Republic of Islamophobia

Republic of Islamophobia
Author: James Wolfreys
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 286
Release: 2018-05-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0190911646

Why does Islamophobia dominate public debate in France? Islamophobia in France is rising, with Muslims subjected to unprecedented scrutiny of what they wear, eat and say. Championed by Marine Le Pen and drawing on the French colonial legacy, France's 'new secularism' gives racism a respectable veneer. Jim Wolfreys exposes the dynamic driving this intolerance: a society polarized by inequality, and the authoritarian neoliberalism of the French political mainstream. This officially sanctioned Islamophobia risks going unchallenged. It has divided the traditional anti-racist movement and undermined the left's opposition to bigotry. Wolfreys deftly unravels the problems facing those trying to confront today's rise in racism. Republic of Islamophobia illuminates both the uniqueness of France's anti-Muslim backlash and its broader implications for the West.

The Republic Unsettled

The Republic Unsettled
Author: Mayanthi L. Fernando
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 513
Release: 2014-09-19
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0822376288

In 1989 three Muslim schoolgirls from a Paris suburb refused to remove their Islamic headscarves in class. The headscarf crisis signaled an Islamic revival among the children of North African immigrants; it also ignited an ongoing debate about the place of Muslims within the secular nation-state. Based on ten years of ethnographic research, The Republic Unsettled alternates between an analysis of Muslim French religiosity and the contradictions of French secularism that this emergent religiosity precipitated. Mayanthi L. Fernando explores how Muslim French draw on both Islamic and secular-republican traditions to create novel modes of ethical and political life, reconfiguring those traditions to imagine a new future for France. She also examines how the political discourses, institutions, and laws that constitute French secularism regulate Islam, transforming the Islamic tradition and what it means to be Muslim. Fernando traces how long-standing tensions within secularism and republican citizenship are displaced onto France's Muslims, who, as a result, are rendered illegitimate as political citizens and moral subjects. She argues, ultimately, that the Muslim question is as much about secularism as it is about Islam.

For the Muslims

For the Muslims
Author: Edwy Plenel
Publisher: Verso Books
Total Pages: 99
Release: 2016-06-28
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1784784885

A piercing denunciation of Islamophobia in France, in the tradition of Emile Zola At the beginning of the twenty-first century, leading intellectuals are claiming “There is a problem with Islam in France,” thus legitimising the discourse of the racist National Front. Such claims have been strengthened by the backlash since the terrorist attacks in Paris in January and November 2015, coming to represent a new ‘common sense’ in the political landscape, and we have seen a similar logic play out in the United States and Europe. Edwy Plenel, former editorial director of Le Monde, essayist and founder of the investigative journalism website Mediapart tackles these claims head-on, taking the side of his compatriots of Muslim origin, culture or belief, against those who make them into scapegoats. He demonstrates how a form of “Republican and secularist fundamentalism” has become a mask to hide a new form of virulent Islamophobia. At stake for Plenel is not just solidarity but fidelity to the memory and heritage of emancipatory struggles and he writes in defence of the Muslims, just as Zola wrote in defence of the Jews and Sartre wrote in defence of the blacks. For if we are to be for the oppressed then we must be for the Muslims.

Islamophobia and the Novel

Islamophobia and the Novel
Author: Peter Morey
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2018-08-14
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0231541333

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.

French Muslims in Perspective

French Muslims in Perspective
Author: Joseph Downing
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2019-05-24
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 303016103X

With the largest Muslim population in Western Europe, France has faced a number of critiques in its attempts to assimilate Muslims into an ostensibly secular (but predominantly Catholic) state and society. This book challenges traditional analyses that emphasise the conflict between Muslims and the French state and broader French society, by exploring the intersection of Muslim faith with other identities, as well as the central roles of Muslims in French civil society, politics and the media. The tensions created by attacks on French soil by Islamic State have contributed to growing acceptance of the Islamophobic discourse of Marine Le Pen and her far-right Front National party, and debates about issues such as headscarves and burkinis have garnered worldwide attention. Downing addresses these issues from a new angle, eschewing the traditional us-and-them narrative and offering a more nuanced account based on people’s actual lived experiences. French Muslims in Perspective will be of interest to students and scholars across sociology, politics, international relations, cultural studies, European Studies and French studies, as well as policy makers and practitioners involved in immigration, education, and media.

Sacred Interests

Sacred Interests
Author: Karine V. Walther
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 474
Release: 2015-09-21
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1469625407

Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as Americans increasingly came into contact with the Islamic world, U.S. diplomatic, cultural, political, and religious beliefs about Islam began to shape their responses to world events. In Sacred Interests, Karine V. Walther excavates the deep history of American Islamophobia, showing how negative perceptions of Islam and Muslims shaped U.S. foreign relations from the Early Republic to the end of World War I. Beginning with the Greek War of Independence in 1821, Walther illuminates reactions to and involvement in the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, the efforts to protect Jews from Muslim authorities in Morocco, American colonial policies in the Philippines, and American attempts to aid Christians during the Armenian Genocide. Walther examines the American role in the peace negotiations after World War I, support for the Balfour Declaration, and the establishment of the mandate system in the Middle East. The result is a vital exploration of the crucial role the United States played in the Islamic world during the long nineteenth century--an interaction that shaped a historical legacy that remains with us today.

The Islamophobia Industry

The Islamophobia Industry
Author: Nathan Chapman Lean
Publisher: Pluto Press (UK)
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2017
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780745337166

It is undeniable that there is a rising tide of Islamaphobia sweeping across the United States and Europe. With The Islamophobia Industry, Nathan Lean takes us through the disturbing worlds of conservative bloggers, right wing talk show hosts, evangelical religious leaders, and politicians--all united in a quest to revive post-9/11 xenophobia and convince their compatriots that Islam is the enemy. Lean uncovers modern scare tactics, reveals each groups' true motives, and exposes the ideologies that drive their propaganda machine. Situating Islamaphobia within a long history of national and international fears, The Islamophobia Industry challenges the illogical narrative of hate that dominated discussions about Muslims and Islam for too long. With this new, updated edition, Lean includes material on the 2016 election and the rhetoric of fear that contributed to Trump's win, the effects of Brexit and Europe's refugee crisis, and the bleak realities about how the new government shaping the United States will increase racism and hate crime, as we are already beginning to see. He discusses the Islamaphobia industry's most extreme figures: Breitbart writers, Bill Maher, Steve Bannon, Newt Gingrich, and more. Sharp, intelligent, and shocking, this updated edition offers a timely and in-depth look into the creation and continuation of Islamophobia in the United States and United Kingdom.

The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization

The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization
Author: Richard W. Bulliet
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 199
Release: 2006-03-22
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0231127979

The 'clash of civilisations' so often talked about in connection with relations between the West and Arab nations is, argues Richard Bulliet, no more than dangerous sophistry based on misconceptions in American government. He sets out the common ground between Islam and Christianity.

Countering Islamophobia in Europe

Countering Islamophobia in Europe
Author: Ian Law
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2019-06-14
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9783030162597

The treatment of Muslims is the touchstone of contemporary European racism across its many nations and localities. We make a definitive case for two arguments in this book: firstly, the recognition of the accelerating and pervasive nature of Islamophobia in this region; and secondly, recognition that this process is being, can be, and will be challenged by counter-narratives that make the claim for Muslim humanity, plurality, space and justice. This book draws on new evidence from eight national contexts to provide an innovative kit of counter-narratives, which were presented and well received at the European Parliament in September 2018, and subsequently launched across Europe in national workshops in selected states. A synergy between leading academic researchers and the Islamic Human Rights Commission, Countering Islamophobia in Europe will be of value to EU institutions, governments and policy-makers, NGOs and media organisations, as well as researchers of multiculturalism, Islam, Muslims and immigration.