It has been 13 years since 19 Arab Men flew airplanes into the two world trade centers towers, resulting in the killing of almost 3000 innocent people, the aftermath, ever since; Arabs and Muslim Americans ran out of things to say to apology for it and finding ways to cope with day every year. Wondering how they should do or say, where to go and whom to see on 9/11 of each year. For lots of Arab/Muslim American it is a ”Call on Sick Day”, or “Apology Day”. Preparing themselves with artificial answers and apologetic phrases to everlasting questions. “What you thing of those terrorist… question usefully asked, as if I have a special insight or thinking! Every year Americans at this time of the year remind us of the tragedy and make sure that “we will never forget”.
For Arab Americans this 13th anniversary is a little different, is not of the number 13th, we aren’t going there, it is because of recent events that have changed the way Americans and the west look at Arab and Muslim nowadays. The sudden rising of the so called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, better known now as ISIS, and the latest gruesome image of beheading the American journalist Mr. Foley, posted on YouTube.
Last week, a man chased two female Arab-American community organizers in Brooklyn, New York, threatening to behead them and throwing a large metal garbage can at them.
Linda Sarsour, executive director of the Arab American Association of New York, was in a meeting and she explained the incidents to police “…. , next thing you know — boom! He gets up out of nowhere, like a surge of energy, and he starts chasing me and my colleague up the street,” said Sarsour. “He’s like, ‘You’re cutting people’s heads off! I’m going to cut your head off and see how your people feel about it!’”
Although the police report stated that the man was drunk, but sometimes drunkenness bring out a conscientious of a nation. The same with what drunken Daeish and his Islamic state brought to the western conscientious landscape.
Arabs/Muslims for most Americans in post 9/11 era, has been either a potential terrorist at best (sleeping cells) , or an outright terrorists. FBI and National Homeland Securities are watching and eavesdropping on Arab and Muslim Americans , from Obama global terrorist list to racial profiling. But after the lighting and sudden spread of ISISI and the beheading videos, Now the paradigm of American collective bigotry against Arabs/Muslims got a facelift, Arabs/Muslims looked at nowadays as backward, mediaeval and primitive, which how the white west racism and bigotry started from the first place.
Zogby Research Services ZRS, conducted an online survey of 1110 likely voters in the United States between June 27, 2014 and June 29, 2014 published by Arab American Institute, revealed that Arab Americans and American Muslims. Favorable attitudes have continued to decline – from 43% in 2010 to
32% in 2014 for Arabs; and from 35% in 2010 to 27% in 2014 for Muslims, and a significant number of Americans (42%) support the use of profiling by law enforcement against Arab And a growing percentage of Americans say that they lack confidence in the ability of individuals from either community to perform their duties as Americans should they be appointed to an important government position. 36%
of respondents felt that Arab Americans would be influenced by their ethnicity and 42% of respondents
felt that American Muslims would be influenced by their religion. In country where freedom of religion is not just be a basic human right, in a country where some may say religion is driving its foreign policy.
Americans history is full of atrocities committed against other people colored people, native genocide, black slavery, Vietnamese atrocities, Iraq and Afghanistan, where Americans ask us to get over it, or forget it, but when it comes to 9/11 it is always “we will never forget”.
Arabs and Muslim world have their own 9/11 and will be hard pressed to forget and forgive too, Jewish ISIS, IDF beheading a nation in Gaza, destroying 2/3 of the country outstanding buildings, homes, hospitals, mosques, schools, UN shelters, where more than 3000 Palestine’s killed, and more than 100,000 injured. US beheaded a whole nation in Iraq where more than 2 millions Iraqis were killed and millions more displaced. Now we have ravaged civil war that produced the ISIS thing!
This idea; when an Arab/Muslim or colored person misbehaves, Americans react by condemning the whole culture, invading two Muslims countries in two years,
Back to Linda Sarsour, who was attacked and threatened with beheading …. “… He gets up out of nowhere, like a surge of energy, and he starts chasing me and my colleague up the street,” said Sarsour. “He’s like, ‘You’re cutting people’s heads off! I’m going to cut your head off and see how your people feel about it!’” … see your people feel about it, I don’t mean to stick my nick out, but I feel numb Sir.
Ahmed Tharwat
Host/Produce of Arab American TV show BelAhdan
Public TV, MN Mondays 10:30pm
Public Speaker/Blogger
www.ahemdiatv.com
