Intersections: Multiculturalism in a world of fear
I woke up to kids running up and down the neighborhood streets in their best outfits this week. That, and the early-morning aromas emanating from the houses near mine was a sign that Eid al-Fitr, an Islamic religious holiday that marks the end of the month of fasting known as Ramadan, had arrived.
I watched them dart between parked cars wearing brilliant shades of green and blue, as visitors came over to break the fast with the first morning meal these families had had in a month.
It was early, and the heat hadn’t reached its full potential yet. People were out on their porches, taking in the day, waiting for food cooked diligently by their mothers and sisters who aren’t as frequently part of the street landscape as the men.
I waved as they ran by, and they waved back. Later, as I drove around town, I noticed a new Bosnian restaurant had opened and the roses in the courtyard of the Ukrainian church were in full bloom. In this small corner of Detroit, life seemed harmonious for a bit, things were in a state of equilibrium and co-existence, and I wanted to stay in this moment forever.
I feel like turning off the world. I don’t want to think about another bombing, another massacre, another reporting montage from a remote country that shows only its death and destruction, another police shooting of black Americans, 122 shot and killed by police in 2016, according to the Washington Post.
As I stayed up well into the early morning and watched the BBC announce that the UK had voted to leave the European Union, a moment that will be permanently ingrained in my memory, I wanted to turn off the world, but I couldn’t.
England is a place that I have spent a considerable amount of time in, and I was horrified as I watched reports come in of attacks, motivated by the vote, which whether it intended to or not, legitimized racism against those who were perceived to be foreign.
News outlets reported racist incidents against people of Polish descent, videos of people shouting “Go back to Africa” and members of British right-wing nationalists gathered outside a mosque waving a flag that read “Rapefugees Not Welcome.”
A UK talk radio outlet called LBC featured a German woman who had lived in the UK for over 40 years, but had dog feces thrown at her door, and was told to “go back home.” She said, “I am so, so scared.”
I am scared, too. This is the reality of 2016, and I don’t know how to deal with the division and dehumanization happening in every corner of the globe. I don’t know how to come to terms with the fact that we now live in a time where Facebook has implemented a feature to mark people as “safe” during terrorist attacks and other disasters.
I found myself methodically going through the pages of friends to make sure they had been marked “safe” during the most recent bombings in Turkey and then I read about a Michigan mom who took a photo of her 3-year-old daughter standing on a toilet, initially thinking it was funny but then breaking down after her daughter told her it was practice for a lockdown drill at preschool.
We are living in an era of stark contrasts and extremes, and while the reasons about how we arrived here are complex and lengthy, we are heading into a place that prioritizes division and difference over community and understanding, a place that would not allow the multicultural community I am now living in to exist, and that’s something we should all be frightful of.
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LIANA AGHAJANIAN is a Los Angeles-based journalist whose work has appeared in L.A. Weekly, Paste magazine, New America Media, Eurasianet and The Atlantic. She may be reached at liana.agh@gmail.com.