Before 9/11, I can’t really remember hearing about racial profiling of Middle Easterners/Arabs, or hearing anyone say they thought Arabs or Arab-Americans were in any way untrustworthy, traitorous, or potentially dangerous. Mr. and Mrs. “Joe and Jane Middle-American” or whatever you want to call them never seemed wary of people from the Middle East in any sense other than maybe general xenophobia of anyone not American; I certainly didn’t get the impression that people thought of them as terrorists or potential terrorists.
Was I just not paying very close attention to the cultural attitudes at the time, or was there indeed far less anti-Arab sentiment?
I can remember hearing or seeing on the news incidents of Arab terrorist acts, but there also seemed to be constant reporting of white American terrorist activity (the big terrorist attack of my generation prior to 9/11 was Oklahoma City) - and lot of militia-related scaremongering which mostly turned out to be unfounded but was still in the news all the time. There was also still quite a bit of violence in Ireland during the 1990s. As a kid, I always had a vague idea of what terrorism was, but never associated it with Arabs or Muslims.
I’m not sure that there’s a GQ answer to this question, but I’ll give it a shot.
The events of 9/11 certainly stirred up anti-Arab and anti-Muslim xenophobia in the States, but it’s not like it wasn’t there before. After all, the World Trade Center was bombed in 1993. There was also the 1998 movie The Siege, which was of course fiction — but a scenario in which Arabs would commit terrorist acts in the U.S., and in which the response to such acts would involve racial profiling, was viewed as at least plausible at the time.
Absolutely. Remember that a lot of people jumped to the conclusion that Islamic terrorists were behind the Oklahoma City bombing.
There is a good book on the stereotyping of Arabs in films which I have seen that documents just how pervasive the stereotyping is. I’m not sure, but I am guessing that it is the book by Jack Shaheen referenced in this Wikipedia link.
You’re welcome. But there isn’t much more to it. Americans have always been leary of foreigners, especially non-Christian foreigners. Following the Six Day War, Americans generally came down on the side of Israel, and continued attacks on Israel, and the threat of terrorism made Muslims a prime target. But the only reason they weren’t the number one threat is because of the existence of the Soviet Union and the threat of worldwide Communism. When they were gone, Muslims were already in line.
The current level of hatred is based on 9/11, as you already know.
Call me crazy, but I remember half-watching some American action drama film on TV about a Soviet soldier in Afghanistan, and he was the good guy in opposition to the crazy bloodthirsty Afghans he was up against. Of course Afghans aren’t Arabs, but there you go.
I think that in the 70s, people perceived Qadafy as being dangerous, but more in the sense of an agitator rather than a destroyer of things. The only Arabs with any real money were the Saudis, and we were pretty cozy with them. However, there was the 1972 Munich Olympics hostage thing; and I guess in the 70s and 80s, if you thought of an “airline hijacker,” chances are you thought of them as being Middle Eastern.
But I would say your basic assumption is fair enough – what I believe to be the “false flag” operation of 9/11 certainly did change the perception of Arabs and Muslims in the eyes of many Americans. Since this is not GD, I’ll leave it there.
It came out in 1988. As the IMDB site says, it was kind of neutral about who was the bad guy. But I recall people seeing the Afghans as heroes. I watched the movie, or at least part of it, but really don’t remember anything.
IIRC the hero of the movie was the second or third in command. His superiors (and other elements of the Soviet army) generally fit negative stereotypes. The poignancy of the film was the protagonist recognizing and relating to the Afghans as fellow humans. Or maybe it was his quest to return the Coke bottle he found in that dead-end canyon; I haven’t seen it since it came out.
The post-Soviet hunt for the Big Bad Universal Enemy wasn’t an overnight thing, and there were certainly anti-Middle East sentiments for a couple decades, but the shift from one BBUE to another wasn’t unrecognised at the time.
There were a few things that happened before 9/11 that may have predisposed certain people to associate terrorism with Arab cultures. I make no judgement if those thoughts were wrong or right, but incidents of Islamic terrorism occurred before 9/11. However, terrorism takes many forms and is not isolated to Islam.
Finding examples of terrorism and its roots in history is not difficult.
I remember in the early 1970’s watching a Charles Bronson Deathwish prototype movie, where the bad guy was an Arab or Middle Eastern man. I remember the part where Charles Bronson finally caught him and tied him up, then forced him to eat pork before torture killing him. I didn’t even know that pork was forbidden in Islam at the time.
More like “again became”. They were the Great Evil before Communism became an important issue here in America; at first, Communists were demonized by comparing them to the “fanatical Muslims”. Now that the USSR has collapsed America is reverting to type.
Never heard that before. I mean, I’d believe that, prior to Communism, Americans were suspicious of Muslims the way they were suspicious of anyone who wasn’t Christian, but “The Great Evil”? Really? I don’t get it - did Americans feel threatened by Muslims? How? It sounds very strange.
Prior to the Russian Revolution? Well we had skirmishes on the Shores of Tripoli, and weren’t friendly with the Ottoman empire, but in WWI the Arab countries were on our side, and again in WWII. I’m getting out of my range of history now, but I’ve never heard of any great concerns about Muslims prior to the 50s and the installation of the Shah.
Don’t you recall that there was a significant spate of anti-Arab/Muslim scaremongering in the wake of the OCB? They were mighty glad we caught the culprit as quickly as we did.
Never heard that before. I mean, I’d believe that, prior to Communism, Americans were suspicious of Muslims the way they were suspicious of anyone who wasn’t Christian, but “The Great Evil”? Really? I don’t get it - did Americans feel threatened by Muslims? How? It sounds very strange.