Publications and Research
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Spring 6-2024
Abstract
In the aftermath of the September 11th terror attacks, we witnessed political elites make adequate use of coded language in order to justify the implementation of an aggressive and punitive foreign policy in the Middle East. Terror attacks are disruptive, catastrophic events that tend to produce feelings of racial resentment and a desire for collective punishment toward an entire group of people. Although the perpetrators of a terror attack do not represent or speak for the majority of a much larger group, the general population of the nation or state that was attacked may not feel this way. Therefore, an entire group of people may suffer the consequences for the very few that orchestrated the attack.
Part of the reason why the general population of a country or state can be easily swayed toward feelings of revenge and a desire for collective punishment is due to the coded language or rhetoric used by political elites. This coded language used by politicians can create and construct labels, which are generalized and subjective words or phrases that can be consciously or unconsciously applied to a larger group by the general population. Rhetoric and labels both have a long history, dating back to colonial times and the age of exploration. Several social theories such as Edward Said’s orientalism, Nobert Elias’s civilizing process/mission, Charles Horton Cooley and George Herbert Mead’s symbolic interactionism, Howard Becker’s labeling theory, T.H. Marshall’s citizenship, and Benedict Anderson’s Nation-State and imagined communities can be used to describe the ways in which the West attempted to distinguish itself from Non-Western nations. Likewise, these same theories can help explain the immediate change in the attitudes of the American people and the political elite toward the Muslim and Arab Communities after the September 11th terror attacks.
Using a qualitative content analysis consisting of speeches from former US Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump, I intend to show how words and phrases from political personnel were weaponized by American politicians at the expense of the Muslim and Arab Communities.
Comments
Undergraduate student work:
Class/Subject: SOC 47004, Sociology Capstone, Spring 2024