Sumaya Attia and Amanee Robinson collect ribbons designed
by Fresno State students to commamorate 9/11. Ribbons
collected will be sent to New York.
Esteban Cortez / The Collegian
Ten years later, the devastation that took place on Sept. 11 is still a vivid memory in the minds of most Americans.
Although the chilling images from that morning can’t be changed, America and its people have.
For James Cypher, a Fresno State economics professor, the biggest change in America since 9/11 has been the mindset toward our fears.
“Since 9/11, the United States economy has faced not only fear of terrorism, but a recession, the worst since the Great Depression,” Cypher said.
In a study conducted by The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, it was found that virtually every adult today remembers exactly where they were or what they were doing the moment they heard the news of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The Pew Research Center study also showed that today, more adults remember where they were or what they were doing on 9/11 than when Osama bin Laden was killed earlier this year.
Fresno State political science professor Melanie Ram clearly remembers and will never forget where she was when the actions on that fateful day unfolded.
“I was in Washington, D.C., about two blocks away from the White House,” Ram said. “It was chaotic.”
Michael Castellanoz, a Fresno City College student, was only 11 years old at the time of 9/11 and remembers watching the television in disbelief.
“I thought it was some crazy action movie,” Castellanoz said. “And then I started to change the channel and I realized it was on every station. I freaked out.”
Security after 9/11 dramatically increased in the United States in both the private and public sectors. A recent article by the Los Angeles Times found that since 9/11, LAX has spent more than $500 million on security.
Security measures do not guarantee an increase in American’s confidence, however.
The Pew Research Center found that 76 percent of Americans feel the government is doing very or fairly well in reducing the threat of terrorism. Ӭ
“We are still very insecure,” Ram said. “We still have problems on both sides. A lot of actions have been taken [to increase security], but most officials and scholars still think we are insecure.”
Along with the reduction of terrorism comes the issue of civil liberties.
The lasting impact of 9/11 has been Americans’ heightened fear of Middle Eastern countries, culture and people.
“We have had a lot of negative effects, like discrimination toward foreigners,” Ram said.
Negative news about Muslims, discrimination and ignorance about Islam top the list of the problems Muslim-Americans say they face, revealed by a study conducted by the Pew Research Center. The most frequently mentioned problem is people’s negative views about Muslims, including stereotyping, being viewed as terrorists and distrust.
The Pew Research Center study also found that 43 percent of Muslims have been treated in a hostile way, such as being singled out at an airport, being looked at suspiciously or being physically threatened.
“September 11 united the country, but in hatred towards others,” Claybon said. “It made us paranoid.”
“It’s changed us forever,” Castellanoz said. “I don’t think that people will ever be able to forget that horrible day. It’s made us a more vulnerable country.”
In an event to commemorate ten years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Fresno State will hold a discussion panel on Monday, Sept. 12 from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Peters Educational Center.
joshua4234 • Sep 9, 2011 at 10:50 pm
I often hear that the moderate Muslim community isn’t loud enough and there repudiation doesn’t exist but I think this is just a lack of searching. Just ask yourself how much you’ve looked for Muslims repudiating terrorism. Have you even done a single google search? Well since I was curious about this I did one and found tons of sources of Muslim organizations and their repudiation of terrorism. I mean US citizens whose religion is Islam were victims of the 9/11 attacks and there are many muslim victims of terrorism around the world. On the Wikipedia article about reactions to 9/11 attacks alone there are sources with repudiations of terrorism that include many American Islamic organizations including but not limited to the American Muslim Alliance, American Muslim Council, Association of Muslim Scientists and Engineers, Association of Muslim Social Scientists, Council on American-Islamic Relations, Islamic Medical Association of North America, Islamic Circle of North America, Islamic Society of North America, Ministry of Imam W. Deen Mohammed, Muslim American Society, and Muslim Public Affairs Council. Also, at that time almost all the leaders of the Muslim world condemned the attacks, except Hussein in Iraq. These include Egypt, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, Libya, Syria, Iran and Pakistan. Also, I’m pretty sure most of the muslim population in the muslim world just doesn’t speak English so there is a language barrier and they are just going about there business halfway around the world with their own problems. They probably don’t see crowds of Americans in mourning whenever there are attacks in their countries, either because we aren’t or there media is focusing on their own country. And lastly, I think your characterization of “Muslins across the globe dancing” is skewed. There were a few documented cases of a couple small crowds on video cheering. These were blow out of proportion by Fox News and CNN. There are over a billion Muslim people, frankly I’d be shocked if some didn’t didn’t cheer. I wonder how many Christians I can find on video cheering for either natural disasters or attacks of some sort on innocent people. I doubt you’d want me to start looking. I’ll just leave you with a challenge to actually look for Muslim’s condemning terrorism and realize Muslims only make up around 1% of the US and if national news coverage doesn’t broadcast their repudiation of terrorism enough it’s not their fault.
Since I am not Muslim, here is an actual American Muslim’s response to a similar statement ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aABLvJr8l4I ).
Martin • Sep 10, 2011 at 8:18 pm
I’m sure the one, 10 second looped video on Fox news was enough to convince Carolyn that Muslims around the world were cheering and passing out milk duds after hearing of the attacks.
Carolyn • Sep 9, 2011 at 10:56 am
Of course we have changed, almost 3000 innocent citizens were MURDERED on that day by an act of terror that is attributed to Islam. I feel that there has not been enough loud, and righteous outrage from the “moderate” Muslim community when it comes to terrorist acts perpetrated by Muslims against the US and abroad. Where is the loud and collective anguish and denunciation? It doesn’t exist. Because of the silence from the “moderates”, can we then conclude that the radicals are the majority? It appears as such, the “radicals” are the loudest representatives of the Muslim community that we hear from. In the past we, as Americans, have banded together in times of death and sadness but in this instance there is a separation and a deafening silence. My Sept. 11, 2001 memory is of victims jumping from the towers because the hell inside was far worse than the undeniable death outside, and of Muslims across the globe dancing, singing, and passing out candy in the streets at the news of our murdered citizens.
joshua4234 • Sep 9, 2011 at 10:53 pm
I made a reply to you, but I don’t think I did the reply thing right the first time. Well it’s on the page just in case replying informs you of the comment.
Philosotroll • Sep 11, 2011 at 11:21 am
As has already been pointed out, moderate Muslim communities in the United States and abroad were among the most vocal after the 9/11 attacks. Joshua has already pointed this out. Basically every moderate American Muslim organization issued a press release after we discovered that Bin Laden was responsible denouncing terrorism.
I do find the hypocrisy of conservative Christians on this point troubling, though. Where are they when it comes to instances of pro-life terrorism, or racist terrorism, which are both often attributed to Christianity? The reality is that we do not believe the majority of Christians are racist because groups like CSA engage in violent terrorism; we do not believe that Christians support violence against doctors who perform abortions because of groups like the Army of God.
There ought to be some trust; there ought to be the benefit of the doubt that, as sympathetic human beings, the majority of individuals in the world recognize that terrorism, for whatever cause, is never justified. Muslims should repudiate terrorism attributed to Islam, and Christians should repudiate terrorism attributed to Christianity; but we should have enough respect for them to believe that they feel that it is wrong, whether they are screaming it from the rooftops, at that particular moment, or not.