WHAT A MUSLIM MAN MUST PUT UP WITH AMID OUR TRIVIAL PURSUITS

Since none of you need any reminder what happened five years ago today, here's something sports-related on the anniversary of Sept. 11: The Calgary Sun's Dan Toth has a good column about Calgary Stampeders offensive lineman Rahim Abdullah and his experiences as a Muslim man who frequently takes international flights:

"If I fly five times, I get searched five times," Abdullah said.

"Go into the special line, take off your shoes, all kinds of stuff. And it's all because of my name.

(snip)

Time in his home country has made him skeptical of the U.S.-led 'war on terror' initiated by President George W. Bush following the 9/11 attacks.

"America says it has a war against terror, right? It's a lie," said Abdullah.

"It's not a war against terror, it's a war against Islam. If it was a war against terror, not only would al-Qaida be a target for America, the Ku Klux Klan would be a target because the Ku Klux Klan is the oldest and biggest terrorist organization there is and they operate freely. They have fundraisers, they have rallies, all sorts of things. It's a hypocrisy going on."

Abdullah is also angry at al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, who masterminded the 9/11 attacks, for perverting the teachings of Islam and making many non-Muslims wary of the faith.

Abdullah feels justified in his anger. People who look askance at anyone with brown skin these days probably feel justified as well. In a sense, this segues into trying to explain why a lot of people in the West who are of a centre-left bent are ambivalent toward the so-called war on terror.

It's not that there isn't a global terrorist threat that needs to be dealt with. There is.

This ambivalence stems from the disappointment at seeing all that passionate energy that was brewing in the days and weeks immediately after Sept. 11 wasted on hate and fear.

Do you remember? For a couple weeks, at least, people did wonder if our values and priorities here in North America were out of whack. No one who died that day or who lost someone close to them deserved that. As Chris Turner put it in his book Planet Simpson, "We were horrified but resolute, finally ready to move beyond the trivialities of reality TV and day trading and a new pair of Nikes."

Well, look around. Did that happen? Not by a long shot. For all the talk about how "the world changed," our day-to-day lives are more or less the same.

We were ready to be pointed in a new direction. Instead, aside from beefed-up airport security and bigotry and xenophobia being more out in the open, very little changed. People who live a nice middle-class lifestyle still make little to no effort to relate to how other people of different backgrounds or cultures live. They say they mean to, but then there's always some new reality show that diverts their attention.

That's why, for this middle-class WASPy male, who is never going to be subjected to the treatment Rahim Abdullah gets because of his race and religion, finds everything about this day to ring a bit false. Deep-down, yours truly feels the war in Afghanistan might be a just war (Iraq isn't), but can someone define what it is we're fighting for?

It's freedom and democracy, but please forgive me if those concepts get distilled down to a mental image of a teenage girl at the mall wearing jeans that expose her butt crack, talking loudly on her cell phone and drinking a Starbucks coffee.

Let's face it, for those of us who didn't directly suffer due to Sept. 11, 2001, there is despair because we remain mired in our trivial pursuits. By the way, I'm fully aware of the irony of using a blog to inveigh against our trivial pursuits, so don't bother pointing that out.

OTHER BUSINESS

• Take a second to read about Emilie Mondor, the Canadian Olympic runner who was killed in a car crash over the weekend. She will be missed.
• Vikings-Redskins live blog, 7 p.m. Eastern.
• Every 31 years, like clockwork: the Arizona Cardinals (or as Deadspin calls them, the Buzzsaw) scored three touchdowns in the first quarter in their win over San Francisco. The last time the Cardinals did that, they were still based in St. Louis and the game was played in Shea Stadium. (Hat tip to the Elias Sports Bureau.)

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.