A Surveilled Existence: One Muslim’s Reality in America

This article emphasizes the illusion of an American society most people believe functions as an accommodating entity whereby all citizens are provided the spaces to live free and achieve. Based on Dr. Kablawi’s experience, however, freedom demands the conformity that provides freedom. This American reality transforms some Muslims into perpetual prisoners of society. The following narrative illustrates how purpose can be discovered in a surveilled existence. What is offered is not some idiosyncratic rant against America or an invocation about the superiority of one religion over another. Rather, the purpose is to highlight the structural impediments that make being Muslim a struggle in world. This story is told in the first person but speaks to a much broader reality