smearcasting: How Islamophobes spread fear, bigotry and misinformation
| setembro 16, 2010 | comentarios 0
FAIR
Julie Hollar
Jim Naureckas
Making Islamophobia Mainstream:
How Muslim-bashers broadcast their bigotry
A remarkable thing happened at the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) nominations in February 2007: The normally highbrow and tolerant group nominated for best book in the field of criticism a book widely viewed as denigrating an entire religious group.
The nomination of Bruce Bawer’s While Europe Slept: 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, bigotry and misinformation. 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 expressions–like While Europe Slept–include 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?”
similarmente, Os extremistas que xustifican as súas accións violentas invocando algunha interpretación particular do Islam poden ser criticados sen implicar á enorme diversidade da poboación de musulmáns en todo o mundo.. Despois de todo, os xornalistas lograron cubrir o atentado de Oklahoma City por Timothy McVeigh–un partidario da secta racista da identidade cristiá–sen recorrer a afirmacións xeneralizadas sobre o “terrorismo cristián”. Así mesmo, os medios de comunicación cubriron actos de terrorismo de fanáticos xudeus–por exemplo o masacre de Hebrón levado a cabo por Baruch Goldstein (Extra!, 5/6/94)–sen implicar a totalidade do xudaísmo.
arquivada en: destaque • Hamas • Irmáns Musulmáns • estudos & investigacións • Estados Unidos & Europa
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