"So Our History Doesn't Become Your Future: The Local and Global Politics of Coalition Building Post September 11th"

Introduction

ON SEPTEMBER 11^th, in the marginalized and geographically distant spaces of activism in Oakland, California, and my neighborhood in Cairo, Egypt, a shared response emerged: "Clearly, the September 11^th attacks were heinous, but the U.S. government should share responsibility for pursuing imperialist policies that helped create the historical conditions within which these attacks were inspired, planned, and carried out." ² Within weeks after the attacks, activists in the U.S. who focus their work on immigrant rights and racial justice opposed the Bush Administration's use of the "war on terror" to persecute immigrants of color, particularly those perceived to be Arab or Muslim, in ways that trample upon the very "freedoms" that it purports to be defending. This paper traces shifts in progressive activism in the San Francisco Bay Area in the aftermath of September 11^th . My analysis is based on ethnographic research among members of several community-based organizations. ³ I focus on the transformative possibilities of coalition building and the political challenges that have surfaced as Arab/Arab American histories have been brought increasingly into conversation with people of color politics in general and Asian/Asian American politics in particular.

I argue that the aftermath of September 11^th expanded the possibilities for coalition building among activists engaged in homeland struggles in the diaspora (such as Palestinian or Filipino liberation). Yet it also affirmed historical polarizations of class, religion, and citizenship, particularly among communities targeted by September 11^th related bias, hate violence, and governmental policies. Moreover, for immigrant rights organizations which historically have organized within Latino/a and Asian communities, the aftermath of September 11^th meant forging new alliances with the "targeted communities." Forging new alliances has required transgressing "ahistorical notions of common experience." ⁴ Yet since immigrant rights activism has been generally inattentive to West Asian and North African experiences, grounding political unity in specific histories has been an arduous task involving substantial cultural and historical education. Educating activists on the "targeted communities" has required, for example, disaggregating the categories "Arab," "Middle Eastern" and "Muslim," highlighting a heterogeneity of histories shaped by intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, and nation, and exposing histories of European and U.S.-led colonialism and neo-colonialism in the "Middle East." Throughout my research, a general sentiment among Arab/Arab American activists was that, until the aftermath of September 11^th, progressive political groups have rendered acceptable the lack of information and activism related to North African and West Asian histories of migration and racialization, even though the racialization of Middle Easterners and Muslims has been "decades in the making." ⁵

In addition to activism focused on homeland politics and immigrant rights, this paper explores the formation of multi-racial anti-war coalitions post-September 11^th . I contend that anti-war coalitions have reaffirmed a lack of consistency in analysis of racism, colonialism, and imperialism among progressive organizations, particularly in relation to Palestine. They have simultaneously provided new vantage points from which to link local and global issues. As a framework for building transnational unity, coalitions led by women of color have emphasized that the war on terror disproportionately "escalates violence against women of color and third world women globally." ⁶ Coalitions led by people of color have centralized racial justice as a basis for mobilizing their constituents against the impact of the war on terror on "third world nations and communities of color at home." ⁷ Overall, this paper contends that coalition building is a power-laden process where differences of race, class, gender, and nation are constantly transformed and reproduced. Requiring an understanding of historical commonalities and differences, coalition building also necessitates consistency in the willingness to forge political unity with a variety of struggles...