Islamophobia In The American Left: A Book Report (Pt. 2 of 2)

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10/19/09 09:51 PM | 24 comments | 820 views

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By BirchBricker

... As a fair-skinned Arab Christian and not incidentally a professor of English, Salaita has a level of social invisibility and access that often grants him a front row seat to the peculiarities of white liberal rhetoric. He writes with grim wit of attending a faculty function for "distinguished" (read: rich) alumni which was - with the notable exception of himself, a single African American colleague who left quickly, and a four person catering staff - wholly white. As the evening progressed a conversation about Evangelical preacher Jerry Falwell culminated with the suggestion, heartily seconded by laughing liberals, that the best way to neutralize the conservative pundit would be if he were discovered in a hotel room "with a black boy". In other words, for the white liberals who wished to end Falwell's career, on balance the sexual molestation of a child of color seemed an acceptable price to pay. This logic depends on an "understanding of the theoretical boy as not quite human, but doubly objectified, first by a predatory fantasy Falwell and second by the cocktail-sipping liberals willing to use him to silence the infamous preacher."

Salaita succeeds brilliantly at deconstructing the hypocrisy of such scenes, making clear that liberal politics are no guarantor of empathy. He writes, "Most white liberals have a remarkably difficult time identifying with the subjects of their sympathy". Salaita argues this difficulty is "especially acute when the subjects are Arabs or Muslims, whose lived experiences are so often disregarded in favor of racist caricature". However, to insist that Arabs and Muslims are more complex than their barbarous stereotype suggests is to become "uncultured" in Salaita's terms, a victim of white liberal sanctimony. And the key difference between neoconservative anti-Arab and Muslim hatred and its liberal parallel is that the former is openly hateful, while the latter maintains "a compassionate pose while reinforcing damaging stereotypes."

In one of the most affecting essays in this collection, "I was called up to commit genocide," Salaita affirms his identity as a Palestinian Christian to disrupt the claim to authority of Christian Zionists who cite biblical justification for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. However, he is conscious "of the trap inherent in using Christian identity to advocate for Palestine, namely the risk of further defamiliarizing the majority of Arab Muslim voices in the West". If the impression of legitimacy that Arab Christians convey in the West is based on familiarity, "then that is not the same thing as actual legitimacy", especially when it depends on the continued suppression of Muslim voices. "This conundrum, in which the simple act of describing oneself in religious and/or cultural terms becomes complicated because of the powerful perceptions of those outside the community, is a quintessentially Middle Eastern problem". Salaita writes, "with Arabs this problem is acute because we exist in political colloquy as characters, never narrators ... [But] we too deserve the courtesy of telling our own cultural and historical stories"

The Uncultured Wars is a worthy contribution to a tradition of works by Arab American essayists, a distinguished company that includes Joseph Massad, Elmaz Abinder, Diana Abu-Jaber, Edward Said and others. Its theme is timely, as the shift to the left that swept Obama into office has rendered less tangible benefits than were originally hoped for. "The Obama Administration has resisted calls to prosecute the members of the previous administration for war crimes, backpedalled on closing Guantanamo Bay and instead proposed its own system of "preventive detentions," escalated war in Afghanistan and, of course, remains as blindly committed to Israel as George W. Bush ever was."

In other words, in material terms the overwhelming victory of American liberalism has not effected much change for Arab and Muslim Americans. "While it is too early to make any definitive judgments about this presidency it is clear that situating Arab and Muslim American concerns between the right and left does not offer the clear-cut results one might assume". With this book, Steven Salaita offers a corrective and a warning about the capacity of white liberal altruism "to victimize, especially when its intent is to affirm the superiority of its own worldview."

(Thanks to Joseph Shahadi - for inspiration)

Islam, Israel, Liberalism, Islamophibia, Steven Salaita, Orientalism and Islamophobia in the American left, Arabs, Evangelicals, Arab Christians

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On 10/20/09 at 05:42 AM, Yosemite_Sam wrote:

"... the overwhelming victory of American liberalism ...."

Liberalism has not won in America.

If Obama had run openly on his true agenda, he would have lost. This despite the horrible choice Republicans gave us.

The United States is a conservative nation with a lot of political power on the left. Both parties are led by their left wings, but they must make promises to their right wings to get elected. Americans do not want or like big government, but big government keeps giving them liberals to run against each other.

When was the last time a true conservative Republican was elected president? Ronald Reagan. Bush claimed to be a conservative (a compaaaaaasssionate conservative) and won because the Democrats put up their most liberal players (Gore, Kerry).

A true conservative (small government, states rights, lower taxes, national defense) would easily win. Unfortunately, neither party has one.