Global Reactions to 9/11

                I was recently discussing this course (“After 9/11”) with a friend.  The conversation focused on how we were only 11 years old when the acts happened so we knew that the attacks were a significant event in U.S. history, but couldn’t fully understand the details.  At that age, you are still fairly innocent and lack certain knowledge about politics, the world, etc.  Now that we are older, we can think more analytically about 9/11 and try to understand that day, as well as the events leading up to it, more deeply.  This friend recently traveled to Europe over winter break, and she mentioned that she was shocked by the opinions of 9/11 that some people seemed to have.  She told me that there were stickers in various places, making fun of the attacks because, they argued, 9/11 doesn’t come close to the numerous attacks that other nations have experienced.  This view reminds me of Arhundati Roy’s—although she never mocks the attacks—because she has noted, “For a country involved in so much warfare and conflict, the American people have been extremely fortunate. The strikes on September 11 were only the second on American soil in over a century.”  Moreover, Roy gave a list of nations who have experienced attacks in fairly recent global history:

The millions killed in Korea, Vietnam and Cambodia, the 17,500 killed when Israel – backed by the US – invaded Lebanon in 1982, the 200,000 Iraqis killed in Operation Desert Storm, the thousands of Palestinians who have died fighting Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. And the millions who died, in Yugoslavia, Somalia, Haiti, Chile, Nicaragua, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Panama, at the hands of all the terrorists, dictators and genocidists whom the American government supported, trained, bankrolled and supplied with arms. And this is far from being a comprehensive list.

Although 9/11 is rightfully a horrifying day in history for Americans, it seems that, globally, the attacks haven’t necessarily  been viewed as tragically as the U.S. sees them.  That is not to say that people of other nations don’t sympathize with the U.S., but it is shocking nonetheless to hear that it can be taken lightly enough to have stickers around mocking the U.S. and its reaction to 9/11.  At least for me, the information my friend shared was shocking because I guess I never really thought about global perceptions of the attacks; thus, to hear that some people held that view was surprising and really made me think about how different people in various parts of the world might react to both attacks on the U.S. other nations beyond the intellectual perceptions of people such as Roy.

The Sublimination of Syriana

Last semester, I took a section of FYS that focused on filmic portrayals of minorities throughout history and how these representations affect the ways in which Americans respond to these different races. I wish I still had the textbook, because I would love to see the specific chapter on the portrayal of Arabs. However, since I don’t have access to that information, I want to use the trailer to Syriana to explore the presence of Orientalism throughout the clip. 

In my own viewing of the trailer, I found concepts of Orientalism throughout each and every clip. From the start of the clip, the narrator immediately distinguishes Americans as the victims, as they are “unable to heat their houses,” and must pay “twenty dollars a gallon” for gasoline. A clip of Matt Damon solidifies this issue: “[Oil] is running out and ninety percent of it is in the Middle East.” Viewers immediately correlate the two realities: Americans will be unable to heat their houses if the Middle East does not provide them their abundant share of oil. This correlation represents the Middle East as the enemy; how dare they expect Americans to pay twenty dollars a gallon for gasoline when they have all that oil! His line that follows—“This is a fight to the death”—distinguishes the Manichean “us versus them” concept; they are the enemy that America is fighting.

After portraying the protagonist and the antagonist—America and the Middle East, respectively—negative quotes accompany images of the Arab characters in the film: “His money is in a lot of dark corners,” a quote said while a picture of the son of the Emir appears on screen; “I want you to take him”—in this case, presumably the man shown on screen, the son of the Emir—“to a hotel, drug him, put him in the front of a car, and run a truck into him at fifty miles per hour,” a very violent quote in reference to an Arab; “You want to know what the business world thinks of you?”—in this case, the “you” refers, once again, to Arabs—“We think a hundred years ago you were living out here in tents in the desert chopping each others’ heads off,” a quote that portrays the Arabs as violent and barbaric; “It is illegal to offer gifts, money, or anything of value to influence foreign officials,” in this case, the foreign official refers to the new Emir, who apparently, through viewer correlation, would accept these gifts despite the corruptness and illegality of the act; additionally, a clip flashes across the screen of George Clooney while he gets kidnapped and tortured by Arabs.

The final image of the trailer lists a series of concepts in the film: oil, CIA, lie, Syriana, die, win, oil.” This list gives the viewer an indirect correlation between these negative concepts and the enemy from the beginning of the trailer—the Middle East.

While all of these thoughts may not rush through the viewer’s mind when they first see the trailer, these underlying concepts only reinforce the negative connotation associated with the Middle East. This trailer reaffirms the presence of Orientalism in post-9/11 filmic portrayals, a perpetuation of America as the good guy and the Middle East as the bad guy.  

NYPD spying on Muslims

Here is a post from the Commonweal blog site today.

Religious liberty and NYPD spying on Muslims
February 24, 2012, 11:34 am
Posted by Paul Moses

The Associated Press has continued to expose the broad sweep of the New York Police Department’s spying on Muslims – not only in New York City but, as The AP now reports, elsewhere in the Northeast. Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly have said police are just following leads. “We don’t stop to think about the religion,” Bloomberg said in August. ” We stop to think about the threats and focus our efforts there.” But, as the excellent investigative news Web site ProPublica notes, newly disclosed documents show that’s not the case.

One can understand why the NYPD sees a need to go beyond the surveillance local police typically do; federal authorities shamefully failed to protect the city against terrorism in the past, so Kelly has tried to fill the void. Before you draw a conclusion one way or the other, I suggest that you peruse a 60-page internal NYPD report that the AP uncovered. In it, intelligence officers catalog just about anything remotely Muslim in the city of Newark, N.J.

Are you comfortable with this? There has been much discussion on dotCommonweal and elsewhere about freedom of religion for Catholics. Is religious liberty an issue here? Or should we say this is to be expected and focus solely on our own liberties?

Just asking.

Reel Bad Arabs

Hey guys, here's a website and a clip/ full video (i'm not entirely sure) of what we talked about in class.

http://www.reelbadarabs.com/


http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-223210418534585840

This post actually goes right along with what Chad has just posted about, so it's kind of perfect timing I guess. I remember when I visited New York City in the summer of 2006. It was the first time that I had ever been and I immediately fell in love. The whole feel of the city was amazing. Naturally, I was very interested in visiting Ground Zero and getting a sense of what it must have been like on that fateful day in September. I don't know that anything I watched on television or anything I read in a book could have prepared me for it. I had seen pictures and I had heard of their size, but walking up to the chain link fence that surrounded the site, I found myself almost breathless. The size of the crater in the earth was enormous. As me and my family walked around the surrounding streets we visited a firehouse, actually the first firehouse to respond the site. The picture above was a memorial that had been constructed in remembrance of the brave men who had sacrificed everything that they held sacred in order to try and preserve everything that those lost in the Towers had held sacred. It was stunning to see.
But, this was actually not the thing that was most powerful to me. For me it was seeing just how close the attacks brought people together. Of course there was a huge increase in the sense of nationalism nationwide, but especially in New York City there was a feeling of unity. On the surrounding streets there were black walls that were littered with pictures, drawings, poetry, and other forms of artwork. I have posted a couple of pictures that I took of some of the poems and pictures. For me this was extremely powerful and almost means more than any memorial they could build. This is personal. These are memorials constructed by everyday citizens of New York City. People that may have been directly affected or people that may have had no connection to anyone in either Tower. Regardless, they all felt as though they had experienced a loss.
I really just wanted to share this because I felt that it was such a powerful experience for me. I'm not sure if anyone else has been or seen this, but it is definitely something worth checking out.

New York & NOT Letting Go

                After a decade of the events that happened during 9/11, New York and many other people refuse to let it go from their memories. New York has been through a lot of tragic events in its history and many traces of where those events took place will never be forgotten but we do move on. Many tragic events include…

“There was once a place called Five Points, where murderous gangs reigned. You couldn't even find it on a map now. The factory building where young women leapt to their deaths to escape the inferno consuming the Triangle Shirtwaist Co. is a university office. The 1,021 souls who burned in 20 minutes aboard the General Slocum in the East River 107 years ago are remembered by New Yorkers, if at all, because they account for the worst loss of life before September 11, 2001”.

With all of these tragic events that took place, New Yorkers stride on relentlessly to make their future better then their past. They don’t see these events as a sign of trouble; many just see it as a roadblock to the progress of the nation as a whole. But, when it comes to 9/11 in today’s time, the overall mood is to never forget. We are still trying to fill the sky of where the towers use to be. We are building the freedom towers. And now there is an app for your phone that if you hold it up to the place the towers use to be, it will put the towers in your view through your phone. Many people that were hurt or scared that day across our beautiful nation would never be as touched as a person that was in New York that day or that personally knew someone that was killed during that day. Yet, we still never want to let go because this attack was personal it feels like. It wasn’t a military attack; it was just an attack to kill as many people as they can. Why wouldn’t we want to let go of such a horrific day in our memory. I don’t mind people remembering what happened on that day, but eventually we will move on like all the past history in this nation. I just don’t like how some people are simply trying to remember that day by buying the shirts the hats or the pins. This is one of those events where you shouldn’t need something to remind you of it all the time. It should be one of those things that live on in your memory. When we are older and pass things on to your children or grandchildren. Many of them would not know what the hats, the pins, or the shirts even mean. They will just now the stories that are told, the books that were written, and the pictures that were taken.

To end on a great quote from this website, “A city, of course, is not monuments or buildings, as Jane Jacobs reminded us. It is people and the communities they make. Some fled New York (no one is quite sure how many left for good after the attack). But others, hundreds of thousands of them, came from all around the world in the years after 9/11”. We don’t need building of dedication, plaques on the walls; all we need to do is show the world that nothing can keep our heads down. We will always be able to stand back up no matter what is said and done.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-oreskes/new-yorks-911-and-not-let_b_951339.html

United 93 - Art and Image Influence on Interpretation

After viewing the movie United 93 I am reminded how much influence art and images can have on people and their beliefs. There is something about images and re-enactments that can frame a story in a much more powerful way than words. Seeing the events acted out was enlightening. Even though I knew the outcome of the day, I still felt nervous. I was still on the edge of my seat as I watched the hijackers go through airport security. I still felt sick to my stomach as they politely said “no thank you” to the stewardess when she asked if they needed anything to drink. Being put into the cabin of United 93 it made me angry all over again. It made me upset that throughout the attack the terrorists were screaming the name of Allah. I am angry that they are using God’s name in vain. We have spoken in class how the hijackers were extremists in their faith. In my mind though I always envisioned the main motivation for the men to hijack and take over the planes was their hate for Western culture, specifically America. To see the hijackers praying the whole time on the plane and offering up their kills to God was eye opening. In a way it made the attacks scarier for me. Without realizing it I always rationalized the attacks with hate. But in the movie it’s clear that the attacks came from reverence and in a sick way love for God.  This is what frightens me, the belief that God would want people to kill. That sounds naïve and juvenile but it’s the truth. Those men believed they were doing the right thing, the only thing that God wanted to them to do. What is also frightening is the realization that “their” God is the same as my “God” which in turn connects me to the terrorists through shared belief of religion. I am Catholic and the terrorists identified as Muslim, but I believe all religions worship the same God just in different ways. Through reverence of God and simply humanity we’re connected.

Other realizations that crystalized for me during the movie were the chaos and lack of communication that was going on between different agencies that morning. When we talk in class sometime I think we forget the attacks were 10 years ago and that technology in the communication aspect has improved. The movie did a nice job of emphasizing that not only were we unprepared for attacks like the plane hijackings, but we were immune to the idea of it. When the first hint of the hijacking was expressed there were laughs and rolled eyes. As Americans we were naïve to the gravity of the day.

The only criticism I have for the movie is that I wish it would have been more time lined. I would have liked to see the time when the first suspected hijacked plane was reported to air traffic controls. I think having a solid timeline like in the graphic novel would have made the movie more informational and given the audience a real understanding of how quickly everything was happening.

Did the movie make you look at the attacks or the emergency response differently too? If so, in what ways?

New Phase of World Politics? Hardly.

I won’t directly argue against Samuel Huntington’s essay, “The Clash of Civilizations?” since I can see his predictions unfolding post-9/11.  I won’t deny his accuracy in his expectation of what he calls a “new phase” of world politics. Instead of criticizing his main points, I would rather consider Huntington’s definition of a clash of civilizations as something new to world politics. In his defense, Huntington does make a point in saying that this so-called “new phase” of conflict differs from older and more common issues, such as politics and economics. However, my specific point—and I was able to touch upon it briefly in class—challenges Huntington’s diagnosis. Yes, his “clash of civilizations” may not directly link to politics and economics, and I see him try to separate these issues from culture throughout the essay. I hope I’m not making a major leap here, but I believe that the political and economic issues of the past have always stemmed from what Huntington defines as “civilizations.” Huntington’s definition of civilizations includes the following:

…history, language, culture, tradition, and most important, religion. The people of different civilizations have different views on the relationship between God and man, the individual and the group, the citizen and the state, parents and children, husband and wife, as well as differing views on the relative importance of rights and responsibilities, liberty and authority, equality and hierarchy (Huntington 37)

While this may differ for some people, I can easily assign each of these issues into two categories: politics and economics—the two very categories from which Huntington proposes that world politics is slowly moving away. Most people base their political ideologies on the following: their views on the relationship between God and man; the individual and the group; the citizen and the state; parents and children; husband and wife. Accordingly, most people base their economic ideologies on the following: rights and responsibilities; liberty and authority; equality and hierarchy. At risk of sounding too facetious, I think that Huntington states the obvious in his essay. While I understand that he delves further into his topic, these first points set the basis for his entire work.

With that being said, think that Huntington’s concept of the “clash of civilizations” has existed for centuries, as all political and economic issues stem from the beliefs and values found in a given civilization. Huntington’s definition of this conflict as a “new phase” of world politics seems more like a misdiagnosis to me, as these issues have always existed and will always exist.

Sontag, Revisited

In the New York Times article, “Real Battles and Empty Metaphors”, Susan Sontag argues that the U.S. War on Terror is a war “with no foreseeable end”. She even likens it to a war on “cancer, poverty and drugs”. Because of this similarity, Sontag states that this makes the War on Terror a “metaphor”, albeit one with “powerful consequences”. Sontag does not stop there, however. She goes on to say that “Real wars are not metaphors. Real wars have a beginning and end.”

Earlier in the semester, I disagreed with Sontag. I thought that she misconstrued the situation and failed to see the necessity to act. I even went so far as to call the War on Terror a whole new breed of war brought on by the increased globalization of our world and the trickiness of dealing with a non-governmental organization.

Although this may be true, today I see the situation somewhat differently. There was a reason George W. Bush and his aids called the engagement a “War on Terror” and not simply a war against al-Qaeda, or more accurately, a war against Iraq or Afghanistan. For a few weeks, I was unsure what the real reason could be. But then I realized—the U.S. hasn’t declared war on another country since WWII. Congress never declared the War on Terror to be a legitimate (Constitutional) war. Congress did not declare war on Iraq or Afghanistan.

So, I came to the conclusion that there may be an actual purpose for a metaphorical war. It certainly would make it easier for a president to decide he doesn’t need Congressional approval for the act. Does a president need Congressional approval to declare a war on cancer, poverty, or drugs? No, he doesn’t. So, I believe that there could be a reason to declare a metaphorical war, other than the reasons Sontag pointed out. Whether or not the reason is outrageous as Sontag’s other reasons (and whether or not Bush would’ve been farsighted enough to come up with it), I’ll let you decide. 

"The Clash of Civilizations?": Samuel Huntington, Edward Said, Arundati Roy, and Chalmers Johnson

1. Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations?” was published in 1993; is it a prescient essay for 9/11, or an attempt to justify not delivering the promised “peace dividend” at the end of the Cold War? both?
2. What is Edward Said’s main critique of Huntington’s argument, and why does Huntington’s piece retain intellectual currency?
3. What is Arundati Roy’s critique of the War on Terror, and what would Roy say to Huntington if they were to debate? What would Huntington argue, in response?
4. How does Chalmers Johnson’s Blowback attempt to “explain” 9/11?

Is America really that bigoted? Lowes pulls backing from show "All American Muslim"

"The conservative Florida Family Association, which is pushing advertisers to drop "All-American Muslim," cheered Lowe's decision. The group called the TLC show "propaganda that riskily hides the Islamic agenda's clear and present danger to American liberties and traditional values."


C'mon really? 

Heres the article -> http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/11/showbiz/all-american-muslim-lowes/index.html

The subject matter is a bit dated. However,  back in December CNN ran a story about Lowes (Yes the "All American hardware mega store" ) pulling an advertising campaign away from the show "All American Muslim." If you haven't seen the show it was on TLC, which aired from 11-23-11 to 01-12-12. If you have preconceived on how a Muslim family is supposed to act, this show will change it. TLC does a great job, especially for a reality television show, in documenting what it means to be muslim to an All American family. No is wasn't a tear mill. They did not solicit a sympathetic response from viewers, it simply gave insight. Religion is an antiquated phenomenon with all of the 3 monastic religions. Christian, Jews and Muslims struggle with piety and the changing world everyday. In fact there is a couple on the show who has full sleeves tattoos which the Qu'ran forbids and labels as "haraam." As for those tatted Christians out there, the new testament and old testament also forbids the practice of tattooing. This goes to show that we are not that different. Muslims are forbidden to drink, there are some that do. No the bible does not forbid jews or christians from consuming alcohol but being drunk is  not condoned by "the lord almighty". There are some Jewish extremist, there are some Christian, there are some Muslim extremist. All American Muslims wanted us to realize this in doing so, I've realized American culture is not comprised of one specific ethnic custom, we happen to be the largest melting pot in the world. So why in fact did Lowes pull their add campaign attached to the show? Is bigotry also one facet of American culture that we revel in? I am surprised nobody boycotted Lowes for the decision. In the words of George Lopez the ethnic hate torch is always passed like a game of tag... it went from I Love Lucy receiving boycott for Lucy (a white woman) kissing the cuban character Ricky Ricardo, Star Trek almost being cancelled for Captain Kurt (a white man) kissing the black character Uhura to Lowes receiving hate mail and pulling backing from  "All American Muslim." I wonder who gets the torch next?

Charting the Emotions of 9/11 Minute by Minute

While reading about how our emotions played a role, I did some research about the topic and found a lot of interesting things. This website (http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2015528,00.html) brought about many fascinating details of that day and also many questions that I have wondered in the past. The main question I had was why we just call it simply as 9/11. We don’t call any other attack/tragic even by its date. We give it a name, not a simple date holder. This website stated that “Pearl Harbor and the Kennedy assassination were never known simply as 12/7 or 11/22, but for 9/11, a numerical designation seemed to serve as a thin shield against having to name — and thus feel — the tragedy every time we discussed it”. Hearing a name of an event is not as bad as hearing 9/11. It has a more personal feeling that seems to never be forgotten. It’s more of reminder because since we call simply 9/11, we live it every year. The emotions for that day were a roller coaster of names and feelings. It is truly hard to believe that emotions can change so much in a day. This website I found to be such a great resource that describes how each of the emotions for that day can change and be described for that single day. A great ending quote from this website is “It may be worth remembering on an individual level too, as a Muslim cab driver in New York City begins to heal following last week's knife attack by an Islam-hating passenger. We can do little about the anger, anxiety and grief we feel after an event like 9/11. We can do much, however, to determine how we respond to those feelings”. This is truly a work that we should move on and take notes from.Think before you do something so irrational like that.