Introduction
Terrorism is used to mean violence or harmful acts or threats committed against civilians by certain groups for political or for some other ideological goals. According to the United States Department of Defence, terrorism is a planned use of illegal violence acts or threats to cause fear, intend to intimidate or to terrorize societies or governments in pursing aims that are general political, ideological or religious. (Stathis, 2004) Terrorism acts has been there from the past. However, it is hard to definitely define terrorism, as it has many controversies, while others see it as a crime to some it is a holy war. Still while others see it as justified against oppression, some view this as rebellion and not justified. Thus, it depends on which viewpoint one is. Currently, terrorism has become increasingly widespread among those groups that are pursing extreme objectives.
Terrorism has been used in the past by different political organisations in pursing their goals; both the left wing and the right wing political parties have used terrorism. Religious groups, revolutionaries, nationalistic and governments have engaged in use of terrorism at one time or another. Since the September 11 terrorist attack on the world trade centre in America, America has come up with different policies and laws to fight terrorism. National security of the country has become a priority and a lot of resources have been put in place to fight terrorism. (Stathis, 2004)
Effects of war on terrorism on Arabs and Muslims
Considering the situation of democratic practices towards Arabs and Muslims after September 11, there are several issues that raise major concern:
Immigration policies
Ever since the September 11 attack, the Muslim and Arab immigrants in the United States have faced increased discrimination by the United States government and trough private citizens. Many of Muslims and Arabs have been labelled by the homeland security as “potential terrorists” thus being subjected to the federal security agencies monitoring, arrest and even at times deported. At the same time Arabs and Muslims have fallen victims of verbal and physical attacks on many occasions, and also discriminated in schools and job places, this has worsened since the start of war on Iraq. (Ivan, 2002)
Immigration policies have been formulated mainly based on anti-Arab and Muslim to ensure that they don’t’ easily enter into America even in the cases where they genuinely should enter. According to reports in the media, after the September 11 the federal authorities arrested more than 5000 Arabs and Muslim individual in most cases men, who had slight immigration breach which could have been easily sorted out. However, the people arrested were isolated and detained for long periods or deported without being given a chance for legal representation. This incidence leads to the view that the United States view Arabs and Muslims as potential dangerous. Though this perception has continued to fail, the right-wing experts continue to push for it. As Ivan (2002) notes, they say that the actual terrorist are possible Middle Eastern Muslim.
Fighting Islamist
To many in the American administration the enemy and the terrorist is the Islamist, to them want they need is a widespread military and political action which can stop the Islamist, among the suggest policies is to
- Halt the continued increase or growth of Islamist
Such policies unfortunately have continued to target innocent Muslims and Arabs because determining exactly who is an Islamist is not easy and remains controversial.
In October 2003, the defence secretary of the united states Mr. Donald Rumsfeld, was quoted as saying “are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting them?” (Stathis, 2004) such statements cement the belief that the American regime is out to fight Muslims.
For example after the 7/7 attacks that occurred in London, more than 200 students of different madrassas were arrested and locked up in Pakistani in the name of fighting terrorism, hence the danger of government harassing Muslims in the name of fighting terrorism. (Stathis, 2004)
Legislative responses
Legislative responses put in place after the September 11 attack negatively impacted the Arabs and the Muslims in generals. Legal acts such as the USA Patriot act were serious violations of the constitution and they were meant to target mainly the Arabs civilians in the United States. However one scholar Chang (2002) point out three issues that the Act has on the freedom of the people.
- First the act put the freedom of speech and that of political association in danger through making many acts to be criminal through domestic terrorism, and then it prevents non citizens from entering into America on the basis of race and ideology. This is according to Chang (2002)
- Second the act limits the individuals’ freedom by giving the government a permission and powers for surveillance.
- The act removes the legal rights of non citizens, through permitting the government to arrest them and take them to mandatory detentions or extradite them on the basis of political activities.
As Chang (2002) points out in the present situation, political oppression will go together with racism and therefore Muslims will become more vulnerable. He further points out that the government will definitely use this war on crime to target Muslims from Arab and Asian countries. (Chang, 2002)
In deed, Muslims were targeted immediately after the September 11attacks, wit more than one thousand Muslims being detained. The government did not care about the rule of law. The feral government operatives interrogated without suspicion, taking into custody without putting forward any charges, and detaining without any justification many individuals who were not involved in way with terrorist activities except that they matched with this ethnic and religious profile. (Chang, 2002)
Chang (2002) gives an example of how the government ended up arresting the more than one thousand people; a Moroccan boy was arrested and locked up for almost four months when he was trying to get admitted to a school. The guidance counsellor of the school reported to the police that the boy’s tourist visa had expired, and that is how the boy was locked up for four months
Attack on humanitarian bodies
The government of the United States and other governments around the world have continued to attack and harass Arab and Islamic humanitarian organisation which are based in the United States or other countries under the pretext that they are sponsoring or aiding terrorists. Megan (2005) clearly explains that, such organisations which offer assistance in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan have been closed down by the Justice Department. At the time leaders of these organisation such including Rabin Haddad, co-founder of the Global Relief Foundation have been jailed without any officially criminal charges being pressed against them. (Megan, 2005)
The Justice Department’s current new “special registration” needs targets Muslims and Arab population especially men. To add on that, the FBI and in the recent past carried out 5,000 “voluntary interviews” in the Arab and Muslim societies. When the war on Iraq began many Iraq Muslims have been called out by the FBI for “voluntary interview.” (Megan, 2005)
Secret evidence
After September 11 attack, there has been increased secrecy on evidence against suspects in terms of protecting the national security. This is being done through ensuring that secret evidence is not public. However, the problem is that even the evidence is not subjected to the judicial to ensure that the evidence is credibility so that innocent people can be protected. There is general feeling in the Muslim community and the Arab community in America that a many cases of involving Muslims and Arabs being detained and evidence being kept secret are unjust. In many cases detainees are not given a chance to question this secret evidence and end up being locked up. (Megan, 2005)
Attack of other Muslim and Arab groups
In war on terrorism has lead to Muslim groups which are taking part in genuine struggle to liberate themselves to be termed as terrorist by various regimes and by the United States. Groups like the Palestinian liberation organisation and in the Palestine suddenly become terrorist group. This has lead to the international body not supporting the group and had a negative effect to the total security of in the whole of the Middle East. Another good example is in Kashmir where India government have been fight with the Kashmir groups for years, but then after the United States announced its war on terrorist; it turned out to be seen as India also was fighting the Islamic militant in Kashmir. (Lyal, 2002)
Attack of Muslims in other countries
Under the view of fighting terrorism the American allies in the South Asia have gotten a reason of forming alliance that is based on anti Islamic alignment, e.g. India Israel and the United States. Lyal (2002) observes that the United States is empowering those regimes that purport to be fighting terrorists. After the September 11 attack the government of India for example passed the prevention of terrorism act (POTA). The experience of such laws which are anti-terrorist is that such laws are used to harass individual especially the Muslims in this countries particularly in India. This can be observed as after December 13 terrorist attack on Indian parliament, the government killed all the militants and used the incident to justify mobilization of over half a million solders who were sent on the Indian Pakistan border which is mostly inhabited by Muslims. (Lyal, 2002)
Discrimination
The war on terrorism has made Muslim and Arabs to seen as the only suicide bombers, while studies show that before September 11, more than 70% of suicide bombing were done by the Tamil tigers who are Hindus. Despite the assurance of the Bush administration and the Blair, that war on terrorism was not war on Islam or on Arabs, the perception on the common man on the street has been that Islam is synonymous to terrorism. Thus in the United States, every Arab or a Muslim was viewed as a potential terrorist, it did not matter whether a person was liberal conservative or a moderate, all the Muslims were grouped together. (Megan, 2005)
Surveillance and monitoring
Megan (2005) observers that, the Muslim community in the United States has complained of the FBI carrying out frequent conducts and surveillance on all Islamic centres and the mosques in the U.S. the community believes that the Federal government is given deliberate rights to monitor the Islamic centres by the FISA courts. These policies are viewed by many Muslims as intrusive and violate privacy rights. Such policies also are prone to exploited by the security agents. (Megan, 2005)
Undermining the culture and democracy of Muslims and Arabs
Currently, particular non-western individuals culture and in mostly Muslims have been categorized as being the source of terrorism. It has been observed that those people who resist or deviate from subordination to particular American interest are being stated as terrorist. Zinn (2002) observes that the war being waged on terrorism is basically targeting the Muslims and Arabs political advocates who view the American foreign policies in the Middle East as harmful to their interests. The war on terror according to Zinn (2002) is based on Samuel Huntington’s dubious concepts of clash of civilisations. The war on terrorism show the deep difference the west has over the Muslim world. From this war on terrorism which is led by the United States, the United States has used this war to propagate its western liberal concept of Judie-Christian morality to represent this as the peak of civilisation today. The United States is of the view that no democracy can exist outside this structures of western philosophy and liberal theory particular in the Muslim world. (Zinn, 2002)
Attack on Afghanistan
The attack on Afghanistan according to the worldwide news report cause an estimated deaths of over 3,700 civilian who are Muslims. Though the military people tried to use smart bombs in both Afghanistan and Iraq war a lot of damage was done both in terms of infrastructure and in terms of lives. The military in its war on terror kill a lot of defenceless civilians and displaces thousand more. (Bessaiso, 2004)
After toppling the Taliban government the United States still paid little concern on rebuilding the infrastructure in the country. Instead the United States put a lot of emphasis on building military base; this is according to the national commission on terrorist report. However, the rule of war in that country remains a big challenge as the Afghanistan government do not has military strength to contain Taliban. Thus it has increase crime and narcotic trafficking in the country. (Bessaiso, 2004)
Conclusion
Terrorism is an old phenomenon that can not be fought through use of military power, no matter of powerful an army may be it is bound to fail. The best way of fighting terrorism is formulating a plan of enhancing democracy and addressing the main cause of political conflicts that remain unsolved especially the Middle East issue. Ever since the September 11 attack on the world trade centre in the United States, Muslims and Arabs population in America and other countries have witnessed profound discrimination and harassment directed towards them.
In the United States laws have been passed that are viewed to particularly target the Muslims and Arabs in that country. More so the Muslims and Arabs have been detained without trial or deported without being a chance to argue their case out. It has also been observed that harassment in the public places and on in the working places has increased and many American citizens continue to view Arabs and Muslims as potential terrorist. The foreign policies of American have worsened the situation particularly the previous war on Afghanistan and the current war on Iraq. However, such discrimination and laws can not win war on terrorism and the world and in particularly America still faces a challenge of treating Muslims and Arabs in the country and outside the country with justice and it continues to fight war on terror.
Reference:
Chang, N (2002): Silencing Political Dissent: How Post-September 11th Anti-Terrorism Measures Threaten our Civil Liberties (New York: Seven Stories Press, pp, 44-48
Zinn.H (2002): Terrorism and War (New York: Seven Stories Press, pp, 9-12
Osurie, G and Banerjee S.B (2004): White Diasporas: Media Representations of September 11 and the Unbearable Whiteness of Being in Australia`, Social Semitoics, Vol. 14, No. 2, pp.151-171
Bessaiso, E, (2004): Al Jazeera and the War in Afghanistan in Mohamed Zayani (ed), The Al Jazeera Phenomenon: Critical Perspectives on New Arab Media, London, Pluto Press, pp.153-170
Ivan A.T (2002): Tunnel at the End of the Light: A Critique of U.S. Counter-terrorist Grand Strategy, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Vol. 15, No. 3 pp. 549-563
Lyal S. S (2002): US Anti-Terrorism Policy and Asia’s Options, in Johannen, Smith and Gomez, (eds.) September 11 & Political Freedoms: Asian Perspectives (Select) 242-264.
Stathis N. K (2004): The Paradox of Terrorism in Civil Wars in Journal of Ethics 8:1, 97-138.
Megan H (2005): Arab and Muslim Immigrants under Fire; Interview with Hatem Abudayyeh of the Arab American Action Network; from; www.dollarandsense.org accessed on 13/11/07