story356.xml

story356.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-04-05

September 11, 2001 changed my life totally. Over a period of 24 years previous to 9/11, I confronted the problem of terrorism in American universities directly. For four years, at UCLA, I succeeded a professor whose house had been bombed by terrorists. I was caught in the middle of the Lebanese civil war in the late 1970s and 1980s right on the UCLA campus. Later, I also had to confront a variety of other potentially violent situations including the Iranian revolution, and other conflicts. I received death threats from anonymous sources, and always faced the specter of an attack on me, my wife, our home, and while I was in class. Again in 1994, a supporter of the blind shaikh, "spiritual" leader of the first trade tower boming in 1993, and of Usama bin Laden disrupted my class at another California university. I was not a Muslim, but I taught a class about Islam. The "student" not only disrupted the class, but issued my wife and I a death threat during office hours. I silenced the "student" in the class, but he continued to harrass my students, most of whom were non-Muslim Americans. For 6 months, the duration of the class, I lived in anticipation of an attack on myself and my wife. I continued to teach the class and confront the young man, who was eventually removed from the class, but only after a long time. Strange to say, before 9/11 I could never speak openly about these experiences. Some people even thought I was to blame for attacks and threats made against me by people with whom I had little previous contact. Constantly, I recall one young man - formerly a member of a Lebanese armed militia, who attended my classes for all four years at UCLA. After He was very quiet, intellectual, and mild. Shortly after I left UCLA in 1982, the police arrested him with two or three others. He had a bomb ready to explode at a Middle eastern consulate in LA. His numerous visits to my office hours, and his mere presence have always remained as a specter in my mind. Numerous others also come to mind from time to time, especially the young Afghan supporter of Usama bin Laden who uttered a death threat to me in 1994. Finding anyone who could understand the terrorism issue before 9/11 was a real challenge. Still today, there are people, including newscasters, who say that there was no terrorism in the U. S. before 9/11. Not only does this idea deny the destructive attack on Oklahoma City, but it demonstrates to me that people still have very little interest in understanding the prelude to 9/11. It exists in a vacuum - one massive trauma, and that's the end of it. Two things happened to me on 9/11. Emotionally, I was paralyzed by the events I saw unfold on the screen. Also, though, my own experiences in confronting terrorists came rushing back. About that time, I had a nightmare in which the enemy had captured me. They decided to execute me, and I had one night to prepare myself. I did not care whether I lived or died, though I had a picture of my wife form which I drew some solace. The idea of death brought a sense of sweet happiness. My response on 9/11 was similar. I did not understand why all the stores closed or people felt that the terrorists targeted them personally. If death would come to me, it is no different than what I had already faced at times over a twenty year period. I vowed on that day to fight terrorism in the schools, in the U. S., and through writing. I have written a book about the issues, and about my experiences. I grieved intensely for the victims of 9/11 over a very long period. I felt especially terrible about the lost infants who had died with their mothers that day. I have found much more compassion and understanding for my own history among Americans since 9/11. People have realized that in order to confront terrorists, one must face them, not hide. Likewise, it is not possible to promote a society that favors and promotes the growth of terrorist cells in the midst of one's own society. The small Muslim group that sent the young "student to disrupt my class in 1994, and threaten me with death, played host to Bin Laden's number 2 man in 1995, just one year after the event in my class. Number 2 - Ayman al-Zawahiri - raised money in U. S. dollars on that trip to support terrorism and ultimately the trade tower attacks of 9/11. Yet, after the threats against me in 1994, I was blamed for the violence of the Bin Laden supporter who disrupted my class. I had done nothing to provoke the attack, and one official of the university blamed me. Fortunately, he was not in a position to review my case, or make official pronouncements. He was the same sort of professor as the professor in New Mexico who proclaimed loudly that anyone who could ram a jet plane into the Pentagon had his vote. Such wrong-headedness still prevails in America in my view. The people who supported the young Afghan who threatened me are still around, and have respectable jobs. The young Afghan himself, as far as I know, is still walking around. Indeed, the former Lebanese terrorist arrested with a bomb in 1982, has now left prison, and has pursued a career here in the United States. Multiculturalism is good as long as it supports a greater civic consciousness and responsibility to society in America. If multiculturalism acts as a cover for terrorism, as it has here in the United States, then 9/11 has only heightened our consciousness without making genuine changes. To this day, the images of my own past, and of 9/11, haunt me. Greater security in police, surveillance, and baggage inspection is not enough to defeat terrorism in our midst. September 11 has only made my own experiences seem more real to me, and sadly, the path of the future unless Americans change their thinking. My memories of 9/11 represent for me a return to the constant feeling in my mind that I am under threat, that I will die soon, and that it does not matter, to me at least. In order to defeat terrorism in the end, that is the way Americans must think.