Category Archives: Islamophobia

Beyond religion in the Middle East

"Arab Spring", Egypt, Film and Video, Islamophobia 101, Libya, Terrorism Issue


An Egyptian protester tries to raise an Islamic flag at the U.S. embassy during a protest, in Cairo, Egypt on September 11, 2012. (Khaled Elfiqi / EPA / September 13, 2012)

Violence in Egypt and Libya is more about local politics than Islam.

By Mimi Hanaoka, LA Times, September 13, 20121

The chaotic violence that killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three American staffers in Libya, and that resulted in a mob storming the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, has been garbed in religious language and references. However, the religious rhetoric from all corners distracts from the real issues: serious domestic political fragmentation in Libya and Egypt in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, and America’s place in the region.

Media attention has focused on a polemic 14-minute movie trailer for “Innocence of Muslims” posted on YouTube, which prompted protests in Benghazi and Cairo. The film was allegedly produced by Sam Bacile, who has identified himself as an Israeli Jew. In the Wall Street Journal, Bacile called Islam a “cancer” and claimed he raised $5 million from about 100 Jewish donors to fund the film, details that only intensify the film’s polemic power.

The trailer, translated into Arabic and viewed thousands of times in the Middle East, portrays the prophet Muhammad as, among other things, a child abuser. Florida pastor and provocateur Terry Jones, who burned the Koran in 2011, claims to have screened the film; a self-described Christian militant in California claims to have consulted on it. Continue reading Beyond religion in the Middle East →

The Politics of Cinematic Hate

CyberOrient, Egypt, Film and Video, Islamophobia 101, Libya

Yesterday was the 11th anniversary of the tragic loss of life on 9/11, the ugly outcome of hate in which people who had personally done nothing to offend the perpetrators lost their lives. Today we awake to hear that the American ambassador to Libya is dead; the American flag at the U.S. embassy in Cairo is torn to shreds. This is the same American diplomat who aided the Libyan revolution against Qaddafi; this is the same flag that is synonymous with the political notion of democracy. In both cases yesterday it was not a response to anything the United States government did or authorized, nor to any military action. A hate film, and a very poorly done one at that, had been posted on the Internet in which Islam and the prophet Muhammad are portrayed in an extremely negative way. The film, an excerpt of which can be seen here, is pathetic both as cinema and for its almost comical portrayal of Muslims. But it has provided an excuse for militants to once again harp on the specter of the United States against the Muslim world.

Were this film from a religious nutcase like Terry Jones, I suspect it would not have garnered as much attention. But it appears that the maker of the film is an Israeli backed by Jewish donors and promoted by an anti-Muslim Copt in California. How perfect is that for a conspiracy plot. Hateful films do not have to be good cinema to fuel hateful responses. But this time it is the role of the Internet that fuels the fire. Anyone can post a malicious film on Youtube and have it circle the globe in an instant. The solution is not to ban the Internet, which is impossible, nor to justify the actions of those who turn their anger into a killing spree. It is not possible to stop a Terry Jones from burning the Quran or any cinematic venom from being posted (at least temporarily), so the onus falls back on our own ethics. We need to think beyond the politics of hate, which have not been unleashed with a fury, to the politics of restraint.

Forever counting down

Apocalypse Watch, CyberOrient, Election 2012, Islamophobia

The world has been on the verge of ending ever since people decided it was on the verge of ending, which probably happened when we were Neanderthals wondering why it took so long to figure out how to make fire. The history of apocalypse prophecy is, quite literally, a bottomless pit. The 21st century is no exception, especially for those who were convinced we would never make it past 2000 or 2001. What is particularly ludicrous is the prediction that the world will end at a specific point in time. This says as much about the gullibility of our species as it does about the duplicity of certain self-proclaimed prophets. Forget Ezekiel and the wheel or Daniel in the lion’s den: every era has its doom sayers. Take October 22, 1844, for example, which was only a few months after Joseph Smith (the prophet of Mormonism) was murdered at age 38. On this October day more than a century and a half ago perhaps as many as 100,000 God-fearing Protestant folk had given up their earthly possessions and quite a few joined Miller on a hill waiting for Jesus to come and greet them. The Mormons believe that Jesus came to Missouri, but it seems he skipped Rev. Miller’s venue.

There are quite a few doom-mongers to choose from, some like Harold Camping of relatively high media renown, but let’s focus on an internet prophet named Ronald Weinland. In 2006 he published a book saying that the world would end in 2008. As you can see in the cold print below, the United States has ceased to exist as an independent nation, at least as far as the prophet could see. Continue reading Forever counting down →

Did Islamophobia Fuel the Oak Creek Massacre?

Islamophobia, Terrorism Issue


Sikhs hold up placards with photos of six mass shooting victims after a candlelight vigil in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, August 7, 2012. The killings of six worshippers at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin has thrust attention on white power music, a thrashing, punk-metal genre that sees the white race under siege.
Photograph by: JOHN GRESS , REUTERS

by Moustafa Bayoumi, The Nation, August 10, 2012

The tragedy of the shooting in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, is enormous. Six innocent people were gunned down in a Sikh temple by a white supremacist—but they weren’t innocent because they were Sikh, they were innocent because, well, they were innocent! Had Wade Michael Page walked into a mosque and begun shooting Muslims, the victims of his rampage would have been no more deserving of death.

It’s true that we don’t yet know Page’s precise motivations, but in all likelihood it wasn’t Sikhophobia, a term barely known in the United States. It was Islamophobia [1]. That’s why to say that Page made a “mistake” in targeting Sikhs, as many have reported [2], or that Sikhs are “unfairly” targeted as Muslims, as CNN stated [3], is to imply that it would be “correct” to attack Muslims. Well, it’s not, and even if this is an error embedded in the routine carelessness of cable news, we need to be attentive to the implications.

Over the last few days, there has been a lot of media coverage about the Sikh religion and its origins and practices. Knowledge is always welcome over ignorance, but what we really need to educate ourselves about is the way racism operates in this country and its deadly character. The facts are not consoling. According [4] to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the extreme right wing grew “explosively” in 2011 and for the third year in a row. The SPLC now tracks 1,018 hate groups, up from 602 in 2000, the year that Page is reported to have appeared on the Neo-Nazi scene. The number of hate groups, in other words, has almost doubled in the last twelve years, and that growth has accelerated since the election of Obama. The targets have also expanded. White supremacists have always been obsessed with Jews, blacks and the LGBT community as their objects of hate. And ten years ago, Jews and blacks were Page’s villains, according to Pete Simi, who interviewed him in 2001. But things have changed over this past decade. What continues to be underappreciated is how the hatred of Muslims [5] has become a major motivating and mobilizing force in this putrid scene. Continue reading Did Islamophobia Fuel the Oak Creek Massacre? →

Hell to Pay?

Anthropology/Sociology, Gender and Sexuality, Islam in America, Islamophobia


It as heartening to note that several prominent Republican politicians, especially John McCain, immediately repudiated the offensive letter that Michele Bachmann and several of her tea-party ilk sent on official House letterhead to government agencies asking for an investigation of Huma Abedin, a well-respected professional aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. When the news first unfolded, I was pleased to applaud the range of reaction in a previous post. Then on July 24, Tarek Fateh published a commentary in the neocon tabloid Toronto Sun called “Beating Up on Bachman.” My initial thought was to ignore the piece altogether, but then it was picked up, in a longer version no less, by the Huffington Post, which generally does not promote neocon causes. But I suppose Huff Post and the Toronto Sun do share something in common: the Toronto Sun‘s daily sunshine-drenched pin-up girls and Huff Post’s penchant to dwell on the arousing apparel of superstar actresses.

Tarek Fateh is a prolific op-ed writer of the kind that rarely provides edification and almost always proffers conspiratorial rumors. He is, in effect, the Fouad Ajami of Canada. I will pass on his argument, which is innuendo in defense of offensive innuendo, and focus on one statement, which is a gem:

To put this in context, imagine a political aide to Henry Kissinger being the daughter of two members of the Soviet communist party politburo. There would have been hell to pay.

Hell to pay? This is a helluva stretch. Continue reading Hell to Pay? →

Michele Bachmann, VIP

Election 2012, Islamophobia


The great thing about America is that in theory (and mainly in theory) anyone has an equal opportunity to become a VIP in the usual sense. Certainly a President, no matter what the party, is a Very Important Person. So, in theory, is a representative from the U.S. House of Representatives. But Michele Bachmann, who ran for the Republican nomination and briefly led the lackluster field, is another kind of VIP: a Very Ignorant Pariah. Not just ignorant, but very ignorant, as she demonstrates almost every time she makes a public statement. And now it is increasingly clear that she has reached Pariah stage, even in her own party (at least the part that doesn’t get drunk on tea). In finding a few other out-there representatives, she has written a letter (which you can see here) demanding an official investigation of a Muslim American senior official, Huma Abedin, in the State Department. Before any prominent Muslims could cry “Foul,” the news media (like CNN’s Anderson Cooper) and fellow Republicans (like John McCain) leveled blistering attacks on her tactics. Even Fox News has turned its guns inward, publishing a commentary by Ed Rollins, a former campaign advisor for Bachman, comparing her to Joseph McCarthy. Add to this mix Scott Brown and Marco Rubio.

The tragedy is that Bachmann sits on the House Intelligence Committee. How oxymoronic is that: the queen of un-intelligence sits on this powerful committee of the United States government. Continue reading Michele Bachmann, VIP →

MBBBB (Muslim Brotherhood Bashing by Bachman)

Ethics, Islam in America, Islamophobia 101, Journalism and Media, Terrorism Issue


Anti-Obama propaganda on Americans Stand with Israel website

Ellison Challenges Bachmann: Put Up or Shut Up

by James Zogby, The Huffington Post, July 14, 2012

A few weeks back, the sensation-seeking Representative Michele Bachmann did her best imitation of the late Senator Joseph McCarthy. She and four of her Congressional colleagues released letters they had collectively sent to the Inspectors General of the Departments of State, Justice, Defense, and Homeland Security, and the Office of the Directorate of National Intelligence calling on them to investigate whether “influence operations conducted by individuals and organizations associated with the Muslim Brotherhood” have “had an impact on the federal government’s national security policies.”

Warning of “determined efforts by the Muslim Brotherhood to penetrate and subvert the American government as part of its ‘civilizational jihad'” the representatives wanted the Inspectors General to identify the Muslims who were influencing U.S. policy.

In making these charges, Bachmann and her cohorts were relying on the work of a Washington-based group the Center for Security Policy — a notorious player in the anti-Muslim industry that has been working for several years to smear Muslim American groups. The head of the Center served as one of Bachmann’s advisers during her ill-fated run for the presidency and the only source cited in the Congressional letters was the Center’s “training program,” “The Muslim Brotherhood in America: The Enemy Within.” Continue reading MBBBB (Muslim Brotherhood Bashing by Bachman) →

Moderate but Islamist…

Islamophobia 101, Journalism and Media, Libya


A variety of Islamophobes have comfortable media niches, including “opinion writer” Charles Krauthammer, whose Krauthammering away at Islam as a political force in yesterday’s Washington Post is yet another low blow. Krauthammer admits, almost laments, that Libya “appears to have elected a relatively moderate pro-Western government.” But, then who cares since “Libya is less a country than an oil well with a long beach and myriad tribes.” I suppose one could expand on this to argue that Texas is less a state than an oil well with a long beach and myriad rednecks. Libya is a country, Mr. Krauthammer, and one that is struggling to remake itself after decades of a dictator that the West loved to hate but actually did nothing to undo. Ah, but after all, this is obviously an exception in the aftermath of the “Arab Spring.”

They say that ignorance is bliss, so consider the bliss as Krauthammer’s view unfolds: “Tunisia and Morocco, the most Westernized of all Arab countries, elected Islamist governments. ” The most “Westernized”? This might come as a surprise to the Lebanese, unless they fail to qualify as Arab. Does he mean that they happen to be rather close to Europe? Is being “Westernized” a geographical issue? Does being “Westernized” mean accepting American foreign policy without reservations or having access to iphones and Hollywood movies? Morocco, by the way, is still a kingdom and not part of the “Arab Spring.” Continue reading Moderate but Islamist… →