Muslim selves and the American body politic: Placing major nidal malik hasan's case in a broader socio-historical context

摘要

In the past two decades, US wars in Muslim-majority countries along with Muslim militants' attacks on the United States have raised questions about the place of Muslims in America's multicultural society. Attempts to confi gure the place of Muslim selves in American body politic have focused primarily on the nature of Islam and its relation to American interests rather than on an analysis of the political policies that have shaped our times. This privileging of religio-cultural explanations of US relations with the Muslim world has engendered the presumption that all Muslims are suspect unless they prove themselves otherwise. Major Nidal Malik Hasan's case, whatever his personal psychological condition, is an example of the way in which attempts at providing a religio-cultural solution to a political problem has placed the burden of bridging the gap between American multicultural ideals and American policies that view Muslims as suspect on the back of individual American Muslim selves.