Islamophobia in Spain: Inheritance of Reconquista and Hate Political Rhetoric

The article discusses the development of Islamophobia in Spain and the connection with the ruling of Islam in Andalus, including the impact of Reconquista (re-conquest) that was followed by inquisition; and the connection between Islamophobia and the changing orientalist tradition which impact social and political constellation in Andalus and the West in general up to Post 9/11. Employing a qualitative approach, this study shows that the rise of Islamophobia in Spain in the modern-contemporary era is enabled through the rise of populist politics in Europe in general. Populist rhetoric revives the memories of Islamic domination in Andalus and Reconquista to win votes. Islamophobia is also worsened by Islamophilia— uncritical admiration of the values of Islam, generally associated with an admiration of Islamic civilization and Maurophilia – the explicit romanticization of the Moors in Spanish literature and the complex, often silent presence of Moorish forms in Spanish material culture. This study also demonstrates that hate rhetoric towards Islam in contemporary era is highly influenced by the development of American Orientalism model motivated by war or revenge against terrorism.

American Orientalist Discourse: the Linguistic Formation and Transformation

The Middle East region had been the epicentre of American orientalist discourse since the American independence from Britain. After independence, American linguists, travellers, missionaries, politicians, sailors and traders scrutinized the anarchy and uncertainty of that region and employed them to produce works that prioritized American identity formation. This research rests on conducting an analysis of how American orientalism was created and how the various encounters between Arabs and America affected the linguistic course of this academia. This study considers the major encounters in the course of Arab-America relationship that brought major transformations to orientalism such as: the Barbary war, the creation of Israel, oil and terrorism. Since the American independence, American orientalism focused on building American identity in comparison with Arabs and their practices. Modern American orientalism has undergone various and huge transformations resulted mostly from formidable threats to American interests and the American retaliations to those threats. These encounters, whether political, economic or military, brought representation of Arabs to the top of American orientalist agenda and left a huge impact on image of Arabs in literature. Therefore, this study is based on the analysis of these different factors in order to know the different perspectives of this orientalism through its different stages.

America's Encounters with Southeast Asia, 1800-1900

A century before the Philippines came under American control, Americans were already travelling to Southeast Asia regularly. This book looks at the writings of American diplomats, adventurers, and scientists and chronicles how nineteenth-century Americans viewed and imagined Southeast Asia through their own cultural-political lenses. It argues that as Americans came to visit the region they also brought with them a train of cultural assumptions and biases that contributed to the development of American Orientalism in Southeast Asia.

Orientalism in Nineteenth-Century America

During the nineteenth century, Americans encountered Asia through a number of exchanges. Drawing on the work of Edward Said, this chapter surveys the development of American Orientalism across three areas: academic Orientalism, representative Orientalism, and Orientalist discourses of power. Academic Orientalism first developed in the United States as the work of British Orientalists in India filtered into the country. Later, Americans such as William D. Whitney placed American Orientalism on par with its European competitors. Meanwhile, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, imagined Asia as a land of Oriental mysticism and contemplation in contrast to American materialism and reason. Finally, the World’s Parliament of Religion in 1893 used representations of the Orient to bolster claims of American cultural supremacy. Through all of these examples, Orientalism collapsed the line between religion and race such that the Orient always represented racial and religious inferiority to white Christian America.