Racism and Religious Intolerance

Set in the United States in the immediate future, Internment tells the story of the government roundup and detention of Muslims. The narrator and protagonist, Layla Amin, is seventeen years old when her family is moved into a camp. While the parallel to the Nazi practices toward German Jews is particularly apt, Samira Ahmed also suggests the US internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. The primary theme that relates specifically to the targeted people in this novel is Islamophobia; the broader general theme is religious intolerance. Going along with the racialization of Islam, a closely related theme is racism; black Muslims and others of different ethnicities and nationalities are further discriminated against. 

Ahmed draws attention to the unconstitutional nature of this discrimination, which violates First Amendment rights. Layla’s family self-identified on an official registry as Muslim; the government agencies use these declarations as a pretense for selecting people to detain. Irrespective of other characteristics, Muslim identity is the primary characteristic, thus showing that religious persecution is the motivation behind this violation of the US Constitution. In addition to religion, denial of freedom of speech is also present through the banning of Layla’s father’s work. 

The Dangers of Denial

Ahmed locates the setting as “fifteen minutes” from now to remind the reader of the immediacy of challenges to religious freedom. In the novel, a handful of steps, such as imposition of a curfew and the creation of a Muslim Registry, actually precede the roundups or warrantless detention of entire groups of people. In the early part of the novel especially, however, people are incredulous about the measures taken against Muslim Americans. The idea that “it can’t happen here” becomes paramount, emphasizing the dangers of denial and of overlooking evidence of repression.

The novel suggests that widespread denial of human rights violations happens as a result of incremental steps. At the start of the novel Layla outlines the series of periodic changes in American politics and culture that allowed a nation once defined by democracy and personal freedoms to slip into relative authoritarianism. One change makes way for another—the election of a right-wing president, then the marching of Nazis on the capital, then the institution of a “Muslim ban”—until the culture has shifted to a state of conservatism and intolerance. The gradual process of this shift makes it easier to for the public to deny. Indeed, Layla notes that the mainstream media stopped broadcasting protests to the administration’s intolerant policies. The denial of intolerance and authoritarianism is enabled by what the media shows—or doesn’t show.

Maturity

Over the course of the novel, Layla changes from a self-centered girl into an activist, and the theme of maturity in times of necessity emerges strongly. As Layla reluctantly comes to accept her and her family’s new reality, she begins to form new friendships; the idea of solidarity and community in resistance, even in the face of impossible odds, gives her character more dimension and shows her understanding of what it means to take a difficult path.

Layla’s story can be read as a coming-of-age narrative. At the start of the novel, she is a 17-year-old high school student, and when she and her family are interned, her reaction is one of confusion and incredulity. She has no frame of reference for what is happening. But in the camp, she undergoes a deep character-level change and accepts responsibility for bettering her situation and securing her freedom again. She takes her fate—and the fate of her fellow internees—into her own hands when she leads a rebellion against the camp and its director.