A tiny proposal triggered a nationwide moral panic about Muslim contamination

Evidence

In Canada, the idea advanced by a small group of Muslim men that faith-based arbitration could be utilized to implement Sharia law in Canada quickly became the basis for a moral panic that feudal Muslims who are likely to be terrorists had now successfully contaminated Canadian civilization. Attending to the risks posed to women if conservative Muslims were to have their way, I thread my way through feminist opposition to faith-based arbitration and conclude that Muslim women were stranded between the rock of a rising conservatism in their communities and the hard place of an even more vigorous policing by the state. The latter, I conclude, poses the greater threat at this moment. — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 64

Categorization

• XREF: Directly parallels the conditions under which moral panics form (scale of threat vs. scale of reaction) from the reader’s prior notes on moral panic theory. — connects to: Fabricated audio and text warnings about child abductors drove the panic — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 321
• SEED: Essay angle: the striking disproportion between a five-person initiative and a nationwide moral panic — the panic’s size is the data point worth measuring.