Friday, February 25, 2011

Fwd: [bangla-vision] Book Review: Islamophobia



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From: Romi Elnagar <bluesapphire48@yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, Feb 25, 2011 at 8:15 AM
Subject: [bangla-vision] Book Review: Islamophobia
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http://www.claritypress.com/Sheehi.html

SYNOPSIS


Islamophobia: The Ideological Campaign Against Muslims examines the rise of anti-Muslim and
anti-Arab sentiments in the West following the end of the Cold War through GW Bush's War on
Terror to the Age of Obama. Using "Operation Desert Storm" as a watershed moment, Stephen
Sheehi examines the increased mainstreaming of Muslim-bating rhetoric and explicitly racist
legislation, police surveillance, witch-trials and discriminatory policies towards Muslims in North
America and abroad.

The book focuses on the various genres and modalities of Islamophobia from the works of rogue
academics to the commentary by mainstream journalists, to campaigns by political hacks and
special interest groups. Some featured Islamophobes are Bernard Lewis. Fareed Zakaria,
Thomas Friedman, David Horowitz, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Irshad Manji, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney,
John McCain, Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama. Their theories and opinions operate on an
assumption that Muslims, particularly Arab Muslims, suffer from particular cultural lacuna that
prevent their cultures from progress, democracy and human rights. While the assertion
originated in the colonial era, Sheehi demonstrates that it was refurbished as a viable
explanation for Muslim resistance to economic and cultural globalization during the Clinton era.
Moreover, the theory was honed into the empirical basis for an interventionist foreign policy and
propaganda campaign during the Bush regime and continues to underlie Barack Obama's new
internationalism.

If the assertions of media pundits and rogue academics became the basis for White House
foreign policy, Sheehi also demonstrates how they were translated into a sustained domestic
policy of racial profiling and Muslim-baiting by agencies from Homeland Security to the
Department of Justice. Furthermore, Sheehi examines the collusion between non-governmental
agencies, activist groups and lobbies and local, state and federal agencies to in suppressing
political speech on US campuses critical of racial profiling, US foreign policy in the Middle East
and Israel. While much of the direct violence against Muslims on American streets, shops and
campuses has subsided, Islamophobia runs throughout the Obama administration. Sheehi,
therefore, concludes that Muslim and Arab-hating emanate from all corners of the American
political and cultural spectrum, serving poignant ideological functions in the age of economic,
cultural and political globalization.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Preface                                 Mumia Abu Jamal
Foreword                                Ward Churchill

INTRODUCTION

Bringing Hate Speech into the American Mainstream
Islamophobia as an Ideological Formation of US Empire
Clinton-Bush-Obama: Islamophobia Continuity
Vagaries of Islamophobia: Europe and the United States
Orientalism vs. Islamophobia: Historical Variations

Chapter One
THE ELITE FOREIGN POLICY NETWORKS
How Islamophobia Is Not Just Prejudice
Ideology is Not a Conspiracy or Party Platform
The Network of a Media-Intellectual
Think-Tanks and Policy Institutes
The Pragmatist Center
Strategy Groups and Brain-Trusts
The Institutional Network of Bernard Lewis
The Master's Discourse and the Students' Vision
Open Letter to President Clinton
Bush's War Network
Fouad Ajami as [White] House Arab
Conclusion

Chapter Two
JOURNALISTS, ROGUE ACADEMICS, and NATIVE
INFORMANTS: THE SIEGE OF THE ARAB MIND
Introduction
Academic Pretensions of Empire: Bernard Lewis  
The Arc of Ideological Scholarship
Post-Modern Mission Civilisatrice
Taxonomy of the Siege: Fareed Zakaria
Ignoring History: Neoliberalism as Modernity
Systemic Failure to Systematic Reform
The Force of a Homegrown Success
Conclusion

Chapter Three
NATIVE INFORMANTS: WOMEN AND THE MORAL
PRETEXT FOR WESTERN DOMINATION
The B-List: Native Islamophobes  
Enter the A-List Propagandists: The Heroic Victims
Pablum as Fact: The Tabloid Legacy of Lewis and
Zakaria
Failure and the Politics of Reversal
Islam's "Submission" versus the Capitalist Jihad  
Force Against/For Women: Muslim Irresponsibility and
Western Responsibility
Co-opting Feminism and Wars of (Women's) Liberation
Conclusion

Chapter Four
TEACHING AND ACTIVISM IN THE TEETH OF POWER
Controlling Middle Eastern Studies
Coordinating an Atmosphere of Fear
Manuals of Repression
The Mandible of Power
Squadristi, Campus Cops and FBI on Campus
Conclusion

Chapter Five
LIVING IN A STATE OF FEAR
A National Culture of Repression
Hating the Other: Contextualizing Contemporary Hate-Acts
The Psychology of Interment
Techniques of Mainstreaming Cultural Islamophobia
Engendering Fear to Engineer Consent
Anesthetizing White America  
Hyper-Sensitizing White America
Flying While Muslim
Islamophobia as the Ideological Dimension of US Middle
East Foreign Policy
Mass Arrests, Deportations, Special Registrations and
"Watch Lists"
The National Security State Emerges
The War on Philanthropy
Entrapment
Living in the Black Holes of a New "Normal"
Conclusion

Chapter Six
ISLAMOPHOBIA IN THE AGE OF OBAMA
Bush's "Dictionary of War" and the Lexicon of Punditry  
The Hope and Change of Obama's Nation
The Lewis-Zakaria Effect
The Nobel War Lecture and the Hard Reality of Soft
Power  
Paradigm Shifts within Empire Management
The Phoenix Institute's "Strategic Leadership" Framework
Hillary Clinton, the "National Security Team" and the
Smartness of Power
Obama the Non-Muslim
It's Israel, Stupid
Ideology Wags the Dog   

Epilogue
THE PARALLAX OF AMERICAN POWER: KEEPING THE
UNITED STATES RELEVANT
Muslim and Arab Americans Resist
Political Islam as an Ideological Formation
Ideology Over Lobbies and Oil
Islamophobia and Keeping US Empire Relevant
Reality Check
The End of the Beginning

INDEX


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--
Palash Biswas
Pl Read:
http://nandigramunited-banga.blogspot.com/

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