One rarely imagines the quintessential image of an American hero having a
Muslim, Arabic name. The Syrian American
protagonist
of Dave Eggers’ elegant and powerful new book entitled Zeitoun bravely
endures the harrowing tragedy of an apocalyptic, post Katrina New
Orleans while honorably
exhibiting the best of America’s virtues and ideals. In this inspiring true story, Abdulrahman Zeitoun emerges a Good Samaritan
who voluntarily stays behind in the wake of America’s largest natural disaster to selflessly help his neighbors.
Resembling a modern day Noah, Zeitoun, fueled by an unshakable faith
in destiny and purpose, paddles the flooded waters in his simple canoe
giving refuge to abandoned neighbors and animals. Like the Biblical
prophets, however, Zeitoun’s reward for such bravery is senseless
persecution.
Despite his heroic efforts, his own government falsely suspects
Zeitoun and his friends as thieves after witnessing them on one of
Zeitoun’s rental properties. FEMA subsequently arrests the men with
force, accuses them of being “Taliban” and “Al Qaeda,” and brutally
detains them for weeks in a hellish, makeshift prison resembling
Guantanomo Bay.
In this exclusive, unabridged interview, Pulitzer nominated author
Dave Eggers discusses the Zeitoun family’s amazing journey as their
faith in the American dream and each other sustains them with hope and
strength an era of paranoia, fear and madness representing the nadir of
Bush’s America.
Here you are, Dave Eggers, a respected author and
publisher who is not Muslim, Syrian or Arab American, but all of a
sudden you spend three years of your life tackling the story of the
Zeitoun family. How and why did you become involved in this fantastic
story about a Muslim American family that endures tragedy and
discrimination with hope and resilience?
EGGERS: It started back in 2005, when we put a book together called Voices From The Storm: The People of New Orleans on Hurricane Katrina and Its Aftermath. We have
a series called Voice of Witness, where we use oral history to explore
human rights crises. The second book in the series was about Katrina
and the people neglected before and after the storm.
One of the stories in the book was about the Zeitoun family. I
immediately took an interest because of my interest in wrongful
incarceration, because I had edited a book called Surviving Justice: America’s Wrongfully Convicted and Exonerated — the first book in the Voice of Witness series.
Also, the fact Mr. Zeitoun was called “Taliban” and “Al Qaeda” and put
in an outdoor prison; it seemed so extreme, surreal, and improbable but
it was also so emblematic of that time – the darkest years of the Bush
administration. The most absurd violations of human rights and dignity
and due process were all possible.
I got infuriated hearing about this and what had happened to him. I
was in New Orleans later in 2005 and met with the Zeitoun family and
we sat down, had lunch and almost immediately we went into his life
growing up in Syria.
He told me about his [deceased] brother Muhammad, who was a very
famous Syrian swimmer. There were so many aspects of his history that
were fascinating right away that it sort of piqued the interest of the
journalist and novelist in me.
Slowly, we approached the idea of making his story, and the story of
the Zeitoun family as a whole, into a book. In late 2006, we decided to
undertake it.
First, how did you gain their trust considering what
the family has endured? Secondly, as an author, what was your role as
the storyteller? Was it to simply step back and be a vessel for them,
or was it to also add some stylistic flair?
EGGERS: One of my favorite books is The Executioner’s Song
by Norman Mailer. Mailer was known for a very overpowering style; he
was a brilliant writer. You could always tell what Mailer had written.
He was also a very good journalist. In the middle of his career he
wrote a book about Gary Gilmore: a man who had murdered innocent people
and was executed for it. Mailer went deep into this guy’s story; he
covered Gilmore’s family, his relatives, the victim’s families, and he
did it without any stylistic flair. Sentence by sentence it wasn’t
evident that it was Mailer. And yet the book was so powerful, because
the facts of the story were so incredible and you knew they were true;
Mailer didn’t have to add anything to it. He didn’t have to gild the
lily, if you will. And I took a lesson from that.
I’ve been to journalism school and I’ve worked in newspapers and
magazines for a long time. I sometimes look back at my earlier work as
a journalist and feel I was just too present and trying too hard to
insert myself into what would have been a more powerful story without
so much style. In the case of Zeitoun, I thought this story
was so important and powerful that I wanted as little as me as
possible. I wanted to use whatever skills I had as a writer to
facilitate their story, not comment on it.
You try to structure the family’s story in a way that is
approachable and understandable for a reader. I told the family from
the beginning this was about them, and not about me, and they would
have approval over the final text before published. I did the same with
Valentino Deng in What Is The What.
I interviewed the Zeitouns and did outside research, and then I
would write a passage and show them the results. They made corrections,
factual corrections, and if there were certain things they didn’t want
to reveal, I would take them out. But of course I would verify
everything I could independently. If they weren’t sure about the date a
certain thing happened, given the wealth of information about the
aftermath of Katrina, I was able to verify everything I needed to.
So, I think knowing they had a certain control over their story, it
gives them the comfort level that they can sort of start talk freely.
Kathy [Abdulrahman’s wife] especially talks very freely. She’s a very
good storyteller. She’s very open. Knowing you would have approval over
things and see it before it goes to press gives people a sort of trust.
I was more careful than they were because I know how long a book can last. I have my own book about my family [A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius]
and people still approach it every day anew, and I realize these things
don’t go away. So I was exceedingly careful for them. I’m kind of
insanely careful.
We read about Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a U.S. Citizen,
paddling in a canoe, trying to help an essentially abandoned and dying
population barely surviving in a flooded American city. And despite
this, his own United States government falsely accuses him, labels him
a terrorist, and incarcerates him. The story seems to reveal the joys,
hopes and dreams of a multicultural America but also shows the fault
lines and fissures. What does this say about modern day America? Or was
this Bush’s America and not a reflection of current times?
EGGERS: I think it was both. A lot of what you saw
after Katrina, the media coverage, shows a lot about deep-seated
prejudices. It was tragic in a way that so much of the misinformation
about what was happening in Katrina came from the [then] elected
leaders of the city: Eddie Compass [Former Chief of Police, New Orleans
Police Department], Eddie Jordan, the DA, Mayor Nagin, they all were
putting out this misinformation and talking about the rape of babies
and very little was borne out by any truth.
And the media and the American public as a whole was all too ready
to accept that the largely black population of the city had devolved to
what Eddie Compass said was an “almost animalistic state.” And now
we’re in the middle of this controversy with the arrest of Henry Louis
Gates in Boston. You need these lessons and you need these stories
actually to tell you what maybe the statistics don’t tell you, which is
that we have quite a way to go.
But in addition to the prejudices against the African American
population of New Orleans and the neglect by the Republican
administration of those folks who don’t vote for them, at the same
time, there was this other unlikely intersection with the “War on
Terror.”
In 2003, FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] was folded into
The Department of Homeland Security, which made the goals and focus of
that agency skewed. It took on too much of an anti-terrorism focus and
it crippled the agency to a large extent. It was hard to get their
attention to anything that wasn’t terror-related. You add in all these
factors: the misinformation, the paranoia, media misrepresentation, and
the overall political climate fostered by the Bush Administration and
you put all that information in the minds of the soldiers and cops who
are trying to do their jobs in the city. And you end up with some
unfortunate results.
Soldiers and cops were OK with arresting people even though there
was no due process, no Miranda rights, no judges working or anything
like that. And at the same time, the National Guard, with some soldiers
who just came back from Iraq and Afghanistan, were all too willing to
believe that there were terrorists operating in New Orleans in a
flooded city a few days after a hurricane.
Again, I thought this could have only happened in 2005. Although I
think a lot of these prejudices are far from being done with. I think a
unique intersection of all these different forces was a perfect storm
to allow something like this to happen to the Zeitouns.
Abdulrahman and the Zeitoun family seem like very
devout, practicing Muslims, whose faith inspires them to do much good.
Yet, it is also their Muslim last name and features that cause the
father, Abdulrahman, to be called “Taliban” and “Al Qaeda,” and then
later falsely incarcerated. Do you believe stories like this lay a
bridge of understanding so people like Abdulrahman’s arresting officers
slowly but surely realize that even the Zeitouns are citizens of
America – despite being brown, Muslim or having Arabic last names? Do
you think storytelling is the powerful medium to convey this message?
EGGERS: I think stories are the way we do it. I
don’t think these things usually come out as well in reading a short
story in a newspaper, or seeing a mug shot, or reading a statistic. In
the first 70 or so pages of the book – before the storm, before we the
first feel the winds of Katrina – I was seeking to just tell a story
about an all-American family that happens to be a Muslim. I wanted to
sort of “de-exoticize” the idea of the Muslim-American family – to
allow readers to learn about Kathy’s conversion [to Islam] and see the
functioning of a family that is exactly like their own. So, a Christian
reader can say, “Pretty much everything about that family is exactly
like mine except I go to church and they go to a mosque.”
This was a secondary goal. To show the reader that they were going
to read a harrowing story, but also show [a Muslim family] for those
who don’t know Muslims or have Muslim neighbors or do feel there’s
something very different about a Muslim family from their own – or
those who do have some very big misconceptions.
For example, Kathy’s friends – [after her conversion to Islam] –
initially thought, “Oh, you’re Muslim? You must worship Muhammad!” You
know, these are the weird misperceptions about the religion itself.
I think storytelling has the power to sort of walk you through it,
and put yourself in the shoes of another person. If it takes ten to
twelve hours to read a book, then you have a depth of experience and
understanding that you wouldn’t get from short bits on TV or sound
bites and such. I think it’s kind of startling that even though after
9/11 there has been this constant examination of Islam in the American
media – “Who are Muslims? What do they want?” – and yet I think there
is still an incredible amount of ignorance and misunderstanding.
Reading the Qur’an itself was so illuminating. I was able to find a
wonderful translation by Laleh Bakhtiar, and it opened me up to the
beauty of the faith in a way that no interpretation of the text had
before. And of course in the book you find, very clearly, Islam’s
dedication to social justice, to peace, and to the commitment to the
less fortunate.
Abdulrahman seems so motivated by his
faith to “help” and do the “right thing” by sticking around and
paddling on his canoe. Other times, he says it was his duty as a
neighbor and an American to help. And yet at other times, he saw his
selflessness as a way to honor the memory and glory of his dearly
departed brother Mohammed, the shining light of the family. When he’s
unjustly incarcerated, he questions himself and wonders if it was his
hubris and ego that forced him to stay behind. Why do you think he
ultimately did it?
EGGERS: First of all, you can’t shake this guy or
scare him. He’s what his friends call “old school.” He has a little bit
of a Clint Eastwood in him — indestructible. He’s not going to leave a
storm, whether it’s a hurricane or not. He’s seen a lot, he’s traveled
the world on merchant ships, and he comes from a coast in Syria where
his father and grandfather have all these stories. He’s seen many
storms and he remembers being on the island where his grandmother
lived, Arwad Island, on the Syrian coast, where much of the island was
flooded.
So he starts off thinking, Well, I’ve stayed before during other
storms here, and I know other people who have stayed – a lot of his
neighbors did not leave even though they could have. So he stays, and
of course the winds themselves did minimal damage to many parts of the
city, including his own neighborhood. But then the levees break and the
city floods. So he sets out in his canoe. I think that first day when
he and his neighbor find a woman floating near her ceiling and they
save her life, I think from then something sort of clicked. I think
that’s when Zeitoun sensed some destiny.
He is a guy who does believe in destiny and that there is a master
plan. At that point he thought, This is God’s will and I’ve been put
here for a reason. I’ve had that sensation myself. You know, much of
my fist book was about that, too. You know – this sense that what
you’re going through is all too strange to be pure chance; it’s such a
peculiar set of circumstances that it can only be God’s will.
A lot of people have had that moment when they feel God’s presence.
For him, it was very easy to stay and make himself as useful as
possible and put himself in a position where he could help by paddling
in his canoe. These are actions of a guy whose purpose was very clear
and his destiny was laid out for him.
When it gets into his hubris part, well, once you’re locked up, you
have a lot of time to contemplate. That’s when Zeitoun thought back,
“Did I misunderstand my place? Did I overshoot my responsibilities? Did
I think of myself as too important? Did I ignore other responsibilities
I have left?” All this occurs to someone when you have 3 weeks alone
in a cell.
That’s where the story of his brother Mohammad intersects.
Abdulrahman grew up in a family with one of the most celebrated, famous
Syrians in history. So Abdulrahman has a lot to live up to, and a lot
of his siblings felt that, too. That’s in part why they’re all so high
achieving. I think when you have one of your siblings walking the earth
as a living legend, there’s a lot of weight put upon you. I think that
was in his mind when he was paddling around, you know, “This is my
chance to live up to the Zeitoun name.”
Despite the tragedy and the injustice of it all, which
leaves the reader infuriated and flabbergasted that such behavior can
occur in America, the family ultimately emerges very hopeful. The book
ends on a very optimistic note. You and the Zeitoun family have started
the Zeitoun Foundation, a non-profit group created to help the victims
of Katrina and citizens of Louisiana. Take me through it – if I
contribute money how will it directly help Louisiana?
EGGERS: From the beginning, I told them I wouldn’t
be paid and I would not benefit from their story in any material way. I
just felt that the money should go directly to non-profits and families
that need it. Some of it will go to Todd Gambino [unlawfully
incarcerated in New Orleans along with Abdulrahman Zeitoun] who was in
prison for months and months, and Nasser Dayoob, the other
Syrian-American locked up. I believe people should be compensated for
their time when they are wrongfully compensated. Louisiana has some
very draconian laws when it comes to compensating exonerees.
Over the years, I was always talking to the Zeitouns about making a
list of non-profits that they like and that I like. They chose Islamic
Relief for example and also have a strong desire in helping children
made orphans by war, and the Muslim-American Society, which promotes
understanding between faiths.
At the same time, we felt most of the money should stay in New
Orleans, where there is so much more work to be done. We found some
great charities like Rebuilding Together,
which is trying to put people back in their homes in New Orleans,
especially the elderly. This is close to the Zeitouns’ heart because
this is about building and construction, which is what they’ve been
doing as a business for years.
The Zeitoun Foundation will be a very lean organization with one
part time person who’s just basically counting the proceeds as they
come in and distributing them to the non-profits chosen. For any
hardcover book, about 4 dollars go to the Zeitoun Foundation and we’ll
be able write checks from that fund, directly to these non-profits.
Ideally it’ll come to a fair amount. From the proceeds of What is the What,
we were able to build what’s so far a 14-buildings educational facility
in Southern Sudan. In this case, in New Orleans, there are so many
non-profits already doing great work that the goals can be simpler,
such as granting funds to those groups already at work in the area.
I know this is something the family is very excited about. Something
tangible and materially beneficial can come out of this. A lot of times
when someone tells you a story and it comes out in the paper, that can
definitely be very positive and raise awareness. But, if you can have
something tangible come from it, actual three-dimensional benefit, that
goes a long way to allowing the Zeitouns to feel that something good
came from their suffering.
The really good news is we just got word we will be able to ship the
first 7 checks next week. So, I love the immediacy of it, too.
