Even model pro-state Muslim collaborators remain permanent police suspects
Evidence
Liberal Islamophobia sets out to include Muslims to the extent that they give their consent to the war on terror abroad and at home. … However, being a “good” Muslim doesn’t guarantee acceptance, as Reda Shata learned. He worked with the FBI and the police, inviting officers to his mosque for breakfast and even dining with Mayor Bloomberg. He personified everything that US imperialism has defined as a “good Muslim.” Yet an undercover police officer and an informant were assigned to spy on him and to keep tabs on his mosque. When he learned that he was viewed as a suspect by the very people he had invited into his mosque, Shata said: “This is very sad … What is your feeling if you see this about people you trusted?” — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 629
Categorization
- XREF: Concrete ground for the comparative test motivating this reading: if even an FBI-court-verified ‘good Muslim’ in the US empire-context gets surveilled, does the same betrayal occur in states whose Islamophobia derives from domestic colonial histories? — connects to: State surveillance of Muslims persists despite agents knowing complaints lack merit — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 469; Muslims are presumed terrorists until interrogation proves otherwise; Racial Muslims are treated as suspect race and permanent foreigners (+9 more)
Broader Connections
- Even exemplary good Muslims are simultaneously surveilled as suspects
#corroborates(0.98) - Symbolic incorporation of Muslims masks state surveillance and suspicion of them.
#corroborates(0.95) — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 422 - State surveillance of Muslims persists despite agents knowing complaints lack merit
#expands(0.85) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 469 - Muslim community leaders can be simultaneously partnered with and spied upon by police
#expands(0.85) - Muslims are presumed terrorists until interrogation proves otherwise
#qualifies(0.80) - Muslim bodies are treated as potential terrorists until proven otherwise
#expands(0.80) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 282 - Racial Muslims are treated as suspect race and permanent foreigners
#expands(0.78) - Blanket accusations of Muslims justify state surveillance by identity
#contradicts(0.78) - A Muslim name alone can trigger state surveillance regardless of citizenship
#expands(0.75) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 177 - State policies and individual citizen actions jointly maintain Muslims’ racialized surveillance
#expands(0.75) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 63 - Suspicion of Muslims is based on association rather than evidence
#expands(0.75) - The security state presumes migrants are terrorists until proven otherwise
#expands(0.72)