Civilizational discourse frames European tolerance itself as a danger to Muslim women

Evidence

The story of the unassimilable, fatally pre-modern Muslim community encountering an advanced civilization is told in anthropologist Unni Wikan’s Generous Betrayal, a book (along with Human Visas) the Danish minister of integration announced constituted his summer 2003 reading. In Wikan’s work we can see clearly the contours of culture clash in the plot line. The civilized European feels compelled to be kind to new, culturally different citizens, but his or her civilized impulses fall headlong into the perils of cultural relativism. — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 271

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the civilization/culture-clash framing in the author’s other work on Islamophobia and parallels Said’s Orientalism critique.