STILL MOMENTS:

A Story about Faded Dreams and Forbidden Pictures

 Book Press-release

Local author Zighen Aym writes of his experience of ethnic profiling in the aftermath of 9/11. A naturalized citizen of Algerian descent whose hobby is photography, Zighen stopped along Route 66 to photograph the railroad tracks one day in October 2002.

An Illinois State Police officer stopped and questioned him, asking for identification and what he was doing. What followed several months later was an FBI interrogation. The reader experiences Zighen’s reflections on his life in Algeria, his move to the United States, his reaction to being suspected of terrorist activities in the innocence of a photography hobby, the ethnic profiling he experienced and the traumatic FBI interrogation.

(SOURCE: Bloomington Public Library)

Read Chapter II:

 The War on Civil Liberties: Spiders and Railroad Tracks

Book Blurbs:

"This Berber-American author is surely right in articulating frustration with the dominant view of American culture conceived in terms of freedom, equality and        justice. The challenge of the post 9/11 disobliging ethos that transpires from this fascinating, poignant and powerful account is here to remind the world that walls of eloquent silence can collapse to let the innocent speak. Still Moments teaches humanity that one of the virtues of innocence is unyielding truth."    Dr. Kamal Salhi, Editor of International Journal of Francophone Studies

"A disturbing story that could qualify as a comedy if it were not true."    Dr. Fazia Aitel :
 

Universities

 STILL MOMENTS has been assigned as required reading  at the following universities:
- University of Nebraska at Lincoln, Department of History (Spring 2006 and 2007)
- University of Indiana at Bloomington, Department of Anthropology (Springg 2006)
- Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Department of French (Spring 2006)

Television

Francophone TV5 - Monde (DishNetwork) mentioned STILL MOMENTS