"A wonderful, splendid, erudite, accessible and entirely original book! In Hatem Bazian's capable hands, this book offers its readers a decolonial map to navigate the difficult questions of our time. This is a tour de force in decolonial thought and Muslim decolonial politics of liberation! A must to read..."
Ramon Grosfoguel, Associate Professor, Chicano / Latino Studies, Ethnic Studies, UC Berkeley
"Annotations on Race is a tour de force of incisive running commentary on the events that are shaping the world. With great passion and verve, the book covers an eclectic array of topics ranging from Muhammad Ali to the Arab Spring, from Du Bois to the NAFTA and immigration from Mexico... Bazian shows that insights in a decolonial reading is both an understanding and a call to action."
S. Sayyid, Professor of Social Theory and Decolonial Thought, University of Leeds
The veneer of post-racial America, the insistence on color blindness across Europe, the callous treatment of refugees and the brutalities inflicted on Muslims and Islam, all derive from lies perpetrated by the powerful (and the powerless) to perpetuate white supremacy. Dr. Hatem Bazian's book reveals the truth - that the twisted roots of institutional racism, religious animosity and western arrogance are planted deeply in the fertile soil of the West; their legacies continue to shape our lives in the 21st century. Dr. Bazian describes their manifestations, their consequences and the sustained efforts to resist them, and maintain human dignity. This is a powerful set of essays, in vivid and compelling terms, that speaks to the most urgent matters of the 21st century."
Stephen Small, Professor of African American Studies, UC Berkeley
"Dr. Hatem Bazian's, "Annotations on Race, Colonialism, Islamophobia, Islam and Palestine," is a wide-ranging examination of many of the issues connected to what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. described as the evil triplets -racism, militarism and poverty. Dr. Bazian engages in a masterful study of these themes in both an American and international context focusing on the underlying structures facilitating their existence and entrenchment. This work is essential reading for anyone seeking to move beyond the headlines and to understand the underlying realities shaping some of the most pertinent and vexing issues of our day."
Imam Zaid Shakir, Professor and co-Founder of Zaytuna College
Part One: On race and racism
1. America’s open secret: racism and white supremacy
2. Black History Month and dismantling Whiteness in ´the Shining City Upon a Hill`
3. A racial moment: reflections on race, racism and resistance
4. ‘What’s the matter boss, we sick?’
5. On Ferguson’s verdict, violence and colonial conditioning
6. Michael Brown, racism and America’s open casket
7. Michael Brown and America’s structural racism
8. Police violence in America and compounded racism
9. Confronting race in America!
10. Death certificates in America – cause of death: “Being Black”
11. Racism at the university: silence, indifference and culpability
12. Flint: racism and water
13. The clash of civilization: a racial discourse
14. On burning churches and lynching!
15. The mirage of White Victimhood
16. From the human zoo to diversity initiatives
17. Targeting Chinese-Americans is an old ploy!
18. Remembering Muhammad Ali: “Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee”
Part Two: On colonialism, post colonialism and de-colonization
1. From expulsion to native genocide: Columbus’ voyage and forging the “New World”!
2. Kill them all to rescue a dying colonialism
3. Violence upon the mind: the constantly present colonial
4. On military coups and post-colonialism
5. Ramadan: a de-colonial centering moment
6. Wither the Arabs
7. Immigration crisis: the collapse of the post-colonial state, part 1
8. Immigration crisis: the collapse of the post-colonial state part 2
9. Immigration crisis: the collapse of the post-colonial state, part 3
10. Immigration crisis: the collapse of the post-colonial state, part 4
11. Immigration crisis: the collapse of the post-colonial state, part 5
12. Europe, immigration and the post-colonial South
13. A discourse on the colonized Muslim subject
14. The ethical, moral economy and designing structural inequality
15. The real big game and merchants of death
16. Erasure of the human
17. The refugee: the commodified human
Part Three: On Islamophobia and Muslim Otherness
1. Does Europe have an inquisition problem?
2. Bosnian genocide and Islamophobia: marking and unmarking history
3. American Muslims and the specter of fear
4. Trump’s victory: intervention ghosts, globalization and Islamophobia!
5. France’s Burkini Ban: the theater of the absurd `an outfit respecting good morals and secularism.`
6. Islamophobia: Israel’s last frontier to rescue its image!
7. Islam is responsible mantra
8. Islamophobia and women’s hijab in public space!
9. CVE: Civilizational rehab programs for Muslims
10. Islamophobia and the ballot box
11. America is becoming more Islamophobic!
12. Islamophobia and the three evils of society
13. Islamophobia is at a violent tipping point
14. Ahmed’s arrest caused by bigotry and Islamophobia
15. Islamophobia network: the fringe dominating the center
16. When Islamophobia turns deadly
17. North Carolina, Paris, Norway and reinforcing extremes
18. Ahmed Merabet and Charlie Hebdo’s new cover: at whom are we poking fun?
19. “No-Go Zones” and No-Intelligence, an Islamophobia prerequisite
20. Tunisian presidential elections and monetizing Islamophobia at the ballot box
21. Trumpism: racist eggs and fascist omelets
22. Latent and manifest Islamophobia: an inception of ideas
23. The ‘randomness’ of Islamophobia at US airports
24. Egypt, the ‘war on terrorism’ and Islamophobia
25. Muslims bite puppies in Tahrir Square, puppies are rescued to America
26. Trump and the collapse of neoliberal economic order!
Part Four: On Islam and Muslimness
1. The souls of Muslim folk
2. How does it feel to be a Muslim?
3. Muslim intellectuals and America’s imperial project!
4. The Muslim question
5. The ‘terrorist’ designation game: a tool to consolidate power and saving Islam from Islam!
6. “Islamic Reformation” and the West living in our minds
7. Islam, reform and the “modern” rational
8. The metaphysical and the crisis of spiritual materiality
9. Orientalism, Palestine and covering Islam
10. Embedded intellectuals: an ethical crisis
11. Sunni Islamic authority between the text and context
12. Religious authority, state power and revolutions
13. ISIS beheading Islam through its actions!
14. Islam in countering violent extremism
15. On constitutions, Sharia and Muslim political thought
16. Revisiting Al-Ghazali: revelation and reason!
17. On Muslim toleration
18. Books and reading in the Muslim world: a serious crisis
19. Putting Humpty Dumpty together again!
20. Climate change is a Muslim concern
21. On sectarian violence in the Muslim world
22. Islam vs. Islam: what is the way forward?
23. Muslims and Arabs: free speech and the question of violence
Part Five: On Palestine, Zionism and interfaith discourses
1. Dismembering the Ottomans and colonizing Palestine
2. The Nakba: Narrating the “Non-Existing” Palestinians into History!
3. Always a land with people
4. Restoring Palestine: six divergent visions
5. Israel’s grand theft of Muslim endowments in Jerusalem
6. The Palestinian cause and international law
7. Al-Aqsa Mosque and Israel’s colonial bullying
8. Intifada or not: occupation remains intact?
9. Palestine’s wound
10. Palestine, President Abbas and challenges in ending Oslo!
11. Israeli racist settlers, burning toddlers and ‘price tag’
12. Israeli war crimes and bringing an end to impunity
13. Gaza: The never-ending war crime
14. Vatican’s recognition a signal of the global shift on Palestine statehood
15. Breaking the silence on Israeli crimes in Gaza
16. Should Israeli nuclear bombs be inspected?
17. Netanyahu is dismantling peace and entrenching apartheid
18. ‘Interfaith’ under occupation is normalization, not solidarity!
19. “We Fight, Therefore We Are:” Zionism’s Epistemology
20. The Balfour Declaration: Palestine’s British and Zionist colonial legacy
21. Palestine: Toward a social justice based interfaith horizon
22. Palestine, American Muslim leadership and assimilationist strategic math
23. A license to kill: ‘Israel’s right to defend itself ’
24. Western media: the clean-up crew for Israeli crimes
25. Israel and the regional strategic landscape
26. Why was Arafat killed?
27. Palestine: toward a new era!
28. Checkpoints on Palestine in academia
29. Israel and BDS: assassinating an idea?
30. American Muslims must not become tools of Israeli propaganda
31. Shalom Hartman’s MLI Program – a constructive engagement paradigm
32. Muslim leadership initiative and understanding BDS, Zionism and Israel
33. The “Peace Process” and constructing a new cage for the Palestinians
35. Napoleon, Obama and revisiting the Cairo speech
Index
