9/11, Islamophobia, and False Unity

The fiery explosion overhead, rubble falling, people screaming; uncertainty fills the air along with the dust. Then, another plane hits. People are dying. Heroes are suffocating while jumpers are leaping from the fire. An outpouring of support floods to the US, its government, and the survivors. Blood donations more than double. Presidential approval ratings skyrocket through the roof, reaching 90%, according to Gallup. America has reached a moment of “national unity” unrivalled in recent history, not a unity around a positive ideal, but one centered on hatred of Muslims.

On the 18th anniversary of 9/11, I was scrolling through Twitter and I saw pundit after pundit quoting the (albeit true) statistics of how united the U.S., and the whole world, was behind our government. Every U.S. ally supported the war. Even Russia helped. But who was the enemy? Al Qaeda, surely. But Al Qaeda say they’re Muslim! They’re also brown! That time period caused the highest-ever surge in hate crimes against Muslims. According to the FBI, hate crimes against Muslims jumped from 28 incidents in 2000 to 481 the following year, an increase of over 1600%. Harassment against Muslims skyrockets as well. Muslims were placed on registries, received extra scrutiny at the brand-new TSA checkpoints, spat on by strangers, and monitored by the government. Even non-Muslim brown folk were targeted. How many Sikh people have died at the hands of an ignorant white man, whose eyes burned with hatred at the sight of someone different? The murder of Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh man mistaken as a Muslim by a vengeful white man was right after the attacks. The FBI did not record statistics of incidents against Sikh people at the time, so there may have been many other incidents that went under the radar. 

Meanwhile, the Patriot Act was passed overwhelmingly. What else is under attack?  Privacy is a safe haven for terrorists. Criticizing the war is “un-American” and “unpatriotic.” Fighting for individual liberty is “wanting the terrorists to win.” Democrats fall in line behind the new rhetoric. All the while, hatred and Islamophobia burn. As the news spreads like wildfire, kids in class turn to look at the brown kids. “Are you a terrorist?” they ask innocently, their eyes wide with fear, echoing the assumptions they see and hear from their parents, the media, and the president himself. Neighbors watch suspiciously, communities close off. My parents, on a fast track to citizenship through my dad’s job, found their papers no longer moved. Coworkers no longer speak to him as often. Employers approach others with opportunities and tasks first.  My father changes jobs to go somewhere better. 

Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security is created. The government starts spying on everyone. Intelligence operations ramp up and torture is excused to “protect America.” And when “weapons of mass destruction” are found, the spark lands on a truckload of gasoline. America flies into a war. Cash is used so quickly it might as well have been on fire. Thousands die as a result: innocent, hardworking people who now fear the blue sky for the fire it can drop from invisible specks far above. “Collateral damage.” The 9/11 attacks are recreated hundreds of times on foreign soil. Brown people are massacred for the sake of quelling terrorism. A conservative estimate puts the Iraqi death toll in the first few years of the Iraq war at 150,000. Saddam Hussein’s government is toppled. But the invasion ignites hatred where there was none before. People who had never had a reason to hate America now had their families slaughtered. Children were raised in an occupied area. They see soldiers, dressed in bulky gear, breaking down their doors. They grow to hate these invaders. In the two years after the American invasion of Iraq, there were 9,200 recorded Iraqi civilian deaths at the hands of Americans and their allies, more than three times the number of Americans killed in 9/11. Imagine 9/11, occurring not once, not twice, but three times, on a population that was less than a tenth of the size of America’s. To have the same scale as American-caused civilian deaths in Iraq, America would need to experience 30 9/11 attacks. That’s the amount of devastation America caused in just two years. This drags on for years and years as the region dissolves into chaos: the American death toll is 4,424; the Iraqi civilian death toll is approximately 200,000; the insurgent death toll is about 23,000. In Afghanistan, the American death toll is 2,353. Meanwhile, over 31,000 Afghani civilian deaths have been recorded. Over 111,000 Afghans total have died in the conflict. 

How many Sikh people have died at the hands of an ignorant white man, whose eyes burned with hatred at the sight of someone different?

American soldiers, raised in a hateful environment, who have been groomed from a young age to fight for the notion of “freedom in their homeland,” barely adults, some under 18, march out to fight terrorist fighters, raised in a hateful environment, who have been groomed from a young age to fight for the notion of “freedom in their homeland,” barely adults, some under 18. They both use explosive materials: one army with explosives mass-produced by companies who have a vested interest in war, another with explosives slapped together by youth who learned from a variety of places, some material from Iran and other countries, who have a vested interest in the chaos to keep them powerful. An explosion blows up under someone’s feet, leaving behind a blackened corpse. The remains are taken home, where the youth is lauded as a someone who “died for his country.” If it was difficult to discern which side is being spoken about, then you realize how blurred the lines became. Who was right? Who was wrong?

For years, this war continues. A Democratic administration takes power, promising peace and claiming to support human rights. However, money continues to be funneled into the production of killing machines, which make their way overseas to mow down brown people by the thousands. 18 years after America invaded Afghanistan, little American kids who were born after the war started are still dying there. But before that, a presidential candidate plays on the fears that still exist in the hearts of many Americans. An ember before, the rhetoric blows over them, allowing it to catch. The idea for a ban on Muslims entering the country is proposed by Donald J. Trump, and a sizeable portion of the United States agrees, the conversations they held behind closed doors and around the Thanksgiving table spilling to the national stage. Particularly in rural America, racists masked as conservatives get excited at the prospect. Anyone who stops “others” from entering the country is ideal. “Let’s just stop those Muslims from coming in!” They’re elated that someone on the national stage is exactly echoing their racist thoughts and ideas. They say they support Trump because he says what’s on his mind, but truly, it’s because he says what’s on their minds. Finally, someone is willing to be outwardly Islamophobic without hiding it like other Republicans had in the past. 

I’m 15 now, finally old enough to notice these trends as my neighbors plant Trump signs on their lawns. I walk through the high school, and I see shirts and red hats. One of my best friends stands in support of Trump and I get sick to my stomach, realizing that my humanity was a compromise for them. I can’t wait to leave the school day—to leave the town, really, and go to college. But then I think about my sister, her hijab a bright target, and I get angry. I sigh with relief when another potentially Islamophobic comment ends, my existence not obviously offending. But my sister must endure it. Teachers do nothing to stop it. It’s a resurgence to the post-9/11 era. Hate crimes surge once more. The KKK masks that covered online profiles are removed, and Neo-Nazis exalt in their newfound mainstream support. The “alt-right” mobilizes, the media giving them a platform to spread Neo-Nazi ideology. Fox News provides a “fair and balanced” perspective that Muslims are a threat to the nation. Old, white retirees on their couches soak it up, their Facebook feeds filled with self-selected content that affirms their ideas. Their weird looks in shopping malls, the fake smile, and tone of voice when they speak to a non-white Christian person grates on my nerves. 

But Americans ache for another moment in time when the country was united in hatred. When the voices that reminded them that Muslims are Americans too were quiet. When civil liberties were thrown into the wind. When America flew into a war that killed more people than the 9/11 attackers ever could. When 90% of Americans could support a president committing war crimes.  Most of those 90% are still around today. They didn’t just disappear. Some of them changed their minds. Some have not. But all of them stood for it at one point in time. So next time you stand for the American flag and sing the national anthem, think: does this America stand for all its citizens as it expects them to stand? What truly unites us, ideals of freedom and democracy, or hatred for those who are “other”?

Fadel Alkilani ‘22 studies in the School of Engineering & Applied Science. He can be reached at falkilani@wustl.edu.