How the Workers Became Muslims (a book) “In this beautifully written and brilliantly argued book, Ferruh Yilmaz shows how moral panics and political mobilizations against Muslim ‘difference’ function in western nations to obscure pervasive oppressions of race and class. Drawing deftly on advanced currents in studies of communication and cultural studies, How the Workers Became Muslims demonstrates the dynamism of discourse as a social force. Yilmaz reveals how the prevailing categories and classifications that are deployed in political discourse deliberately direct attention toward conflicts over cultural norms and values in order to deflect attention away from material and political conflicts over resources and rights. This book shows how anti-Muslim mobilizations are not merely manifestations of cultural racism and Islamophobia, but rather key tools for the perpetuation of class dominance and the occlusion of class conflicts.” —George Lipsitz, author of How Racism Takes Place.
“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.” —Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilisation and the Remaking of the World Order, 1996, p. 51