Book Review: Backlash 9/11 by Bakalian and Bozorgmehr

One of the darkest days in the modern history of the United States was the 9/11 terror attacks, which will forever be remembered by the millions of Americans who witnessed the collapse of the Twin Towers. September 11 also remains a profoundly sad and shocking day for Middle Eastern and Muslim Americans, since it marked the beginning of a new era in which they became victims of backlash. During the period when the United States was attempting to absorb the shock of these attacks, Muslim Americans were subjected to an unprecedented wave of backlash violence.

The primary reason attributed to this increased wave of backlash against Middle Eastern and Muslim Americans is the widespread misrepresentation and misunderstanding of the Islamic religion. This misunderstanding persisted regardless of the significant diversity within the Muslim American community. In response to these events, Anny Bakalian and Mehdi Bozorgmehr wrote a book providing the first comprehensive analysis of the effects of the post-9/11 attacks on Middle Eastern and Muslim Americans, along with a detailed examination of the organized responses of these communities.

Backlash 9/11: Middle Eastern and Muslim Americans Respond by Anny Bakalian and Mehdi Bozorgmehr is an ambitious book that evaluates the treatment of Muslim and Middle Eastern Americans after the September 11 attacks and the successive organizational responses. The book consists of eight chapters and an appendix, opening with a comprehensive conceptual outline of backlash (Bakalian & Bozorgmehr, 2009, p. 29). In addition to this conceptual synopsis, the book compares Muslim persecution by the American government to that experienced by other groups throughout the country's history, such as Japanese Americans during the First World War. This comparison is followed by an evaluation of immigration patterns and demographics among Middle Eastern and Muslim Americans from 1965 to 2004, the period when large numbers of these groups migrated to the United States.

This comparison and analysis sets the stage for understanding the post-9/11 backlash experienced by these groups. To aid that understanding, Bakalian and Bozorgmehr examine incidents of prejudice, reports of hate crimes, and several governmental efforts targeting these communities across America. A major central concern in this analysis is the political and civic engagement of nearly 50 organizations and the subsequent religious accommodations, as the authors seek to demonstrate the organized actions of groups whose leaders possess insider knowledge. The book concludes with a timeline of government actions instituted immediately after the attacks through February 2007. The authors also include the USA PATRIOT Act as one of the key governmental measures established following the attacks (Jalalzai, 2009, p. 443).

Backlash 9/11 is one of the most significant and detailed books in modern American scholarship, of interest to scholars in sociology, political science, law, and ethnic studies. Before its publication, there was no systematic study of the effect of enacted terrorism laws on affected communities or of their responses. At that time, Middle Eastern and Muslim communities were already suffering under several anti-terrorism statutes, including the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.

Furthermore, the events of the 9/11 terror attacks created a series of restrictive legal constructs targeting Muslim and Middle Eastern communities in America. Since the authors are sociologists, Bakalian and Bozorgmehr set out to design conceptual transparency around the incidents of backlash and community mobilization. They also introduce ethnicity and religion as the bases for response mobilization — two elements often neglected by immigration scholars, social movement researchers, and racial and ethnic studies specialists. As a result, the authors succeed in providing a clearly articulated model of backlash and community mobilization in a style accessible to researchers, students, and the general public.

The first chapter defines backlash and establishes the conditions for mobilization. The middle chapters examine the effects of hate crimes and governmental initiatives, while the final chapter focuses on mobilization (Hagopian, 2009, p. 516). The authors define backlash as personal acts of scapegoating and hate crimes, though they note that its repressive character is most deeply felt when the state enacts laws and takes actions against affected groups. Governmental backlash thus treats the targeted groups as probable fifth columnists requiring policies to anticipate and prevent harm to American society.

The book is significant for several reasons. It is the first detailed examination of the effect of 9/11 backlash on besieged communities. It also offers a framework for evaluating backlash and mobilization during times of crisis. The authors place the modern backlash in historical perspective, tracing it from the German American experience in the First World War to the present. An appendix records the timeline of government initiatives following 9/11, and the volume concludes with an extensive bibliography. Backlash 9/11 is therefore a pioneering and valuable work that offers a strong sociological foundation on which others can build. However, the book would have gained additional historical and conceptual depth had it incorporated an evaluation of the 1972 Operation Boulder, which would have provided a more complete exploration of the demonization of and suspicion toward Arab Americans through earlier government initiatives.

Backlash can contribute to group mobilization by community-based organizations, as illustrated by the events following the 9/11 attacks. While the attacks were traumatic for the United States, the authors argue that Middle Eastern and Muslim-origin individuals did not experience backlash as severe as that suffered by earlier groups, such as Japanese Americans. The authors attribute this relative difference primarily to the considerable body of civil rights legislation enacted by 1965 and the watchdog organizations that have developed since then.

However, the authors' attempts to examine the effect of post-9/11 government initiatives on Middle Easterners and Muslims proved methodologically difficult. In light of these challenges, they focused on identifiable community-based organization leaders and sympathetic civil rights groups. While acknowledging that these leaders were not necessarily representative of their broader membership, Bakalian and Bozorgmehr believed they provided knowledgeable contextual information about how these incidents affected their communities. Accordingly, the authors conducted 75 in-depth interviews, 60 of which were with senior Middle Eastern and Muslim community-based organization leaders, with the remainder drawn from other informed sources (Bakalian & Bozorgmehr, 2009, p. 25). They also evaluated organizational websites and listservs to document mobilization efforts.

The authors' findings on mobilization are particularly noteworthy. The affected groups developed their responses to the demonization and mistrust of their communities within a patriotic mainstream American message. In doing so, they distanced themselves from the ideological attitudes of the 9/11 perpetrators while seeking political and civil assimilation into American society. They also advanced claims for equal treatment and protection grounded in civil rights legislation and constitutional principles. Throughout this process, they built skills and contacts that established them as new participants in American social and political life.

Bakalian and Bozorgmehr found that backlash comprises hate crimes and harassment, but also incorporates state actions that unfairly target an outgroup or minority population. The authors worked to conceptualize backlash — a term widely used in social science literature and popular media yet previously left undefined — defining it as an extreme and unfavorable societal and governmental response to an ideological or political crisis directed against a group or groups of people.

Backlash 9/11: Middle Eastern and Muslim Americans Respond is arguably a ground-breaking and valuable book that provides a strong foundation for understanding the impact of 9/11 backlash on besieged communities. However, it does not fully explore the impact of governmental initiatives on Middle Eastern and Muslim Americans, and it has several notable shortcomings.