our ethnic heritage. We complain that the media and the white man make color and race an issue, and yet we all know that there are huge segments of our population who harp on skin color and ethnic heritage. I won’t go into details, but we all know where the boundaries are and what those boundaries mean in our interactions with each other. So this surprise and discontent with what the dominant culture does might perhaps be an inner discomfort with who we are, and how we behave towards one another while behaving perfectly civilized towards that dominant culture. Our Creator has, yes, made us into nations and tribes, but it is for the reason of knowing one another, not for the purpose of degrading one another. At the end of the day, we are all human, we all have the capacity for joy and the capacity for despair. And we must all pray that our joy does not make us arrogant and our despair shall not make us destructive.