Publication date:
15 February 2017Length of book:
170 pagesPublisher
Lexington BooksISBN-13: 9781498540339
Contemporary Anti-Muslim Politics provides a succinct but potent critique of the policies of Western nations toward Muslims, particularly the aggressive foreign policies of the United States and the exclusionary domestic policies of Europe. These policies have already claimed millions of Muslim lives. For decades, policies that rely on war, exclusion, and ghettoization have triggered conflict escalation. The actions of groups such as the Islamic State and Boko Haram are reactions to this history. Their tactics exacerbate negative stereotyping of Muslims generally and Western military strategies cause many Muslims to pursue survivalist politics that enable and strengthen such groups. Anti-Muslim politics in Western nations takes many forms beyond war and exclusion, including racialization, stereotyping, sacrilegious cultural assaults, mass media scapegoating, and even tolerance, which implies something unpalatable in need of toleration. The gridlock brought by pluralism and constitutionalism, both in Europe and the United States, serves few people well, but it has locked Muslims into an especially abusive status quo.
Kenneth Long provides a particularly timely and badly needed treatment of the sources and consequences of anti-Muslim attitudes and politics in contemporary times. His compact and yet wide-ranging and well-argued book focuses not on Islamophobia, but rather on what he convincingly shows is the 'enemy-ization' of Muslims more generally—those who are, are considered to be, or are thought to be Muslim.