2006年NPR美国国家公共电台十二月-The Right to Be Fully American（在线收听） |
| I believe in figuring out my own way to do things. I believe in the power of numbers. I believe in barbecue. Well, I believe in friendliness. I believe in mankind. This I Believe. For our Monday series, This I Believe, we’ve been inviting you to contribute your statements of personal conviction. Well, today's is one of the nearly 20,000 submissions we've received. It’s from Yasir Billoo, a 28- year-old lawyer from Miami, Florida. Here is our series curator, independent producer, Jay Allison. Sometimes, a belief becomes clear only when it is threatened. Yasir Billoo told us he’d never written this essay five years ago. It was 911, and then the national response to those events, that has forced him to realize the importance and fragility of his conviction. Here is Yasir Billoo with his essay for This I believe. I am an American, unlike almost everyone here, I am also something else. I was raised to believe that America embraces all people from all faiths. But recently, that long-standing belief, along with both parts of my identity, have come under attack, and as an American Muslim of Pakistani descent, this attack is tearing me apart. Twice, I have sworn to a pope to protect the Constitution and the laws of this nation, once, when I became a citizen, and once when I became an attorney. I live and work every day with the thought that this is my home. This is the place I can’t wait to get back to when I go overseas. I feel the same relief many of you do, standing in the customs' line and just hearing English again. It is the simple relief of coming home. But I am also a Muslim. I was born in a foreign land, my skin is not white, and I have facial hair even though it barely passes for a beard. Not only am I a Muslim when I pray my daily prayers, or when I fast during the month of the Ramadan , I am also a Muslim when I walk through airport security, or in the mall when I accidentally leave a bag of recent purchases unattended. Every day, I have to introduce myself to new clients, judges and other attorneys, and actually think of how I can say my own name, so that it might sound less foreign, less threatening. When I am in Pakistan, I found myself defending America, our way of life and our government’s policies. My Pakistani cousins are quick to point a finger at America for any world problems. And I push back to ask what the rest of the world has done that is so much better. When I am in America, my beloved home, I find myself defending Islam, my beautiful religion. I tell people to envision me when they think of Muslims and Islam, not the terrorist mug shots they see on TV. When they can do that, I feel like an American, just like them. When they cannot, I feel like a foreigner. The Koran teaches us that God created us from a single pair, and made us into nations and tribes, so that we may know each other, not so that we may despise each other. I am an immigrant, and I still believe in the basic right to be fully American and fully Muslim. But now I pray that America will keep me within its embrace. Yasir Billoo with his essay for This I Believe. You are invited to write for our series and we hope you will consider doing it. To find out more and to read and hear all the essays, visit npr.org. For this I Believe, I am Jay Allison. Jay Allison is co-editor of the new book, This I Believe, the personal philosophies of remarkable men and women. Support for This I Believe, comes from Capella University. |
| 原文地址：http://www.tingroom.com/lesson/NPR2006/40939.html |