ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Bassam Tariq - Creative spirit
Bassam Tariq delights in making eclectic career choices. A blogger, a filmmaker, and a butcher's shop owner, the common theme linking everything together is his boundless celebration of humanity.

Why you should listen

"Our purpose is simple: we are here to change the world’s relationship to their food." TED Fellow Bassam Tariq does not have small dreams; every project he undertakes is a big plan to make real change. Hence the butcher's shop he helped to open in Manhattan's East Village is organic, halal, and specifically designed to encourage healthier eating habits and happier families.

In 2011, Bassam and his friend Aman Ali resolved to spend each night of Ramadan in a different mosque in 30 states around the United States -- and write about the experience. The result, 30 Mosques in 30 States, was a celebration of the stunning diversity of the Muslim experience in America, and a celebration of individual stories worth telling. Similarly, his documentary, These Birds Walk, is a portrayal of real life for street kids in Karachi, Pakistan.

More profile about the speaker
Bassam Tariq | Speaker | TED.com
TEDGlobal 2014

Bassam Tariq: The beauty and diversity of Muslim life

Filmed:
1,436,069 views

Bassam Tariq is a blogger, a filmmaker, and a halal butcher -- but one thread unites his work: His joy in the diversity, the humanness of our individual experiences. In this charming talk, he shares clips from his film "These Birds Walk" and images from his tour of 30 mosques in 30 days -- and reminds us to consider the beautiful complexity within us all.
- Creative spirit
Bassam Tariq delights in making eclectic career choices. A blogger, a filmmaker, and a butcher's shop owner, the common theme linking everything together is his boundless celebration of humanity. Full bio

Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.

00:12
I'm a blogger, a filmmaker and a butcher,
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Je suis un bloggeur,
un cinéaste et un boucher.
00:15
and I'll explain how
these identities come together.
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Je vais vous expliquer
comment je concilie ces trois identités.
00:19
It started four years ago,
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Tout a débuté il y a quatre ans,
00:20
when a friend and I opened
our first Ramadan fast
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lorsqu'un ami et moi avons fait
notre premier jeûne du Ramadan
00:23
at one of the busiest mosques
in New York City.
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dans l'une des mosquées
les plus fréquentées de New York.
00:26
Crowds of men with beards and skullcaps
were swarming the streets.
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Les rues étaient remplies
d'hommes barbus à calottes.
00:29
It was an FBI agent's wet dream.
(Laughter)
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Un vrai fantasme d'agent du FBI.
(Rires)
00:33
But being a part of this community,
we knew how welcoming this space was.
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Mais, en tant que musulmans,
on se sentait les bienvenus à cet endroit.
00:37
For years, I'd seen photos
of this space being documented
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Et pourtant, pendant des années,
je n'ai vu que des photos le dépeignant
00:40
as a lifeless and cold monolith,
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comme un monolithe froid et sans vie,
00:42
much like the stereotypical image
painted of the American Muslim experience.
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à l'image des stéréotypes
de l'expérience musulmane américaine.
00:46
Frustrated by this myopic view,
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Frustrés par ce point de vue myope,
00:48
my friend and I had this crazy idea:
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une folle idée nous est venue,
à mon ami et moi :
00:50
Let's break our fast
at a different mosque in a different state
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suspendre notre jeûne
dans une mosquée et un État différents
00:53
each night of Ramadan
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à chaque nuit du Ramadan
00:55
and share those stories on a blog.
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et de partager
nos histoires sur un blogue.
00:57
We called it "30 Mosques in 30 Days,"
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Nous l'avons appelé
« 30 Mosques in 30 days ».
00:59
and we drove to all the 50 states
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Nous avons parcouru les 50 États
01:01
and shared stories from over 100
vastly different Muslim communities,
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et partagé les histoires de plus de 100
communautés musulmanes très différentes;
01:04
ranging from the Cambodian refugees
in the L.A. projects
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des réfugiés cambodgiens des cités de L.A.
01:08
to the black Sufis living
in the woods of South Carolina.
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aux Noirs soufis habitant
dans les forêts de la Caroline du Sud.
01:11
What emerged was a beautiful
and complicated portrait of America.
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Il en émergea un portrait
magnifique et complexe de l'Amérique.
La couverture médiatique
a incité les journalistes locaux
01:14
The media coverage
forced local journalists
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01:16
to revisit their Muslim communities,
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à revisiter les communautés musulmanes.
01:18
but what was really exciting
was seeing people from around the world
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Le plus excitant était de voir les gens
de partout dans le monde
01:22
being inspired to take
their own 30-mosque journey.
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être inspirés à entreprendre
leur propre aventure des 30 mosquées.
01:25
There were even these two NFL athletes
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Même ces deux athlètes de la NFL
01:27
who took a sabbatical
from the league to do so.
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ont pris une année
sabbatique pour le faire.
01:29
And as 30 Mosques
was blossoming around the world,
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Au moment où le mouvement
prenait de l'ampleur dans le monde,
01:32
I was actually stuck in Pakistan
working on a film.
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j'étais coincé au Pakistan,
où je travaillais sur un film.
01:35
My codirector, Omar, and I were at
a breaking point with many of our friends
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moi et mon coréalisateur, Omar,
ne pouvions nous entendre
01:38
on how to position the film.
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avec beaucoup de nos amis
sur l'orientation du film.
01:40
The movie is called "These Birds Walk,"
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Le film, intitulé « These Birds Walk »,
01:42
and it is about wayward street kids
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raconte l'histoire de deux enfants de rue
01:44
who are struggling to find
some semblance of family.
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désespérément à la recherche
d'un semblant de famille.
01:47
We focus on the complexities
of youth and family discord,
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Nous mettions l'accent sur la complexité
de la jeunesse et des conflits familiaux,
01:50
but our friends kept on nudging us
to comment on drones and target killings
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mais nos amis nous incitaient toujours
à parler de drones et d'assassinats ciblés
01:54
to make the film "more relevant,"
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afin de rendre le film « plus pertinent »,
01:57
essentially reducing these people
who have entrusted us with their stories
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mais en réduisant tous ces gens
qui nous avaient confié leurs histoires
02:00
into sociopolitical symbols.
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en symboles sociopolitiques.
02:02
Of course, we didn't listen to them,
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Bien sûr, nous ne les avons pas écoutés.
02:04
and instead, we championed
the tender gestures of love
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Nous avons, au contraire,
fait primer les gestes d'amour
02:07
and headlong flashes of youth.
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et les coups de tête de la jeunesse.
02:10
The agenda behind our cinematic
immersion was only empathy,
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la seule intention derrière l'immersion
cinématique était l'empathie,
02:13
an emotion that's largely
deficient from films
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une émotion rarement
présente dans les films
02:15
that come from our region of the world.
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provenant de notre région du monde.
02:19
And as "These Birds Walk" played at film
festivals and theaters internationally,
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Pendant que le film
était présenté dans des festivals
et des salles de cinéma
partout dans le monde,
Je suis finalement revenu à New York
02:23
I finally had my feet
planted at home in New York,
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02:25
and with all the extra time
and still no real money,
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en ayant beaucoup
de temps libre, mais pas d'argent.
02:29
my wife tasked me to cook more for us.
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Ma femme m'a alors demandé
de cuisinier davantage.
02:33
And whenever I'd go to the local butcher
to purchase some halal meat,
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Et à chaque fois que j'allais chercher
de la viande halal chez le boucher,
02:36
something felt off.
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quelque chose me dérangeait.
Pour ceux qui l'ignorent,
le terme halal désigne la viande
02:37
For those that don't know,
halal is a term used for meat
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02:41
that is raised and slaughtered humanely
following very strict Islamic guidelines.
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d'un animal élevé et abattu humainement,
selon des principes islamiques stricts.
02:45
Unfortunately, the majority
of halal meat in America
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Malheureusement, la plupart
de la viande halal offerte en Amérique
02:49
doesn't rise to the standard
that my faith calls for.
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ne se conforme pas
aux standards exigés par ma religion.
02:52
The more I learned
about these unethical practices,
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Plus j'en apprenais à propos
de ces pratiques non éthiques,
02:54
the more violated I felt,
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plus je me sentais abusé,
02:56
particularly because businesses
from my own community
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d'autant plus que la plupart
des commerces de ma propre communauté
03:00
were the ones taking advantage
of my orthodoxy.
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profitaient de mon orthodoxie.
03:03
So, with emotions running high,
and absolutely no experience in butchery,
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C'est donc les émotions à fleur de peau
et dépourvus d'expérience dans le domaine
03:07
some friends and I opened a meat store
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que moi et des amis
avons ouvert une boucherie
03:09
in the heart of the
East Village fashion district.
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au cœur du quartier
à la mode de East Village.
03:12
(Laughter)
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(Rires)
03:13
We call it Honest Chops,
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Nous l'avons appelée « Honest Chops ».
03:15
and we're reclaiming halal by sourcing
organic, humanely raised animals,
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Nous nous déclarons halal
car notre viande est biologique
et provient d'animaux élevés humainement.
03:18
and by making it accessible and affordable
to working-class families.
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Elle est de plus accessible
aux familles de la classe moyenne.
03:22
There's really nothing like it in America.
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Il n'y a rien de semblable
à cela en Amérique.
03:24
The unbelievable part is actually
that 90 percent of our in-store customers
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Le plus incroyable est que 90 %
de notre clientèle en magasin
03:28
are not even Muslim.
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n'est même pas musulmane :
03:30
For many, it is their first time
interacting with Islam
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Pour la plupart, c'est la première fois
qu'ils interagissent
aussi intimement avec l'Islam.
03:33
on such an intimate level.
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03:35
So all these disparate projects --
(Laughter) --
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Tous ces projets disparates...
(Rires)
...sont le résultat d'un acharnement.
03:40
are the result of a restlessness.
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03:42
They are a visceral response
to the businesses and curators
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Ils sont une réponse viscérale
aux entreprises et dirigeants
03:46
who work hard to oversimplify
my beliefs and my community,
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qui s'acharnent à vouloir simplifier
à outrance mes croyances et ma communauté.
03:49
and the only way to beat their machine
is to play by different rules.
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La seule manière de les contrecarrer
est de ne pas se plier à leurs règles.
03:53
We must fight with an inventive approach.
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Nous devons réagir
par une approche créative
03:55
With the trust, with the access,
with the love that only we can bring,
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en promouvant par nous-mêmes
la confiance, l'accessibilité et l'amour.
04:00
we must unapologetically
reclaim our beliefs
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Nous devons
mettre de l'avant nos croyances
04:02
in every moving image,
in every cut of meat,
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dans chaque image,
dans chaque pièce de viande,
04:05
because if we whitewash our stories
for the sake of mass appeal,
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car si nous laissons notre vécu
se perdre dans la culture de masse,
04:09
not only will we fail,
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non seulement nous échouerons,
04:11
but we will be trumped by those
with more money and more resources
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mais nous serons dominés par ceux
ayant davantage d'argent et de ressources
04:14
to tell our stories.
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pour raconter nos histoires.
04:16
But the call for creative courage
is not for novelty or relevance.
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L'appel au courage créatif n'est pas
le fait de la nouveauté ou la pertinence,
04:20
It is simply because our communities
are so damn unique and so damn beautiful.
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mais simplement de l'unicité
et de la beauté de nos communautés.
04:25
They demand us to find uncompromising ways
to be acknowledged and respected.
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Ces dernières méritent la reconnaissance
et le respect, sans compromis.
04:32
Thank you.
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Merci.
04:34
(Applause)
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(Applaudissements)
Translated by Etienne Gagnon
Reviewed by Eric Dufour

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ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Bassam Tariq - Creative spirit
Bassam Tariq delights in making eclectic career choices. A blogger, a filmmaker, and a butcher's shop owner, the common theme linking everything together is his boundless celebration of humanity.

Why you should listen

"Our purpose is simple: we are here to change the world’s relationship to their food." TED Fellow Bassam Tariq does not have small dreams; every project he undertakes is a big plan to make real change. Hence the butcher's shop he helped to open in Manhattan's East Village is organic, halal, and specifically designed to encourage healthier eating habits and happier families.

In 2011, Bassam and his friend Aman Ali resolved to spend each night of Ramadan in a different mosque in 30 states around the United States -- and write about the experience. The result, 30 Mosques in 30 States, was a celebration of the stunning diversity of the Muslim experience in America, and a celebration of individual stories worth telling. Similarly, his documentary, These Birds Walk, is a portrayal of real life for street kids in Karachi, Pakistan.

More profile about the speaker
Bassam Tariq | Speaker | TED.com