French newspaper Le Monde famously declared “We are all Americans” on its front page shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York but, for Muslims like myself, the world split in two.

As a Bangladeshi-Australian, I didn’t pay much attention to my Muslim heritage while growing up but after September 11, I was forced to confront a changed reality. No longer could Muslims live in a cultural cocoon where life was little different from the country they had migrated from, merely more prosperous. Politics had intruded.