EXCERPT (from the Introduction)
Islamophobia as an Ideological Formation of US Empire
All of this said, Islamophobia is not a political ideology in itself nor is it an isolated dogma just as
Islam itself is not a political ideology. Islamophobia does not have a platform or even a political
vision. Islamophobia is something more substantive, abstract, sustained, ingrained and
prevalent. This book contends that Islamophobia is an ideological formation. This does not
mean that it is the purview of any particular political party. Rather, an ideological formation is
created by a culture that deploys particular tropes, analyses and beliefs, as facts upon which
governmental policies and social practices are framed. This book argues that Islamophobia, in
its current form, is a new ideological formation that has taken full expression since the collapse
of the Soviet Union. Islamophobia does not originate in one particular administration, thinker,
philosopher, activist, media outlet, special interest group, think tank, or even economic sector or
industry though indeed, these actors are collectively responsible for the virulent dissemination of
anti-Muslim and anti-Arab stereotypes and beliefs, circulated in order to naturalize and justify US
global, economic and political hegemony. The Bush administration unabashedly wore its disdain
for Muslims and Arabs on its sleeve from the first day of his administration. The subsequent
chapters will show that even the Clinton and Obama administrations are rife with Islamophobic
paradigms and acts that couple with a similarly imperial American outlook. Indeed, we have
witnessed the unprecedented mainstreaming of Islamophobia since 9/11. An extremist flake
such as Robert Spencer, for example, has authored two vitriolic, racist screeds on Islam that
became New York Times bestsellers while Bruce Bawer’s incendiary and hackneyed The Enemy
Within was nominated by the prestigious National Book Critics Circle for the best book of
criticism.11
While scholars, activists and community groups as well as projects such as Fairness and
Accuracy In Reporting have taken on the ideological hacks and pseudo-intellectuals in the
mainstream,12 this book adopts a different tack. Rather than understanding Islamophobia as a
series of actions and beliefs that target Muslims and arise from a generic misunderstanding of
who Muslims are and what Islam is, it reveals that Islamophobia is an ideological phenomenon
which exists to promote political and economic goals, both domestically and abroad. The effects
of Islamophobia can be a series of acts institutionalized by the United States government ranging
from war to programmatic torture to extrajudicial kidnappings, incarcerations and executions to
surveillance and entrapment. The effects of Islamophobia are experienced in the daily lives of
Muslims who encounter harassment, discrimination and hate speech in the street, anti-Muslim
rants on nationally syndicated television and radio shows, and hate acts such as mosque
bombings. These effects, however, will only be understood as scattered albeit tangentially
related acts if they are not seen to be located in a complete paradigm or discourse of
Islamophobia that permeates American culture and society.
For these effects to work in unison with a rhetoric that justifies them, Islamophobia must act
concurrently on two levels; the level of thought, speech and perception; then, the material level of
policies, violence and action. Therefore, this book is structured by a dual methodology that
excavates how Islamophobia operates as a powerful ideological formation that facilitates
American Empire. On the one hand, the book anchors its analysis on works by Bernard Lewis
and Fareed Zakaria, on “native informants” such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Irshad Manji, and on
speeches by presidents Bush and Obama as well as their cabinet members and underlings
whose analyses and political philosophies provide the discursive bedrock that naturalizes and
justifies Islamophobia as state, foreign, security, economic and energy policy, domestically and
abroad.
To streamline the massive, multifaceted ideological edifice of Islamophobia, two similar but
competing paradigms of Islamophobia by Bernard Lewis and Fareed Zakaria will be mapped
out. As bears repeating, these two are certainly not progenitors of the Islamophobic narratives
deployed post 9/11, but arguably their work condenses Islamophobic narratives that have
previously circulated and accumulated over the preceding decade. Lewis and Zakaria distilled
many Islamophobic tenets into two separate but intersecting Islamophobic discourses that
explicitly intend to legitimize the deployment of US political power in the Middle East and the
control of its own domestic populations. The talking points within these two versions of
Islamophobia are continually repeated throughout the mainstream media, in policy circles, and
by native informants (persons of Muslim or Arab descent who are purportedly best placed to lay
bare an inside view or critique of Arab/Islamic culture), but more importantly, echo in the
speeches of Bush and Obama.
On the other hand, this book will show how these Islamophobic discourses have very real
effects. In other words, the words of Islamophobia are the raw materials for the sticks and stones
that break Muslim bones. Through engineering, managing, mediating and directing Euro-
American hatred and fear of Muslims and Arabs inside the US and globally, new levels of
domestic control and surveillance could be achieved. Domestic policies that previously would
have been considered unconstitutional, even un-American, could be justified as necessary
matters of security and self-preservation. Torture (from water-boarding to extreme isolation of
American defendants in the United States), racial profiling, kidnapping and extraordinary
renditions, extrajudicial assassinations, freezing habeas corpus, and total war against and
occupation of sovereign countries are the effects of the deployment of Islamophobic foils,
stereotypes, paradigms and analyses.
This book will examine the violent and not-so-subtle effects of Islamophobia, particularly how
attacks on Muslims and Arabs in the US are multipronged. Government organizations and
agencies work with the legislature, the Executive and even the judiciary in targeting, profiling and
disenfranchising Muslim and Arab Americans of their Constitutional rights. Political interest
groups, lobbies and political action committees work with local, state and federal authorities to
isolate, intimidate and harass Muslim communities, student organizations, activists, and
scholars. Likewise, the media efficiently disseminates overtly anti-Muslim propaganda that
demonizes Muslims and Arabs and amplifies mainstream hostility to Islam and its adherents.
We will also see how against the backdrop of a sheet of Muslim-hating white noise, extremist
acts are committed against Muslims, Arabs and minorities who are mistaken for them.
Indeed, the book is not comprehensive. Unfortunately, the list of anti-Arab and Islamophobic hate
acts, speech, activists, legislators and incidents are far too numerous to review. If this book were
to name the litany of Islamophobic acts committed by the government, private citizens, public
organizations and Hollywood and the media, then it would be a tome-like catalogue of hate.
While diligently tracking Arab-hating and Islamophobia is important, this book hopes to crack
open the complexities of the ideological formation itself, to understand how it is constructed and
organized, and critically observe how it is manifested in American society. For this reason,
Islamophobia is defined and examined in terms of discursive archetypes taken in the form of two
master-narratives as provided by Lewis and Zakaria. Rather than discuss every Islamophobic
rogue pseudo-scholar, political hack, charlatan native informant, opportunist pundit or activist
journalist, the works of a handful of Islamophobes serves to define the scaffolding upon which
Islamophobic acts and policies are grafted and American foreign and domestic policies find
justification.
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