Arun Kundnani

A Möbius strip of prejudice and terrorism

The Muslims Are Coming! Islamophobia, Extremism and the Domestic War on Terror by Arun Kundnani (Verso, $26.95)

NYU professor Arun Kundnani looks at the fallout from the “war on terror” in terms of the development of a “global jihad.”

Young Muslims in the U.S. and the U.K. now find their ability to assimilate stunted or destroyed altogether by the rising fear of Islam and the use of anti-terror tactics pioneered by the Bush and Blair administrations, but still in use. Even though—like most second- and third-generation immigrants—young immigrants from Muslim nations want to fit into and become fully part of their countries, fear of terrorism and general Islamophobia is making this difficult, if not impossible.

Muslim communities’ justified anger at being treated with suspicion by both their government and their non-Muslim neighbors may in fact be leading more young Muslims to the process of radicalization toward terrorism. Arguing that this state of suspicion and fear actually causes some disaffected Muslim American and British youth to become terrorists—Kundnani breaks down the process as preradicalization, identification, indoctrination, and action—the West is creating the very thing no one wants.

He offers a reasonable alternative to continuing to treat our Muslim citizens as an “ideal enemy,” one which separates crime from ideology. Basically, treat terrorist crimes as crimes, regardless of the ideological motivation, and thereby make radicalization about as attractive as becoming a stick-up artist.

This is a very smart book about a very real problem, and unless we’d like to create a forever war, it’s one to which we should pay attention.… (mehr)