Books such as The Arab Mind authored by anthropologist Raphael Patai, and used by the Pentagon as a comprehensive source of information about Arabs/Muslims, depict ‘Muslimness’ as an ontological and inescapable way of existing. In the logic of orientalists like Patai (and the neo-conservatives who read his book ‘like a bible’ ), ‘Islam the culture’ is passed on and inherited, from generation to generation, impervious to change and essentially inferior. This racial conception of culture, codified in pseudo-biological terms, produces the ‘Muslim’ as a racial category.
Once "Muslim" becomes a "race", you can then go on to make sweeping generalizations about Muslims as a whole regardless of class, culture, education, or even level of observance. The move also tends to justify profiling as well as the oxymoronic construction of "secular Muslim".
"pretty sneaky, Sis"
1 comment:
virtually EVERY ideology, belief system, way of life seeks to explicitly or implicitly spread itself... whether you are talking about Christianity, Zionism, secular Western liberalism, the Republicans, the Democrats, Mary Kay cosmetics etc.
The problems which exist in the Muslim world aren't due to the religion Islam but are fairly common in Third World countries with similar economic and political situations.
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