Brief History of the Silk Road
The 'Old' Silk Road, so to speak, refers to trade routes that stretched from southern Europe to the eastern shore of the Asian continent. These trade routes came into existence in roughly 200 BC (Silk Road 17). As one might guess, the main commodity was Chinese silk. These networks spanned regions we now know as Egypt and Somalia in Africa, the Roman Empire in Europe, Iran, Afghanistan and India in central and southern Asia, and of course China in eastern Asia (Silk Road 16). These commercial routes joined many worlds which were each very different from each other culturally.
The New Silk Road
Today, these overland routes are still generally in use albeit through different modes of transportation. From its birth, the Silk Road has served as both a literal and figurative gateway between the so called 'Old' and 'New' world, the old world represented by European countries and their colonies and the other new worlds represented by the 'Orient' - a term that refers to anything that belongs to the 'Eastern World,' or regions east of Europe. (Bazian Lecture)
Connection Between Media and Popular Culture and Islamophobia
The trouble with the term 'Orient' is that it implies that Europe is the center of the world, the center of all people, the root of civilization. It implies that 'Oriental' civilizations and social structures are judged in relation to the customs of Europe, and as a result, that Oriental society in a way strives to reach levels of civility as those found in the old world. Through this process of 'otherization,' or labeling of outside and unfamiliar cultures as distant and strange, it can often be misconstrued that other different ways of life are inferior. Through this process, an innate tendency towards discrimination can be more easily manifested by a people, especially when there is even just the slightest cause for worry.
In modern colloquial language, the United States is lumped together with the 'Old' world. Specifically, the 'West' oftentimes refers to the United States, however general the term, and without regard for its implications. This website seeks to explore the dichotomy between the East and the West from differnt angles of popular culture and the media. Specifically this website exposes Islamophobia's place in political cartoons and satire and links to voices responding to this modern wave of Islamophobia, the product of years of otherization. In 'Arabs and Comedy,' Ziyang 'Zack' Guan shows generalizations of the Arab community. In 'Arab Hip Hop' Joseph Gapuz shows a new rising counterculture responding to people in opposition to Islamic culture and voice. In Arabs in the news, Phuc Nguyen shows different representations of Islamic culture in political cartoons and in public oration at a Californian university.
The website is named The New Silk Road because in many ways, popular culture has become the new gateway, the New Silk Road that joins two totally different worlds. Commercially, popular culture and the media aims foremost to entertain and profit, but in doing so can end up uniting a people through mutual understanding and shared customs. Our goal is to share ways in which the media has defined Arabs and Muslims through Orientialism for centuries now, and in response, how some Arabs and Muslims have risen to prominence by using their agency to define themselves and make their struggle relevant to the public.
The Orient only exists for the West, the 'Old' world. This website seeks to explore this supposed negative mirror image of the West - while there may be political differences, there need not be otherization or differentiation. The epistemic East and West need not exist. Whether latently or actively, we import these oriental stereotypes domestically of 'dangerous' and 'uncivilized' Muslim people. We generalize a whole people and culture or similar-looking people based on those few instances that stand out in our mind - the war in Afghanistan, prominent terrorists, and of course the most memorable attack on the home front by predominantly Muslim and Arabic nations. This calls for an awakening of sorts that opens our eyes to this new unfair and dangerous racism, through which society suffers from much unneeded social anxiety. (Bazian Lecture)
Islamophobia was coined by the International Institute for Islamic thought in the 1990s. Former IIIT member Abdur-Rahman Muhammad voices,
“This loathsome term is nothing more than a thought-terminating cliche conceived in the bowels of Muslim think tanks for the purpose of beating down critics” (Politics). Put simply, Islamophobia is the prejudice, hatred or irrational fear of Muslims (Discrimination).
In modern colloquial language, the United States is lumped together with the 'Old' world. Specifically, the 'West' oftentimes refers to the United States, however general the term, and without regard for its implications. This website seeks to explore the dichotomy between the East and the West from differnt angles of popular culture and the media. Specifically this website exposes Islamophobia's place in political cartoons and satire and links to voices responding to this modern wave of Islamophobia, the product of years of otherization. In 'Arabs and Comedy,' Ziyang 'Zack' Guan shows generalizations of the Arab community. In 'Arab Hip Hop' Joseph Gapuz shows a new rising counterculture responding to people in opposition to Islamic culture and voice. In Arabs in the news, Phuc Nguyen shows different representations of Islamic culture in political cartoons and in public oration at a Californian university.
The website is named The New Silk Road because in many ways, popular culture has become the new gateway, the New Silk Road that joins two totally different worlds. Commercially, popular culture and the media aims foremost to entertain and profit, but in doing so can end up uniting a people through mutual understanding and shared customs. Our goal is to share ways in which the media has defined Arabs and Muslims through Orientialism for centuries now, and in response, how some Arabs and Muslims have risen to prominence by using their agency to define themselves and make their struggle relevant to the public.
The Orient only exists for the West, the 'Old' world. This website seeks to explore this supposed negative mirror image of the West - while there may be political differences, there need not be otherization or differentiation. The epistemic East and West need not exist. Whether latently or actively, we import these oriental stereotypes domestically of 'dangerous' and 'uncivilized' Muslim people. We generalize a whole people and culture or similar-looking people based on those few instances that stand out in our mind - the war in Afghanistan, prominent terrorists, and of course the most memorable attack on the home front by predominantly Muslim and Arabic nations. This calls for an awakening of sorts that opens our eyes to this new unfair and dangerous racism, through which society suffers from much unneeded social anxiety. (Bazian Lecture)
Islamophobia was coined by the International Institute for Islamic thought in the 1990s. Former IIIT member Abdur-Rahman Muhammad voices,
“This loathsome term is nothing more than a thought-terminating cliche conceived in the bowels of Muslim think tanks for the purpose of beating down critics” (Politics). Put simply, Islamophobia is the prejudice, hatred or irrational fear of Muslims (Discrimination).