Coming of Age in the War on Terror by Randa Abdel-Fattah

Coming of Age in the War on Terror Reviews

• 
  Susannah Brown

  A compelling, moving, thoroughly researched work which challenged me to think about my privileges, what I've taken for granted, and what I've been (harmfully) taught is normal. Randa Abdel-Fattah explores the countless ways that normalised Islamophobia, and policies emphasizing surveillance and suspicion have, and continue to, marginalise communities and individuals who don't "fit" into white Australia. Interviews with young Muslims and non-Muslims in schools across Sydney give direct insight into both horrifying and hopeful stories and experiences. "Years of countering violent extremism policies, political and media rhetoric and community partnerships have normalised a hypersensitivity and policing of young Muslims' bodies, speech and the spaces they move in." A must read for all who seek a more equal and fair society.
• 
  Sarah (dvrk_academic)

  Randa Abdel-Fattah's latest book is one of the most provocative, captivating and important books I have read this year. This book was recommended to me by my Master's supervisor because she believed it may be relevant for my research. She was right. Abdel-Fattah analyses not only her interviews that she conducts with her own participants, but also academics published works including the likes of Scott Poynting, Christina Ho and Moreton-Robinson. Her book is also riddled with contemporary examples and situations of Islamophobia including the Christchurch Massacre, the Punchbowl Boys issue and day to day encounters of Australian Muslims. One of the key points Abdel-Fattah makes is the influence or lack thereof of politics on the life of the Youth. Youth are aware, and that is made clear in this book throughout her interviews, yet they are constantly undermined and spoken down to. Being involved in politics looks different from person to person and that is highlighted throughout the book. The book also mainly highlights the detrimental impact the words of influential people can have on policies, procedures, the media and the general public. This is not a book to be missed - Abdel-Fattah leaves no stone unturned.
• 
  Melinda

  One of the best non-fiction books I’ve read though be aware that it’s very well researched and not a book that you can flip through lazily on a Sunday afternoon.
  
  I think everyone should read this, especially people living in Australia.
• 
  Ella

  Fear is a dangerous, oppressive and all-consuming emotion. This book urges all who read it to face fear head on.
• 
  Natasha (jouljet)

  There is a generation now growing up who were not yet born when the Twin Towers came down in New York in a terrorist attack and changed so much of the Western world. These kids are navigating a time of racism, surveillance and fear, within a context that they may not have even been aware of - but the reverberations of overt racism, policy and law changes, and everyday victimisation of Muslims impact these emerging adults greatly.
  
  Randa Abdel-Fattah has interviewed a range of current school children in Sydney, from a range of private, religious, and public schools, on their views and experiences of this post-9/11 era. In Western Sydney and Greater Sydney, where diversity is the norm, where a high proportion of households either don't use English as their first language, and many have parents who were born overseas. The impacts and burden of blame in Muslim youth is felt, everyday.
  
  Stunning truths are examined in the research, with the stark and confronting fact that Australia is the country to develop and enact on the most anti-terrorism legislation and policies than anywhere else in the world. The focus on policing, monitoring, and reporting on potential radicalisation of Muslims has been a dominant theme of parliament and indeed education policy, since 9/11. The capitalist outcomes of this focus, and program roll-outs. This is confronting and necessary reading.
  
  With 2.6% of Australians identifying as Muslim, how are those children thinking about, feeling, and negotiating their time as a school kid in this context? Second guessing and being afraid to speaking their truths or experiences in class discussion for fear of being contextualised as a threat, is a response to the social outcomes but also the policies and trainings instituted in Education. Not being represented positively, or historically accurate, is also a strong theme. Girls especially, being the visible Muslims when wearing a hijab, are particularly at risk.
  
  Listening to Muslim young voices, and their white counterparts, is a frank, uncomfortable examination of growing up in Australia right now - with lessons, challenges to teachers, educators and policymakers. But also a window into the added layer of burden on this generation.
  
  There is hope here, with such insight from young minds. But oh so much work to be done by us all to listen, learn, and repair the damage of the focus on the War On Terror and one racially biased image of the threat of terror.
• 
  Anna

  An absolute cornerstone of reading to make one a better Australian, and a searing endightment of racism against Muslims in Australia's political and educational sphere. Some fantastic quotes from the book below:
  
  "Speaking out in Australia is to provoke a White nervous system that will refer pain to those who dare to speak... this is the context in which young people are coming of age"
  
  "Dismissing race in a feminist/gender analytical framework results in White feminism colluding with patriarchy against women of colour"
  
  "To believe that Muslims can freely challenge government narratives and offer 'radical thinking' about the war on terror without being constituted as a threat is ludicrous"
  
  "This normalises the dehumanising reduction of young Muslim students to a homogenous category of 'becoming terrorist'"
  
  "No matter how many 'diverse' and 'multicultural' pieces are thrown into the curriculum puzzle, the cohering frame around which those pieces are organised and bordered is Whiteness... the White border maintains its entitlement to determine the content and value of the pieces allowed within the body of the puzzle... curriculum content reinforces and reproduces those structures by reproducing White ways of knowing and learning, White histories and stories, all the while disavowing race in our education systems."
  
  "...history is not simply the recording of facts and events, but a process of actively enforced silences, some unconscious, others quite deliberate" - Michel-Rolph Troumillot
• 
  Ceyrone

  I am a huge fan of this author and will read everything that she writes. This should be read widely by everyone. Highly informative, captivating, very well researched with relevant examples, and one of the most important books that I have read this year. Randa Abdel-Fattah analyses islamophobia by interviewing high school students from a range of schools and areas. From public schools to private and independent schools. From the north shore to western Sydney. She also uses academic published work to further explore the issue of islamophobia and the experience of these students growing up during the war on terror. Her book also uses contemporary examples and highlights examples of islamophobia from the Christchurch Massacre to the Punchbowl Boys issue. This book is very telling and highly revealing of what these youth have and will continue to go through, rhetoric employed by the media to demonise Muslims, the whiteness of the education system and the role that politics plays or doesn’t play on the lives of the youth. Highly recommend.
  
  “Years of countering violent extremism policies, political and media rhetoric and community partnerships have normalised a hypersensitivity and policing of young Muslims' bodies, speech and the spaces they move in."
• 
  nusaybah

  rtc once I've processed everything
  
  All I can say now is that every Australian MUST read this book. No excuses.
  
  "I’m not afraid of terrorism. I’m afraid of being accused of being a terrorist."
• 
  Liz Murray

  A must-read for all Australians and for readers elsewhere in the world interested in combatting Islamophobia. Randa Abdel-Fattah is a Palestinian Australian writer and scholar. In this book Abdel-Fattah reports findings from interviews she carried out with youth born since 9/11 and how Islamophobia impacts on their lives. It is detailed and easily readable without losing a critical edge. The focus of the book is on the youth and their words reported verbatim. In Australia the largest Muslim identified group are the Lebanese. Of course many Lebanese people are Christian but they are also viewed, well they are Arab. One of the issues Abdel-Fattah writes about is funding given to CVE (countering violent extremism) programs. Arab youth are stigmatized for what are so often common teenage behaviors, here transformed into the supposed signs of someone being “radicalized”.
  Related to the US, Australia didn’t have as overt a surveillance response to 9/11 but it is still out of proportion to any supposed need. Muslims here are still expected to speak up after acts of terror to condemn those acts, which they often do. There is little room given over to Muslims who don’t fit the stereotype. There is conflation and lack of understanding of the complexities of the lives of the one billion Muslims in the world. Abdel-Fattah’s work shows how much she respects and honours the words of the youth. This book is of interest as a parallel text to texts in other parts of the world where a white majority government responds to the “Muslim threat”. We are dealing in Australia with a country that is becoming more and more insular hence a particular need for critical books such as this one that show love, heart and respect for Arab Australian youth.
  
• 
  Ali

  This is a deep analytical dive into the world young people are growing into, how this has affected them, and, what the consequences of that might be. I had been mostly expecting write-ups of oral histories, and the depth and range of this work were a pleasant surprise. Abdel-Fatteh takes as her lens that the war on terror is a system to reproduce race as social power, and then interrogates the concept through the lens of youth experiences - both as garnered through workshops (none, sadly, in public schools thanks to NSW Education) and quantitative research.
  Some of the most compelling material looks at the functioning of "anti-extremism" programs which use public demonstrations of religious belief to identify potential "terrorists", the ways in which young Muslims change their behaviour to manage others' emotions, the impact of abusive street behaviour, the impact of education bias, and, really careful but deliberate examination of how Western Sydney identity intersects with Muslim identity. This last was very welcome - engaging with deep issues in how race is constructed in Sydney (which apparently, I'm too tired to write about coherently other than a kind "was good", but, it was!)
  Through this, Abdul-Fateh is constructing an argument for how this set of pressures has hemmed in a generation, changing fundamentally how they see themselves. While some of this is hard to read, it is underpinned by the joyous ferocity of the young people and Abdul-Fateh's clear confidence in them.
  I just really wanted a chapter on the Wanderers. (not a joke).
  
• 
  Carolyn

  This book was incredible - thorough and well researched and nuanced. I loved the insights from the interviews with high school students and what they tell us about the political and social climate we are living in.
  
  At times a difficult read as it challenged my assumptions on the Muslim community in light of recent world events. It also made me reflect on my own public all girls high school education in particular how we were often encouraged to interrogate gendered notions but that race/culture was out of bounds.
• 
  Jasmine Pilbrow

  As someone who keeps up to date on the "war on terror", i was suprised by how much I learnt, particularly the daily impacts it is having on youth and the policy implications in schools. A must read for all Australians, especially teachers!
• 
  The Bookshop Umina

  Challenging and thought-provoking for those of us who have had the privilege to not have to consider that we may be seen this way. A very important read.
• 
  Pauline

  DNF @ 48% due to library loan timing
• 
  Lisa

  this feels like a very important read for anyone (esp australian) who are privileged enough to never consider what the word muslim can mean and how we get to where we are today
• 
  Grace C

  Incredible!!
• 
  Emily

  Fantastic
• 
  Meghan

  30/5 incredible messages and I do think every Australian should read this. However I would have enjoyed it more as an audiobook I think as it was quite repetitive in the way it was written and made me disengage with it at times. 3.5/5
  
  
  17/4 A will-return-to-when-I-can-reborrow @ 45%