Gaskew reflects on anniversary of 9/11

After a decade of self- reflection, we need to decide, as the most powerful and influential nation on this planet, whether it’s worth perpetuating this atmosphere of fear, hate, and anger, sacrificing the hearts, minds, and bodies of our post-9/11 generation; the men and women between the ages of 18-30, and I don’t mean just American citizens, but also the one billion global Muslims who are under the age of 30.  

Every year, I stand in front of a group of eager students, many between the ages of 18-30, who are enrolled in my “Terrorism in a Post 9-11 World” course at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford.

Over the past several years, I have greeted each and every class with the same opening statement, “I feel so sorry for all of you, because your generation has never known a reality without the fear, anger, and hate created out of a post 9/11 world.”

I then apologize and sincerely thank them, explaining that although my generation helped create and support Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, secretly funding, training, and equipping them with military hardware and intelligence as they fought and defeated Russia (the former Soviet Union) in Afghanistan from 1979-1989, their generation has been asked to pay the price through blood, sweat, and tears -- bravely placing their lives in harm’s way for ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As fate has it, it was also their generation that ultimately brought Osama Bin Laden to justice.

When I remind them 40 passengers, primarily from their own generation, sacrificed their own lives without the slightest hesitation, forcing their own airplane, Flight 93, to crash into the rural fields of Somerset County, only 180 miles from the Pitt-Bradford campus in order to divert what would have certainly been a catastrophic attack on the nation’s capital, they give me this strange, almost bewildered stare, and suggest, “of course, we love our country.”

I must admit, as a former active duty military member myself, one who served at the apex of the Afghan-Soviet war, it’s very difficult not to be proud of this post-9/11 generation. However, the story does not end there.

During my field research in the Middle East as a Fulbright-Hays Fellow, I also stood in front of group of 18- to 30-year-old Muslim students and attempted to educate them on the topic of terrorism.

However, these post-9/11 generation Muslims, representing a variety of locations, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and even the Gaza Strip, expressed a very different perspective on terrorism and the events of 9/11.

Many were convinced the attacks of September 11th were an elaborate hoax perpetrated by the United States of America, in order to support the invasion and colonization of oil rich Muslim countries.

They stated that Osama Bin Laden was a conduit of the U.S. government, and that the United States was ultimately hiding him somewhere in America. In fact, today, many are convinced that Bin Laden was not killed as reported by the United States.

Many of these university students, some of the most academically gifted I’ve ever seen, explained this generation of Muslims felt morally obligated to defend Islam and all fellow Muslims worldwide, even if required sacrificing their own lives.

They praised the tens of thousands of Muslims who died defending Iraq and Afghanistan, and demanded that the United States remove itself from Islamic countries worldwide or suffer dire consequences.

I remember, just as if it were yesterday, one of my very close friends, a Muslim Fulbright-Hays colleague from Egypt who was a professor and present during these discussions, saying how “difficult it was for him not to be proud of this post-9/11 generation.”

I had to remind myself again, this generation has never known a reality without the fear, hate, and anger created out of a post-9/11 world.

Dr. Tony Gaskew is an associate professor of criminal justice at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford who has spent the last decade researching terrorism in light of Sept. 11, 2001, and the USA PATRIOT Act. He is the author of “Policing Muslim American Communities” and the forthcoming “The Muslim Brotherhood: Reshaping U.S. Foreign Policy Post-9/11.”