Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11

1. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • The terrorist attacks of September 2001 negativelyimpacted international migration and diasporic communities across the globe. • Partial closing of national borders, severe restrictionslegislatively imposed on trans border movement across international boundaries, detentions, interrogation, trial by military tribunals, and/ordeportation as regulatory mechanisms all affected the migrants.

2. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • In thepost-9/11 period, territorial borders of domestic "homelands" – particularlythose in countries of North America and Europe - have entered a "nervous" period that coincided with legal maneuvering to allow for greaterdeportation of immigrants.

3. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • On the morning of September 11, 2001, 19 armed terrorists, hijacked four airplanes all departing from airports along the metropolitan eastern seaboard of the United States. • The largest attack ever led towards the United States of America on itsown soil. • Over 3,000 US citizens, permanent residents, immigrants, and foreign visitors died that day.

4. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • These events marked the beginning of a "nervous" and volatile period of "terror," war, and "war on terror." • January 2002, President Bush delivered his presidential State of the Union address, declaring Iraq, Iran, and North Korea the "Axis of Evil," a declaration that paved the way to war in Iraq and that fueled anti-American sentiments and publicopinion in Iran and North Korea.

5. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • In March 2003, United States and the coalition of the willing (that included Spain, Italy, and Britain but notably did not include traditional US European allies like Franceor Germany) initiated air strikes over Baghdad that marked the beginning of the Iraqi War. • US unsubstantiated andlater disproved claim that the dictatorship of Sadam Hussein was stockpiling "weapons of mass destruction" (WMDs).

6. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • Following the beginning of the Iraqi War, more terrorist attacks followed, this time in places like Spain, London and Turkey. • Following these, we witnessed the proliferation of extra-territorial sites of detention and interrogation, increased detention for asylums and illegal border crossers, expanded ground for legal deportation of immigrants, andthe tightening of international boundaries and the restriction of trans bordermigrations in the name of "homeland security."

7. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • Supported and sanctioned bythe US Patriot Act, new measures for surveying, tracking, and regulating citizens, as well as their financial transactions, internet searches, international telephonecalls, purchases, and even library records started leading to authorizing arrest, search, interrogation, anddetention of immigrants.

8. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • More restrictive legislation: authorizing widespread use of surveillance technologies, including face recognition devices, and proposals to issue national identification cards, to maintain national citizen , and immigrant registry databases, and to detain suspected terrorists without warrant has been passed in the US and UK since 2001. • These became controversial since it violatesthe long-protected, common law rule of habeas corpus, the right to know the charge on which one is being held.

9. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • Immigration laws, and particularly refugee laws, have also become increasingly restrictive after 9/11. • This is true for the United States, as well as other historically immigrant-receiving countries, like Canada, Britain, Australia, andNew Zealand, and more closed countries like Austria, Germany, France, and other parts of Europe.

10. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • Refugee movements and asylum seekers have beenregarded with a heightened wariness as sources of instability and evenpotential sources of terrorism. • Extra-territorial detention have further served to imperil civil liberties and circumscribethe hegemonic dominance of the US militaristically.

11. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • Acts oftorture, sexual humiliation, and physical abuse - as documented in digital photographs that surfaced in April 2004 and circulated in the news medianot only unsettled concerned citizensin the US and worldwide, but also raised speculation about similar forms of abuseoperative in detention centers at the US Naval Base in Guantanamo and the AirBase at Baghram, and rumored torture sites in Syria and other countries.

12. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • Since September 11,2001, the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base has also became famous for the initial detention in 2002 of more than 700 men comprised of more than 40 nationalities, including Afghans, Australians, Bosnia-Herzegovinians, Brits, Kuwaitis, Pakistanis, and US citizens) who were arrested during the US-led military offensive against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. • They were defined as not as “prisoners of war”, but rather as “enemy combatants.”

13. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • During times of war or political crisis such as the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 in the United States, minorities that share the same ethnic or religious background as the "enemy" of the state are subject to backlash. • This backlash takes several forms. • First, members of the majority population may engage in scapegoating of the targeted population.

14. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • Second, pre-existing, or newly created, negative stereotypes of the targeted group(s), propagated in the media, often fuel the actions of the hatemongers. • Third, the state responds to perceived threats to the nation's security and sovereignty by targeting members of the ethnic/religious group(s) for scrutiny and repression, allegedly because they constitute a fifth column, or have the potential to become a fifth column, within its borders.

15. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • Unlike previous incidents, the events of 11 September irrevocably changed the status of Muslim minority from relatively invisible group to notorious terrorism suspects. • A common denominator among all nineteen of the 9/11 terrorists was Islam. The events alerted the American public to the presence of Muslim populations in their midst. • Muslims became the "Other" among the American population. Thanks to ignorance of the culture,religion, and history of the targeted peoples, the "Other" was reified as a homogeneous group.

16. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • Many immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa (the Arab world, Iran, and Turkey) identify more strongly with their national origin than with their religion. • Yet there is an emerging trend toward religiosity, especially among the second generation; and, as a term, "Islam" has gained political currency and come to incorporate ethnicity, nationality, religiosity, and community as one construct in American society. • Consequently, the Muslim diaspora in the United States has emerged as a viable political and social entity

17. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • Perhaps the most unexpected consequence of the 9/11 backlash against Muslims was their mobilization. Instead of capitulating to hate crimes and bias incidents, as well as a series of government executive orders, initiatives, and legislation that targeted Muslim immigrants, this group moved to claim its rightful place in American society

18. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • Mosques and Islamic centers provide a public space for meetings and facilitate networks of activism, fundraising, and dissemination of information. • Muslim American advocacy organizations, representing these populations, mobilized their constituents to defend their civil rights and to hasten their integration into America's mosaic. • It was in the 1990s that two of themost prominent Muslim organizations, the Muslim Public AffairsCouncil (MPAC) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations(CAIR), were established.

19. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • As an example of resource mobilization, interfaith alliances provide a means by which Muslims in diaspora formulate claims. • Interfaith activities mushroomed after 9/11, with the goal of fostering greater understanding and toleraince between Christians, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, and members of other religions.

20. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • The immigration of non-Western religious groups in the last decades of the twentieth century has given rise to serious theological and social challenges that put the future of a pluralist, multicultural America at stake. • Interfaith activities have been promoted as bridges between faiths and people during this time.

21. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • Prior to 9/11, Muslim diaspora leaders in the United States were preoccupied with the government's use of secret evidence in immigration cases. • In response to the Anti-Terrorism Act's validation of "secret evidence," Muslims felt the need to mobilize and establish grassroots and national organizations in the United States to advocate for their rights.

22. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • The extent and pace of political mobilization grew exponentially after 9/11. • Four ways in which the Muslim diasporas in the United States have engaged in mobilization: • (1) condemning terrorism and distancing the groups they represent from it; • (2) protesting government initiatives and profiling; • (3) informing the American public about Islam and Muslims and, at the same time, educating Muslims about American civic engagement; and • (4) participating in electoral politics.

23. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • Distancing and Condemning • They denounced acts of violence and called for tolerance. • In the years since these tragic events, Muslim American organizations' statements have become clearer and more categorical in publicly condemning acts of terrorism around the world.

24. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • Protesting government initiatives and profiling • Muslim American advocacy organizations were particularly upset that the government had not consulted them in the fight against terrorists. • Leaders were particularly distressed that the political climate after the terrorist attacks had deterred some politicians and officials from addressing the grievances of Muslims in the United States

25. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • Informing the American public about Islam and Muslims and, at the same time, educating Muslims about American civic engagement; • The terrorist attacks awakened in many members of the American public a desire to better understand Islamic cultures and the Muslim faith. • At the same time, Islamic centers and organizations realized the need to educate and inform their members and constituents about civic and political engagement in American society.

26. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • Participating in electoral politics • Traditionally, Muslim immigrants have shied away from "politics," because they often come from authoritarian countries in the Middle East and South Asia where political activity is discouraged. • But Voter registration drives multiplied after 9/11.

27. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • Witnessing of the "invention" of American Islam in the United States in the post-9/11 period, an invention that demanded institution building and accommodation. • The "Americanization" experience ignites immigrants' zeal to maintain their ancestral faith in the New World and, more importantly, incorporates religion as a prominent component of their identity.

28. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • The community hall and its adjacent kitchen, common in American religious architecture, have heen integrated in Islamic center architecture in the United States. • Following the example of Catholic schools and Jewish day schools, Muslims have founded ahout 200 Islamic day schools in the United States, where they are educating approximately 20,000 children.

29. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • The changing of ethnic traditions to religious ones; the development of voluntary associations, both religious and secular; the creation of communal spaces to socialize; the provision of social, educational, and other services for newcomers; and continual efforts to raise funds.

30. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • Contrary to the notion of the homogeneity of the Islamic culture championed by Samuel Huntington (1994) and Bernard Lewis (1990), particular forms of Islam or variations in the interpretations and the applications of Islam, although not entirely different, are certainly differentiated by specic social and cultural constraints .

31. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • Certainly one must interrogate and situate the various practices and interpretations of Islam within their national and ethnic contexts while also taking into account the place that Islam plays in the construction of a particular national identity. • Outside its most central ritualized practices (Qur’anic obligations, namely, the five pillars of Islam), Islam is often shaped in accordance with the social and ideological cleavages of societies which at the same time unconsciously incorporate religion into their social relations.

32. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • Muslims in France are mostly of Maghrebin descent (Arab and Berber). • The majority are members of families that migrated to France from Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and black African countries such as Senegal and Mali. • More than 30% of the Muslim population in France are second-generation

33. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • It is clear that France refuses to accept any ideological group and is thus intolerant of all signs that seem incompatible with its culture. • More than 40 years after the independence of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia from France, migrant workers from these respective countries, the largest Muslim groups in France, have made the connection between the iniquities of having been subjects in the colonial era and the inequalities of being immigrants or new citizens in France.

34. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • How could France accommodate Muslim people? • Islam may be incorporated into the French Republic has been repeatedly posed but never adequately resolved since the French colonization of Algeria in the 1830s. • The object of these discussions is not just the immigrant communities but the French nation itself which is experiencing what might be called the phenomenon of Islamicization.

35. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • The resurgence of Islam throughout the 1980s • The Iranian Revolution, Afghan War and Mujahadden • Hizbollah, Muslim Brotherhood • Hamas and Intifada • Mouvement de la Tendance Islamique in Tunisia and Front Islamique du Salut in Algeria

36. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • These events have provoked concerns in the west. • They made the news and caught people’s eye in France despite the fact that the media presented them with a threatening confusion. • Islam is represented in the west as a ‘jihad culture’.

37. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • No subject about Islam and Muslims received more attention, aggravated attitudes, provoked more fear and anger and more broadened the divide that separates France from its five million Muslim residents than the controversy of the hijab.

38. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • The hijab is not just a shawl anymore. It has had meanings and connotations imposed on it by the media and the dominant culture that range from backward, religious, Islamist, extremist, and, importantly, it is seen also as a sign of inferiority, oppression, passivity, and docility.

39. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • The media made generalizations in a selective and a reductive process that have had negative effect on the perception of Muslims in France and elsewhere: (1) the media showed that this is how Muslims treat their daughters; and (2) these people are in ‘our’ country and could turn into fundamentalist s applying the Shari’a (Islamic law) in France, therefore injecting fear: an Islamic threat to liberal values.

40. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • The rise of the right wing has forged racist ideas and xenophobic discourse against immigrant communities. • The incident of the hijab has given new importance to the issueof immigration and ethnicity/race. • The ethnic and religious categories became infused with essentialist characteristics: ‘Islam: the jihad culture’

41. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • Islam is an identity for many North African immigrants in France not in only the religious meaning to have a sense of history and direction for their lives. • More importantly, it is a social bond for these people who live the common experience of marginalization.

42. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • Identity gives the Maghrebin immigrant through Islam a sense of personal location in the global diverse and western society of France, and provides him/her with some stability in a harsh environment through emphasizing particularity and variety; it also defines gender and social relations. • The French assimilationist model seems to lack its true meaning. This limited interaction is rooted in the colonial relationship

43. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • From this perspective the secular Christian national identity is a form of collective identity. The defense of this identity against the threat of Islamism gets into the most cliche´nationalism and produces racist attitudes toward Muslim immigrants. • The hijab was seen as challenging to the French cultural homogeneity

44. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • The model of citizenship that the nation state has installed does not take into account the cultures of the immigrants’ experience. • The immigrants don’t see themselves fully integrated in the society and therefore they focus more on their background.

45. Muslim Diasporas in Post 9/11 • France has adopted what seems to be a fair model to integrate non-Europeans in its society as full- edged citizens. This model is known as the ‘assimilationis model’ which in fact is an old colonial discriminating model. In reality, it does not mean integration, because it does not mean political representation and participation of Muslims or recognition of Islam.