From the tale of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, we learn of a man by the name of Changez. This fellow has approached a stranger on the street who appears to be asking for assistance. Subsequently, the two men become more acquainted with each other at a local café. From this destination, we hear more about Changez’s story for how he graduated from Princeton University and works for a lucrative valuing firm. More into the story, we discover how his identity was forever changed after the tragic event of 9/11. Because Changez is Pakistan, this leads to conflict amongst his peers and the general environment from the systemic racial discrimination and the spread of misinformation during this hostile time. Many like Changez experience these two challenges still today. Therefore, I would like to invite you to learn more about the aftermath of how many Muslims then were treated differently after the horrific events of 9/11.
Identity politics and misinformation have played a significant role in how we go about interacting with different people. This was especially seen after the effects of 9/11 on the Muslim community. Many Muslims during this time lived in apprehension concerned about being targeted by individuals who resented their religion and nationality after the wide-spread distortion of their people. This chain of racism went up as far as the government forming travel discrimination against immigrants. “The National Security Entry-Exit Registration System clearly conflated immigration with questions of national security and criminalized immigrants in a way never seen before” (Kampf). This not only affected Muslims but other immigrants traveling from all different parts of the world such as Arabs and South Asians into America. Moreover, both identity politics and misinformation had become so severe, that children were being discriminated against. For example, a Pakistan ten-year-old girl was asked to share her story on whether she had been discriminated against in her life. She replied: “Yes, I was walking, and a lady called me a terrorist and made killing signs” (Kampf). Sadly enough, she explained further that altogether she was frightened to tell anyone about the threat made towards her.
From a religious standpoint, many Muslims had their practices of faith at stake because of fear of being targeted. “Immediately post-9/11 many American Muslim women who had been veiling decided no longer to do so in order to look “less Muslim” (Islam in America Post 9/11). If any are unaware, wearing a veil is a sacred aspect of the Islamic religion. Putting that into perspective, it’s outlandish to think as much as Americans preach about religious freedom, many Muslim women had shied away from this prophesied notion due to bigotry from others.
In conclusion, back more than a decade ago, and now Muslims face the same injustices originating from racial discrimination and the spread of false information. The detailed stories above bring to light a small perspective of what many have had to journey through to preserve the truth of the Muslim faith.
Works Cited
Fellowship, Lena Kampf 2006 New York City, and Indra Sen 2006 New York City Fellowship. “History Does Not Repeat Itself, But Ignorance Does: Post-9/11 Treatment of Muslims and the Liberty-Security Dilemma.” Humanity in Action, www.humanityinaction.org/knowledge_detail/history-does-not-repeat-itself-but-ignorance-does-post-9-11-treatment-of-muslims-and-the-liberty-security-dilemma/.
“Islam in America Post 9/11.” The Pluralism Project, pluralism.org/islam-in-america-post-911.
This is a great article and really shows the impact that the media had on the public and especially how they portrayed Muslims post 9/11. The point made in the article about Muslim women choosing not to wear a veil after 9/11 and being afraid to practice their religion to me is an injustice Muslim women and totally goes against our countries’ right of practicing the religion of your choice. At the same time, it makes me think of all the other things that are continuing to be sanctioned in our country and brings the question “Are we truly living in a free country” that allows us to express our own opinions?
tow.8 I definitely agree with your comment and a great article showing how discrimination takes place along with how a certain race or religion is portrayed, the women choosing not to wear a veil after the attacks of 9/11 shows the way she is scared to represent her religion. I believe every person was affected after the 9/11 attacks but no one should ever feel scared because of a certain race or religion that they are.
Thank you for your presentation, this is great context to this weeks reading. I often think about how quick Westerners make generalizations about entire groups of people based on a single extremity. This was definitely the case after 9/11, and it is terrible to see entire communities of people still facing racism because American’s judged an entire religion for the actions of a few extremists.
I was born in 2001 and never really looked deep into the attacks of 9/11/01. After learning about the aftermath of the attacks in this week’s module I noticed just how much this shook the American “melting pot”. The mistreatment of Muslim Americans after the attacks are unjust considering these people had absolutely nothing to do with the events. The fact that this even happened in the free country that is America really makes you question how free the minority truly is within America.