Arab Culture Professor and Islamophobia

I have been carrying around with me an interesting article I tore out of May 24's Independent Florida Alligator. The article, written by Michael Sykes, is titled "Arab culture professor discusses fear of Muslims". And the first word in the article is "Islamophobia".

Stephen Sheehi is the University of South Carolina professor of Arabic and Arab culture who paid a visit to Gainesville's politically far-left Civic Media Center to speak and discuss this issue. So what is Islamophobia, anyway?

According to Sheehi, it is "an irrational fear or hatred of Islam and Muslims, one of the inherent racist tropes in America."

So with this one statement I could see the speaker's own inherent bias: when speaking about America per se (as opposed to other places), racism is inherent. But how about all of those wonderful Muslim countries out there? How tolerant are they of other religions? Not very. As a matter of fact, going by the horrible sectarian conflicts going on in several of them, they aren't even very tolerant of their fellow Muslims.

Sheehan went on, "Racism is the classic American way to divide and conquer. It is a linchpin in our society, unfortunately". Generally speaking, I sadly have to agree with him on this, but only in the broader sense of prejudice (not just racism). I see politicians all the time catering to prejudicial views about people of different demographic groups, be it "race", religion, gender, sexual preference, or nationality. Every presidential election sees conservatives place on the ballots in closely contested states referenda that would restrict gay rights, with the aim of motivating "their" voters to rush to the ballots (and vote for their presidential candidate as well). There is, I believe, some pandering to bigotry concerning undocumented Mexican immigrants, although the issue is much more complex. And look at the fuss some are making at GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney's Mormon faith! But perhaps the most glaring example of what I see as prejudicial anti-Islamic sentiment is last year's widespread public objection to the so-called "ground zero" Muslim center to be built in Lower Manhattan, with some politicians jumping in to fan the flames of anger.

So yes, there is prejudice in America. But Sheehi is full of it if he thinks that prejudice is just an American fault: it permeates all of humanity. I would respect this man more were he to balance out his criticisms of our society with criticisms of the bigotry and intolerance festering within Islamic nations. For it is from that pool of bigotry that the terrorists have emerged who are responsible in large part for generating Islamophobia in America, Sheehi's high, holy, and smug opinions notwithstanding.

Another objection I had to Sheehi's argument was his categorizing prejudice against Islam in America as being racial in nature. Oh, I wasn't aware that there was such a thing as a Muslim race. Chinese Muslims are Chinese, Russian Muslims are Russian, Bosnian Muslims are Bosnian, Indonesian Muslims are Indonesian, Arab Muslims are Arab, and so on. Where is the race in that? No, I'll tell Professor Smug what I think the three main causes of anti-Islamic sentiment in this country are:

1) Terrorism. People don't want to die and they are afraid of other people committing violent acts in the name of Islam, duh. Acts like, for example, hijacking jets and flying them into buildings! No, terrorists may commit atrocities in the name of a faith but that doesn't make the faith itself culpable, so the negative reaction, while understandable, is still irrational and needs to be resisted. But this fear isn't racial in nature.

2) The predominant religion here is Christianity, a faith that largely sees itself as exclusive and in competition with Islam for adherents. Christians and Muslims typically see each other as being in error and on the wrong side of God with their beliefs. Like it or not, this creates the phenomenon in a country, where Christianity is the prevailing religion, of widespread disapproval of a competing, aggressively-spreading faith like Islam which, like Christianity, puts a lot of stock in increasing its number. So the "phobia" here isn't racist, but religious in nature. And Muslims who object need to take an honest look at countries where Islam is the established faith and see just how tolerant these places are to competing faiths.

3) Finally, there is a basic trait of being human that tends to insulate a group/tribe/clan/society against others who would change (or appear to change) that group's ideology and traditions, or establish a sense of authority from the outside. Call it the "invading horde syndrome" if you will and maybe there is a dose of racism involved. But it isn't all race and it isn't all American, either. All of humanity displays this behavior.

So sure, people need to be more accepting of practicing Muslims in this country. And by the same token, Muslims need to be more accepting of practicing non-Muslims in other lands. Anti-Islamic sentiment is NOT primarily racial in nature and America is NOT a singularly racist nation as opposed to all of the others. Racism exists, to be sure, but those from other lands need to also display some honesty in examining how this problem festers in their original homelands as well and not go around acting as if they are "above it all". They're not.