Confronting Islamophobia and Hate Speech [Research Paper]

Islamophobia has been increasingly prevalent within the past decade. However, as this year’s presidential race heats up, the hateful rhetoric has taken center stage in the election coverage. This can lead to dangerous possibilities if left unchecked. According to the Huffington Post, the anti-Muslim rhetoric in the presidential race has even fueled a spike of Islamophobic incidents.

With the launch of the Center for the Study of Religion, Culture and Foreign Affairs, the Center’s focus for 2016 is to explore moral conflict and hate speech in the global public sphere. Through various outlets, the Center aims to explore the various causes and complexities that lead to these dangerous instances of hate speech and islamophobia.

One of the Center’s most recent research publications, “Confronting Ideological Violence and Hate Speech”, examines the prevalent Islamophobia and hate speech in this year’s presidential election. Read the introduction below:

Moral conflicts arise in the tensions between competing political, religious and cultural norms and morés. When violence becomes ideologically based, we see a number of influences contributing to the elevation of violence as a means to protecting group privilege, racial identity or political power. When religion is used as a means for protecting group privilege or theological purity we often see an amplification of the violence used against the “other.” However, the key word is competition.

In an age of increased displacement because of war, the economy, ecological crisis and natural disasters fear of becoming displaced has arisen around the world. One look at Syria, which has moved from a drought, to civil war to a conflict involving many nations both regionally and internationally is a case in point, even though there were many who were ready to stand up to the abuses of Syria’s President, Bashar al-Assad.

How does the Interfaith community respond? Alleviating fear, mediation and truth telling, and solidarity.

Read the full research paper by CSRCFA here.

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