New Muslim Cool

It's not something that many of us associate with Islam these days, a sense of cool. We are not used to thinking of calmness, even keel or a peaceful demeanor. Nor does it evoke the meaning in the other sense of the word, hip to modern culture, even cutting edge. The portayal of Muslims in mainstream American culture is typically that of angry bearded men, burning the American flag, gathering en masse to shout slogans like "death to America" in Arabic. They are terrorists, and our sworn enemy. I wouldn't suggest for a moment that this is in any way representative of most of the 2.5 billion Muslims around the world, but one might think that if their only point of reference was CNN or Fox News.

The documentary New Muslim Cool (originally broadcast on POV last summer, now available for viewing on the website) takes on these stereotypes, without apology and without reservation. The filmmaker, Jennifer Maytorena Taylor, introduces the audience to Jason Perez, a Puerto Rican rapper, and former drug dealer who has turned his life around through his conversion to Islam. Perez now goes by a Muslim moniker, Hamza, and has devoted much of his time reaching out to gang members and drug dealers to offer them an alternative to the lifestyle he knows firsthand.

Of course, this conversion is not without its troubles. We witness a raid on the mosque where he worships and later we see him stripped of his access to a prison ministry that has allowed him to reach out to both Christian and Muslim inmates. We see a cultural divide between himself and his family, who all have retained the Catholic faith that Jason himself grew up with. And then of course there is the stigma that he carries with him each day.

It's a very timely piece considering the heightened sensitivity (or insensitivity depending on how you look at it) regarding Muslims around the anniversary of 9/11. We still have tens of thousands of troops stationed in predominately Muslim territories, creating animus towards our nation. We have a debate over the building of a mosque and Islamic cultural center two blocks from Ground Zero. We have a pastor who has threatened to burn copies of the Koran in public. We have a significant segment of our population that believes our President is a "secret Muslim", despite his continued profession of Christian faith, and use this suspicion as a sort of smear campaign, suggesting that it would somehow make him unfit to serve. This from many who call themselves Christians, yet seem to spew such venom toward their fellow man who does not think as they do.

No matter where you come down on any one of those issues, I think we can all agree that these are troubling times. Does our Christian faith however, not dictate that we should love our brothers and sisters, no matter what they believe? Hamza is no more of a terrorist than you or I, and yet when we see him prostrate on a rug, chanting prayers or walking down the street with his wife by his side wearing a hijab, we squirm uncomfortably. They're not real Americans. They couldn't be. If they were, they'd think just like us. The only trouble is, who among us has found the key to being American? What makes one of us more right that the other? After all, isn't it in large part this very same brand of religious persecution that led our founding fathers (and mothers) to leave their homeland and begin anew here in this new land of opportunity?

The film doesn't resolve these questions, and despite some of the obstacles that Hamza faces and overcomes, I don't think it begins to address these deep cultural divisions. It falls short of portraying a complete picture of just how deeply the mistrust and anger is felt among those who believe that all of Islam is anti-American, or at the very least, something to be suspicious of. It's one story among many. But it's a place to begin the discussion at the very least, with the hope that someday we truly can co-exist as one nation, better yet, one world.