Editors' Note September 2007

August 30, 2007: all passengers on an American Airlines flight are removed from a plane and made to wait until the following day to leave San Diego for Chicago.

Why? Because a group of six men had been speaking Arabic in their seats. Other passengers heard the criminal language and complained to flight attendees. American Airlines responded by canceling the flight.

After leaving the plane, the six men were questioned by local law enforcement officers about why they were speaking Arabic.

This is, in one way, shape, form, or another, the question that Arabs around the United States are asked daily: why are you speaking Arabic? Why are you Arab?

This question parallels the question asked of all minorities in this country: why are you speaking Spanish? Dump the hip-hop: can’t you learn to speak like an educated person? Why can’t you be white like everybody else?

America is becoming increasingly an English-only zone. It is becoming a place where other languages, especially those of the downtrodden and vilified, are frowned upon. “Speak our language in our country.”

It’s no coincidence that the possessive pronoun, that linguistic capitalist, has found its way into the political logic of this country. It’s no coincidence, either, that with fear of other languages, comes fear of other people, and fear of other politics. It’s no coincidence that the Martin Luther King Jr. you know is the quiet protester that President Bush salutes once a year, instead of the loud, principled, and active anti-imperialist whose speeches Time magazine eventually likened to those of Radio Hanoi.

So the question is not about language, but about politics. It is about the various ways certain communities are excluded from the political system. it is about the reason you have to start off every talk about Palestine with an apology for terrorism. It is about the reason you have to assert that you support the troops even though you oppose the war.

The question then is how do we respond. We respond like this. With narrative. This magazine will give a home to the politics, the culture, the voice, the language that the political system leaves unsheltered. We are letting a new narrative erupt out of this volcano of frustration and injustice.

In beginnings,
Yaman Salahi and Husam Zakharia