The terrorist attacks that took place in America on September 11, 2001 would change the world as we knew it. Immediately after the attacks, America began a “war on terrorism.” New laws and policies, like the Patriot Act, were put in place in order to keep Americans safe. With new changes coming to The United States, tension rose in the Middle East and at home, as the U.S. began its war on terrorism. The war on terrorism, quickly became a battle on two fronts.
In the Middle East, the U.S. chased after Al Qaeda and Taliban, in order to put an end to terrorism. However, attacks on Al Qaeda and Taliban sites resulted in civilian casualties. These casualties caused the feeling of anti-Americanism to grow in the Middle East. The Middle East had already had a difficult relationship with America, and the war on terrorism, had no help in improving the United States’ reputation. People in the Middle East felt that America was a superpower, and was abusing their power. Although the war on terrorism was in order to keep Americans safe, it put many innocent people in the Middle East in danger.
In the U.S. stereotypes began to cause mistreatment of Muslims. Throughout the U.S. Muslim-Americans were constantly in fear of hate crimes because of 9/11. The Patriot Act caused more Muslim-Americans to be searched because of racial profiling. In an article highlighting the research of psychologist Mona M. Amer, she says that, “You receive constant messages about how your community is full of terrorists, ignorant people, oppressive people” (Clay). Misinformation and stereotypes continued to cause abuse of Muslim-Americans from uninformed Americans, and the media.
Clay, R. (2011, September). Muslims in America, Post 9/11. Retrieved March 28, 2021, from https://www.apa.org/monitor/2011/09/Muslims
Daalder, I., & Lindsay, J. (2017, May 10). Nasty, brutish AND LONG: America’s war on terrorism. Retrieved March 28, 2021, from https://www.brookings.edu/articles/nasty-brutish-and-long-americas-war-on-terrorism/
It is interesting how the war on terrorism resulted in civilian casualties, which is exactly what happened on 9/11. Instead of just stopping terror, the United States was almost participating in “terror attacks” of its own. As seen in “The Reluctant Fundamentalist”, effects of the war on terror were felt in the US. Changez experiences harassment and mistreatment after the attacks that he did not feel before. This as well as side effects of the war on terror in the Middle East caused him to leave the US, showing the true extent of these impacts.
I think you did well to consider both perspectives of this topic. People tend to forget that the US was accountable for a large number of civilian deaths. I feel those living in the middle east had a more just basis to feel displeasure with the US, than Americans feeling hostile towards Muslim-Americans. People in the US love to take a crime committed by a non-white person, and use it to characterize all people of that ethnicity. It is really embarrassing that many Americans do this, yet so many are too ignorant to realize this.
Great context presentation blog post Owen! Post 9/11 had several major aftermaths both for Americans and Muslim-Americans. After 9/11, citizens of the U.S. immediately viewed the middle eastern race as a whole, as terroists. People feared for their safety in the United States. Instead of blaming the leader of the group who masterminded the plan for the 9/11 attacks, people blamed an entire race. This resulted in several issues, many of which are still ongoing today. From that day on, Mulism-American’s have always been seen as threats to the nation and blames for crimes.
The 9/11 incident is one of the saddest events in history. As an international student, I can understand and understand the U.S. government’s attacks on extremists and al Qaeda, but I think that the U.S. government and military’s harm to innocent people will increase the conflict between the two sides and is extremely cruel, including the discrimination against Muslims by racists. Because extremism and Muslims are two different concepts. We should treat Islamic citizens rationally and equally.
The war on terrorism continued to bring fear to Americans. This time frame changed the narrative of who American should be fearing. This made it unsafe for any Muslim and Middle Easterns alike. It did not matter if hey were American born or not. Leadership had put into the minds of Americans that these groups of people were out to take away your freedom. Which was a one sided narrative. This created conflict and made not only a nationality to be an issue but also a religious difference. This created internal and external conflict.
Nice work! It’s a really meaningful topic to discuss and you introduced a topic that I know little about before. Since I am not an American, so I only heard those kinds of terrorist attacks on the news and the terrorist attack caused huge casualties not only on American people but also other Middle east countries. I think this war began with a religious difference and those people in middle east countries believe that America wants to control the area of the middle east so that they used attacks to warn the American government to leave that area. I hope one day someone can bring peace to that region and people can accept the cultural differences.
I really liked your post. I think it is really important to note both sides of a tragic event that changed life as we know it in this country. Yes, the terrorist attacks on 9/11 were devastating. My mother was a freshman in college and can remember everything that happened that day. We speak of it often. The American narrative about individuals of Middle Eastern decent was immediately changed. Americans instantly went from a place of complacency and indifference to full blown hate. Yes, 9/11 was an act of war, but we often forget about the innocent lives that were lost abroad, that had nothing to do the attacks on our country. It’s quite the paradox isn’t it? If you want peace, you have to prepare for war. Is it inevitable that the innocent will always be caught in the cross fire of something greater than them? How do we alleviate this misplaced blame and hate that we have over innocent people simply part of a culture that produced men who made their own choices to attack the country?
This is very important information and impactful, that it can cause on both sides of the field. The attack on the twin towers from terrorisms caused a permanent shift of negative stereotypes that can create a barrier of understanding from both sides but treated just like the terrorist even though they were not a part of that conflict. Through this acts were created to keep people safe and devices that can detect what weapons could be carried to prevent situations like the 9/11 attack or other terrorist attacks.
You did a great job on the context research presentation. I never think about civilian casualties in the act of anti-terrorism. There is nothing to debate that terrorism need to be eliminated. However, we should make sure not to hurt the innocent people during the process. Besides we should not have bias or discrimination against those innocent Muslims because they are not terrorists who did horrible things like 9/11. We need to stay together to fight against terrorism.
Thank you for your presentation! It offered a lot of context on the societal effects after 9/11. While many of the measures taken by the US government were able to effectively prevent another event like 9/11 from happening again, other actions did little to help and only added onto the already climbing amount of Islamophobia existing in America. Hopefully in the future we will be able to prevent another 9/11 from happening without misplacing the blame onto undeserving people
Great work! Throughout the years in school that we have dedicated days to learning about 9/11, we never focused on the negative impact it had on Muslims and Muslim-Americans. I can relate this to what is going on today, with the Stop Asian Hate Movement. Americans have a tendency to associate an entire culture with a small group of people, which is completely unfair. As a society we need to work together towards treating people equally, and dissociating crimes with entire cultures/groups of people.