By nature, humans are social creatures with an innate need to belong. At what point did I as a human feel that I had a particular set identity? Did I choose it or was it imposed? Why did I hold onto it? How did it benefit me? And more importantly, was the identity I clung to innocent, or had I fallen into the trap – as so many of us have – of unassumingly donning a politicized identity that others had created?
I spent much of my life in an “identity crisis.” I was born in the United States; my father was a Pakistani doctor, my mother was a nurse. We moved to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia when I was small.
Around 6th grade I began to understand that although I called Saudi Arabia home, the Saudis themselves regarded me as an alien. Part of the reason it began to even matter to me that I should be Saudi, was because the nationality that I did have (American) I did not like.
My parents ensured my sister and I had a good Islamic education and upbringing. They were proud of us when we covered our hair to go to the Saudi Arabian International School in Riyadh. But ironically, although I lived in a country where covering head to toe was the law for women, within the confines of an American run institution I was mocked and humiliated for being different. Being called a “Paki” threw me into the world of colonized and colonizer.
This is when I realized that I was not allowed to be whomever I chose. I learned to fear. I became frustrated with my insecurities and determined I could never be an American. This made it all the more important that I consider myself a Saudi: it was the home I loved; the people were of a faith that I loved.
So there I was, not caring to be Pakistani (I took it for granted but it was not my home, and how could I belong to a land where people made fun of my accent?); neither did I want to be American. The only identity I wanted – Saudi – I was unable to have. So I went back to the US for boarding school and was stuck with the label of “foreign student” for the next 8 years.
The one identity that I had complete liberty to choose and which gave me a sense of control was that of my faith. Islam was an identity no one could question. So in my second year at university I decided to wear the head scarf. I was determined to show my faithfulness to Islam and I wore my identity proudly.
But what gradually occurred to me was the respect and kindness I was receiving in the USA. Indeed, when I wore the scarf to college, my professors were even more kind and attentive. People asked me to share my faith with them. It was amazing. By the time I graduated I was proud to be an American Muslim.
In my recent self-searching, it occurred to me that when I had put the hijab on, I had not done so only from religious conviction. It was to take back control. If I wore the veil, then people's attention would focus on my religion and not my color and ethnicity.
In “Identity and Victimhood” the author Diane Enns asks: “…does the need to belong become an absolute and exclusionary need only when it is threatened by external forces, only when thorugh discriminatory pracitces one’s belonging suddenly becomes an act of resistance? Do we ask only how hatred has been made into a community but never how that community has been made out of hatred?”
Facing discrimination in my youth led me down a path I may not otherwise have chosen. If it were not for a boy who told me how stupid I looked with a scarf on my head, perhaps I would never have felt the urgency to wear it as soon as I got the courage. If it weren't for the fact that the Saudi government did not allow me to call that country my own, I may not have become so fierce in demonstrating my religious identity.
Although clinging to Islam was spiritual survival… wearing the hijab was at that time a form of resistance for me. The ultimate question I must ask myself regularly is: Am I playing the role of a victim in the world of politicized identities today, or am I taking the initiative to be who I want to be?
If it took me so long to get out from under the politicized identities imposed upon me, how much more difficult is it for those in conflict-ridden areas in the post-colonial and post-9/11 world to escape the labeling they encounter? Do we cling to our identities because there is a benign need to belong, or is it an act of resistance due to historical trauma and insecurity? For years it was comfortable for me to live within my shell of having only a Muslim identity. It was not until the Initiatives of Change Connecting Community Fellowship Program in the United States that I regained my sense of identity as a human and that I shared it with all of humanity.
What will my children go through when they are discriminated against for being Muslim, with relatives who are Shià (their father is Iranian) and of Pakistani heritage, and in my daughter's case, as a female? My hope is to instill in them that they must first and foremost identify with their Creator and then with all of humanity. Only after that must they consider their other identities as relevant to whoever they are.
Anjum Ashram Ali
At the time of writing, the author was the co-chair of Hope in the Cities USA.
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