9/11 doubly targeted American Muslims, attacking our country and hijacking our religion

American Muslims felt doubly targeted as we watched the horrific scenes unfold that fateful Sept. 11: We grieved for a country attacked, and for a faith hijacked. Life as we knew it would no longer be the same. 

Two days after the attacks, 500 angry flag-waving protesters marched on Chicagoland’s then largest mosque. Another 500 gathered nearby with chants that included, “Kill the Arabs.” Elsewhere around the country, mosques and Muslim businesses faced vandalism and shootings. 

A mouse cannot push an elephant off a cliff, but it can try to scare it in hopes that the panicked elephant might scramble itself off the edge. I always understood this to be the strategic objective of the 9/11 attacks: The explosions were not the end but the means to an implosion – death by disunity. 

And we were taking the bait. Our fragile democracy started facing self-inflicted wound after wound, led by a government that was supposed to protect us but instead peddled the erosion of our freedoms and civil rights, the very basis of our exceptionalism. The elephant had begun its frenzied retreat to the edge of the precipice. 

Forty-five days after the attacks, America’s bipartisan lawmakers legislated the controversial USA Patriot Act that made it easier for the government to spy on ordinary Americans, turning regular citizens into suspects. The following year, Muslims from 25 countries were forced into special registration based on no criteria but their faith and country of origin.

Muslim charities were shut down on flimsy charges by overzealous prosecutors and deferential judges and juries. The FBI launched protracted campaigns of harassment that would often target entire Muslim communities yet lead to zero prosecutions. 

The path to naturalization and citizenship was virtually frozen for many Muslims. Hate crimes, incidents of discrimination and round-the-clock media demonization of Islam and Muslims became a mainstay in America. 

Meanwhile, abroad, Neocon hawks were embroiling us in prolonged wars that cost trillions of taxpayer dollars and tens of thousands of lives. 

All in all, an emergent Islamophobia cottage industry that extended from outlandish blogs and think tanks to the halls of power defined a generation of Muslims as well as my entire career. We realized then that our community’s fate was intertwined with our country’s, and so we went to work for the next two decades – defending not only ourselves, against false narratives and acts of targeted aggression, but also our country’s Constitution and its elusive ideals that were equally under attack. 

For us, the disunity that rattles many Americans today is not new, but a staple of the fight for our nation’s soul that we have long contended with. 

Ahmed Rehab is executive director of CAIR-Chicago, a leading Muslim civil rights organization. He can be reached at arehab@cair.com