Twenty-five years after 9/11, two pieces of journalism, describing two different phenomena in contemporary New York, tell us a great deal about a city, and indeed a world, caught between two eras. In one, New York Magazine dives into “Habibi City”, a New York where a “cultural shift is underway, led by a generation of New Yorkers coming into its own(崭露头角、发挥所长)”. This new generation is labelled as originating in “SWANA(西南亚与北非的缩写)” – south-west Asia and north Africa, a region that “includes countries from Palestine to Iran to Sudan”. In the other, Vanity Fair describes calls for Zohran Mamdani to not attend the 9/11 memorial ceremony as partly founded in “inchoate, emotional” impulses, that see “the city’s first Muslim mayor as a stand-in for the 19 Muslims who hijacked four planes and turned them into deadly weapons, part of the ‘them’ who attacked ‘us’.”(另一篇《名利场》则称，要求马姆达尼不出席纪念仪式的呼声部分源于模糊的情绪冲动，这种冲动把这位穆斯林市长当成劫机者的替身。)
“9·11”事件过去二十五年后，两篇新闻报道描绘了当代纽约两种截然不同的现象，它们共同揭示出这座城市——乃至整个世界——正夹在两个时代之间。其中一篇，《纽约》杂志深入报道了“哈比比之城”（Habibi City）：在这座纽约，一场“文化转型正在发生，引领者是逐渐崭露头角的一代纽约人”。这一代新人被标注为来自“SWANA”，即西南亚与北非，这一地区“涵盖从巴勒斯坦到伊朗再到苏丹的诸多国家”。另一篇，《名利场》则描述了要求佐兰·马姆达尼不要出席“9·11”纪念仪式的呼声，认为其部分源于“模糊而情绪化”的冲动，这种冲动把“这座城市的第一位穆斯林市长当成了19名劫机者的替身——正是这些人劫持了四架飞机，把它们变成了致命武器，是袭击‘我们’的‘他们’中的一员”。
Together they capture what has changed over a generation, and what remains stubbornly(顽固地、执拗地) the same. Members of a diaspora(侨民群体、离散族群) of Muslim background are indeed breaking through(取得突破、崭露头角) and accumulating, as New York Magazine says, “clout(影响力、势力)”. They are no longer simply a fixture of bodega(（拉美裔）小杂货店)s and halal carts, but of Saturday Night Live(美国老牌深夜喜剧综艺节目), upmarket dining, entertainment and politics too. Mamdani is both the expression of that cohort(一批人、群体) and the catalyst(催化剂、促发因素) of its recognition as an emerging force. They care deeply for their local communities but also for those in Gaza and beyond.
这两篇报道合在一起，既捕捉到了一代人之内的变化，也捕捉到了顽固不变的东西。穆斯林背景的侨民群体确实正在取得突破，并如《纽约》杂志所言，不断积累“影响力”。他们不再只是杂货店和清真餐车的常客，也出现在《周六夜现场》、高档餐厅、娱乐界乃至政坛。马姆达尼既是这一群体的体现，也是其作为新兴力量获得承认的催化剂。他们深切关心自己的本地社区，也关心加沙及其他地方的人们。
I use the descriptor(描述性词语、称谓) “of Muslim background” rather than “Muslim” because this diasporic identity is a diverse one that is rooted in a religion but expands to encompass(包含、涵盖) everyone from the practising to those for whom Islam is a cultural totem(图腾、象征物).The capaciousness(包容性、容量大) of this heritage is demonstrable in its integration – without compromise – into mainstream American society. Mamdani and the Democratic Senate nominee for Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, recuse(回避、退出) themselves from the rote(机械的、死记硬背的) fealty(效忠、忠诚) to American glory and dare to point out both US support for Israel and the calamitous(灾难性的) outcomes of the “war on terror(美国“9·11”后发动的全球反恐战争)” in the Middle East.
我使用“穆斯林背景”这一说法，而不是“穆斯林”，因为这种侨民身份是多元的：它植根于一种宗教，却扩展到涵盖从虔诚的信徒，到那些只把伊斯兰教当作文化图腾的人。这份遗产的包容性，体现在它毫无妥协地融入了美国主流社会。马姆达尼和密歇根州民主党参议员候选人阿卜杜勒·埃尔-赛义德，拒绝盲目效忠美国的荣耀，敢于指出美国对以色列的支持，以及“反恐战争”在中东造成的灾难性后果。