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Discrimination against Arab and Muslim Americans

Discrimination is one of the most unsettling vices that have rocked the international scene for centuries. While the factors defining discrimination differ from place to place and time to time, the vice is undesirable, and it works against such constructive forces as globalization and international interdependence. One of the worst and most conspicuous forms of discrimination is the kind that hit Arab and Muslim Americans after the infamous 9/11 terror attacks on the world trade center in the United States. This topic – the discrimination against Arab and Muslim Americans – is worth noting because it is related to race and ethnicity as well as social change.

This topic relates to race and ethnicity because, fundamentally, it talks about discrimination against a people of a particular ethnicity – Arabs. It is rooted in the profiling and labeling that has seen Arab and Muslim Americans treated as foreigners in a land that they call home. Similarly, the topic is related to social change because the whole vice came as a result of the negative social change, and will hopefully be changed through constructive social change i.e. the realization and actualization of the reality that we live in a multicultural world, and that human rights and fundamental freedoms ought to prevail.

Summary of the Article

In conducting his research on discrimination against Muslims, particularly after the 9/11 attacks, Orhun (2009) visited such western countries as the United states, Switzerland, the United kingdom, Spain, Sweden, Denmark and Finland. In his article, Orhun (2009) observes that the key reason behind the discrimination against Arab and Muslim Americans is the reality that the 9/11 attacks were associated with e terror group – Al Qaeda – which was rooted in Islamic extremism. He argues that the events of 9/11 came with negative social changes. For instance, Orhun (2009) observes that after 9/11, the attitudes and expectations of many people changed.

In his article, he expresses the disappointment that the events of 2001 evoked, especially considering that it was a decade when free markets and democracy were gaining momentum, fuelled by the globally felt emphasis on fundamental freedoms and human rights. The article elaborately explains how the 9/11 terror attacks evoked suspicion, fear and unrest – factors that impacted adversely on the Muslim and Arab Americans. Orhun (2009) further explains that the ultimate remedy for this kind of discrimination is the advocacy for constructive social change. He explains that such social change should and will be fuelled by the efforts of government agencies, public and private organizations, the media, religious and cultural communities as well as some civil society representatives.

References

Orhun, Ö. (2009). Intolerance and discrimination against Muslims (Islamophobia). Security & Human Rights, 20(3), 192-200.