Susan Slyomovic’s article “New York City’s Muslim World Day Parade”, explores the power of a parade in defining a cultural group’s identity, solidarity and power. The display of the parade held in it a great deal of meaning, which each aspect of this procession veiling a hidden significance. The very constituency of organizers and participants, which unites different Muslim groups in the public eye and in support of the religion, superseding the schisms within different Islamic sects, is a quintessential part of the shaping the parade. People who disagree come together in order to demonstrate the thriving of the Muslim people as an ethnic community of New York. Even the mere location of the march is representative of the power of a group and how long its roots have been sowed in the history of modern-day New York City. This perception from the view of the organizers of how each little piece that comprises the parade has a unique importance is enlightening. The aims of this demonstration of unity and pride magnified successfully shows what a passerby on September 22nd may not see when the parade passes by. Even the method of marching is extremely telling of the culture represented in this parade. The very way in which partakers chose to march, “sideways, backwards or in circles [as opposed to in]… solemn military formation”, examines the reorientation of the start of the parade, form which Muslims involved turn themselves toward Mecca to start with prayer, before turning back toward the direction of the Lexington Avenue path that the parade follows.
Unlike other ethnic groups who choose this mode of unification to demonstrate their presence and pride to the rest of New York City, costumes and decorations are replaced instead with Islamic ethnic dress and messages broadcast on signs in the form of Koranic passages as well as the Kaaba of Mecca as a float. An aspect of this ceremony (of sorts) that links it to other parades is that it embraces the subtype of being not only Muslim, but also American, with those involved embracing their Muslim identity in dress, food and prayer, but using the parade as an exchange and gathering of the American people who associate with their Muslim identity. The parade through New York City is, in itself, a uniquely American show of the strength of a community that plays a role in the cities vast ethnic foreground, yet the use of prayer and common chants in praise of Allah, religious garb and music that reflects the values of the Quran of the Islamic religion allow for another hyphenated group, Muslim-Americans, to join together and show the city their unity and their slice of New York. The question that Slymovic’s argument presents is as to why this parade is the only one in recognition of a specific religion. It seems that for every other religious group there is either a national pride (i.e. Israel) or other unifying parade by which groups find a way to represent them. Is the Muslim population, whose numbers are undoubtedly misrepresented in things like the NYC census, incapable of uniting on any front other than religion? Is the city bridging gaps that cannot otherwise be created by utilizing the need for a united perception in the public eye and using religion as the building blocks?
