ABSTRACT
The actions of Muslims have often been inscribed in a cultural and political discourse that casts them in subordinate terms as traditional, introverted, and fatalist. Reinstituting faith in a culture that sees itself mostly at the receiving end of a powerful imported secular culture, no matter how liberating it might be, is unequivocally considered regressive and anti-modern by those who see no emancipation in the dogmas of the religious. Indeed, Islam’s visibility in Western public space is threatening, as tensions flare up around mosques, minarets, veiling, and food taboos. The pattern in this debate is a rising visceral fear, largely exploited by populist politicians, of an anachronistic religion whose adherents not only disturb the architectural harmony of public space, but also interrupt the “natural” harmony and “linear” evolution of Western Judeo-Christian civilization. The placards and posters used during such highly publicized controversies as the minaret ban in Switzerland, the “Ground Zero Mosque” polemic in New York, and the Niqab ban in France all belabor this facile association between the symbols of Islam and a threat to national security and cultural unity.
