Contesting Identity

Abstract

The interface between religion and politics has become strong in the wake of expansion of modernity in its contemporary form. This can be regarded as cultural globalization. To interpret this phenomenon, the demonization of Islam by the West led by the US has been taken as a key epistemological point. This article argues that this policy, framed as part of the American strategy in the global war on terrorism, has constituted a key component of the larger US agenda. One facet of this agenda is primarily related to America’s bid to perpetuate the institutional structure of the permanent war economy envisaged during the Cold War period. The structure consists of the vocational interests of the arms lobby and the hawkish politico-bureaucratic-strategic condominium in the US. To accomplish this goal, communism, the United States’ Cold War enemy, has been replaced by a new enemy, Islam, at the end of the Cold War. The events of 11 September 2001 brought all this to a full circle and facilitated the US to advance justifications for continuing the permanent war economy and to substantiate the transformation of the ideological conflict of the Cold War into a cultural conflict in the post-Cold War period. In this regard, the rise of US soft power, made possible by the pervasive impact of globalization, has helped defend America’s post-Cold War proposition regarding an emergent war culture and the portrayal of Islam as the Manichean other in this war.