“I'll Tell you why we Hate you!”

Nine days after 9/11, George W. Bush declared, “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists,” a statement that foreshadowed the “lengthy campaign” his administration would make on “every terrorist group of global reach.” “Americans are asking,” Bush said in the same speech, “why do they hate us? They hate our freedoms—our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.” ¹ This essay, analyzing the songs of Egyptian singer Sha‘bān 'Abd al-Rahīm and other Middle Eastern perspectives to 9/11, challenges Bush’s understanding of “they” and proposes some different answers to the question “Why do they hate us?” ^*