"America, your 9/11... is our 24/7" 
Ten Years of Fighting State Violence

Lily Haskell
Arab Resource and Organizing Center

Imagine one day, you oversleep your alarm clock by a
few hours.  You wake up, and the world is a different
place.  You leave your house and your neighbors look at
you with suspicion.  You walk down the street and
racial slurs are shouted in your direction.  Your
sister is harassed at her workplace. Your brother, a
lawful resident, is forced to give his fingerprints to
immigration.  Your cousins are made refugees in their
homeland (again).  Confused, you turn on the news and
see two planes have hit the World Trade Center.  Your
world has changed forever.

Ten years later, this is the legacy and impact of the
attacks of September 11th, 2001 for members of the Arab
community in the US, as well as other Muslims, South
Asians, and Middle Easterners. Unfortunately, the time
since 9/11 has been a time of continued tragedy and
grief for our communities in the US, as well as for our
families in our countries of origin.

A tragic event can build resilience and growth, or it
can foment fear. 9/11 is a marking point to reflect and
evaluate, and be a moment, ten years on, to
collectively ask ourselves how have we healed and what
have we learned.

With individuals and the media seeking explanation and
blame, 9/11 signaled immediately to Arab, Muslim, and
South Asian communities that we should brace for
heightened institutional racism and state violence. 
The US government had an opportunity to call for
greater global unity, evaluate the root causes of these
attacks, and build a stronger nation through increasing
rights and resources to communities.  Instead it
capitalized on the hysteria and used the rising
xenophobia to push through a seemingly endless series
of restrictive policies to create further global
division through increased war and imperialism.

We need not look too far into US history at Jim Crow
laws or WWII internment camps to understand how the
attacks of 9/11 have similarly been used as a
catalyzing historical moment to accelerate preexisting
racism in order to pass harmful government policies
which were once illegal (such as warrantless
wiretapping or water-boarding).

Although Islamophobia (hatred and oppression of Muslims
and Islam) preceded 9/11, 9/11 helped to legalize new
types of institutionalized racism and increased
policing.  For example, we experienced bias in
immigration prior to 9/11, but the government was able
to legalize this bias with the NSEERS program,
requiring male immigrants from primarily Muslim and
Arab countries to register with the Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE) -- a process through which
thousands of US residents were detained and/or
deported.  Ten years after 9/11, all immigrant
communities now suffer from the expansion of the
security state (or Terrorism Industrial Complex)--with
its creation of the Department of Homeland Security,
murky amalgamation of national security policies,
intelligence sharing, nationality-based screening,
desktop raids, and community policing.

Immigrant populations face increased surveillance and
daily confrontations with a sprawling defense industry.
The 'war on terror' is conflated with the 'war on
immigrants', in both rhetoric and tactics.  Ambiguously
titled programs (i.e Community Shield, Secure
Communities, Suspicious Activity Reporting
Initiatives), secret institutions, and Memoranda of
Understanding (MOUs) between local law enforcement and
the department of Homeland Security have contributed to
questionable methods of information gathering. By
combining immigration services with criminal justice,
the federal government has created programs such as
Secure Communities, "Criminal Alien Program" and 287(g)
agreements which grow the domestic security apparatus..

Arab and Muslim communities have always faced racism
alongside other communities of color. This did not
begin on 9/11, but on this anniversary we can see how
this racism has had a clear design and purpose: to gain
the complicity of the "average" citizen towards greater
oppression of people of color worldwide for economic
and political benefit of those in power.  In a period
of great economic depression, corporations have made
billions in profits off of the increase in domestic
policing, the growth of immigration detention
facilities, the militarization of the border, and
development of new military technology which fuels
continued wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and new
military assaults waged in Pakistan, Libya, and Yemen.


In the immediate wake of the attacks of September 11th,
the US government initiated devastating wars on
Afghanistan and Iraq, killing and starving entire
populations. Ten years later we can count US military
bases and troops stationed not only in these two
nations, but in many nations worldwide. Looking forward
on the anniversary of 9/11 and the days after, we fear
that the US government and the Right Wing may again use
this anniversary as an occasion for their political,
economic, and military gain.

These are just a few examples of how the US government
has exploited people's fear in order to isolate our
communities from one another and thus advance the wars
abroad and attacks on civil liberties at home.

With this statement, we ask you not only to remember
the casualties of 9/11 and its aftermath, but to
remember our growth and our collective struggles. 
Remember communities not in isolation, but instead
rising up together to protect one another at grassroots
and organizational levels.  Remember the community
lawyers, activists, cultural workers, labor activists,
students, and parents who have been empowered in new
ways to become leaders in Arab, Muslim, Middle Eastern,
and South Asian communities.

And imagine waking up differently this time... Imagine
waking up with a new spirit of global resistance to war
and imperialism.  Imagine new energy to ensure
resources and services for all communities.  Imagine
new collaborations that crisscross borders in our
struggle for migrant rights. Imagine our strength and
unity as we work for the rights of all people. Imagine...

The Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC) is a
grassroots organization working to empower and organize
our community towards justice and self-determination
for all people. AROC members build community power in
the San Francisco Bay Area by participating in
leadership development, political education, and
campaigns.

www.araborganizing.org

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