9/11 and the Classroom

Elizabeth Frierson is a University of Cincinnati associate professor of history and former director of Middle Eastern Studies for the McMicken College of Arts and  Sciences (A&S). She has lived in the Middle East and is a published researcher on the history of politics, censorship, women and cities in the Middle East. She has served on the National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships Committees for Africa and the Middle East.

How has 9/11 changed how we see the Muslim world?

Well, for the past decade, it has been hugely different from the decade that preceded it. My teaching career is split in two – before 9/11 and after 9/11. I do a lot less remedial teaching about Islam in the classroom, so our student bodies have changed across the country. I think general information about Islam has changed, because people were very curious about what motivated 9/11, and the Muslim community here and around the world got its message out that, look, we disapprove too and we’re also targeted by these people, so it’s not about Islam so much as it is about terror and criminality.

How has 9/11 changed how Muslims see themselves in the world?

I think since 9/11, Muslims see themselves as part of a more public and well-known religion. They see themselves as needing to represent their religion and they see themselves as needing to articulate their identity because otherwise, it’s a similar dilemma for almost any national group or religious group or interest group, you can either speak steadily in a calm voice and hope to get your message across or you can just sit back and let the crazies tell the world who you are. So I think we’ve seen a real change in the Muslim diaspora. People who were living outside the Middle East and who may have been putting up with prejudice, they may have just been trying to get by, and now they find that one way or another, they have to tell us who they are. And I think for some of them this has been oppressive, for others it’s been liberating because they’ve now created a modern patriotic identity in a very precise way that they didn’t do before.

Let’s Talk Turkey…

Turkey has been our consistent ally in the region. We pay tons of money to Egypt; we pay tons of money to Israel. But it always costs us in addition to money. Turkey, by contrast, has been a member of NATO, they sent troops to serve in Korea, they’ve been faithful allies to us. In 2003, they stood up and said wait, we’re not so sure that you should be launching air strikes from your air bases in Turkey, but we’ve had troops on the ground in Turkey for a very long time. Turkey is now moving into a position of leadership in the Middle East by embracing a role of leadership across the Arab/Turkish divide. That was one messy divorce between the Arabs and the Turks. So, we’ve seen our allies such as Turkey take a very different role in the region. And this is having an effect on Turkish internal politics that has very little to do with us. As a Middle East historian, I’m always looking for ways that local powers – how local cultures are responding that are not dictated by the United States.

Staying Safe

Another thing that’s changed of course is that we live in a nation that looks a lot more like a security state than it did before 9/11. As someone who flies frequently to the Middle East, I was reassured when they put in new security measures. I was always anxious when I didn’t see the kind of searches that they did in the Middle Eastern airports. So, I think in a sense we’ve grown up about what it takes to be safe in the late 20th and early 21st century.

The Event that Defined a Decade: Remembering 9/11