Nation wide riots after 9/11

After 9/11 anti-Islamic and anti-Arab riots break out all over the US, particularly in New York city and Washington DC. 500 mosques along with 300 Arab-American centers are burned down the first week. Riots cause 150,000 casualties in the first week, mostly wounded and mostly Arabs who are hopelessly outnumbered. 300,000 Arabs flee the country within that week. What happens?
 
Bin Laden actually wanted to provoke something like that to generate outrage in the Islamic world and thus undercut or even topple pro-US governments. He really is an evil SOB.

Hmm...perhaps Bush doesn't get on TV w/ an Imam immediately and proclaim Islam "a religion of peace." That way, tempers that in OTL calmed down don't get calmed down and we have many more nasty incidents than in OTL. That spirals into sheer mayhem.

Aren't most US Arabs Christians?
 
Matt Quinn said:
Bin Laden actually wanted to provoke something like that to generate outrage in the Islamic world and thus undercut or even topple pro-US governments. He really is an evil SOB.

Hmm...perhaps Bush doesn't get on TV w/ an Imam immediately and proclaim Islam "a religion of peace." That way, tempers that in OTL calmed down don't get calmed down and we have many more nasty incidents than in OTL. That spirals into sheer mayhem.

Aren't most US Arabs Christians?

Yes, but do you think a bunch of ignorant rioters would know or care about tha?. I agree it would be a major victory for OBL.
 

Dunash

Banned
Why is it that the Islamification of the massive US Black prison population has not been stymied in the slightest since 911? On the contrary, it has been encouraged by the authorities! Is there an agenda or conspiracy at work here? When they get out of jail, they are ready recruits to be henchmen for Farrakhan's Nation of Islam, or worse.
 
Dunash,

You speak of that often. Perhaps one of us should come with an "al-Qaeda in the 'Hood" thread. However, something tells me that it would turn into a flame-war fairly quickly.
 

Leo Caesius

Banned
You know, in the days following 9/11, someone stopped his car on the street beside my roommate at the time, and said "Go back to your own country, you f*cking Pakistani!"

There are two problems with this:

(A) Pakistan was not directly involved in 9/11
(B) My roommate is from Thailand.

In fact, I would formerly have thought it quite impossible to mistake for a Pakistani and still be in possession of one's vision. That is clearly the case, as the gentleman in question was driving a car (presumably with a license, which would preclude the possibility of him being blind). The roommate is much more East Asian looking than most Thais, even.

So, yes, I would think with people in OTL lashing out against countries that weren't even involved, and attacking any unfortunate person who doesn't happen to look like a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, the potential for death and destruction would be quite high.
 
Leo Caesius said:
You know, in the days following 9/11, someone stopped his car on the street beside my roommate at the time, and said "Go back to your own country, you f*cking Pakistani!"

There are two problems with this:

(A) Pakistan was not directly involved in 9/11
(B) My roommate is from Thailand.

In fact, I would formerly have thought it quite impossible to mistake for a Pakistani and still be in possession of one's vision. That is clearly the case, as the gentleman in question was driving a car (presumably with a license, which would preclude the possibility of him being blind). The roommate is much more East Asian looking than most Thais, even.

So, yes, I would think with people in OTL lashing out against countries that weren't even involved, and attacking any unfortunate person who doesn't happen to look like a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, the potential for death and destruction would be quite high.


Yes, it is hard to see how someone coud mistake a Thai for a Pakistani. In any case Moslems are outnumbered in this country by about 49:1 and so the casualties would be lopsided against Moslems.
 
Things might have been slightly worse than they actually were, but rioting on that scale is extremely unlikely. I know that some people will disagree with me on this, but I think that most Americans are much less inclined to racial or religious bigotry against entire groups of people than they were, say, at the time of Pearl Harbor. Heck, even after Pearl Harbor, there weren't the kind of direct, massed attacks on Japanese-Americans that would be equivalent to what you're talking about here.
 
Paul Spring said:
Things might have been slightly worse than they actually were, but rioting on that scale is extremely unlikely. I know that some people will disagree with me on this, but I think that most Americans are much less inclined to racial or religious bigotry against entire groups of people than they were, say, at the time of Pearl Harbor. Heck, even after Pearl Harbor, there weren't the kind of direct, massed attacks on Japanese-Americans that would be equivalent to what you're talking about here.

True, but it is possible. Some cities and towns were close to rioting before the police came out in larger numbers.
 
Brilliantlight said:
After 9/11 anti-Islamic and anti-Arab riots break out all over the US, particularly in New York city and Washington DC. 500 mosques along with 300 Arab-American centers are burned down the first week. Riots cause 150,000 casualties in the first week, mostly wounded and mostly Arabs who are hopelessly outnumbered. 300,000 Arabs flee the country within that week. What happens?

I could, just about barely, see nationwide rioting happen, but those casualties are highly unlikely, even if they were only slight injuries. Most riots have a way of feeding on themselves. If potential rioters (which, given the shock of the event, I'd say includes even me, and I'm a self-confessed cowardly bleeding-heart pinko pansywaist Euro-Socialist ;) ) saw on national television that rioting somewhere was 'successful' and went unpunished, they might be more willing to giove it a try themselves. We got to see a similar (though longer duration) effect in Germany after the police went overly soft on a number of attacks on asylum seeker accomodation, which led many others to believe they could get away with it, and the attacks mushroomed. If, thus, for some reason the police did not go out and nip riots in the bud, violent folk elsewhere might well decide to emulate them. Mosques and Arab community centers are easily identifiable targets, as are halal butchers, Arab-style coffee houses and such.

However, most rioters (at least here in Europe, but I doubt America is that different) are not, so to speak, professional users of violence. They seek emotional release, a feeling of having avenged themselves on an imaginary or real guilty party, and in some cases profit (looters do, for one). Many of them talk about 'Death to X', but few actually have it in them to injure or kill someone when the chips are down. Hardly any actively seek to do so. Most of those injuries and deaths would probably result from thrown stones, the trashing or burning of buildings (inhabited or not often makes no difference to rioters) and cases of isolated victims running into groups of rioters (which, after the first day, would not happen much).

I don't think that would make a difference, miond you. The biggest impact of rioting is never physical (take the number of victims and compare them to, say, work injuries or traffic accidents in the same city and they pale to insignificance) but psychological. The picture of 'ugly Americans' partying in front of burning mosques, lynching an imam, chasing Arabs through the streets, perhaps some skinheads 'accidentally' beating a Sikh to death (hey, he had a beard *and* a turban...), and generally terrorising any defenseless Muslims they can find (something tells me any rioters would give the nation of Islam a wide berth) would shock and horrify the world, and much of the nation once it wakes up. If it got bad enough, it might even cancel out any sympathy felt after 9-11, justifying the attack ex post facto to millions in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.

The most scary aspect of it is that the government might feel obliged to justify the riots somehow, in order to explain inaction and seeming toleration. I don't think any government body (and at best a handful of nutcases in Congress) would actually espouse them, but some waffly talk about 'regrettable excess' and 'understandable anger' could be enough to establish in the public mind that as far as the US government is concerned, there's riots and then there's riots. Welcome back to the fifties.
 
carlton_bach said:
I could, just about barely, see nationwide rioting happen, but those casualties are highly unlikely, even if they were only slight injuries. Most riots have a way of feeding on themselves. If potential rioters (which, given the shock of the event, I'd say includes even me, and I'm a self-confessed cowardly bleeding-heart pinko pansywaist Euro-Socialist ;) ) saw on national television that rioting somewhere was 'successful' and went unpunished, they might be more willing to giove it a try themselves. We got to see a similar (though longer duration) effect in Germany after the police went overly soft on a number of attacks on asylum seeker accomodation, which led many others to believe they could get away with it, and the attacks mushroomed. If, thus, for some reason the police did not go out and nip riots in the bud, violent folk elsewhere might well decide to emulate them. Mosques and Arab community centers are easily identifiable targets, as are halal butchers, Arab-style coffee houses and such.

However, most rioters (at least here in Europe, but I doubt America is that different) are not, so to speak, professional users of violence. They seek emotional release, a feeling of having avenged themselves on an imaginary or real guilty party, and in some cases profit (looters do, for one). Many of them talk about 'Death to X', but few actually have it in them to injure or kill someone when the chips are down. Hardly any actively seek to do so. Most of those injuries and deaths would probably result from thrown stones, the trashing or burning of buildings (inhabited or not often makes no difference to rioters) and cases of isolated victims running into groups of rioters (which, after the first day, would not happen much).

I don't think that would make a difference, miond you. The biggest impact of rioting is never physical (take the number of victims and compare them to, say, work injuries or traffic accidents in the same city and they pale to insignificance) but psychological. The picture of 'ugly Americans' partying in front of burning mosques, lynching an imam, chasing Arabs through the streets, perhaps some skinheads 'accidentally' beating a Sikh to death (hey, he had a beard *and* a turban...), and generally terrorising any defenseless Muslims they can find (something tells me any rioters would give the nation of Islam a wide berth) would shock and horrify the world, and much of the nation once it wakes up. If it got bad enough, it might even cancel out any sympathy felt after 9-11, justifying the attack ex post facto to millions in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.

The most scary aspect of it is that the government might feel obliged to justify the riots somehow, in order to explain inaction and seeming toleration. I don't think any government body (and at best a handful of nutcases in Congress) would actually espouse them, but some waffly talk about 'regrettable excess' and 'understandable anger' could be enough to establish in the public mind that as far as the US government is concerned, there's riots and then there's riots. Welcome back to the fifties.

Casualties may be a bit high but considering how bad Moslems are outnumbered in the US and how many people are not happy with them it is not totally off the wall. The police may be overwhelmed or not. I certainly coould see virtually every mosque and Islamic community center burned down to the ground. You are right about most people not being professional users of violence. Even in the army most people are in logistics not front line troops.
 
There was a similar upsurge of low-level but prominent anti-muslim violence post 9/11 here in Aust, including here in Darwin where there were anecdotal incidents of local Muslims being racially abused and Muslim girls having their hijabs ripped off, and the local Islamic centre receiving hate messages, plus some local Sikhs also mistakenly being at the receiving end of such abuse for 'looking' like Muslims. In Aust there were also other sources of resentment against Muslims, such as the illegal immigrants controversy re asylum seekers from the Mideast and the Lebanese gang-rapes of young Anglo women in Sydney- so WI somehow all these factors coalesced into all-out widespread popular anti-Muslim feeling which did result in pogroms against local mosques and communities which you guys have described ?
 
uh, why would Aussies be so upset about 9/11? Was it about that or more due to the low level anti-islamic sentiments you mentioned?
 
Dave, I believe the anti-Muslim violence experienced here in Aust was part of the general symptomatic knee-jerk reaction against anything Muslim which occurred thruout the Western world as a result of Sept 11th. Bear in mind that there were Aust citizens who lost their lives during the WTC bombings, too. But I don't recall there being a similar outburst of anti-Muslim violence in Oct 2002, immediately after the Bali bombings.
 

NapoleonXIV

Banned
Brilliantlight said:
After 9/11 anti-Islamic and anti-Arab riots break out all over the US, particularly in New York city and Washington DC. 500 mosques along with 300 Arab-American centers are burned down the first week. Riots cause 150,000 casualties in the first week, mostly wounded and mostly Arabs who are hopelessly outnumbered. 300,000 Arabs flee the country within that week. What happens?

Widespread arrests of rioters, with thousands jailed and speeches by practically every national politician with a voice that prosecution will be swift and further outrages will NOT be tolerated. Federal money by the truckload to restore/repair the mosques and centers. FBI investigations of every incident not solved. Very visible and increased police presence in Islamic neighborhoods. Within a month, muslims will be the safest people in the US.

That's generally basing it on what's happened before in the US. When we have had riots by minorities we arrest as many as we can but we also bend over backward to 'understand' and institute reforms so it won't happen again. If we had riots strictly against minorities, even after such a provocation as 9/11, I believe our response would be a swift outpouring of sympathy for the victims, rage at the rioters and shame that it happened at all.
 
Brilliantlight said:
After 9/11 anti-Islamic and anti-Arab riots break out all over the US, particularly in New York city and Washington DC. 500 mosques along with 300 Arab-American centers are burned down the first week. Riots cause 150,000 casualties in the first week, mostly wounded and mostly Arabs who are hopelessly outnumbered. 300,000 Arabs flee the country within that week. What happens?

I agree with other posters who believe that this wouldn't happen, even after the shock of the September 11th attacks. However, drawing from my observations of the Rodney King Riots the anti-Islamic/anti-Arab riots would be fairly small and short, but other - less scrupulous individuals - would take this oppurtunity to rob and cause general havoc that will be the cause of wider damage.

Your suggested casualty numbers are totally out of left field, to put to politely. The situation would never be allowed to escalate beyond the first hundred or so nationally. However, in the end the Government, both Federal, State and local snap down upon any sort of rioting. In fact, I would give any riots of that sort a lasting time of 1-2 hours, if not shorter given the idea that such places as mosques would probably be under police survellience to begin with.
 
Here in England there were some popular reprisals against Muslims. And regrettably some against Hindus and Sikhs by whites who didn't know the difference between different Asian religions.

(After the Gujarat earthquake a Hindu temple in Blackburn (UK) was collecting things for the relief effort, and I went there with some blankets that I bought, and someone directed me to "an Indian temple" that proved to be a mosque. Finally I found the right place.)
 
but considering how bad Moslems are outnumbered in the US

Thank God. USA going Islamic would be the world's nightmare. Some European nations have more % of recently arrived Muslims than I feel safe with. Ditto parts of India. The trouble with discussing a religion objectively, is what to do when important easily provable true facts are blasphemously offensive to that religion's followers.
 
The "easily proven fact" about abortion is that a distinct human individual is killed.
 
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