Project

I am not Muslim. I am an outsider, an intruder, a curious observer, a poseur. I remind myself of Geraldine Chaplin in Nashville, latching onto the country music scene under the pretense of making a BBC documentary.

I’m not even sure why I want to take this journey or what I expect to find. I know my curiosity stems from 9/11 and I know that some political theorists think the West and Islam will battle for the next 100 years while others insist such rhetoric simply provides a philosophical underpinning for war. I also know political scholarship does not capture the emotional complexities of individuals. Its flaw is lumping large groups with complicated individual and group dynamics into overly simplistic explanatory models, trying to predict future trends. I know visual recording and constructing of a narrative and stories provide emotional access to people, a necessary step in this day and age to humanize and empathize with one another.