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Comments Off on Ten Years After It Was Signed Into Law By George W: Islamophobia In The United States: A Case Of The Three ‘I’s

Ten Years After It Was Signed Into Law By George W: Islamophobia In The United States: A Case Of The Three ‘I’s

women clothes onlineFew subjects today animate discussions on religion and public life as wildly as Islamophobia.

Despite the low numbers, policies that presuppose Muslim inclination to violence was institutionalized at federal, state and local levels. Notwithstanding the most extreme fringes of society, however, there is consensus that Muslims do suffer from a sustained climate of prejudice. Besides, debates rage about its definition, manifestations, consequences, and even the utility of the term itself. As a result, Iraq, military operations in places like Afghanistan translate concerns over Muslim extremists in those places to fears of America’s Muslim citizens. Sounds familiar? Exacerbating this are flashpoints of violence carried out by Muslims in the United States. Whenever polling data consistently show negative public opinions about Muslims and Islam a reality that has resulted in episodic assaults, arsons, vandalisms, and similar hostile acts that target the faith community, in the United States. Do you know an answer to a following question. Why is that? Essentially, research by the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security found that in 2013, sixteen Muslim Americans were charged with terrorism offenses. American policies abroad have had consequences in the apartments.

Of the causes that contribute to Islamophobia, violence on the part of Muslim extremists is chiefly among them. At the forefront of this group is Robert Spencer, a former homeschool administrator whose twelve books on Islam bolster an intellectual pretense that draws legitimacy from devotees of his online diary, Jihad Watch. These anecdotal accounts, other volumes appeared that claimed more scholarly origins though their authors had no formal training in the subject matter. Various societal actors reckon that these interpretations accurately reflect the teachings of Islam. Al Qaeda Reader, The Legacy of Jihad and Thirteen Lessons on Political Islam were written by a research librarian, a heart doctor and an university physics professor. However, they magnify them in service of advancing views or policies that bring the world’s 6 billion Muslims under the microscope. I know that the fraction of radicals whose beliefs compel them to harm others are not solely responsible for ensuing bouts of paranoia and prejudice.

Administration of George Bush used the attacks of 9/11 to intensify imperialistic undertakings. And therefore the war in Afghanistan morphed with the 2003 Iraq invasion to form the more ideological Global War on Terrorism and the struggle against what Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld dubbed Islamic fascism. Then again, it was the responsibility of all Muslims to demonstrate which side they’ve been on. Bush’s statements that Islam is peace and that terrorism violates the fundamental tenets of Islam were nominally significant given his subsequent decisions. For many Americans, therefore this rhetoric confirmed that terrorism and fascism possessed a Islamic component. On top of that, as Mahmood Mamdani artfully points out, those labels bred the idea that there were good Muslims and bad Muslims. Now this could not hide the central message of such discourse. Let me tell you something. Muslim was presumed to be ‘bad.

Global War on Terror was about more than holding 9/11’s perpetrators accountable. Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was not connected to 9/11 in any identifiable way yet he succumbed to a drumbeat of war that situated him as the guardian of weapons of mass destruction. In an interview with Meet the Press, Dick Cheney told moderator Tim Russert. Although, nation building, democratization and humanitarianism were all components. If we can stand up a decent representative government in Iraq, most especially on 9/11. Thus it’s not pursuing weapons of mass destruction. Now we will have struck a major blow right at the heart of the base. Geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault now for many years.

The war in Afghanistan was justified on one level as having liberated Afghan women from the Taliban.

In his 2009 Cairo speech, he emphasized the values of pluralism and peppered his oration with quotes from the Quran. Despite overtures of change from Barack Obama, imperialistic adventurism in the Middle East has not ended, though it was repackaged. As significant as these comments are in challenging the racist and Islamophobic rhetoric under the Bush regime, deepa Kumar notes that, Obama’s policy in the Middle East and South Asia does not signal a break with the policies of previous administrations. Needless to say, a change in rhetoric did not mean a change in policy. In 2013, the United Nations reported a 20 percent increase in the overall amount of women killed or injured compared to 2012 and women’s organizations inside Afghanistan regularly challenged the war’s effects. That the war often made things worse for women did not figure into the logic of those who touted it. Oftentimes acknowledging the problematic rhetoric that had come to characterize America’s engagement with the region, Obama set a new tone by avoiding references to things Islamic.

One of Obama’s first foreign policy decisions was to expand the war in Afghanistan by increasing troops and funding.

His diffidence on the huge problem of Palestine while simultaneously threatening Iran with possible military action suggests that whether refugees or radicals, the plight of Middle Eastern Muslims is destined to be one of despair. Operation Desert Storm, a Americanled campaign to defend Kuwait from Iraq’s invasion and annexation, inaugurated the 1990s. Generally, while the exponential growth of the CIA’s drone program, sold arms to ran in the course of the Iraq Iran War; raided Tripoli in 1986; and entered the Persian Gulf to prevent Iran from cutting off Iraq’s oil shipments, The expansion of international intelligence and surveillance.

By the start of the twenty first century Americans were met with a plethora of narratives that justified interventions and desensitized their consequences. Americans sought answers to their questions about the attackers and their motivations. Muslim women and children fulfilled the roles of powerless victims who required saving. Terrorism became synonymous with the Middle East and its Diasporas, and in the 2000s was the primary concern of American policies which reinforced that view. Comprised of ‘pseudoscholars’, bloggers, clergy, politicians and others, they built lucrative careers by confirming popular preconceptions of Islam and playing on fears of another terrorist attack. Another consequence of 9/11 was the sudden proliferation of voices writing and speaking about links between Islam and terrorism. Pictures of angry Muslim men burning American flags begged a bold response. In this climate of vulnerability emerged a cottage industry of individuals and groups claiming to have special knowledge and insight.

Throughout the course of history, lots of events have contributed to the rise of Islamophobia, not the least of which is America’s journey from a small cadre of thirteen colonies to a political and economic powerhouse with interests in every corner of the world.

So it’s an idea that is planted in society’s various strata from the highest halls of power to the bowels of the Internet where it’s rooted, nurtured, and spread, instead of a naturally occurring response to global events. Three ‘I’s. Below I will outline three of Islamophobia’s modi operandi within a American context. Imperialism, Institutionalization, and Industry. So this trio is for any longer being that it configures Islamophobia as a political and ideological construction, while other factors exist.

Bookstores stocked dozens of sensational titles by individuals whose emotive personal stories masqueraded as expertise. Examples include. Numbers are worse, when it boils down to Muslims writ large and Islam. Eight surveys, quite a few them conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, show that unfavorable views of Muslims have increased, since 9/11. Also, what really was the net result of all of this, this is the case right? While from 2006 onward they spiked upwards from 2124″ percent in 2006 to as high as 63 percent more recently, studies carried out since 9/11 by Pew. Others show that from 2001 to 2006, unfavorable views of uslims declined. Furthermore, in the four surveys between 2006 and 2012, only one found unfavorable rates that low, Charles Kurzman of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security, writes that Before 2006, all five surveys found unfavorable rates of 26 percent or lower. Remember, while Unveiling Islam, The Trouble With Islam Today, The Caged Virgin, Now They Call Me Infidel, A God Who Hates and Why for ages because hey Hate, a Battle For the ul of Islam. American National Election Studies’ feeling thermometer, that uses polling data to measure the temperature of certain views, the rating for Muslims fell by 9 points between 2004 and 2012 the nine and minority groups mentioned, only two were viewed more negatively than Muslims.

It isn’t difficult to see how an inescapable circle evolves.

The New York City Police Department spied on Muslim American citizens in NY and New Jersey without evidence of wrongdoing. While lasting improvements for any longer as Muslims are used for the political or financial benefit of others, rather than treated with the equality and human dignity they deserve. Known those negative views thence legitimize the continuation of the aforementioned practices and policies. They also snuck an agent into an university rafting retreat where he reported on the prayer habits of Muslim students. Their clandestine program labeled mosques as terrorist organizations and used undercover crawlers to observe worshipers. Then, muslimmajority countries, the institutionalization of policies that present Muslims as a threat, and an industry that disseminates misinformation all foster negative views of Muslims. Now regarding the aforementioned fact… At the local level, the situation is similar.

Lastly, a growing number of state legislatures have introduced antiSharia laws since This is despite the fact that Muslim jurisprudence is rarely invoked in family courts and that loads of us are aware that there is not a single instance in which a subsequent ruling on the basis of an interpretation of the law was allowed to stand.

These legislative measures and government programs normalize disdain for Muslim Americans by presupposing their malice and thus placing them outside legal boundaries that determine what really is good and bad in society. In 2013, 37 bills were introduced in 16 states, seven of which were passed and signed into law. It is persistent speculation that Muslims hope to overthrow the Constitution and replace it with Sharia, however, led 29 states to introduce 78 bills or amendments from ‘2011 2012’ that sought to ban the use of Islamic law.

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