smearcasting: Como os islamofóbicos espalham o medo, intolerância e desinformação

FEIRA

Julie Hollar

Jim Naureckas

Tornando a islamofobia mainstream:
Como os agressores muçulmanos transmitem seu fanatismo
Uma coisa notável aconteceu no National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) candidaturas em fevereiro 2007: O grupo normalmente intelectualizado e tolerante nomeado para melhor livro no campo da crítica um livro amplamente visto como denegrindo um grupo religioso inteiro.
A indicação de Enquanto a Europa dormia, de Bruce Bawer: 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 perpetratrators, 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, intolerância e desinformação. 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 expressionslike While Europe Sleptinclude 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?”
de forma similar, extremistas que justificam suas ações violentas invocando alguma interpretação particular do Islã podem ser criticados sem implicar a enorme diversidade da população de muçulmanos ao redor do mundo. Afinal, repórteres conseguiram cobrir o atentado de Oklahoma City por Timothy McVeigh–um adepto da seita racista Identidade Cristã–sem recorrer a declarações generalizadas sobre “terrorismo cristão”. Da mesma maneira, a mídia cobriu atos de terrorismo por fanáticos que são judeus–por exemplo, o massacre de Hebron realizado por Baruch Goldstein (Extra!, 5/6/94)–sem implicar a totalidade do judaísmo.

Arquivado em: DestaqueHamasIrmandade MuçulmanaEstudos & PesquisasEstados Unidos & Europa

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