YOU ARE AN ARAB! YOU MUST BE A TERRORIST!

Unresolved Energy…

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Unhealed wounds…

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Metastasize hate…

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Corrupting human interactions…

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Geneva, Switzerland, 11^th Sep 2001

I was totally engrossed in a report I was preparing all day till around mid-afternoon.

I had a call from Jyoti my lifelong friend in London. We became friends in the university then also with her husband, David, when she got married. It was always a pleasure to hear from her.

This time, both were on the phone and they seemed very agitated. They said they wanted to know my perspective as people are already speculating that ‘this’ was a terrorist attack by people from the Middle East, and that they thought I would surely be privy to a clearer picture.

I was puzzled and said: “What on Earth are you talking about?”

They said:

“Have you not seen the news? About the attack in New York?”

Clearly, I had not so we agreed that I go find out more about it then talk again.   

During the call I had noticed that more & more people were hurriedly leaving their desks. Clearly it wasn’t a sudden mass rush to the toilettes or for coffee.

Someone then said to me as he was passing that they are airing the news on the big screen downstairs in the conference centre. I hurried down with the rest of my colleagues.

I was utterly shocked and completely dumb struck.

Almost all of us had our hands on our mouth, our eyes bulging out with horror.

A voice was screaming inside me.

Why? Why? Why? Why would anyone do such a thing?

Who could do such a horrific thing?

And what sort of devil would come up with such a horrendous idea and execute it, using passenger airplanes as weapons?

I was reflecting, internally, that this seems to break some boundaries beyond which there was no limitations to horror and criminality. It was a very scary thought.

We stood there following the sequence of attacks.

Then, just when we thought it could not get any worse, the towers started to collapse!

Someone screamed, others almost collapsed on the floor and were supported by those around them.

My inside cringed and churned when I thought of the thousands of innocent people who crushed to death. I wanted to sit or lean on something for support but there were no empty chairs, and the large room was so packed that there was no available space close to the walls.

I didn’t look around, but I had a sense that there was something binding all the people in the conference room that day. An invisible human bond, all of us being horrified, scared and our hearts going out to all the victims.

However, perhaps, I didn’t appreciate the full strength of the fear monster that also rampaged through vulnerable beings at that time.

As I walked up back to my desk, I noticed a strange phenomenon. I was walking in my own bubble.

People were giving me a wide berth!

Did they think I would blow up also, at some point, as part of these synchronized horrific events?

This continued for a while after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

I felt so scared and never felt more alone in my life. I had been in Geneva for less than a year. I was making acquaintances but perhaps not enough time to create strong bonds of friendship that can withstand such a development.

There were strong speculations, of course, and but it wasn’t yet confirmed that the Perpetrators were indeed Middle Eastern.

I packed up my things to go back to my flat for the day.

That was only a start. Things started to unfold.

Al Qaedah claimed responsibility.

I had only heard of Al Qaedah in passing. I was too busy with major life changes to follow politics closely.

The US government pointed the fingers squarely at Al Qaedah claiming that 15 out of the 20 terrorists were Saudis!

Back home people were stunned! My young nephew asked me, on the phone:

“They say some Saudis did this horrible thing, is this true? People from here?”. He was so perplexed, and I could sense also scared at the prospect.

What many people didn’t realize is that for us, as a society, it was even more scary to think that there could be people in our midst who are capable of this level of inhumanity. People I knew back home were not celebrating, as some Western media portrayed, they were struggling to take it all in. The loss of life and impact of that in terms of future terrorist activities, just like anyone else in the world.

On top of that, also what it meant to our culture.

Management sent a memo warning of severe consequences to anyone harassing their fellow employees because of their origins or faith. That the heads of all business units were given the authority to fire people immediately if such behaviour was proven.

That was very reassuring because it did put up some boundaries and that was needed eventually.

Next day, several members of my team insisted on us going to lunch together. I usually had lunch earlier than the rest. They had an early lunch that day to make a point of support.

I really appreciated that gesture of solidarity.

The whole team shared the same space in our open office set-up. Workwise, I interacted with most members of the team constantly.

Not a lot with Arturo and Brigitte, though, but they happened to sit close to me, so we had polite daily interactions.

That day they joined as well.

Afterwards, Arturo suggested we have coffee in the atrium area. He said he wanted to ask me some questions if I didn’t mind. I agreed.

Once Al Qaidah announced openly that they claim responsibility for that attack and 15 of the suspects were claimed to be Saudi, I started to be regarded as a key source of information.

I found myself almost compelled to share what I knew and trying to explain. Even though most of the time, I didn’t really fully understand myself.

I just wanted to help if I can. Maybe add a touch of comfort to reduce the pain and fear we were all feeling.

Many asked me and I answered to the best of my knowledge.

Some were honestly trying to understand, others not so much.

I told myself it was alright! Everyone needs to deal with drama in their own way.

A few simply avoided me and did not interact with me unless they absolutely had to.

Despite the warnings, a few people, under the guise of trying to understand seemed very accusatory. Maybe because the human tragedy triggered the deepest level of my empathy and humanity, I was not in the warrior mode with them. At first.

I told myself it was better than what other Arabs (& non Arabs) were struggling with in the US and other countries.

As stories started to emerge of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim acts ranging from passive hatred to very violent and murderous, some of the Arabs I met in the company seemed to be in full panic mode.

Particularly, those who had family & friends in the US.

Arturo was a bit of an issue for me because he was sitting right next to me. Every time I came back from a meeting, he would say.

“Biba, I wanted to ask you a question!”. The questions were not always that.

One day, he asked me.

“Do you know Osama Bin Laden?”

“No!”

“But he is Saudi.”

“So are more than 30 million people.” I answered in a clipped tone.

He was taken aback for a few seconds.

“So many? I thought it was a desert country.”

“People did live in the deserts but nowadays it is most settled in towns, and we also have modern cities.”

That seemed to distract him for a little allowing me to escape.

Another time, he went for a wider field of entrapment.

“Do you know the Bin Laden family?”

I was looking through my drawers and only paying part attention as I said.

“I went to school with a couple of Bin Laden girl.”

I looked up to see shock on his face.

“How can you interact with this family?”

I honestly did not know what to say.

I pursed my lips, opened, pursed some more. Moved my shoulders then asked:

“Why not? The girls I knew were very nice and decent. Arturo, you do know the person of concern here is one member of this very large family?”

“If his family were decent, they would surrender him.”

“They are not hiding him.”

“Why are defending them?”

“I am just stating facts. They disowned him and they said they don’t know where he is hiding.”

“OK, but this family produced this guy so how can they be good.”

“So, you want collective punishment to be applied here?”

He shrugged one shoulder in an Italian gesture.

“It is unlikely that other members of the family are not involved.”

That stunned me.

“Arturo, if your brother or cousin committed a crime would you think fair or legal that you, or other members or you family, are indicted on the basis you just stated.”

Again, a hand gesture

“But it is different.”

“How is it different?”

“We are Europeans! We are not terrorists!” Alberto said as if it was obvious.

I got up and left before I blew up like I seem to be expected to do!

I got a cup of coffee and went up to the roof. It offered a great view. On a clear day, you could see the reflection of Lake Geneva in the distance and have glimpses of the magnificent French Alps on the other side.

Hardly anyone came here so no one was trying to ignore me!

Arturo was becoming a problem and I was wondering if I should speak to Marco, our marketing director.

The thing is I didn’t want to cause any harm. In a way the possibility of a person being dismissed made me reluctant to even raise the issue.

My father always reminded us of something that is very important in our culture.

Don’t cut anyone’s income. This is their God Given gift to them and none of your business. Don’t interfere with it because that will rub on you (hard to translate, but close to the idea of karma).

I considered whether it was best to just fold up and go back home and have the safety of being in my homeland with my family around me.

Something in me rebelled.

There were some friendly people around me, not everyone was hostile, but I needed to speak to close friends.

I went to see my friends in London for a long weekend. I talked & talked & ranted. Then we had calm discussions. I told them my perspective of how certain developments in my country led to this. The extremists’ movement seemed non-violent at times but hijacked the minds of young people.

With them I could express myself uncensored without worry of every word being misconstrued.

Back in Geneva, I applied my friends’ advice. I just evaded Arturo and refused to answer any of his questions.

When the US launched military operations in Afghanistan, he asked me what I thought. I said, I had a big issue with them selecting my birthday for that. I did not want it to be associated with any war.

He kept trying and I kept evading.

One day I was having a small meeting with one of the brand managers. After the meeting we lingered for coffee and a conversation.

Javier, was the senior brand manager. I enjoyed having varied discussions with. He was a book worm like me, and we shared several interests.

He was one of the very few in the office that I still had any discussions about 9/11 because they were indeed discussions rather than interrogations.

“You don’t seem to be optimistic about the military operation in Afghanistan, why is that?”.

I rubbed my forehead.

“I think the training camps must come down for sure. I only wish it could be done without an all-out war that is bound to wreak destruction.”

These camps were set up to after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, several camps to train all the so-called ‘Mujahideen’ to fight off that invasion. After that goal was achieved, they started being used to indoctrinate young people from around the world into terrorists’ activities.

“There are other things that need to be done as well.”

“The funding to these groups needs to be stopped also but there is more than that, isn’t there?” He asked indicating, as always, how well-informed he kept himself.

“Exactly! The roots are in an ideology that is still being spread in the Islamic world and beyond. I don’t even know how this can be changed at this point.”

Since the early 80’s we have seen the rise of extremism and it is easier to deal with concrete things like camps and money than foundational, but subtle, aspects such as thinking.

“Yes, we have observed that in Europe as well with some mosques becoming a centre for Islamic radicalism after ‘importing’ some radical Imams”.

Then he put his hand up

“At the risk of being designated a target of righteous vengeance for saying that”.

I grimaced in the unfortunate acknowledgement of the truth of his comment.

“The thing is there is a distinction that many people might not see especially currently. On one hand, there are the leaders who are brain-washing young people for their own nefarious reasons. Those I really wish are locked away to make the world safer, but I don’t see that happening soon mainly because it requires a lot of political resolve and courage and other reasons as well”.

I took another sip of coffee and tried to speak carefully.

“On the other hand, there are tens of thousands of youths who are being brain-washed in my opinion. Most of them truly want a better world for all but they are struggling with many issues in their lives. So many end up dead after killing others. Many more, talented with bright prospects, just lose everything. Wars and bombing and all the so called ‘human collateral’ are positioned by those leaders as further evidence of them being under attack by the ‘infidels’ and used to justify violence against them. Feeding the vicious cycle of violence.”

I watched his face to see if he is understanding then continued.

“The real suffering on the grounds makes them more vulnerable for such brain-washing in my opinion. It is so sad”. He nodded.

“I know many are calling for ‘Nuke them all’ but bombing is not the way to resolve this.”

What I did not notice was that Arturo was sitting in a table very close to me, right behind me.

And at that point, he jumped at me with an “Ja’accuse” stand saying:

“See! You are always finding excuses for them. You are one of them!” He declared triumphantly.

Both me and Javier were stunned! Clearly to Arturo, doing the righteous job of exposing sleeping cells such as myself excused discarding all courtesy and professional standards.  

I said very firmly.

“That is quite enough Arturo. I really had enough. I gave you more than one chance to leave me alone. I am going to report this to Marco.”

Suddenly, he surprised me by apologizing and begging me not to mention it to our marketing director.

I agreed provided he keeps his distance and restricts his interactions with me to courtesy greetings.

He left the company soon after.

I was told that his performance was already under review, and he didn’t make it. That dealt with the issue of harassment from Arturo, but many things remained unresolved.

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7^th Feb 2023

First, let me point out that all the names are aliases. No one in the team I was working with at the time had these names. The only real names are those of my friends Jyoti and David.

Secondly, the guy who was harassing me was indeed Italian but that is NOT in any way a reflection on Italy or its people. A lovely country that I worked on for 3 years and fell in love with and its amazing warm-hearted people.

There are always all shades of people in every country and culture.

He did wage a campaign to ‘catch me out’ and did accuse me eventually of being ‘one of them’. Some of the other details might be added from other conversations around the same subject.

I am telling this story not to rant but because I believe this continues to be an issue for us Arabs in our dealings with the world.

Encouraging open and honest discussion about 9/11 might help us collectively as humans learn from this tragedy and move forward.

I observe that 9/11 continues to be used, at some level, to feed a set of beliefs around something inherently wrong with a whole group of nations i.e. Arabs and/or Muslims

That, for the good of the world, they need to be coerced or shepherded openly or by stealth.

The invasion of Iraq, intervention in the Arab youth movement, Libya, Syria, Tunis…etc.

All standards are allowed to be sent to crash to dust when it comes to these people. All aspects of logic, legal, human…etc.

When any other nations get interested in sports it is considered a healthy direction. For Arabs it is ‘sports washing’. They are a bunch of ignorant Bedouins after all, surely just going around on their camels should be sports enough for them, right? (From actual comments in social media)

In Cop27 in Egypt, environmental issues were put aside to focus on manipulating the Egyptian government into releasing individuals indicted of inciting violent criminal and terrorist activities (ironically).

World Cup in Qatar turned into a witch hunting expedition to stack up all that is wrong in this region. Not to discuss but for Western politicians & media to gleefully wag their fingers.

All goes to prove the basic premise.

These people are a bunch of lunatic terrorists! ALL of them! It is in their DNA.

Reading and researching, I am amazed at the difference in the level of analysis between groups such as Al Qaedah or ISIS vs. Terrorists groups coming from non-Islamic backgrounds such as RAF (Red Army Faction)/Baader-Meinhof Gang, The Japanese Red Army, The Red Brigades, The Shining Path, Liberation Tigers…etc.

There is always that element of generalization and projection into a larger group but at least there is some attention to the other complex factors.

On the other hand, Islamophobia and Arabophobia are card that are pulled out an used in political squabbles in the West in pursuit of power and control. Another version of leaders of extremism brain-washing the masses for their own glory and gains.