Concentration Camps and Comic Books
by Naif Al-Mutawa
Creator of THE 99
When I was 20 years old I boarded a train for Auschwitz.
The year was 1992. Courtesy of 10 years at a predominantly Jewish
summer camp in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, I was probably
the only Arab child that ever grew up fearing the Holocaust. I took
the initiative of seeing with my own eyes a place whose existence is
held to be an absolute truth by some, so much so that its denial is
punishable by law in some countries. Nonbelievers have told me that it
didn't exist. Typically this debate is about heaven. What I saw was
hell.
It was a dreary winter day. Having arrived in Berlin, I connected to
Krakow where I took a cab to the camp. Walking around, I absorbed the
unfathomable. That same winter I also visited Terezin in
Czechoslovakia and Dachau in Germany trying to wrap my mind around
what I had seen. I remember wishing I could go back to the days when
the only Jewish camp I had ever set foot in was in New England.
Thirty years ago, I boarded a plane to Camp Robin Hood.
My parents wanted me to concentrate on strengthening my English.
America was the future. I made friends at camp and I read and I wrote
and I imagined. I became enamored with fiction and the endless
possibilities on the pages of books. I learned about the duplicitous
nature of stories. I learned that some of what I had been raised with
as true was false. And I returned the favor. The most salient lesson I
learned was the importance of perception in shaping how I am seen and
how I see others. I would later solidify that knowledge in my
education and training as a psychologist.
In 1996 I met my Manhattan optometrist, Dr. Koty, for the first time.
He asked me where I was from. And when I told him I was from Kuwait,
he asked if I knew what Koty was short for, replying rhetorically that
Koty is short for Kuwaiti. My doctor, it seems, is a fourth generation
Kuwaiti Jew born in New York. Small world. He could have been, he
should have been, my optometrist in Kuwait.
It is easy to forget that for over 1000 years the only place to be
Jewish and safe was among Arabs. The terrible history of persecution
culminating in the Holocaust wrought on the Jews in Europe shamed the
world and hastened international acknowledgment of the need to create
a safe haven for the Jewish people. But one people's gain would soon
become another's loss. There is no escaping the fact that the creation
of a homeland for the survivors of one of history’s most terrible
tragedies was in itself a tragedy for the existing inhabitants of that
homeland, any more than we can escape the horrible reality of those
who were gassed in concentration camps. These are mutual truths. One
cannot accept one without accepting the other. To do so would be
morally and intellectually dishonest. And frankly, would be the worst
kind of fiction.
My children now attend Camp Robin Hood. I hope they grow up fearing
the Holocaust as I did. And I hope their Jewish counterparts at camp
grow up fearing the idea of waking up one day only to find that a
group that had survived a terrible massacre was now being allowed to
take over their home using a holy book as their deed. It is through
this type of social interaction that real change can happen. Perhaps
the fifth generation of Kotys will move back to Kuwait to open up
their businesses. I will certainly raise my children to welcome such
possibilities.
But it will take more than individual efforts based on idiosyncratic
experiences to make a significant difference. It will require
concentrated efforts from the educational as well as the entertainment
industries in entities where prejudice has been institutionalized and
fiction is routinely peddled as fact, and fact as fiction. Just as it
took several positive portrayals of African-American presidents in NBC
TV's "24" to pave the way for President Obama and his message of hope,
so it will take a concentrated effort of established entertainment
properties that represent various cultures to interact in a meaningful
and exploratory way to pave the way for cross cultural communication
through mass media.
When I created THE 99, I made sure that the heroes were from 99
countries to facilitate such interaction. I thought I would have to
work alone. I was wrong.
THE 99 and DC's Justice League of America have joined forces. By
working with their American counterparts such as Superman, Batman and
Wonder Woman, THE 99 will work hard to implement President Obama's
recent message of cultural tolerance. THE 99 and the The Justice
League heroes are never identified by religious orientation but it is
clear what archetypes they are based on. Together, they will likely
explore issues of trust, multiculturalism, and how people, real and
super, perceive one another. Imagine the good that can come from a
frank conversation between THE 99's burqa clad hero, Batina the
Hidden, and JLA's Wonder Woman the, well, the not so hidden. If we can
show how perceptions are unfairly formed, we can take great leaps in a
single bound towards transforming them. And what better characters to
explore such issues than Superman and Batman who were created by
Jewish young men from New York and Cleveland at the height of
anti-Semitism and THE 99 who were created by a Muslim during the
height of Islamophobia (and who went to camp with a bunch of Jews from
Cleveland and New York!).
When I was an undergraduate in the United States, the Middle East Club
was celebrating the Independence Day of one of its countries. We took
shifts at a table to distribute falafel with a big red sign behind us
that read FREE FALAFEL in bold letters. Students wandered over,
mingled, learned a little history and ate some falafel. The event ran
smoothly until a woman left a meeting being hosted by Amnesty
International, hurried toward us, dropped her bag on the floor,
pointed up to the sign with both hands and exclaimed "Whose Falafel?!"
We were confused until we realized that she actually wanted to free
Mr. Falafel.
Sounds like a job for Superman (and THE 99!)
____
* Dr. Naif Al-Mutawa is creator of THE 99, a group of superheroes
based on Islamic archetypes. He is a 2009 recipient of the Schwab
Foundation Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award at the World Economic
Forum. This is a version of an article which appeared in Washington
Post/Newsweek-On Faith and is distributed by the Common Ground News
Service (CGNews) with permission from the author.
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