Max Ajl: The political philosopher Sayres Rudy lists the steps through which the advocates of the War on Terror craft this new post-Orientalism brand of racism. The updated variety, first, \u201crejects crude racist caricatures,\u201d second, \u201cemphasizes intra-cultural diversity,\u201d third, \u201cdeploys social-anthropological research methods,\u201d fourth, \u201cavoids ahistorical and acontextual abstractions,\u201d fifth, \u201cforegrounds political and economic grievances,\u201d sixth, \u201clets the Other speak,\u201d and finally, \u201cexpresses a reluctant, confused, and evolving sense of the \u2018Orient.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Politicians and pundits now justify U.S. policy with a new racial logic. The first step is recognizing, as Rudy continues, that \u201cpolitical, economic, and social suffering is ubiquitous and constant.\u201d The second is noting that \u201cMuslims are disproportionately involved in terrorism.\u201d The inescapable \u201cconclusion is that some aspect of Islam turns common grievances into the uniquely anti-humanist ideologies (\u201capocalyptic nihilism\u201d) and actions (suicidal terrorism) of a deluded and irremediable minority.\u201d Because they are irredeemable, the only possible way of dealing with them is war. Hence the Islamic State group provides a perfect enemy.<\/p>\n
The Clash of Civilizations is now pass\u00e9 – at least to talk about. To speak of a singular Muslim civilization is crude. But there is a shared perspective that Muslims have a recurring tendency \u2013 no matter its infrequency \u2013 to radicalize and birth extremism. In spite of that, broad brush strokes and blatant talk of shutting the doors on Muslims cuts against the grain of current liberal sympathies, which want to absorb Muslims into our nationalist consensus, while continuing to destroy their worlds. The issue is not racism itself, but that Trump makes explicit the racism which is hidden and structural within U.S. policy. More here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Max Ajl: The political philosopher Sayres Rudy lists the steps through which the advocates of the War on Terror craft this new post-Orientalism brand of racism. The updated variety, first, \u201crejects crude racist caricatures,\u201d second, \u201cemphasizes intra-cultural diversity,\u201d third, \u201cdeploys social-anthropological research methods,\u201d fourth, \u201cavoids ahistorical and acontextual abstractions,\u201d fifth, \u201cforegrounds political and economic grievances,\u201d … Continue reading Who\u2019s More Islamophobic, Donald Trump or the Democrats?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[12,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9042"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9042"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9042\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9043,"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9042\/revisions\/9043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maraahmed.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}