ABSTRACT
The desire for 'religious' or 'ethnic' identity ignores the constraining global conditions that are creating the impoverished masses and, instead of opposing capitalism, brings these masses together under the banner of 'identity' slogans. Thus contemporary forces of capitalism, or structures of the World System, inevitably lead to 'othering' processes-including processes that construct 'Muslims' as a dangerous and/or inferior Other in the periphery as well as in the core. This 'othering' functions as a 'racial' category that is repressive of those it identifies but also productive of their own self-identification. The desire for 'religious' independence ignores the constraining global conditions that create the impoverished masses and instead of opposing capitalism. The reflections above about Muslims in the periphery lead us to raise some questions about Muslim immigrants in the core zones of the capitalist system. 'Islamic Radicalism'-which would be empty signifiers-but one could explore forces associated with an 'Islamic' identity as shaped and developed within particular social-historical situations and 'integration models'.
