Aegis 2012
110
Book Review >>> Sara McElroy
The Submission Amy Waldman. New York: Farrar, Staus and Giroux, 2011. 299 pp.
Amy Waldman’s The Submission is a novel that interweaves the lives of people who were affected by 9/11 in ways that combat, suspect, reinforce, and support what it means to be patriotic. All of the characters in the novel are connected to the same looming issue: an American-born architect, possessing the Muslim name Mohammad Kahn, of who constructs the winning 9/11 memorial design in an anonymous competition. The controversy that ensues questions patriotism, democracy, deceptive politics and press, and the proper place and time of sentimentalism. Mohammad, who was born in Virginia and prefers to be called “Mo,” and the “Muslim American Coordinating Council,” are being targeted by patriotic Americans and scheming politicians for radical beliefs that initiated the 9/11 terrorist attack. The stereotypical assumption is that Mo’s design, named “The Garden,” is a martyrs’ paradise for the terrorists that died (Waldman 78). If the jurors on the memorial council decide against Mo’s design, the democratic spirit of freedom that America conjures as its pillar is shattered; if his design is carried out, then the patriotism that unifies a damaged country is likewise shattered. The Submission combats Frederick Jackson Turner’s essay on “The Frontier in American History,” which calls for a galvanizing force or “new order” of Americanism (Turner 18). In the novel, American “patriots” are using their collective/group identity as a “composite nationality” as a way to weed out any person, nation, religion, or anything that would threaten their precious uniformity,-- namely Mohammad Kahn and his inherited associations (Turner 22). Under no other constitution could there be an opportunity for the puppeteering fingers of politicians and their vocal chords, the press, to rally Americans to be for patriotism and against American constitutional foundations. Trickled down from politicians, the press uses inventive deprecating words to persuade citizens to turn to subliminal prejudice. The collective narrators in the novel embody diversity in America, while wrangling with their own obstacles of prejudice and stereotyping. Being divided between his cultural heritage and his home, Mo jokes about shaving “half his face,” and begins laughing hysterically when he realizes the paradox he is placed in, “being in the crosshairs of nations, religions” (Waldman 240). For political leverage he is encouraged to assimilate with America and not only “humanize” himself, but “Americanize himself,” as though being a naturalborn citizen is irrelevant if you possess an unfavorable culture that threatens patriotism (Waldman 209). The concept of the frontier plays a role in The Submission because the novel is illustrating how categorization of “true American” ideals bulldoze cultural heritage in an invisible way. Sentimentalism used to protect these “families” directly or indirectly affected by 9/11 is initially the prime reason why Mo’s design, “The Garden,” may be an unsavory
