Rana's history of Racism and Islamaphobia
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Rana's piece is profound in its description of racism's origin. He describes a comprehensive history of racial prejudice as inextricably tied to religion. He explains that hostility by European christians towards Jews and Muslims was a "a rehearsal for racial formation". Elaborating on this point, he says, "early sources of racism derived from competing imperial projects based in religious ideology." The catholic church was one of the driving forces of these religious divisions with their concept of "limpieza de sangre" (purity of blood) which essentially acted as a racial hierarchy.
Through the process of colonization, the motivation of religious difference and correction became commonplace as these barriers became politically entrenched and culturally ingrained. As this history progressed, the barriers between race, religion, and heritage were increasingly breached and the conceptions of each of them mixed. Terms became conflated and religious prejudice became xenophobia and then racism and vice versa. "Hindu", "Arab", "Syrian", and "Oriental" all came to carry prejudiced meanings beyond their original definitions.
The conflation of separate prejudices is the root of the connection between Islamophobia and racism. However, according to Rana, some conflation was more intentional. He describes that after the Christian Crusades, the Moorish conflicts, and the discovery of the new world had established religious tensions, Europeans were primed for the growth of economy and power through colonialism. As Rana says, “For European capitalism to expand, a religious other had to be created in Islamic rivals: the Turks and the Moors.” This expands on the idea that colonialism was driven by concepts of religious difference and when the Europeans established a firm presence in the Americas, it was Muslim othering that was applied onto American natives which developed the racism that still exists today.
Overall, Rana’s piece describes why throughout history, Islamophobia and racism are intricately entwined, neither existing without the other. Today, Rana explains, racism has evolved beyond religious ties in some ways with the influence of eugenics, and the biological basis of discrimination. However, the connection of these concepts is crucial to their history.