Anti-Muslim rhetoric in America continues to reverberate
throughout American discourse long after the 9/11 attacks. Some of it is in response to things like the
violent beheadings of Western journalists by ISIL, or the Muslim extremist
attacks on Charlie Hebdo in France. The
anti-Muslim rhetoric in American discourse is tied into a concept known as Islamophobia,
which has played a long role in American discourse.
There are many factors that help
Islamophobic discourse maintain “legitimacy” in the minds of the Islamophobes,
and one of these factors is that it depends on people failing to make
distinctions. Thus if we begin to make
important distinctions regarding the various interpretations that exist within
the Islamic faith, the Islamophobic discourse begins to crumble and reveals itself as irrational and nonsensical. In
this essay I will briefly explain what Islamophobia is and its origins. Next, I will show how Hollywood, the media, churches,
think tanks, and politicians help amplify Islamophobia. And, finally, I will show how Islamophobia
will crumble if we begin to make important distinctions.
Islamophobia is quite literally what its name
indicates: the irrational fear of the religion of Islam and its adherents. As Jocelyn Cesari noted, “the term
Islamophobia first appeared in a 1922 essay by Orientalist Etienne Dinet."(1) While the term is contested by some, it can
safely be stated that the Islamophobe irrationally believes that Islam, and its
adherents, are all somehow a threat to civilization and their way of life. They believe false stories about Islam as
being the “religion of violence,” and the Muslim as wanting to create Sharia
law in America, and throughout the entire world. However, it is important to note that the
irrational fears of the Islamophobe did not arise in isolation; rather,
Islamophobia has a deep history that can be traced back to the Crusades, and
the later development of Orientalism.
The Crusades were the first European endeavor to
create images of Muslims as evil and barbaric.
Much of this propaganda would be created by the Church in its quest to
rally the “Christian soldiers” to the defense of their fellow Christian
brethren who were supposedly being slaughtered and persecuted at the hands of
the Seljuk Turks. Pope Urban, in his
call for the Crusades, would be one the first to create the image of “the
other” to unite Europe to fight against the supposed evil Muslim
Barbarians. And, later, Peter the
Venerable would be one of the first to create works that attacked “Islam as a
heresy and Muhammad as a false prophet." (2) This depiction of Muslims would then
eventually find its way into Orientalist discourse.
Orientalism was based in secularism, rather than
the religious rhetoric that was used by the crusaders. However, Orientalism would continue to use
the stereotypes of Muslims as being barbarians, savages, and backwards to
create a system of knowledge that pretended it was better, more intelligent,
and more civilized than “the others.”
This would then be used as justification for European empires to
colonize parts of Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.
While Orientalism was a European creation, it
would also creep into American life.
This makes sense in light of the fact that much of American thought was
derived from their European brothers. Orientalist
images of the Muslim world, and anti-Muslim sentiments, would find their way
into America through European books such as, Humphrey Prideaux’s The True Nature of Imposture Fully Display’d
in the Life of Mahomet, or Arabian
Nights, or a little later through the influential work of Voltaire. Many of these books contained “themes of the
fanatic Muslim man, the oppressed Muslim woman, and an intolerant Islamic
religion." (3) Thus Americans would absorb much of
Orientalist and anti-Muslim thought through these European books. Now that we have a basic understanding of Islamophobia
and its roots, we can move to the next part of the essay.
As I noted earlier, the irrational
fears of the Islamophobe did not arise in isolation. The narrative of Islamophobia has gained
strength in America through the help of Hollywood, the mainstream media,
Christian churches, and politicians. Pre
9/11, the images of the “fanatic Muslim man” could be seen in Hollywood
pictures, like Swartzenegger’s True Lies. Even the Disney cartoon, Aladdin, would depict the Muslim man through the narrative of
Islamophobia. The images of the 1993
World Trade Center bombings perpetrated by Muslim extremists would help
legitimize much of Hollywood’s depiction.
However, these Hollywood representations of Muslim men would play on the
American’s lack of understanding of the vast differences throughout the Muslim
world.
The print media also plays of role in spreading
the Islamophobia narrative. Stories are
repeatedly printed throughout media sources depicting the “accounts of
unbearable oppression” of the Muslim woman.
While there are indeed incidences of Muslim women being oppressed, just like women are oppressed in non-Muslim countries, no mention is made by the print
media that these are isolated cases, and that the vast majority of Muslim women
are not being oppressed. As Evelyn
Alsultany wrote, these depictions are meant to provoke “outrage and pity” in
the American viewer; pity for the oppressed woman, and outrage for the “evil
Muslim oppressor."(4)
The Islamophobia narrative can even be seen in
simple political cartoons. In their
essay, “From Muhammad to Obama: Caricatures, Cartoons and Stereotypes of
Muslims,” Gottschalk and Greenberg show us how political cartoons “demonstrate
quite vividly the Islamophobia that has been alternately latent and manifest in
the United States for more than two centuries."(5)
In one example, they show us a cartoon by Mike
Keefe in 1979 that depicts women at a fashion show.(6) The European and U.S. ladies are wearing fancy
dresses with big smiles on their faces, while the Iranian woman, is hunched
over and fat, wearing a black burqa, and lagging behind because of a ball and
chain that is tied around her ankle.
This Islamophobic depiction reveals that Mike must not have been aware
that many Iranian women partook in the revolution, and likely don’t feel
oppressed, let alone chubby and hunch-backed.
After all, why would Iranian women risk their lives and partake in a
revolution if they were going to be oppressed by the very people they fought
side by side with? At any rate, these
kinds of depictions all fail to make any kind of important distinctions, and
rely solely on the general stereotypes that can be found in Islamophobic
narrative.
Another area where we can see the
Islamophobic narrative is in American churches, especially in the Evangelical
branch. Many evangelical pastors have
been quite vocal about their disdain for Islam.
This disdain isn’t just about their belief that Jesus Christ is the only
way to salvation, but also focuses on spreading the narratives found in
Islamophobia. One such evangelical
pastor, Ergun Caner, would even set out to write numerous books on why Islam
was supposedly the religion of violence and terrorism.
Caner, a former dean of Liberty University’s
theological seminary, portrayed “himself as a jihadist-turned-Christian who
fled the tactics of terrorism to embrace the salvation of Jesus Christ.” Caner is known for having a “profound
influence on the evangelical community,"(7) and was invited to numerous different churches
throughout the United States to promote his books and his “insider” viewpoints
about Islam. However, as Nathan Lean
revealed his whole story was a fraud. Caner
had completely lied about being a former Muslim who was born in Turkey, and who
followed his Muslim father into the world of jihad. Thus we can see an example of how even church
members help perpetuate Islamophobia.
Finally, the last area we see the
Islamophobia narrative being perpetuated is in think tanks, which then is often
used by politicians. I lumped these two
together because some politicians mainly get all of their source material from
America’s right-wing think tanks. And in
some cases, the people working in these think tanks have been directly
connected to America’s foreign policy (i.e., neoconservative Bill Kristol, Paul
Wolfowitz, etc., and their connection to the Bush Administration).
There are a variety of right-wing think tanks
that are helping to spread the Islamophobic narrative. Some of these think tanks have even been
dubbed the “New McCarthyites.”(8) After 9/11, and especially as President Obama
took office, a “tight confederation of right-wing activists and operatives”
began to reach “a critical mass” throughout America. These groups consist from the Anti-Defamation League, to AIPAC, to Americans for Victory Over Terrorism, to Campus Watch, to Stop
Islamization of America.
Neoconservative, Daniel Pipes, created “Campus
Watch” based on his irrational belief that “Middle East scholars are
un-American,” and that these professors are bullying Jewish students.(9) Frank Gaffney, another neoconservative, created Center For Security Policy, which “has
been instrumental in promoting anti-Muslim propaganda."(10) And anti-Muslim activist, David Gaubatz, “built
his career after 9/11 by arguing that Muslim civil rights groups such as CAIR
are actually front groups for terrorist organizations.”(11) Pamela Geller, of the Stop Islamization of America, and currently President of American Freedom Defense Initiative,
have also become a new “Islamophobic warrior” and has taken up the charge that
CAIR is front group for Islamists.(12) This network of right-wing groups
and think tanks all depend on not making important distinctions when launching
their anti-Muslim attacks.
The Islamophobic rhetoric that is deriving
within these right-wing groups then manages to trickle into the right-wing
politicians rhetoric, which is generally used as justification for an aggressive interventionist foreign policy. While attempting
to justify the Iraq invasion, President Bush and his staff would attempt to
“redefin[e] the enemy as ‘Islamic Fascism.’”
As Juan Cole pointed out this attempt to coin a new term was met with
much denunciation by scholars all throughout the world. However, “the phrase nevertheless entered the
Republican political lexicon” despite its completely inaccurate usage.(13)
Now that I have given some examples
of the places where we the Islamophobic narrative being fostered and used to
justify U.S. foreign policies, we can move to the final part about the lack of
distinctions within Islamophobic discourse.
The world is a very complex place. We are all born into a world that has “an
already existing web of human relationships.”(14) This web consists of the various social,
economic, familial, cultural, legal, linguistic and political institutions into
which we are born, and an individual will always have to confront an
“innumerable [number of] conflicting wills and intentions” that exist within
the web of human relationships.(15)
However, the enormity and complexity of the
things of this world, and the innumerable number of conflicting wills and
intentions is one of “the reason[s] why all our definitions are distinctions
[and] why we are unable to say what anything is without distinguishing it from
something else.” (16) Thus when we engage in discussions about the
Muslim world we would need to distinguish the varying political systems, the
varying interpretations that exist within Islam, and other historical factors
that lead to vast differences in the Muslim world. However, these important distinctions are
nearly non-existent in Islamophobic discourse.
For example, the Bush and the neoconservatives
completely failed to make very important distinctions when they made the claim
that the enemy was “Islamic Fascism.” As
Juan Cole noted, “putting ‘Islamic’ in front of another word implies that it is
intrinsic to or characteristic of the Islamic religion or civilization.”(17) The proper way to speak of the terrorism that
Bush is referring to would be to say “Muslim terrorists” because Muslim
extremist organizations are a tiny minority of the nearly 1.3 billion Muslims
that exist in the world. Thus the term
Islamic Fascism implies that these 1.3 billion are susceptible to fascism
because it is intrinsic to Islam.
Cole also pointed out the inaccuracy of
attempting to apply the term fascism to Muslim extremist organizations. He wrote, “fascism is notoriously difficult
to define. Nonetheless, surely it has to
do with virulent nationalism and the establishment of racial hierarchies… and
with the idolization of a dominating elite and contempt for the weak.” However, if one observes the rhetoric of
organizations, like Al-Qaeda, one would notice that they “reject nationalism,
establish multiethnic alliances, and think of themselves as defending the
oppressed Muslim masses."(18) In other words, applying fascism to
what they are doing is complete nonsense if we make the distinctions that Cole
is making here.
Furthermore, if we take a look at
the “Muslim women are being oppressed” narrative found in Islamophobia we can
see how there are few distinctions being made here. These charges are usually made while pointing
a finger at places like Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Iran. However, no distinction is ever made about
the differences and viewpoints regarding the veil and the hijab within the
Muslim world, let alone that so few of these people pointing fingers ever bother
to actually ask the Muslim woman if she feels oppressed. For example, if Muslim women living in Qatar,
and who wear a hijab or veil, are so oppressed, then why are they paid more
than men? Or why do American Muslim
women continue to wear the hijab while living in America? At any rate, these are the kind of important
distinctions that are never made in Islamophobic discourse.
To make matters worse, the Islamophobic
warriors, like Pam Geller, will attack anybody who pushes back against their
discourse when making these important distinctions and points. The recent Garland, Texas shooting at the
cartoon event that Geller organized highlights this point. When people began to push back against Geller
and suggest that she is a provocateur, she goes on the attack. Even Bill O’Reilly joined the crowd who
criticized Geller. The network of
right-wing groups and think tanks associated with propagating the Islamophobic
narrative quickly came to her defense.
Right-wing critic Mark Levin, and Fox’s Megyn Kelly, have joined Geller
in denouncing O’Reilly - even going so as to call him an ISIL sympathizer. Nonsense knows no bounds when defending distinction-less notions.
People like Geller need to come to its defense
because, likely, it is part of their identity.
Because if they actually listened to the critical points that people are
making in regard to Islamophobic discourse they would have to admit their
failings, which would be a blow to their identity. Instead, we see them doubling down and making
fools of themselves. Is calling Bill
O’Reilly an ISIL sympathizer not exactly this?
Thus this example shows us how making important distinctions begins to
turn the Islamophobic narrative into the irrational nonsense that it is.
Also, any new terrorist attack that is perpetrated
by Muslim extremists continues to fuel the Islamophobes. They say, “See! This is why Islam is the
religion of violence!” Unfortunately,
the denouncement of this violence by the Muslim community throughout the world
is drowned out by the overwhelming noise of the media megaphone. What’s even more ironic is that when the
recent shooting at the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood happened, by a Christian
named Robert Dear, people were quick to defend Christianity from the
violent acts of the “insane minority” who would do such a thing. Apparently this very same logic cannot be
applied to the entire spectrum of Islam.
In other words, they don’t want to honestly see that Muslim extremists
are the insane minority, just like a Robert Dear.
As Professor Kurzman recently wrote, “The
answer [to violent extremism], I propose, is to treat fringes as fringes,
across the board: violent extremism is not going to disappear, unfortunately,
but let’s keep it in perspective.”
In conclusion, Islamophobia has a
long history that is rooted in Orientalist thought. The Islamophobe is holding onto irrational
fears that are perpetuated by an assortment of institutions: from Hollywood
misinterpreting the Muslim world in their films, to the media spreading Islamophobic
stories lacking important distinctions, to evangelical pastors straight up lying
to their adherents, and to the right-wing think tanks and politicians that have
an ideological agenda. And these groups
of Islamophobes will likely continue to attack anybody who challenges their
distinction-less narratives. However,
this kind of reaction should be good news because making distinctions just
might be the Achilles heel to Islamophobic discourse in America.
Sources
(1) Cesari, Jocelyn. “Islamophobia in the West: A
Comparison between Europe and the United States.” Essay found in Islamophobia: the Challenge of Pluralism in
the 21st Century. Page 21.
(2) Ibid
(3) Gottschalk and Greenberg. “Common Heritage,
Uncommon Fear: Islamophobia in the United States and British India 1687-1947.”
Page 21.
(4) Alsultany, Evelyn. “Arabs and Muslims in the
Media.” Page 72.
(5) Gottschalk and Greenberg. “From Muhammad to Obama:
Caricatures, Cartoons and Stereotypes of Muslims.” Page 195.
(6) Ibid. Page 204.
(7) Lean, Nathan. The Islamophobia Industry: How the Right Manufactures Fear of Muslims. Page
84.
(8) Kumar, Deepa. Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire. Page 169.
(9) Ibid., Page 170.
(10) Ibid., Page 179.
(11) Ibid., Page 180.
(12) Ibid., Page 171.
(13) Cole. Juan. “Islamophobia and American Foreign Policy
Rhetoric: The Bush Years and After.” Page 127.
(14) Ibid., page 184.
(15) Arendt, Hannah. The
Human Condition. Page 184.
(16) Ibid., page 176.
(17) Cole, Juan. Page 131.
(18) Ibid., Page 131.
