Prepare for the “invasion” of Muslim creatives…
Prediction Sep 18, 2017: A generation of Millennial Muslim Makers are about to infuse their Post 9/11 secular and religious sensibilities on a world that doesn’t know they exist… yet.
If you are a Muslim you might be walking with a bit of a swagger today. If you are a Muslim creative you may even be thumping your chest too.
You didn’t do anything, but one of “yours” did something Earth Shattering.
We don’t deserve any of the credit. That belongs to Riz Ahmed, his family, friends, and the people who supported him when he was making art far away from both Mainstreams consciousness and traditional Muslim sensibilities.
But he has created a moment for “us”. By being the first person of Pakistani-Muslim (don’t cry Brits we know he is British too) descent to win an acting Emmy. Heck he the first man of South Asian descent to win, and he has capped off a phenomenal rise and exploded onto the world stage in the last 18 months from Sweat Shop Boys to Star Wars to his win now for The Night Of. Usually you can’t say that word and Muslim and it be a good thing right?
But explosion is what is about to happen.
The nerds, the film geeks, the anime heads, the hop hop beat makers, the calligraphers, poets and the play rights….
…Who happen to be Muslim.
A moment to stop hiding from the contradictory identities we have.
To unleash their art on a world that seems to have you boxed into choosing from religion, or secularism, or nation, or culture …
That says because you are Muslim that creating a world changing story isn’t for you but for someone else.
No.
We Muslims are mixed, of everything and of nothing. We are you, but we are also somethings else. From every ethnography the Earth produced.
Our Art is going to be spectacular because it comes from a place no one can copy. Because we don’t even agree on what it means to be “Muslim” now in the first place.
We aren’t afraid if you label our Art as Muslim, we will just point out the Christian secular residue in most of the stories you loved (Matrix anyone? Narnia? Every Vampire movie ever?).
We aren’t afraid of being called bad Muslims, because we are fighting to have a voice for the very people who think we are haram (like the Muslim parents who criticize their kids art but are waking up and celebrating Riz today).
Yes, we have a moment and it is part of this wave of People of Colour dismantling whitewashing too. Of undoing Colonialism and White Supremacy before our very eyes.
We are reclaiming a heritage of art that Giant Companies, and the Western world exploit for their own gain but leave us out in the cold.
Many of us have Eastern Names with Western Accents, We are the next Rumi’s, the Next Jasmine’s, and we are building the next Alhambra's.. But we are creating it in a city near you. Sharing it on this thing called the internet.
We do it at a time where any action by 1 of a billion plus of us, makes us all responsible. Makes us all terrorists, makes us defend ourselves for things we had nothing to do with by people whose faith we share but we don’t recognize. Those of us regular Muslims physically and psychologically savaged for nearly 16 years by every possible enemy, and even some friends who think they mean well.
But Art. Our Art is our voice and our fightback to reclaim and remix narratives of this thing we love called Modernity, and this thing we love too called Islam. Riz is just the beginning but he has showed us we can go to the highest levels.
We are the Muslim Creatives and…
…and we are coming to get this work.
Inshallah (go translate that, it’s not a threat just a promise).
Nadir Shirazi is the creator of the website nadzstradamus.co
He is also the creator and executive producer of MultiFacet an anime and trans-media series in development that stems from his secular Canadian and religious Muslim identity post 9/11.
www.themultifacet.com (Project History)
www.themultifacetfaq.com (Project Trajectory)
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/themultifacetseries/the-multifacet-series-1st-refraction-web-motion-co (Failed Kickstarter, but describes the project really well!)
Connect with him by email ideas@nadzstradamus.co or on social media at fb.com/nadzstradamus
