Fear and paranoia still prevail in America

New York: Ten years ago this morning, the world woke up to a new reality. Terrorists had the ability to strike anywhere, any time and in a manner of their choosing.

Saturday, New Yorkers were having a certain sense of deja vu, that little had changed over the past decade — the Big Apple was on high security alert over a specific and credible terror threat.

Bomb-sniffing dogs were stationed on subway platforms and at the Staten Island Ferry.

Orange US Coast Guard rubber boats patrolled in front of the Statue of Liberty — servicemen in hard hats stood behind the heavy-calibre machine guns in their bows.

And on the streets, the city's chronic traffic was at a complete standstill as NYPD officers manned checkpoints at virtually every major intersection of the city. On Broadway, the threat of terror was playing on the theatre of the street.

At Times Square, police patrols were everywhere. At Wall Street, as tourists played with and posed for photographs with the larger-than-life other end of a bronze bull statue, officers watched their every move.

And close to the construction site that is Ground Zero — a gaping hole of construction rather than that of evil destruction — a mobile NYPD tower captured every coming and going on video.

Overhead, the usual clatter of sightseeing helicopters were joined by larger military choppers keeping an eye on the sky and the streets and shores.

Vehicles checked

All vans and buses were stopped. Officers used small hand-held explosive sniffers to check the vehicles. Come this morning, there's a snowball's chance in hell you'll be able to park anywhere on the south end of Manhattan Island.

Only city Fire Department trucks and ambulances with sirens wailing seemed able to move through this city.

When the city stops to remember the dead this morning, those police and fire officers won't be at the official ceremony. They weren't invited. But then again, the NYPD weren't invited to the World Trade Center either, but they had no issue turning up. More than 300 first responders were killed back then, and more than another 300 have died from rare cancers from working in the dust and debris at Ground Zero.

"What people seem to forget is that a lot of Muslims died in the attacks," Ziad Ramadan, president of the New York chapter of the Council of American-Islamic Relations, told Gulf News. And a lot of the first responders were Muslim. Including his wife, a medical responder.

Ramadan spoke with Gulf News after attending Friday midday prayers at an Islamic centre at 45 Park Place in Lower Manhattan. A former coat store, the building is being slowly converted into a modern cultural centre — a $100 million (Dh367 million) project — about three city blocks from Ground Zero.

"The Islamic centre has been a lightning rod for people who hate Muslims and hate Islam, to try to blame and associate the attackers with all American Muslims," Ramadan said. "They have basically tried to vilify Muslims, in New York especially, citing that this is too close to Ground Zero." As Ramadan spoke inside the centre, outside a NYPD protection detachment stood guard. Earlier, a young cabbie in a distinctive yellow Ford Crown Vic taxi stopped for a parked truck, wound down his window and emptied his lungs in a deep guttural spit aimed directly at the centre.

Right to worship

Police are on guard at the centre round the clock.

"Unfortunately, ten years later, Muslims continue to be the victims of the attacks," Ramadan said. He said that bigotry is clearly against all of the values of being American.

"Americans don't come in one colour or religion," Ramadan said. "Our nation was formed under a Constitution that ensures everyone has the right to worship as they please in our country. The founding fathers stated that very, very specifically, and our nation was founded by immigrants — immigrants invited here to try and live the American dream." Ramadan cautioned that the biggest threat facing Americans today comes from within. "It's a challenge to our Constitution and liberties, and that challenge is coming from fellow Americans," he said.

"I want my children to grow up in a society that is represented by what is best," he said, "not represented by fear and paranoia." He said he hopes that America over the next ten years will strengthen the ideals of freedom and democracy as its cornerstone.

"If those can be strengthened, then there will be a realisation that we are all Americans, we were all attacked and we are all unified against oppression and any kind of hatred that is unjustified or illegitimate," he said.