The Mohammedan Brotherhood marches with a portrait of bin Laden at a demonstration

The Mohammedan Brotherhood’s march beneath a portrait of Osama bin Laden is a brief but politically charged episode recalled by Oscar Fate. Its small presence at a pro-Palestine demonstration attracts disproportionate attention: in the tense period less than six months after the September 11 attacks, the poster makes the group visible to cameras, reporters, and Fate, while the Brotherhood’s members turn that visibility into a deliberate public challenge.

Background and appearance

Fate remembers the demonstration as a gathering of varied groups, including Arabs, New York leftists, and antiglobalization activists. The Mohammedan Brotherhood stood apart. Its members wore black leather jackets, black berets, and sunglasses, and marched beneath a large image of bin Laden. Fate compares their appearance with that of the Black Panthers, but distinguishes the Brotherhood as a group of grown men whose imposing physiques and adult bearing gave the resemblance a different character.

The group numbered fewer than twenty, and Fate later realizes there were no more than fifteen. Yet the poster magnified its presence. In the aftermath of the attack on the World Trade Center, walking beneath bin Laden’s image was an extreme provocation. Television crews followed the march, a spokesman was interviewed, and newspaper photographers recorded the group’s attendance. The episode turns on a contrast between the Brotherhood’s small numbers and the scale of attention its chosen image commands.

The march and Fate’s pursuit

Fate watches the members speak with television crews and local radio reporters, shout slogans, and move through the demonstration. He follows them as they leave in a planned maneuver before the gathering breaks up. Vans are waiting at a corner; the members run to them, and Fate runs after them, explaining that he wants to interview them for his magazine.

The exchange begins with the group’s leader asking which magazine Fate works for. When Fate names it, the man smirks and dismisses its readership. Fate answers that it is a magazine for brothers. The brief confrontation places the interview on uncertain ground: Fate is pursuing a story, while the group is alert to how media attention represents it and who might read or value that representation.

The members’ response

The next day, Fate meets the members again at a Harlem club, where he is introduced to Ibrahim. Ibrahim describes the Brotherhood’s charitable work in the neighborhood. Fate and the men eat at a diner nearby; later Khalil joins them. Asked where they met, Ibrahim and Khalil say they met in prison, which they describe as a place where Black brothers meet. They also discuss other Muslim groups in Harlem, expressing reservations while saying they try to maintain dialogue with them.

Before leaving, Fate tells Ibrahim and Khalil that the Brotherhood will probably never be forgiven for marching beneath bin Laden’s image. They laugh. Ibrahim says the act will probably never be forgotten, and Khalil adds that people now know who they are dealing with. Their response makes the march more than an image that happened to attract coverage: they recognize its lasting notoriety and accept the demonstration’s power to announce the group’s presence.

Narrative significance

The episode is mediated through Fate’s memory of watching, following, and interviewing the Brotherhood. The portrait functions at once as a political provocation and as a means of commanding public attention: news cameras and photographers help turn a small group into a highly visible presence, while the Brotherhood’s own members understand that the image will remain attached to their name.

Fate’s recollection also gives the march a particular place in the novel’s account of journalism. His proposed magazine story is not simply a report of what happened at a demonstration; it begins with the difficulty of gaining access, proceeds through a meeting with the group, and ends with the members’ own interpretation of the act’s consequences. Their laughter and comments do not erase the seriousness of the provocation. They sharpen the contrast between being condemned or remembered and remaining unseen.