by Lori Peek
what that pressure is directed towards. so if a lot of kids are getting crap
because they’re muslim, they have a tendency to identify themselves more
strongly with that.”
Targeted group members may also use symbols to “defend” their
religious or ethnic identity. Kaori, who did not wear the headscarf before
9/11, explained why she started covering after the terrorist attacks: “i came
back to new york City [from Japan] one week after the towers collapsed. At
that time, i wasn’t covering myself. But after 9/11 happened, i realized that
people are attacking islam and attacking muslims. i wanted to defend islam,
so i started to cover myself.”
muslims also tried to use their visibility to dispel widely held harmful
stereotypes. For instance, many of the young women who wore the hijab
wanted to show non-muslims that they were not oppressed. Thus, they began
to emphasize their personal and scholarly achievements to demonstrate that
they could be muslim women who cover and successful and productive
members of society. some of the women who were students said that they felt
pressure to raise their hands and speak out in class so their professors and
peers would know that they were intelligent and not afraid to express their
own opinions. Badia, who attended college in Colorado, said:
There are so many things that people believe, like we’re not allowed
to be educated or to live on our own. so by being visibly muslim,
people can see that at least in my situation this isn’t true. That was
something about being on campus. i was really proud to wear the
hijab, because i wanted people to know that i was muslim and i was
educated. The biggest good consequence of covering is that i person-
162 / Chapter 6
ally can break stereotypes in people’s minds just by doing my daily
routine. i don’t even have to say much—just by seeing me and what i
have done, people can get a new image.
Other interviewees participated in various activities to try to demonstrate
to non-muslims that they were indeed liberated, self-determined, self-
confident, and happy. leila, who was a vibrant and outgoing young woman,
described her experience riding on a jet ski while wearing a headscarf:
i always have to prove myself. With me, that’s the reason i go on a jet
ski with a headscarf, just to do crazy things. my friend did bungee
jumps with a headscarf on. Crazy girl. i want people to see me and
know, okay, that’s a muslim girl, but she’s not oppressed. We know
how to enjoy our life. i can wear this, my headscarf, and i can move
on with my life. i go on a jet ski and do crazy things, although i’m
horrible at it. i wear my headscarf because i want people to look at
me and be like, wow, that’s a muslim girl. she can have fun with her
life.
Because of their heightened visibility, muslims also became much more
aware of how even mundane interactions might be (mis)perceived in public.
madheeha, who had been married for just over a year when 9/11 happened,
described how attentive she had become while walking outside with her
husband:
The media always makes women look oppressed. They completely
misrepresent it. if you walk behind your husband, non-muslims will
say, “Oh, that’s how it is.” That’s why sometimes when i’m walking
outside with my husband, i’m careful where i’m walking. if he’s walk-
ing in front of me, i’ll say, “Wait, wait, let me go in front.” i make sure
that i’m always smiling. i hope that the way i portray myself might
help others to see islam in a different light.
Muslims faced an uphill battle in their quest for acceptance before 9/11.
After the terrorist attacks, the climb steepened considerably. A young
woman from new york described the magnitude of the situation: “you know
how before 9/11, how much work we did to put up a good image? To educate
people about our religion? it all, with the whole 9/11, all of it went to waste. it
is going to take a very long time to put up a good image and to make people
over here feel comfortable around us again.”
The events of 9/11 precipitated a major assault on muslim Americans’
Adaptations / 163
autonomy and dignity. in the weeks following the terrorist attacks, muslims
recoiled in fear and frustration. As time passed, the participants in this
research began to take deliberate actions to alter their perceived future.
muslims forged a heightened sense of group solidarity, which involved
crossing ethnic boundaries and developing new alliances. They strengthened
their religious identification, increased their religious participation, and
fostered meaningful relationships with other muslims. many felt they were
becoming more spiritual and better muslims, as they found comfort in
islam. And, rather than abandoning the most important symbols of their
faith, muslims attempted to use these visible markers to counter negative
perceptions. The wave of hostility that was unleashed after the 9/11 attacks
may have victimized muslims, but they did not become passive victims.
instead, they actively struggled to reclaim their faith and to assert their
positions in the American social landscape.
7
Conclusion
In the aftermath of the deadliest terror attacks in United states history,
muslims became the public and political scapegoats of 9/11. some ter-
rified and traumatized citizens, struggling to come to terms with the
incalculable suffering caused by the attacks, directed their outrage at
minorities who share—or were mistakenly assumed to share—a common
religious or ethnic identity with those individuals actually responsible for
the calamities. Key elected officials, desperate to demonstrate progress
in the post-9/11 “War on Terror,” encouraged Americans to accept harsh
and discriminatory tactics ostensibly designed to keep the nation safe
from so-called threatening outsiders.1 As a result, muslim Americans—
who had nothing to do with the assaults on the World Trade Center or
the pentagon—have become the victims of an unrelenting backlash.
This final chapter addresses two general themes that have appeared
throughout this book. The first part of the conclusion considers why
muslim Americans were so readily vilified and then so easily victimized
by some of their fellow citizens and their government. specifically,
the discussion below is designed to help shed light on the social forces
associated with postdisaster blame assignment and backlash.2 The
second part of the conclusion reflects upon the human impacts of the
stereotyping, harassment, and exclusion that muslim Americans have
experienced since 9/11.
Conclusion / 165
Blame and Backlash
Anny Bakalian and mehdi Bozorgmehr were the first to introduce a theo-
retically grounded conceptualization of the widely used, but seldom defined,
term “backlash.” They characterize backlash as “an excessive and adverse
societal and governmental reaction to a political/ideological crisis against a
group or groups.”3 Further, they
argue that during times of war or catastro-
phe, populations that share the same racial, ethnic, or religious background
as the “enemy” of the state may be subject to backlash violence. Bakalian and
Bozorgmehr explain that individuals and the government may perpetrate
backlash, and it may take several forms, including stereotyping, harassment,
hate crimes, and state-sanctioned repression of minority groups.
Bakalian and Bozorgmehr’s insightful work contributes significantly
to our understanding of backlash. But important questions remain. Why
does backlash occur after certain crises, but not after others? Why are some
individuals and groups singled out for blame and mistreatment, while others
are left alone? After Timothy mcveigh and Terry nichols detonated a massive
bomb in the heart of Oklahoma City, killing 168 people and wounding
hundreds of others, no public outrage against white American men erupted.
no government roundups, no unlawful interrogations, and no detentions
occurred. in fact, and as i have already described in previous passages of
this book, muslims and Arabs, yet again, became the victims of a surge of
hate crimes after the media wrongfully associated “middle easterners” with
the destruction of the Alfred p. murrah Federal Building. The 9/11 attacks,
which were perpetrated by foreign terrorists linked to islam and the Arab
world, precipitated the largest-ever spike in bias attacks against muslims and
Arabs. What, then, can the response to 9/11 teach us about the processes that
set blame assignment and backlash into motion?
in the first place, the intentional and malicious nature of the 9/11
attacks prompted an extraordinary search for those who should be held
accountable. students of disaster have long recognized that what causes a
crisis (the disaster agent, if you will) shapes the feelings and reactions that
follow. Certain undeniable similarities exist between the ways that human
communities respond to natural disasters, technological catastrophes, and
acts of terrorism. But these distinct types of emergencies unfold in a variety
of ways, and many of the differences can be attributed directly to the source
of the disaster.4
Thomas Drabek and enrico Quarantelli were among the first social
scientists to write about the human need to assign blame after catastrophic
events. Drawing on years of postdisaster fieldwork, they observe, “Disasters
often bring out the best in individuals. Ability to endure suffering, desire to
166 / Chapter 7
help others, and acts of courage and generosity come forth in time of crisis.”5
Drabek and Quarantelli caution, though, that “disasters can also evoke the
worst in persons—a relentless search for scapegoats to blame for destruction
and loss of life.”6 They add, “This tendency to seek the cause in a who—rather
than a what—is most common after catastrophes not caused naturally.”7
The 9/11 attacks fall into a broad category of events that specialists often
refer to as “human-induced catastrophes.” in contrast to natural disasters,
human-induced catastrophes are unmistakably brought about by human
actions.8 Disasters that people have clearly caused can be further divided
between acts of omission and acts of commission.9 Acts of omission are
unintentional and accidental. They occur when bridges collapse, when
warning systems fail, and when trains carrying toxic substances derail. Acts
of commission, on the other hand, involve premeditated acts of violence
and terror. The perpetrators of such malevolent attacks willfully attempt to
inflict pain, suffering, and death on their targets.
it is rare for individuals or groups to be assigned direct responsibility
for the destruction that tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, or earthquakes cause.
even though the damage from such events can usually be traced back to the
choices that human beings make about where and how they live, the media
and affected populations tend to describe the losses in “non-personal and
naturalistic” terms.10 One scholar puts it this way: “natural disasters are
almost always experienced as acts of God or caprices of nature. They happen
to us. They visit us, as if from afar.”11
Human-induced catastrophes, however, unquestionably occur because
of us. Human beings, rather than mother nature, represent the “agents of
destruction.” Human-caused disasters, whether unintentional or intentional,
set off a hunt for those responsible for the devastation. some sense of
outrage, the desire to assign some degree of blame, and a feeling that the
guilty should be punished for their actions always develop.12 in technological
disasters, blame is often fixed on public officials, business owners, or large
corporations. Assigning blame in these instances is viewed as rational, even
necessary, as it may force those responsible to take action to remedy the
crisis situation.13 However, and as has been well documented elsewhere,
persons in power typically do not accept responsibility for technological
mishaps and instead may engage in what sociologists stephen Kroll-smith
and stephen Couch refer to as “reciprocal blame attribution.”14 This process,
which involves the victims blaming the powerful, the powerful blaming
the victims, and the victims blaming one another, regularly escalates into
conflict. in the end, the cycle of blame may become more debilitating than
the hazard agent itself.15
even considering all the dread and anger that technological disasters may
engender, research suggests that intentional human-induced catastrophes
Conclusion / 167
are far more difficult for victims to comprehend or to assimilate.16 Acts of
apparently indiscriminate mass violence create acute feelings of helplessness
and high rates of anxiety that endure for long periods of time.17 moreover,
disasters that are caused by malicious human intent shatter individuals’
views of the world as a just and meaningful place,18 and, therefore, these
events are especially likely to ignite resentments and to provoke blame.19
Almost immediately after the planes crashed into the World Trade
Center, muslims and Arabs were implicated as the prime suspects. By the
time the U.s. government officially confirmed that the 9/11 hijackers were
all muslims from Arab nations (including saudi Arabia, the United Arab
emirates, lebanon, and egypt), the media had already charged that the
attacks were carried out “all in the name of islam.”20 The link between 9/11
and islam left all muslims—no matter how different in terms of background
or ideology—vulnerable to scapegoating based on their shared religious
affiliation with the perpetrators of the attacks.
in the second place, the magnitude of the losses endured on 9/11 amplified
the calls to avenge the victims and to bring the perpetrators to justice. The
United states, of course, is not unfamiliar with the incredible damage that
terrorism can do. Over the past two centuries, the citizens, corporations,
military, and government of this nation have been subject to various forms
of terrorist violence. The “American left” (e.g., labor activis
ts, people’s rights
organizations), the “American right” (e.g., the Ku Klux Klan, neo-nazis,
antiabortion activists, antiestablishment militias), and international terrorist
groups from around the globe have carried out numerous attacks.21
Furthermore, 9/11 was not the first time that islamist militants had
committed a terrorist act on U.s. soil. On February 26, 1993, a group of al
Qaeda operatives detonated a truck bomb in a parking garage beneath the
World Trade Center. The ensuing explosion opened a gaping hole seven
stories up.22 The terrorists failed in their attempt to topple the north tower
onto the south tower “like a pair of dominoes,” but they did kill six people,
injure more than a thousand others, and shut down the two tallest buildings
in new york City for weeks.23
After the arrest of one of the suspected conspirators in the 1993 World
Trade Center bombing, muslim Americans expressed concern that that their
community would be collectively demonized in a “frenzy of stereotyping.”24
Their fears were justified, as just days after the bombing, vandals targeted
a mosque in new Jersey where one of the terror suspects had worshipped.25
Angry citizens heckled mosque congregants, and unknown callers left
threatening voicemail messages at islamic centers across the United states.26
law enforcement officials indicated, however, that they had received no
formal complaints of hate crimes against Arab Americans or muslims after
the 1993 attack.27
168 / Chapter 7
The reaction to 9/11 was on an entirely different scale. in the three-
month period following the terrorist attacks, the FBi documented more than
four hundred anti-islamic hate crimes. in the subsequent years, Arab and
muslim civil-rights groups confirmed thousands of additional allegations of
bias and discrimination in the workplace, at schools and universities, and in
airports and other public settings. The number of anti-islamic and anti-Arab
hate-related murders, which may have involved as many as nineteen victims,
was also unprecedented.
The enormity of the catastrophe and its immense domestic and
international impact explain, in part, the severity and duration of the
post-9/11 backlash. The terrorist attacks led to the deaths of nearly three