#afterseptember11

I’ve seen a lot of posts talking about the unwarranted, hateful treatment Arabs received #afterseptember11. This is important to remember and consider. It is wrong to tar everyone with the same brush. How you treat people should be based only upon their own actions, and not the actions of others. I know Arabs who have suffered terribly because of this. One of my close friends who’s from Saudi Arabia lived in Canada for nine years, from infancy, so he remembered nothing else when 9/11 happened. His younger brothers were even born Canadian. He pretty much considered himself Canadian. After 9/11 went down, he had the crap beaten out of him by a bunch of older teenage boys from a nearby military base. The act left some pretty severe emotional scars. Eventually, the hate got so bad his entire family went back to Saudi Arabia. This is where I met him, but let me tell you my side of the story. 

I am Canadian, but I was born and raised overseas. Almost all of my childhood, fifteen years of it, was spent in Saudi Arabia. I consider the Middle East to be “home,” in many ways, and I got culture-shock when I came back to Canada. I was very young when 9/11 happened. So young, I didn’t understand what was going on, as my parents were successfully able to protect me from the horror of it. In spite of that though, I knew something was wrong, because of the atmosphere and dejection on my father’s face when he walked home the day it happened. He walked in, shoulders slumped, looking shocked. I was in the corner playing with my Lego, and I wondered what was wrong? Daddy never looked like that coming home before. I’d never seen him look like this ever. Then he said in a hoarse, disbelieving whisper, I can never forget:

“They were clapping. Oh, Sharon, they were clapping.” And my mom wrapped her arms around him, and hugged him saying she knew, and it was so, so terrible.

They were clapping. My dad taught at university in Saudi Arabia, and his students were whooping and hollering in delight when those airplanes hit. It was not only a minority of the population who were cheering as thousands died in that attack. It was actually not an uncommon mindset. They clapped when those planes hit. The anti-Western sentiment became so bad people used to throw things at our car when my dad drove to work, (or anywhere). There were many verbal and physical assaults we experienced. It got really scary, and very dangerous. My parents tried to keep me at home as much as possible. Aggressive attacks on compounds sky-rocketed. Finally, my family, and all of my friend’s families, decided it was too dangerous to stay and they had to move. Anyone who looked Western was at risk. It didn’t matter where we were from Canada, USA, UK, Australia, heck, even South Africa, if you looked white enough you were a target. We all left. We were forced out. My friends and I were just children, but we were all very sad. We didn’t understand. We just didn’t know why did we have to leave home?

It was ultimately no different what happened in Saudi Arabia as in the States/West. Westerners hated on the Arabs, and the Arabs hated on us. So don’t tell me, please, that white people need to stop pretending like they didn’t do horrible things, and forget that just as much bad was done by the other side, (and I’m not talking about merely the 9/11 attack), because, folks, university students were celebrating when 9/11 happened. They loved watching it, and my family had to move to Japan for two years. We only went back when a trusted friend said that anti-Western sentiment has quieted to somewhat reasonable levels again. We were also the only family that I know of who ever dared go back, and that’s just as relevant to the #afterseptember11, I think.

Thus, we have the Saudi boy, who thought of Canada as home, who was assaulted, and his family threatened so severely they had to move back to Saudi Arabia. We also have the Canadian girl, who thought of Saudi Arabia as her home, who was forced to leave, because her family was assaulted and threatened so severely they had to leave.