How Muslims Became Corn

Uzma Jamil Uzma Jamil

doi:10.13169/reorient.2.2.0175

Abstract

Over the past 16 years, the global “war on terror” has expanded in scope, ranging from US-led military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, domestic counter-terrorism and counter-radicalization legislation, and mass surveillance of Muslim communities to the “Muslim ban” on citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the US. This expansion in scope has normalized the idea of Muslims as threats to and within Western societies. This article analyzes this process of securitization, how Muslims are constructed as terrorists, and threats to national security, through a discussion of three books that illustrate how violence, politics, and state power are intricately related in the production of the “war on terror.” It advances a critique of the relationship between state power and the construction of knowledge about Muslims as terrorists, whether in the US government-supported counter-radicalization industry or in the documentation of Muslim experiences as prisoners in Guantanamo Bay's prison. Last, this article discusses Muslim agency and the position of racialized scholars in the “war on terror” as a question of authority and scholarship. It notes the gap between those whose voices are legitimized as “experts” on “explaining Muslims” in ways that conform to accepted assumptions about Muslims as threats, and the voices and experiences of racialized scholars whose expertise is considered not “objective” enough.

Highlights

Over the past 16 years, the global “war on terror” has expanded in scope, ranging from US-led military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, domestic counter-terrorism and counter-radicalization legislation, and mass surveillance of Muslim communities to the “Muslim ban” on citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the US
ReOrient 2.2 Produced and distributed by Pluto Journals. This Mauritanian folk tale illustrates a darkly humorous understanding of how the securitization of Muslims works within the global context of the ongoing “war on terror.”
Siems points out that this book is “a lens on an empire with a scope and impact few of us who live inside it fully understand” (Slahi 2015: xlix). Both this book and the political critique in Kundnani’s book call for the domestic and global violence of the American state to be acknowledged as part of the war on terror

Summary

The War on Terror in America

There is a rapidly growing literature in the past 16 years of what can be called “post 9/11 Islamophobia studies” in the US which focus on the impact of the war on terror context for Muslims in that country. Peter Neumann states that “radicalization” came to be the term used to explain the association between Muslims and terrorism after 9/11, “what goes on before the bomb goes off” (Kundnani 2014: 116) This usage arose as a political move that supported the American government’s interests in shaping the war on terror. To go back to the rooster and corn story, Kundnani illustrates how the counterradicalization industry supports what the rooster has already decided is corn It demonstrates the alignment of government interests and actions in shaping the war on terror discourse.

The War on Terror at Guantanamo

Conclusion