Silent Victims

"More than  two years have passed marking the  anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on our nation, yet we are still recuperating from the shock that this sad and tragic event has caused us, as a society. The American people are still trying to make sense out of what happened. Meanwhile, the public’s interest to learn about Arabs and Muslims, in general, and Arab and Muslim Americans, in particular, has been unprecedented. The nation has been looking for means of self-healing and reconciliation.

Historically, violence against minorities in America is not a new trend. Arabs, Muslims or people of Mid Eastern ancestry were not the only ethnic groups that have received their share of home grown violence, or scapegoating. The pattern has emerged during similar crises, when the nation’s security becomes threatened, and in times of economic recession, that some sociologists describe as a recurrent tide of Jingoistic racism.

According to Juan Perea, professor of Law at the University of Florida, “Nativism is the, intense opposition to an internal minority on the grounds of its foreign (i.e.“un-American”) connections“. During Nativist times in the United States, democratic processes are turned against internal minorities deemed foreign or “un-American“, resulting in discriminatory legislation they spawn. Nativist movements and the legislation they spawn, seek to rid the nation of perceived enemies of the “American way“.

“ We have been through all of this before. During the controversy of the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798, the enemy took the form of the French ethnicity and ideology, and Americans associated with that ideology. The 1850s saw the vilification of the Irish “savages” who, for the first time had migrated in substantial numbers to the USA. In the years during and after the World War I yielded intense hatred of the Germans and German Americans among us. During World War II, the hatred of the Japanese enemy and of loyal Americans of Japanese ancestry, who looked like the enemy, resulted in the forced incarceration of seventy thousand Japanese American citizens, and between thirty and forty thousand Japanese aliens in domestic internment camps. During the 1950s, fear of the communist enemy was played out in the frequent interrogations of immigrants from Southern eastern European Countries, in suspicions regarding their ethnicity, and in the blacklisting of the Jews.”

Very few books have tried to answer the questions of: Who are the Arabs? Who are the Muslims? Who are the Arab Americans? The Stereotypes around Arabs, and how did they evolve? Arab and Muslims in the United States, where do they live and how many are them? Do Arabs have a shared religion? When did Arab people come to the United States? Are Arabs a minority group? Are Arab Americans more closely tied to their country of origin, or to America? Arab Contributions to Civilization, if there is any?  Are Arab Americans active in U.S. politics? Have Arab Americans won major political offices? Who are some prominent Arab-American politicians? Nevertheless, no books that deal with the plight of Arab and Muslim Americans after9/11 have been published yet.

“Silent Victims: The Plight of Arab & Muslim Americans in post 9/11 America “, answers the many questions that a great number of people are trying to find answers for. The increasing public’s curiosity about the Arabs, Muslims and the Arab and Muslim Americans in the United States has been unprecedented. The book also explains the phenomenon of stereotypes stigmatizing Arabs and Muslims, and how it has affected their lives, a phenomenon that demonized and dehumanized almost two billion people in this world.

Part one starts with an introduction that describes the climate of fear in which Arab and Muslim Americans have been living in since 9/11. It documents the author’s personal encounter with biases against Arab and Muslim Americans, and ignorance of the basic facts about Arabs and Muslims by the general public.

Chapter I, “Arabs..go back home: Or, where does hatred come from? “ Explains the historical background that led to Arab and Muslim bashing and the wave of hate crimes against them in the United States after 9/11. It describes the role of Nativist politicians, the mainstream media, and other institutions in enflaming the public’s outrage against a certain segment of society. It also explains the process of scapegoating other minority groups throughout the US history; the Irish, the French, the Germans, the Japanese, the Jews, Central and Latin Americans, and Asians.

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Softcover

$18.75