Arun Kundnani

[Editor's Note: With the recent terrorist attack in Paris against Charlie Hebdo, once again there is debate about whether Islam is a violent religion. There is little to no evidence that Islam alone radicalizes people and transforms them into terrorists or religious fanatics.

On November 7, I spoke with Arun Kundnani, a journalist and a professor at New York University who writes extensively on issues like Islamophobia and the War on Terrorism, to talk about the origins of these attitudes against Muslims. Earlier this year, Verso Books published his book titled “The Muslims Are Coming!,” which provides insight into the state's level of thinking and the rise of Islamophobia in the West. He also recently released a report [PDF], “A Decade Lost: Rethinking Radicalization & Extremism.”

Part one of the interview was published on December 26. The following is part two of the interview. It specifically deals with Islamophobia among liberals.]

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BRANDON JORDAN: What strikes me is 60 Minutes is the establishment liberal side of journalism. This is something you also write where you wrote a post on how there is no such thing as a liberal anti-racist. You referred to comments made by Sam Harris and Bill Maher and how their version of tolerance operates with a contradiction of values. I’m sure folks are aware of conservative Islamophobia, but liberal Islamophobia is rarely discussed. What is it and why is it rarely discussed?

ARUN KUNDNANI: One of the things we’ve seen a lot in the past 10 years is the argument made by liberals that Islam is a uniquely violent religion and there is problem of religious fanaticism. The way we should oppose that is by advocating liberal values, like gender equality or gay rights or freedom of expression. Of course, those values are important and need to be advocated in every context.

But there is a way the liberal argument, when it is expressed in these ways, can become a justification for illiberal forms of coercion including war. You saw after Sept. 11 one of the arguments made for the Afghanistan War was gender equality.

What I find interesting is how liberalism gets into these contradictions, which is what you get with Bill Maher or Sam Harris.

Harris advocates going to war for no other basis but for having certain beliefs, which seems like an illiberal point of view.

Does that mean he’s being inconsistent? That would be too easy of an answer. A full account here would be to say this particular move from liberals has a long history in European colonialism. Specifically in the Middle East, Asia and Africa, it was always justified by bringing liberal values to those parts of the world. It is not likely these arguments are new. They are very old actually.

In order to understand it, we need to think of liberalism not just as these abstract principles but also as an ideology, the socio-economic system we have.

Because that system constantly marginalizes, oppresses and excludes certain people, you end up with a situation where offending liberal values can often end up demonizing those groups seen as outside the system.

Part of the reason why it is important is, in the US and UK, the political consensus across the liberal-conservative spectrum. They have some differences on how they understand these issues, but share the same starting point—there is a Muslim problem. Conservatives see that in terms of the clash of civilizations.

But liberals also come into this with some analysis and at the center of it is the notion of extremism. What you do when you use that word, you are avoiding the fundamental political issue. If you talk about religious extremism, you are externalizing the violence to the other guy and saying he is a fanatic. His violence comes out of extremism and does not have any wider political context. We ignore the violence of our own government, which is a part of this same cycle of violence.

We are constantly in this situation where there is state violence, and then non-state violence responds to that, then state violence responds and it goes round and round. Liberals and conservatives are wrapped in that loop of this circle of violence.

Liberals are typically bad on not acknowledging their part. Using these words like terrorism, extremism and radicalization is a way of defining the other guy’s violence as barbaric and fanatic. Thus, your own violence is rational, necessary and legitimate.

In an interview with NOVA that has yet to air, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden claims that the NSA is actively working to weaken US security by refusing to disclose vulnerabilities the agency finds in America’s cyberinfrastructure. Furthermore, Snowden claims that the NSA and its partners have developed and deployed offensive cyberwarfare weapons that have stoked a global cyberarms race.

Snowden reasons that because the US is more reliant on the internet and digital technology than many other places in the world, particularly its enemies, the US has the most to lose by fomenting a global cyberwar which makes the current agenda self-defeating for US interests.

Snowden was interviewed by journalist James Bamford and detailed how he believes the US government through the NSA and other intelligence agencies helped “start the trend” with the launching of Stuxnet.

Bamford: Thanks. One other thing that the article gets into, which is what we’re talking about here today, is the article quotes the new NSA director, who is also the commander of Cyber Command, as basically saying that it’s possible in the future that these cyber weapons will become sort of normal military weapons, and they’ll be treated sort of like guided missiles or cruise missiles and so forth.

Snowden: Cruise missiles or drones.

Bamford: What are your thoughts about that, having spent time in this whole line of work yourself?

Snowden: I think the public still isn’t aware of the frequency with which these cyber-attacks, as they’re being called in the press, are being used by governments around the world, not just the US. But it is important to highlight that we really started this trend in many ways when we launched the Stuxnet campaign against the Iranian nuclear program. It actually kicked off a response, sort of retaliatory action from Iran, where they realized they had been caught unprepared. They were far behind the technological curve as compared to the United States and most other countries. And this is happening across the world nowadays, where they realize that they’re caught out. They’re vulnerable. They have no capacity to retaliate to any sort of cyber campaign brought against them.

The public got a quick lesson in how fast the turnaround could be when the US launched a cyberattack on North Korea in response to the - as yet unvalidated - belief that North Korea was responsible for the hacking of Sony’s film division in retaliation for Sony producing a film called The Interview in which the leader of North Korea is assassinated. President Obama announced the US would respond on a Friday and by Monday North Korea’s internet was down.

The US cyberattack on North Korea did not go unnoticed and now every state power in the world knows it has to develop a cyberweapons arsenal to be taken seriously in the new security order. And, perhaps more notably, every state power knows that have to be prepared to use that arsenal.

Combine the aggressive stance of US cyberwarriors with the NSA withholding information that would make US businesses and infrastructure more secure and it is not hard to see how much worse the problem gets if the status quo continues. America will be constantly under vicious attack and not have the capabilities to protect itself as well as it could otherwise.

Then again, that won’t be bad for everyone’s bottom line.

Citizens, you have an obligation to remain silent. What you say online, once upon a time an arena of free speech, can and will be used against you.

Here are two creeping examples.

In the UK

Six British soldiers were killed in Afghanistan, what the Prime Minister called a “desperately sad day for our country.” A British teenager, Azhar Ahmed, went on Facebook to angrily object, saying innocent Afghans killed by British soldiers receive almost no attention from the media. He opined the UK’s soldiers in Afghanistan are guilty, their deaths deserved, and are therefore going to hell.

The following day Ahmed was charged with “a racially aggravated public order offense.” He was convicted “of sending a grossly offensive communication,” fined and sentenced to 240 hours of community service. The judge Ahmed’s opinions “beyond the pale of what’s tolerable in our society.”

The Independent newspaper noted that Ahmed “escaped jail partially because he quickly took down his unpleasant posting and tried to apologize to those he offended.” Apparently, says Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept, “heretics may be partially redeemed if they publicly renounce their heresies.”

Criminal cases for online political speech are now commonplace in the UK. Around 20,000 people in Britain have been investigated in the past three years for comments made online. The investigations have by no means been neutral, instead directed at the country’s Muslims for expressing political opinions critical of the state’s actions.

Wow, luckily this can’t ever happen in America… right? Oh wait, it just did.

In America

A man convicted in a fatal car crash and released early from prison on parole has ended up back behind bars after an Ohio judge and the victim’s family took issue with a post he made on Facebook.

Ryan Fye’s post included a photo of him making an obscene gesture and a message saying, “Prison didn’t break me. It MADE me.” Fye claims he was responding to a Facebook threat from someone unrelated to his case who said they “couldn’t wait to bump into” him and that prison ought to have made him tough enough to handle the encounter.

The message upset relatives of the man killed by Fye in the 2013 crash. A judge also found the Facebook posting disrespectful toward the family and concluded it violated parole sanctions imposed on Fye.

While typical terms of probation prohibit threats, intimidation, harassment, and retaliation against the victims, prosecution, judges, family of victims and so on, it is quite unclear that Fye’s Facebook posting is even directed at any such people, or that it is even a threat or act of intimidation. Many people might characterize it as boastful at worst.

Fye’s defense attorney said Fye didn’t violate probation or the law. “Committing a crime is a probation violation, not abiding by the rules is a probation violation. Mr. Fye didn’t do any of those things.” Fye is back in custody while he appeals the judge’s decision to lock him up.

Over a Facebook posting.

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Peter Van Buren writes about current events at blog. His book,Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the #99Percent, is available now from Amazon.