9/11, the Patriot Act, and Islam–West Relations

Introduction: A Surprise That Shouldn't Have Been

The terrorist attack in 2001 was in some ways a complete surprise to most Americans, though the country really should have expected that something like it would happen eventually. The World Trade Center had been attacked before in 1993, demonstrating not only the desire on the part of Islamic extremists to cause such destruction but also the type of target they were likely to choose. Those who monitor such attacks knew that these groups would try again and that they would find it appealing to attack the same target they had failed to bring down the first time — which is precisely what they did. For most Americans, however, the specific group Al-Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden may have been less well known, though intelligence agencies were aware of both. The public immediately began to ask what the government would do to protect them and also why these groups wanted to harm the United States at all.

Consider first the ongoing tensions in the Middle East, into which the United States has become enmeshed as a major target for terrorists and religious zealots of all stripes. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have set armies of Muslims against armies of the West. Some analysts argue that this conflict was predicted by Samuel P. Huntington's 1993 essay The Clash of Civilizations. Huntington predicted that one major source of conflict would be between the nations of the West and those of Islamic culture:

"In Eurasia the great historic fault lines between civilizations are once more aflame. This is particularly true along the boundaries of the crescent-shaped Islamic bloc of nations from the bulge of Africa to central Asia" (Huntington, 1993, p. 33).

The Clash of Civilizations and Islamic Philosophy

Although it may appear that Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations" thesis anticipates inevitable conflict between the West and Islam, he in fact argues that the West should "develop a more profound understanding of the basic religious and philosophical assumptions underlying other civilizations" (Huntington, 1993, p. 49). That understanding has not materialized. Many in the West mistakenly assume that all Muslims belong to terrorist organizations. It is therefore important to examine the facts that explain the diverse policies and beliefs of different Muslim communities.

The truth is that Muslims do not necessarily hate the West. During the Dark Ages of Europe, Muslim philosophers preserved Greek thought because they wished to explore it alongside Islamic theology — a project in which Europeans of the period showed little interest. Two important Muslim philosophers and preservers of classical knowledge were Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and Ibn Rushd (Averroes). Ibn Sina sought "to find a formula by which religious dogmas and philosophic principles can be reconciled" (Affifi, 1958, p. 159).

Firestone (1999) examines how religious war has been treated in scholarship and finds surprisingly little academic work on the concept despite its prevalence in history. The Crusades were one prominent example of the "holy war." Firestone notes that "some scholarly studies have been written on holy war in the context of the medieval Christian Crusades, particularly as a possible deviation from the Western concept of the 'just war'" (Firestone, 1999, p. 3). In the Muslim context, the holy war is known as a jihad. The word actually means "striving" and has no direct connection to warfare, but it has been appropriated by those who wish to give a religious character to their struggle against the West and against Israel in particular. As Esposito (1983) writes:

Jihad, the Middle East, and American Perceptions

"Events in 1973 provided a new source of pride and served as a positive motivation for Islamic revivalism. The ignominious Arab defeat of 1967 was reversed by the October War. While the Israelis were ultimately victorious, the Arab world felt vindicated by Egyptian successes in the war, which many believed had been saved for the Israelis by the United States… This was the Ramadan war (the sacred month of fasting during which the war occurred); its code name was Badr, a famous early Islamic victory led by Muhammad; its battle cry Allahu Akbar (God is Most Great), the traditional Islamic call to the defense of Islam; those who died in this holy war (jihad) were not simply patriots but martyrs (shahid)" (Esposito, 1983, p. 13).

The term jihad has since become synonymous in popular usage with war against the West, sustained by terrorist networks and accompanied by promises of great rewards in the afterlife.

One dimension of American attitudes toward Arab countries in the Middle East derives from Americans' knowledge of, sympathy with, and often personal connection to Israel. However, McAlister (2001) is right to go beyond this and consider "the meanings of the region for audiences not generally assumed to have an obvious affinity with its inhabitants" (p. xiii). The essential vision Americans have long held of the Middle East was shaped by readings of The Arabian Nights and cinematic recreations of that fantasy world. A new image began to overlay this older one after World War II with the creation of Israel — a new state surrounded by militant Arab nations intent on reclaiming the land awarded to Israel. This development also coincided with the disengagement of colonial powers that had governed much of the Arab world for roughly a century, meaning that Arab states were simultaneously gaining control over their own territories and confronting Israel as a new threat to their sovereignty and regional influence.

McAlister (2001) demonstrates how different images attach to different parts of the Arab world: the Arabian Nights imagery is associated with Saudi Arabia, while pyramids and mummies represent Egypt in the Western imagination. The modern reality of Egypt has little connection to the civilization that produced those monuments, yet this remains the dominant image the world holds of the nation. Americans derive much of what they believe about the world from films, but they also gain direct understanding through cultural and commercial ties with various regions. McAlister traces some of the investment made in the Middle East after World War II and shows how it contributed to broader American understanding of the people and their lives. Throughout, she also recognizes that Americans' self-image shapes how they perceive other nations — so that orientalist assumptions cause even oil-wealthy Middle Eastern states to be perceived as backward relative to the United States and Europe. This attitude, McAlister argues, generates deep resentment among the people of the region.

McAlister traces shifts in perception from the end of World War II onward, showing how the Muslim world was embraced by African-American groups, how the discovery of oil and the growth of oil wealth altered governmental and public attitudes toward the Middle East, and how American support of Israel intensified anti-American sentiment in Arab countries, lending any U.S. involvement with Israel an aura of anti-Arabism. McAlister (2001) begins by examining how Western attitudes toward the Middle East were formed historically before showing how those attitudes were partly reinforced and partly transformed in the postwar period. The attitudes of today are rooted in the past; whatever has changed since World War II has been layered over earlier perceptions rather than replacing them.

Certain specific events are widely regarded as key to the current relationship between the West and the Middle East: most notably the creation of Israel, successive Arab-Israeli wars, the Iranian Revolution, the rise of militant Islam, and the development of oil wealth in the region. Yet even these events must be understood as occurring against the backdrop of pre-existing attitudes toward the Middle East in general and Saudi Arabia in particular. The Gulf War was another major force shaping current attitudes — both American attitudes toward the Middle East and Middle Eastern attitudes toward America — with the invasion of Iraq introducing yet another element that further deepened long-standing tensions. The overarching attitude McAlister (2001) identifies is orientalism: the image of the "Orient" as expressed through an entire system of thought, scholarship, and popular media in any given era. In popular culture, such an attitude functions as a kind of shorthand with pernicious effects. The use of the Arab as a villain appears to have increased in recent years, reflecting and reinforcing an American antipathy toward Muslims that is fueled partly by international events and partly by cultural stereotype. The result is the demonization of an entire people, so that whenever an Arab character appears on screen, audiences assume he or she is a terrorist intent on destroying the West. Such an attitude combines cultural clash with reactive politics and ultimately generates further conflict.

U.S. support for Israel is frequently cited as the central explanation for Islamic hostility toward America, but it is only one element among several. The American failure to understand Islam is another source of tension. Actions such as those taken during the first Gulf War — when the United States invaded Iraq, promised to support those who sided against Saddam Hussein, and then abandoned many Iraqis who had fought on the U.S. side, leaving them to their fate — also generated widespread anger. American inaction in response to Hussein's attacks on the Kurds further deepened resentments. One of the most persistent points of contention between the Arab world and both Israel and the United States has been the Palestinian question and the Islamist desire to establish a Palestinian state, a goal that the U.S. has consistently opposed.

Al-Qaeda developed out of the fighting force that the United States supported in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union following the Soviet invasion in the 1980s. In 1989, as bin Laden and his followers were seeking new causes to fight, a network of Arab volunteers was recruited to form the loose organization known as Al-Qaeda, or "the base." These fighters had been trained and hardened by their war against the Soviets. Al-Qaeda operated for a period in Sudan before moving its headquarters to Afghanistan in 1996, where it forged a relationship with the then-ruling Taliban. After the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001 in retaliation for the 9/11 attacks, Al-Qaeda went underground and is believed to operate in as many as forty to fifty countries worldwide (Al-Qaeda's origins and links, 2004, paras. 1–6).