Making
Islamophobia Mainstream: How Muslim-bashers Broadcast
Their Bigotry
15 January 2010A remarkable thing happened at
the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) nominations in
February 2007: The normally highbrow and tolerant
group nominated for best book in the field of
criticism a book widely viewed as denigrating an
entire religious group.
The nomination of Bruce Bawer's While Europe Slept:
How Radical Islam Is Destroying the West From Within
didn't pass without controversy. Past nominee Eliot
Weinberger denounced the book at the NBCC's annual
gathering, calling it ''racism as criticism'' (New
York Times, 2/8/07). NBCC board president John Freeman
wrote on the group's blog (Critical Mass, 2/4/07): ''I
have never been more embarrassed by a choice than I
have been with Bruce Bawer's While Europe Slept....
Its hyperventilated rhetoric tips from actual critique
into Islamophobia. ''
Though it didn't ultimately win the award, While
Europe Slept's recognition in the highest literary
circles was emblematic of a mainstreaming of
Islamophobia, not just in American publishing but in
the broader media.
This report takes a fresh look at Islamophobia in
today's media and its perpetrators, outlining some of
the behind-the-scenes connections that are rarely
explored in media. The report also provides four
snapshots or "case studies" describing how
Islamophobes continue to manipulate media to in order
to paint Muslims with a broad, hateful brush. Our aim
is to document smearcasting: the public writings and
appearances of Islamophobic activists and pundits who
intentionally and regularly spread fear, bigotry and
misinformation.
The term "Islamophobia" refers to hostility toward
Islam and Muslims that tends to dehumanize an entire
faith, portraying it as fundamentally alien and
attributing to it an inherent, essential set of
negative traits such as irrationality, intolerance and
violence. And not unlike the charges made in the
classical document of anti-Semitism, The Protocols of
the Elders of Zion, some of Islamophobia' s more
virulent expressions- -like While Europe
Slept--include evocations of Islamic designs to
dominate the West..
Islamic institutions and Muslims, of course, should be
subject to the same kind of scrutiny and criticism as
anyone else. For instance, when a Norwegian Islamic
Council debates whether gay men and lesbians should be
executed, one may forcefully condemn individuals or
groups sharing that opinion without pulling all
European Muslims into it, as did Bawer's Pajamas Media
post (8/7/08), "European Muslims Debate: Should Gays
Be Executed?"
Similarly, extremists who justify their violent
actions by invoking some particular interpretation of
Islam can be criticized without implicating the
enormously diverse population of Muslims around the
world. After all, reporters managed to cover the
Oklahoma City bombing by Timothy McVeigh--an adherent
of the racist Christian Identity sect--without
resorting to generalized statements about "Christian
terrorism." Likewise, media have covered acts of
terrorism by fanatics who are Jewish--for instance the
Hebron massacre carried out by Baruch Goldstein
(Extra!, 5/6/94)--without implicating the entirety of
Judaism.
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