Why banning Arab authors from US is censorship
Why banning Arab authors from US is censorship
Excluding important Arab writers from the literary dialogue also punishes US readers.
Last updated: 08 Oct 2014 07:34
Marcia Lynx Qualey
On September 30, Jordanian poet and novelist Amjad Nasser was scheduled to give the inaugural address at the Gallatin Global Writers series. Nasser is a major Arab poet, whose "A Song and Three Questions" was chosen by The Guardian as one of the 50 greatest love poems of the past 50 years and whose debut novel, "Land of No Rain", was acclaimed by Ahdaf Souief and Elias Khoury, among others.
Nasser is also a law-abiding British citizen who does not need a visa to take the short flight from London to New York City. Yet Nasser was still prepared. According to Gallatin series organisers, the author "was carrying his books and an official letter of invitation from NYU" when he arrived at Heathrow's Terminal 5.
But as he got ready to board his British Airways flight, an attendant at the gate handed Nasser the phone. Someone from the US' homeland security department wanted to talk to him. As Nasser wrote about the experience:
"The strangest 'conversation' ensued: Your name, your father's name, your mother's name, your paternal grandfather, your maternal grandfather, your great grandfather, your height, your weight, the colour of your eyes, of your hair ... at this point I told the homeland security person: It is turning white now! 'What was its colour before? Brown?' he asked. 'No, black,' I said."
At the end of the conversation, Nasser was told that he could not board the departing plane, which in any case had already left. The faceless homeland security officer would not disclose the reason Nasser wasn't allowed into the US.
More:
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/10/why-banning-arab-authors-from-us-20141058594511965.html
littlemissmartypants
(22,884 posts)bvf
(6,604 posts)Thanks for the thread, Judi Lynn.
littlemissmartypants
(22,884 posts)I am sad that this is happening to poetry and it's writers. Art is transformational, in many ways and all attempts to stop art, are supportive of ignorance.
Love, Peace and Shelter.
~ littlemissmartypants 🙏
LuvNewcastle
(16,869 posts)Why in hell would a writer be denied entrance to the U.S.? I can't imagine him doing any harm, so they must be afraid of something he'll say. They must not like something he's written. It's censorship all right. This country is off the fucking rails, and it's getting scarier every day. It should be obvious to everyone now that the people we elect are not the people who are really running the country.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)and unfortunately, that is PRECISELY the kind of people being elected to public office in this country: Paranoid, greedy little bigots who think the world is theirs to strip mine. We have no great leaders.
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)I seriously doubt anyone at DHS has ever read him.
F4lconF16
(3,747 posts)msanthrope
(37,549 posts)I have dual citizenship, Jordanian and British (this is a right guaranteed by law in both countries) and have been working in journalism for more than three decades.
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/19429/when-your-name-is-on-the-blacklist
Funny how neither the OP, nor the OP's source decided to include that pertinent fact, eh? I find it astounding.....I mean just astounding that apparently no one bothered to read what the author himself wrote.
F4lconF16
(3,747 posts)Very pertinent information. I stand corrected, and sorry for the snarky tone.
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)remember your OP writers.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)Thanks Judi Lynn.
LeftishBrit
(41,219 posts)What is it? Do they think that all Arabs are terrorists or something equally bigoted? Or do they dislike something that he's written (in which case it's still censorship)?
bvf
(6,604 posts)who think that way. How they get into the positions of authority they hold is a problem needing immediate attention.
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)Interestingly...he didn't say if he was travelling on his British or his Jordanian passport. You'll easily trip Homeland Security under this scenario...particularly if he was on his Jordanian passport.
Android3.14
(5,402 posts)The Thought Police are hear, and as an American, I am ashamed.
ladjf
(17,320 posts)msanthrope
(37,549 posts)Interestingly, he didn't reveal if he was travelling on his British, or Jordanian passport. I'm not surprised that these circumstances alerted Homeland Security....not saying they are right so much as I'm noting that given the recent escalation in conflicts, and Jordan's involvement, had to have triggered added screening. That's too bad, since he writes well.