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On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, a bright, clear and hopeful day, I kissed a young Palestinian student at Logan International Airport in Boston. I had met him at a summer camp in Maine called Seeds of Peace and introduced him to Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, where my daughter was a student and I occasionally helped out. Muslim and Middle Eastern students.
“How was your flight?”
“Great. I flew from Amman to Newark where I went through customs, then I connected with Boston!
We located his luggage and drove back to Exeter for the start of the school year.
We left Boston around 8 a.m., maybe a few minutes from the hijackings of American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175.
We never turned on the radio. He spoke of leaving his family, of his excitement about starting school and seeing New York from the air: “The pilot tilted the plane so we could see the World Trade Center. It was really beautiful with the morning sun on it.
It was only when we arrived in Exeter that we learned of the attacks. It wasn’t until I was home with my daughter that I saw the towers fall.
That day the world changed. We, as a people and as a nation, have changed. I changed.
Anti-Muslim, Anti-Arab, Anti-Other rhetoric rocked America and Islamophobia erupted as Muslims and Arabs and people like me and them were targeted. I, who thoughtlessly looked like white for most of my life, had to choose who I would hang out with in the future: those who only believed in “America, good or bad”, or those who are attached to the values upon which this nation was created. – that all human beings are created equal – even in difficult times.
It was an easy choice. I stay still.
On September 14, during an interfaith service for the whole school, two Muslim students began to recite – in Arabic and English – the Fatihah, the opening prayer of the Quran: “All praise is due to God alone, support from all worlds. , the Most Merciful, the Giver of Grace, Lord of the Day of Judgment! You alone we adore; and it’s you alone that we turn to for help.
Then I heard a young student in the audience say in a low voice, “First they blow up our buildings, then we have to listen to them pray.
The day confirmed to me, listening to Fatihah and the student’s impulsive expression, that our world would never be the same again. Muslims would be profiled, arrested, attacked and killed, mosques would be desecrated, hatred and ignorance would rage in the media, and turbaned Sikhs and bearded Armenians would be attacked for their appearance.
It was relentless, and it’s not over yet.
On September 18, our government voted almost unanimously to go to war, not only against Afghanistan, where al-Qaeda had a sanctuary, but against all those “responsible for the recent attacks on the United States.”
“Our war on terrorism begins with al-Qaida,” said President George W. Bush. “Americans shouldn’t expect a battle, but a long campaign like no other we have ever seen.”
Bush was right: in Afghanistan alone it lasted 7,262 days – and we lost.
We lost partly because too many people in power believed that military force could defeat radical ideologies, and partly because too many people did not understand that radical ideologies adopted by extremist groups were based on illusory religious beliefs. designed to exploit deep-seated grievances and resentments.
We lost in part because too few people truly believed in the fullness of America.
At one point, our government detained 762 people, including citizens, for three to eight months, many in solitary confinement with regular strip searches. As stated in The Guardian, a federal appeals court “described evidence showing that inmate abuse included slamming them against walls; bending or twisting the arms, hands, wrists and fingers; walk on their leggings; leaving them handcuffed or shackled in their cells; and insulting their religion or making humiliating sexual comments during strip searches.
America, tragically, has become what terrorists have described it, and we, as – not what we should be in times of crisis.
As we remember 9/11, lawyers at Guantanamo Bay wonder whether to continue – after nearly 18 years in detention – the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the notorious 9/11 strategist who has yet to be tried for his crimes against humanity. This is because he was tortured – he was drowned 183 times – and because he and other inmates were drowned, sleep deprived, walled up and shackled at several black sites. He has yet to be tried because we are a values-based nation – because no matter how vile a person is, the testimony obtained through torture is unacceptable.
Today, in Guantanamo, ostensibly established to detain dangerous people described as “illegal combatants” who “have no rights under the Geneva Convention”, there remain 39 men, 27 of whom have never been charged.
This is who we are.
Terrorists in the name of Islam committed September 11. But for the overwhelming majority of Muslims, what happened on September 11 is no more linked to Islam than the bombing of national terrorist Timothy McVeigh in 1995 on the federal building Alfred P. Murrah. in Oklahoma City was linked to Christianity.
Innocent Muslims also died on September 11. Muslims were among the first responders on September 11 and among the first troops deployed to Afghanistan.
They stood up for and died for America because they believed in who we are.
Yet I am not hopeless.
This week, in an inspired gesture of healing, Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, while apologizing for ADL opposition in 2010 at Cordoba House (the Ground Zero mosque) wrote: “ We have seen Muslims demonized in recent years in different ways. that hurt your heart. … We are better than that. We can actively choose not only to reject hate, but also to embrace those in need. The ADL’s position on Cordoba House was a mistake that pales in comparison to the brutal abandonment of our Afghan allies, but we should all call on our best angels and welcome those poor and cohesive masses who today seek our support.
I am not hopeless.
My Palestinian student friend is now an American citizen. A graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy and Dartmouth College with a doctorate, he is currently doing medical research and thriving – aspiring to realize the American Dream.
I couldn’t be prouder.
Robert Azzi, from Exeter, NH, is a photographer and writer and winner of the 2018 Nackey S. Loeb School of Communications First Amendment Award. His columns are archived at theotherazzi.wordpress.com and can be reached at theother. [email protected].
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