A Foucauldian Theory of American Islamophobia

Abstract

In the weeks immediately following the events of September 11th, 2001, the United States found way to unite itself through the widespread use and display of American flags, and in common rhetoric and statements such as fights back and the War on Terror. Yet, this construction of contextually-American form of nationalism, had, at its core, set of membership requirements (Anderson 1983), which were suddenly not open to Muslims or those of Arab and South Asian descent. For Americans of these ethnic and religious backgrounds, this membership exclusion led to a reign of domestic terror that targeted Muslim Americans and those who appeared Muslim [which] inaugurated twenty-first century racial (Rana 2013: 325). Muslims, formerly identified by religious affiliation, became racialized, and anti-Muslim racism became the norm.With the emergence of ISIS and the radical Islam-related terrorist incidents around the world, as well as recent discussion about allowing Syrian refugees safe haven in the United States, Muslim Americans find themselves once again in the cross-hairs of nation obsessed with searching for answers and someone to blame. Yet the anti-Muslim rhetoric that has gripped the United States over the last few months seems altogether different from that of 2001. It has sprouted from an environment that, over the last few years, has become increasingly toxic to Islam in the United States and views Muslims unable to assimilate into American culture.I argue that the premise behind American anti-Muslim sentiment is rooted in two of Michel Foucault's concepts - as outlined in History of Sexuality, Vol. 1 (1978) (and its expansion by Agamben (1998) with his theory of homo sacer), and as outlined in The Subject and Power (Foucault 1982). This paper is divided in two halves. In the first, I argue that American nationalism is articulated in unique way, particularly through Foucault's (1982) concept of power. In conjunction with an imagined American nationhood (Anderson 1983), it has created state that is often viewed as secular, but is quite Christian ideologically and structurally. Drawing on Gole (1996), I surmise that the Western of confession, an extension of pastoral power, is incompatible with Islam - or at least is viewed as such. I also build on Said (1978) and Smith (1978) to argue that the current racism and intolerance towards Muslims may be viewed as part of larger scheme of othering.In the second half, I use the preceding section to lay the groundwork for my main argument towards new understanding of Foucault's (1990) biopower in the context of the sovereign and its ability to designate who is sacred, la Agamben (1998). I suggest that new evaluation of Agamben (1998) should be undertaken to account for the renewed racialization of and discrimination towards American Muslims and that Foucault's (1978) process of subjectivation has resulted in the difficult position of Muslims, who are allowed to exist in the juridical order, but are at the whim of the sovereign to their exclusion. This has created situation, for Asad (2003), where Muslims are simultaneously chastised for not being louder in the public sphere, but are also unable to speak because their voices are muted, and political arena bombarded with debates of good versus bad religion, and Muslims inevitably positioned in the latter (Sullivan 2014).Towards New Understanding of American Political CultureThe political culture of the United States has long been topic of interest for citizens, as well as visitors, who have sought to theorize why America has particular culture, and how that culture engenders certain behaviors and institutions. In the current anti-Muslim climate in the United States, it is helpful to theorize how the United States' identity came into being in order to set the stage for discussion of where Islam fits into that identity. …