Highlights
- Australia's first female Muslim MP Anne Aly believes Australia "changed" after the 9/11 attacks.
- She says the long-term effects of 9/11 were particularly apparent in Muslim youth, who questioned their place in Australia.
- Egyptian-born Aly believes many politicians used the post-9/11 sentiment to "win votes".
This year marks 20 years since the September 11 attacks on New York City and Washington DC, and while the scenes of horror from that tragic day continue to reverberate, a number of communities in Australia reflect on the event’s aftermath.
For many Arabs and Muslims living in Western countries including Australia, the price paid as a result of the attacks continues to be felt, and many blame distorted images of their communities in the media for the rise in racism and Islamophobic attacks post 9/11.
“I was two years old when my family migrated to Australia. I’ve lived here my entire life and had never seen anything like this before,” Dr Anne Ali told SBS Arabic24.
“After September 11, [racism] had become normal.”
The Egyptian-born MP was the first Muslim woman elected to federal parliament in 2016, representing the seat of Cowan in Western Australia.
In 2001, she was a policy officer for the WA government, and following the 9/11 attacks, she was attached to her state's response to the federal government’s counter-terrorism action plan.
Dr Aly was two when her parents moved to Australia via an assisted migration program. Source: AAP
During that period, Dr Aly fell victim to prejudice, and she wasn't alone.
A Human Rights and Equal Opportunity report in 2004 found that more than two-thirds of Australian Muslims and Arabs said they experienced racism stemming from the attacks.
“I fell victim to racism on many occasions back then although I don’t wear the Hijab and you can’t tell I’m Muslim if you saw me walking down the street," Dr Aly said.
One incident from that period remains engraved in her memory.
The twin towers of the World Trade Center burn in New York. Source: AP
“I’d get my coffee every day from the same coffee place close to my office. I used to talk and laugh with the barista.
“One day, I was wearing a necklace with an Arabic engraving. He asked, ‘what does your necklace say? Is this Arabic?’ I said ‘yes, it says prophet Mohammad’. He then asked ‘Are you Muslim?', I said ‘yes’.”
Sensing hostility, Dr Aly took her coffee and was leaving the cafe when the barista shouted, “Look out everybody, she’s Muslim, she’s going to bomb us all".
Having not experienced anything like that before, Dr Aly said she felt deeply hurt by the tirade as everybody inside the cafe began silently staring at her as she left.
“I did not know what to do or what to say. I had never experienced anything like this before.
“I’ve been brought up with Australians of all backgrounds and had never been in such a situation. I’ve never been treated differently.
“Back then, I felt something changed in Australia. People had changed. Something had changed in the Australia that I know.”
Not only Muslims but anyone of Middle Eastern appearance was targeted, including Indians, she said.
Dr Aly is also a lecturer and academic specialising in counterterrorism, with a special focus on why young people are drawn into violent extremism.
She believes the media played a significant role in portraying negative imagery during that period.
“Every image of a terrorist in the media was Muslim Arab despite the fact terrorism existed for many years and among many communities.”
She said the long-term effects of 9/11 were particularly apparent in Muslim youth, who struggled with issues of identity and belonging, as a result of the abuse they had experienced.
“I sat with a group of Muslim youth aged 18 to 21. Many of them were crying.
They had said to me ‘I’m born in Australia, been here my whole life and I’m Australian but people now are saying I’m not’.
Dr Aly believes women who wear the Hijab were more vulnerable to attacks as she gave an example from her own observations.
“I was in a shopping centre and I saw a woman who wears the Hijab. I also saw another woman with her teenage daughter who started encouraging the girl to follow the Muslim woman to shove her.
“I had never seen Australia like this before, a mother encouraging her kid to attack someone.”
'It became very political'
In September this year, a Taliban spokesman told the Nine Network that the 41 Australian diggers who lost their lives during the Afghan war had "died in vain”, a claim slammed by Prime Minister Scott Morrison as “sickening and untrue”.
On the topic, Dr Aly believes, “It’s difficult to say to the families of the soldiers that lives were not lost in vain” because there was hardly any progress achieved in the country that had been at war for 20 years before the US invasion in 2001.
“One of the main purposes of Australian troops in Afghanistan was to rebuild the nation. It’s not easy to rebuild a country that had more than two decades of war,” she explained.
Dr Aly emphasised that it has been “popular in all levels of politics” to attack Muslims in Australia.
“It became very political. A way to win votes.
“We saw Pauline Hanson when she said all Muslims should be out of Australia. We saw the children overboard incident when John Howard said ‘We decide who comes into this country...'"
“When people heard this, they said ‘We don’t want those Middle Eastern people in our country’.
“It was popular to attack Muslims, to let people continue on this path because then the government could say 'we’re the ones protecting you from those people'.”
