Individual Muslim crimes are essentialized while anti-state dissent is criminalized
Evidence
Desacralizing criminal acts (and seeing them for what they are) is coterminous with decriminalizing political dissent (and celebrating it for what it inspires—resistance). What we are seeing today is exactly the opposite: criminal acts by individual Muslims are attributed to the very essence of their religion, while acts of political dissent in protest against the crimes against humanity perpetrated by the United States and Israel are criminalized. We must reverse that false and falsifying consciousness. — Hamid Dabashi, Brown Skin, White Masks, 557
Categorization
- ADDENDUM: The asymmetry between essentializing individuals’ crimes and criminalizing dissent parallels the moral-panic framing in my articles on sacrifice and moral panics.