A piece of my research: the Radicalization of Muslims after 9/11 and the Effects of American Retribution

 By Kelsey Raymer

Last year I had the amazing opportunity to present research on the racialization of Muslims at the National Honors Conference. This opportunity solidified my aspiration of continued research in oppression and is one of my proudest accomplishments so I would like to share a bit of it here.

Saidya Hartman states, "...the fungibility of the commodity makes the captive body an abstract an empty vessel vulnerable to the projection of others' feelings ideas desires, and values; and, as property, the dispossessed body of the enslaved is the surrogate for the master's body since it guarantees his disembodied universality and acts as the sign of his power and dominion.”

Racialization is defined by Merriam-Webster as “the act of giving a racial character to someone or something.” In my research I examine how the collectivist framework forced on the diverse followers of Islam acted as a catalyst for the heinous activity brought upon this community in the years following 9/11. To conceptualize this approximation I pull from Saidiya Hartman’s “Scenes of Subjection” where a question of the normality of brutality that occurred against enslaved individuals was posed. Hartman concludes that it’s the commodification of black individuals as property that allows for heinous actions to be committed against them and go unchecked. The horrors acted against Muslims in post 9/11 America demonstrates a similar worldview. Rather than monetary gain, the killing and pillaging of Muslims and their community acted as a mode for consensus of a homogenous worldview in support of the War on Terror.

In a documentary video from The New York Times commemorating the 20th anniversary of the war in Iraq, follow up interviews to a 2003 film were led with the veterans stationed in what is referred to as the Gunner Palace. These vets reflected on their experience being deployed and spoke in disdain of the events that happened. A vet by the name of Beatty compares his actions to the actions committed against African Americans in the US. He draws from a specific example that was published on the cover of TIME magazine where he is photographed with his knee across the chest of a suspected terrorist. Beatty remarks on how the similarities between that and George Floyd were uncanny and beyond disgraceful yet one was on the cover of an international publication and the other, though occurring 17 years later, sparked worldwide outrage and protest.

It makes you question, what are the reasons for the unsympathetic attitudes regarding the treatment of muslims? What contributes to racialization? In a journal published after the hate killing of Vincent Navroze Balbir, Rashid concludes that its the “Otherness” of non-white identities, the conflation of Islamic views and the values of middle eastern terrorism, and the media’s representation of “brown skinned” individuals that create the framework for racialization.

Each of these factors were acted out on the work stage during the Bush administration’s post 9/11 war efforts. The war efforts post 9/11 were characterized as the war on terrorism and a fight

against the enemies that tried to infringe on American freedom, but who were the enemies. Obviously, named individuals like Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden were able to be easily differentiated, but when President Bush calls for a stop and defeat of “every terrorist group of global reach” a broad net is thrown for a group of people where the only characteristics we know about them are brown and practice Islam. Nevertheless, distinctions between Islam and terrorist regimes were made by the president in multiple addresses to the nation, but they would come to fall on deaf ears when the looming fear of terrorism clouded judgement.

This lack of distinction led to a startling rise in hate that would become a stain on American history. A publication from Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs titled “Racial Profiling and Islamophobia”, multiple statistics and facts were stated regarding the profiling of Muslim Americans after 9/11. The article states the government required men that descended from specially listed middle eastern countries to fingerprint and register for the government under the guise of “Special Registration”. In addition, between 2000 and 2009, though the overall number of reported hate crime incidents decreased by over 18 percent, the percentage of hate crime incidents directed towards Muslims increased by over 500 percent. The number of assaults against Muslims in the U.S. peaked at 127 in 2016.

To provide even more specific examples, Human Rights Watch reported on the Backlash of 9/11 and lists a plethora of reports of Muslim, Asian, Sikh, and Arab individuals who were targeted in retaliation during the weeks following the attacks.

The first instance, on September 30, 2001, Swaran Kaur Bhullar, a Sikh woman, was attacked by two men who stabbed her in the head twice as her car was idling at a red light in San Diego. The men shouted at her, "This is what you get for what you've done to us!" and "I'm going to slash your throat," before attacking her. enforcement officials have been unable to identify Bhullar's attackers.

The Second instance, Ali W. Ali, a sixty-six-year-old Somali Muslim, died nine days after being punched in the head while standing at a bus stop in Minneapolis, Minnesota on October 15, 2002.According to press reports, the only known witness to the attack saw the assailant walk up to Ali, punch him, stand over him, and then walk away. His son and Somali community members attributed the attack against Ali to anger created against Somalis by a front page local newspaper article that appeared two days before the attack. The article said that Somalis in Minneapolis had given money to a Somali terrorist group with links to Osama Bin Laden.After originally finding that Ali had died of natural causes, the Hennepin County medical examiner's office on January 8, 2002 ruled

Ali's death a homicide. Ali's family regards his murder as a hate crime. Both local police and the FBI have been unable to find Ali's assailant.

These cases are 2 out of hundreds that occurred in the years that followed 9/11 with many xenophobic hate crimes continuing today.

Of course this xenophobic hate wasn’t just contained to American soil. Individuals and institutions also participated in indiscriminate hate at the behest of US government officials.
In the prison abolitionist book, “Are Prisons Obsolete”, Angela Davis confronts America's mental separation from prisons and attaches it to the true ideological functions of the prison system. It is described that we see prisons as a place for the evil people of the world, criminals, a term that has become synonymous with people of color. In that comparison, a prison serves as a place where those who are “undesirable are deposited” so we don’t have to confront the true issues at play and are therefore relieved of responsibility and guilt associated with a failing societal structure. The “out of sight, out of mind” mentality seeped into the zeitgeist of America in regards to Muslims for the sake of a “safer” nation. Though instead of our prison system becoming the “home” for this newly racialized demographic where the regulations on punishment could be applied, areas like Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib were created conveniently outside those regulations so the repeatedly called for American retribution can be served.

Guantanamo Bay is a naval base located in Cuba. In 1903, Cuba leased 45 square miles to the US for the construction of the base that would come to detain more than 55,000 Cuban and Haitian refugees along with 780 prisoners from the War on Terror since 2002. In 2005 the Supreme Court refused to consider whether the government’s military trials unfairly denied the detainees of legal rights. Later that same year a report presented to the Senate Armed Services details the interrogation of a suspected “20th Hijacker”, Mohamed al-Kahtani. The report chronicled how he was forced to wear a bra, dance with a man, and do dog tricks while wearing a leash. The Supreme Court limits the US government’s power to conduct tribunals hence forcing them to come up with new ways of prosecution. It would take until 2008 for a 5-4 decision that allows detainees the constitutional right to challenge their detentions. Currently, 31 detainees are being held at Gitmo, 17 of which have never been charged and are approved for release yet still remain.

In 2017, Vice News had a sit-down interview with former Guantanamo prisoners that are now living in the UK. Moazzam Begg recounts how the officers degraded them in a way that would remove their sense of individualism. Ruhal Ahmed, who was detained when he was 18, says he witnessed someone kill themselves right in front of him. Shafiq Rasul describes how they would refer to the detainees as numbers, never their name. Shafiq was 86.

Abu Ghraib was a US Army Detention Center for captured Iraqis from 2003 to 2006. Thanks to whistleblow Sergeant Joseph M. Darby, the discovery of graphic photos of guards abusing detainees led to an investigation. In 2004, Taguba’s report was published detailing his findings of the investigation in Abu Ghraib. His report cites the following abuses occurred, physical abuse, videotaping of naked male and female detainees, forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions, arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then jumping on them, electric torture, and rape of female detainees at the hands of male guards. In 2008, former detainees filed a lawsuit against the military contractors that supplied the interrogators and in 2014 the prison officially closed. It has been concluded that approximately 70-90% of those detained were innocent.

In a documentary titled “Lifting the Hood: Full disclosure on the appalling Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, reports have a conversation with some of the men in the photos that spark the investigation into the prison. Former Iraqi Special Forces general and detainee, Abu Maan, sits with his family as they describe in grave detail the raid for his arrest. His son says, “They pulled the cord so tight on my brother's neck he was choking”. Abu’s wife, who was 6 months pregnant at the time, says she experienced a miscarriage. In that same documentary a reporter sits down with Ali Shallal al-Qaysi, a man who is confirmed to be “the man in the black hood”. He describes how soldiers attached writings to his arms and electrically shocked him until he lost consciousness. He states, “This is the worst position a human being could be in.”

What do these instances tell us?
When examining the sadistic nature of these prisons under American control an emotion that goes beyond indignation is highlighted. The individuals who sanctioned, carried out, and applauded these actions exhibit a level of hostility that can only be fueled by the homogenous feeling of hatred for Muslims. Though the American government tried to limit a poor image on the collective religion, the establishment of these institutions said otherwise. It’s safe to assume that though protections for brown communities was a topic, finding individuals who could be punished for terrorism was the priority.

To conclude, the racialization of Muslims after 9/11 was perpetuated by an otherness that grew synonymous with a faceless enemy that the President promised to end. The new worldview of Muslims being the enemy allowed atrocities of epic proportions to be committed in the name of defeating the terrorist. Rather than condemning these actions they were confirmed and in some minds applauded because it prolonged the falsehood that were getting closer to eradicating terrorism, casualties be damned. This falsehood became the mantra of Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. “We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail” (Bush, 2001). American people wanted to win a war against terrorists so badly they lost sight of who the real ones were and an entire religion paid the price.

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Crawford, Neta C., et al. “Racial Profiling | Costs of War.” Watson.brown.edu, Brown University, June 2021,watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/social/rights/profiling .

Human Rights Watch. “THE SEPTEMBER 11 BACKLASH.” Hrw.org, 2020, www.hrw.org/reports/2002/usahate/usa1102-04.htm.

Kelsey Raymer is a McConnell Scholar in the class of 2026. She is studying political science and social work.