Thread by @CKDagli

Muslim analysis of Islamophobia has been completely overtaken by race theory. The discourse from our side is racism, racism, racism as *the* explantation for anti-Muslim hostility. This tunnel vision is going to hurt us in the long run. Racism is only one factor among several.

We've become exceedingly good at identifying the mechanics of Islamophobia: the funders, activists, media, politicians. But then we gesture at that huge complex machine and say, "Racism!" or "Hate!" You have to know the motives, not just the mechanics.

All the major reports on Islamophobia do the same thing: they detail the workings of network but when it comes to its motives they just say it's the right-wing; or it's conservatives; or it's racists; it's hate.

We've made progress. We used to only know the manifestations of Islamophobia (e.g. ugly tropes in the media) but now we've become sophisticated about *how* it works. But we're not yet as sophisticated about *why* it works. What motives drive these people?

For example, can the theory that Islamophobia is just a form of racism explain the absence of a Hinduphobia network funded by hundreds of millions of dollars? Or a Confucianophobia network?

One needs other motives in addition to racism to explain the improbable cast of characters who regularly team up and cooperate to whip up hostility against Muslims.

Among the studies I think @nathanlean's does the most to take the multi-factor motives seriously. Most others focus on the mechanisms and overtheorize the racial motives

@nathanlean It's precisely because people with different motivations often cooperate against Muslims that it's hard to pinpoint what the driver is. The network is complex. But within that complexity it's possible to discern a finite number of motives.

@nathanlean Yes, people are hostile to Muslims because 1) Muslims aren't considered white, but representing Muslims as uniquely dangerous is an important part of other causes or missions.

@nathanlean A second motive is that of Chrisitan apologetics, in which Christianity is exalted and shown to be true and good to the extent Islam is proven bad and false.

@nathanlean A third motive is support for Israel and justifying its half century occupation of a captive mostly Muslim population, which is rationalized by painting the occupied as intrinsically and irredeemably dangerous.

@nathanlean A fourth set of motives is economic in nature. Islam represents the threat that justifies huge "defense" expenditures that go to private industry and individuals (CT hucksters). And the role of oil, located in Muslim lands, is obvious.

@nathanlean And fifthly there is the fact that Islam is the antipode of modern liberalism, which sees Muslims' values and religion as a threat to the vision of the world and of social life which some believe should be the only way of life anywhere.

@nathanlean These five sets of motives apply mostly in the American and European cases. It's somewhat different in India and China where anti-Muslim propaganda is also a huge problem.

@nathanlean But we Muslims in the West, maybe out of desperation, have hitched our wagon to the anti-racism train, but countering racism is not going to fully address our problems. And too many of our intellectuals simply can't seem to think outside of the critical race theory framework.

@nathanlean And in the background of all this is the fact that Muslims, at the national level, have little to no cultural, political, or economic clout. But their main antagonists do, and until that changes we can expect more of the same.

@nathanlean Note: the thread was split here. You can follow the rest of this thread from this tweet:

@nathanlean A relevant interview with me from a few years ago about a lot of the same issues related to this thread. What's changed is that now attention to the racism angle has eclipsed the others (somewhat understandably in light of Trump's election). intpolicydigest.org/2015/06/01/isi…

@nathanlean The interview doesn't give enough attention to the liberalism angle, unfortunately, but it has more to say about the other four I mentioned in this thread.

@nathanlean Note: this tweet starts a thread of some examples of what I mean, from the literature about Islamophobia