His dreams soar despite the distrust

For American Muslims since 9/11, few acts could be considered more ill-advised or foolishly provocative than enrolling in flight school to get your pilot's license.

Which is why Monem Salam had to do it.Well, proving a point wasn't the sole reason. Salam has dreamed of being a pilot since he was a boy in Pakistan. He was drawn to Bellingham Airport by the same force as everyone in his beginner's class. He wanted to touch the sky.

It's just that the others didn't have everyone they knew telling them they were nuts.

"I heard it over and over, from all the Muslims I spoke to," Salam said recently from his Bellingham office, shortly after his noon prayer.

"They'd say: 'Are you crazy, Monem? Are you trying to make trouble for yourself?' "

Behind the doubts loomed 9/11. A sense that life for American Muslims fundamentally changed that day. Why poke that bee's nest of suspicion? Why not lay low?

"And yet every non-Muslim I spoke to urged me to go for it, to follow my dream," he said. "It made me wonder: Are we Muslims afraid of something that is not really there?"

So Salam, a 35-year-old adviser for an Islamic mutual fund, went to the airport to ask around about pilot training. Then he enrolled in a flight school, Bellingham Aero.

The next day, the FBI showed up, asking questions about him. He was the school's first student ever to attract the scrutiny of the FBI. Even though he has been a U.S. citizen since 1986.

"My Muslim friends were all saying 'See?' " Salam says. "They said it was inevitable I'd end up on a watch list."

Maybe someone at the airport got suspicious and decided better safe than sorry. Salam doesn't know. It happens, often enough that when he's in airports as a passenger, he'll hide behind a ticket counter or a flight info board to bow down in prayer to Allah.

It's all part of Flying While Muslim.

But this story, Salam says, "is not about victimization." This time, a funny thing happened on the way to our usual pigeonholes. We stopped ourselves.

The good folks at Bellingham Aero soothed the FBI and encouraged Salam. Though one non-Muslim friend admitted his gut reaction to Salam's pilot lessons was "He's a terrorist," Salam resisted the lure of paranoia.

Last summer, he earned that pilot's license. He adheres to Sharia — Islamic religious law — so he couldn't celebrate with a drink. He jumped up and down, hooting and hollering. Later he flew, heart soaring, out over the San Juans.

All this is captured in a new film, "On a Wing and a Prayer: An American Muslim Learns to Fly." It will air on KCTS Channel 9 in Seattle, at 10 p.m. May 20.

Salam says mostly what you hear about Muslims are stories of righteous anger. And what you hear about America and Muslims are stories of distrust.

"My story is that anybody in America, including Muslims, who has a dream can go out and fulfill it," he said. "There are obstacles but you can't assume this country is against you. If you do, it becomes self-fulfilling."

I don't know if that's headline news. But it ought to be.

Danny Westneat's column appears Wednesday and Sunday. Reach him at 206-464-2086 or dwestneat@seattletimes.com.