The western world has had Muslim occupants for a very long time in history, some of these early Muslim inhabitants have been the African slaves transferred to America, and Arabs or ottomans that migrated to Europe. These inhabitants have lived side by side in the 20th century unidentifiable by clothing or religious nature, and today they blend in perfectly with western culture and views and are sharing the same neighborhoods, workplaces and schools. The Muslims living among other religions in the west are hardly identified says Eltahawey (2010), “The mosque is next door to one of those churches and when male congregants mingle on the sidewalk, it’s impossible to tell who had just been in church and who in the mosque. It’s only some of the women’s headscarves that tell you”. The problem remains however one of the major hot topics of debate about whether Muslims are depicted in some sort of stereotypes that are hardly true about them in the media and just created to start a stir in society.
Islamophobia a fear of the Islam religion and Muslims, leads to discrimination against Muslims, and the rejection of Muslims from mainstream political or social process, stereotyping, and the presumption of guilt by association, and finally hate crimes against Muslims and Islam (Cair, 2012). This fear amid a society is mainly inflamed by the media and violent untrue accusations and stereotyping of the media against Muslims.
These accusations are mainly made by the American and western media in general, however because the western media is mainly controlled by American corporations, the Muslims are depicted in a certain stereotype in Hollywood and the news that targets them and sparks hatred crimes and untrue presumptions about Muslims and Islam. “Popular fiction and Hollywood motion pictures have perpetuated the stereotype of Muslims and Arabs as villains and terrorists for many years. According to some critics, the news in the United States, too, has long displayed anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bias” (Nacos & Reyna, 2002). Furthermore, because people mainly believe what they see and hear in the media this image of Muslims and Islam has been blown out of proportion which led to these stereotypes also becoming conventional and transferred in ideas through generations and the societies of the west in America and Europe.
The events of September 11, 2001 further imposed these accusations when a group of Muslims organized a suicide mission to hijack two planes and destroy the World Trade Centre twin towers in New York, USA which killed about 3000 innocent Americans and left many families in misery and grief. These events have escalated the hatred of the west against Muslims as in just one week, a cab driver was stabbed in New York by a passenger because he was Muslim, A drunk civilian walked into a mosque and urinated on prayer rugs as a sign of disrespect and hatred against Islam, and a brick was thrown at an Islamic Centre in California (Eltahawey, 2010) As these hatred crimes were all over the country it could not have just been the September 11 attacks that spread the idea of hate and violence towards Muslims and Islam.
Ironically, while Muslims did not feel the impact of September 11 as intensely as the Westerners, or have felt as wounded and damaged or defeated, it is they in the long run who might well be far more profoundly affected by it due to violence and hatred and even more focus by the media and Hollywood on Islam and Muslims that will generalize stereotypes about the religion and a major part of the western society. As a result this essay will discuss how the idea about Islam and Muslims developed and changed in the eyes of the west before and after the horrifying events of September 11th 2001.
The stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims have been presented in various forms by the mass media in Western culture and American culture. Stereotypical representations of Arabs are often manifested in a society’s media, literature, theater and other creative expressions. These representations, which have been historically and predominantly negative, often have adverse repercussions for Arab Americans and Muslims in daily interactions and in current events.
In American textbooks, which theoretically should be less-creative expressions, similar negative and inaccurate stereotypes are also found for Arabs and Muslims even before the attacks of the World Trade Centre twin towers in New York on September 11, 2001.
The main stereotypes of Muslims in the west before the September 11, 2001 attacks were mainly centered and focused on as wealthy people with oil that are uneducated, Bedouins that lived in deserts and came to the western world as playboys in order to be exposed to the pleasures of life that their money can ultimately buy, in other occurrences they were also portrayed as men with lust for money, women and that are greedy and possessive of women, while the stereotype of Arab women were portrayed as weak, silenced, and women treated without respect and are humiliated by the Arab and Muslim men.
The ideas of a lustful Muslim man portrayed in the media and Hollywood long preceded the attacks of September 11, The (Nacos & Reyna, 2002) study clarifies how the Muslims were portrayed wrongfully in the media as for example the Rudolph Valentino‘s roles in The Sheik (1921) and The Son of the Sheik (1926) set the stage for the exploration and negative portrayal of Arabs in Hollywood films. Both The Sheik and The Son of the Sheik represented Arab characters as thieves, charlatans, murderers, and brutes. These ideas conveyed in a message did little or minimal harm to the security and welfare of Muslims in the western world.
Moreover, Richardson (2004) shows that the same themes prevailed into the 1970s and beyond with films like Black Sunday (1977), based on a successful 1975 novel by Thomas Harris, concerns an Arab terrorist plot to bomb a stadium during the Super Bowl, and The Black Stallion (1979) opens with Arabs mistreating a horse aboard a ship, then attacking a boy with a knife and stealing his life jacket. Back to the Future (1985) went so far as to name a specific country, referring to enemies in the film as Libyan nationalists.
Furthermore, because of the ideas being broadcasted in western media show how Muslims and the nature of Islam were not treated fairly in the western media have resulted in the people having a preconception against Arabs and Muslims and their cultural beliefs and identity, it is prohibited and wrong in Islam to steal, impose violence or terrorize people or animals, but these films portray a different image about Islam that is far from its peaceful nature and the majority of these untrue images were caused by the western media and Hollywood as for example, (Richardson, 2004) states that A Son of the Sahara (1924) as “the strongest subconscious attack on the Arab culture of all the Arab movies of the 1920s.”.
On the other hand, after the attacks of September 11, 2001 the ideas of the west and America have changed about the Muslim’s and the Islam religion. Although the President of the United States George W. Bush at the time of the attacks of September 11, did clarify in his speech given after the attacks that these radical ideas of Islam and these terrorizing Muslims were not practicing the idea of Islam and its peaceful message by saying “The terrorists practice a fringe form of Islamic extremism that has been rejected by Muslim scholars and the vast majority of Muslim clerics; a fringe movement that perverts the peaceful teachings of Islam”(History Place, 2001). The event of the September 11 attacks being driven by Muslims and Islam extremists nevertheless, sparked a greater amount of terror and violence acts against Muslims in Europe and the Americas by westerners and people from other religions in the west and many Muslims have been portrayed and looked upon as terrorists, many have been discriminated against and treated differently, and have been stripped away from their civil rights.
In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks in which 15 of the 19 hijackers were of Saudi Arabian origin and all were of Muslim faith, Arabs and Muslims complained of increased scrutiny and racial profiling at airports. “In hate crimes based on religion, Muslims are the second most-victimized group, and every year since 9/11 they’ve been victimized at rates higher than before the attacks” (Friedersdorf, 2012). In a poll conducted by (Council on American-Islamic Relations, 2006) found that, 71 percent of Blacks and 57 percent of Whites believed that Arabs and Arab-Americans should undergo special, more intensive security checks before boarding airplanes. Also, Some Muslims and Arabs have complained of being held without explanation and subjected to hours of questioning and arrest without cause.
The “People’s perceptions about fellow-Americans around the country and people around the world are equally, and perhaps even more so, affected by information provided by the mass media” (Nacos & Reyna, 2002). And because of the major coverage of the Muslim world and Muslims in the western world and Islam in the mass media and news after the shocking attacks of September 11, these perceptions and generalized stereotypes of Muslims being terrorists have been blown out of proportion and made available in all mediums and types of the media from comic books to Hollywood movies. In a form of democracy Muslim writers, journalists and activist groups even human rights activists starting speaking in favor of Muslims and Islam (Nacos & Reyna, 2002).
A Muslim writer and journalist wrote, “Muslims mingling outside the mosque on my street are a microcosm of America. We vote – and our votes count, especially in swing states. That taxi driver stabbed in New York is one of the thousands of Muslims who comprise 50 per cent of NYC cabbies.” (Eltahawey, 2010) In order to portray a positive image of Muslims in America, she also said “We’re America’s teachers, comedians and even its current beauty queen, Rima Fakih and we’re also America’s doctors.” (Eltahawey, 2010) these statements portray a positive images about Muslims and Islam in the western world, an image probably undeclared before the September 11 attacks. Another Muslim writer based in America also wrote “I am a Muslim, and I respect the Bible, I respect and love the people who follow this book, I love this country, and I love the people who live here.” (Jamil, 2010) which shows how Islam is a religion of peace and forgiveness, a religion of respect and love.
“The terrorist attacks of 9-11 marked a turning point in the way the four daily newspapers reported about American Muslims and Arab Americans” (Nacos & Reyna, 2002) In the events after 9-11, the newspapers and news services in Europe and America carried more articles for a better understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims in the United States, more assurances that most Muslims have nothing to do with terrorism and that Islam does not preach violence. (Nacos & Reyna, 2002) the constitution of the United states was mentioned in articles to remind the people that America was built on the module of freedom of religion and practice of religion, “The Constitution of the United States guarantees the freedom of all of its citizens to practice the religion of their choosing.” (Jamil, 2010) was published in an American newspaper.
Nevertheless, with the help of the western society Islam is now trying to change its image across the entire west by promoting a positive image about Islam in the media. this is being done by many activists, and writers and journalists in the media industry from all types of different backgrounds and faiths. Muslims and Arabs alike are now being portrayed in a very positive image that resulted in a new coalition of over 100 groups formed in response to the opposition to the Cordoba House project, faith leaders, elected officials, musicians and activists voiced strong support for the proposed Islamic community center project, that will also include a September 11 memorial, a restaurant and culinary school and more organized by New York Neighbors for American Values (Kane, 2010).
The author of Ethnic Identity and Imperative Patriotism: Arab Americans before and after 9/11 concludes that September 11, 2001 did not actually alter American attitudes toward Arab Americans, but rather reinforced attitudes both positive and negative, that had existed for decades. 9/11 simply offered racists and xenophobes a rhetorical trope that could legitimize their views, while it offered multiculturalists more reason to promote inclusionary ideals (Salaita, 2005).
In conclusion, the western media with all of its imperfections has changed its view of the Arab and Muslim world and the way they have been depicted in the news and media. Because of the events of September 11, 2001 and the Muslims being held responsible for such violent terrorist attacks that were conflicting with the teaching and values of Islam, Muslims living in the west had to take a stand for themselves in order to change people’s views and change the harsh violent conditions they were living in after the attacks.
This resulted in Arabs reaching out to western people through proper media channels and trying to educate people about the right values and teachings and love of Islam and it is somehow working as people of the west have changed their views about Islam and know more about it and are rallying for the freedom of Arabs and Muslims to practice their religion without any violence or hatred against them. The conditions of stereotypes of Muslims being terrorists however remain unchanged in some of the western flights and airports and more Muslims are being questioned after landing in a foreign airport and are being held for thorough scans and security checks.
References:
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Council on American-Islamic Relations (2006) Survey Report Retrived on May 9th 2012 from http://www.cair.com/PDF/CAIRSurveyReport.pdf
Eltahawey, M (2010, September 7) Muslim Americans have a history before 9/11. Common Ground News http://www.commongroundnews.org/article.php?id=28427&lan=en&sp=0 Retrieved on 8th of May 2012.
Friedersdorf (2012, May 4). Was There Really a Post-9/11 Backlash Against Muslims?. The Atlantic Retrieved on May 8th 2012 from http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/05/was-there-really-a-post-9-11-backlash-against-muslims/256725/
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Kane, A (September 11, 2010) On Night Before 9/11, New Yorkers Voice Strong Support for Muslim Community Center. The Indypendent. Retrieved On May 8th 2012 from http://www.indypendent.org/2010/09/11/on-night-before-911-new-yorkers-voice-strong-support-for-muslim-community-center/
Nacos & Reyne (2002). Muslim Americans in the News before and after 9-11 http://www.apsanet.org/~polcomm/news/2003/terrorism/papers/nacos.pdf Retrieved on 8th of May 2012.
Richardson J. (2004) (Mis)Representing Islam: The Racism and Rhetoric of British Broadsheet Retrieved on May 9th 2012 from http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=WanqiF2XULsC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Salaita, S (2005). Ethnic Identity and Imperative Patriotism: Arab Americans before and after 9/11 retrieved on May 9th 2012 from http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/25115271?uid=3737432&uid=2&uid=4&sid=47698977216197
The History Place (2001, September 20). George W Bush Speech After 9/11 Attacks. http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/gw-bush-9-11.htm Retrieved on May 8th, 2012.