Anti-Muslim racism: The view that is still effective today

I was ten years old and in fifth grade when two planes flew into the World Trade Center. I no longer remember every image that flickered across the television back then. But I remember my teacher. She pointed at me and asked: “And what do you say to that now?” On me. I was ten years old.

I didn't know what to say to that. I had no explanation for the terrible attacks. I knew neither al-Qaeda nor geopolitical context, nor the history of Afghanistan nor American foreign policy - just like any other ten-year-old child. The only thing that differentiated me from my classmates was that I was read as Muslim. And suddenly I had to explain something that I had neither done nor could understand.

Maybe this is where my 9/11 story begins. At a terrible historical moment, the consequences of which I still feel today in my Muslim identity. Because 25 years later I ask myself: What happens when a terrorist attack becomes a lens through which an entire social group is viewed?

9/11 didn't just shape our fear of terrorism. It has also changed the way Muslims are viewed. Over the years, an image of Islam has emerged in the media and politics in which Muslims repeatedly appear as a potential security problem - and this view continues to have an impact today.

The attacks have not only changed the security architecture, but also the public perception of Islam. For many people who had little personal contact with Muslims, the image of a religion emerged primarily through news, talk shows and the same imagery: burning towers, masked women, armed Islamists, mosque domes with crescent moons, crowds at Friday prayers and police operations.

Where there is no direct encounter, media images become particularly powerful. Personal exchanges with Muslims often remained the exception, while media confrontation became the rule. The fact that, according to a Bertelsmann study, around every second person surveyed perceives Islam as a threat does not just happen from heaven. It is also an expression of a public sphere in which Muslims have been conspicuously visible over decades in connection with terror, integration or security debates.

This logic still works today. In everyday life, headscarf, integration or migration debates regularly make the headlines. After every Islamist-motivated terrorist attack, a familiar reflex begins for many Muslims: the justification mode. Even though we had nothing to do with the crime, we knew the next morning that we would be asked to distance ourselves again. As if our innocence had to be proven first.

At the same time, the boundaries of what can be said are shifting. Terms like “remigration” are moving from right-wing extremist circles into everyday political life. “Foreigners Out” is blared as a party song and in many places trivialized as a provocation. This does not remain without consequences. It creates a climate in which Muslim people are increasingly perceived not as individuals, but as a projection surface for social fears.

This is not about downplaying terror. On the contrary: the victims of September 11th deserve remembrance, compassion and a clear condemnation of the perpetrators. But if the consequence of a terrorist attack is to permanently place millions of people under general suspicion, then we have learned too little from that day. No ten-year-old child should ever again have to explain in a classroom why other people have committed acts of terror.