Who Benefits from Islamophobia - Essay Example

Who Benefits From Islamophobia al Affiliation: Islamophobia or rather the anti-Muslim is a term used for prejudice against, hatred or fear of the religion of the Islam or the Muslims. Some of prominent scholars term it as racism (Ernst, 2013). The causes and the characteristics of Islamophobia are still debated. Some commentators have speculated an increase in Islamophobia as a result of the September 11 attacks, while others have linked it with the increased presence of Muslims in secular nations. Negative opinions against Islam are in the rise in the west: racism, Islamophobic PEGIDA rallies have taken part in Germany, in France mosques are being attacked, and legislative measures are continuously being enacted to suppress Muslim rights in the west (Gottschalk & Greenberg, 2008). Similar to 19th century travelers, American Christian Zionist leaders connect Islam categorically with violence. Hagee announces, “Islam not only condones violence; it commands it. A tree is known by its fruit, and the fruit produced by Islam is fourteen hundred years of violence and bloodshed around the world” (Hagee, 2007). In order to support such an allegation, Hagee remarks that the Qur’an requires the amputation of a hand or foot of someone who resists Islam, saying, “In America, cutting off someone’s hand or feet because he would not accept your religion is unthinkable – but the Islamic Bible commands it”(Hagee, 2006). The concept underlying the Islam jihad is literally attacking unbelievers for the purpose of converting them to Islam. They do this through persuasion or by force. Mohammed and his successors attacked their surrounding neighbors offensively to spread Islam. These were offensive and defensive wars that forced the affected to submit to Allah or rather face the danger of being crashed. According to Christian Zionist leaders, the offensive violent jihad incites the determination of the Muslims to dominate the world and to force every inhabitant of the globe to follow their religion, Islam (Hagee, 2007). Hagee demonstrate a similar view of the Qur’an that requires Muslim nations to fight any non-Muslim nation regardless of its superiority to advance their cause of dominating the world. The Muslims across the world are devotedly committed to Israel’s obliteration according to Christian Zionist leaders. They do this by claiming that Muhammad dreamed of Islamic world domination, Hagee warning that, “The first step in fulfilling Muhammad’s dream is the destruction of Israel” (Hagee, 2006). The Clash of Civilizations The work published by Samuel Huntington, one of greatest political scientists in America, “The Clash of Civilizations?” argued that the post-cold war would be marked by civilization conflict. According to this political scientist, human beings are divided along cultural lines, which are Western, Islam, Hindu and so on (Huntington, 2011).There lacks a universal civilization but instead there are distinct blocks of culture with distinct set of values too. According to him the Islamic civilization is the most troubled, of which I agree. Majority of folks in the world of Arabs do not share the general beliefs of the Western world. They are instead primarily attached to their religion but not to their nation-state. They assert that their culture is unreceptive to certain liberal ideals such as pluralism, individualism and democracy. Samuel foretold the fragility of the Arab strongman regimes and said they were threatened by the masses of unemployed young men. He foresaw the falling of these regimes but he did not trust in the modernization of the nations in a Western direction. In the course of the hullabaloo of changes in the regime, the rebels would have a selective borrowing of tools from the West that would be refracted through their own believes. They would probably adopt their own projection without becoming more Western (Huntington, 2011). The world of Muslim is characterized by bloody borders, with tensions and wars between this world of the Muslims and other civilizations. Even if the weak regimes succumb, a fundamental clash of the civilization would still be evident between the Islam and the west. The nations of the west do everything they can to segregate themselves from the affairs of the Muslims (Neil, 2014). When the intermingling of the two is pronounced, a worst tension will be witnessed. Samuel argued that the people in Arab lands are intrinsically not nationalistic adding that the Arabs don’t hunger for democracy and pluralism in the way they are understood in the West. But now it seems as if they were simply living in circumstances that forbid patriotism or those spiritual hungers to emerge. In the past few decades, the citizens of the Arab nations lived under regimes that ruled them by fear. In this setting most of the people shared the conspiracy mongering and the political passivity strongly encouraged by this regimes (Huntington, 2011). The moment the fear lessened, the opportunity of change surged and followed energizing of the respective regimes. It is evident from the way the Arabs have viciously attached themselves to their national identities along with their willingness of risking their lives for democracy, pluralism and openness. Why Civilizations will Clash Huntington explained six ways and reasons as to why civilizations will clash. First, clash will occur due to the differences in civilizations in terms of history, culture, language, tradition and most important, religion which will not soon disappear. Secondly, the world is becoming a smaller place and as a result the interactions across the globe are increasing intensifying the consciousness of civilization and the awareness of the differences between civilizations and commonalities within civilizations. Thirdly, there is social changes and economic modernization that separate people from longstanding local identities. Fourthly, the consciousness of civilization is facilitated by the dual role of the west. West is the peak of power and confronts the East countries that have a dedicated desire for the resources in the latter to improve the world in Eastern ways (Huntington, 2011). Also, the cultural differences are less mutable and therefore easily compromised and resolved the economic and the political ones. Lastly, the idea of economic regionalism is increasing and its success will reinforce the consciousness of civilization and will only succeed when it is rooted in a common. Huntington divides the cultures of the world into 7 current civilizations, Western, Latin American, Japanese, Confucian, Hindu, Islamic and Slavic-Orthodox. Israel is lumped together with the West, Buddhist states and the whole religion is completely ignored.Top of Form Bottom of Form The world was divided into the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Worlds during the cold war but these divisions are deemed irrelevant currently. It is more meaningful to group countries in terms of their culture and level of civilization rather in terms of their political or economic systems. Western civilization is composed of two major alternates, European and North American, and Islam with its Arab, Malay and Turkic subdivisions. Civilizations are dynamic characterized by rise and falls, division and merging as well (Neil, 2014). Common membership in a civilization reduces the probability of violence in situations where it might otherwise occur. There has been a serious fight between Christian and Muslims elsewhere in the former Soviet Union as well as a pronounced tension and some cases of fighting between Western and Orthodox Christians in the Baltic States. However, there has been virtually no violence between Russians and Ukrainians. The degree of homogeneity in culture of the torn countries is fair but there is a division over whether their society belong to a single civilization or another with the archetypal torn country being Turkey. Despite following in the Attatürk tradition and defining themselves as modern, secular and Western Union state, there are elements in the Turkish society supporting an Islamic revival arguing that turkey is basically a Middle Eastern Muslim society (Neil, 2014). A Confucian-Islamic military connection has been designed to promote the process of acquisition of weapons and technology by its members that are needed to counter the military power of the west. In this new era of competition of arms, one side is competing to pile arms and the other side is trying to limit and prevent the build-up of the arms and at the same time reducing its own military capabilities (Huntington, 2011). Latent and manifest orientalism The term Orient means ‘the East’ and the word orientalism is widely used by scholars to portray the aspects of Middle East and the cultures of the East Asia by artists and writers of the West. Orientalism is primarily a doctrine in political arena controlled to the orients since the West was always stronger than the East in all aspects of living according to Edward. He categorized orientalism into two– latent and manifest. Latent Orientalism encompasses the aspects of the ideologies of Asia which are considered to be secretive and subjective to the Oriental culture which can’t be seen. Manifest Orientalism on the other hand is the explicit and visible features of the culture of Asia such as calligraphy, clothing, styles in architecture, as well as creations of artists (Said, 2001). The occident or rather the West was characterized by racism and ethnocentrism and is not interested in knowing the others. They have prominent writers in literature and think that the orients are inspired by their ideas. The orient has staunch ideologies and visions. This inequality remains between the occident and the orient because of recurrent changes of locations. The orients according to Edward are considered weak and are isolated from the modern technology along with the studies of the Occident (Said, 2014). Their intellect power was undervalued and they were kept unacquainted of the interests of the West. The society of the East was dominated by males unlike the west. The West deprecatorily approached the west. Edward Said considers Islamophobia as it is portrayed in Orientalism to be a tendency of a more general antisemitic Western tradition. There has been a shift from anti-Asian and anti-Arab racism to anti-Muslim racism with other people noting racialization of religion (Said, 2001). In America, the Arabs and the entire Muslim populations are the ones fairing on well economically compared to the larger society (Ernst, 2013). They are more highly educated, fiscally liberal, and conservative socially, and politically moderate overall. They express gratitude of being proud Americans by garnering confidence in key public institutions such as the courts, public schools, in the police departments, and the federal government with their score surpassing that of the general public (Gottschalk & Greenberg, 2008). Their population seems to be rapidly mainstreaming relative to that of the other migrants. In the largest and the oldest Arab and Muslim communities, Greater Detroit, the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks had a meager influence on the trend but rather armored it. References Carl W. Ernst (2013). Islamophobia in America: The Anatomy of Intolerance: Palgrave Macmillan, 20 Mar 2013 - History - 212 pages  Edward W. Said (2014). Orientalism: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 1 Oct 2014 - Social Science - 432 pages Edward W Said (2001). Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient: Penguin Books Limited, 26 Nov 2001 - Literary Criticism - 416 pages Hagee, John (2006). Jerusalem Countdown: A Warning to the World. Lake Mary, FL: FrontLine. Hagee, John (2007). In Defense of Israel. Lake Mary, FL: FrontLine. Irene Zempi, Neil Chakraborti (2014). Islamophobia, Victimisation and the Veil: Palgrave Macmillan, 3 Jul 2014 - Design - 118 pages Peter Gottschalk, Gabriel Greenberg (2008). Islamophobia: Making Muslims the Enemy: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008 - Religion - 181 pages Samuel P. Huntington (2011). The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order: Simon & Schuster, 2 Aug 2011 - Political Science - 368 pages Read More