Islamophobia expresses assimilative anxiety rather than mere suspicion of difference.

Evidence

‘The only thing that the government is after is intelligence. There is a lot of spying going on at the moment with all the ISIS stuff in the news. We are not trusted, we are left to deal with problems on our own, and then we are blamed for everything. The way it’s going it’s like Muslims and Islam are responsible for everything when actually they are looking for someone to blame. They feel threatened by us because of the Islamic lifestyle. They want us to become like them.’ (Aisha) Relatedly, case Study 3 highlights Safa’s feelings of weakness and helplessness after being physically attacked by a group of white girls in Manchester. — Irene Zempi and Imran Awan, Islamophobia, 250

Categorization

• XREF: Directly parallels Aisha’s inversion of threat — the majority feeling threatened by the minority’s refusal to assimilate — which recurs in ‘The New Crusades’ treatment of Islam as a rival civilizational loyalty.
• APHORISMS: The sequence ‘we are left to deal with problems on our own, and then we are blamed for everything’ reads as a generalizable observation about how neglected groups are scapegoated.