The Faces of Islamophobia

The cases in this chapter describe instances of Islamophobia, some unintentional, that have occurred worldwide since 9/11, focusing on the U.S., Iraq, and Afghanistan. Islamophobia has taken a variety of forms, including discriminatory actions against Muslims living in the U.S., cultural insensitivity by U.S. soldiers deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq, and globally, anti-Muslim hate crimes ranging from interpersonal violence to mosque burnings. The mass media often makes matters worse through selective and biased reporting that further sways the American public against Muslims. The range of cases provides insight into what Islamophobia looks like in practice, how it occurs, and how the individual incidents add up to a larger cultural epidemic that threatens the U.S.’s ability to win the war of narratives against Islamic extremists. Given that the War on Terror is a war of narratives, widespread harassment and discrimination toward Muslims in the friendly and neutral majority can only hurt the U.S.’s position, enflaming further conflict between the Western and Muslim worlds. As a whole, the cases point to the potential of Islamophobia to drastically hinder U.S. counterterrorism efforts.