Something’s gone terribly wrong (July 26 2012)
Moustafa Bayoumi the Swiss-American award-winning writer and associate professor has published an article in The Nation titled ‘Something’s gone terribly wrong’. In the article Bayoumi states “Every group has its loonies. And yet the idea that American Muslim communities are foul nests of hatred, where dark-skinned men plot Arabic violence while combing one another’s beards, persists. In fact, it’s worse than that. In the past few years, another narrative about American Muslims has come along, which sows a different kind of paranoia. While the old story revolves around security, portraying American Muslims as potential terrorists or terrorist sympathizers, the new narrative operates more along the axis of culture. Simple acts of religious or cultural expression and the straightforward activities of Muslim daily life have become suspicious. …What happens when ordinary life becomes grounds for suspicion without a hint of wrongdoing; when law enforcement premises its work on spying on the quotidian and policing the unremarkable; and when the everyday affairs of American Muslim life can so easily be transformed into nefarious intent? Something has gone terribly wrong for American Muslims when, more than a decade after the terrorist attacks of September 11, anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States continues to grow. …There is a real danger that the same tools that enable today’s Islamophobia will continue to migrate and expand with little or no public outcry. …mission creep is as good a reason as any to pay attention to Islamophobia today – because when the ordinary affairs of the United States include such actions, the stakes are nothing less than extraordinary.”
Inspired by The Nation ow.ly/clAsr image source Neville Elder ow.ly/clAcD
