Zionist Epistemic Violence is the way to examine the ongoing dispossession of the Palestinians an... more Zionist Epistemic Violence is the way to examine the ongoing dispossession of the Palestinians and what settler colonialism does on a daily basis.
Economic inequality has reached extreme levels. From Ghana to Germany, Italy to Indonesia, the ga... more Economic inequality has reached extreme levels. From Ghana to Germany, Italy to Indonesia, the gap between rich and poor is widening. In 2013, seven out of 10 people lived in countries where economic inequality was worse than 30 years ago, and in 2014 Oxfam calculated that just 85 people owned as much wealth as the poorest half of humanity. Extreme inequality corrupts politics and hinders economic growth. It exacerbates gender inequality, and causes a range of health and social problems. It stifles social mobility, keeping some families poor for generations, while others enjoy year after year of privilege. It fuels crime and even violent conflict. These corrosive consequences affect us all, but the impact is worst for the poorest people. In Even it Up: Time to end extreme inequality Oxfam presents new evidence that the gap between rich and poor is growing ever wider and is undermining poverty eradication. If India stopped inequality from rising, 90 million more men and women could b...
I have been engaged in a constant writing project that intends to highlight Palestinian narrative... more I have been engaged in a constant writing project that intends to highlight Palestinian narratives since 1948 up to the present. The dispossession narrative touches every Palestinian family including my own. During the 1948 Nakba and the war period, two family members on my father side were martyred, Jawdat Ali Rida Muhammad Bazian and Imran Ali Rida Muhammad Bazian, while another relative, Rida Ali Muhammad Bazian, was tortured by the British and released to the family bleeding and unconscious in a coma and died at home after a few days, in 1946. The Bazian’s narrative is but a small part in a large picture that includes FaouziAs’adBazian and 14-year-old Khalid Bazian who were martyred in 1967 and 2000, respectively. The Bazian family narrative includes the dean of prisoners, ‘Alaa Bazian, a blind man but endowed with piercing vision for freedom, resistance and a towering figure in the prisoners’ movement.
On November 10th, 2013, the Israeli cabinet voted in a special session to authorize the demolitio... more On November 10th, 2013, the Israeli cabinet voted in a special session to authorize the demolition and removal of Umm al-Hiran, an "unauthorized" Palestinian Bedouin village in the Negev Desert. In its place was to be built a new community for national Jews to be named Hiran, which had been planned and approved in early 2002. The stated reason for this demolition and forceful eviction is the existing settlement's lack of permits, with Umm al-Hiran being one of a number of Palestinian Bedouin communities that were settled without permits and are currently subject to intense Israeli plans for removal. Urnin al-Hiran itself was set-up in early 1956 by the Palestinian Abu-Alkian tribe after they had been forced to move from their ancestral tribal lands near Kibbutz Shoval in the Northern Negev. A more critical development related to this event is the Israeli Parliament's passing of the first reading of the Prawer law. If the law wins final approval, as it appears it wi...
International Islamophobia Studies Research Association (IISRA)
Inaugural conference
States of I... more International Islamophobia Studies Research Association (IISRA) Inaugural conference
While research over the past few decades has highlighted the various ways discrimination, racism, and bigotry have become common occurrence in the lives of Muslims as a racialized and targeted group, the need for more systematic and persistent scholarship remains urgent. In the context of the intensified levels of violence and cases of genocide directed at Muslims and the demonization of Islam as a “non-Western” religion, the the International Islamophobia Studies Research Association’s (IISRA) vision is to form the global architecture for the field of Islamophobia Studies. In the Islamic tradition, the Arabic acronym for this academic association refers to a nocturnal journey leading to knowledge and spiritual insight known as ‘Isra.’ As an interdisciplinary scholarly network, IISRA draws on this meaning in the development of a ‘global caravan’ dedicated to mobilizing academic knowledge that documents and challenges Islamophobia on a planetary scale.
The inaugural conference will be an important step toward actualizing IISRA’s mission to support the dissemination of academic research and publicly engaged scholarship on Islamophobia through academic fora that will facilitate the transnational, multidirectional flow of knowledge across academia, policy and government, media, and global civil society. By engaging in knowledge mobilization activities—such as networking, disseminating, exchanging, and supporting research-based knowledge, IISRA will provide the hub for academic leadership in the field of Islamophobia Studies.
The call for papers is an open invitation for all the co-producers of knowledge, resistance, and decolonial framing of the world to gather and discuss how to bring about the future horizons to which we all aspire. We invite papers that take stock of the “States of Islamophobia Studies” in a variety of interdisciplinary and transnational contexts.
The conference seeks papers that examine how the Muslim subject is constructed in public discourses, the distinct periods (historical or contemporary), and the regional specificity of such framings. We encourage the submission of fully-formed panels that can address the theme of the inaugural conference, either from one particular academic field or in an interdisciplinary framing.
Abstracts are limited to 300 words and a one paragraph (100 words) biography to be used for the program, if the paper is selected.
Abstracts are due by May. 31st, 2022 Response to abstracts by June 5th, 2022 Submit Abstract online
IISRA's Board Hatem Bazian - President, USA Salman Sayyid - Vice President, UK Jasmin Zine - Vice President, Canada Munir Jiwa- Secretary, USA Saul Takahashi- Treasurer, Japan Board Members at Large Abdool Karim Vakil, UK Amina Easaat-Das, UK Rabab Abdul-Hadi, USA Nadia Fadil, Belgium Farid Hafez, Austria and USA Elsadig Elsheikh, USA Mattais Gardell, Sweden Marwan Muhammed, France
Islamophobia, as a problem, is often argued to be a rational choice by the stereotypical media co... more Islamophobia, as a problem, is often argued to be a rational choice by the stereotypical media coverage of Islam and Muslims, even though it points to the symptom rather than the root cause. Islamophobia reemerges in public discourses and part of state policies in the post-Cold War period and builds upon latent Islamophobia that is sustained in the long history of Orientalist and stereotypical representation of Arabs, Muslims, and Islam itself. The book What is Islamophobia? Racism, Social Movements and the State, edited by Narzanin Massoumi, Tom Mills, and David Miller offers a unique contribution to how best to define and locate the problem of demonizing Islam and Muslims in the contemporary period. The three scholars provide a more critical and structural approach to the subject by offering what they call the “five pillars of Islamophobia”, which are the following: (1) the institutions and machinery of the state; (2) the far-right, incorporating the counter-jihad movement; (3) th...
Edited and expanded text of a speech given by Dr. Hatem Bazian at the Reviving the Islamic Spirit... more Edited and expanded text of a speech given by Dr. Hatem Bazian at the Reviving the Islamic Spirit Conference, December 27th, 2015, Toronto, Canada.
This thesis is concerned with the ways in which justice is dispensed in Swedish courts in cases c... more This thesis is concerned with the ways in which justice is dispensed in Swedish courts in cases concerning anti-Muslim violence. Based on material accessed through the Swedish National Board for Crime Prevention and classified as Islamophobic hate crimes, the judicial treatment of cases that may involve racism is analysed. An aim is to explore how different laws against racism in the Swedish legal system, most importantly the penalty enhancement provision for crimes motivated by racism, work in practice. Through an in-depth analysis of several cases—of a mosque fire, of insulting emails and of attacks on taxi drivers—the thesis explores a particular type of silence around the possible racist nature of these acts. The main argument is that the courts’ understanding of motive, subject, language and injury, and their definition of racism, make it difficult to notice a racist dimension of these acts of violence and therefore to redress a type of harm entailed by racism. Focusing on obstacles inherent in the workings of the judiciary and in the ways truth is established, the limits of resorting to law in search of justice in cases involving racism are discussed. By bringing in a counter-example, a case in which the focus of the judgement is on the racist nature of the acts on trial, an attempt is made to expand the understanding of the judiciary and make the agency of those involved in cases, and in particular the discretion of the judges, visible. In this way, a more dynamic model of the law is proposed, in which laws, rather than being predefined in a self-contained legal system, are steadily made through acts of interpretation taking place in courts. Theoretically, the thesis is located in an intersection between sociology of racism and sociology of social justice. In particular, the question of how racism and law influence each other is explored. For one, the development of Swedish legislation against racism is analysed as embedded in particular social dynamics related to racism as shameful. These dynamics lead to the passing of progressive laws, at the same time as the existence of racism may be denied. For another, the thesis examines how acts of racist violence take on new forms to avoid the accusation of racism. Drawing on feminist and critical debates on social justice, this thesis explores the limits and potential of using law in the struggle against racism. (Less)
Acquired brain injury commonly results in both cognitive and emotional sequela, and it is increas... more Acquired brain injury commonly results in both cognitive and emotional sequela, and it is increasingly recognized that these domains of functioning interact. Consequently, interventions directed at only or primarily one domain may be confounded by this interaction. To maximize treatment potential, we believe cognitive rehabilitation must integrate both cognitive and emotional interventions, and attend to belief systems about, and affective responses to, cognitive challenges. We review the scant literature addressing the impact of combined interventions for clients with acquired brain injury. Integrated with these reviews are 2 case studies that appear to break treatment "myths." Specifically, we address the notion that emotion-focused treatments are appropriate only for clients with awareness or insight and the notion that cognitive interventions are ineffective, and potentially even contraindicated, for clients whose profile suggests emotional distress and functional, as opposed to neurological, impairments. In each of these cases, we demonstrate that combining cognitive and emotional interventions was not only effective but also even more valuable than previous treatment approaches aimed exclusively at one domain. We conclude by emphasizing the importance of understanding emotional response to, and beliefs about, cognitive difficulties in developing effective interventions.
Zionist Epistemic Violence is the way to examine the ongoing dispossession of the Palestinians an... more Zionist Epistemic Violence is the way to examine the ongoing dispossession of the Palestinians and what settler colonialism does on a daily basis.
Economic inequality has reached extreme levels. From Ghana to Germany, Italy to Indonesia, the ga... more Economic inequality has reached extreme levels. From Ghana to Germany, Italy to Indonesia, the gap between rich and poor is widening. In 2013, seven out of 10 people lived in countries where economic inequality was worse than 30 years ago, and in 2014 Oxfam calculated that just 85 people owned as much wealth as the poorest half of humanity. Extreme inequality corrupts politics and hinders economic growth. It exacerbates gender inequality, and causes a range of health and social problems. It stifles social mobility, keeping some families poor for generations, while others enjoy year after year of privilege. It fuels crime and even violent conflict. These corrosive consequences affect us all, but the impact is worst for the poorest people. In Even it Up: Time to end extreme inequality Oxfam presents new evidence that the gap between rich and poor is growing ever wider and is undermining poverty eradication. If India stopped inequality from rising, 90 million more men and women could b...
I have been engaged in a constant writing project that intends to highlight Palestinian narrative... more I have been engaged in a constant writing project that intends to highlight Palestinian narratives since 1948 up to the present. The dispossession narrative touches every Palestinian family including my own. During the 1948 Nakba and the war period, two family members on my father side were martyred, Jawdat Ali Rida Muhammad Bazian and Imran Ali Rida Muhammad Bazian, while another relative, Rida Ali Muhammad Bazian, was tortured by the British and released to the family bleeding and unconscious in a coma and died at home after a few days, in 1946. The Bazian’s narrative is but a small part in a large picture that includes FaouziAs’adBazian and 14-year-old Khalid Bazian who were martyred in 1967 and 2000, respectively. The Bazian family narrative includes the dean of prisoners, ‘Alaa Bazian, a blind man but endowed with piercing vision for freedom, resistance and a towering figure in the prisoners’ movement.
On November 10th, 2013, the Israeli cabinet voted in a special session to authorize the demolitio... more On November 10th, 2013, the Israeli cabinet voted in a special session to authorize the demolition and removal of Umm al-Hiran, an "unauthorized" Palestinian Bedouin village in the Negev Desert. In its place was to be built a new community for national Jews to be named Hiran, which had been planned and approved in early 2002. The stated reason for this demolition and forceful eviction is the existing settlement's lack of permits, with Umm al-Hiran being one of a number of Palestinian Bedouin communities that were settled without permits and are currently subject to intense Israeli plans for removal. Urnin al-Hiran itself was set-up in early 1956 by the Palestinian Abu-Alkian tribe after they had been forced to move from their ancestral tribal lands near Kibbutz Shoval in the Northern Negev. A more critical development related to this event is the Israeli Parliament's passing of the first reading of the Prawer law. If the law wins final approval, as it appears it wi...
International Islamophobia Studies Research Association (IISRA)
Inaugural conference
States of I... more International Islamophobia Studies Research Association (IISRA) Inaugural conference
While research over the past few decades has highlighted the various ways discrimination, racism, and bigotry have become common occurrence in the lives of Muslims as a racialized and targeted group, the need for more systematic and persistent scholarship remains urgent. In the context of the intensified levels of violence and cases of genocide directed at Muslims and the demonization of Islam as a “non-Western” religion, the the International Islamophobia Studies Research Association’s (IISRA) vision is to form the global architecture for the field of Islamophobia Studies. In the Islamic tradition, the Arabic acronym for this academic association refers to a nocturnal journey leading to knowledge and spiritual insight known as ‘Isra.’ As an interdisciplinary scholarly network, IISRA draws on this meaning in the development of a ‘global caravan’ dedicated to mobilizing academic knowledge that documents and challenges Islamophobia on a planetary scale.
The inaugural conference will be an important step toward actualizing IISRA’s mission to support the dissemination of academic research and publicly engaged scholarship on Islamophobia through academic fora that will facilitate the transnational, multidirectional flow of knowledge across academia, policy and government, media, and global civil society. By engaging in knowledge mobilization activities—such as networking, disseminating, exchanging, and supporting research-based knowledge, IISRA will provide the hub for academic leadership in the field of Islamophobia Studies.
The call for papers is an open invitation for all the co-producers of knowledge, resistance, and decolonial framing of the world to gather and discuss how to bring about the future horizons to which we all aspire. We invite papers that take stock of the “States of Islamophobia Studies” in a variety of interdisciplinary and transnational contexts.
The conference seeks papers that examine how the Muslim subject is constructed in public discourses, the distinct periods (historical or contemporary), and the regional specificity of such framings. We encourage the submission of fully-formed panels that can address the theme of the inaugural conference, either from one particular academic field or in an interdisciplinary framing.
Abstracts are limited to 300 words and a one paragraph (100 words) biography to be used for the program, if the paper is selected.
Abstracts are due by May. 31st, 2022 Response to abstracts by June 5th, 2022 Submit Abstract online
IISRA's Board Hatem Bazian - President, USA Salman Sayyid - Vice President, UK Jasmin Zine - Vice President, Canada Munir Jiwa- Secretary, USA Saul Takahashi- Treasurer, Japan Board Members at Large Abdool Karim Vakil, UK Amina Easaat-Das, UK Rabab Abdul-Hadi, USA Nadia Fadil, Belgium Farid Hafez, Austria and USA Elsadig Elsheikh, USA Mattais Gardell, Sweden Marwan Muhammed, France
Islamophobia, as a problem, is often argued to be a rational choice by the stereotypical media co... more Islamophobia, as a problem, is often argued to be a rational choice by the stereotypical media coverage of Islam and Muslims, even though it points to the symptom rather than the root cause. Islamophobia reemerges in public discourses and part of state policies in the post-Cold War period and builds upon latent Islamophobia that is sustained in the long history of Orientalist and stereotypical representation of Arabs, Muslims, and Islam itself. The book What is Islamophobia? Racism, Social Movements and the State, edited by Narzanin Massoumi, Tom Mills, and David Miller offers a unique contribution to how best to define and locate the problem of demonizing Islam and Muslims in the contemporary period. The three scholars provide a more critical and structural approach to the subject by offering what they call the “five pillars of Islamophobia”, which are the following: (1) the institutions and machinery of the state; (2) the far-right, incorporating the counter-jihad movement; (3) th...
Edited and expanded text of a speech given by Dr. Hatem Bazian at the Reviving the Islamic Spirit... more Edited and expanded text of a speech given by Dr. Hatem Bazian at the Reviving the Islamic Spirit Conference, December 27th, 2015, Toronto, Canada.
This thesis is concerned with the ways in which justice is dispensed in Swedish courts in cases c... more This thesis is concerned with the ways in which justice is dispensed in Swedish courts in cases concerning anti-Muslim violence. Based on material accessed through the Swedish National Board for Crime Prevention and classified as Islamophobic hate crimes, the judicial treatment of cases that may involve racism is analysed. An aim is to explore how different laws against racism in the Swedish legal system, most importantly the penalty enhancement provision for crimes motivated by racism, work in practice. Through an in-depth analysis of several cases—of a mosque fire, of insulting emails and of attacks on taxi drivers—the thesis explores a particular type of silence around the possible racist nature of these acts. The main argument is that the courts’ understanding of motive, subject, language and injury, and their definition of racism, make it difficult to notice a racist dimension of these acts of violence and therefore to redress a type of harm entailed by racism. Focusing on obstacles inherent in the workings of the judiciary and in the ways truth is established, the limits of resorting to law in search of justice in cases involving racism are discussed. By bringing in a counter-example, a case in which the focus of the judgement is on the racist nature of the acts on trial, an attempt is made to expand the understanding of the judiciary and make the agency of those involved in cases, and in particular the discretion of the judges, visible. In this way, a more dynamic model of the law is proposed, in which laws, rather than being predefined in a self-contained legal system, are steadily made through acts of interpretation taking place in courts. Theoretically, the thesis is located in an intersection between sociology of racism and sociology of social justice. In particular, the question of how racism and law influence each other is explored. For one, the development of Swedish legislation against racism is analysed as embedded in particular social dynamics related to racism as shameful. These dynamics lead to the passing of progressive laws, at the same time as the existence of racism may be denied. For another, the thesis examines how acts of racist violence take on new forms to avoid the accusation of racism. Drawing on feminist and critical debates on social justice, this thesis explores the limits and potential of using law in the struggle against racism. (Less)
Acquired brain injury commonly results in both cognitive and emotional sequela, and it is increas... more Acquired brain injury commonly results in both cognitive and emotional sequela, and it is increasingly recognized that these domains of functioning interact. Consequently, interventions directed at only or primarily one domain may be confounded by this interaction. To maximize treatment potential, we believe cognitive rehabilitation must integrate both cognitive and emotional interventions, and attend to belief systems about, and affective responses to, cognitive challenges. We review the scant literature addressing the impact of combined interventions for clients with acquired brain injury. Integrated with these reviews are 2 case studies that appear to break treatment "myths." Specifically, we address the notion that emotion-focused treatments are appropriate only for clients with awareness or insight and the notion that cognitive interventions are ineffective, and potentially even contraindicated, for clients whose profile suggests emotional distress and functional, as opposed to neurological, impairments. In each of these cases, we demonstrate that combining cognitive and emotional interventions was not only effective but also even more valuable than previous treatment approaches aimed exclusively at one domain. We conclude by emphasizing the importance of understanding emotional response to, and beliefs about, cognitive difficulties in developing effective interventions.
On December 7th, 1941, the Japanese navy and air force attacked the US naval base at Pearl Harbor... more On December 7th, 1941, the Japanese navy and air force attacked the US naval base at Pearl Harbor on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, causing heavy casualties and the destruction of the American Pacific Fleet. Pearl Harbor became the largest one-day loss of American ...
Make sure to put AMP's annual virtual convention on your calendar and RSVP here: http://bit.ly/Pa... more Make sure to put AMP's annual virtual convention on your calendar and RSVP here: http://bit.ly/PalConv2020
Islamic Law and the Question of Universal Basic Income, a Live Webinar Conversation with Professo... more Islamic Law and the Question of Universal Basic Income, a Live Webinar Conversation with Professor Mohammad Fadel and hosted by Dr. Hatem Bazian
Register: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ZDPPbG78QM21OT5Ecwb9hw
The UC Berkeley Center for Race and Gender
Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project (IRDP... more The UC Berkeley Center for Race and Gender Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project (IRDP) and Islamophobia Studies Center
The 10th Annual International Islamophobia Conference
Virtual Internment Islamophobia, Social Technologies of Surveillance and Unequal Citizenship
April 15-21, 2019 Berkeley School of Law University of California, Berkeley
2017 PARIS, FRANCE SUMMER PROGRAM
Demonizing and Otherizing Muslim in Civil Society
Summer 2017 ... more 2017 PARIS, FRANCE SUMMER PROGRAM Demonizing and Otherizing Muslim in Civil Society
Summer 2017 Location: Paris, France Dates: July 16th – 28th, 2017 Units: 3 units, Zaytuna or IRDP Certificate, 2017 Cost of Program and Options: $2800 (This does not include airfare) Application: Apply Here
Course Description:
The 2017 Islamophobia Studies Summer Institute will focus on the French and European context in contemporary efforts to demonize and otherize Muslims in civil society. The Institute will trace the various periods and initiatives that were directed at Muslim exclusion and the political, economic, social and ideological forces that brought them to the forefront. The French Islamophobia example is pertinent in the current period and to the examination of the structural and state initiated approaches directed at Muslim otherness. The Institute likewise will approach Islamophobia with the added complexities of migration and the refugee crisis, which are used by rightwing forces to gain respectability in the mainstream. As such, using Islamophobia to transform immigration and the refugee crisis from a human phenomenon caused by war and displacement into a clash of civilization and “demographic threat” that undermine Western civilization. The Institute will utilize a dynamic mix format that includes v. Students will be introduced to the civil society and religious institutions that are responding to Islamophobia and the immediate needs of immigrants and refugees. Students will visit the Paris Grand Mosque, a location with deep significance to Muslims and the French State itself. The Grand Mosque was built by the French State as a gift to the community for its contribution in the liberation of France in WWI -some 100,000 Muslims died fighting for the Republic. The Mosque importance increased due to the role it played in WWII as Shaykh Kaddour Benghabrit, the Imam of the Mosque during the period, managed to hide “no fewer than 1,732 Resistance fighters [in]… the cellars of the mosque,” and most were Jews. In addition, Shaykh Benghabrit “took a great risk” in using the mosque to hide and rescue Jews, while managing to supply them “and the many children among them with Muslim identities” so as to escape the Nazis who were occupying France at the time. Visits to the Musée Arabe and discussion with key staff members who are responsible for key archival materials and historical collections of texts. Likewise, students will visit the Army Museum and tour WWI exhibit with a focus on Muslim and colonial troops that participated in the defense of France. Key encounters with Muslim institutions, community leaders and academics engaged in various scholarly projects including translations of classical texts.
RSVP to attend online for free via livestram:
Islamophobia is most commonly understood to be a pr... more RSVP to attend online for free via livestram: Islamophobia is most commonly understood to be a problem that impacts adversely on Muslim minorities living in Western countries. The growing literature on Islamophobia has contributed to this understanding by focusing on the role of media in spreading of negative views about Muslims and Islam, the implication being that the problem of Islamophobia could largely be resolved by fairer media treatment. It is not clear, however, that Islamophobia is simply about how Muslims are portrayed. As recent events demonstrate, Islamophobia is implicated in the broader crisis of post-Cold War liberal order. The electoral triumph of Trump has been hailed as a clear sign that the post-Cold war liberal order is unravelling. The crisis of post-Cold War liberal order has been read in myriad of ways, including the failure of neo-liberal globalization, the fallout from the financial crisis of 2008, the advance of technology. Throughout the Western plutocracies, politicians and parties who would until recently be considered beyond the pale of political respectability are making electoral gains and reshaping the national conversation. One of the central themes of these challengers to post-Cold war settlement is the desire to 'take back their country'. Despite the variety of national and regional contexts in which these narratives of national recovery and restoration are situated, the Muslim presence looms large as an obstacle and a threat. The Muslim threat enables assertions of national security, cultural integrity and social cohesion to trump demands for diversity, liberty and equality. Islamophobia is not just about the fate of Muslims but about the possibility of an inclusive and sustainable future for all. Not only because the systems of surveillance and restriction deployed to discipline Muslims can be easily redeployed and redirected at other targets, but also because such interventions and controls threaten to reverse the gains in civil rights and multiculturalism that have to come characterize Western plutocracies in the last fifty years. There is a need for an approach to the study of Islamophobia which explores the way in which it is being institutionalized by policies that promote and police a conception of Western societies that appears to be becoming increasingly exclusive and exclusionary. This conference provides an inter-disciplinary platform to reflect and respond to the crisis of post
International Islamophobia Studies and Research Association
Present
The Imagined, Real, Embracea... more International Islamophobia Studies and Research Association Present
The Imagined, Real, Embraceable, Threatening and the in-Between Muslim Subject: From the Inquisition to War on Terror and Securitization! Call for Papers: Submit Online https://irdp.submittable.com/submit/150249/cfp-the-imagined-real-embraceable-threatening-and-the-in-between-muslim-subje Co-Sponsored: Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project University of California, Berkeley & Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies University of Leeds, UK Islamophobia Studies Journal & ReOrient Graduate Theological Union Center for Islamic Studies Haas Institute for Fair and Inclusive Society
Virtual Internment
Islamophobia, Social Technologies of Surveillance and Unequal Citizenship
Isl... more Virtual Internment Islamophobia, Social Technologies of Surveillance and Unequal Citizenship
Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project University of California, Berkeley & Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies University of Leeds, UK
Islamophobia Studies Journal & ReOrient
GTU’s Center for Islamic Studies
Haas Institute for Fair and Inclusive Society
Call for Papers 10th Annual International Islamophobia Conference.
The Granada Critical Muslim Studies Summer school has been at the forefront of intellectual engag... more The Granada Critical Muslim Studies Summer school has been at the forefront of intellectual engagements between decolonial approaches and the analysis of Muslims, Islam and the Islamicate. It has been part of a broader intellectual project which is represented by two academic journals (Islamophobia Studies and ReOrient), a book series (Decolonial Horizons) and websites. The proliferation of these platforms opens the possibility of moving from epistemic critique towards the production of knowledge in a post-Western key. The task of critique of pointing out the inadequacies of current approaches to situating the Muslim experience and the experience of the global South must be reinforced by the articulation of an alternative. The challenges to envisioning such an alternative come from two sources. Firstly, the continuation of old Orientalist framework enhanced by a decade and more of the infrastructure of the war on terror has institutionalised Islamophobia including in the academy. Secondly, the hegemony of neo-liberalism has strengthened liberalism in its flight from the political, as a consequence, the attempt to produce alternative frames are undermined by a refusal to comprehend the constitutive role of the exercise of power. Thus, the liberation becomes and becomes a little endorsement of an underlying and hegemonic liberalism creating a nihilism that suspends any possibility of transforming the world as it is.
The theme for the ninth annual International Islamophobia Conference is framed by a critical arti... more The theme for the ninth annual International Islamophobia Conference is framed by a critical article written by Professor S. Sayyid and Abdoolkarim Vakil (https://irdproject.com/reports-of-islamophobia-1997-2017/) on the occasion of Runnymede Trust publishing, " Islamophobia: Still a Challenge for us all ". We included the full article below to contextualize the ninth annual conference call for papers, which seeks to examine five areas framed by the authors and abstracts should engage one or more of these strands. The conference welcomes panels organized around one of the themes or a panel that have distinct papers each covering one of the themes.
Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project
University of California, Berkeley
&
Centre fo... more Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project
University of California, Berkeley
&
Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies
University of Leeds, UK
In the past few years, Islamophobia Studies has experienced the arrival of numerous new scholars, researchers, community organizers, journalist and social media contributors to the field. The field has been enriched and challenged by this rapid expansion. Each contributor to the field has set out to provide a working definition for Islamophobia, selection of an academic and research methodology and collecting relevant data to qualify their thesis. The Islamophobia Studies field is expanding rapidly with new books and articles from an array of specialization coming out daily that even “experts” are hard pressed to keep-up with the volume. Certainly, the Brexit vote and Trump’s election in the U.S. provided impetus for many to enter into the Islamophobia Studies field with an eye toward understanding and theorizing the shifts in public sentiments that led to these two monumental results among others.
The time is right for a conference focusing on the pedagogical approaches to the Islamophobia Studies Field that can begin to critically examine existing research, explore the gaps and anchor future projects. The conference seeks contributions from all academic specializations and community based research programs that are broadly engaged in the Islamophobia Studies Field. What are the pedagogical and theoretical orientation of current ongoing research and what conceptualization are being utilized to determine and shape the intellectual production? Clearly, the Islamophobia Studies Field has publications and articles from anthropology, De-colonial Studies, critical race theory, cultural Studies, sociology, media and political science fields, comparative immigration and refugee studies, public health, security and public policy etc. However, the goal of the conference is to foster a sustained conversation on the methods, theoretical and pedagogical approaches shaping all these contributions.
October 30, 2017: A 300-word abstract and a 100 words bio in a paragraph format to be used for the program if accepted. Send the abstract to the attention of Dr. Hatem Bazian, IRDP.
November 7th: Invites for selected papers.
December 1st: Final papers are due for all participants.
The Third Annual Conference on Higher Education
March 4 – 6, 2016
REVISITING AL-GHAZALI: REASON ... more The Third Annual Conference on Higher Education March 4 – 6, 2016
UC Berkeley, Center for Race and Gender
Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project
Call for... more UC Berkeley, Center for Race and Gender Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project
Call for Papers
Islamophobia and Eroding Civil Society Paris 2015 December 11, 2015
IREMMO 7, rue des Carmes Paris 75006
The January 7th terrorist attacks in France have renewed the singular focus on the Muslim subject, as the contemporary other and the site of constructing an imagined, ideal, static and ahistorical French political, social and religious identity. In this context, the attacks served to affirm Muslim otherness, difference and uncivilized characteristics while unleashing an avalanche of racist, essentialist and xenophobic attacks from all sides of the political spectrum. Rather than viewing the attacks as the work of terrorists, the political leadership opted to problematize the Muslims, as a group, and sought to institute measures to restrict political and religious expressions and narrowing the scope of civil society for French Muslims.
Furthermore, the approval of the British Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill law and the extreme measures taken in France including the detention of Muslim children into police custody for interrogation and targeting modest modes of dress has eroded the already battered edifice of civil liberties. We begin to see the descent into a "police state". Islamophobia in France is now coming out with a force not only to justify and bring votes to extreme right parties but also to justify violation of civil rights and elimination of civil liberties. This affects not only Muslim citizens but in due time all citizens are effected. We would like to explore in this conference four panels that merit a careful attention in Western Europe today:
1) The relationship between islamophobia and the erosion of citizenship rights. 2) The relationship between islamophobia and the rise of the extreme right. 3) The relationship between islamophobia and the emergence of "police state" structures. 4) The relationship between islamophobia and Muslim self-internalized otherization in the context of living as targeted minorities.
October 10th , 2015: A 300 word abstract and a short bio in a paragraph form that is no more than 100 words. Send the abstract to Dr. Hatem Bazian at hatemb@berkeley.edu
October 15th: Invited Papers will be informed
October 22nd: Response needed for accepting the invite to participate December 1st: Papers are due for all participants.
Call for papers
Islamophobia: (neo)racism and systems of oppression
Montreal, 24-25 October 2... more Call for papers
Islamophobia: (neo)racism and systems of oppression
Montreal, 24-25 October 2015
While several analyses have highlighted discrimination, racism and aversion to Muslims as a racialized group and to Islam as a religion, there also seem to be processes of normalization and trivialisation of Islamophobia in the West. In a “war on terror” mindset and parallel to the rise of right-wing extremist, anti-immigration discourses and an increased globalisation of poverty and neoliberalism, several states have passed laws targeting and stigmatising Muslims, thus allowing an increased surveillance of citizens and of civil society. Although governments developed some of these laws in the aftermath of events such as 9-11 in the United States, the attacks on the Canadian Parliament or the Charlie Hebdo attacks in France, it is revealing to approach the study of Islamophobia by going beyond the mere fear, real or imagined, of Islam and Muslims in order to also consider the impacts of these new forms of governmentality and population management technologies that are put forth in the name of national security. Thinking of geopolitical issues, like wars in the Middle East and the privatisation of conflicts in the expropriation of energy resources, in relation to the increase of Islamophobic discourses and practices at the national and international scales leads to several questions. What possible links are there between Islamophobia’s various conditions of possibility at the global and local levels or at the historical and modern ones? How are the figures of the Muslim man, the Muslim woman and Islam constructed as enemies of the state? How do these Islamophobic discourses and practices unfold? What are the underlying systems of oppression at play? Finally, how is Islamophobia used to construct a utopic image of a free West, defender of equality and freedom?
This conference, a collaboration between the Observatoire international sur le racisme et les discriminations de l’Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM) (International Observatory on Racism and Discrimination) and the Center for Race and Gender Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project at the University of California, Berkeley, aims to be a space for reflection and exchange. The city of Montréal will host this event, since several issues related to these themes are relevant to the Quebecois and Canadian contexts. There is a richer Anglophone literature on the question of Islamophobia and although Francophone academic spaces have barely approached these questions, we would like for this event to initiate a series of gatherings on the topic. In order to do this, we suggest two lines of thinking for consideration of this theme.
1) Approaching Islamophobia through the colonial and neo-colonial matrix
Though several authors have highlighted the expansion of Islamophobia in various contemporary political contexts, much is to gain from considering this phenomenon beyond the conditions of its contemporary possibilities. Indeed, it is useful to study Islamophobia from the European expansion of the 15th century, where Western modernity, shaped by colonialism, produced several rational discourses on inferiorisation, exploitation and domination of numerous peoples and nations. We suggest questioning the impact and the relevance of this hegemony on Otherness in the Western context despite its various national trajectories. We favour a multidisciplinary approach that combines different historical, sociological and anthropological perspectives, among others, in order to reflect on the various Islamophobic discourses produced in this colonial matrix and their structural and structuring lasting effects. Ultimately, it is about considering ties between the various forms of racism deriving from this legacy, such as Islamophobia and racism towards Black people, indigenous peoples, the Roma, etc.
2) Methods of expansion of Islamophobia through different systems of oppression
Analysing Islamophobia as a racist and neoracist discourse also leads to questioning the articulation of race with other systems of oppression such as gender, sexuality, class, etc. Fostering this intersectional approach allows to identify Islamophobia’s various forms and the intertwining of power relations, in a context where Islam has often been showcased as a threat to secularism, women’s rights, sexual minorities and the nation. Reflecting on the various articulations of Islamophobic discourse, through various national contexts, allows for a better understanding of the underlying issues animating each of them. How does the recurring conflation of Muslims with Arabs and people from the Maghreb contribute to the invisibilization of other oppressed Muslims? We are looking for analyses where Muslim men and women are approached as non-homogeneous groups, varied and diverse, living with and experiencing oppression in manifold subjectivities.
Submission procedures
Proposals should be submitted as a short argument (300-500 words) in English or in French, along with a short biography (100 words maximum). Proposals must be sent before 15 August 2015, by email to islamophobia.conference.2015@gmail.com You will receive an answer no later than September 1st 2015. The conference will be held on 24-25 October 2015.
Organizing Committee
Leïla Benhadjoudja, Université du Québec à Montréal
Hatem Bazian, University of California at Berkeley and Ramón Grosfoguel, University of California at Berkeley.
Call for Papers
Zaytuna College Invites Scholars and Researchers to submit abstracts for the 2n... more Call for Papers
Zaytuna College Invites Scholars and Researchers to submit abstracts for the 2nd Annual Islamic Higher Education conference on April 4, 2015
Forging Islamic Authority: Navigating Text and Context in the Modern World
The Muslim world is in crisis, and the crisis is multi-layered. If international law recognizes nation states, what role is there for solidarity on the basis of a trans-national ummah? With national boundaries, to what extent are Muslims allowed to have solidarity with non-Muslims, whether as minorities in non-Muslim lands or in Muslim majority countries? Can allegiance to a secular state be absolute for a believer? What texts are to be considered authoritative when approaching these questions? And is there one locus or multiple loci for legitimate interpretive authority? While the focus remains on the headlines, a much deeper epistemic debate is at hand centering on re-constituting Islamic authority in the post Ottoman, nationalist and post-colonial periods. The complexity of the inner debate is muddled by a set of external circumstances that impinge into a scholar’s inner sanctum: globalization, neoliberal economics, corporatization, commodification of knowledge, and information technology, all of which challenge traditional frameworks for analysis and modes of transmission. Attempts at re-constituting Islamic authority have taken many forms but there remain more questions than answers. Indeed, we have arrived at a point where Islamic authority is limited, non-existent, sidelined, or mocked due to engagement in tangential and inconsequential debates. Where are we? Who are “we?” And where are we going?
Papers may engage the above theme from any perspective, including:
· Academic vs. traditional authority · Cosmopolitanism and multi-culturalism · Science and technology · Institution building and citizenship · Geopolitics, power, and economic interests · Race & Gender · Educational philosophy and the human person
This list is meant to be illustrative and not exhaustive. Individual papers will be combined to form thematic panels; pre-organized panels are welcome. Submit a 300 word abstract in a Microsoft word or pdf document, with a short bio to be used for publicity, to Dr. Hatem Bazian hbazian@zaytuna.org
Abstract Deadline: Feb 15, 2015 Papers are due April 1st, 2015 Note: No late abstracts will be accepted.
Call for Papers for the 6th Annual Islamophobia Conference hosted by UC Berkeley Center for Race ... more Call for Papers for the 6th Annual Islamophobia Conference hosted by UC Berkeley Center for Race and Gender Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project.
This international and interdisciplinary conference will address recent political developments in... more This international and interdisciplinary conference will address recent political developments in the academy that points to increasing administrative moves directed at censoring Palestine as a subject for intellectual engagement and organizing efforts. The degree and intensity of censorship has taken many forms, most recently with several high profile cases:
• the rescinding and subsequent firing of Associate Professor Steven Salaita at The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign;
• the unwarranted investigation of faculty members such as Professors Rabab Abdulhadi at San Francisco State University for undertaking constitutionally protected activities of free speech about the state and people of Palestine;
• the unfair and systematic targeting of SJP, MSA and Arab student organizations for sponsoring and organizing events for Palestinian awareness;
• promoting and funding campus groups and activities that only approach Palestine with an apolitical agenda while isolating, prosecuting and criminalizing those operating independently, critical of Israel, opt not to engage in university crafted dialogues or supporting BDS; and,
• other instances that includes the official withdrawal of university sponsorships for academic conferences; reduced funding or the cancellation of events; additional requirements beyond the normal process that involves administrative evaluations, policy reminders, speaker approvals, and security precautions.
In addition to this extraordinary institutional intervention, external organizations, on more than one occasion, have been allowed to influence, dictate, and prescribe the terms of freedom of speech through codes of civility that severely undermines the standing of Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims as an educational topic and a political campaign. The assault on free speech and academic freedom has also come disguised as civil rights complaints under Title VI directed at Department of Education funding. Lawsuits targeting the university for the specific purpose of censoring Palestine have already created a chilling effect on college campuses despite federal Judge Richard Seeborg dismissing such claims in Felber v. Yudofheld stating “[a] very substantial portion of the conduct to which [the complainants] object [i.e., speech critical of Israel] represents pure political speech and expressive conduct, in a public setting, regarding matters of public concern, which is entitled to special protection under the First Amendment.”
This conference seeks papers that analyze the academy’s role in the institutional censorship of Palestine and the methods deployed to achieve this outcome. More broadly, how censoring Palestine at the university is linked to ongoing efforts in the erosion of free speech and academic freedom due to the corporatization and militarization of institutions of higher learning is encouraged. As the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement takes hold on college campuses across the United States and Europe, how the academy responds by establishing “civility codes” directly marginalizes and criminalizes participants who happens to be not only faculty, students and staff – members of an intellectual, social, and political community – but also members exercising their right to free speech.
Please send a 300-word abstract in response to one or more of the issues highlighted above is suggested, and a short 100 words biography to the attention of Dr. Hatem Bazian:
hatemb@berkeley.edu
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3XtNM69GHc
Session 5B Criticizing Israel within the American Je... more https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3XtNM69GHc Session 5B Criticizing Israel within the American Jewish Community
The Conference for Palestine in the US: Gaza Teaches Life!
Nov. 27-29, 2014, Hyatt Regency O'Hare The Zionist network in the United States stifles criticism
The United States Commission on Civil Rights (“the Commission’) is pleased to transmit our briefi... more The United States Commission on Civil Rights (“the Commission’) is pleased to transmit our briefing report, Federal Civil Rights Engagement with Arab and Muslim-American Communities. The report is also available in full on the Commission’s website at www.usccr.gov. The purpose of the report is to examine federal efforts to eliminate and prevent civil rights violations, including incidents of hate crimes, prejudice, bias, stereotyping and travel discrimination against Arab and Muslim-Americans spurred by the reactions to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington.
INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND
Strategy, Policy, and Review Department
Causes and Consequences of In... more INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND Strategy, Policy, and Review Department Causes and Consequences of Income Inequality: A Global Perspective Prepared by Era Dabla-Norris, Kalpana Kochhar, Frantisek Ricka, Nujin Suphaphiphat, and Evridiki Tsounta (with contributions from Preya Sharma and Veronique Salins)1 Authorized for distribution by Siddharh Tiwari
June 2015
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY “We should measure the health of our society not at its apex, but at its base.” Andrew Jackson Widening income inequality is the defining challenge of our time. In advanced economies, the gap between the rich and poor is at its highest level in decades. Inequality trends have been more mixed in emerging markets and developing countries (EMDCs), with some countries experiencing declining inequality, but pervasive inequities in access to education, health care, and finance remain. Not surprisingly then, the extent of inequality, its drivers, and what to do about it have become some of the most hotly debated issues by policymakers and researchers alike. Against this background, the objective of this paper is two-fold. First, we show why policymakers need to focus on the poor and the middle class. Earlier IMF work has shown that income inequality matters for growth and its sustainability. Our analysis suggests that the income distribution itself matters for growth as well. Specifically, if the income share of the top 20 percent (the rich) increases, then GDP growth actually declines over the medium term, suggesting that the benefits do not trickle down. In contrast, an increase in the income share of the bottom 20 percent (the poor) is associated with higher GDP growth. The poor and the middle class matter the most for growth via a number of interrelated economic, social, and political channels. Second, we investigate what explains the divergent trends in inequality developments across advanced economies and EMDCs, with a particular focus on the poor and the middle class. While most existing studies have focused on advanced countries and looked at the drivers of the Gini coefficient and the income of the rich, this study explores a more diverse group of countries and pays particular attention to the income shares of the poor and the middle class—the main engines of growth. Our analysis suggests that Technological progress and the resulting rise in the skill premium (positives for growth and productivity) and the decline of some labor market institutions have contributed to inequality in both advanced economies and EMDCs. Globalization has played a smaller but reinforcing role. Interestingly, we find that rising skill premium is associated with widening income disparities in advanced countries, while financial deepening is associated with rising inequality in EMDCs, suggesting scope for policies that promote financial inclusion. Policies that focus on the poor and the middle class can mitigate inequality. Irrespective of the level of economic development, better access to education and health care and well-targeted social policies, while ensuring that labor market institutions do not excessively penalize the poor, can help raise the income share for the poor and the middle class. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to tackling inequality. The nature of appropriate policies depends on the underlying drivers and country-specific policy and institutional settings. In advanced economies, policies should focus on reforms to increase human capital and skills, coupled with making tax systems more progressive. In EMDCs, ensuring financial deepening is accompanied with greater financial inclusion and creating incentives for lowering informality would be important. More generally, complementarities between growth and income equality objectives suggest that policies aimed at raising average living standards can also influence the distribution of income and ensure a more inclusive prosperity.
Prof. Ruben Durante and Ekaterina Zhuravskaya
E-mail: ruben.durante@sciencespo.fr (corresponding ... more Prof. Ruben Durante and Ekaterina Zhuravskaya E-mail: ruben.durante@sciencespo.fr (corresponding author). E-mail: ezhuravskaya@gmail.com.
Governments often take unpopular measures. To minimize the political cost of such measures policy makers may strategically time them to coincide with other newsworthy events, which distract the media and the public. We test this hypothesis using data on the recurrent Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Combining daily data on attacks on both sides of the conflict with data on the content of evening news for top U.S. TV networks, we show that Israeli attacks are more likely to be carried out when the U.S. news are expected to be dominated by important (non-Israel-related) events on the following day. In contrast, we find no evidence of strategic timing for Palestinian attacks. The timing of Israeli at- tacks that we document is suggestive of the intention to minimize next-day news coverage which, as confirmed by comprehensive video content analysis, is es- pecially charged with negative emotional content. We also find that: i) strategic timing of Israeli attacks is less relevant in period of more intense fighting, when the need to quickly retaliate reduces Israel’s capacity to time operations strate- gically; ii) strategic timing is present only for the Israeli attacks that bear risk of civilians being affected; and iii) Israeli attacks are timed to newsworthy events that are predictable.
Economic inequality is rapidly increasing in the majority of countries. The wealth of the world i... more Economic inequality is rapidly increasing in the majority of countries. The wealth of the world is divided in two: almost half going to the richest one percent; the other half to the remaining 99 percent. The World Economic Forum has identified this as a major risk to human progress. Extreme economic inequality and political capture are too often interdependent. Left unchecked, political institutions become undermined and governments overwhelmingly serve the interests of economic elites to the detriment of ordinary people. Extreme inequality is not inevitable, and it can and must be reversed quickly.
This the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture programs that... more This the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture programs that were set in place post 9/11. An important read and source material for people working on this issue from diverse background.
EIxecutive summary
n August 2014, a Ferguson, Missouri, policeman shot and killed an unarmed blac... more EIxecutive summary n August 2014, a Ferguson, Missouri, policeman shot and killed an unarmed black teenager. Michael Brown’s death and the resulting protests and racial tension brought considerable attention to that town. Observers who had not been looking closely at our evolving demographic patterns were surprised to see ghetto conditions we had come to associate with inner cities now duplicated in a formerly white suburban community: racially segregated neigh- borhoods with high poverty and unemployment, poor student achievement in overwhelmingly black schools, oppressive policing, abandoned homes, and community powerlessness. Media accounts of how Ferguson became Ferguson have typically explained that when African Americans moved to this suburb (and others like it), “white flight” followed, abandoning the town to African Americans who were trying to escape poor schools in the city. The conventional explanation adds that African Americans moved to a few places like Ferguson, not the suburbs generally, because prejudiced real estate agents steered black homebuyers away from other white suburbs. And in any event, those other suburbs were able to preserve their almost entirely white, upper-middle- class environments by enacting zoning rules that required only expensive single family homes, the thinking goes. No doubt, private prejudice and suburbanites’ desire for homogenous affluent environments contributed to segregation in St. Louis and other metropolitan areas. But these explanations are too partial, and too conveniently excuse public policy from responsibility. A more powerful cause of metropolitan segregation in St. Louis and nationwide has been the explicit intents of federal, state, and local governments to create racially segregated metropolises. ECONOMIC POLICY INSTITUTE • 1333 H STREET, NW • SUITE 300, EAST TOWER • WASHINGTON, DC 20005 • 202.775.8810 • WWW.EPI.ORG Many of these explicitly segregationist governmental actions ended in the late 20th century but continue to determine today’s racial segregation patterns. In St. Louis these governmental policies included zoning rules that classified white neighborhoods as residential and black neighborhoods as commercial or industrial; segregated public housing projects that replaced integrated low-income areas; federal subsidies for suburban development conditioned on African Amer- ican exclusion; federal and local requirements for, and enforcement of, property deeds and neighborhood agreements that prohibited resale of white-owned property to, or occupancy by, African Americans; tax favoritism for private insti- tutions that practiced segregation; municipal boundary lines designed to separate black neighborhoods from white ones and to deny necessary services to the former; real estate, insurance, and banking regulators who tolerated and sometimes required racial segregation; and urban renewal plans whose purpose was to shift black populations from central cities like St. Louis to inner-ring suburbs like Ferguson. Governmental actions in support of a segregated labor market supplemented these racial housing policies and prevented most African Americans from acquiring the economic strength to move to middle-class communities, even if they had been permitted to do so. White flight certainly existed, and racial prejudice was certainly behind it, but not racial prejudice alone. Government policies turned black neighborhoods into overcrowded slums and white families came to associate African Americans with slum characteristics. White homeowners then fled when African Americans moved nearby, fearing their new neigh- bors would bring slum conditions with them. That government, not mere private prejudice, was responsible for segregating greater St. Louis was once conventional informed opinion. A federal appeals court declared 40 years ago that “segregated housing in the St. Louis metropolitan area was ... in large measure the result of deliberate racial discrimination in the housing market by the real estate indus- try and by agencies of the federal, state, and local governments.” Similar observations accurately describe every other large metropolitan area. This history, however, has now largely been forgotten. When we blame private prejudice, suburban snobbishness, and black poverty for contemporary segregation, we not only whitewash our own history but avoid considering whether new policies might instead promote an integrated commu- nity. The federal government’s response to the Ferguson “Troubles” has been to treat the town as an isolated embarrass- ment, not a reflection of the nation in which it is embedded. The Department of Justice is investigating the killing of teenager Michael Brown and the practices of the Ferguson police department, but aside from the president’s concern that perhaps we have militarized all police forces too much, no broader inferences from the events of August 2014 are being drawn by policymakers. The conditions that created Ferguson cannot be addressed without remedying a century of public policies that segre- gated our metropolitan landscape. Remedies are unlikely if we fail to recognize these policies and how their effects have endured.
An Important Article to Read:
The Structure of Knowledge in Westernized Universities
Epistemic ... more An Important Article to Read:
The Structure of Knowledge in Westernized Universities
Epistemic Racism/Sexism and the Four Genocides/Epistemicides of the Long 16th Century
Ramón Grosfoguel
U.C. Berkeley
Abstract: This article is inspired by Enrique Dussel’s historical and philosophical work on Cartesian philosophy and the conquest of the Americas. It discusses the epistemic racism/sexism that is foundational to the knowledge structures of the Westernized University. The article proposes that the epistemic privilege of Western Man in Westenized Universities’ structures of knowledge, is the result of four genocides/epistemicides in the long 16th century (against Jewish and Muslim origin population in the conquest of Al-Andalus, against indigenous people in the conquest of the Americas, against Africans kidnapped and enslaved in the Americas and against women burned alive, accused of being witches in Europe). The article proposes that Dussel’s argument in the sense that the condition of possibility for the mid-17th century Cartesian “I think, therefore I am” (ego cogito) is the 150 years of “I conquer, therefor I am” (ego conquiro) is historically mediated by the genocide/epistemicide of the “I exterminate, therefore I am” (ego extermino). The ‘I exterminate’ is the socio-historical structural mediation between the idolatric ‘I think’ and the ‘I conquer.’
This Dover edition, first published in 1988, is an unabridged, unaltered republication of the wor... more This Dover edition, first published in 1988, is an unabridged, unaltered republication of the work originally published in 1946 by the American Zionist Emergency Council, New York, based on a revised translation published by the Scopus Publishing Company, New York, 1943, which was, in turn, based on the first English-language edition, A Jewish State, translated by Sylvie d'Avigdor, and published by Nutt, London, England, 1896. The Herzl text was originally published under the title Der Judenstaat in Vienna, 1896. Please see the note on the facing page for further details.
"THE JEWISH STATE" is published by the American Zionist Emergency Council for its constituent organizations on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the publication of "DER JUDENSTAAT" in Vienna, February 14, 1896.
The translation of "THE JEWISH STATE" based on a revised translation published by the Scopus Publishing Company was further revised by Jacob M. Alkow, editor of this book. The biography was condensed from Alex Bein's Theodor Herzl, published by the Jewish Publication Society of America. The bibliography and the chronology were prepared by the Zionist Archives and Library. To Mr. Louis Lipsky and to all of the above mentioned contributors, the American Zionist Emergency Council is deeply indebted.
ABSTRACT In this article, Meer tentatively delineates three ways in which he understands that the... more ABSTRACT In this article, Meer tentatively delineates three ways in which he understands that the concept of Islamophobia is being informed by postcolonial scholarship. The first functions as continuity, in so far as it is claimed that historical colonial dynamics are reproduced in contemporary postcolonial environments, broadly conceived. The second involves translation. This is related to the first but different in that it focuses in particular on the utility of Orientalist critique for the concept of Islamophobia. The third concerns an account of Muslim consciousness, in so far as it is argued that ‘the making of Muslims’ is signalled by the emergence of the concept of Islamophobia, part, as one view has it, of a wider ‘decentring’ of the West. Meer argues that this third framing rests on terrain that is also populated by scholarship beyond the postcolonial tradition. This is because it expresses a story of how Muslims have contested and sought revisions to existing citizenship settlements, not least the ways in which approaches to anti-discrimination are configured. This is a story that is observable within imperfect liberal democratic frameworks that contain some institutional levers through which to challenge Islamophobia.
A good read from the International Business Times on Muslims in Mexico with a brief dissuasion of... more A good read from the International Business Times on Muslims in Mexico with a brief dissuasion of history.
This article explores the entanglements between the emergence of the anthropological conception ... more This article explores the entanglements between the emergence of the anthropological conception of religion and the logic of race in the modern/colonial world. This entanglement is also one between tradi- tional religious categories such as Christian, Muslim, and Jew, and modern ethno-racial designations such as white, indigenous, and black that point to a co-implication between race and what we call religion in modernity. Key in this process was the distinction between peoples with religion and groups without religion in the period of the late Middle Ages and early European expansion. Particularly important in this context are not only religious figures and theologians, but also travelers and conquistadors like Christopher Columbus and others.
A Center for Contemporary Arab Study publication that offers a short introduction to Islam for st... more A Center for Contemporary Arab Study publication that offers a short introduction to Islam for students who have little or no background on the subject.
English Translation with added comments to the published Turkish language interview:
"The worl... more English Translation with added comments to the published Turkish language interview:
"The world as we know it and interact with is a Eurocentric edifice that produces White Supremacy at every turn: from political order to economics, from identity to religion and from sports to media productions are all vested in White supremacy assigning value and worth based on it."
An in-depth interview with Dr. Hatem Bazian Chairman of American Muslims for Palestine and co-founder of Zaytuna College in the Turkish press covering a wide range of issues including torture, President Obama and pax-Americana, Ferguson and racism in the US, Islamophobia, Palestine and regional political order, violence, and Orientalist representations etc.
Listen to KPFA 94.1 interview with Dr. Bazian on the second hour of the program starting at 1:04 ... more Listen to KPFA 94.1 interview with Dr. Bazian on the second hour of the program starting at 1:04 in the archive below. https://kpfa.org/archives/
Sunday Show – August 7, 2016 SUNDAY SHOW 9am Start Time
In the first hour Andrew J. Bacevich, author of “America’s War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History”. In the second hour,Trump’s War on Islam with Hatem Bazian,lecturer in the Departments of Near Eastern, Asian American, and Asian Diaspora Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
An interview with Vitamin D focusing on the Souls of Muslim Folk and examining militarism, coloni... more An interview with Vitamin D focusing on the Souls of Muslim Folk and examining militarism, colonial and embedded intellectuals at the university and double consciousness etc.
Race, Racism and Islamophobia in Europe, a 30 minute interview with Dr. Hatem Bazian on UpFront m... more Race, Racism and Islamophobia in Europe, a 30 minute interview with Dr. Hatem Bazian on UpFront morning program on KPFA
A 30 minutes interview focusing on Charlie Hebdo attack and giving a longer historical and econom... more A 30 minutes interview focusing on Charlie Hebdo attack and giving a longer historical and economic context. Up Front with Guest Host Marie Choi - January 9, 2015 at 7:00am http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/110171
1.1 AIMS OF THE REPORT
In its work to date against discrimination in Europe, Amnesty Internationa... more 1.1 AIMS OF THE REPORT In its work to date against discrimination in Europe, Amnesty International has raised concerns about negative views and stereotypes affecting ethnic minorities such as the Roma, as well as migrants and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals. Amnesty International has helped bring to the attention of policy-makers and the public the negative impact on human rights which arise from discrimination on the grounds of ethnicity, migrant status, sexual orientation and gender identity. The aim of this report is to focus on discrimination on grounds of religion or belief and to illustrate some of its consequences on Muslims in Europe. This report is not comprehensive and should not be read as an exhaustive analysis of all forms of discrimination experienced by Muslims. Similarly, this report, researched and compiled in the framework of broader work on discrimination in Europe, does not imply that discrimination on grounds of religion or belief exclusively affect Muslims. Indeed, this form of discrimination can have an impact on other religious groups in Europe. For instance, Christian Evangelicals in Catalonia told Amnesty International that they felt discriminated against in the exercise of their right to freedom of religion because of the barriers they experienced in establishing places of worship. Jews are also still discriminated against in Europe and violent attacks perpetrated with an anti-Semitic bias remain a matter of concern. As the geographical scope of this research is limited to the European continent, it does not focus on religious-based discrimination experienced by other minority religious groups, including Christians, in other regions of the world.
Attacks on Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Linda Sarsour, Omar Sulieman, Marc Lamont Hil... more Attacks on Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Linda Sarsour, Omar Sulieman, Marc Lamont Hill and countless other Muslims in America and across Europe raise philosophical and political questions on whether Muslims can speak and do so where it counts the most! The problem is not in the ability to produce sounds and noises that might qualify them as members of the human race but the "right" to speak on the critical political, economic and foreign policy issues confronting society, which include the meaning of being Muslim and political at the same time. Here, I am not concerned with the yes boss Muslim who can speak only to repeat and amplify the voices and words of others; rather than speaking for themselves. Language is the defining characteristic of humankind, allowing for communication and relations to occur between people from diverse backgrounds and making it possible to transmit meaning over time and space. Language and recorded speech, be it in books or the contemporary electronic medium, are so central to the development and emergence of civilization itself. The Muslims listed above have all been subject to a systematic and structured demonization campaign and efforts to silence their voices. What them all a target is their readiness to speak on Israel, the influence of AIPAC and Zionism, which is considered an off-limits topic in Washington DC's political circles. The effort to silence them is part of a broader strategy, which I will get to later on and why it is so crucial that Muslims speak and more so at this critical time. As Islamophobia and racialization intensifies in western societies, the space for freedom of speech and the scope of the content is continuously shrinking for Muslims. Can Muslims speak in the current period and is society at large ready to listen and engage the ideas that are
" Corporate level, enterprise-grade social media intelligence software " is the sophisticated too... more " Corporate level, enterprise-grade social media intelligence software " is the sophisticated tools used by Jacob Baime, executive director of Israel on Campus Coalition, to demonize and defame Palestine activists in the US and across college campuses. While the focus on Russia's interference in US domestic affairs, the newly released documentary shows that Mr. Baime coordinates his activities with the Israeli " Ministry of Strategic Affairs " and shares directly " operations and intelligence brief " collected from the field, deserves equal if more attention than the Russian investigation. How did we become aware of all this material and intrusion by Israel operatives into the domestic affairs in the US? The recent " unofficial " release of Al-Jazeera's documentary, The Lobby-US, on the Electronic Intifada site exposed the strategies utilized by Israeli front groups in the United States in targeting Palestine's advocacy, Students for Justice in Palestine and BDS successes on college campuses. The documentary was finished in 2017 but was kept out of the market due to lobbying efforts from major Zionist organizations and individuals. The Lobby-US follows a similar Al-Jazeera undercover investigative documentary that exposed the inner-workings in the British context and the efforts that targeted the Labor Party and student activism for their support of Palestinian human rights and calls for BDS. Electronic Intifada's release of the 4-part series online came after almost a year of the documentary being completed and subject to an intense effort to censor it by major Zionist figures in the US. After the Qatari-Saudi tension, a decision was made at the highest levels not to air it and focus more on an attempt to defuse the ongoing conflict. Keeping the documentary off the air came on the heels of the hiring of Nick Muzin, the US-based lobbying firm Stonington Strategies, to impact US policy on the ongoing Gulf crisis. The documentary is a must-see for anyone who is engaged in domestic US politics, campus organizing and for sure anything related to Palestine, Arab and Muslim world concerns. Undercover investigative reporting is a valuable tool to shed light on a shadowy network that operates in the US on behalf of a foreign state, Israel, with the single focus on keeping the $3.8 billion annual taxpayers' payout to a country that continually violates international human rights standards. Critically, the Lobby-US documentary exposes the direct control and involvement of the Israeli government in the domestic affairs in the US as well as massive intrusion into student organizing on college campuses. According to Electronic Intifada reporting, the documentary exposed the use of social media by " Julia Reifkind – then an Israeli embassy employee " – describing her typical workday on collecting and passing information Palestine activists in the US as " mainly gathering intel, reporting back to Israel … to report back to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Strategic Affairs. " In one clip, Julia admits on the hidden camera to using all type of fake names in her effort to collect information on SJP and MSA of the Ministry of Strategic Affairs.
Jamal Khashoggi's murder inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul epitomizes the governance by deat... more Jamal Khashoggi's murder inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul epitomizes the governance by death and mayhem approach in modern Arab states. Governance by death or more precisely by bone saw and a chainsaw is inscribed into state structures by the ruling elites who are committed to holding onto power by eliminating all opposition by any means necessary, family members included. The ruling elites' or more accurately ruling syndicates with flags and stamps bearing their likeness clinched power some 100 years ago and have taken the possession of territories and societies in the same way a person claims a personal object to do with it as he/she wishes without the slightest concern for short or long-term consequences. Making this absurdity possible is the proclivity to dress the mayhem and constant depravity with Islam, the religious cloak of legitimacy and guarantying the acquiescence of the captive subjects that are metaphorically called citizens. The current crisis in Saudi Arabia's ruling family is paradigmatic of the governing approach in the region, the foreign interests that protect and feed off them, which is the real cause of the ongoing destruction and never-ending wars in the region. Jamal's murder and dismemberment is not a decision of a low-level operative or even fifteen of them; instead, these are decisions taken at the highest levels of government and are reflective of the whims of a ruler who possess subjects but sees no citizens. Jamal's murder and dismemberment are not unique nor out of the ordinary in a region that has become accustomed to shedding blood as the only instrument of governance. Arab region's wreckage has already claimed millions of lives, sent millions of refugees and exiles abroad and destroyed the future horizons of the next generation or two. Khashoggi's murder in the Saudi consulate, a sanctuary for a Saudi citizen in a foreign country, is paradigmatic of the governance by death that is the norm within the confines of the sovereign territory itself.
The law in the contemporary Arab states is an amalgamation of statutes, codes, and regulations pu... more The law in the contemporary Arab states is an amalgamation of statutes, codes, and regulations put in place over the past 100-150 years in the process of forming the modern nation-state project. Often, the " Islam " or " Sharia " , to be more precise, is the primary source cited in the first few articles in almost every constitution or legal code across the region but don't allow this neon type pumper sticker inclusion to blind you to the structural foundation of each state, a secular modern nation-state functioning under an Islamic façade. Forging the modern nation-state took place under the watchful eye or, more accurately, the direct guidance of the European powers in the past and the US hegemonic domination at present. What part(s) of the modern Arab nation-states is Islamic? If such a question is ascertained, the answer should be " not much ". Law is born out of social condition and in the Arab nation-states, this meant that the legal codes and constitutions were forged under social, economic, political, and religious colonial conditions. One can't approach the legal codes without examining the process that brought them into existence in the first place and the interests they were set to serve. The legal codes in the modern Arab nation-states consisted of an admixture of direct translations from French, German, British, Swiss and increasingly US statutes that are totally disconnected from the direct and contemporary social conditions present in each of the respective Arab states. Consequently, this basic fact calls for us to dig deeper into the rationale behind this wholesale adoption. The reason behind the adoption has been a basic thesis that problematized Islam itself and posited the lack of capacity for it to guide a modern nation-state. In the 19 th century, Europe was the offered model to construct this modern nation-state. This was a very convenient tool to accelerate the domination of the region by the same European powers that were offering to help the regional dash toward nation-statehood and modernity. If the European style nation-state modernity is the quest, then Islam's legal principles and epistemology were the impediment that had to be removed, be it in the political or economic realms.
In his book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins detailed the pernicious and destruc... more In his book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins detailed the pernicious and destructive economic strategies deployed by Global North powers and the institutions that represent their interests against countries in the Global South. The term " economic hit man " is used to describe the role of individuals, like Perkins himself, whose assigned part is to produce, create or invent out of thin air the needed financial projections and plans to legitimize the rationale behind disastrous and destructive projects in countries in the Global South. The intent behind the economic hit man activity is to sink countries in the Global South deeper in debt, dependency, and foster elite's corruption and then use international trade and " legal " institutions to claim their natural resources and funnel massive amounts of wealth to the Global North. The mechanism for achieving this destructive outcome is a sophisticated well-stitched infrastructure of corporations, banks, foreign policy outfits, and international governmental and non-governmental agencies. At the core of the mechanism is the following undisputed fact – the Global South is home to the overwhelming known world natural resources and these have been siphoned, stolen, and pillaged to support the continued destructive lifestyle and policies of the Global North. Beginning from the 16 th and leading to the 21 st century, powers from the Global North have invaded, colonized, intervened, cheated, pillaged, destroyed, killed, cutoff limbs, and committed multiple genocides against native populations in the Global South to wickedly lay claim on their natural resources. During the " age of discovery " and " colonization " the stealing and robbing of the resources were direct with no need to rationalize the enterprise other than simply using racial superiority, manifest destiny and the industriousness of the European man opposite the Global South. Africa, South and Central America and parts of Asia were subject to systematic pillaging and destruction and the mercilessly made impoverished populations to uplift Europe and North America. No resource or natural setting was left untouched and the existing economies, markets,
"Having sold loans to impoverished countries, facilitated wealth transfer for the elites who sign... more "Having sold loans to impoverished countries, facilitated wealth transfer for the elites who signed the documents, the banking industry then sent its well-dressed henchmen and global bouncers, the IMF and World Bank, to break the metaphorical legs of the population and extract payments by any means necessary. The Structural Adjustment programs called for: increased export of raw materials to bring hard currency to pay for the debt, liberalize and privatize the economy, reduce or totally remove government regulations that prevent foreign control or ownership of assets, currency devaluation while ‘recommending’ connecting it to the dollar, encourage foreign investment in mines, raw materials, agribusiness and tourism, and topping it off by cutting governmental support for education, healthcare, price support for food staples (like wheat, corn, rice, and beans) and social services. These adjustment policies collectively worked to further ruin what was little left of the ability of post-colonial populations to sustain a livelihood and a dignified life."
Khaled Abou El-Fadel on Islam and Democracy with from:
John L. Esposito
Noah Feldman
M.A. Muqteda... more Khaled Abou El-Fadel on Islam and Democracy with from: John L. Esposito Noah Feldman M.A. Muqtedar Khan Saba Mahmood Bernard Haykel Nader Hashemi Jeremy Waldron A. Kevin Reinhart Mohammad Fadel William B. Quandt
Switzerland banned the construction of minarets;italy-mosque-ban-amid-fear-radical-islam-opponent... more Switzerland banned the construction of minarets;italy-mosque-ban-amid-fear-radical-islam-opponents-try-block-construction-2403705 have placed heavy restrictions on permits for building new mosques; Austria adopted a law to redefine the status of Islam and Muslims in the country; http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/2/25/austria-passes-law-on-islam-requiring-imams-speak-german.html France has layered bans on the Hijab, Niqab and now Burkini http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/24/europe/woman-burkini-nice-beach-incident-trnd/index.html; and the continent-wide massive surveillance of Muslims https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/james-renton/why-is-europe-desperate-to-spy-on-its-muslims raises an important question: Will Europe forever have an inquisition problem when dealing with the Muslim subject. The current stream of policies targeting Muslims across Europe harken back to an earlier and darker period in the continent's long history, the Inquisition. Certainly, the inquisition involved forced conversion to Christianity for Muslims and Jews, as well as expulsion for those who either refused or secretly continued to practice. At a certain level, the inquisition involved a repressive monitoring and regulatory structure that governed Muslim and Jewish bodies and spaces. Muslim and Jewish bodies were subject to intrusion with limits imposed on clothing, food, hygiene and movement. Furthermore, the inquisition imposed limits on wearing distinctive religious clothing and garment colors so as to prevent a continuation or adherence to religious norms and practices by both Jews and Muslims. Regulating the bodies involved forced consumption of pork and to do so publicly so as to demonstrate a breakaway from keeping Kosher and Halal dietary requirements. Muslims and Jews were required to keep windows and doors to their homes open on Fridays and Saturdays in order for the inquisition monitors to ascertain that no activities, reading of texts or engaged in ritual washing in observance of any type of religious holiday or preparation for prayers. At the height of the inquisition, both Jews and Muslims were subject to state-organized violence, torture and a reign of terror, which concluded with mass expulsion in 1492. The Moriscos http://lostislamichistory.com/spains-forgotten-muslims-the-expulsion-of-the-moriscos/, the Muslims who went through forceful Catholic conversion but remained in Spain practicing Islam covertly, were expelled in 1609, and mostly ended up in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. Immediately, the expected response from the Islamophobia industry will be that the question and the comparisons are faulty because Europe is facing massive terrorist attacks and security threats coming " mainly " from Muslim populations. While I concur that Europe is facing security threats and terrorist attacks, the sole focus on Muslims while neo-Nazis and separatist perpetrators who are responsible as a great of a threat are not problematized on the basis of their supposed European identity.
How to be shocked when we are sick and tired of being shocked, as the deaths of blacks is the daily norm and normalised in the nation's consciousness? Not guilty has been etched with knives and millions of racism's bullet holes into the nation's collective non-being ascription to African Americans.
This is further ensconced with our differentiated just-us legal system coloured by race and white supremacy. A black life is expendable, worthless and guilty for being visibly black; a mere biological material, a divine error and permanent sub-humanness.
Guilty for walking while black, guilty for being black, guilty for daring to speak, sing and dance while black, and guilty for having the audacity to want to be black. Walking, driving, working, and living as black are a dangerous and life-threatening endeavour in today's America and indeed it has always been the case for "People of Colour" since Christopher Columbus landed on these shores.
America's open casket to the world is its racism that has been institutionalised and commodified into every part of the society from the police force, political order, court system, corporate structure, media and global relations. Some are quick to point to gains made by African Americans since the civil rights movement; and, indeed we can point to these noticeable advancements including the first black president in the White House.
"While the 1948 Nakba led to the physical expulsion of some 750,000 Palestinians, it is the British occupation in 1917 followed by the Mandate that sealed Palestine's fate as the last colonial project to be commissioned. Thus, Zionism was incubated in the British colonial womb with an umbilical cord connected to Europe's settler, colonial and racist epistemology."
"The lack of institutional support because the political leadership itself and the national media... more "The lack of institutional support because the political leadership itself and the national media are intent on otherising Muslims and minorities, leave the possibility of racist and bigoted attacks a possibility in the future, with communities left to fend for themselves." Dr. Hatem Bazian
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/02/islamophobia-turns-deadly-150216050252972.html
"In thinking about Arian's case, one must take a broader lens and examine more closely how, under the rubric of fighting the "war on terrorism", the Justice Department and successive US administrations systematically criminalised pro-Palestine activists in the US and targeted them using selective and distorted prosecutions and grand juries."
The report on Christian Zionism is essential and timely research to unpack one key driver, among others, that contribute a distinctive form of Islamophobia that is connected to theology and religious discourses centering on Palestine. Moreover, the current strong relationship between several evangelical groups and Zionist organizations has made it possible to unleash political pressure in the US that shields Israel from accountability for its continued violations of international law. The report is intended to generate the needed conversations on how Christian evangelical groups and others play a role in preventing the actualization of peace, justice, and dignity for the Palestinians. Not to imply that this is an exclusively Christian problem; on the contrary, the Center’s future research intends to focus on the emergence of Muslim or Islamic Zionism, which articulate relations with Israel based on a distorted religious discourse that rationalizes normalizations of relations at the expense of Palestinian rights. Lastly, the report’s discussion on Christian Zionism should not distract the reader from the positive work, advocacy, and engagement with Palestinians by many churches and religious institutions in the US.
Announcing the new volume:
Islamophobia Studies Journal
Volume 4 • Issue 1 • Fall 2017
Produced a... more Announcing the new volume: Islamophobia Studies Journal Volume 4 • Issue 1 • Fall 2017 Produced and distributed by ISSN: 23258381 (print) EISSN: 2325839X (online)
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is the largest American Muslim civil rights and ... more The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is the largest American Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States. Its mission is to enhance a general understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding. CAIR-California is the organization’s largest and oldest chapter, with offices in the Greater Los Angeles Area, the Sacramento Valley, San Diego and the San Francisco Bay Area. Our Vision: To be a leading advocate for justice and mutual understanding. Our Mission: To enhance understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding. For questions about this report, or to obtain copies, contact:
Council on American-Islamic Relations San Francisco Bay Area (CAIR-SFBA) 3000 Scott Blvd., Suite 101 Santa Clara, CA 95054 Tel: 408.986.9874 Fax: 408.986.9875 E-mail: info@sfba.cair.com Council on American-Islamic Relations Greater Los Angeles Area (CAIR-LA) 2180 W. Crescent Ave., Suite F Anaheim, CA 92801 Tel: 714.776.1847 Fax: 714.776.8340 E-mail: info@losangeles.cair.com Council on American-Islamic Relations Sacramento Valley (CAIR-SV) 717 K St., Suite 217 Sacramento, CA 95814 Tel: 916.441.6269 Fax: 916.441.6271 E-mail: info@sacval.cair.com Council on American-Islamic Relations San Diego (CAIR-SD) 7710 Balboa Ave., Suite 326 San Diego, CA 92111 Tel/Fax: 858.278.4547 E-mail: info@sandiego.cair.com
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From 1995 to 2009 CAIR published an annual report on the status of Muslim civil rights in the Uni... more From 1995 to 2009 CAIR published an annual report on the status of Muslim civil rights in the United States. Same Hate, New Target: Islamophobia and its Impact in the United States January 2009-December 2010, co-sponsored by the UC Berkeley Center for Race and Gender, was an expansion of the annual civil rights report intended to monitor and report on levels and acceptance of Islamophobia in the U.S. This is the second Islamophobia report. Some portions of this report have been published previously.
Introduction
At its core, the United States is a nation built on a few fundamental values. The va... more Introduction At its core, the United States is a nation built on a few fundamental values. The values of freedom of religion and basic civil liberties are enshrined in the Bill of Rights and have been upheld time and time again by the U.S. Congress and courts. A basic respect for the rights of minority groups throughout the country—whether these minorities are ethnic, religious, political, geographic, or social—are inherent in the founding principles of the United States. All Americans—progressives and conservatives alike—share these core values that have formed the backbone of an inclusive, multidimensional society for nearly 250 years. But the journey toward a more perfect union has not always been smooth. During World War II, for instance, Japanese Americans were unjustly interned because they were seen as “others.” In 1960, many opposed the election of President John F. Kennedy because they erroneously believed that his Catholic faith meant that his first loyalty would be to the Pope rather than the Constitution—and that if the two ever came in conflict, he would take orders from the Pope. More recently, American Muslims in the United States have been targeted, profiled, or seen as suspect because of their faith. In 2011, the Center for American Progress published “Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America”1 in order to identify and expose the organizations, scholars, pundits, and activists comprising a tightly linked network that spread misinformation and hateful propaganda about American Muslims and Islam. The report found that seven charitable foundations spent $42.6 million between 2001 and 2009 to support the spread of anti-Muslim rhetoric.2 The efforts of a small cadre of funders and misinformation experts were amplified by an echo chamber of the religious right, conservative media, grassroots organizations, and politicians who sought to introduce a fringe perspective on American Muslims into the public discourse.
n the three years since “Fear, Inc.” shined a light on the Islamophobia network and exposed the network’s key members, a number of them have been marginalized by the mainstream media and politicians. For example, the American Conservative Union publically reprimanded misinformation expert Frank Gaffney and made it clear that he is no longer welcome at their annual Conservative Political Action Conference.3 Conservative politicians from Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) to former presidential candidate Mitt Romney have pushed back against the “sinister accusations” of the Islamophobia network.4 And the anti-Muslim caucus in Congress took a huge hit by losing some of its loudest members, such as Reps. Allen West (R-FL) and Michele Bachmann (R-MN). Unfortunately, in both the United States and abroad, some have seized on CAP’s 2011 report as evidence to support their own negative perceptions about the United States, claiming that the United States is indeed hostile to Muslims and Islam. To be clear, the Islamophobia network that CAP identified in 2011 is not indicative of mainstream American views. In fact, the views of anti-Muslim actors stand in stark contrast to the values of most Americans. The findings of the 2011 report, as well as this report, should not be misconstrued as a sign of widespread public antipathy toward the Muslim community in the United States, although concerns remain about the rise of anti-Muslim attitudes in the United States during the past few years. Instead, these two reports reveal how a well-funded, well-organized fringe movement can push discriminatory policies against a segment of American society by intentionally spreading lies while taking advantage of moments of public anxiety and fear. We are seeing this dynamic play out yet again in the aftermath of the attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, as former elected officials and certain media commentators have used the terror attack as an opportunity to call for increased profiling of the American Muslim community. Although the first report succeeded in identifying and marginalizing many members of the Islamophobia network, a number of these misinformation experts are still able to disproportionately influence public policy in America. From hate-group leader David Yerushalmi’s impact on anti-Sharia legislation across the country to Islamophobe William Gawthrop’s influence on the FBI’s training manuals, it is clear that the well-funded and well-connected individuals within the Islamophobia network still have the ability to promote bad public policies that ultimately affect all Americans.
Islamophobia in the United States takes many shapes and forms. It takes the form of a general climate of fear and anger toward American Muslims, as seen in the “civilization jihad” narrative,6 the religious right’s rhetoric, and the biased media coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing. It comes out in cynical political efforts to capitalize on this climate of fear, as seen in state-level anti-Sharia bills introduced across the country and in far-right politicians’ grandstanding. And perhaps most dangerously, it manifests itself in institutional policies that view American Muslims as a threat, as seen in the FBI training manuals that profile Islam as a religion of violence.7 But while the Islamophobia network has launched a variety of attacks on the American Muslim community during the past several years, the general public has also been more vigilant, and both progressives and conservatives have effectively rejected many of these anti-Muslim efforts. The public pushback—from New York City to Lansing, Michigan, and from Boston to Birmingham, Alabama— has been crucial in keeping the Islamophobia network where it belongs—on the fringes of American society. And while anti-Muslim groups continue their efforts incessantly, there has been a rise in religious and interfaith groups pushing back against Islamophobia. Although the American public largely dismisses such prejudiced views, the Islamophobia network’s efforts to target American Muslim communities remain significant and continue to erode America’s core values of religious pluralism, civil rights, and social inclusion. The rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, offers the Islamophobia network a new opportunity to leverage unrelated geopolitical events in order to create a caricature of Islam, foment public anxiety, and push discriminatory policies against American Muslims. The Islamophobia network’s new effort to equate mainstream American Muslims with the perverted brand of Islam promoted by ISIS is a reminder of the ongoing vigilance needed to push back against the anti-Muslim fringe. This report examines several key elements of the Islamophobia network, including: • The civilization jihad narrative and theories of Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of the U.S. government • The Islamophobia network’s influence among the religious right and faith groups combating anti-Muslim sentiment • The impact of the Islamophobia network on law-enforcement training • The response to the Boston Marathon bombing and the narrative of Islamic extremism • Politically motivated Islamophobia and pushback by mainstream conservatives The first “Fear, Inc.” report sought to expose elements of the Islamophobia network by giving the mainstream public the information it needed to refute the claims and distortions made by the network’s misinformation experts. This report identifies the Islamophobia network’s ongoing efforts to promote policies that violate and contradict core American values and interests. The defense of these core values remains ongoing. As this report demonstrates, it only takes one individual with disproportionate influence to negatively affect the treatment of an entire group of American citizens.
Conference Schedule
8th Annual Islamophobia Conference
Islamophobia and the end of liberalism?
R... more Conference Schedule 8th Annual Islamophobia Conference Islamophobia and the end of liberalism?
Annual Islamophobia Conference Attend in person or join online via livestream
Center for Race and Gender’s Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project, University of California, Berkeley
Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies University of Leeds, UK Zaytuna College, Berkeley GTU’s Center for Islamic Studies Islamophobia Studies Journal & Re-Orient
Conference Dates: April 21-23, 2017 Location: Booth Auditorium, Boalt Hall, Berkeley School of Law, UC Berkeley
The Muslim world is in crisis, and the crisis is multi-layered. In many ways, the crisis revolves around the issue of Islamic authority. If international law recognizes nation states, what role is there for solidarity on the basis of a trans-national ummah? With national boundaries, to what extent can Muslims have solidarity with non-Muslims, whether as minorities in non-Muslim lands or in countries with a Muslim majority? Are there limits to a believer’s allegiance to a secular state? What texts are to be considered authoritative when approaching these questions? And is there one locus or multiple loci for legitimate interpretive authority? While the focus of the public discourse remains on the headlines, a much deeper epistemic debate is at hand centering on re-constituting Islamic authority in the post-Ottoman, nationalist and post-colonial periods. The complexity of this debate is muddled by a set of external circumstances that impinge into a scholar’s inner sanctum: globalization, neoliberal economics, corporatization, and commodification of knowledge, all of which challenge traditional frameworks for analysis and modes of transmission. Attempts at re-constituting Islamic authority have taken many forms but questions still remain. Indeed, we have arrived at a point where Islamic authority is limited, non-existent, sidelined, or mocked due to engagement in tangential and inconsequential debates. Where are we? Who are “we?” And where are we going?
Kolankiewicz, Marta LU
(2015) In Lund Dissertations in Sociology 109.
http://lup.lub.lu.se/recor... more Kolankiewicz, Marta LU (2015) In Lund Dissertations in Sociology 109.
Abstract This thesis is concerned with the ways in which justice is dispensed in Swedish courts in cases concerning anti-Muslim violence. Based on material accessed through the Swedish National Board for Crime Prevention and classified as Islamophobic hate crimes, the judicial treatment of cases that may involve racism is analysed. An aim is to explore how different laws against racism in the Swedish legal system, most importantly the penalty enhancement provision for crimes motivated by racism, work in practice. Through an in-depth analysis of several cases—of a mosque fire, of insulting emails and of attacks on taxi drivers—the thesis explores a particular type of silence around the possible racist nature of these acts. The main argument is that the courts’ understanding of motive, subject, language and injury, and their definition of racism, make it difficult to notice a racist dimension of these acts of violence and therefore to redress a type of harm entailed by racism. Focusing on obstacles inherent in the workings of the judiciary and in the ways truth is established, the limits of resorting to law in search of justice in cases involving racism are discussed. By bringing in a counter-example, a case in which the focus of the judgement is on the racist nature of the acts on trial, an attempt is made to expand the understanding of the judiciary and make the agency of those involved in cases, and in particular the discretion of the judges, visible. In this way, a more dynamic model of the law is proposed, in which laws, rather than being predefined in a self-contained legal system, are steadily made through acts of interpretation taking place in courts. Theoretically, the thesis is located in an intersection between sociology of racism and sociology of social justice. In particular, the question of how racism and law influence each other is explored. For one, the development of Swedish legislation against racism is analysed as embedded in particular social dynamics related to racism as shameful. These dynamics lead to the passing of progressive laws, at the same time as the existence of racism may be denied. For another, the thesis examines how acts of racist violence take on new forms to avoid the accusation of racism. Drawing on feminist and critical debates on social justice, this thesis explores the limits and potential of using law in the struggle against racism.
This is the dissertation of Dr. Maha Hilal that I recommend as a reading material and can be very... more This is the dissertation of Dr. Maha Hilal that I recommend as a reading material and can be very useful for classroom discussions on an important topic. Hopefully it will come out as a book in the future.
The new volume of the Islamophobia Studies Journal is out on JSTOR and open access to all. Downl... more The new volume of the Islamophobia Studies Journal is out on JSTOR and open access to all. Download and share widely: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.13169/islastudj.6.issue-2
Special Volume Editor’s Statement:
Comparative Approaches to the Study of Islamophobia
in Europ... more Special Volume Editor’s Statement: Comparative Approaches to the Study of Islamophobia in Europe and Beyond
Farid Hafez University of Salzburg
Comparing Islamophobia with other phenomena is nothing new. Recent scholarship in Islamophobia Studies primarily conceptualizes Islamophobia as a form of racism, especially within the Anglo-Saxon scientific community. At the same time, scholars in different areas of the world explore Islamophobia by drawing on the most popular and widest studied forms of racism, e.g. anti-Semitism in Germany, anti-Communism in the United States and anti-Black racism in Britain and the USA. This special issue of the Islamophobia Studies Journal takes a closer look at comparative research on Islamophobia. Farid Hafez starts with an article on the state of the art of contemporary comparative studies on anti-Semitism and Islamophobia and takes especially German and English literature into consideration. He concludes in presenting blind spots of both traditions and identifies fruitful future research to be done. Fatih Ünal analyzes both phenomena in their structural and dispositional similarities and differences from a social psychological perspective based on a survey with young adults from Berlin. Also Henk Dekker and Jolanda van der Noll conducted a study based on Dutch youths’ attitudes toward Islam and Muslims, and their attitudes toward Judaism and Jews. They ask to what extent Islamophobia is empirically a unique phenomenon, or that it is not funda-mentally different from negative attitudes toward other out-groups. They conclude that in order to understand individual differences in Islamophobia, one needs to consider cog-nitions and emotions targeted at Islam and Muslims specifically. Based on a comparative understanding of anti-Muslim racism in Hannover (Germany) and Vienna (Austria), Eva Kalny presents strategies of how to counter Islamophobia in the classroom. Ineke Van der Valk explores the state of the art of racism and Islamophobia Studies. She argues that unlike anti-Semitism, racism as well as Islamophobia are an under-researched field of study. She shows how academics, politics and the police struggle with social problems and concepts. Based on a case study on police practices she illustrated that the under-theorization and lack of recognition and know-how of problems related to racism and discrimination toward Muslims is not only detrimental for science, but also has undesirable practical implications. Peter O’Brien examines a form of resistance to Islamophobia in what he calls “Europhobia” (essentializing and distorting depictions of Europe [and the West] as thoroughly decadent, corrupt, and sadistic) by Islamists. With the category of “inverted othering”, he system-atically compares Islamophobic and Europhobic discourse in Europe. A theory-informed article, which discusses Islamophobia as anti-Muslim racism is presented by Fanny Uri-Müller and Benjamin Opratko. Wolfgang Aschauer presents the multidimensional nature of Islamophobia with the helo of a Mixed Method Approach to construct the Attitudes Towards Muslims Scale (ATMS). Stephanie Wright looks at the recent discourse of Islamophobes in the USA on ‘Creeping Sharia’. She analyzes these recent discourses in light of broader historical and discursive practices in the United States. Two cases are analyzed: the debates over the US Constitution in 1787-88; and anti-Mormon polemics in the mid-nineteenth century. Coskun Canan and Naika Foroutan demonstrate in their article what they call “the paradox of equal belonging of Muslims.” Adapting Axel Honneth and Ferdinand Sutterlüty’s model of normative paradox, they show how the ongoing process of social integration of Muslims produces reverse effects of disrespect. They present the first results of a representative telephone survey conducted among German citizens with more than 8,000 respondents. By using representative surveys from Germany (2005, 2007, and 2011), Marcus Eisentraut and Aribert Heyder try to examine several causes of Islamophobia. With the help of structural equation modeling, they investigate the effect of age and education on perceptions of Islam and Muslims.
Table of Contents
Editorial Statement ... more Table of Contents
Editorial Statement 7-12
Reconstructing the Muslim Self: Muhammad Iqbal, Khudi, and the Modern Self
Hasan Azad 14-28
Reading Power: Muslims in the War on Terror Discourse
Dr. Uzma Jamil 29-42
Disciplining the ‘Muslim Subject’: The Role of Security Agencies in Establishing Islamic Theology within the State’s Academia
Dr. Farid Hafez 43-57
The Islamophobic-Neoliberal-Educational Complex
Ahmed Kabel 58-75
“Ex-Muslims,” Bible Prophecy, and Islamophobia: Rhetoric and Reality in the Narratives of Walid Shoebat, Kamal Saleem, Ergun and Emir Caner
Christopher Cameron Smith 76-93
The Politics of Arab and Muslim American Identity in a Time of Crisis: The 1986 House of Representatives Hearing on Ethnically Motivated Violence Against Arab-Americans
Maxwell Leung 94-113
A Chronicle of A Disappearance
Mapping the Figure of the Muslim in Berlin’s Verfassungsschutz Reports (2002-2009)
Anna-Esther Younes 114-142
The Socio-political Context of Islamophobic Prejudices
Denise Helly and Jonathan Dubé 143-156
The Islamophobia Industry, Hate, and Its Impact on Muslim Immigrants and OIC State Development
Joseph Kaminski 157-176
July 14, 1915 - March 10, 1916
Exchange of correspondence between Sharif Hussein of Mecca and Sir... more July 14, 1915 - March 10, 1916 Exchange of correspondence between Sharif Hussein of Mecca and Sir Henry McMahon, British High Commissioner in Cairo.
Commission appointed by His Majesty's Government
in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
North... more Commission appointed by His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, with the approval of the Council of the League of Nations, to determine the rights and claims of Moslems and Jews in connection with the Western or Wailing Wall at Jerusalem
Gaza, 2014 Findings of an independent medical fact-finding mission
Jutta Bachmann
Laurel Baldwin... more Gaza, 2014 Findings of an independent medical fact-finding mission Jutta Bachmann Laurel Baldwin-Ragaven Hans Petter Hougen Jennifer Leaning Karen Kelly Önder Özkalipci Louis Reynolds Alicia Vacas
Executive Summary On 8 July 2014, Israel initiated a military offensive in the Gaza Strip. Although accounts vary, most estimates put the number of residents of Gaza killed in the 50-day armed conflict at over 2,100, of whom at least 70% were civilians, including over 500 children. Over 11,000 were wounded and over 100,000 made homeless. According to Israeli official accounts, 73 Israelis were killed: 67 soldiers and 6 civilians, including one child and one migrant worker. 469 soldiers and 255 civilians were wounded. Questions arose regarding violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in the course of the conflict. In July 2014, following discussions with Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-Israel) commissioned a fact-finding mission (hereafter ‘FFM’) to Gaza, whose aim was to gather evidence and draw preliminary conclusions regarding types, causes and patterns of injuries and attacks; attacks on medical teams and facilities; evacuation; impact of the conflict on the healthcare system; and longer-term issues including rehabilitation of the wounded, mental health, public health and displacement. PHR-Israel recruited 8 independent international medical experts, unaffiliated with Israeli or Palestinian parties involved in the conflict: four with special expertise in the fields of forensic medicine and pathology; and four experts in emergency medicine, public health, paediatrics and paediatric intensive care, and health and human rights. The FFM made three visits to the Gaza Strip between 19 August and 12 November 2014. Access and meetings were facilitated by PHR-Israel in partnership with local Palestinian non-governmental organisations: the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme (GCMHP) and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza (PCHR). 8 Meetings and site visits were held in medical facilities and in the community, and included interviews with victims, witnesses, healthcare professionals and human rights workers, officials from the Gaza Ministries of Health and Justice, and representatives of international health organisations in Gaza and the West Bank. Wherever possible, forensic, medical and other material evidence was collected to support oral testimonies. The FFM interviewed 68 hospitalised patients who had been injured in the course of the attacks, in different hospitals, most of them outside Gaza. See Appendix 1 for transcripts. Findings • The overwhelming majority of injuries causing death or requiring hospitalisation seen by the FFM were the result of explosion or crush injuries, often multiple complex injuries; • A majority of hospitalised patients interviewed reported people being injured or killed while in, or very close to, their homes or those of relatives and neighbours; • Numerous cases in which - significant numbers of casualties including members of the same family and rescuers were killed or injured in a single incident; - ‘double tap’ or multiple consecutive strikes on a single location led to multiple civilian casualties and to injuries and deaths among rescuers; - heavy explosives were used in residential neighbourhoods, resulting in multiple civilian casualties; - emergency medical evacuation was not enabled and/or in which medical teams were killed or injured in the course of evacuation of the injured (notably in Shuja’iya, Gaza City); • At least one case in which a mine-breaching explosive device (tsefa shirion) was used in a residential street in Khuza’a, Khan Younis, causing massive destruction. • At least one case, of Shuhada’ Al Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al Balah, where several people were killed and injured in what was apparently a deliberate attack on the hospital on 21 July 2014. An in-depth study of the town of Khuza’a suggests that: • A convoy of hundreds of civilians came under fire while attempting to flee the town on 23 July 2014; • A medical clinic in which civilians and injured people were sheltering after this attack was hit by missiles, causing deaths and injuries; • A seriously injured 6-year-old child was not assisted and his evacuation was obstructed despite eye contact with troops on the ground on 24 July. He later died; • Civilians in a house occupied by Israeli soldiers suffered abuse and ill-treatment including beatings, denial of food and water, and use as human shields. One was shot dead at close range. 9 In addition, the FFM examined: • The strains placed on hospitals in Gaza during the attacks; • Problems with referral and evacuation of patients from Gaza hospitals to hospitals outside; • Long-term internal displacement in Gaza as a result of the partial or total destruction of about 18,000 homes; • Long-term psychosocial and mental health damage caused by this and previous wars; • An increased need for rehabilitation services and insufficient current resources in Gaza to meet them. Conclusions • The attacks were characterised by heavy and unpredictable bombardments of civilian neighbourhoods in a manner that failed to discriminate between legitimate targets and protected populations and caused widespread destruction of homes and civilian property. Such indiscriminate attacks, by aircraft, drones, artillery, tanks and gunships, were unlikely to have been the result of decisions made by individual soldiers or commanders; they must have entailed approval from top-level decision-makers in the Israeli military and/or government. • The initiators of the attacks, despite giving some prior warnings of these attacks, failed to take the requisite precautions that would effectively enable the safe evacuation of the civilian population, including provision of safe spaces and routes. As a result, there was no guaranteed safe space in the Gaza Strip, nor were there any safe escape routes from it. • In numerous cases double or multiple consecutive strikes on a single location led to multiple civilian casualties and to injuries and deaths among rescuers. • Coordination of medical evacuation was often denied and many attacks on medical teams and facilities were reported. It is not clear whether such contravention of medical neutrality was the result of a policy established by senior decision-makers, a general permissive atmosphere leading to the flouting of norms, or the result of individual choices made on the ground during armed clashes. • In Khuza’a, the reported conduct of specific troops in the area is indicative of additional serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law. 10 Recommendations The FFM • Calls upon the UN, the EU, the US and other international actors to take steps to ensure that the governments of Israel and Egypt permit and facilitate the entry of investigative teams into Gaza, including experts in international human rights law and arms experts. This has not yet been done, months after the offensive; • Draws attention to the independence and credibility of the local Palestinian civil society groups (Al Mezan, PCHR and GCMHP), and encourages the international community to support and recognize their efforts to collate evidence in Gaza, in order to proceed with legal and/or other remedies as well as to seek justice and/ or reparations; • Believes that the prima facie evidence collected and presented in this Report should be used for the purposes of legal determination of violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, whether through local or international justice mechanisms. It is willing to assist and provide evidence to any credible investigation established for this purpose, and; • Recommends further urgent and rigorous investigation into the impact of this war, as well as the previous armed conflicts, on public health, mental health and the broader social determinants of health in Gaza. In this assessment, the implacable effects of the on-going occupation itself must be taken into account.
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Inaugural conference
States of Islamophobia (Studies)
Istanbul-Turkey
July 14-16, 2022
https://irdp.submittable.com/submit/225879/cfp-states-of-islamophobia-studies
While research over the past few decades has highlighted the various ways discrimination, racism, and bigotry have become common occurrence in the lives of Muslims as a racialized and targeted group, the need for more systematic and persistent scholarship remains urgent. In the context of the intensified levels of violence and cases of genocide directed at Muslims and the demonization of Islam as a “non-Western” religion, the the International Islamophobia Studies Research Association’s (IISRA) vision is to form the global architecture for the field of Islamophobia Studies. In the Islamic tradition, the Arabic acronym for this academic association refers to a nocturnal journey leading to knowledge and spiritual insight known as ‘Isra.’ As an interdisciplinary scholarly network, IISRA draws on this meaning in the development of a ‘global caravan’ dedicated to mobilizing academic knowledge that documents and challenges Islamophobia on a planetary scale.
The inaugural conference will be an important step toward actualizing IISRA’s mission to support the dissemination of academic research and publicly engaged scholarship on Islamophobia through academic fora that will facilitate the transnational, multidirectional flow of knowledge across academia, policy and government, media, and global civil society. By engaging in knowledge mobilization activities—such as networking, disseminating, exchanging, and supporting research-based knowledge, IISRA will provide the hub for academic leadership in the field of Islamophobia Studies.
The call for papers is an open invitation for all the co-producers of knowledge, resistance, and decolonial framing of the world to gather and discuss how to bring about the future horizons to which we all aspire. We invite papers that take stock of the “States of Islamophobia Studies” in a variety of interdisciplinary and transnational contexts.
The conference seeks papers that examine how the Muslim subject is constructed in public discourses, the distinct periods (historical or contemporary), and the regional specificity of such framings. We encourage the submission of fully-formed panels that can address the theme of the inaugural conference, either from one particular academic field or in an interdisciplinary framing.
Abstracts are limited to 300 words and a one paragraph (100 words) biography to be used for the program, if the paper is selected.
Abstracts are due by May. 31st, 2022
Response to abstracts by June 5th, 2022
Submit Abstract online
IISRA's Board
Hatem Bazian - President, USA
Salman Sayyid - Vice President, UK
Jasmin Zine - Vice President, Canada
Munir Jiwa- Secretary, USA
Saul Takahashi- Treasurer, Japan
Board Members at Large
Abdool Karim Vakil, UK
Amina Easaat-Das, UK
Rabab Abdul-Hadi, USA
Nadia Fadil, Belgium
Farid Hafez, Austria and USA
Elsadig Elsheikh, USA
Mattais Gardell, Sweden
Marwan Muhammed, France
Inaugural conference
States of Islamophobia (Studies)
Istanbul-Turkey
July 14-16, 2022
https://irdp.submittable.com/submit/225879/cfp-states-of-islamophobia-studies
While research over the past few decades has highlighted the various ways discrimination, racism, and bigotry have become common occurrence in the lives of Muslims as a racialized and targeted group, the need for more systematic and persistent scholarship remains urgent. In the context of the intensified levels of violence and cases of genocide directed at Muslims and the demonization of Islam as a “non-Western” religion, the the International Islamophobia Studies Research Association’s (IISRA) vision is to form the global architecture for the field of Islamophobia Studies. In the Islamic tradition, the Arabic acronym for this academic association refers to a nocturnal journey leading to knowledge and spiritual insight known as ‘Isra.’ As an interdisciplinary scholarly network, IISRA draws on this meaning in the development of a ‘global caravan’ dedicated to mobilizing academic knowledge that documents and challenges Islamophobia on a planetary scale.
The inaugural conference will be an important step toward actualizing IISRA’s mission to support the dissemination of academic research and publicly engaged scholarship on Islamophobia through academic fora that will facilitate the transnational, multidirectional flow of knowledge across academia, policy and government, media, and global civil society. By engaging in knowledge mobilization activities—such as networking, disseminating, exchanging, and supporting research-based knowledge, IISRA will provide the hub for academic leadership in the field of Islamophobia Studies.
The call for papers is an open invitation for all the co-producers of knowledge, resistance, and decolonial framing of the world to gather and discuss how to bring about the future horizons to which we all aspire. We invite papers that take stock of the “States of Islamophobia Studies” in a variety of interdisciplinary and transnational contexts.
The conference seeks papers that examine how the Muslim subject is constructed in public discourses, the distinct periods (historical or contemporary), and the regional specificity of such framings. We encourage the submission of fully-formed panels that can address the theme of the inaugural conference, either from one particular academic field or in an interdisciplinary framing.
Abstracts are limited to 300 words and a one paragraph (100 words) biography to be used for the program, if the paper is selected.
Abstracts are due by May. 31st, 2022
Response to abstracts by June 5th, 2022
Submit Abstract online
IISRA's Board
Hatem Bazian - President, USA
Salman Sayyid - Vice President, UK
Jasmin Zine - Vice President, Canada
Munir Jiwa- Secretary, USA
Saul Takahashi- Treasurer, Japan
Board Members at Large
Abdool Karim Vakil, UK
Amina Easaat-Das, UK
Rabab Abdul-Hadi, USA
Nadia Fadil, Belgium
Farid Hafez, Austria and USA
Elsadig Elsheikh, USA
Mattais Gardell, Sweden
Marwan Muhammed, France
Register for the Webinar: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_79CBtUtwSVynQo0zoYiTFg
Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HatemBazian/
August 20th, 2020 @6PM PST (California Time Zone)
Register: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ZDPPbG78QM21OT5Ecwb9hw
Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project (IRDP) and Islamophobia Studies Center
The 10th Annual International Islamophobia Conference
Virtual Internment
Islamophobia, Social Technologies of Surveillance and Unequal Citizenship
April 15-21, 2019
Berkeley School of Law
University of California, Berkeley
Demonizing and Otherizing Muslim in Civil Society
Summer 2017 Location: Paris, France
Dates: July 16th – 28th, 2017
Units: 3 units, Zaytuna or IRDP Certificate, 2017
Cost of Program and Options: $2800 (This does not include airfare)
Application: Apply Here
Course Description:
The 2017 Islamophobia Studies Summer Institute will focus on the French and European context in contemporary efforts to demonize and otherize Muslims in civil society. The Institute will trace the various periods and initiatives that were directed at Muslim exclusion and the political, economic, social and ideological forces that brought them to the forefront. The French Islamophobia example is pertinent in the current period and to the examination of the structural and state initiated approaches directed at Muslim otherness. The Institute likewise will approach Islamophobia with the added complexities of migration and the refugee crisis, which are used by rightwing forces to gain respectability in the mainstream. As such, using Islamophobia to transform immigration and the refugee crisis from a human phenomenon caused by war and displacement into a clash of civilization and “demographic threat” that undermine Western civilization. The Institute will utilize a dynamic mix format that includes v. Students will be introduced to the civil society and religious institutions that are responding to Islamophobia and the immediate needs of immigrants and refugees. Students will visit the Paris Grand Mosque, a location with deep significance to Muslims and the French State itself. The Grand Mosque was built by the French State as a gift to the community for its contribution in the liberation of France in WWI -some 100,000 Muslims died fighting for the Republic. The Mosque importance increased due to the role it played in WWII as Shaykh Kaddour Benghabrit, the Imam of the Mosque during the period, managed to hide “no fewer than 1,732 Resistance fighters [in]… the cellars of the mosque,” and most were Jews. In addition, Shaykh Benghabrit “took a great risk” in using the mosque to hide and rescue Jews, while managing to supply them “and the many children among them with Muslim identities” so as to escape the Nazis who were occupying France at the time. Visits to the Musée Arabe and discussion with key staff members who are responsible for key archival materials and historical collections of texts. Likewise, students will visit the Army Museum and tour WWI exhibit with a focus on Muslim and colonial troops that participated in the defense of France. Key encounters with Muslim institutions, community leaders and academics engaged in various scholarly projects including translations of classical texts.
Islamophobia is most commonly understood to be a problem that impacts adversely on Muslim minorities living in Western countries. The growing literature on Islamophobia has contributed to this understanding by focusing on the role of media in spreading of negative views about Muslims and Islam, the implication being that the problem of Islamophobia could largely be resolved by fairer media treatment. It is not clear, however, that Islamophobia is simply about how Muslims are portrayed. As recent events demonstrate, Islamophobia is implicated in the broader crisis of post-Cold War liberal order. The electoral triumph of Trump has been hailed as a clear sign that the post-Cold war liberal order is unravelling. The crisis of post-Cold War liberal order has been read in myriad of ways, including the failure of neo-liberal globalization, the fallout from the financial crisis of 2008, the advance of technology. Throughout the Western plutocracies, politicians and parties who would until recently be considered beyond the pale of political respectability are making electoral gains and reshaping the national conversation. One of the central themes of these challengers to post-Cold war settlement is the desire to 'take back their country'. Despite the variety of national and regional contexts in which these narratives of national recovery and restoration are situated, the Muslim presence looms large as an obstacle and a threat. The Muslim threat enables assertions of national security, cultural integrity and social cohesion to trump demands for diversity, liberty and equality. Islamophobia is not just about the fate of Muslims but about the possibility of an inclusive and sustainable future for all. Not only because the systems of surveillance and restriction deployed to discipline Muslims can be easily redeployed and redirected at other targets, but also because such interventions and controls threaten to reverse the gains in civil rights and multiculturalism that have to come characterize Western plutocracies in the last fifty years. There is a need for an approach to the study of Islamophobia which explores the way in which it is being institutionalized by policies that promote and police a conception of Western societies that appears to be becoming increasingly exclusive and exclusionary. This conference provides an inter-disciplinary platform to reflect and respond to the crisis of post
Present
The Imagined, Real, Embraceable, Threatening and the in-Between Muslim Subject: From the Inquisition to War on Terror and Securitization!
Call for Papers:
Submit Online
https://irdp.submittable.com/submit/150249/cfp-the-imagined-real-embraceable-threatening-and-the-in-between-muslim-subje
Co-Sponsored: Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project
University of California, Berkeley
&
Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies
University of Leeds, UK
Islamophobia Studies Journal
&
ReOrient
Graduate Theological Union Center for Islamic Studies
Haas Institute for Fair and Inclusive Society
French Submission - Islamophobie et sciences sociales : Questions contemporaines-French Site https://irdp.submittable.com/submit/144045/islamophobie-et-sciences-sociales-questions-contemporaines-french-site
Islamophobia, Social Technologies of Surveillance and Unequal Citizenship
Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project
University of California, Berkeley
&
Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies
University of Leeds, UK
Islamophobia Studies Journal
&
ReOrient
GTU’s Center for Islamic Studies
Haas Institute for Fair and Inclusive Society
Call for Papers
10th Annual International Islamophobia Conference.
Submit Online: https://irdp.submittable.com/submit/128453/virtual-internment-islamophobia-social-technologies-of-surveillance-and-unequal
Note:
Abstracts are limited to 300 words and a one paragraph (100 words) biography to be used for the program, if the paper is selected.
Abstracts are due by Jan. 30th, 2019
Response to abstracts by Feb. 15th, 2019
Final Invite by March 1st, 2019
Submit Abstract online
University of California, Berkeley
&
Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies
University of Leeds, UK
Islamophobia Studies Journal
&
ReOrient
Call for Papers
Theoretical and Pedagogical Approaches to Islamophobia Studies Field
https://irdp.submittable.com/submit/96938/5th-annual-paris-islamophobia-conference-theoretical-and-pedagogical-approaches
Paris 2017
December 9, 2016
In the past few years, Islamophobia Studies has experienced the arrival of numerous new scholars, researchers, community organizers, journalist and social media contributors to the field. The field has been enriched and challenged by this rapid expansion. Each contributor to the field has set out to provide a working definition for Islamophobia, selection of an academic and research methodology and collecting relevant data to qualify their thesis. The Islamophobia Studies field is expanding rapidly with new books and articles from an array of specialization coming out daily that even “experts” are hard pressed to keep-up with the volume. Certainly, the Brexit vote and Trump’s election in the U.S. provided impetus for many to enter into the Islamophobia Studies field with an eye toward understanding and theorizing the shifts in public sentiments that led to these two monumental results among others.
The time is right for a conference focusing on the pedagogical approaches to the Islamophobia Studies Field that can begin to critically examine existing research, explore the gaps and anchor future projects. The conference seeks contributions from all academic specializations and community based research programs that are broadly engaged in the Islamophobia Studies Field. What are the pedagogical and theoretical orientation of current ongoing research and what conceptualization are being utilized to determine and shape the intellectual production? Clearly, the Islamophobia Studies Field has publications and articles from anthropology, De-colonial Studies, critical race theory, cultural Studies, sociology, media and political science fields, comparative immigration and refugee studies, public health, security and public policy etc. However, the goal of the conference is to foster a sustained conversation on the methods, theoretical and pedagogical approaches shaping all these contributions.
October 30, 2017: A 300-word abstract and a 100 words bio in a paragraph format to be used for the program if accepted. Send the abstract to the attention of Dr. Hatem Bazian, IRDP.
November 7th: Invites for selected papers.
December 1st: Final papers are due for all participants.
Submit online:
https://irdp.submittable.com/submit/96938/5th-annual-paris-islamophobia-conference-theoretical-and-pedagogical-approaches
March 4 – 6, 2016
REVISITING AL-GHAZALI: REASON AND REVELATION
Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project
Call for Papers
Islamophobia and Eroding Civil Society
Paris 2015
December 11, 2015
IREMMO
7, rue des Carmes
Paris 75006
The January 7th terrorist attacks in France have renewed the singular focus on the Muslim subject, as the contemporary other and the site of constructing an imagined, ideal, static and ahistorical French political, social and religious identity. In this context, the attacks served to affirm Muslim otherness, difference and uncivilized characteristics while unleashing an avalanche of racist, essentialist and xenophobic attacks from all sides of the political spectrum. Rather than viewing the attacks as the work of terrorists, the political leadership opted to problematize the Muslims, as a group, and sought to institute measures to restrict political and religious expressions and narrowing the scope of civil society for French Muslims.
Furthermore, the approval of the British Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill law and the extreme measures taken in France including the detention of Muslim children into police custody for interrogation and targeting modest modes of dress has eroded the already battered edifice of civil liberties. We begin to see the descent into a "police state". Islamophobia in France is now coming out with a force not only to justify and bring votes to extreme right parties but also to justify violation of civil rights and elimination of civil liberties. This affects not only Muslim citizens but in due time all citizens are effected. We would like to explore in this conference four panels that merit a careful attention in Western Europe today:
1) The relationship between islamophobia and the erosion of citizenship rights.
2) The relationship between islamophobia and the rise of the extreme right.
3) The relationship between islamophobia and the emergence of "police state" structures.
4) The relationship between islamophobia and Muslim self-internalized otherization in the context of living as targeted minorities.
October 10th , 2015: A 300 word abstract and a short bio in a paragraph form that is no more than 100 words. Send the abstract to Dr. Hatem Bazian at hatemb@berkeley.edu
October 15th: Invited Papers will be informed
October 22nd: Response needed for accepting the invite to participate
December 1st: Papers are due for all participants.
Islamophobia: (neo)racism and systems of oppression
Montreal, 24-25 October 2015
While several analyses have highlighted discrimination, racism and aversion to Muslims as a racialized group and to Islam as a religion, there also seem to be processes of normalization and trivialisation of Islamophobia in the West. In a “war on terror” mindset and parallel to the rise of right-wing extremist, anti-immigration discourses and an increased globalisation of poverty and neoliberalism, several states have passed laws targeting and stigmatising Muslims, thus allowing an increased surveillance of citizens and of civil society. Although governments developed some of these laws in the aftermath of events such as 9-11 in the United States, the attacks on the Canadian Parliament or the Charlie Hebdo attacks in France, it is revealing to approach the study of Islamophobia by going beyond the mere fear, real or imagined, of Islam and Muslims in order to also consider the impacts of these new forms of governmentality and population management technologies that are put forth in the name of national security. Thinking of geopolitical issues, like wars in the Middle East and the privatisation of conflicts in the expropriation of energy resources, in relation to the increase of Islamophobic discourses and practices at the national and international scales leads to several questions. What possible links are there between Islamophobia’s various conditions of possibility at the global and local levels or at the historical and modern ones? How are the figures of the Muslim man, the Muslim woman and Islam constructed as enemies of the state? How do these Islamophobic discourses and practices unfold? What are the underlying systems of oppression at play? Finally, how is Islamophobia used to construct a utopic image of a free West, defender of equality and freedom?
This conference, a collaboration between the Observatoire international sur le racisme et les discriminations de l’Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM) (International Observatory on Racism and Discrimination) and the Center for Race and Gender Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project at the University of California, Berkeley, aims to be a space for reflection and exchange. The city of Montréal will host this event, since several issues related to these themes are relevant to the Quebecois and Canadian contexts. There is a richer Anglophone literature on the question of Islamophobia and although Francophone academic spaces have barely approached these questions, we would like for this event to initiate a series of gatherings on the topic. In order to do this, we suggest two lines of thinking for consideration of this theme.
1) Approaching Islamophobia through the colonial and neo-colonial matrix
Though several authors have highlighted the expansion of Islamophobia in various contemporary political contexts, much is to gain from considering this phenomenon beyond the conditions of its contemporary possibilities. Indeed, it is useful to study Islamophobia from the European expansion of the 15th century, where Western modernity, shaped by colonialism, produced several rational discourses on inferiorisation, exploitation and domination of numerous peoples and nations. We suggest questioning the impact and the relevance of this hegemony on Otherness in the Western context despite its various national trajectories. We favour a multidisciplinary approach that combines different historical, sociological and anthropological perspectives, among others, in order to reflect on the various Islamophobic discourses produced in this colonial matrix and their structural and structuring lasting effects. Ultimately, it is about considering ties between the various forms of racism deriving from this legacy, such as Islamophobia and racism towards Black people, indigenous peoples, the Roma, etc.
2) Methods of expansion of Islamophobia through different systems of oppression
Analysing Islamophobia as a racist and neoracist discourse also leads to questioning the articulation of race with other systems of oppression such as gender, sexuality, class, etc. Fostering this intersectional approach allows to identify Islamophobia’s various forms and the intertwining of power relations, in a context where Islam has often been showcased as a threat to secularism, women’s rights, sexual minorities and the nation. Reflecting on the various articulations of Islamophobic discourse, through various national contexts, allows for a better understanding of the underlying issues animating each of them. How does the recurring conflation of Muslims with Arabs and people from the Maghreb contribute to the invisibilization of other oppressed Muslims? We are looking for analyses where Muslim men and women are approached as non-homogeneous groups, varied and diverse, living with and experiencing oppression in manifold subjectivities.
Submission procedures
Proposals should be submitted as a short argument (300-500 words) in English or in French, along with a short biography (100 words maximum). Proposals must be sent before 15 August 2015, by email to islamophobia.conference.2015@gmail.com
You will receive an answer no later than September 1st 2015. The conference will be held on 24-25 October 2015.
Organizing Committee
Leïla Benhadjoudja, Université du Québec à Montréal
Hatem Bazian, University of California at Berkeley and Ramón Grosfoguel, University of California at Berkeley.
Zaytuna College Invites Scholars and Researchers to submit abstracts for the 2nd Annual Islamic Higher Education conference on April 4, 2015
Forging Islamic Authority: Navigating Text and Context in the Modern World
The Muslim world is in crisis, and the crisis is multi-layered. If international law recognizes nation states, what role is there for solidarity on the basis of a trans-national ummah? With national boundaries, to what extent are Muslims allowed to have solidarity with non-Muslims, whether as minorities in non-Muslim lands or in Muslim majority countries? Can allegiance to a secular state be absolute for a believer? What texts are to be considered authoritative when approaching these questions? And is there one locus or multiple loci for legitimate interpretive authority? While the focus remains on the headlines, a much deeper epistemic debate is at hand centering on re-constituting Islamic authority in the post Ottoman, nationalist and post-colonial periods. The complexity of the inner debate is muddled by a set of external circumstances that impinge into a scholar’s inner sanctum: globalization, neoliberal economics, corporatization, commodification of knowledge, and information technology, all of which challenge traditional frameworks for analysis and modes of transmission. Attempts at re-constituting Islamic authority have taken many forms but there remain more questions than answers. Indeed, we have arrived at a point where Islamic authority is limited, non-existent, sidelined, or mocked due to engagement in tangential and inconsequential debates. Where are we? Who are “we?” And where are we going?
Papers may engage the above theme from any perspective, including:
· Academic vs. traditional authority
· Cosmopolitanism and multi-culturalism
· Science and technology
· Institution building and citizenship
· Geopolitics, power, and economic interests
· Race & Gender
· Educational philosophy and the human person
This list is meant to be illustrative and not exhaustive. Individual papers will be combined to form thematic panels; pre-organized panels are welcome. Submit a 300 word abstract in a Microsoft word or pdf document, with a short bio to be used for publicity, to Dr. Hatem Bazian hbazian@zaytuna.org
Abstract Deadline: Feb 15, 2015
Papers are due April 1st, 2015
Note: No late abstracts will be accepted.
• the rescinding and subsequent firing of Associate Professor Steven Salaita at The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign;
• the unwarranted investigation of faculty members such as Professors Rabab Abdulhadi at San Francisco State University for undertaking constitutionally protected activities of free speech about the state and people of Palestine;
• the unfair and systematic targeting of SJP, MSA and Arab student organizations for sponsoring and organizing events for Palestinian awareness;
• promoting and funding campus groups and activities that only approach Palestine with an apolitical agenda while isolating, prosecuting and criminalizing those operating independently, critical of Israel, opt not to engage in university crafted dialogues or supporting BDS; and,
• other instances that includes the official withdrawal of university sponsorships for academic conferences; reduced funding or the cancellation of events; additional requirements beyond the normal process that involves administrative evaluations, policy reminders, speaker approvals, and security precautions.
In addition to this extraordinary institutional intervention, external organizations, on more than one occasion, have been allowed to influence, dictate, and prescribe the terms of freedom of speech through codes of civility that severely undermines the standing of Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims as an educational topic and a political campaign. The assault on free speech and academic freedom has also come disguised as civil rights complaints under Title VI directed at Department of Education funding. Lawsuits targeting the university for the specific purpose of censoring Palestine have already created a chilling effect on college campuses despite federal Judge Richard Seeborg dismissing such claims in Felber v. Yudofheld stating “[a] very substantial portion of the conduct to which [the complainants] object [i.e., speech critical of Israel] represents pure political speech and expressive conduct, in a public setting, regarding matters of public concern, which is entitled to special protection under the First Amendment.”
This conference seeks papers that analyze the academy’s role in the institutional censorship of Palestine and the methods deployed to achieve this outcome. More broadly, how censoring Palestine at the university is linked to ongoing efforts in the erosion of free speech and academic freedom due to the corporatization and militarization of institutions of higher learning is encouraged. As the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement takes hold on college campuses across the United States and Europe, how the academy responds by establishing “civility codes” directly marginalizes and criminalizes participants who happens to be not only faculty, students and staff – members of an intellectual, social, and political community – but also members exercising their right to free speech.
Please send a 300-word abstract in response to one or more of the issues highlighted above is suggested, and a short 100 words biography to the attention of Dr. Hatem Bazian:
hatemb@berkeley.edu
The abstracts are due: DECEMBER 20th, 2014.
Session 5B Criticizing Israel within the American Jewish Community
The Conference for Palestine in the US: Gaza Teaches Life!
Nov. 27-29, 2014, Hyatt Regency O'Hare The Zionist network in the United States stifles criticism
Strategy, Policy, and Review Department
Causes and Consequences of Income Inequality: A Global Perspective
Prepared by Era Dabla-Norris, Kalpana Kochhar, Frantisek Ricka, Nujin Suphaphiphat, and Evridiki Tsounta
(with contributions from Preya Sharma and Veronique Salins)1
Authorized for distribution by Siddharh Tiwari
June 2015
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
“We should measure the health of our society not at its apex, but at its base.” Andrew Jackson
Widening income inequality is the defining challenge of our time. In advanced economies, the gap between the rich and poor is at its highest level in decades. Inequality trends have been more mixed in emerging markets and developing countries (EMDCs), with some countries experiencing declining inequality, but pervasive inequities in access to education, health care, and finance remain. Not surprisingly then, the extent of inequality, its drivers, and what to do about it have become some of the most hotly debated issues by policymakers and researchers alike. Against this background, the objective of this paper is two-fold.
First, we show why policymakers need to focus on the poor and the middle class. Earlier IMF work has shown that income inequality matters for growth and its sustainability. Our analysis suggests that the income distribution itself matters for growth as well. Specifically, if the income share of the top 20 percent (the rich) increases, then GDP growth actually declines over the medium term, suggesting that the benefits do not trickle down. In contrast, an increase in the income share of the bottom 20 percent (the poor) is associated with higher GDP growth. The poor and the middle class matter the most for growth via a number of interrelated economic, social, and political channels.
Second, we investigate what explains the divergent trends in inequality developments across advanced economies and EMDCs, with a particular focus on the poor and the middle class. While most existing studies have focused on advanced countries and looked at the drivers of the Gini coefficient and the income of the rich, this study explores a more diverse group of countries and pays particular attention to the income shares of the poor and the middle class—the main engines of growth. Our analysis suggests that
Technological progress and the resulting rise in the skill premium (positives for growth and productivity) and the decline of some labor market institutions have contributed to inequality in both advanced economies and EMDCs. Globalization has played a smaller but reinforcing role. Interestingly, we find that rising skill premium is associated with widening income disparities in advanced countries, while financial deepening is associated with rising inequality in EMDCs, suggesting scope for policies that promote financial inclusion.
Policies that focus on the poor and the middle class can mitigate inequality. Irrespective of the level of economic development, better access to education and health care and well-targeted social policies, while ensuring that labor market institutions do not excessively penalize the poor, can help raise the income share for the poor and the middle class.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to tackling inequality. The nature of appropriate policies depends on the underlying drivers and country-specific policy and institutional settings. In advanced economies, policies should focus on reforms to increase human capital and skills, coupled with making tax systems more progressive. In EMDCs, ensuring financial deepening is accompanied with greater financial inclusion and creating incentives for lowering informality would be important. More generally, complementarities between growth and income equality objectives suggest that policies aimed at raising average living standards can also influence the distribution of income and ensure a more inclusive prosperity.
E-mail: ruben.durante@sciencespo.fr (corresponding author).
E-mail: ezhuravskaya@gmail.com.
Governments often take unpopular measures. To minimize the political cost of such measures policy makers may strategically time them to coincide with other newsworthy events, which distract the media and the public. We test this hypothesis using data on the recurrent Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Combining daily data on attacks on both sides of the conflict with data on the content of evening news for top U.S. TV networks, we show that Israeli attacks are more likely to be carried out when the U.S. news are expected to be dominated by important (non-Israel-related) events on the following day. In contrast, we find no evidence of strategic timing for Palestinian attacks. The timing of Israeli at- tacks that we document is suggestive of the intention to minimize next-day news coverage which, as confirmed by comprehensive video content analysis, is es- pecially charged with negative emotional content. We also find that: i) strategic timing of Israeli attacks is less relevant in period of more intense fighting, when the need to quickly retaliate reduces Israel’s capacity to time operations strate- gically; ii) strategic timing is present only for the Israeli attacks that bear risk of civilians being affected; and iii) Israeli attacks are timed to newsworthy events that are predictable.
n August 2014, a Ferguson, Missouri, policeman shot and killed an unarmed black teenager. Michael Brown’s death and the resulting protests and racial tension brought considerable attention to that town. Observers who had not been looking closely at our evolving demographic patterns were surprised to see ghetto conditions we had
come to associate with inner cities now duplicated in a formerly white suburban community: racially segregated neigh- borhoods with high poverty and unemployment, poor student achievement in overwhelmingly black schools, oppressive policing, abandoned homes, and community powerlessness.
Media accounts of how Ferguson became Ferguson have typically explained that when African Americans moved to this suburb (and others like it), “white flight” followed, abandoning the town to African Americans who were trying to escape poor schools in the city. The conventional explanation adds that African Americans moved to a few places like Ferguson, not the suburbs generally, because prejudiced real estate agents steered black homebuyers away from other white suburbs. And in any event, those other suburbs were able to preserve their almost entirely white, upper-middle- class environments by enacting zoning rules that required only expensive single family homes, the thinking goes.
No doubt, private prejudice and suburbanites’ desire for homogenous affluent environments contributed to segregation in St. Louis and other metropolitan areas. But these explanations are too partial, and too conveniently excuse public policy from responsibility. A more powerful cause of metropolitan segregation in St. Louis and nationwide has been the explicit intents of federal, state, and local governments to create racially segregated metropolises.
ECONOMIC POLICY INSTITUTE • 1333 H STREET, NW • SUITE 300, EAST TOWER • WASHINGTON, DC 20005 • 202.775.8810 • WWW.EPI.ORG
Many of these explicitly segregationist governmental actions ended in the late 20th century but continue to determine today’s racial segregation patterns. In St. Louis these governmental policies included zoning rules that classified white neighborhoods as residential and black neighborhoods as commercial or industrial; segregated public housing projects that replaced integrated low-income areas; federal subsidies for suburban development conditioned on African Amer- ican exclusion; federal and local requirements for, and enforcement of, property deeds and neighborhood agreements that prohibited resale of white-owned property to, or occupancy by, African Americans; tax favoritism for private insti- tutions that practiced segregation; municipal boundary lines designed to separate black neighborhoods from white ones and to deny necessary services to the former; real estate, insurance, and banking regulators who tolerated and sometimes required racial segregation; and urban renewal plans whose purpose was to shift black populations from central cities like St. Louis to inner-ring suburbs like Ferguson.
Governmental actions in support of a segregated labor market supplemented these racial housing policies and prevented most African Americans from acquiring the economic strength to move to middle-class communities, even if they had been permitted to do so.
White flight certainly existed, and racial prejudice was certainly behind it, but not racial prejudice alone. Government policies turned black neighborhoods into overcrowded slums and white families came to associate African Americans with slum characteristics. White homeowners then fled when African Americans moved nearby, fearing their new neigh- bors would bring slum conditions with them.
That government, not mere private prejudice, was responsible for segregating greater St. Louis was once conventional informed opinion. A federal appeals court declared 40 years ago that “segregated housing in the St. Louis metropolitan area was ... in large measure the result of deliberate racial discrimination in the housing market by the real estate indus- try and by agencies of the federal, state, and local governments.” Similar observations accurately describe every other large metropolitan area. This history, however, has now largely been forgotten.
When we blame private prejudice, suburban snobbishness, and black poverty for contemporary segregation, we not only whitewash our own history but avoid considering whether new policies might instead promote an integrated commu- nity. The federal government’s response to the Ferguson “Troubles” has been to treat the town as an isolated embarrass- ment, not a reflection of the nation in which it is embedded. The Department of Justice is investigating the killing of teenager Michael Brown and the practices of the Ferguson police department, but aside from the president’s concern that perhaps we have militarized all police forces too much, no broader inferences from the events of August 2014 are being drawn by policymakers.
The conditions that created Ferguson cannot be addressed without remedying a century of public policies that segre- gated our metropolitan landscape. Remedies are unlikely if we fail to recognize these policies and how their effects have endured.
The Structure of Knowledge in Westernized Universities
Epistemic Racism/Sexism and the Four Genocides/Epistemicides of the Long 16th Century
Ramón Grosfoguel
U.C. Berkeley
Abstract: This article is inspired by Enrique Dussel’s historical and philosophical work on Cartesian philosophy and the conquest of the Americas. It discusses the epistemic racism/sexism that is foundational to the knowledge structures of the Westernized University. The article proposes that the epistemic privilege of Western Man in Westenized Universities’ structures of knowledge, is the result of four genocides/epistemicides in the long 16th century (against Jewish and Muslim origin population in the conquest of Al-Andalus, against indigenous people in the conquest of the Americas, against Africans kidnapped and enslaved in the Americas and against women burned alive, accused of being witches in Europe). The article proposes that Dussel’s argument in the sense that the condition of possibility for the mid-17th century Cartesian “I think, therefore I am” (ego cogito) is the 150 years of “I conquer, therefor I am” (ego conquiro) is historically mediated by the genocide/epistemicide of the “I exterminate, therefore I am” (ego extermino). The ‘I exterminate’ is the socio-historical structural mediation between the idolatric ‘I think’ and the ‘I conquer.’
"THE JEWISH STATE" is published by the American Zionist Emergency Council for its constituent organizations on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the publication of "DER JUDENSTAAT" in Vienna, February 14, 1896.
The translation of "THE JEWISH STATE" based on a revised translation published by the Scopus Publishing Company was further revised by Jacob M. Alkow, editor of this book. The biography was condensed from Alex Bein's Theodor Herzl, published by the Jewish Publication Society of America. The bibliography and the chronology were prepared by the Zionist Archives and Library. To Mr. Louis Lipsky and to all of the above mentioned contributors, the American Zionist Emergency Council is deeply indebted.
"The world as we know it and interact with is a Eurocentric edifice that produces White Supremacy at every turn: from political order to economics, from identity to religion and from sports to media productions are all vested in White supremacy assigning value and worth based on it."
An in-depth interview with Dr. Hatem Bazian Chairman of American Muslims for Palestine and co-founder of Zaytuna College in the Turkish press covering a wide range of issues including torture, President Obama and pax-Americana, Ferguson and racism in the US, Islamophobia, Palestine and regional political order, violence, and Orientalist representations etc.
http://www.lacivertdergi.com/soylesi/2014/12/31/abd-yonunu-kaybetmis-bir-sekilde-ortalikta-tepinen-dev-bir-fil
https://kpfa.org/archives/
Sunday Show – August 7, 2016
SUNDAY SHOW
9am Start Time
In the first hour Andrew J. Bacevich, author of “America’s War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History”. In the second hour,Trump’s War on Islam with Hatem Bazian,lecturer in the Departments of Near Eastern, Asian American, and Asian Diaspora Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/110171
In its work to date against discrimination in Europe, Amnesty International has raised concerns about negative views and stereotypes affecting ethnic minorities such as the Roma, as well as migrants and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals. Amnesty International has helped bring to the attention of policy-makers and the public the negative impact on human rights which arise from discrimination on the grounds of ethnicity, migrant status, sexual orientation and gender identity.
The aim of this report is to focus on discrimination on grounds of religion or belief and to illustrate some of its consequences on Muslims in Europe. This report is not comprehensive and should not be read as an exhaustive analysis of all forms of discrimination experienced by Muslims. Similarly, this report, researched and compiled in the framework of broader work on discrimination in Europe, does not imply that discrimination on grounds of religion or belief exclusively affect Muslims. Indeed, this form of discrimination can have an impact on other religious groups in Europe. For instance, Christian Evangelicals in Catalonia told Amnesty International that they felt discriminated against in the exercise of their right to freedom of religion because of the barriers they experienced in establishing places of worship. Jews are also still discriminated against in Europe and violent attacks perpetrated with an anti-Semitic bias remain a matter of concern.
As the geographical scope of this research is limited to the European continent, it does not focus on religious-based discrimination experienced by other minority religious groups, including Christians, in other regions of the world.
Part 3 Immigration Crisis: The Collapse of the Post-Colonial State http://www.turkeyagenda.com/immigration-crisis-the-collapse-of-the-post-colonial-state-part-3-2417.html
John L. Esposito
Noah Feldman
M.A. Muqtedar Khan
Saba Mahmood
Bernard Haykel
Nader Hashemi
Jeremy Waldron
A. Kevin Reinhart
Mohammad Fadel
William B. Quandt
How to be shocked when we are sick and tired of being shocked, as the deaths of blacks is the daily norm and normalised in the nation's consciousness? Not guilty has been etched with knives and millions of racism's bullet holes into the nation's collective non-being ascription to African Americans.
This is further ensconced with our differentiated just-us legal system coloured by race and white supremacy. A black life is expendable, worthless and guilty for being visibly black; a mere biological material, a divine error and permanent sub-humanness.
Guilty for walking while black, guilty for being black, guilty for daring to speak, sing and dance while black, and guilty for having the audacity to want to be black. Walking, driving, working, and living as black are a dangerous and life-threatening endeavour in today's America and indeed it has always been the case for "People of Colour" since Christopher Columbus landed on these shores.
America's open casket to the world is its racism that has been institutionalised and commodified into every part of the society from the police force, political order, court system, corporate structure, media and global relations. Some are quick to point to gains made by African Americans since the civil rights movement; and, indeed we can point to these noticeable advancements including the first black president in the White House.
"While the 1948 Nakba led to the physical expulsion of some 750,000 Palestinians, it is the British occupation in 1917 followed by the Mandate that sealed Palestine's fate as the last colonial project to be commissioned. Thus, Zionism was incubated in the British colonial womb with an umbilical cord connected to Europe's settler, colonial and racist epistemology."
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/02/islamophobia-turns-deadly-150216050252972.html
"In thinking about Arian's case, one must take a broader lens and examine more closely how, under the rubric of fighting the "war on terrorism", the Justice Department and successive US administrations systematically criminalised pro-Palestine activists in the US and targeted them using selective and distorted prosecutions and grand juries."
https://iphobiacenter.org/understanding-christian-zionism/
The report on Christian Zionism is essential and timely research to unpack one key driver, among others, that contribute a distinctive form of Islamophobia that is connected to theology and religious discourses centering on Palestine. Moreover, the current strong relationship between several evangelical groups and Zionist organizations has made it possible to unleash political pressure in the US that shields Israel from accountability for its continued violations of international law. The report is intended to generate the needed conversations on how Christian evangelical groups and others play a role in preventing the actualization of peace, justice, and dignity for the Palestinians. Not to imply that this is an exclusively Christian problem; on the contrary, the Center’s future research intends to focus on the emergence of Muslim or Islamic Zionism, which articulate relations with Israel based on a distorted religious discourse that rationalizes normalizations of relations at the expense of Palestinian rights. Lastly, the report’s discussion on Christian Zionism should not distract the reader from the positive work, advocacy, and engagement with Palestinians by many churches and religious institutions in the US.
I have a section in the Countering the Islamophobia Industry: Toward More Effective Strategies, and a forward by former President Carter. Please download and share the Carter Center's manual on countering islamophobia! A very timely and urgently needed work and thanks to Houda's leadership and her team at the Carter Center that made this report into a reality!
https://www.cartercenter.org/resources/pdfs/peace/conflict_resolution/countering-isis/cr-countering-the-islamophobia-industry.pdf
Islamophobia Studies Journal
Volume 4 • Issue 1 • Fall 2017
Produced and distributed by
ISSN: 23258381 (print)
EISSN: 2325839X (online)
Our Vision: To be a leading advocate for justice and mutual understanding.
Our Mission: To enhance understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.
For questions about this report, or to obtain copies, contact:
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of Islamophobia in the U.S. This is the second Islamophobia report. Some portions of this report have been published previously.
At its core, the United States is a nation built on a few fundamental values. The values of freedom of religion and basic civil liberties are enshrined in the Bill of Rights and have been upheld time and time again by the U.S. Congress and courts. A basic respect for the rights of minority groups throughout the country—whether these minorities are ethnic, religious, political, geographic, or social—are inherent in the founding principles of the United States. All Americans—progressives and conservatives alike—share these core values that have formed the backbone of an inclusive, multidimensional society for nearly 250 years.
But the journey toward a more perfect union has not always been smooth. During World War II, for instance, Japanese Americans were unjustly interned because they were seen as “others.” In 1960, many opposed the election of President John F. Kennedy because they erroneously believed that his Catholic faith meant that his first loyalty would be to the Pope rather than the Constitution—and that if the two ever came in conflict, he would take orders from the Pope.
More recently, American Muslims in the United States have been targeted, profiled, or seen as suspect because of their faith.
In 2011, the Center for American Progress published “Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America”1 in order to identify and expose the organizations, scholars, pundits, and activists comprising a tightly linked network that spread misinformation and hateful propaganda about American Muslims and Islam. The report found that seven charitable foundations spent $42.6 million between 2001 and 2009 to support the spread of anti-Muslim rhetoric.2 The efforts of a small cadre of funders and misinformation experts were amplified by an echo chamber of the religious right, conservative media, grassroots organizations, and politicians who sought to introduce a fringe perspective on American Muslims into the public discourse.
n the three years since “Fear, Inc.” shined a light on the Islamophobia network and exposed the network’s key members, a number of them have been marginalized by the mainstream media and politicians. For example, the American Conservative Union publically reprimanded misinformation expert Frank Gaffney and made it clear that he is no longer welcome at their annual Conservative Political Action Conference.3 Conservative politicians from Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) to former presidential candidate Mitt Romney have pushed back against the “sinister accusations” of the Islamophobia network.4 And the anti-Muslim caucus in Congress took a huge hit by losing some of its loudest members, such as Reps. Allen West (R-FL) and Michele Bachmann (R-MN).
Unfortunately, in both the United States and abroad, some have seized on CAP’s 2011 report as evidence to support their own negative perceptions about the United States, claiming that the United States is indeed hostile to Muslims and Islam. To be clear, the Islamophobia network that CAP identified in 2011 is not indicative of mainstream American views. In fact, the views of anti-Muslim actors stand in stark contrast to the values of most Americans. The findings of the 2011 report, as well as this report, should not be misconstrued as a sign of widespread public antipathy toward the Muslim community in the United States, although concerns remain about the rise of anti-Muslim attitudes in the United States during the past few years. Instead, these two reports reveal how a well-funded, well-organized fringe movement can push discriminatory policies against a segment of American society by intentionally spreading lies while taking advantage of moments of public anxiety and fear. We are seeing this dynamic play out yet again in the aftermath of the attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, as former elected officials and certain media commentators have used the terror attack as an opportunity to call for increased profiling of the American Muslim community.
Although the first report succeeded in identifying and marginalizing many members of the Islamophobia network, a number of these misinformation experts are still able to disproportionately influence public policy in America. From hate-group leader David Yerushalmi’s impact on anti-Sharia legislation across the country to Islamophobe William Gawthrop’s influence on the FBI’s training manuals, it is clear that the well-funded and well-connected individuals within the Islamophobia network still have the ability to promote bad public policies that ultimately affect all Americans.
Islamophobia in the United States takes many shapes and forms. It takes the form of a general climate of fear and anger toward American Muslims, as seen in the “civilization jihad” narrative,6 the religious right’s rhetoric, and the biased media coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing. It comes out in cynical political efforts to capitalize on this climate of fear, as seen in state-level anti-Sharia bills introduced across the country and in far-right politicians’ grandstanding. And perhaps most dangerously, it manifests itself in institutional policies that view American Muslims as a threat, as seen in the FBI training manuals that profile Islam as a religion of violence.7
But while the Islamophobia network has launched a variety of attacks on the American Muslim community during the past several years, the general public has also been more vigilant, and both progressives and conservatives have effectively rejected many of these anti-Muslim efforts. The public pushback—from New York City to Lansing, Michigan, and from Boston to Birmingham, Alabama— has been crucial in keeping the Islamophobia network where it belongs—on the fringes of American society. And while anti-Muslim groups continue their efforts incessantly, there has been a rise in religious and interfaith groups pushing back against Islamophobia.
Although the American public largely dismisses such prejudiced views, the Islamophobia network’s efforts to target American Muslim communities remain significant and continue to erode America’s core values of religious pluralism, civil rights, and social inclusion. The rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, offers the Islamophobia network a new opportunity to leverage unrelated geopolitical events in order to create a caricature of Islam, foment public anxiety, and push discriminatory policies against American Muslims. The Islamophobia network’s new effort to equate mainstream American Muslims with the perverted brand of Islam promoted by ISIS is a reminder of the ongoing vigilance needed to push back against the anti-Muslim fringe.
This report examines several key elements of the Islamophobia network, including:
• The civilization jihad narrative and theories of Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of the U.S. government
• The Islamophobia network’s influence among the religious right and faith groups combating anti-Muslim sentiment
• The impact of the Islamophobia network on law-enforcement training
• The response to the Boston Marathon bombing and the narrative of Islamic extremism
• Politically motivated Islamophobia and pushback by mainstream conservatives
The first “Fear, Inc.” report sought to expose elements of the Islamophobia network by giving the mainstream public the information it needed to refute the claims and distortions made by the network’s misinformation experts. This report identifies the Islamophobia network’s ongoing efforts to promote policies that violate and contradict core American values and interests. The defense of these core values remains ongoing. As this report demonstrates, it only takes one individual with disproportionate influence to negatively affect the treatment of an entire group of American citizens.
8th Annual Islamophobia Conference
Islamophobia and the end of liberalism?
Register for Livestream
https://irdproject.com/islamophobiaconf/islamophobiaconf-rsvp/
Annual Islamophobia Conference
Attend in person or join online via livestream
Center for Race and Gender’s Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project, University of California, Berkeley
Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies
University of Leeds, UK
Zaytuna College, Berkeley
GTU’s Center for Islamic Studies
Islamophobia Studies Journal & Re-Orient
Conference Dates: April 21-23, 2017
Location: Booth Auditorium, Boalt Hall, Berkeley School of Law, UC Berkeley
http://zaytunacollege.org/event/2nd_annual_conference_on_higher_education
The Muslim world is in crisis, and the crisis is multi-layered. In many ways, the crisis revolves around the issue of Islamic authority. If international law recognizes nation states, what role is there for solidarity on the basis of a trans-national ummah? With national boundaries, to what extent can Muslims have solidarity with non-Muslims, whether as minorities in non-Muslim lands or in countries with a Muslim majority? Are there limits to a believer’s allegiance to a secular state? What texts are to be considered authoritative when approaching these questions? And is there one locus or multiple loci for legitimate interpretive authority? While the focus of the public discourse remains on the headlines, a much deeper epistemic debate is at hand centering on re-constituting Islamic authority in the post-Ottoman, nationalist and post-colonial periods. The complexity of this debate is muddled by a set of external circumstances that impinge into a scholar’s inner sanctum: globalization, neoliberal economics, corporatization, and commodification of knowledge, all of which challenge traditional frameworks for analysis and modes of transmission. Attempts at re-constituting Islamic authority have taken many forms but questions still remain. Indeed, we have arrived at a point where Islamic authority is limited, non-existent, sidelined, or mocked due to engagement in tangential and inconsequential debates. Where are we? Who are “we?” And where are we going?
(2015) In Lund Dissertations in Sociology 109.
http://lup.lub.lu.se/record/5154882
Abstract
This thesis is concerned with the ways in which justice is dispensed in Swedish courts in cases concerning anti-Muslim violence. Based on material accessed through the Swedish National Board for Crime Prevention and classified as Islamophobic hate crimes, the judicial treatment of cases that may involve racism is analysed. An aim is to explore how different laws against racism in the Swedish legal system, most importantly the penalty enhancement provision for crimes motivated by racism, work in practice.
Through an in-depth analysis of several cases—of a mosque fire, of insulting emails and of attacks on taxi drivers—the thesis explores a particular type of silence around the possible racist nature of these acts. The main argument is that the courts’ understanding of motive, subject, language and injury, and their definition of racism, make it difficult to notice a racist dimension of these acts of violence and therefore to redress a type of harm entailed by racism. Focusing on obstacles inherent in the workings of the judiciary and in the ways truth is established, the limits of resorting to law in search of justice in cases involving racism are discussed. By bringing in a counter-example, a case in which the focus of the judgement is on the racist nature of the acts on trial, an attempt is made to expand the understanding of the judiciary and make the agency of those involved in cases, and in particular the discretion of the judges, visible. In this way, a more dynamic model of the law is proposed, in which laws, rather than being predefined in a self-contained legal system, are steadily made through acts of interpretation taking place in courts.
Theoretically, the thesis is located in an intersection between sociology of racism and sociology of social justice. In particular, the question of how racism and law influence each other is explored. For one, the development of Swedish legislation against racism is analysed as embedded in particular social dynamics related to racism as shameful. These dynamics lead to the passing of progressive laws, at the same time as the existence of racism may be denied. For another, the thesis examines how acts of racist violence take on new forms to avoid the accusation of racism. Drawing on feminist and critical debates on social justice, this thesis explores the limits and potential of using law in the struggle against racism.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.13169/islastudj.6.issue-2
Comparative Approaches to the Study of Islamophobia
in Europe and Beyond
Farid Hafez
University of Salzburg
Comparing Islamophobia with other phenomena is nothing new. Recent scholarship in Islamophobia Studies primarily conceptualizes Islamophobia as a form of racism, especially within the Anglo-Saxon scientific community. At the same time, scholars in different areas of the world explore Islamophobia by drawing on the most popular and widest studied forms of racism, e.g. anti-Semitism in Germany, anti-Communism in the United States and anti-Black racism in Britain and the USA.
This special issue of the Islamophobia Studies Journal takes a closer look at comparative research on Islamophobia. Farid Hafez starts with an article on the state of the art of contemporary comparative studies on anti-Semitism and Islamophobia and takes especially German and English literature into consideration. He concludes in presenting blind spots of both traditions and identifies fruitful future research to be done. Fatih Ünal analyzes both phenomena in their structural and dispositional similarities and differences from a social psychological perspective based on a survey with young adults from Berlin. Also Henk Dekker and Jolanda van der Noll conducted a study based on Dutch youths’ attitudes toward Islam and Muslims, and their attitudes toward Judaism and Jews. They ask to what extent Islamophobia is empirically a unique phenomenon, or that it is not funda-mentally different from negative attitudes toward other out-groups. They conclude that in order to understand individual differences in Islamophobia, one needs to consider cog-nitions and emotions targeted at Islam and Muslims specifically. Based on a comparative understanding of anti-Muslim racism in Hannover (Germany) and Vienna (Austria), Eva Kalny presents strategies of how to counter Islamophobia in the classroom. Ineke Van der Valk explores the state of the art of racism and Islamophobia Studies. She argues that unlike anti-Semitism, racism as well as Islamophobia are an under-researched field of study. She shows how academics, politics and the police struggle with social problems and concepts. Based on a case study on police practices she illustrated that the under-theorization and lack of recognition and know-how of problems related to racism and discrimination toward Muslims is not only detrimental for science, but also has undesirable practical implications. Peter O’Brien examines a form of resistance to Islamophobia in what he calls “Europhobia” (essentializing and distorting depictions of Europe [and the West] as thoroughly decadent, corrupt, and sadistic) by Islamists. With the category of “inverted othering”, he system-atically compares Islamophobic and Europhobic discourse in Europe.
A theory-informed article, which discusses Islamophobia as anti-Muslim racism is presented by Fanny Uri-Müller and Benjamin Opratko. Wolfgang Aschauer presents the multidimensional nature of Islamophobia with the helo of a Mixed Method Approach to construct the Attitudes Towards Muslims Scale (ATMS). Stephanie Wright looks at the recent discourse of Islamophobes in the USA on ‘Creeping Sharia’. She analyzes these recent discourses in light of broader historical and discursive practices in the United States. Two cases are analyzed: the debates over the US Constitution in 1787-88; and anti-Mormon polemics in the mid-nineteenth century. Coskun Canan and Naika Foroutan demonstrate in their article what they call “the paradox of equal belonging of Muslims.” Adapting Axel Honneth and Ferdinand Sutterlüty’s model of normative paradox, they show how the ongoing process of social integration of Muslims produces reverse effects of disrespect. They present the first results of a representative telephone survey conducted among German citizens with more than 8,000 respondents. By using representative surveys from Germany (2005, 2007, and 2011), Marcus Eisentraut and Aribert Heyder try to examine several causes of Islamophobia. With the help of structural equation modeling, they investigate the effect of age and education on perceptions of Islam and Muslims.
Editorial Statement 7-12
Reconstructing the Muslim Self: Muhammad Iqbal, Khudi, and the Modern Self
Hasan Azad 14-28
Reading Power: Muslims in the War on Terror Discourse
Dr. Uzma Jamil 29-42
Disciplining the ‘Muslim Subject’: The Role of Security Agencies in Establishing Islamic Theology within the State’s Academia
Dr. Farid Hafez 43-57
The Islamophobic-Neoliberal-Educational Complex
Ahmed Kabel 58-75
“Ex-Muslims,” Bible Prophecy, and Islamophobia: Rhetoric and Reality in the Narratives of Walid Shoebat, Kamal Saleem, Ergun and Emir Caner
Christopher Cameron Smith 76-93
The Politics of Arab and Muslim American Identity in a Time of Crisis: The 1986 House of Representatives Hearing on Ethnically Motivated Violence Against Arab-Americans
Maxwell Leung 94-113
A Chronicle of A Disappearance
Mapping the Figure of the Muslim in Berlin’s Verfassungsschutz Reports (2002-2009)
Anna-Esther Younes 114-142
The Socio-political Context of Islamophobic Prejudices
Denise Helly and Jonathan Dubé 143-156
The Islamophobia Industry, Hate, and Its Impact on Muslim Immigrants and OIC State Development
Joseph Kaminski 157-176
Exchange of correspondence between Sharif Hussein of Mecca and Sir Henry McMahon, British High Commissioner in Cairo.
in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Northern Ireland, with the approval of the Council
of the League of Nations, to determine the rights
and claims of Moslems and Jews in connection with
the Western or Wailing Wall at Jerusalem
Jutta Bachmann
Laurel Baldwin-Ragaven
Hans Petter Hougen
Jennifer Leaning
Karen Kelly
Önder Özkalipci
Louis Reynolds
Alicia Vacas
Executive Summary
On 8 July 2014, Israel initiated a military offensive in the Gaza Strip. Although accounts vary, most estimates put the number of residents of Gaza killed in the 50-day armed conflict at over 2,100, of whom at least 70% were civilians, including over 500 children. Over 11,000 were wounded and over 100,000 made homeless. According to Israeli official accounts, 73 Israelis were killed: 67 soldiers and 6 civilians, including one child and one migrant worker. 469 soldiers and 255 civilians were wounded.
Questions arose regarding violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in the course of the conflict. In July 2014, following discussions with Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-Israel) commissioned a fact-finding mission (hereafter ‘FFM’) to Gaza, whose aim was to gather evidence and draw preliminary conclusions regarding types, causes and patterns of injuries and attacks; attacks on medical teams and facilities; evacuation; impact of the conflict on the healthcare system; and longer-term issues including rehabilitation of the wounded, mental health, public health and displacement.
PHR-Israel recruited 8 independent international medical experts, unaffiliated with Israeli or Palestinian parties involved in the conflict: four with special expertise in the fields of forensic medicine and pathology; and four experts in emergency medicine, public health, paediatrics and paediatric intensive care, and health and human rights.
The FFM made three visits to the Gaza Strip between 19 August and 12 November 2014. Access and meetings were facilitated by PHR-Israel in partnership with local Palestinian non-governmental organisations: the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme (GCMHP) and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza (PCHR).
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Meetings and site visits were held in medical facilities and in the community, and included interviews with victims, witnesses, healthcare professionals and human rights workers, officials from the Gaza Ministries of Health and Justice, and representatives of international health organisations in Gaza and the West Bank. Wherever possible, forensic, medical and other material evidence was collected to support oral testimonies.
The FFM interviewed 68 hospitalised patients who had been injured in the course of the attacks, in different hospitals, most of them outside Gaza. See Appendix 1 for transcripts.
Findings
• The overwhelming majority of injuries causing death or requiring hospitalisation seen by the FFM were the result of explosion or crush injuries, often multiple complex injuries;
• A majority of hospitalised patients interviewed reported people being injured or killed while in, or very close to, their homes or those of relatives and neighbours;
• Numerous cases in which
- significant numbers of casualties including members of the same family and
rescuers were killed or injured in a single incident;
- ‘double tap’ or multiple consecutive strikes on a single location led to multiple
civilian casualties and to injuries and deaths among rescuers;
- heavy explosives were used in residential neighbourhoods, resulting in multiple
civilian casualties;
- emergency medical evacuation was not enabled and/or in which medical
teams were killed or injured in the course of evacuation of the injured (notably
in Shuja’iya, Gaza City);
• At least one case in which a mine-breaching explosive device (tsefa shirion) was
used in a residential street in Khuza’a, Khan Younis, causing massive destruction.
• At least one case, of Shuhada’ Al Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al Balah, where several people were killed and injured in what was apparently a deliberate attack on the
hospital on 21 July 2014.
An in-depth study of the town of Khuza’a suggests that:
• A convoy of hundreds of civilians came under fire while attempting to flee the
town on 23 July 2014;
• A medical clinic in which civilians and injured people were sheltering after this
attack was hit by missiles, causing deaths and injuries;
• A seriously injured 6-year-old child was not assisted and his evacuation was
obstructed despite eye contact with troops on the ground on 24 July. He later died;
• Civilians in a house occupied by Israeli soldiers suffered abuse and ill-treatment including beatings, denial of food and water, and use as human shields. One was
shot dead at close range.
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In addition, the FFM examined:
• The strains placed on hospitals in Gaza during the attacks;
• Problems with referral and evacuation of patients from Gaza hospitals to
hospitals outside;
• Long-term internal displacement in Gaza as a result of the partial or total
destruction of about 18,000 homes;
• Long-term psychosocial and mental health damage caused by this and previous
wars;
• An increased need for rehabilitation services and insufficient current resources
in Gaza to meet them.
Conclusions
• The attacks were characterised by heavy and unpredictable bombardments of civilian neighbourhoods in a manner that failed to discriminate between legitimate targets and protected populations and caused widespread destruction of homes and civilian property. Such indiscriminate attacks, by aircraft, drones, artillery, tanks and gunships, were unlikely to have been the result of decisions made by individual soldiers or commanders; they must have entailed approval from top-level decision-makers in the Israeli military and/or government.
• The initiators of the attacks, despite giving some prior warnings of these attacks, failed to take the requisite precautions that would effectively enable the safe evacuation of the civilian population, including provision of safe spaces and routes. As a result, there was no guaranteed safe space in the Gaza Strip, nor were there any safe escape routes from it.
• In numerous cases double or multiple consecutive strikes on a single location led to multiple civilian casualties and to injuries and deaths among rescuers.
• Coordination of medical evacuation was often denied and many attacks on medical teams and facilities were reported. It is not clear whether such contravention of medical neutrality was the result of a policy established by senior decision-makers, a general permissive atmosphere leading to the flouting of norms, or the result of individual choices made on the ground during armed clashes.
• In Khuza’a, the reported conduct of specific troops in the area is indicative of additional serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law.
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Recommendations
The FFM
• Calls upon the UN, the EU, the US and other international actors to take steps to
ensure that the governments of Israel and Egypt permit and facilitate the entry of investigative teams into Gaza, including experts in international human rights law and arms experts. This has not yet been done, months after the offensive;
• Draws attention to the independence and credibility of the local Palestinian civil society groups (Al Mezan, PCHR and GCMHP), and encourages the international community to support and recognize their efforts to collate evidence in Gaza, in order to proceed with legal and/or other remedies as well as to seek justice and/ or reparations;
• Believes that the prima facie evidence collected and presented in this Report should be used for the purposes of legal determination of violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, whether through local or international justice mechanisms. It is willing to assist and provide evidence to any credible investigation established for this purpose, and;
• Recommends further urgent and rigorous investigation into the impact of this war, as well as the previous armed conflicts, on public health, mental health and the broader social determinants of health in Gaza. In this assessment, the implacable effects of the on-going occupation itself must be taken into account.