Practicing Islam functionally replaced Communism as the most threatening subversive activity

Evidence

Five decades later, Muslim American leaders would also find themselves in the government’s crosshairs, as Muslim individuals and organizations were charged with terrorism in an aggressive domestic War on Terror. The same weaponization of immigration and criminal law to regulate and chill political activism of immigrants was replicated starting in the 1980s as the Cold War was winding down. After the September 11 attack, practicing Islam became the most threatening subversive activity in the government’s War on Terror—a racial project infused with religious animus. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 476

Categorization

• SEED: Article angle on the continuity: how the state’s template for marking internal enemies (SMERSH-style ideology to religion) stayed constant across the Cold War and War on Terror.
• XREF: The phrase ‘racial project infused with religious animus’ is the book’s core thesis on how Muslims get racialized — connects throughout The Racial Muslim. — connects to: Anti-communism replaced anti-Semitism as the object of displaced aggression. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1812; Neoliberal theorists conflated communism with Islam as an orientalist enemy. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 125; The UDHR preamble’s religious language encoded Western-civilization claims against Islam and Communism. (+4 more)