In Zinn’s chapter, “The 200 Election and the ‘War on Terrorism,'” Zinn discussed the early 2000’s and how the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers affected American’s views on Muslims. What I found to be most interesting in this chapter was the fact that Zinn didn’t agree with most Americans in the sense that he believed Americans had started this war. He didn’t believe the “full extent of the human catastrophe caused by the bombing of Afghanistan was not being conveyed to Americans by the mainstream press and the major television networks, which seemed determined to show their ‘patriotism'” (679). He says that immediately after the attack, President Bush declared a war on terrorism and said that they should do their best to keep terrorists out, which is what led to the Patriot Act. The Patriot Act, “gave the Department of justice the power to detain noncitizen simply on the suspicion, without charges, without the procedural rights provided in the Constitution” (680). This led to all Muslims being grouped as terrorists in the eyes of Americans. To me, this was an interesting look view on the 9/11 attack, because most American’s agreed with Bush and didn’t see it in the sense that they had bombed Afghanistan first.
In the Article written by Mariam Elba, she discusses an interview between Khaled Beydon and the Intercept about his experience of Muslim and Christian immigrants. What I found most interesting about this piece was that Beydon believes Trump plays a large role in escalating the War on Terror. He says that the war is “best characterized as a transparent, brazen, explicit unleashing of Islamophobia that is spear headed by the likes of Donald Trump” (Elba). I’ve never really thought about in in the sense that the presidents would play a large role in the way American Citizens view Muslims and the War on Terror. For example, he says that the difference between Trump, and Obama/Bush is the narrative they relay to the public. This makes complete sense and the broader idea I took from this was that the kind of person a leader is and the way they portray other people will reflect how those citizens then treat them. In this case, because Trump enhanced the War on Terror, it led American citizens to hold on to the believe of grouping Muslims as terrorists.
People tend to follow their leader, so it is no wonder that Islamophobia has been made worse due to the fact that Trump has made so many strong hateful comments.
I too found it interesting that Zinn believed that the Americans started the war. The fact that Bush declared a war on terrorism, yet utilized violence was interesting. In fact, to many Afghanistan civilians, the United States could be defined as terrorists. The U.S. killed innocent civilians in Afghanistan in response to an attack on innocent civilians in the United States. The fact that we are unable to see these actions as terrorist-like definitely highlights our countries skewed perception on what is considered right.
I also found it really interesting when the article mentioned Trump’s, Obama’s, and Bush’s actions towards the War on Terror and how they were pretty similar however differed extremely in terms of the rhetoric they used. Rhetoric and language are extremely influential and could be used for good and bad if a leader manipulates it well enough.
While I understand the point you are making about people following their leader, I find it difficult to agree with the idea that Donald Trump is the main orchestrator of anti-muslim rhetoric in the United States. Donald Trump’s policy as it pertains to the Middle East and the war on terror should not be at blame for Islamophobia, the people committing Islamaphobic offenses should be.