Against Islamophobia

As corporate and governmental agencies march us towards global conflict, racism, and imperialism, this book contends that teachers must have the tools with which to combat unilateral politicization of Arabic and Muslim peoples. Teaching Against Islamophobia creates a pedagogical space for educators to engage with necessary issues and knowledges regarding the alienation of Islamic culture, religion, knowledge, and peoples. Edited by a WASP, a Jew, and an Iranian, this book confronts the fears, challenges, and institutional problems facing today's teachers. Taking its cue from critical pedagogy, this book is a collection of essays by artists, writers, performers, and educators committed to naming the insidious racism and hatred of those who would isolate and vilify Islam.

While there is a never-ending debate on Islamism, Islamist terrorism and the identity of Europe vis-á-vis growing Muslim communities in Europe, there are hardly any solid cross-national data being presented on the real extent of the Islamist threat facing Europe, and on the social conditions that lead to Islamist radicalism. By and large, our rigorous quantitative results, based on the first systematic use of the Muslim community data contained in the 'European Social Survey' (ESS) all support a socio-liberal view of "migration" and "integration", compatible with much of the rest of current European political economic thinking regarding the future alternatives for the European Union, and contradict the very extended current alarmist political discourse in Western Europe.

Since the late 1980s, growing migration from countries with a Muslim cultural background, and increasing Islamic fundamentalism related to terrorist attacks in Western Europe and the US, have created a new research field investigating the way states and ordinary citizens react to these new phenomena. However, whilst we already know much about how Islam finds its place in Western Europe and North America, and how states react to Muslim migration, we know surprisingly little about the attitudes of ordinary citizens towards Muslim migrants and Islam. Islamophobia has only recently started to be addressed by social scientists. With contributions by leading researchers from many countries in Western Europe and North America, this book brings a new, transatlantic perspective to this growing field and establishes an important basis for further research in the area. It addresses several essential questions about Islamophobia, including: what exactly is Islamophobia and how can we measure it? how is it related to similar social phenomena, such as xenophobia? how widespread are Islamophobic attitudes, and how can they be explained? how are Muslims different from other outgroups and what role does terrorism and 9/11 play? Islamophobia in the West will be of interest to students and scholars of sociology, religious studies, social psychology, political science, ethnology, and legal science.

In response to the events of 9/11, the Bush administration launched a "war on terror" ushering in an era of anti-Muslim racism, or Islamophobia. However, 9/11 alone did not create Islamophobia. This book examines the current backlash within the context of Islamophobia's origins, in the historic relationship between East and West. Deepa Kumar is an associate professor of media studies and Middle East studies at Rutgers University and the author of Outside the Box: Corporate Media, Globalization and the UPS Strike. Kumar has contributed to numerous outlets including the BBC, USA Today, and the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Reveals the endemic nature of Islamophobia in the West across various sections of society, both left and right

In the spirit of Edward Said's Orientalism, this book graphically shows how political cartoons-the print medium with the most immediate impact-dramatically reveal Americans demonizing and demeaning Muslims and Islam. It also reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the Muslim world in general and issues a wake-up call to the American people.

Islamophobia can be defined as the fear of or prejudiced viewpoint towards Islam, Muslims and matters pertaining to them. Whether it takes the shape of daily forms of racism and discrimination or more violent forms, Islamophobia is a violation of human rights and a threat to social cohesion. Young people are of course not immune to this. Young men and women are obviously affected when they become targets of Islamophobic attacks and abuse. But, just as importantly, they are also concerned by the general rise in discrimination and xenophobia, whether it be active or passive. At this seminar held in Budapest in June 2004, Islamophobia was discussed within the wider context of racism and discrimination in Europe, in new and old forms. The discussions also covered the troubling resurgence of Anti-Semitic attacks, Romaphobia and segregation of Roma communities and persistent forms of discrimination against visible minorities.The report of Ingrid Ramberg provides a personal account of the issues raised at the seminar as well as a very useful documentation of the presentations, workshops and debates. It also includes a series of policy recommendations aimed at preventing Islamophobia and fostering intercultural respect and coopération.

In an era of rampant Islamophobia, what do literary representations of Muslims and anti-Muslim bigotry tell us about changing concepts of cultural difference? In Islamophobia and the Novel, Peter Morey analyzes how recent works of fiction have framed and responded to the rise of anti-Muslim prejudice, showing how their portrayals of Muslims both reflect and refute the ideological preoccupations of media and politicians in the post-9/11 West. Islamophobia and the Novel discusses novels embodying a range of positions—from the avowedly secular to the religious, and from texts that appear to underwrite Western assumptions of cultural superiority to those that recognize and critique neoimperial impulses. Morey offers nuanced readings of works by John Updike, Ian McEwan, Hanif Kureishi, Monica Ali, Mohsin Hamid, John le Carré, Khaled Hosseini, Azar Nafisi, and other writers, emphasizing the demands of the literary marketplace for representations of Muslims. He explores how depictions of Muslim experience have challenged liberal assumptions regarding the novel’s potential for empathy and its ability to encompass a variety of voices. Morey argues for a greater degree of critical self-consciousness in our understanding of writing by and about Muslims, in contrast to both exclusionary nationalism and the fetishization of difference. Contemporary literature’s capacity to unveil the conflicted nature of anti-Muslim bigotry expands our range of resources to combat Islamophobia. This, in turn, might contribute to Islamophobia’s eventual dismantling.