As a Bostonian and Muslim, I Wept Monday – And Worried

By Rabail Baig, Guardian UK

17 April 13

It seems that until proven otherwise, terrorists are Muslims, and for some, all Muslims are terrorists

have your stubble before you come to bed, Haider," I told my husband Monday night. He looked up at me from the computer chair without the slightest hint of protest and smiled, "of course". A couple of hours into the night, with him sound asleep right next to me - asleep like nothing had happened - I shivered from post-traumatic stress. Cold sweat trickled down the side of my forehead meeting warm tears at the corner of my eye and disappearing into a big, wet circle on the pillow. It was my second Patriot's Day Boston Marathon, my husband's third. I recalled spending all evening answering calls from back home in Pakistan, saying often, "Allah nay bachaya," (Allah saved us). But did he?

Earlier on Monday, I was sitting with Haider and three other friends around small tables at the Prudential Center food court when we heard, and felt, the loud thud. If we were around a table somewhere in Karachi, Pakistan, my hometown, we would have said a little prayer in our hearts and continued eating, hoping that by the time we were done, the roads would re-open and life would resume. Such is our threshold for bomb-like noises and actual life-consuming explosions.

But in the heart of Boston, on a day of celebration, it could only be Godzilla, or some other giant lizard, someone joked. Within 20 seconds, though, buried under a horde of people and after the ensuing stampede, we ended up on the terrace looking over Boylston Street - a stone's throw away from where the second blast had just occurred. Soon, a distraught mob pushed us right back into the food court. Unfinished bites and sentences, deserted strollers and upturned chairs - the large mall appeared ghastly.

As we rushed out on to Huntington Avenue, unable to wipe that dreadful sight from our heads, my phone rang. A call from Pakistan. Just then, in those very few seconds, our lives, our identities, made me want to not answer it. Our future - my husband's career in medicine and mine in journalism, our plans of having a baby, of buying a home of our own, living the American dream someday - ran through my head. I had and have never been more afraid. But I had to answer it. It was Haider's sister calling to say hello, completely unaware of what had taken place. I quickly hung up after telling her we were safe. Were we?

The phone kept ringing, all calls from Pakistan. My paranoia kept growing. "Talk in English, if they're hearing, they should know what you're talking about," I bizarrely found myself saying, even though we had little to no information about what had actually happened. "Don't say anything political. Keep it brief," I said again, all this while praying a car back-fired or a stage collapsed. As anything else would mean terrorism, and we all know what terrorism means and who terrorists are. For until proven otherwise, terrorists are Muslims, and for some, all Muslims are terrorists.

It has taken America and its large Muslim community almost a decade to recover from the dreadful events of 9/11. One does not have to have lived in a pre-9/11 America to know what has changed for the worse, both for Americans and the Muslim community in the United States and all over the world. No one knows the woes of terror more than someone who grew up in Pakistan, for we are still bearing its brunt.

Now that some of us have moved on while others back home continue to suffer, we have a lot to lose if the perpetrator of the Boston Marathon bombings turns out to be a Muslim. While I fear for our lives, our careers, our families, our goals and dreams, and for Muslims all over America, struggling for an education or to make a living, I fear most for the place and people we now call home. Whether the perpetrators were Islamic fundamentalist or white supremacist, or criminal malcontents, they did not dampen the spirit of the people of Boston to rush to the rescue of those in need.

But one does hope if these good people, who have accepted us as their own, would not question doing just that if they were to find out the offender was "one of us". I wonder whether Haider will be able to grow a stubble, just the way I like it, throw on a backpack and take me on the Green Line to Copley Square again for a bite any time soon. I wonder whether life will be the way it used to be.