Global Conflict and Populism in a Post-9/11 World

Abstract

In 2015, Black people were killed by police at more than twice the rate of Whites. Indeed, the probability of being Black, unarmed, and shot by police is approximately 3.5 times higher than the probability of being White. According to the Washington Post, thousands of civilians were killed by police between 2005 and 2015, but only fifty-four officers were criminally charged. Of those, twenty-one officers have been acquitted, and only eleven police officers have been convicted. Thus, we should not be surprised when we hear demands to reform our legal system. For many Americans, the legitimacy of our entire justice system is in question.

And yet, when African Americans exercise their freedom of speech and assembly to protest an inequitable justice system, they are vilified as thugs, hooligans or trouble makers—as has been the case with the BlackLivesMatter movement. Contrary to biased portrayals of the BlackLivesMatter movement as an extremist group, its members are calling for an end to the dehumanization of Black youth across all areas of society including, in our nation’s justice and education systems, social service agencies, media, and pop culture. Yet, when they demand a cessation of zero-tolerance school policies, arrests of students,and reallocation of funds from police and punitive school discipline practices to restorative services; they are deemed a threat. The public controversy surrounding the BlackLivesMatter movement’s demands for reform is misdirected. Criticism is more appropriately directed at our inability, or perhaps unwillingness, to pay attention to the harsh realities that have engendered this grassroots movement.

When governments fail to listen to their citizen’s grievances, the people have no choice but to resort to the streets. Grassroots movements challenging government abuse is not unique to the United States. They have taken root in many parts of the world, including in Egypt, where I was born. In 2011, Americans were mesmerized in front of their television screens watching tens of millions of Tunisians, Egyptians, Bahrainis, and Yemenis take to the street in peaceful protests.

Perhaps for the first time, Americans saw Arabs and Muslims as human beings—seeking democracy, economic opportunity, and dignity—the same values we cherish as Americans. The tens of millions of peaceful protesters in the Arab Spring proved to the western world that Orientalist framings of the Middle East as barbaric, uncivilized, and anti-democratic were patently false. Women standing shoulder to shoulder with men protesting decades of abuse and corruption shredded stereotypes of the meek Arab and Muslim woman. Women finally exposed Western Media's biased depiction of the region and its people as a fraud.

Keywords: Civil Rights, Equality, Arab, Muslim, 9/11, War on Terror, Black Lives Matter, Authoritarian, Rule of Law, Democracy