Surveillance publicity backfired and US foreign policy itself fueled NOI growth

Evidence

Even the FBI admitted internally that drawing additional attention to the NOI may have backfired, making the organization and its leaders Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X even more popular. There was also a larger context to the movement’s growth. The US prosecution of the Cold War, its manipulation of newly independent African and Asian states, the beginning of the Vietnam conflict, and the lack of real progress on social equality at home made the religious and political critique of the NOI convincing to many both inside and outside the movement. — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 406

Categorization

Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims

• XREF: The FBI’s own admission that attention backfired parallels later COINTELPRO dynamics and connects to work on how state repression amplifies targeted movements.

Related

• Cold War hypocrisy and stalled civil rights fueled NOI growth (similarity 0.89)
• Monitored and suppressed groups can gain legitimacy from state attention itself. (similarity 0.86)
• Federal attention to US Muslims historically began as anti-Black surveillance (similarity 0.82)
• Muslim surveillance thrived under the Obama administration (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Muslim surveillance thrived under the Obama administration #expands (0.50) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 458