The Abuse
of Islam in Political Rhetoric
By Dr Ali Khan
Washburn University School of Law
Kansas
It is becoming fashionable
for elected officials in the Anglo-American world,
notably in the United States and the United Kingdom,
to employ abusive language involving Islam. Phrases
such as "Islamic terrorism," "totalitarian
Islam," "crimes of Islam," and
"Islamic fascism" are freely used, with
sadist disrespect, to condemn real and imagined
terrorists who practice the faith of Islam.
For years, and long before the 9/11 attacks, neo-conservative
scholarship has been determined to popularize
the concept of the essentialist terrorist [PDF]
who purportedly draws his deepest inspiration
from the puritanical beliefs of Islam and equipped
with cruelty, commits violence against innocent
Jews and Christians. According to this, occupations,
invasions, territorial thefts, assassinations,
house demolitions, human rights violations, and
other such grievances have nothing to do with
Islamic resistance. Islamic terrorism, according
to neo-conservative scholarship, stems from the
Sharia, from passages of the Qur’an, and
from a puritanical mindset that manufactures pretexts
to maim and kill. These killers, it is further
contended, wish to impose Islamic law over the
entire world.
Gradually but successfully, the propagandized
essentialist terrorist and the attendant abusive
language against Islam have entered political
rhetoric. Presidents, prime ministers, congressmen,
senators, and other officials are now freely using
abusive language to malign Islam, not through
uncaught moments of Freudian slips but as a policy
of expressive audacity.
Commenting on the alleged plan of British nationals
of Pakistani descent to blow up US-bound planes
over the Atlantic, President Bush said: "This
is a stark reminder that this nation is at war
with Islamic fascists." Senator Rick Santorum
distinguishes between terrorism and Islamic fascism,
arguing that terrorism is a tactic but what the
West is fighting is “Islamic fascism”
which is “truly evil” and which is
“as big a threat today as Nazism and communism.”
This new trend to openly curse Islam echoes the
words of UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, who said:
"We should not be apologetic or defensive
in defining the problems of terrorism."
One wonders why elected officials in supposedly
democratic nations, which tout the principles
of equal respect and dignity for all, use abusive
language to wound the sentiments of more than
a billion people across the world. Several explanations
come to mind.
First, the abusive language may be described as
an effect of an over-generalization. Suppose that
Muslim militants indeed wish to impose Islam on
the Anglo-American world, a supposition that even
the militants would ridicule as blatant propaganda
to infuriate domestic audiences. Though mounted
on a questionable supposition, the label is accurate
to the extent that the use of violence to forcibly
modify the values of a foreign nation is indeed
fascism - a definition that, ironically, would
also paint President Bush as an American fascist
for his forcible democratization of Afghanistan
and Iraq. Even if President Bush were declared
a fascist, it would be wrong to describe his foreign
policy as American fascism because that is tantamount
to over- as well as mis-generalization.
Islamic fascism as a descriptive label also fails
to capture the limited meaning of describing militants
who are supposedly fascists. The label comes across
as a prescriptive indictment, suggesting that
Islam is intolerant, violent, and aggressively
self-righteous in imposing its values on non-Islamic
cultures. If Anglo-American politicians are using
the label in this broad sense, and thus accusing
Islam and not merely the militants, they should
say so. If they are using the label in a limited
sense and do not wish to antagonize the entire
Muslim world or malign the faith of Islam, they
must abandon the label. The label of Islamic fascism
even in a limited sense is not an intelligent
use of the language, for it is susceptible to
multiple interpretations. Its use in the broad
sense is highly provocative and counterproductive
to the war on terrorism. It foolishly alienates
all Muslims.
Second, there might be a democratic argument for
politicians using abusive language involving Islam.
But no American politician would describe pedophilia
scandals in some Catholic churches as Catholic
pedophilia. Such an over-generalization would
be politically unwise because no prudent politician
would want to lose Catholic money and votes. Likewise,
no politician would use abusive language against
Jews or Judaism for fear of alienating that community,
not to mention the American-Israel Public Affairs
Committee (AIPAC), which keeps a close tab on
what American politicians are saying and doing.
Because American Muslims do not have loads of
money, lobbying clout, or votes, however, they
constitute a minority that can be easily sacrificed
and trashed. If this is the reason behind abusive
rhetoric against Islam, however, it reveals a
sad truth about democracy in general and American
democracy in particular which has had a tainted
record when it comes to the abusive treatment
of minorities including native Indians, Blacks,
and others.
Third, there seems to exist an unexamined assumption
in American political circles that Islam is a
foreign religion, an outsider, the other. Politicians
who use abusive language against Islam do not
see Islam as part of American multi-religious
fabric. Despite their enchantment with secularism,
they still see this nation as Christian, perhaps
Judeo-Christian, ignoring the fact that millions
of Muslims, immigrants and native born, now live
in all states of the United States. Hundreds of
mosques in America, though under surveillance,
furnish indelible signs that Islam has arrived
in this country, not to forcibly convert anyone
but to enrich American culture, diversity, history,
architecture, sciences, and, yes, laws. Let American
politicians greet Islam and Muslims with Assalaam
ulaikum (peace be upon you) if for no other reason
than to remind them that their religion is one
of peace and not of violence.
(Ali Khan is a professor at Washburn University
School of Law in Kansas. Courtesy Jurist)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
