September 10, 2001, I was an innocent 4th grade boy. September 12, 2001 I was deemed a terrorist. Since Fox News didn’t have the same appeal as “All That” at age 9, I was never formally informed or warned in any way of what I had become. This made my next few weeks of school all the more painful. I remember the first time I started being treated differently. It wasn’t immediate; the idea that Muslims and Arabs were evil trickled down quite slowly from parents to children. I was sitting at a lunch table, eating PB&J with the usual crowd, when someone flicked a pebble at my head. I turned around only to find three fifth graders, two girls and one boy, all making gun-like hand gestures at me, pretending to shoot. In response to my puzzled look, they stated that terrorists weren’t welcome to sit in the same area as them. The harassment continued, and only got worse over the next couple weeks. It got to the point where I didn’t want to come to school anymore. I started to wish I hadn’t been so proud and open about my culture and religion. What was once a source of interest and popularity among my primarily homogenous peers had become a magnet of detestation.
The aversion to Islam and Middle-Easterners only strengthened over time, forcing me to have to learn to adapt to this new world of discrimination and harassment. I was never a big fan of the name “Ahmad” as a child, but I never thought it could engender the hatred it did after 9/11. By middle school I was so afraid, ashamed, and embarrassed of my name that I would come to each of my classes on the first day of school early enough to ask the teacher to replace the “Ahmad” on my files, desk tags, and bins. High School rolled around the corner, and by this point I was accustomed to constant jibes of “Allah Akbar!”, “JIHAD JIHAD!”, and “Terrorist!” as a part of an average week. The most dreaded of days were those that I had a substitute teacher. If I didn't come early enough to tip them off, along with the mispronunciation of my name came whispers and looks of repulsion from my classmates.
Touring the September 11 section of the Newseum revived so many memories I had pushed away. Walking through the exhibit, I could imagine how people would’ve reacted to my presence at the peak of the anti-Arab era. Would I have been harassed for simply being there? I began to wonder why the anger was so fixed upon Arabs and Muslims and not the true enemy. One of the biggest reasons for the discrimination that ensued was media and their misuse of the word “Muslim Terrorists” rather than correctly specifying the attackers “radical”. The blurred line between Islam and radical, terroristic and perverted Islam completely evaporated to so many news reporters around the country. Even now, nine years later, I hear reporters like Glenn Beck, spewing poisonous remarks about Islam and Muslims as a whole. How can I possibly expect the country to become accepting of Muslims and Arabs when the media continues to drill the idea that Radical Islam is the same as Islam? Nine years later and I am still wondering when things are going to get better. When Mosques won’t be taboo. When I can go through the airport speaking Arabic with my family without getting strange looks. When my own name won’t qualify me as a terrorist.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/09/06/florida.quran.burning/
ReplyDeleteI found your story very interesting and I was sadly not surprised that you faced discrimination due to anti-arab sentitment following 9/11. I think it is the condition of our society to make generalizations about people. Much of it comes from ignorance, but there is a certain laziness as well. People do not want to put in the work to try and see the differences in Arab culture and within Islam. I think that's why education of other cultures is so important in our country, especially since many of our citizens are from abroad or have family from abroad. That being said. I think the decision to build the mosque so close to ground zero is a mistake. It is not a matter of tolerance as President Obama puts it, but a matter of sensitivity. I certainly don't advocate Quran burnings or anything like that, but it's just not a good idea. It will aggravate tensions and the incident is simply too fresh in New Yorker's minds. We need to learn and become tolerant, but given what happened on 9/11 and why it happened the mosque will only incite bad feelings and quite frankly I think it is in poor taste.
ReplyDelete" We need to learn and become tolerant, but given what happened on 9/11 and why it happened the mosque will only incite bad feelings and quite frankly I think it is in poor taste"
ReplyDeleteRowland, if we want to learn and become tolerant, how is allowing the creation of this Mosque NOT doing those things? I mean, any educated person SHOULD be able to distinguish between Islam and Extreme Islam, just as someone should be able to distinguish between Christianity and the KKK, so I don't understand why the Mosque being built there is even a QUESTION. Extremist, muslim terrorists did something horrible that day. Why are we associating Islam as a whole with this? It is absolutely not fair and denying the creation of this mosque is pure and utter discrimination towards Muslims. The mosque itself, titled the "ground zero mosque" isn't even on ground zero. It is taking the place of an old Burlington Coat Factory building about a block down.... Standing where the two towers once were, the mosque wouldn't even be visible. Why is it in poor taste? I don't understand how someone could say that. Holding hatred against a discriminated people is in my opinion poor taste. This is the same thing as hatred towards Germans because of what the Nazi's did. It is not right. I understand that it is "fresh" in the New Yorker's minds, and it is fresh in the entire country's mind. It will ALWAYS be fresh in our minds. And in my opinion, it is both a matter of sensitivity and tolerance.