The Clash of Civilisations?

Tuesday, September 11, 2001 has changed the United States of America! Thecries of revenge after thousands are feared dead is understandable. But behindthe billowing smoke and the mountains of rubble in New York and Washington, thecore of American patriotism has suffered an irreparable damage.

Through their visible distrust and fear of the so-called"foreign-looking" people, the Americans are reinventing themselves --which I feel will have far reaching consequences in the future. Suddenly,innocent persons are facing verbal as well as physical abuse. In the streetsthey are hurled curses because they look dissimilar from mainstream Americans.

Newspapers and talk shows are questioning the propriety of allowing Arabs(and foreigners) to enter the United States of America. Suddenly, I fear that myname and appearance could trigger a suspicion -- I could be pulled out forinterrogation at any public place -- airports, hotels, checkpoints and shoppingcounters.

"Go back to your country," screams, obscenities and barelysuppressed rage and hatred conveyed through crank calls have an ominous parallelin the indignities suffered by the Japanese Americans after the Pearl Harborbombing.

It is a hysteria for revenge that has turned into a backlash against theArab-Americans, or anyone who looks like them. I am glad that President GeorgeBush, high officials and the Congress have warned against Muslim-bashing, buttheir assurances have not yet worked for those who hunkered down in fear. I donot deny that there are "pockets of compassion" in America, but thehate-driven incidents are no longer sporadic.

With political drumbeats all around, the maltreatment is rising sharplyacross the nation. And the under-reported humiliation and harrassment that hurtsthe soul more than the body is even higher than what is being reported to thepolice. Individuals mortified by doubts and ethnic slur often communicate onlythrough the grapevine of close friends and relatives. They do not show up inpublic records.

I have lived in the United States for the last 32 years and I have noticedtwo contradictory phenomena: on the one hand, increased immigration fromnon-European countries has given a greater diversity to the American nation, buton the other, parochialism has also permeated through different strata of thesociety.

I have seen hate mongering through "guilt-by association" duringthe Arab-Israeli war in 1973, during the Gulf War, and during the first bombingof the World Trade Center in 1993, which were largely ignored as isolatedincidents. But now it is more widespread and often violent. Meanwhile, theArab-Americans in particular and the Muslims in general are yet to find theirniche in the media and the political spectrum.

Racial profiling has long pitted the African-Americans against the lawenforcement agencies in the United States. In the event of a war or excessivetension in the Middle-East or whenever a terrorist attack hits the US or Israel,the Arab-Americans face humiliation, vandalism and arson.

I have detected a touch of panic among Arab-Americans, Muslims, Hindus andSikhs in the last few days. They are buying American flags and wrapping them intheir automobiles or hoisting them in front of their houses.

The worst racial profiling comes when individuals take it on themselves tobash others whom they pinpoint as the "enemy." Once the civilliberties yield to security, Muslims, Arabs, and those who might bearresemblance to them would suffer the brunt of it.

After September 11, Sikhs are among the sufferers both at the hands of lawenforcement agencies and enraged individuals hunting down the "foe."They are neither Arabs nor Hindus. The Sikhs are targets because their beardsand turbans come close to bin Laden's. And on several occasions, the mistakenidentity has fallen upon them like a ton of bricks.

Observers have also attributed it to the "callousness of strangepeople" and the diversity of cultures among the Americans. That's littlecomfort for the Sikhs, who are being hounded because of their resemblance to the"prime suspect."

Amidst the doubts and suspicions, the Arabs, Sikhs, Muslims and even Hindushave been advised by their respective community leaders to "stayinside" their homes and Hindu women have been counselled by their elders to"wear a bindi" to distinguish themselves from Arabs or Muslims.

Noam Chomsky, the celebrated writer and influential thinker in the UnitedStates, characterized the Tuesday (September 11) terrorist attacks as "giftto the hard jingoist right." Quite likely, it is the hard headedrevenge-seekers who will give a political voice to bigotry, posing danger forArab-Americans, Muslims and the bin Laden look-alikes.

The open outburst of the US government's revenge against binLaden/Afghanistan could in some way be better than the seeping fear. It dividespeople by apportioning a sense of guilt to a group of people distinguished byassociation, semblance, faith and race.

Indeed, the victims in New York and Washington do not belong to a single raceor faith --Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs have suffered deaths,injuries, destruction and loss of income. They have come side by side lookingfor husbands, friends, wives, brothers and sisters.

The multi-coloured and multi-religious faces of victims were missing in theearly media coverage of the catastrophic tragedy. Also, the political anger sentwrong messages to the intolerant elements.

American nationalism is a cross between a salad bowl and a melting pot --it's an asymmetrical relationship between the white European Americans, and themelange of the black, brown and yellow Americans, the immigrants of recentyears. The growing distrust towards the Arabs and Muslims may destabilize thediversity-laden national consciousness, cherished by many across the globe.

The Muslims have been demonized as the actual and potential doers ofterrorism against the United States and Israel. The devastating terror thataffected the Muslims as well as the non-Muslims has been slanted as the clashbetween Islam and the Western civilization. Such distortions are partly theprice the Muslim community pays for being caught in the crossfire between Israeland the Arabs.

The Muslims and Arabs and those who fit into the presumed profile are the"others" in the United States, and when such otherness defines theAmerican identity, its entire multi-ethnic and multi-religious fabric startscrumbling.

Washington may still be weighing the military options for punishing those whoallegedly sponsored the attackers on September 11, but the Americans are alreadyin the middle of reinventing themselves evidently to fight their "newwar" against the terrorists.