The Poetics of Post-9/11 American Structural Islamophobia and Arab Identity: Yussef El Guindi’s Back of the Throat
Keywords:
Islamophobia, Orientalism, Panopticism, Surveillance, Filiation, AffiliationAbstract
This study probes the problematics of post-9/11 American structural Islamophobia and Arab identity through Yussef El Guindi’s play, Back of the Throat. American Arab represents the pathological condition of the Foucauldian leper in the post-9/11 American panopticon. Arab/Muslim identity is criminalized and securitized by the FBI agents representing American Islamophobic state structure in the play. Furthermore, American Arabs are victims of cultural racism and Islamophobia in the post-9/11 surveillance state of America in El Guindi’s play. The tropes of European Orientalism and American Orientalism are deployed by the FBI agents in the delineation of Arabs. Arabs are seen as the new villains of modern history. El Guindi dramatizes this bigotry of the American hegemon through his play. This study uses Khaled A. Beydoun’s theoretical model of American Islamophobia for the analysis of the play. Beydoun’s model of American Islamophobia is supplemented by Michel Foucault’s panopticism for a spatial and visual account of American Arabs in the post-9/11 America. Further, Beydoun’s model of American Islamophobia is supported by other theorists of Islamophobia. Edward W. Said’s model of identity is utilized for probing the filiative identity and affiliative identity of Khalid, the protagonist of the play. In addition, the study uses close reading technique with historicist approach for the analysis of the relationship between American structural Islamophobia and Arab identity in the play.
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