(RNS) — New Orleans is my beloved hometown. It is a city that has endured devastation and rebuilt itself not just with bricks and mortar, but with the strength of its people and the resilience of its communities.
I have always been proud to call New Orleans home, to speak of it wherever I go and to remember how we, as New Orleanians, come together in times of crisis. The country witnessed this firsthand after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when I was blessed to lead the Islamic Council of North America Relief‘s Muslims for Humanity project, an initiative that brought together volunteers of all faiths and backgrounds to help our city recover.
On the 10th anniversary of 9/11, while the disenfranchised of New Orleans were still struggling to rebuild, more than a thousand volunteers of all faiths gathered to clean up Rivertown. We restriped roads, repainted walls and replanted trees. The humble effort culminated with a gathering at a local mosque to share an authentic New Orleans dish — halal and kosher gumbo.
This week’s news of a terrible attack in my home city — a murderous rampage that claimed the lives of 15 people and injured dozens of others — made my heart sink. As my thoughts and prayers are with the families of the victims, I’m despairing to see the media trundle out its familiar narrative apparatus of terrorism.
A quarter-century after the Sept. 11 attacks, we are still haunted by the ghost of former President Bush’s War on Terror, which assumes that any purportedly Muslim assailant must be ideologically inspired. When, seemingly monthly, a white Christian opens fire at a school, the assailant is pronounced mentally unwell. The term terrorism is exclusively reserved for Muslims.
Contrast the present news cycle — Muslim commits criminal act; Muslim is connected to a larger international terrorism conspiracy; the faith of 1.8 billion people is scrutinized — with the news cycle when a person of any other faith commits a criminal act: They are defined as an isolated “lone wolf”; their mental health, upbringing or grievances are examined with nuance; calls for better gun control follow. Since 9/11, Muslims in the West have been asked to speak on behalf of purported members of their communities, to defend their religion against those who abuse its teachings and to take responsibility for individual criminal acts. Those days are over.
Since I moved away from my home state more than a decade ago, I have always spoken about the relationships we built in New Orleans in the wake of Katrina. I have told stories of how welcoming the city has always been, how my mosque — its minaret rising over a busy intersection — never faced hostility. New Orleans was a multifaith model of trust, a place where communities thrived together. Wednesday’s attack threatens to rupture the bonds of trust that have been built over decades.
Let’s be clear: This attacker, who was not from New Orleans, but Texas, was unknown to any of the dozens of Muslim institutions or mosques in Houston, where he reportedly resided. An upside-down Islamic State group flag found in his truck is not a statement of faith — just one of many indications of his twisted, deranged state of mind. His tragic and reportedly unstable life, especially in recent years, his decade of U.S. military employment, should be scrutinized far more intently than his so-called conversion to Islam, which appears to have been solitary and disconnected from the local Muslim community.
Could his time spent as a cog in the U.S. military machine be a variable to consider in this Islamic State group-inspired rampage?
The double standard is not only exhausting, but also distracts from the victims who have lost their lives, the families grieving their loved ones and the city that must once again unite to heal. Among the murdered Wednesday morning was Kareem Badawi, a Palestinian American Muslim who lived between New Orleans and Baton Rouge and belonged to a well-known Louisiana Muslim community. He was a son, a friend, a brother to many. He was part of the real fabric of this city, just like countless Muslims who have lived there for decades. Like all the victims of this senseless tragedy, his name should be known — his story centered and highlighted. But instead of focusing on the lives that were taken, coverage of this tragedy is once again falling into the tired, predictable patterns of anti-Muslim fear-mongering contributing to dehumanization and division.
This is the opposite of the culture and values that make New Orleans great. New Orleans knows how to survive tragedy. We have seen devastation and loss, and we have rebuilt — together.
The bonds of faith, trust and friendship we formed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina cannot be undone by the violence of one man. The attacker did not belong to us, but the victims did. The communities who are grieving did. And we will stand together, as we always have, against fear-mongering and against those who seek to divide us.
Let’s not let those who seek division — whether through violence or through media narratives — succeed. The New Orleans I know is better than that.
