On November 5th, 1990, a man named El-Sayyid Nosair walked into a hotel in Manhattan and assassinated Rabbi Meir Kahane, the leader of the Jewish Defense League. Nosair was initially found not guilty of the murder, but while serving time on lesser charges, he and other men began planning attacks on a dozen New York City landmarks, including tunnels, synagogues and the United Nations headquarters. Thankfully, those plans were foiled by an FBI informant. Sadly, the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center was not. Nosair would eventually be convicted for his involvement in the plot. El-Sayyid Nosair is my father.
1990 年11月5日，一位名叫埃尔·塞伊德·诺塞尔的男子走入曼哈顿的一间宾馆刺杀了拉比梅厄·卡赫纳，犹太防卫联盟的首领。诺塞尔一开始并未被指认参与谋杀，但当他因小事入狱服刑期间，他和一些人开始计划袭击纽约市的一些地标，包括隧道，犹太教会堂和联合国总部。谢天谢地，这些计划被美国联邦调查局的线人挫败了。不幸的是，1993年世贸中心的那场爆炸袭击却发生了。诺塞尔最终被指控参与这场犯罪谋划。埃尔·塞伊德·诺塞尔是我的父亲。
I was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1983 to him, an Egyptian engineer, and a loving American mother and grade school teacher, who together tried their best to create a happy childhood for me. It wasn't until I was seven years old that our family dynamic started to change. My father exposed me to a side of Islam that few people, including the majority of Muslims, get to see. It's been my experience that when people take the time to interact with one another, it doesn't take long to realize that for the most part, we all want the same things out of life. However, in every religion, in every population, you'll find a small percentage of people who hold so fervently to their beliefs that they feel they must use any means necessary to make others live as they do.
我1983年出生在宾夕法尼亚州的匹兹堡，我的父亲是一位埃及裔工程师，我有个爱我的美国母亲，她是一名小学老师，他们尽最大的努力为给我创造出欢乐的童年。直到我7岁的时候家庭氛围开始出现了变化。我的父亲让我接触伊斯兰的一支 很少人见过，包括大部分的穆斯林，都没见过的一个派别。我的人生经验告诉我 人们与彼此相处，很快就意识到，很大程度上人们对生活有着相同的追求。然而，所有宗教，所有群体，你总能看到一小部分人对他们的信仰太过狂热，以至于认为他们应该用各种方法让其他人和他们过同样的生活。
A few months prior to his arrest, he sat me down and explained that for the past few weekends, he and some friends had been going to a shooting range on Long Island for target practice. He told me I'd be going with him the next morning. We arrived at Calverton Shooting Range, which unbeknownst to our group was being watched by the FBI. When it was my turn to shoot, my father helped me hold the rifle to my shoulder and explained how to aim at the target about 30 yards off. That day, the last bullet I shot hit the small orange light that sat on top of the target and to everyone's surprise, especially mine, the entire target burst into flames. My uncle turned to the other men, and in Arabic said, "Ibn abuh." Like father, like son. They all seemed to get a really big laugh out of that comment, but it wasn't until a few years later that I fully understood what they thought was so funny. They thought they saw in me the same destruction my father was capable of. Those men would eventually be convicted of placing a van filled with 1,500 pounds of explosives into the sub-level parking lot of the World Trade Center's North Tower, causing an explosion that killed six people and injured over 1,000 others. These were the men I looked up to. These were the men I called ammu, which means uncle.
在他被捕前的几个月，他和我坐着聊天解释到在过去的几个周末，他和他的一些朋友在长岛（美国纽约州东南部岛屿）进行目标射击训练。他让我第二天一早和他一起去。我们来到凯佛顿射击场，我们并不知道自己已经被联邦调查局监视了。轮到我射击的时候，我的父亲帮我扶住肩膀上的来福枪，并教导我如何瞄准30码处的目标。那天，我射出的最后一颗子弹 打中了目标顶上的橙色亮光，所有人都惊呆了，尤其是我，整个目标版燃烧了。我的叔叔转向旁边的人，用阿拉伯语说到，“Ibn abuh”—— 虎父无犬子。他们当场开怀大笑起来，几年后我才了解他们大笑的原因，他们以为我和我的父亲有着同样的摧毁能力。这群男人最终被指控将满载1500 磅重的炸弹的厢式货车停在世界贸易中心北塔的地下停车场，爆炸造成6人死亡，同时致使超过1000人受伤。这些是我曾经敬仰的人。这些是我曾经称呼其为ammu，意为叔叔的人。
