Post 9/11 Islamophobia

Since the incident of 9/11 occurred, many people have debated over the Muslim faith and its practices. Muslim extremist groups such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS have affected the name of Islam causing majority of Muslims to be blamed. Recently, a tragic event that occurred in Paris killing over a hundred people left the people of France shaken with fear and anger. These events have lead to an increasing amount of hate and tension towards Muslims all over the world from protests at mosques, where Muslims go to pray, and anti-Muslim rally’s. Islamophobia is a massive issue that has steered European counties like France to enforce laws that ban religious garments that Muslims wear such as the niqab and burqa. Some people perceive these garments to be

Following the terror attacks in The Unites States in 2001, there has been an increase in Islamophobia in the Western World. Following 9/11, respondents indicate that levels of implicit or indirect discrimination in The United States rose by 82,6% and experiences of over discrimination by 76,3% (http://jiv.sagepub.com/content/21/3/317.short). A combination of how Arabs and Muslims are portrayed in the media, with the increase of organized terrorist groups and refugees since the Arabic Spring, makes this a big political challenge today. This bibliography is written to get an overview of why Islamophobia has increased and the challenges that comes with the rise of Islamophobia.

In 2009, 6,604 hate crime incidents were reported to the FBI, 48.8% of which were motivated by race, 19.7% by religious prejudice, 18.5%by sexual orientation, 11.8% by ethnicity, and 1.5% by disability bias (Hate Crime Statistics, 2009). Recently, the FBI released the 2010 statistics that unfortunately reveal a slight increase in the number of hate crime incidents: 6,628 incidents were reported in 2010, 47.3% of which were motivated by race, 20% by religious prejudice, 19.3% by sexual orientation, 12.8% by ethnicity, and .6% by disability bias (Hate Crime Statistics, 2010). While racially-motivated and disability-motivated crimes appear to have decreased, hate crime motivated by religion, sexual orientation, and ethnicity has risen in the last year. Improvements in hate crime laws and punishments are necessary in order for these statistics to decrease.

Second I will look at Ilir Disha, James C. Cavendish, and Ryan D. King paper “Historical Events and Spaces of Hate: Hate Crimes against Arabs and Muslims in Post-9/11 America” .This research investigates variation in hate crimes offending against Arabs and Muslims across U.S. counties in the months before and after September 11, 2001. They tried answering these four questions. First, what were the determinants of anti-Arab and Muslim hate crimes prior to 9/11? Second, in what social contexts were Arabs and Muslims at greatest risk of victimization? Third, to what extent did hate crimes against these groups increase after the terrorist attacks? And last, did the predictors of hate crimes against Arabs and Muslims change appreciably after 9/11?

On February 24, 2017, Srinivas Kuchibhotla and Alok Madasani were gunned down in a small Kansas Bar. While both of the tech firm employees were of Indian descent, according to the shooter, Adam Purinton, their only crime included looking and acting like muslim “terrorist”. According to Hatred, Bigotry, and Prejudice: Definitions, Causes & Solutions by Robert M. Baird, “ almost 80 percent of the total hate crimes are directed against people and property on the basis of religion”(p.93). With the escalation of these crimes, many ask “What makes people like Purinton hate individuals of certain religions?” . The answer to this question is simple. While it is impossible to say whether the shooter’s actions were not malicious at heart, the reason why he committed this atrocious act is in part, due to him being psychologically programed to hate muslims or those of middle eastern descent. This is possible due to one powerful mechanism that has the ability to control the body, mind and brain, fear. In F. Ski Chilton’s article, the Neuropsychological Impact of Fear Based Politics, Chilton describes how psychologist have

The rate of physical attacks on immigrants drastically increased in the USA and Canada after attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. According to FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports, in 2001 the number of anti-Muslim hate crimes boosted almost to 500 which is an extensive and gigantic difference in comparison to pre-9/11 era.The murder of Yusor Abu-Salha, her husband Deah Barakat and her sister Razan Abu-Salha is an example of religiously-motivated hate crimes. The murderer posted anti-religion quotes and cartoons on his Facebook page which may lead to conclusion that hatred and prejudice towards religion, in this case Islam, is often a motive of murderers and violent attacks on immigrants. Anti-Muslim crimes make up about 13 percent of

The mass media selectively promotes racial profiling. The assumptions driving terrorism profiling are not any different than “street-level” profiling—in that, a particular crime (in this case, terrorism) is most expected to be committed by members of a particular religious, ethnic, or racial group and that the members of that group (in this case, Muslims) are, in general, likely to be implicated in that manner of criminal activity…These assumptions are highly defective. The assumption that terrorist acts are inevitably perpetrated by Arabs or that the architect, of a terrorist act, is likely to be Islamic is a faulty assumption. While all the men, believed to have been, involved in the September 11th hijackings were of Arabic nationality, Richard Reid, who on December 22, 2001, attempted to ignite a volatile device on a trans-Atlantic flight, was a British citizen of Jamaican ancestry. This furthermore coincides with my line of reasoning that extremists exist throughout all cultures. In fact, prior to September 11th the deadliest act of terrorism on United States soil was initiated by [Oklahoma City bomber] Timothy McVeigh. Even non-Arabs like John Walker Lindh, a Californian, can be linked to the Taliban, al-Qaeda and

Not all Muslims support violence and terrorism according to popular belief. In fact, encounteringislam.org states that 93% of Muslims do not support extremist views of terrorism. Due to constant repetition of a certain portrayal, the misconception of all Muslims supporting terrorism has definitely strengthened. Despite a certain few who fit the depiction, this delusion is noticeably wrong.

Since Islam is a religion that promotes peace and kindness, one could ask where the stereotype that all Muslims are terrorists originated. Following the tragedies of September 11, 2001, Arabs and Muslims have been presented as potential terrorists. This idea stemmed from the theory that, “media bias increases when a specific ethnic, religious, or racial group is seen as a threat to national security.” (Stiffler, 2013). Since the attacks on September 11, 2001 Muslims and Arabs have been “hyper-visible” in the media as potential terrorists. Due to the negative media attention and failure of most media platforms to

She sat in silence as she listened to the politician’s speech only to hear disrespect to her nation. This caused her to take a stand to show support for her people, only to be kicked out of the event because of her religion. Currently, our nation is facing a crisis. Presidential hopeful Donald Trump is calling to ban all Muslims from coming to the United States. Hate crimes against Muslims are occurring all over the United States in response to the attacks carried out by religious extremists. Instead of providing asylum to Syrian refugees, the United States is repeating history by limiting the number of individuals fleeing barbaric violence. These actions encourage the general public to see Muslims as a collective group whom we should fear. In order to combat this, we must break down cultural barriers and

Fifty million Muslims supporting terrorism – at least, under circumstances where they feel their religion is threatened – is a truly worrying number.  It's not that there are 50 million terrorists to worry about; it's that the bloc of violence supporters and sympathizers will refuse to cooperate in rooting them out and preventing terror attacks.

“Islamophobia is prejudice towards discrimination against Muslims due to their religion, or perceived religion, national, or ethnic identity associated with Islam because Muslims have different beliefs and values”. (Islamophobia wikipedia 1) Like anti-semitism, racism, and homophobia. Islamophobia describes mentality and actions that domain an entire class of people. Jews, African-Americans, and other populations throughout history have faced prejudice and discrimination. Islamophobia is simply another reincarnation of this bigotry. According to the Merriam Webster dictionary,a phobia is an exaggerated, usually inexplicable and illogical fear of a particular object, class of objects, or situation. It may be difficult to determine or communicate the source of this fear, but it exists. From this definition we can see how is so unfair to connect the word phobia to Islam specially because the word Islam in arabic means peace and safety. All that means that a lot of people don’t know nothings about Islam and the unknown can easily provoke fear.

slamophobia is a very serious problem that negatively affects Muslims all around the world. Muslims should have the right to live freely without being a victim of racism or prejudice. People think that Islamophobia is affecting Muslims in non-Muslim countries only but Islamophobia is actually affecting Islamic countries as well. Islamic countries like Egypt are suffering from Islamophobia. Since that most foreign governments are Islamophobic so instead of helping us to become a developed country as it is the duty of every developed country to help other countries they are actually trying to keep us un-developed. Hate crimes motivated by religious bias accounted for 1,166 offenses reported by law enforcement in the US in 2012 Islam came in second with 12.8% this is according to the FBI.

The devout Muslims, who practice pure Islamic faith, are not affiliated with ISIS contradicting the reports from Western media. In the article Islam Is a Religion of Peace, the author, Manal Omar, talks about how Westerners have begun to label all Muslims as terrorists when that is not correct. “Those who claim Islam is an inherently violent religion ignore the overwhelming majority of adherents to the faith- there are more than 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide- who live peacefully” (Omar). In today’s society, Westerners generalize all Muslims to be affiliated with ISIS because that is the way media is portraying Muslims. Since media portrays Muslims

Muslims are invigorated by the FBI to report any suspicious activity, and that has led to some Muslims indeed acting as informants for the FBI. Although, the connection between Muslims and the FBI is forced. The FBI has positioned Muslims who decline to act as informants on the no-fly list, and the California FBI utilized community outreach plans to collect data about Muslims. Islamophobia is institutionalized in the FBI. In 2011, Wired Magazine’s Danger Room blog started publication of leaked documents from the FBI’s counterterrorism training program. The documents asserted that all Muslims are possible terrorists, called the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) a cult leader, and recommended Robert Spencer’s Onward Muslim Soldiers as a basis on