Islamic fundamentalism is a modern product of Cold War politics

Evidence

As Mahmood Mamdani has shown, the terrorist attacks of 9/11 resulted from a complex confluence of factors, including U.S. covert operations and proxy wars during the Cold War era. During the Cold War, the U.S. government created and funded the mujahedeen to fight the Soviets; the mujahedeen would later become Al Qaeda and target their initial benefactors. Furthermore, the funding of Muslim religious extremists would set the scene for the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan. … Islamic fundamentalism, contrary to the U.S. government’s and media’s framing of it as being opposed to and incompatible with modernity, is a modern formation; Islamic fundamentalism is not an ancient or traditional phenomenon but rather a by-product of the ideological clashes of the twentieth century. Mamdani argues that terrorism does not necessarily emerge out of religious tendencies, whether fundamentalist or secular. Rather, terrorism emerges out of political encounter. In this case, the West has played a central role in the political encounter with Islam that produced the terrorist attacks on 9/11. — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 575 (#corroborates, 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 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Growing Muslim anti-Westernism has been paralleled by expanding Western concern with the “Islamic threat” posed particularly by Muslim extremism. Islam is seen as a source of nuclear proliferation, terrorism, and, in Europe, unwanted migrants. These concerns are shared by both publics and leaders. Asked in November 1994 whether the “Islamic revival” was a threat to U.S. interests in the Middle East, for instance, 61 percent of a sample of 35,000 Americans interested in foreign policy said yes and only 28 percent no. A year earlier, when asked what country posed the greatest danger to the United States, a random sample of the public picked Iran, China, and Iraq as the top three. Similarly, asked in 1994 to identify “critical threats” to the United States, 72 percent of the public and 61 percent of foreign policy leaders said nuclear proliferation and 69 percent of the public and 33 percent of leaders international terrorism—two issues widely associated with Islam. In addition, 33 percent of the public and 39 percent of the leaders saw a threat in the possible expansion of Islamic fundamentalism. Europeans have similar attitudes. In the spring of 1991, for instance, 51 percent of the French public said the principal threat to France was from the South with only 8 percent saying it would come from the East. The four countries which the French public most feared were all Muslim: Iraq, 52 percent; Iran, 35 percent; Libya, 26 percent; and Algeria, 22 percent. Western political leaders, including the German chancellor and the French prime minister, expressed similar concerns, with the secretary general of NATO declaring in 1995 that Islamic fundamentalism was “at least as dangerous as communism” had been to the West, and a “very senior member” of the Clinton administration pointing to Islam as the global rival of the West. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 579 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: US cold-war strategy deliberately weaponized religion against nationalism and communism in Muslim regions — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 388; Islam served neocons as a substitute Cold War enemy when the USSR collapsed — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 675; Key Islamophobic organizations trace their lineage to Cold War-era neocons (+11 more)

Broader Connections

• Islamic fundamentalism is a modern by-product of Cold War ideological clashes, not ancient tradition. #corroborates (0.97) — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 575
• The Cold War’s end left Islam and the West mutually perceived threats #complicates (0.78) — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 246
• Western publics and leaders perceived Islam as the post-Cold War threat #complicates (0.72) — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 579