The Souls of Muslim Folk

The current debate on the vices of multiculturalism and the merits of integration, of problematizing cultural difference, appears to miss important lessons from recent history in the treatment of minorities. In this paper, I start by questioning the celebration of Barack Obama’s election as a “brea...

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Autor principal: Abdelwahab El-Affendi
Formato: article
Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: International Institute of Islamic Thought 2012
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Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/894e5561df3445f295944997cdcbc507
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spelling oai:doaj.org-article:894e5561df3445f295944997cdcbc5072021-12-02T19:41:38ZThe Souls of Muslim Folk10.35632/ajis.v29i4.3152690-37332690-3741https://doaj.org/article/894e5561df3445f295944997cdcbc5072012-10-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.ajis.org/index.php/ajiss/article/view/315https://doaj.org/toc/2690-3733https://doaj.org/toc/2690-3741 The current debate on the vices of multiculturalism and the merits of integration, of problematizing cultural difference, appears to miss important lessons from recent history in the treatment of minorities. In this paper, I start by questioning the celebration of Barack Obama’s election as a “breakthrough” for multicultural inclusiveness. I argue that the “Obama phenomenon” highlights the limits of democratic inclusiveness and sheds light on the traumatic experience of African Americans, who have been victimized precisely for seeking to assimilate. European Jews, especially in Germany, could not be accused of any reluctance to integrate either, and their contributions to European culture are legendary. But they also suffered grievously for their pains. Thus when the same xenophobic political trends traditionally hostile to the integration of minorities begin to vociferously demand that Muslims should integrate, this must be seen as a warning that we may be heading toward a very dark phase of race relations in the West. Abdelwahab El-AffendiInternational Institute of Islamic ThoughtarticleIslamBP1-253ENAmerican Journal of Islam and Society, Vol 29, Iss 4 (2012)
institution DOAJ
collection DOAJ
language EN
topic Islam
BP1-253
spellingShingle Islam
BP1-253
Abdelwahab El-Affendi
The Souls of Muslim Folk
description The current debate on the vices of multiculturalism and the merits of integration, of problematizing cultural difference, appears to miss important lessons from recent history in the treatment of minorities. In this paper, I start by questioning the celebration of Barack Obama’s election as a “breakthrough” for multicultural inclusiveness. I argue that the “Obama phenomenon” highlights the limits of democratic inclusiveness and sheds light on the traumatic experience of African Americans, who have been victimized precisely for seeking to assimilate. European Jews, especially in Germany, could not be accused of any reluctance to integrate either, and their contributions to European culture are legendary. But they also suffered grievously for their pains. Thus when the same xenophobic political trends traditionally hostile to the integration of minorities begin to vociferously demand that Muslims should integrate, this must be seen as a warning that we may be heading toward a very dark phase of race relations in the West.
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author Abdelwahab El-Affendi
author_facet Abdelwahab El-Affendi
author_sort Abdelwahab El-Affendi
title The Souls of Muslim Folk
title_short The Souls of Muslim Folk
title_full The Souls of Muslim Folk
title_fullStr The Souls of Muslim Folk
title_full_unstemmed The Souls of Muslim Folk
title_sort souls of muslim folk
publisher International Institute of Islamic Thought
publishDate 2012
url https://doaj.org/article/894e5561df3445f295944997cdcbc507
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