Islamic challenge forged the collective identity of ‘the West’

Evidence

Orientalism informed not only how race was understood during the formative stages of American history, but also how it was constructed. Orientalism helped guide, and fluidly tweak, the parameters of whiteness. And in the same way that blackness stood as the racial antithesis of whiteness, the necessary other without which whiteness would not exist, the Orientalist construction of Islam marked the faith as the civilizational foil of the West, a contrast that was necessary for the emerging United States to envision itself as an extension of Western civilization. In order to solidify itself as part of the West, and an extension of Europe in the Western Hemisphere, the United States had to follow in the footsteps of Europe and establish itself as the mirror opposite of the Muslim world. — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 154 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

A key aspect of the ideology is that it is premised on a vision of western crisis and conspiratorial narratives of left-wing collusion with Muslims to bring about the ‘Islamization’ of the west. It relies on the idea of Islam as a hostile ‘alien’ culture. — Runnymede Trust (ed. Farah Elahi & Omar Khan), Islamophobia, 141 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Metaphorically, its demolition was the beginning of the end of the Cold War and the ending of the global political and military models that had dominated international relations for the past forty or so years. If simplistic arguments and theses can be in any way useful, what was occurring at the global level was, as Huntington put it, that both the West and Islam were being forced to shift their global perception and relationship: ‘the collapse of communism removed a common enemy of the West and Islam and left each the perceived threat of each other’. — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 246 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The idea of the West helped constitute the West itself — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 514; The Rest was constitutive of the West’s identity and knowledge — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 686; The US needed Islam as a foil to define itself as Western — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 154 (+6 more)

Related

• The US needed Islam as a foil to define itself as Western (similarity 0.90)
• The Cold War’s end left Islam and the West mutually perceived threats (similarity 0.89)
• The West required the Rest as a conceptual opposite to define itself. (similarity 0.89)
• The West defined itself as the mirror opposite of the Muslim world. (similarity 0.88)
• Islam replaced communism as the West’s designated global enemy threat (similarity 0.86)
• Bush’s rhetoric reduced Islam to a single object judged against Western values. (similarity 0.86)
• The Cold War’s end positioned Islam as communism’s replacement global threat (similarity 0.86)
• Communism’s collapse left West and Islam as mutual perceived threats (similarity 0.85)
• Orientalist discourse frames Westerners and Orientals as absolute binary opposites. (similarity 0.84)
• Islam’s challenge helped forge western Europe’s collective identity as the West. (similarity 0.84)
• Western hostility to Islam shifted from theological to political rationales across the centuries (similarity 0.84)
• Western attitudes to Islam have shifted across history rather than forming a constant clash. (similarity 0.83)
• The West’s question should be why it fears Muslims, not why they hate us (similarity 0.83)
• “Splitting” renders the Rest the West’s mirror-image Other (similarity 0.83)
• Islam replaced communism as the U.S. constructed menace (similarity 0.83)

Broader Connections

• The US needed Islam as a foil to define itself as Western #corroborates (0.90) — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 154
• Counter-jihad ideology frames Islam as a hostile alien culture invading the west #exemplifies (0.80) — Runnymede Trust (ed. Farah Elahi & Omar Khan), Islamophobia, 141
• The Cold War’s end left Islam and the West mutually perceived threats #exemplifies (0.75) — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 246
• Western hostility to Islam shifted from theological to political rationales across the centuries #expands (0.70) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 106
• The West’s question should be why it fears Muslims, not why they hate us #expands (0.70)