Fear of Islam: a study

The Center for American Progress has just released an extensive report, Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America, detailing the “funders, organizations, and individuals who have contributed to the discourse on Islamophobia in this country. ” As the mapping of the money trail shows, the network created with these millions of dollars works to churn up the “exaggerated fear, hatred, and hostility toward Islam and Muslims” that is the very definition of Islamophobia.

Manufacturing fear is downright dangerous for the body politic of a country. This point has been made shockingly evident in the murderous rampage of right-wing Norwegian extremist, Anders Breivik, whose so-called “Manifesto” cited the purveyors of well-funded Islamophobia in the U.S. who are profiled in this report; Brevik cited some literally dozens of times. The CAP report quotes former CIA officer and terrorism consultant Marc Sageman, who argued that “’just as religious extremism is the infrastructure from which Al Qaeda emerged,’ the writings of these anti-Muslim misinformation experts are ‘the infrastructure from which Breivik emerged.’” Sageman adds that their rhetoric “is not cost-free.”

The cost of feeding fear is very high. One cost is to our physical safety. Keeping our country safe requires the cooperation, not the unfair demonization, of Muslim communities, who, working with law enforcement have been very helpful in preventing terrorism before it even starts. Thus, the industry of Islamophobia actually accomplishes the opposite of what its purveyors claim to want, a United States protected from violent extremism.

I want to highlight another cost, however. There is the cost of the spiritual danger that comes to a people from scapegoating a particular group, whether that group is defined by their race, their sexual orientation, or in this case, by their religion. There is a moral pollution that follows from creating a rabid insider/outsider mentality and stirring up unwarranted fears. This is the process by which some individuals or groups deliberately break the bonds of humanity, denying the fundamental relationship that defines us as human together. Acknowledging that others are human beings and worthy of respect for that reason alone is the foundation of morality and ethics. De-humanizing others is the complete opposition of that, and it undermines every other ethical effort we can make. We are tempted to give in to irrational fear, and that makes us think hateful thoughts and even sometimes do hateful things because we are taken over by the spirit of fear.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/post/fear-of-islam-a-study/2011/08/30/gIQAqkBhpJ_blog.html