History of anti-arab, anti-muslim sentiment

[Karl Marx's Camel]

The wave of anti-arab, anti-muslim, anti-Islam sentiment that we see today, how long has it lasted?

Was the right wingers equally fanatic about the "threat of Islam" in say, the 90's? Or did this occur on September 11, 2001?

[Fawkes]

It has existed for as long as Christians and Muslims have interacted with each other (think Crusades). It was relatively strong prior to 9/11 because of all of Israel's wars with Arab countries, but 9/11 definitely blew the doors wide open and it became much more acceptable to be an Islamophobe.

[chimx]

The crusades were military campaigns launched against the Seljuk Turks, who were culturally more related to Persians than Arabs. Along with recapturing the Holy Land from 'em, a lot of the campaigns were to defend the Eastern Byzantine Empire from the Turkish expansion into their territory.

Actually some of the crusades were more diplomatic negotiations than military campaigns. Some kings, instead of sending armies down, just went and talked to the Turks and requested that Christians have the right to pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Those agreements worked for a time, until hostilities arose again due to land disputes.

Popular western anti-Arab sentiments can probably be traced back to the end of WWI, after the Ottoman empire backed Germany and was defeated. Britain occupied the area for a time, known as the Palestine Mandate. Their policy of wavering back and forth between favoring Jewish immigrants and Palestinian immigrants really only conflated the whole situation. This would come to a head following the end of WWII, when Jewish immigration exploded in Palestine and hostilities reached a breaking point. This would lead directly to the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Israel won because it was better equipped militarily.

edit add:


Was the right wingers equally fanatic about the "threat of Islam" in say, the 90's?

Well probably not as fanatic, because this was the first time an attack hit America proper. But if you'll recall, during the Clinton administration, Bin Laden claimed to blow up numerous American Embassy's. And of course hostilities extended well before that. The Iranian hostage situation of 1980 (Persian Muslims, not Arab Muslims), the 1967 six-days war, etc. etc.

[Brownfist]

I would recommend reading Edward Said's classic "Orientalism" in which he traces racist stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims through the centuries through the key texts of Western civilization, whether it be Dante's Inferno or Proust. The current atmosphere of anti-arab and anti-Muslim sentiment comes out of this much more discursive literature. In fact Edward Said later wrote another book on the very question of Islam entitled, "Covering Islam". There has been much study of the anti-arab and anti-muslim sentiment in North America and it is centuries old. Indeed there is something that we could call American Orientalism, and there are a number of academic works on this very particular form of orientalism as well.

[Morag]

Word to chimx. Also, to point to the Crusades as Christians against Muslims ignores the fact that, once the Crusading states were established, they just as often worked with the Muslims against the Byzantines and the other Crusader states then they worked with other Christian states against the Muslims. And, for the most part the Crusader states were fairly tolerant to Muslims within their states- there was a lot of violence in the beginning, but once things became settled, Muslims had a normal life under Christian rulers, just as, for the most part, Christians had a fairly normal life under Muslim rulers. There isn't a lot of Muslim evidence to this, because the bourgeoise Muslims who had the opportunity to read and write were resettled into the countryside and the level of literacy dropped immediately. However, foreign Muslims who travelled through Jerusalem, Tripoli and Antioch (can't say for Edessa) seemed to think the Muslims there were too comfortable and weren't interested in rising up.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 07, 2007 08:18 am
The wave of anti-arab, anti-muslim, anti-Islam sentiment that we see today, how long has it lasted?

Was the right wingers equally fanatic about the "threat of Islam" in say, the 90's? Or did this occur on September 11, 2001?
Clearly it increased after 9/11. It was also evident during the first Gulf War. At least in the U.S.

As far as the U.S., it seems especially to increase when the U.S. is at war with or in a majority-Muslim country. Part of the good ol' fashioned dehumanization of the enemy, "gooks" and so forth.

I think it's probably different in European countries that have much larger Arab and Muslim populations; it's a more domestic thing.

[Brownfist]

What is fascinating is the accounts of early American puritans and their missions to the Middle east in which they often demonstrated a very distinct American orientalism, which till today is very active in American anti-Arab anti-Muslim discourse. This can be definitely seen in pre-2001 literature and politics as well, for example National Geographic, and the "Arab terrorist" in Western cinema. I think that people need to recognize that the anti-Arab anti-Muslim sentiment in America is not a new thing but rather is the product of hundreds of years of writing and representation, history, and politics. Good books that have dealt with this issue include: Holly Edwards (ed), Noble Dreams, Wicked Pleasures: Orientalism in America, 1870-1930, Douglas Little, American Orientalism and of course books by Edward Said including Covering Islam and Culture and Imperialism.

The current anti-Arab anti-Muslim sentiment has taken a more virulent form in recent years due to the 9/11 attacks, however, it would be a complete historical misnomer to see this as the beginning of these sentiments. One can see how this has pervaded American politics in relationship to OPEC, the 1967 war and so forth.

[Morag]

Was the right wingers equally fanatic about the "threat of Islam" in say, the 90's? Or did this occur on September 11, 2001?


Something to read would be S. Huntingdon's Clash of Civilizations, if you haven't already. Written after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Huntingdon (an american), suggests that the next global war wouldn't be based on nations, but civilizations, and goes through which civilizations pose the most threat to America. He, in the early 90s, pin-pointed Arabic civilization, although he might have called it Islamic civilization... Can't recall. It was hugely influential at the time, much like Fukiyama's End of History was.

Clash of Civilizations (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/clashofcivilizations.htm).