Manufacturing
Islamophobia
By Ram Puniyani
21 February, 2007
Countercurrents.org
A
friend's son Murali, a bright engineer, was studying in US. Murali is
amongst the commonest of names amongst Hindus. This word Murali stands
for flute, the musical instrument of Lord Krishna, which acted as a
big lure for Gopikas (daughters of milkman) to fall in love with the
Lord. But my friend's son Murali had a different fate. The US security
agencies thought this is a name in disguise for a Muslim called Moor
Ali, and the rest was the usual harassment meted out to the Muslim youth,
resulting in Murali, returning to his home town, swearing at the US
security agencies and all else concerned notwithstanding.
Post 9/11 the demonization
of Muslims has gone several notches up. As such the demonization of
Islam, Islam being presented as the new threat coincided; on one hand
with the decline of Soviet states, and on the other with the coming
to power of Ayatollah Khomeini, who succeeded in coming to power on
the crest of the revolution which threw away the US stooge, Raza Shah
Pehlavi. US was making merry with the Shah, who in turn was installed
after the overthrow of democratically elected Mossadeq. Incidentally
Mosaddeq to the great annoyance of US interests, nationalized Iran oil,
and so was overthrow by a coup engineered by US agencies. The phenomenon
overlapped in time to pave the way for US media and other propaganda
mechanisms to project 'Islam as the new threat', the earlier threat
as per the US was Communism. This propaganda picked up by and by and
today, God forbid, if you have a Muslim sounding name or face or any
other characteristic, the 'security' hounds will get for themselves
enough work to show their prowess. The average person on the street
will think twice before shaking hands with you, the lurking fear being
that you may be carrying some bomb hidden on your body somewhere.
Immediately after 9/11 2001
a Sikh was murdered in US, as the killer took him to be a Muslim. In
many a European countries, the Muslims have faced intense intimidation,
which is going up lately. The situation has gone to the extent that
even the state governments have to wake up now if they want harmonious
sailing of their affairs. Starting from innocuous looking jokes against
Muslims, the matters have gone to the extent that a full fledged attempt
is on to project Islam as the religion preaching hate and violence and
Muslims as the intolerant fanatics. Every other person will tell you
as to how Islam preaches to kill the Kafirs, How Jihad is an integral
part of Islamic teaching and as to how Jihadis are mere Islamic soldiers.
Here in India there is a long list of charges against Muslims, starting
from the misconceptions about Muslim Kings breaking temples to humiliate
Hindu religion to every Muslim having four wives twenty children to
every
terrorist being a Muslim. As such of course, whatever be the underlying
cause of these misconceptions, currently there had been enough number
of incidents in which Muslims have been involved in such acts, to give
a pretext to the political forces benefiting from this, to give bad
name to the whole Muslim community.
To add to the problem, here
in India, this Islamophobia, and fear of Muslims has come on the top
of ongoing RSS project of spreading Hate against Muslims which has been
in operation since last more than seven decades. The interesting point
is that a numerical majority has been indoctrinated to believe that
this minority is a threat to them. The US propaganda and RSS designs
match to a great extent. This outfit has been spreading hate against
Muslims using the distorted view of history and lopsided presentation
of their current social life. This propaganda succeeds as an average
person will not exercise her critical faculties at every juncture when
seeing the content of what is beamed on the tube of idiot box or what
one keeps reading in print over and over again. As such Gobbles did
grasp this mechanism to the hilt and could create the phobia against
Jews, as a prelude to the genocide launched by his mentor, Adolf Hitler.
Even today one is not interested in the historical content of the use
of word Jihad or Kafir, or one has nothing to do with the fact that
no religious community can be uniform. But this phobia against the minorities
has a serious political role to play. It forms the ground on which violence
stands. Which in turn ghettoizes the community, intimidates its large
chunk and its political rights are taken away despite the formal operation
of democracies.
Culture as a disguise for
religion; is shown to be at odds with the culture of others. Power stalks
in the apparel of religion or culture. While this phobia plays it role
in legitimizing the aggression against some countries or the carnage
launched against them, it in turn also creates a society with deep fractures
along the religious lines. The phobia directed outside also turns inside,
to create scare amongst the more powerful sections within the community
itself. Most of the retrograde processes are bidirectional. Hate outside
creates intimidation inside. Creation of phobia against the outsider,
the increase in insecurity within.
Even if we grant that the
communities such targeted will become used to a new rhythm of survival
under stress and fear, the bigger question is; can democracy survive
in such states/ communities? While the political goals and purposes
of imperialist powers on one hand and social elite on the other are
well served in such an atmosphere, surely the progress of society is
the victim on the altar of atmosphere of phobia against others. In this
political scenario it is no coincidence that the sectarian understanding
of communities thrives. One such sectarian nationalism was propounded
by RSS chief, Golwalkar (We, or our Nation hood defined), where he asserts
that Indians are basically Hindus, so others have not to be given equal
citizenship. This proposition put forward in 1938, has made a strong
social and political impact during last two decades. On similar lines,
one does not know if there is an inspirational connection, the current
US ideologue Samuel Huntington, in 'Who are we?' argues that US is essentially
Anglo Saxon and others are a threat to the American ethos. While Golwalkar
is the local sectarian ideologue Huntington is currently playing the
similar divisive tunes at global level. The similarity between these
two ideologues is striking on one hand and the coincidence of the latter
coming precisely in the decades of nineties with Hindutva, Gowalkars
ideology, picking up nineties, is not just coincidental.
The maters have gone too
far. The targeted hate against the Muslims, the construction of phobia
against Islam has crossed the threshold. While it served the US to attack
many a countries for the sake of oil wealth, while it has helped the
Hindu right to appropriate the social privileges, at the same time it
has played and more so now than anytime before; is playing a counterproductive
role to those states/societies and communities themselves. The schism
between communities is acting on the nerves of democracies and weakening
them as the process of societal development is getting retarded. It
surely will have the impact on weaker sections of society and also will
affect the economies worldwide. Humane values have taken a back seat
during this period. This era of dark sectarianism needs to be overcome
as soon as possible. The rise of right wing, rise of religious right
at various places is a warning to the democracies and the progressive
liberal elements all over the World that if this Islamophobia is not
checked, the acts of terrorism will continue. The reality in the World
is standing on the head many a times; though it seems currently as if
terrorism is due to violence inherent in Islam and Muslims, the fact
is that it is the political lust of vested interests that Islam is demonized.
We need to work on intercommunity
relations, on spreading the words of harmony and peace, to look at religions
as a set of moral values and not just a set of rituals or identities.
We need to have the humane spirit prevail over the machinations of the
interests of those out to grab the global and local resources for their
own selves.