Genuine concern for Muslim women was repurposed to justify war and racism

Evidence

Some posters became political and moral actors by means of relaying the suffering they have witnessed on television and the outrage they experienced while witnessing this distant suffering. Those who respond in the way intended by the show not only become political actors, they also become agents in the co-optation of feminism and the promotion of post-race racism. They express concern for oppressed women, but this supposed concern then becomes the root of an argument for intervention and war. They express concern for Muslim women, especially their treatment in the grip of brutal Islam, but then use that concern to support racist policies and practices against Muslims as a whole. This configuration of feeling is central to post-9/11 representations of Arabs and Muslims; the politics of pity makes it possible to deny or minimize racism directed at Arabs and Muslims during the War on Terror and also absolves the United States from its role in aiding numerous wars, the rise of fundamentalism, and the hardening of oppressive conditions for women. — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 817

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the ‘On Sacrifice’ article theme of how professed noble motives (grief, love, pity) get instrumentalized for political ends — like Dido’s love as imperial founding. — connects to: Cassin used women’s status to justify withholding rights from Muslim colonies — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 270; European concern about Muslim women long exceeded any actual stake in them
• DEEPTHINKING: The full logic chain — sincere pity manufactured by media becomes the engine for war, racism, AND absolution of US responsibility — is a dense, paradigm-shifting argument about how emotion is weaponized in liberal democracies.
• ADDENDUM: Directly extends the ‘On Sacrifice’ article: the instrumentalization of genuine feeling for state ends, here showing pity (not sacrifice) being weaponized to justify intervention.
• QUESTION: The claim that US foreign policy ‘aided the rise of fundamentalism’ — which specific US interventions and weapons shipments fed fundamentalist movements? Worth chasing for specifics.