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
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