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
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