Anti-Muslim racism is not continuous from the Inquisition to Abu Ghraib
Evidence
What my analysis shows is that there is no straight line from the Spanish Inquisition to the torture regime of Abu Ghraib. Even while various projects of racialization draw on the past and attempt to fix “race” as existing across time, there are in fact no unbroken lines of continuity. Anti-racists should avoid falling into the trap of accepting the fictive concept of “race” and its transhistorical and essentializing modes of articulation. Thus, the book sets out to explain how historical context shapes various projects of racialization amidst variance and change. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 92
Categorization
- XREF: This contrasts with treatments that draw a straight causal line from medieval Christendom to modern anti-Muslim empire (cf. some popular and scholarly narrations of Islamophobia). — connects to: Anti-Muslim racism has no unbroken historical continuity from medieval to modern forms; Abu Ghraib abuses stem from centuries of anti-Muslim discourse; Belief in Muslim monstrosity authorized legal torture at Abu Ghraib — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 746 (+2 more)
- QUESTION: Worth chasing which specific ‘continuity’ arguments the author is rebutting — likely those mapping Reconquista era tropes directly onto post-9/11 policy.
Broader Connections
- Anti-Muslim racism has no unbroken historical continuity from medieval to modern forms
#corroborates(1.00) - Abu Ghraib abuses stem from centuries of anti-Muslim discourse
#contradicts(0.95) - Belief in Muslim monstrosity authorized legal torture at Abu Ghraib
#contradicts(0.80) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 746 - Anti-Muslim polemic literature supplied ideological ammunition for torture at Abu Ghraib.
#complicates(0.75) — Hamid Dabashi, Brown Skin, White Masks, 536