The Muslims Are Coming! Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror

Arun Kundnani. The Muslims Are Coming! Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror. London and new York: Verso, 2014. 322 pages. HardcoverThe post-9/11 world witnessed a discernible change in the West's perception of and relation to the Muslims' culture, identity, ethnicity, and ideology, perceived as an alien to and incompatible with ill-defined Western culture by the people with anti-Islamic prejudice. The West began to grapple with all increasing and recognized immigrants and own national Muslims through various formulations vis-a-vis anti-Muslim theories, ideologies, and projects. Recent years account for a rising trend in what is known as "domestic war on terror" in the USA and its ally's countries. Arun Kundnani-New York-based young and dynamic professor, who teaches terrorism studies-in his book under review explores and explicates the "domestic fronts of the war on terror in the US and the UK" (9). The book spreads over nine chapters preceded by an introduction. In his introduction, Kundnani poses a number of stirring arguments against the so-called "war on terror" policy. He evinces that it is the reification of "radicalization theory" the West formulated through which Western societies view Muslim populations in the aftermath of the 9/11 event. According to this theory, writes Kundnani, "Islamist" identity is viewed as the root cause of terrorism, and Muslims as terrorists. Kundnani impedes and argues the reified theory and asks reasons for thinking Islamic identity behind terrorism, which, of course, is not (9-17). One of the key finds of the book, Kundnani says, is that what the West call extremism, jihadists, radicalists are "to a large degree a product of their own wars" (25). Chapter 1 "An Ideal Enemy" opens with an episode of a victim of racist lobby of the UK; for them, Muslim identity is the real threat to and enemy of the West. In response to the pervasive racism against the Muslims, Kundnani gives a detailed account of various community movements in the USA and UK in the 1960s and 1970s that mustered their voices against such discrimination, for identity was the main issue facing the innocent Muslim population in the West. Ergo, a globalized Islamic identity inevitably emerged not as a political front "but a broad sociological trend in a reaction to racism, migration, and globalization" (37). Kundnani further states that the "war on terror" was first hammered out in the 1980s; a cover for State violence directed at those resisting US and Israeli power, whether they happened to be terrorists or not, as it was the refugee populations that bore the brunt of the post-9/11 Crusaderism on Muslims in the USA (45-48). Hence, Kundnani asserts that for the West, innocent Muslims who are ideologically, racially, and culturally different are the real enemy.Chapter 2 "The Politics of Anti-Extremism" explicates the nuance between two different ideological stands-Culturalist and Reformist-the US and UK salvo in order to counter the Muslims globally as well as locally under the assiduous guise of the so-called "war on terror" and anti-extremism policies. According to Kundnani, Culturalists, like Bernard Lewis, Samuel Huntington, and Christopher Caldwell to name a few, maintain "Islamic culture itself is antithetical to undefined western values"; hence, "Western Muslims can never be equal citizens" (87). On the other hand, Reformists like Paul Berman see "'Extremism' as a perversion of Islam's message" (66) and blamed the contemporary Muslim ideologues for transforming the Islam's benign and peaceful message into an intolerant and political ideology. Kundnani draws flaw in both of the ideologies and asserts that "what both neglect is the basic political question thrown up by multiculturalism: how can a common way of life, together with full participation from all parts of society, be created? "(88). True the West is struggling to accommodate and foster a good multiculturalistic society. …