Background information

The September 11 attacks and the 2005 London bombings

In Greetings from Bury Park, Sarfraz Manzoor mentions two events that have shaped how he relates to his national identity: the September 11 attacks and the 2005 London bombings. 

The September 11 attacks – commonly known as the 9/11 events – were a series of terrorist attacks carried out by the Islamic extremist network al-Quaeda, targeting the United States. During the attacks, the terrorists hijacked four commercial flights and crashed two planes into the two towers of the World Trade Center in New York, and a plane into the Pentagon.

A few days after the attacks, Muslims began to be the victims of hate crimes, discrimination, and harassment throughout the US. In Greetings from Bury Park, Manzoor analyzes the 9/11 events and reflects on the difficulty of seeing America as the land of freedom. The events affected Manzoor’s confidence in visiting America and changed how he related to his religion.

The July 2005 Lon...