Playing the Race Card, Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and Immigration

We all know those cartoons and drawings from Nazi Germany, and how they depicted the Jewish people, often offensive and shocking. What about how the U.S. depicted the Japanese, most specifically in one superman cartoon where our hero of the red white and blue wailed on the ‘evil japs’. We see how these images shaped nations and aided in the victimization of those people groups. In the U.S. we had little problem rounding up ‘the evil japs’ and placing them in concentration camps or as we would like to say in an effort to distance ourselves from Nazi Germany ‘internment camps’. We saw the mass slaughter and holocaust prejudice fuelled by this media aided in Nazi Germany.

How does Anti-Semitism compare to Islamophobia?

Given the growing distrust of Muslims as the “other” and the conclusion that anti-Muslim hostility is itself found normal, the publication of the Jyllands-Posten cartoons in recent weeks can no longer be dismissed as mere experiments in libertarian freedom of speech and censorship.

The cartoons were not borne in a vacuum.

Earlier political cartoons of Jews and Christians had been rejected on the grounds they would be deemed offensive. No such considerations were appropriated to the Jyllands-Posten cartoons.

Furthermore, in April 2005, Danish Queen Margrethe told a biographer, “We are being challenged by Islam these years. Globally as well as locally … We must take this challenge seriously. We have simply left it flapping around for far too long, because we are tolerant and rather lazy.”

The cartoons depicted the “challenge,” if not danger, of a terrorist Muhammad. Could such a depiction have been totally unaffected by social conditions (encouraged by Queen Margrethe) existing in Danish society?

The recent Jyllands-Posten cartoon depicting a bearded Prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban is suspiciously similar to the Der Satan cartoon.

Both Muhammad, a Muslim, and the Der Stürmer Jew are bearded. Both wear religious head gear, and both are depicted as icons of evil in contemporary society.

In the 20th and 21st centuries, Muslim communities in non-Islamic countries have come to fear the very pogroms which targeted the Jews in 1930s Europe.

For example, as shown above, Pogromnacht came about when a German diplomat was killed by a Jew. The stage had been set with repeated anti-Jewish commentary in German media.

In the days following the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, who directed a film many Muslims found offensive, by an Arab immigrant in 2004, attacks against Muslims soared in the Netherlands. Just as in Nazi Germany, the stage here had also been set by repeated anti-Islamic commentary in the media.

Just as synagogues were burned during Pogromnacht, mosques and Islamic schools in Rotterdam, Breda, Huizen, Utrecht, and Eindhoven were attacked, vandalized, and in some cases set ablaze.

Read more: http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&pagename=Zone-English-Muslim_Affairs%2FMAELayout&cid=1156077845030#1#ixzz0xjj3K2Wx

I look at how these prejudices shaped nations and helped to paint people with a broad stroke as evil or less than desirable.  They were seen as incompatible with the dominant culture and a threat to the dominant culture, or the Aryan race. The rhetoric of how the Jew was the ‘inciter of war’ is much how the current perspective is of Islam being the religion of war against our culture.  The trend of anti-Muslim media and speech from the characters and cartoons being drawn, to the general discussion on Islam in the U.S. has gone in a similar direction. They tend to paint Islam as evil and a threat against the current culture.

Joseph Goebbels used radio to reach an audience for Hitler and the Nazi party much like the current anti-Muslim movement does now with modern talk radio and Fox news. Many right wing groups have also taken another move out of the Joseph Goebbels playbook with the movement of anti-Islam book burning by churches in Florida. We are entering into dangerous territory.

Just as the preservation of the Aryan race was a focus, today self proclaimed culturalists such as John Kenneth are emerging. Much of  the same sentiments are being preached by the Glenn Becks and Rush Limbaughs. The ideas are ones that extol the virtues and accomplishments of their own culture while demonizing others. These people do not turn the same critical eye on their culture that they do with others. They also do not acknowledge positives of other cultures.  This outlook creates a dangerous environment where the mention of any other people group with opposing views or cultures is automatically shut down with vague generalizations and attacks. It leads to hypocritical claims that often condemn the other for similar iniquities within their own group. When one speaks out against these egocentric views the defense is often that you are ‘playing the race card’.  This is done in reaction to anyone mentioning issues of culture or race as if to notice such differences is offensive to the egocentrism they cling to.

The disdain of others is not limited to the Muslim but it also extends to the Migrant. We see immigrant detention centers all over the country that are not a far cry from the concentration camps. The laws of the United States are the side of culturalism.

By stating that they are not ‘racist’ the most dangerous groups have found refuge in painting these people groups in broad strokes as evil by stating that certain actions and beliefs are not legal or accepted they have found a way to victimize people. If the prejudice is outside of the ‘racism’ category they feel it is justified. Did the Jim Crow laws not choose to target other aspects of a race to oppress a race? How is this any different? The bigot will begin by painting all people with broad strokes as ‘evil’ ‘unlawful’ or ‘dangerous’. This stands as their defense. It is this prejudice that they build the utilitarian stance they take against people. These groups feel if they renounce ‘racism’ that their prejudices and bigotry is justified as seen in much of their rhetoric and writing.

By ignoring the existence of Islamophobia (as much a socio-political phenomenon as anti-Semitism) fear and ignorance of Islam continues to grow.

In its 2004 annual report The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) found “certain groups of persons, notably Arabs, Jews, Muslims, certain asylum seekers, refugees and immigrants, and certain visible minorities have become particularly vulnerable to racism and racial discrimination across many fields of public life.”

ECRI also said that Islamophobia was on the rise in Europe:

Islamophobia continues to manifest itself in different guises. Muslim communities are the target of negative attitudes, and sometimes, violence and harassment. They suffer multiple forms of discrimination, including sometimes from certain public institutions. ECRI is worried about the current climate of hostility against persons who are or are believed to be Muslim.

There is, indeed, a cultural divide as ECRI points out: “One of the new faces of racism today is “cultural” racism. According to this notion of racism, cultures are pre-defined entities, largely seen as homogenous, unchangeable and, more importantly, incompatible with each other.”

Read more: http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&pagename=Zone-English-Muslim_Affairs%2FMAELayout&cid=1156077845030#1#ixzz0xjhlGjql

We are not headed in the same direction as Nazi Germany, we are there and have been there. The bigot screams they are not a bigot and then chooses to blame people groups they oppose for either the thought crimes of their religion or the crimes of their poverty.

Could we be facing another holocaust?

If the conditions which led to the Holocaust exist now as they did then, is it far-fetched to consider that Muslims in Europe could face a similar outcome?

While a Holocaust against Muslims may seem far-fetched, the rhetoric against the Islamic world has increased significantly in recent months. There is no means of predicting how violent a backlash against Muslims will be if another Von Gogh is killed, or another crime on the scale of 9/11 is committed.

The phrase du jour is that Muslims simply cannot accept Western ideals. By such presumed predisposition, Muslims are rendered outcasts, or in Adolf Hitler’s terms, untermenschen.

So popular was anti-Semitism that Hitler would expound himself as a proud anti-Semite. “Gradually I began to hate them. For me this was the time of the greatest spiritual upheaval I have ever gone through. I have ceased to be a weak-kneed cosmopolitan and have become an anti-Semite” (Adoph Hitler’s Mein Kampf).

Jews around the world hold remembrance ceremonies of the Holocaust and say “never again.”

As violent demonstrations against the cartoons continue to rage in a few Muslim countries, it becomes incumbent upon Muslim and non-Muslim leaders to carefully face the great cultural gap that divides them.

First and foremost, Islamophobia needs to be recognized as an existing and imminent racial threat to cultural cohesion. By the same token, Muslims need to carefully ponder how actions within their communities are perceived by those who may not be knowledgeable of their cultures and norms.

Violence must be rejected outright, whether that includes the burning of a mosque in Holland or an embassy in Libya.

If wiser minds do not prevail, Europe may soon find itself repeating the horrors of the past.

Read more: http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&pagename=Zone-English-Muslim_Affairs%2FMAELayout&cid=1156077845030#1#ixzz0xjhDkYuO