Frequent Flyer Muslims

Post 9/11 humor allowed

       Maz Jobrani, Tissa Hami, Bryan "Preacher" Moss

     Shazia Mirza, Azhar Usman, Jamel Debbouze

     Maysoon Zayid, and Ahmed Ahmed

Wednesday, 09MAY2007

Wolf Blitzer Now a Comedy Act Critic

THE SITUATION ROOM
Aired May 9, 2007 - 1900 ET

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: They call themselves an axis of evil that you can laugh at.

[SNIP]

Now playing, what's being called the axis of evil comedy tour on radio, on stage. Comedians trying to help Americans understand Middle Easterners and getting some laughs along the way.

[SNIP]

When President Bush first used the phrase axis of evil he probably never thought it would be the catch phrase for four guys looking for laughs and understanding. That's exactly what's happened as CNN's Jill Dougherty explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Picture you're running through with machine guns, all right, knapsacks, machine guns and climbing under things.

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, another stop on the axis of evil comedy tour. Another chance to explain the subtleties of Middle Eastern identity.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Iranians are Persian and not Middle Easterners.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not Arabs.

UNIDNETIFIED MALE: Why don't you guys move here?

UNIDENTIIFED MALE: No no, they are Middle Easterners, they're not Arabs, there's a difference.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm very confused.

DOUGHERTY: This axis of evil is made up of four American comedians. Maz Gibrani (ph), born in Iran. Ahmed Ahmed (ph), born in Egypt, Aaron Qatar (ph), a Palestinian-American. And Dean Obidala (ph), son of a Palestinian father and a Sicilian mother.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are the new enemy. We've replaced the Soviet Union. And we're stuck here until somebody replaces us. That's why I'm begging all of you to help taunt North Korea as much as possible.

UNIDNETIFIED MALE: You have to get them on board with you and let them know that hey, I get it, you guys have a stereotype of us and I know what you see.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And the overall message is that we're proud of our background and ethnicities and that's why we're doing this.

DOUGHERTY: A lot of material these comedians use in their act comes from current events and they don't have to look far. Check out this article that appeared in the local paper the day they arrived. "Muslim leader gets death threat." Ahmed Ahmed (ph) gets stopped at airports a lot. His name matches an alias of a terrorist on the FBI's most wanted list.

UNIDNETIIFED FEMALE: Come on sir, oh, wait, you're supposed to take off your jacket. But I'll do a body search for you, oh!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is uncomfortable.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mmm-mmm.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's not necessary, is it?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, it is, honey. Oh!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Arabs love to cuss in English. They cuss their heads off in English. They won't do it in Arabic, because then God could hear them.

DOUGHERTY: Is there is a point you could go too far? Is there a line in other words in your comedy?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Any jokes about Mohammad. Any jokes about Prophet Mohammad are forbidden. Stay away from him.

DOUGHERTY: Like his fellow axis of evil comics, he says you can scare people into laughing. He quotes a comedy colleague who's a rabbi.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He always says you can't hate anybody when you're laughing with them. So it's nice when we're doing our shows to see the diversity in the crowd and people actually laughing together. You see Arabs and Jews and White, and Mexican and Black, and they're all sitting together and they're all sharing the same laughs. Comedy's like food or music. It's universal.

DOUGHTERTY: Jill Dougherty, CNN, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: They really, really are funny.

Thursday, 20OCT2005

Did 'terrorists' use bioweapons on war protesters?

I Have Chosen to Stay and Fight by Margaret Cho
Patty Hearst: Her Own Story by Patty Hearst
Friday, 21OCT2005

Funny Woman Takes Activism Seriously
Doug Grow grow@startribune.com - Star Tribune

Ed. note: Farheen Hakeem has been performing as a stand-up comedian in Minneapolis and Chicago at various local venues such as: Patrick's Cabaret, Intermedia Arts, Fringe Festival, Hot House (in Chicago), and many fundraising events. The title of her performance this weekend is "Stand-up Comedy: Just an average American Hijabi that won't shut up." Right! Farheen Hakeem, also a Mayoral candidate for Minneapolis, has said, "I hope to talk about four important issues: affordable housing, livable wages, sustainable economics, and an anti-racist approach to public safety."

Reality keeps messing with my deeply held stereotypes.

Stereotype: Muslim women in traditional garb are not exactly rib-tickling funny.

Reality: Farheen Hakeem is a stand-up comic who wears a hijab (head scarf) and modest garb.

"You don't wear a bikini with a hijab," said Hakeem of her attire.

Hakeem, who has been doing comedy for six years, was the Green Party's candidate for mayor of Minneapolis in last month's primary election. She finished third, behind Hennepin County Commissioner Peter McLaughlin and Mayor R.T. Rybak, but got a surprising 14 percent of the vote and a ton of comic material.

"I'm not the sort who thinks all white people look alike," Hakeem said, "but I have to say that R.T. and McLaughlin do look pretty similar. If you gave R.T. a bad haircut and caught McLaughlin stepping out of a yoga class, I don't think you could tell them apart."

Hakeem, 29, laughs at how both Rybak and McLaughlin have tried to get her endorsement since the primary. She's having no part of it. "Why would I endorse anyone who can't pronounce my name?" she asked.

The top two candidates weren't the only people in the campaign who failed to dazzle Hakeem. My brothers and sisters in the media didn't always impress her, either. Seems many carried the same stereotypes as I did.

She said conversations with most reporters went like this:

"Where are you from?" the reporter would ask.

"Aren't you going to ask me my name first?" she would reply.

In fact, she thinks the more most of us got to know her, the more disappointed we were. We wanted her to be from Iraq. Or Iran. Or Somalia.

Turns out she was born and raised in Chicago by parents who emigrated from India. She has a degree from Oberlin College in Ohio and spent a few years teaching math before taking her current job as membership coordinator with the Girl Scout Council of Greater Minneapolis.

"That's not the story they wanted to hear," she said. "They wanted to hear about how my dad beat me. They didn't want to know that actually my father's 5'2", 72 years and absolutely adorable."

Her parents were quite concerned when she told them she was running for mayor of Minneapolis.

"They said, 'This is just a fad, isn't it?' " she said. "Then, when I got 14 percent of the vote, they said, 'You're planning to run again, aren't you?' "

She does believe she'll run again. Her dream is to bring together members of the gay and lesbian community with the Muslim community. "It's a difficult bridge to build," she admitted. "But just imagine if I can pull it off. We'd have George Bush's greatest nightmare. We'd have the terrorists and the perverts working together."

But before the next political race, she plans to continue doing gigs. (Her next one is Tuesday night at Jitters in Minneapolis.)

She loves comedy because it's a wonderful teaching tool.

I know I learned a lot in a few minutes with Hakeem. I now know, for instance, that Muslim women in traditional garb sometimes laugh, and that they never mix a bikini with a hijab.

Republicans: No Heart, No Conscience

"This government appears to be completely out of control..."
- Lou Dobbs, CNN

Let the Buyer Beware by Lenny Bruce

Rapper who Applauded 9/11 Loses Airport Gig
By Mike Glenn and Renee C. Lee - Houston Chronicle

When Bassam Khalaf raps, he calls himself the Arabic Assassin.

A Houston-based rapper said his decision to call himself the "Arabic Assassin" was meant to stir up a bit of controversy in the music business.

The stage persona - along with some incendiary lyrics in one of his songs - also helped get Bassam Khalaf fired this month from his job as a baggage screener at Bush Intercontinental Airport.

"I thought it was kind of ridiculous. What does my music have to do with my job?" Khalaf said Thursday.

He lost his job July 7, about six months after he joined the Transportation Security Administration as a baggage screener.

"He was fired because of threatening language that undermines the public's trust in the agency," said Andrea McCauley, spokeswoman for the TSA's regional office in Dallas.

According to the termination letter Khalaf received, his songs "applaud the efforts of the terrorists on September 11th, encourage and warn of future acts of terrorism by you, discuss at length and in grave and alarming detail various criminal acts you intend to commit, state your belief that the U.S. government should be overthrown, and finally warn that others will die on September 11, 2005," The Associated Press reported.

The lyrics on a Web site featuring music from his CD Terror Alert contain offensive language and talk about anarchy, harming children and blowing up airplanes, McCauley said.

"We looked over (the Web site) ourselves and, certainly, we were very concerned," she said.

"When you're charged with protecting the American people and you discuss how you will do harm to them, then it behooves us to terminate your employment," she said.

Khalaf doesn't deny that the material can be considered somewhat shocking but said it is an artistic statement and doesn't mean he supports or condones terrorism.

The lyrics on one song, Bringing the Pain, include references to flying a plane into a building on Sept. 11, 2005.

"It's just entertainment. I'm no different than Eminem," Khalaf said, referring to the popular but controversial rapper.

Khalaf, 21, said he told a couple of people at the airport about his interest in rap music but said he always acted professionally as a baggage screener.

"It was the best job I ever had," he said. "Even the guy who fired me said I was a good employee."

Khalaf said some of the other employees at the airport likely found out about his rap-oriented Web site and reported him to the authorities.

"I know somebody up there snitched on me," he said. "A lot of people up there are jealous of me."

Khalaf said he believes his Arab-American heritage had something to do with his job problems at the airport.

"I know part of it is racially motivated," he said.

TSA officials, however, flatly deny that race played any part in his termination.

"We hire people of various ethnicities at all times," McCauley said.

Khalaf, who describes himself as a Christian, was born in Houston and is of Palestinian descent. His family moved to the United States about 40 years ago.

He didn't want to join the military but said he applied for the TSA baggage screener position to do his part in the war against terrorism.

"I don't support any terrorism anywhere," he said. "It's not cool for anybody."

Khalaf believes the publicity from his termination may actually help in his plans to get a recording contract.

"Last week, I was a nobody," he said. "Now, everybody wants to talk to me."

On the Web: Khalaf's music Web site. NOTE: This site contains obscene material.

It Depends on What "Throes" Is
By Professor Juan Cole

Ed. note: Since 9/11, especially since 9/11, although Election 2000 wasn't funny either, and the Iraq war? Only ongoing tragedy to speak of there, and then along comes Big Dick Cheney with more than 2,260 Google references to his throes quip. Professor Cole didn't let him get away so clean. I am posting It Depends on What "Throes" Is because I hold hope for the potential of post-9/11 humor.

It started when Cheney went on Larry King Live last month and said this:

"I think we may well have some kind of presence there over a period of time," Cheney said. "The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."

This is the man who "knew where exactly" Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction were and who was sure Iraqis would deliriously greet the US military as liberators.

Virtually nobody agreed with Cheney. Senator John McCain, when asked if it was the last throes, sighed "No." Senator Chuck Hagel suggested Cheney was disconnected from reality.

Then there was this exchange at a senate hearing between Sen. Carl Levin and General John Abizaid, the Pentagon's senior officer in the Gulf:

'Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich.: "General Abizaid, can you give us your assessment of the strength of the insurgency? Is it less strong, more strong, about the same strength as it was six months ago?"

Gen. John Abizaid, top U.S. commander in the Persian Gulf: "In terms of comparison from six months ago, in terms of foreign fighters, I believe there are more foreign fighters coming into Iraq than there were six months ago.

"In terms of the overall strength of the insurgency, I'd say it's about the same as it was."

Levin: "So you wouldn't agree with the statement that it's in its last throes?"

Abizaid: "I don't know that I would make any comment about that other than to say there's a lot of work to be done against the insurgency." '

In other words, a lot to be done and no progress in the past 6 months.

So then Wolf Blitzer at CNN came back to Cheney and asked him again about the last throes.

BLITZER: The commander of the U.S. Military Central Command, Gen. John Abizaid has been testifying on Capitol Hill.

CHENEY: Right.

BLITZER: He says that the insurgency now is at a strength undiminished as it was six months ago, and he says there are actually more foreign fighters in Iraq now than there were six months ago. That doesn't sound like the last throes.

CHENEY: No, I would disagree. If you look at what the dictionary says about throes, it can still be a violent period -- the throes of a revolution. The point would be that the conflict will be intense, but it's intense because the terrorists understand if we're successful at accomplishing our objective, standing up a democracy in Iraq, that that's a huge defeat for them. They'll do everything they can to stop it. [Cheney then invoked the Battle of the Bulge in December of 1944.]

Cheney contradicts himself here. On the one hand he redefines "throes" as capable of lasting a long time. Then he goes back essentially to predicting that the Iraqi guerrilla war will be over in about six months. Isn't that the implication of his invoking the Battle of the Bulge?

Then Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld goes on Fox Cable News and says this:

'Rumsfeld said: "We're not going to win against the insurgency. The Iraqi people are going to win against the insurgency. That insurgency could go on for any number of years. Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years." '

So now not only has there been no progress for six months, not only is there a lot of work to do, but we are not in December, 1944 of WW II at all. We are in 1963 of the Vietnam War, with 12 years to go, and we can't win. The Iraqi ARVN has to win.

But my real question is whether "throes" can mean what Cheney alleges.

The Oxford English dictionary defines a "throe" as

' 1. A violent spasm or pang, such as convulses the body, limbs, or face. Also, a spasm of feeling; a paroxysm; agony of mind; anguish. '

That just doesn't seem to me to be the sort of thing that could last for several years at a time. A spasm has to be over with pretty quickly.

The Bard gives us this: "Their pangs of Loue, with other incident throwes That Natures fragile Vessell doth sustaine." [SHAKES. Timon V. i. 203] So here a throwe [throe] is a pang, as in a pang of love. (Spelling it without the "w" seems to be a seventeenth century practice that only arose late in Shakespeare's lifetime; i.e. it is a late innovation).

A lot of early modern writers used "throes" to refer to a mother's birth pains:

Milton says, "My womb..Prodigious motion felt and rueful throes." [1667 MILTON P.L. II. 780]

And Pope writes, "Her new-fall'n young..Fruit of her throes." [1715-20 POPE Iliad XVII. 6]

Defoe has, "Frequent Throws and Pangs of Appetite, that nothing but the Tortures of Death can imitate." [1719 DE FOE Crusoe (Hotten's repr.) 408] Again, a pang, as in a pang of appetite. I wouldn't say a pang of appetite could go on for years ordinarily.

But Cheney didn't just speak of a "throe." He said "the last throes, if you will." Apparently we won't. But in any case, the last throes are the spasm of a dying body, of the sort that actors find it so difficult to do convincingly. Afficionadoes of classic silly comedy movies will remember when the dying prospector kicks the bucket in "A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World." I mean, his foot actually strikes the bucket as he dies. That's the throes, Dick.

OED says the Scottish spelling of this was deid-thraw. I thought that had an ominous ring to it, sort of like something you'd find in Frank Herbert's Dune books. "The deid-thraw of Abu Musab."

Spenser in the Faerie Queene gives, "O man! have mind of that last bitter throw." (I. x. 41)

I thought this entry rather good: "The agony of . . . outrage transcends the throes of dissolution." [1833 H. MARTINEAU Tale of Tyne vi. 113 ]

In fact, I'm pretty sure that's how just about everyone feels about Cheney's assertion about the throes in Iraq.

Cheney is wrong to mix up two separate usages of "throes." The "last throes" are the "paraxysm of death," and imply a quick end. The "throes of revolution" are a different sense of the word.

The OED gives, "When a nation is in the throes of revolution, wild spirits are abroad in the storm." [1856 FROUDE Hist. Eng. (1858) II. ix. 373]

You can say that again. Also watermelons and dogs rigged up with bombs.

The throes of a revolution is a figurative sense of throes, drawing on its meaning of "convulsion, paroxysm," and perhaps invoking its archaic connotation of the pangs of childbirth. It just isn't the same as "the last throes" unless you actually were speaking of "the last throes of the revolution."

So, I have to reject Cheney's explanation to Wolf Blitzer of what he meant by the "insurgency" being in "its last throes, if you will." He wasn't talking about the throes of revolution. He was talking about kicking the bucket. Pretty soon. And the guerrilla movement in Iraq just isn't in the last throes of anything. It is in throes all right, of some sort. But there's no death rattle to be heard except that of its victims. And we can expect this to go on for years (I'm agreeing with Rumsfeld! Help!)

The OED on etymology or the origins of words is sometimes hard to follow. But I waded through what it had to say about "throe." And I conclude that the whole thing is probably a series of mistakes, something like Bush's malapropisms. Throe as a word was given to us by a series of people very like Bush. It should probably be the "thrawes of death."

"[Throe is a late alteration (noted first in 1615) of the earlier throwe, throw (which survived as late as 1733). The origin and history of ME. {th}rowe (found c 1200), and its northern form {th}raw(e, {th}raw, thrau (known c 1300, and still in use in Sc.) is not quite clear."

It may come from the verb throwen or thrawen, which early on (i.e. when the Buyids of northern Iran ruled Baghdad) meant "to twist, rack, torture." That works for me. But there are apparently reasons to think it got mixed up with other verbs over time.

Such a series of linguistic errors is hard on dictonary makers. Bush produces them by the bushel.

Bush has refered to America as the world's "pacemakers" instead of "peacemakers". Or he has spoken of the need for the Americas to be an "economically vile hemisphere." He has called for "the end of terriers," which appears to be a mongrel dog made up of "tariffs and barriers". Or he said, "I understand there's a suspicion that we - we're too security-conscience." Or "Who could have possibly envisioned an erection - an election in Iraq at this point in history?" (Jan. 10, 2005)

In the same way, some Bush ancestor seems to have messed around with thrawen and thrawe and turned it into throw and then later on misspelled it throe.

And then Dick Cheney came along and reinterpreted it as something that could last for twelve years in a row.

Margaret Cho - Honorary Assassin
By Ayatolljahso

Because someone has to say it...

What Margaret Cho has in common with Muslim comedians is funny. KOS writes: "If you're lucky enough to have Cho play a gig near you, you really need to catch it. I love that woman!" Click on pic for assassin dates.

'Allah Made Me Funny' Highlights
Contributions of American Muslims

American Muslim standup comedian Azhar Usman, who has been touring across the U.S. and Canada as one of the headlining comics on the "Allah Made Me Funny - Official Muslim Comedy Tour," wasa featured on ABC NEWS Nightline with Ted Koppel. The program takes an in-depth look at one man's hopes and challenges as an American Muslim comic in post-9/11 America, underscoring the importance of the ever-present cultural hurdles faced by minority groups throughout U.S. history-acculturation, assimilation, and Americanization. According to comedian Azhar Usman, "Muslims in the media today are generally seen in an unfavorable light. The Nightline story is a move in the right direction as it highlights some of the positive contributions of American Muslims. Since 9/11, the Muslim culture has been defined by assumptions and stereotypes that only work to enhance cultural gaps and misunderstandings. We are reaching out as a matter of self-determination and self-definition, rather than letting others define us." He added, "We are of course indebted today to community advocacy organizations like CAIR that work tirelessly with the media to make such positive coverage of Muslims possible." According to Arsalan Iftikhar, National Legal Director for CAIR, "The history of American standup comedy is inextricably linked to the history of the American civil rights struggle. From Dick Gregory, to Lenny Bruce, to Richard Pryor, Azhar Usman and the 'Allah Made Me Funny' tour are taking their cues from the very best of the American comic tradition." 'Allah Made Me Funny - The Official Muslim Comedy Tour' launched in May 2004 and has landed in over 30 cities across the U.S. and Canada, has received international and national media attention including the BBC, Washington Post, TIME, Newsweek, Atlanta Journal Constitution, LA Times, King Magazine, numerous ABC, NBC and CBS affiliates, as well as Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart." For more information on the tour, please visit www.allahmademefunny.com.

Flying While Muslim
By Ayatolljahso

Did you hear the one about Cat Stevens?

As posted on The Geeze: Yusuf Islam got popped in the U.S. when some of the old and untrue Israeli dirt about him "supporting terrorism" stuck. No mention of an Israeli connection in the Larry King interview with Yusuf last week on CNN, although he was required to do a little song and dance about his nee-yah (intent). Yusuf may have the last laugh if he chooses to sue the John Ashcroft Department of Justice and Homeland Security for Patriot Act abuse.

Also see Cat Stevens has the Last Laugh CLICK

Comedy is Serious Business for Shazia Mirza
By Ed Bradley (CBS)

She's been called the world's only female Muslim stand-up comedian, which sounds like a joke in itself. But for Shazia Mirza, comedy is a serious business.

In Britain, where she was born, Mirza has overcome the prejudices of both Muslims and non-Muslims to become a leading figure on the stand-up comedy circuit.

And far from hiding her religion, she makes a point of emphasizing it by the clothes that she wears whenever she goes on stage.

Muslim women traditionally wear the hijab or headscarf as a sign of modesty. It's supposed to make them anonymous. But for Mirza, it's become her trademark, and it's made her famous.

It's what this 27-year-old unmarried Muslim wears, not just when she goes to the mosque, but also when she performs in the male-dominated, beer-swilling world of British stand-up comedy.

Correspondent Ed Bradley reports.

With her dry wit and deadpan delivery, Mirza doesn't spare herself or her predominantly white audiences:

"I'm really pleased to be here tonight actually because my dad has let me out for the night. So I'm not going to stay long. Actually, he's picking me up in 10 minutes. He thinks this is a library."

"Now, I don't drink alcohol. It's against my religion to drink alcohol, but my English friends, they always seem to have such a great time when they go out. They get drunk. They wake up in the morning and say, 'I had a brilliant time last night. Where did we go again? Who is the father of my child?' I want to be drunk, I want to cry, fall over and roll down the street. It looks like so much fun."

Mirza says that on stage, she just tells the truth about how she sees and feels about the world: "I tell the truth about my experiences and my life."

She once said that she didn't make jokes about sex because, as a devout Muslim woman, she didn�t know about that. "I never make jokes about sex because I've never had it, and that's true," says Mirza. "I've never actually gone on stage and made up a story just because I thought it was funny. There would be no point in me being a stand-up if that was the case."

Born in Birmingham, England, to first generation Pakistani immigrants, Mirza says that from a young age she knew what she wanted to do with her life. But it wasn't a career choice that went down well in the community where she was raised.

"All the adults would ask the kids, 'What do you want to be when you grow up? What do you want to be?' And all the kids were really well-trained. They'd all say, 'Well, I want to be a brain surgeon, I want to be a dentist, I want to help all the sick kids in Africa,'" recalls Mirza.

"And when they'd say to me, 'What do you want to be?' I'd say, 'I want to be an actress, I want to be on the stage.' And my dad would go, 'Leave the room. You've showed us up, leave the room.' And it was really seen as a shameful thing to say in front of people in the community, 'I want to be on the stage.'"

As a good daughter, Mirza followed her parents' wishes, and after earning a degree in biochemistry, she became a teacher in London. But in the evenings, she secretly enrolled in drama school, and was soon making a name for herself on the stand-up comedy circuit in the city's pubs and clubs.

In the summer of 2001, she even played that Mecca of British entertainment, the London Palladium. But then came the event that threatened to put an end to her career before it had barely begun.

"When 9/11 happened, I thought I'm never going be able to do stand-up comedy ever again. Nobody's going to want to hear comedy from a Muslim woman after 9/11," says Mirza. "There was so much hatred towards Muslims that I just thought, I was scared to go on stage."

But three weeks later, in a club in London's Soho, Mirza decided to confront the problem head on: "I went on stage and said, 'Hello, my name's Shazia Mirza, at least that's what it says on my pilot's license,'" says Mirza.

"I remember people gasping, going, 'Ah!' So they were really shocked and then they laughed. There was so much tension in that room when I'd walked on that people were actually quite relieved that they could laugh."

The pilot's license joke went around the world and was translated into a dozen languages. Mirza was asked to perform in Europe, Japan and in the United States. She even used that line in her act when she came to America.

"Most of the people in the audience laughed, but there was an American man on the front row, sat right in front of me and he just put his head in his hands like that and he started shaking his head," recalls Mirza.

"And I saw him afterwards and he said, 'My sister died in the World Trade Center.' And I said to him, 'I'm not making jokes about the people that died. I condemn what happened, but what I'm trying to say is that not all Muslims are terrorists.'"

But not all Muslims appreciate Mirza's attempt to defuse religious and cultural tensions. Some send her vicious emails calling her a prostitute and a disgrace to her religion. And when she came to London's Brick Lane neighborhood, to take part in an Asian comedy show, the conservative Muslim community who live here certainly didn't see the joke.

"I had only done the first two lines of my act and there was a group of Bangladeshi boys in the audience. They jumped up onto the stage and they grabbed me by the neck and they pushed me off the stage," says Mirza.

Did she consider giving up stand-up comedy because of that? "Yeah, I was so scared, actually, that I was scared to go home that night," recalls Mirza.

"For about two weeks afterwards, I was scared to be in the house by myself because I thought that they would come after me and get me. But then, I started doing whatever I wanted to do."

And Mirza did whatever she wanted to do when she appeared last summer at the Edinburgh International Arts Festival.

"Now, are there any Muslims in here tonight," said Mirza in front of a multi-cultural audience. She then joked about a pilgrimage she made to Islam's holiest site.

"Last year, I went to Mecca to repent my sins, and I had to walk around the black stone. All the women were dressed in black, you could only see their eyes. And I felt a hand touch my bottom. I ignored it. I thought, 'I'm in Mecca, it must be the hand of God.' But then it happened again. I didn't complain. Clearly, my prayers had been answered."

Does Mirza think that there's anything in the Koran that prevents her from being a stand-up comedian?

"No, I don't. I don't believe that what I'm doing is wrong at all. Islam gives women a lot of power, and it gives women a lot of freedom as well," says Mirza.

"And I'm sure that, you know, Prophet Mohamed, peace be upon him, he laughed, everybody laughed. I mean, how are you gonna get through life if you don't laugh? ... I'm sure that God has a sense of humor. I hope he finds my jokes funny."

But there was one subject that Mirza found no laughing matter, and that was telling her parents about her new career and the world in which she now lived.

What did she do? She didn't tell them at all. In fact, the first inkling her parents had that their daughter was no longer a teacher was when they saw her on a TV comedy quiz show.

"And my dad said, 'I'm so proud of you. You was on the game show last night,' and I don't think he quite realized that actually I was a stand-up comedian, and I didn't just happen to arrive on this game show," recalls Mirza. "Then I started to appear on TV more and more, and I think it suddenly began to dawn on him that there's something not right here. How can she be a teacher and be appearing on the TV at the same time? And I think for a long time, he was in denial about it."

So when 60 Minutes invited ourselves to the Mirza family home in Birmingham for a Sunday lunch party, we were surprised to find that Mirza's father, Ayaz, now claims to be one of his daughter's greatest fans.

"Well, we really feel quite privileged really," says Ayaz Mirza. "I'm glad she hasn't gone into any other profession." Then, he says to his daughter, "So, you must give me credit that I have readily accepted the change."

As for Mirza's mother, Sarwat, her main regret is that her daughter hasn't yet found a husband. And it's a situation that makes her the butt of many of Mirza's jokes.

"Single, Muslim men in Britain. And in it, it has height, weight and size of beard -- all the most important things in a marriage. But my mum's so desperate now, she says, 'Look, get a white man and convert him.'"

Mirza says her mother has a "massive" list of good Muslim men for her: "Initially, she used to tell the boys that I was a teacher, and I used to get loads of offers for marriage. And it's funny, because now when she does tell boys and their parents that I'm a comedian, they don't even get to meet me. They say, 'We're not interested.'"

Mirza says, however, that her husband would have to be a Muslim. The only exception? "I would only marry George Clooney if he converted to Islam," says Mirza. "That'd be all right."

Mirza's mother doesn't know who George Clooney is until Shazia tells her he�s a Hollywood film star. "Oh, right," says Sarwat Mirza. "Well, I don't mind."

"You're desperate now," says Shazia, laughing. "You don't care. Anything will do."

But after everything she's been through to get this far, the difficulty of finding a husband doesn't deter Mirza from the career that she's always dreamed about.

Drawing on her experiences as a single Muslim woman traveling around the world, she continues to challenge the prejudices and preconceptions of her audience on stage:

"I got on the plane to Denmark dressed like this, and this woman refused to sit next to me. So I said to her, 'I'm going to sit on this plane and blow it up. And you think you're going to be safer three rows back?'"

"I do want to do something different. I want to do something challenging and I want to take risks, but above all I want people to be entertained," says Mirza. "I want them to laugh. Because the only way of talking about some issues sometimes is through humor." MORE

Yusuf's Islam should be showcased, not shunned
By Rannie Amiri - YellowTimes.org

What kind of power, / What kind of demon is this / Who kicks me out in shame, / With every word he says / What kind of majik of majiks.

Where have my brothers gone, / Why I don't see them about / They're all around him now. / And keeping me out / What kind of madness, of madness / "Go on and let him in, he's only asking for / A simple job to do and nothing more" they said.

Cat Stevens, "Majik of Majiks"

By now, we are all aware of the ridiculous circumstances which led to the detention and eventual expulsion of Yusuf Islam from the United States after he landed on a September 22 flight from the United Kingdom. Best known as 1970's pop icon Cat Stevens, he converted to Islam, both in faith and name, in 1977. Although the recent events still remain murky, the official explanation provided by the Department of Homeland Security was that Islam's name was found on a "no-fly list." The department's Undersecretary for Border and Transportation Security, Asa Hutchison, pathetically sought to clarify the matter by saying Islam's name was on the list due to "a connection to some type of terrorist activity."

Overlooking the fact that those who detained him felt safe enough to request his autograph, Yusuf Islam was deported for fear he posed some (yet unspecified) threat to the general public. The Bush administration wasted no time in reminding us that Israel had also denied him entry in 2000 for allegedly giving money to Hamas. The spin which followed, therefore, was that Islam may be funneling money to terror groups in the Middle East and elsewhere through his organization and charitable works.

As such, let us take a look at them.

His charity, Small Acts of Kindness, has been active in reducing poverty in war-torn regions, such as the Balkans and parts of the Middle East, and in promoting education-based initiatives. Always vocal in his condemnation of the 9/11 attacks (as well as the massacre in Beslan and beheadings in Iraq), half of all proceeds from his latest boxed set have been allocated to the September 11 Fund. A rekindling of his music career of old was warmly greeted by fans when he performed at an AIDS benefit concert sponsored by Nelson Mandela in South Africa last November, while proceeds from the re-release of his famous song "Peace Train" were sent to help Iraqi children affected by the war. He was most recently in the United States this past May, on an apparently unhindered journey, to meet with officials from the government's own Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

Hardly what I would call the resume of a terrorist.

Islam's expulsion ironically came shortly before the release of an October 4 poll by the Washington-based advocacy group, the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). This sought to assess the perception of Muslims and the Islamic faith in general among ordinary Americans. According to the results, one in four hold anti-Muslim views, such as believing the religion advocates violence and hatred. The same number agreed with the statements: "Muslims teach their children to hate;" "Muslims value life less than other people;" and Muslims want to "change the American way of life." On a positive note, two-thirds believed that "the people who use Islam to justify violence are misinterpreting its teachings." Overall, however, negative images of Islam and Muslims were 16 times more prevalent than favorable ones.

If one heard any of the interviews Islam gave after his ordeal, it would not have taken long to appreciate the sincerity and devotion the man has toward fostering greater understanding and communication between peoples. "My dream is to be able to build a bridge between the Islamic world and the non-Islamic world," he said. "Some of the problems that we have now are because there's a lack of a voice for that majority of people who stand in the middle, looking for peace."

An articulate spokesman for a religion that has been hijacked in many ways by certain extremist groups, you would think the Bush administration would court eloquent, internationally respected figures such as Islam in an attempt to minimally salvage the United States' dismal standing among Muslims.

This is not their intention or objective, though. Rather, it is to continue justifying an ever-increasing erosion of civil rights, allegedly needed to fight the "war on terror," by raising a specter of guilt based solely on nationality or religion. The CAIR poll numbers indicate they are headed in the right direction.

If the public can be convinced that Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam represented a genuine danger to public safety, branding him an extremist and terrorist threat worthy of deportation, rest assured they can do almost anything to anybody.

Baby, what a wild world it is sure to be.

Rannie Amiri is an independent observer, commentator, and exponent of issues dealing with the Arab and Islamic worlds. Thanks to YellowTimes.org. Also see a backgrounder on The Geeze link.

Honarary Frequent Flyer Muslims

Yusuf Islam, Once Cat Stevens, Plans Comeback Album
By Don Jeffrey - Bloomberg

Yusuf Islam, the singer who was known as Cat Stevens before he underwent a spiritual conversion, will release his first pop-music album in 28 years in November.

The recording, "An Other Cup," will be distributed by Atlantic Records in North America in a venture with Islam's own label, Ya Records, Atlantic said today. New York-based Atlantic is owned by Warner Music Group Corp.

Islam, who as Cat Stevens wrote and performed such 1970s hit songs as "Moonshadow" and "Morning Has Broken," became a Muslim and changed his name in 1978. His conversion came after he almost drowned in the ocean off Malibu, California. He was prevented from entering the U.S. in September 2004 after being placed on a terrorism watch list by the government.

"I feel right about making music and singing about life in this fragile world again," Islam, 59, said in a statement distributed by Atlantic. "It is important for me to be able to help bridge the cultural gaps others are sometimes frightened to cross."

A native of London, Islam released his first U.S. album, "Tea for the Tillerman," in 1970. It has sold more than 3 million copies in the U.S.

After his religious conversion, he dropped out of the music business and worked in charities and educational development, including starting three Islamic schools in London, Atlantic said. More than 1.5 million copies of the songwriter's recordings are sold each year, according to the label.

After hearing that Islam was preparing a new record, Atlantic Chief Executive Officer Craig Kallman flew to London to meet with the musician.

Return to U.S.

"He was just beginning rehearsals for this album," Kallman said in an interview. "It was a chilling experience sitting in a very tiny rehearsal room as he was working through all the new material."

The new album "speaks to the essence of all the great Cat Stevens albums of the past," Kallman said. Atlantic plans to have Islam come to the U.S. to help promote the album around the time of its release.

In 2004 Islam was denied entry into the U.S. when his plane from London was diverted to Maine and he was sent back to the U.K. Islam was placed on the watch list "for activities potentially related to terrorism," Homeland Security spokesman Garrison Courtney said at the time.

"We don't anticipate any problems in the future when he arrives," Arsalan Iftikhar, national legal director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said in an interview today.