The Facet of Race in the Myth of "The Terrorist"

 

In their addresses to Congress and interviews with the press after 9/11, Former President and Former Vice-President Bush and Cheney construct a myth of “the terrorist” by making racial connections between Arabs and terrorism. The Muslim religion is also related or equated to this Arab identity, and is used as another identifying characteristic of terrorists. I examined a similar equation of Muslim religion and Pakistani nationality in TV’s “Family Guy” in the previous installment of this blog.

Bush and Cheney separate the world into two opposing camps, Us and Them, by using vague terminology to define both terrorists and everyone else. Both Bush and Cheney are clear that anyone who does not support America’s struggle with terrorism is against America. When referring to “we” or “us” words like freedom, civilization, and justice are used. Terrorists are depicted as barbaric, abusive to women, murderers of women and children, and as hating all forms of freedom. The region of the world in question is never referred to as the Middle East, in the way that one would refer to Western Europe or Southeast Asia, but as the Arab world or the Islamic world. The terms Arab and Muslim are frequently used together in these texts, but nowhere is the difference between Arab and Muslim explicitly stated or explained. Bush and Cheney certainly never mention Arab Christians or Arab Jews, but always Arab Muslims.   

Terrorists are also defined as following a “perverse” sect of Islam, called extremism. Bush states that Muslim terrorists warp the peaceful teachings of Islam, calling them “traitors to their own faith.” While Bush does this supposedly to separate terrorists from “good” Muslims, his statements still carry assumptions about the Muslim religion, particularly Jihad, which is by no means a “fringe” part of Islam. Saying something is “perverse” conjures up images of deviancy, being predatory, and being immoral. Saying that about a sect of religion will then, naturally, alienate those Muslims in ways that make them completely opposed to what passes for decent and good in this country. Islamic extremists are portrayed as subhuman, having a nihilistic distaste for all values and morals, essentially making them the enemies of peaceful life everywhere. Bush does this as another way of including the rest of the “civilized” world in his “us” group, to try to convince Americans and the citizens of the rest of the world that this is a struggle between good and evil, in black-and-white terms.

Because both Bush and Cheney are aware that their comments could be construed as racist or exclusive, they are careful to state that this is not a war on Islam or Arabs, with much the opposite effect. Bush says no one should be singled out and mentions that Arabs and Muslims should not be automatically associated with terrorists, but mentions only Arabs as the ones who should not be singled out, thereby singling them out! Cheney says there could very well be more terrorists operating in the US which will obviously incite fear and mistrust in the public towards those who look, speak, or dress in manners similar to how terrorists are portrayed. Bush mentions the creation of Homeland Security, and Cheney mentions there will be increased intelligence operations, asking citizens to cooperate with the FBI. All of these things create images of subversive cells that exist in the US, and that citizens need to keep their guard up. As it turns out, in the past decade there have been frequent incidents of profiling, false accusations, false convictions and imprisonment. Airport security became severely more prone to profiling people with brown skin and an apparent Arab ethnicity.

The movie Harold and Kumar Go to Guantanamo Bay satirizes the racial profiling of Arabs and Muslims, and in my opinion does an excellent job of combating these stereotypes. Harold is Asian and Kumar is Indian, yet they are mistakenly identified as terrorists and detained. On a plane to Amsterdam, an old, White woman perceives Kumar to be Arab or Muslim, it is not specified exactly what she thinks, and she believes him to be a terrorist simply because of his skin color. Here is an image of Kumar:

Besides the confused or worried expression, Kumar looks like a completely normal guy, wearing a t-shirt and a hoodie, with a pretty typical hair style.

Here is an image of Kumar as the older, White woman perceives him to be:

Not only does the woman mistakenly identify Kumar, an Indian, to be Arab, but she also invents for him a long beard and a turban. Long robes, turbans, and beards have all become integral parts of the myth of “the terrorist” through pop culture over the past decade. The woman even imagines Kumar as pointing at her and making threatening gestures of a plane crashing with his hand, while making explosive noises with his mouth. Obviously, the movie is pointing out the fallacies of profiling, but it does a good job of accurately representing people’s fears, however ridiculous they may be.

Before my senior trip to Disneyland in high school, a person in my class said publicly they would not be getting on the flight if they saw anyone Arabic or Muslim waiting for the same flight. I remember being disappointed that someone would make a joke like that, and then appalled when I later found out the person was totally serious. These stereotypes are clearly very harmful, and not to be brushed lightly aside. The rhetoric involved in these myths can largely be traced back to all of the pro-prop and anti-prop released by the Bush administration following 9/11, whose propaganda almost always included language meant to incite fear and mistrust in the public. Bush frequently said things to the effect of “we need to fight the terrorists, or they will come over to America and kill our children.” That is, of course, NOT a direct quote from Bush, but it is alarmingly similar to the kind of frightening rhetoric he used so often.

Unfortunately, the myth of the Arab or Muslim terrorist is so ingrained in Americans by popular culture, that simply saying “terrorist” conjures up images of Muslims and people from the Middle East in our minds. It would be ridiculous to say that the blame falls solely on the Bush administration for these depictions, but it was the American government’s reaction after 9/11, that initially incited fear of Islamic extremists in Americans through the media.