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United States and Canadian Islamophobia Expressed Through Public Policy University of Alberta No. No. Shari'a: United States and Canadian Islamophobia Expressed through Public Policy by Katherine Dyson A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Political Science ©Katherine Dyson Spring 2012 Edmonton, Alberta Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms. The author reserves all other publication and other rights in association with the copyright in the thesis and, except as herein before provided, neither the thesis nor any substantial portion thereof may be printed or otherwise reproduced in any material form whatsoever without the author's prior written permission. Library and Archives Bibliothèque et Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de l'édition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre référence ISBN: 978-0-494-90162-5 Our file Notre référence ISBN: 978-0-494-90162-5 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant à la Bibliothèque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par télécommunication ou par l'Internet, prêter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des thèses partout dans le loan, distrbute and sell theses monde, à des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non- support microforme, papier, électronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriété du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette thèse. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la thèse ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent être imprimés ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformément à la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privée, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont été enlevés de thesis. cette thèse. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. Abstract: Islamophobic rhetoric used by popular media: such as television, newspapers and blogs, has heightened the fear of Islam to levels that have contributed to the US and Canada beginning to institute anti-Shari’a legislation. The financial backers of this rhetoric realise that fear has a strong impact over a malleable population and actively sponsor it in order to maintain the status quo where they retain political, economic, and social power. Since 9/11, polls show us that fear rhetoric contributes to sustained, consistent, and relatively high levels of worry about Islamic terrorist attacks. These same polls also provide demographic information indicating who is more susceptible to this fear rhetoric. While rhetoric is often vitriolic, it is nevertheless successful in promoting anti-Shari’a policy. This interesting phenomenon exists in cases across both Canada and the US. The historical context most closely resembling current Islamophobia begins in 1945 when the threat of communism and the consequences of possible nuclear war raised fear levels in the US and Canada. The highly successful use of film and then the innovation of television gave fear rhetoric unprecedented access to the public. The current use of Internet for blogs as well as value-added traditional mass media “on line” has not only amplified the dissemination of Islamophobic fear rhetoric to an exponential level; it also allows the public to respond instantly. Policy changes in Canada since 2005 are an indication of the early success of this strategy and the plethora of public policy changes in the US in the last year or so is a strong indicator of its recent and future success, manifested in legislative changes banning Shari’a. i Table of Contents List of Tables List of Figures Chapter 1: Introduction....................………………………..….......................…...1 Chapter 2: The Socialist hordes and Armageddon …….......................…….........14 Chapter 3: Islam: creating the new scapegoat…………........................................21 Chapter 4: Disseminating Islamophobia……………….................………...……30 Chapter 5: What the polls tell us about fear...…………………....................……61 Chapter 6: Creating Anti-Muslim public policy in the US………........................95 Chapter 7: Creating Anti-Muslim public policy in Canada…….................……113 Chapter 8: Conclusions………………………....................…................……....128 Bibliography.........................................................................................................142 Appendices: 1. Anti-Shari’a Draft Act……………………..........…................…….157 2. American Laws for American Courts (ALAC)………..........……...159 3. Oklahoma Constitutional Amendment……………..................…....162 4. The ads involved in the New York Transit Authority legal battle.....163 i. List of Tables Table 1) Status of anti-Shari’a legislation in the US as of 8 December 2011....................................................................................................106 ii List of Figures Figure 1) US: Worried about another terrorist attack 1995 – 2011.................63 Figure 2) US: Likelihood of terrorist attack 2001 – 2011...............................70 Figure 3) Threat perceptions in Canada...........................................................75 Figure 4) Islamic religion and violence: American perceptions......................82 Figure 5) Canada and US: Opinion of Muslims-June 2008.............................90 Figure 6) Canada and US: Muslims share our values-September 2010...........91 Figure 7) Map of twenty-seven states that have sponsored anti-Shari’a legislation.............................................................................................96 Figure 8) Political distribution in states with implemented or proposed anti- Shari’a Policy.......................................................................................97 iii Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I would like to see you living in better conditions. Khwāja Shamsu d-Dīn Muhammad Hāfez -e Shīrāzī ~ “Hāfez”c 1321-1389. Chapter 1: Introduction: Islamophobic rhetoric used by popular media: such as television, newspapers and blogs, has heightened the fear of Islam to levels that have contributed to the US and Canada beginning to institute anti-Shari’a legislation. The attacks of 11 September 2001 provided the impetus to focus fear rhetoric on followers of Islam. The financial backers of fear rhetoric realise that it has a strong impact over a malleable population and actively sponsor it in order to maintain the status quo where they retain political, economic, and social power. An analysis of polling data tends to show a sustained, consistent, and relatively high level of fear of Islamic terror attacks since then. The data also give insight into which groups within the population are most susceptible to fear rhetoric. In the last decade of the twentieth century, following the fall of the Soviet bloc, the purveyors of fear could not find a replacement scapegoat that appealed broadly. The attacks changed all that; suddenly there was an identifiable target that had the power to unify and influence large swaths of the population on a deeply emotional level. This latest iteration of fear-mongering is sponsored by a few moneyed foundations that post 9/11 began to ramp up funding to anti-Islamic think-tanks, experts, television personalities, web sites, and blogs to produce, publicise, and propagate an extremely successful assault 1 on Muslims. 1 The motivation for perpetuating fear in large percentages of the population is to maintain the status quo of political, social, and economic power. They know that a fearful population is a malleable population. This elite group shares many traits though not universally or uniformly: not all are fundamentalist evangelical Christians, Christian Zionists, libertarians, social or fiscal conservatives, or any of the other adjectives that one may use to describe them. It is reasonable to say, however, that there are two motivations to keep the population fearful. Firstly, their own fear of a change in the social order drives them to join forces to maintain the status quo. The second common factor is universal support for Israel and Israeli military dominance in the Middle East to control the region and its valuable resources. There is great concern that the Islamic “‘countries of resentment’” control the vast majority of the world’s fossil fuels.2 They are convinced that at some point in the future access to this resource could be cut off so Israeli military dominance is critical
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