Sunday, March 16, 2014
Blue Room (Omni Shoreham)
Arguably the most arresting and consequential teaching of postmodern thought is that Truth is whatever passes for Truth. This paper maintains that the postmodern teaching regarding the constructed nature of truth has penetrated deeply into public consciousness, turning up as a largely taken-for-granted starting point for many actors in the politics of immigration in Europe. The paper examines how Islamophobes deftly manipulate images of Islam as anti-democratic, misogynistic and militaristic to support their xenophobic political agenda. With equally postmodern appreciation of the power of the sign, Islamophiles of various persuasions often invert the negative image of Islam common in mainstream media and politics by exalting a perfect and pristine form of Islam purportedly practiced by the prophet and his “true” followers that projects a dualistic reading of the West as hedonistic, hypocritical and sadistic. Focusing on both printed and cyber representations of Muslim and non-Muslim Europeans, I discern a profound and widespread erosion of the modern Enlightenment ideals of objectivity and fairness in favor of a “by any means necessary” approach to practicing politics in the postmodern age. At the same time, I draw attention to a less foreboding and less mean-spirited interpretation of a postmodern politics that celebrates hybridity through open-minded exploration rather than closed-minded demonization of difference and alterity. I identify signs of this more hopeful and humane approach to “the postmodern condition” in the efforts of a younger generation of so-called “post-Islamists, such as Tariq Ramadan, to reach out to non-Muslim Europeans willing to engage them.
