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Meet Taliya Seeking Safe Spaces for Social Analysis and Action At age seventeen, growing up in Florida, Taliya is a soft-spoken but ambitious young intellectual with exciting dreams for her future. Born in Pakistan, she came to the United States when she was two years old. In the ninth grade she moved from an Islamic school to a public school. Today she plays tennis and soccer, likes to make films, and “loves books . . . mostly historical . . . they’re very interesting and they help my vocabulary.” On her survey, the only “very true of me” item she checked was “I feel that I have to be perfect.” A voracious reader, she studies history and is a dedicated social analyst. Concerned about the Muslim diaspora and global conflict, she speaks eloquently about the Ottoman Empire, conflict in the Basque region of Spain, and Protestant-Catholic violence in Ireland. Today Taliya wears traditional dress, covers her hair, prays five times a day, and attends mosque twice a week. Five years ago, the events of 9/11 shook her twelve-year-old world: After 9/11 . . . because of the seriousness of the event, and the rest of civilians whose innocence was . . . it was all like really fast. You know, like one moment I was sitting at school and the next moment on TV, there’s like the news about terrorists and people committing that crime. And then, you know, I experienced a sense of confusion that particularly because . . . like you know, I was twelve. So that was kind of like, “Whoa! What was going on?” . . . you know? But now, I’ve kind of understood it better, in a sense, because probably I have matured more. Later in the interview, she elaborated on the relentless and dangerous forms of racial profiling that have followed the U.S. “war on terror”: Taliya: OK, right now they are racial profiling Arab Muslims, right? And that was in the beginning and then they started doing like different Muslims, because they came to realize that they don’t just come from an Arabic country but from Pakistan . . . and other . . . So they kind of like broadened their profiling 152 ❙ —Muslim profiling. And like, like, before they only used to pay attention to the men. I think it is because like it’s like, in the Palestinian lands, like the men used to do suicide bombings first. . . . And then they moved onto [women], because . . . the women started doing it, you know. Madeeha (interviewer): So they crossed that gender divide? Taliya: Yeah, yeah, and like so I think like if you stop one way, you know, you’re going to find out another way to do it. Oh you know, you may be paying attention to our men over here, but there might be a Mexican who is doing the same thing . . . you know, killing civilians, that’s wrong. But then I mean you can’t take it out on the people who are not responsible. Taking the position that the United States should “back off” from global warfare and imperialism, she offered numerous examples of cultures and civilizations that “despite their conflicts, they dealt with them on their own, and so, you know, without interference.” In contrast, she’s most concerned that President Bush decided to go into Afghanistan because of, you know, the Taliban and all that stuff. And then he decided, “Oh, why not go into Iran or, you know, Iraq,” and so, in a way, you kind of see he’s moving because in a way, he’s moving . . . like he’s paying attention more to the Muslim world instead of like other parts of the world. For example, Spain. Spain has problems, too. Like they have terrorists, too and then Ireland too. Like Spain has like . . . there are regions that are divided. And the northern region is fighting with the southern region. The northern region wants liberty. They want to create their own nation . And so they’re using this means of terrorizing people and like taking their policemen away . . . Also in Ireland, the Protestants and the Catholics are still fighting . . . taking it out on the innocent people. Like . . . the Ottoman Empire, like it was one of the greatest empires and I mean they did have their conflicts. And like during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. But at the same time, they dealt with it . . . and still produced like one of the greatest mathematicians , scientists. Taliya roots her identity in the Islamic diaspora. Her identity map represents...

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