The events of 9/11 have created hatred, fear, discrimination and Americans have begun racial profiling because of the Arabs who participated in the attacks. Arabs in America are no longer treated as normal American citizens because many stereotype them to be just like those terrorists who attacked America. The hatred for Arabs began immediately after America became aware of who participated in the attacks. Even a year after the attacks, the Justice Department was still aiming their attention on those from the Middle East and South Asia. As if being interrogated isn’t bad enough, they were also incarcerated and deported for just being their skin color.
This is because they are not of the norm and because they have a different belief system than others. Muslims have been stereotyped from all aspects of their life since 9/11. Muslims who had been in the United States longer than some Christians were suddenly being verbally and physically attacked by those Christians. More and more, they were being accused of misdemeanors that they had never done. They were citizens like everyone else; the difference was that they were the only ones being questioned.
Hate crimes motivated by religious bias was 1166 for 2012. A total of 59.7 were anti-Jewish crimes followed by 12.8 percent anti-Islamic, 7.6 percent anti-multiple religions, 6.8 percent anti-Catholic, 2.9 anti-protestant, 1.0 percent anti-Atheism/Agnosticism and 9.2 percent anti-other (unspecified) religion. Reading these statistics for religion only makes me think of one person, and that is Hitler. That also did not happen so long ago, but it is sad to think that people could be so cruel as to judge a person by their religion. The attacks motivated by religious bias could have been the same as the racial which is simple attacks anywhere to murder.
This is the perception of Muslim women that I have been exposed to for most of my life. The media presents to me all I have ever known of the Middle East; women covered in burqas, or wrapped up completely in their hijab. The veil, and women in general, has become a symbol for the inferiority of the Middle East. But, like a person can be wrong about a woman who wears glasses, the world as a whole can be very wrong about the real meaning of the veil, and about their perception of the women of Islam. Leila Ahmed’s The Discourse of the Veil explores the real source of women’s struggles in Islam versus the purely symbolic ones that the West concentrates its critique on.
Gerges explains, “Muslims and ‘Islamists’ do not agree on what Islam is, let alone its role and function in governing their lives. Muslims are believers who may or may not be interested in politics, while Islamists are political activists whose fundamental goal is to seize power and Islamize state and society, preferably from the top down.” Within Islamism, there are many different groups. One such faction, militant Islamists, is committing violent acts of terror. Therefore, only a fraction of a fraction of Muslims are perpetuating violence to reach their goals. The vast majority of Muslims do not condone the actions of the terrorists on 9/11,
This brought about Islamophobia. Islamophobia is the bigotry and intolerance against Muslims (Fredman, 2001). The people especially Americans developed abhorrence and fright towards Muslims that led to fearing and disliking them. Islamophobia is also a practice of discerning against Muslims and not including them in financial, community and civic aspects of the state. The Muslims are looked at as people with no significance common to other cultures, a substandard cluster to the west and a vicious political idea rather than a religious conviction that it should be.
As the religion expanded, women's rights broadened for a period of time, and then reverted back to conditions worse than original standards. In the beginning, Muslim women played key roles in the advancement of Islam, yet had only few rights, and were sometimes oppressed. As the religion first developed, women were seen as having important roles in society. (Docs.1, 2, 3 & 4) The Surah Al-l-Imran 3:195 says that women and men both have recognizable works in the eyes of Allah by saying, “I shall not lose sight of the work of any of you who works, be it man or woman. You are members, one of another.” World Civilizations: the global experience informs the reader that women were equal to god or Allah and that women were the first martyrs.
Alienation of Islam in America Shayaq Masood Mrs. Gallman AP English AP 11 11 April 2011 What usually runs in people’s mind when they hear the word “Islam” or “Muslim?” . Many mistakenly associate Islam as the religion of the devil; as well as relating all Muslims to be terrorists. Americans tend to relate the terms as to what they hear in the media and political gossip. There are many reasons as to why these social misconceptions towards Islam and Muslims occur, however; it all begins with ignorance about Islam. Ignorance about Islam includes assuming mistakenly about: what the basic principles of Islam are?
Islam vs. The West Anatomy of Jihad It seems that not a day goes by in which the Western world is not bombarded by pictures and video from the Muslim world showing anti-American and anti-Western protests. All too often, these scenes depict gun wielding men and boys, denouncing the West for one form of violation of Islamic Laws or another. Add to those scenes, scenes from the 9/11 attacks on the US, along with a multitude of terrorist attacks, and the world’s view of Islam is one of a bunch of violent religious zealots, bent upon bringing about the downfall of Western civilization at all costs. But is this violence really the nature of Islam, or has the world misjudged the nature of the conflict, and jumped to a conclusion that serves only to incite violence.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reported a 1600% increase in hate crimes against the Arab American population in the year after the events of September 11th. Some of them are refugees coming from devastated areas ravaged by wars in the Middle East: Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, and Lebanon are just a few examples. According to Aboul-Enein (2010) one of the potentially least studied ethnic groups in the United States in terms of healthcare inequalities are the populations of Middle Eastern and North African origin. Aboul-Enein also points out: “The misunderstood aspects of Arab behavior according Western perspective lead to the greatest misunderstandings which include but are not limited to: the involvement of the male in all aspects of health care for his wife and children; the assimilation of children into all aspects of life; female humility; the subordinate status of women; and the strong emphasis on the traditional female role.”