Transnational Conspiracy Theories and Vernacular Visual Cultures: Political Islam in Turkey and America

Pelin Gurel, Ph.D.*

“Seeing is believing, but feeling is the truth,” states an epistemological folk theory. Successful theories of conspiracy – those that are ultimately true as well as false – all depend on what Stephen Colbert would call “truthiness”: “the quality by which you know something purely by feeling, without regard to logic, evidence, or intellectual examination.” While visual documentation, including photographs and charts, has long been used as “proof” in conspiracy theorizing, the role unrealistic images might play in generating feelings of truthiness has not been subjected to sustained analysis. This gap is even more jarring in the case of contemporary conspiracy theories regarding political Islam, given the importance of “looking” Muslim to both hate-crimes and conspiracy theorizing. An even larger gap in scholarship exists in terms of images and conspiracy theories regarding political Islam in Muslim-majority countries like Turkey.

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Islamophobia no longer works as political tool in US

Islamophobia, which was on the rise as a result of the 9/11 attacks in the US, no longer works as a political tool for American political figures to win elections, according to Wajahat Ali, a well-known playwright, attorney and activist in the US.

“In the latest elections in US, most of the Islamophobic political figures lost. It has been realized that using Islamophobia as a political tool does not make you win,” said Ali.

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What does Petraeus testimony reveal about the Benghazi attacks?

Former CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus, who recently resigned because of an extramarital affair, testified to the US Congress and clarified that the attacks which led to deaths at the US consulate in Benghazi, including that of US Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens, had nothing to do with the anti-Islam movie the “Innocence of Muslims.”

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Norwegian Christian leader: Islamophobia not just fear, includes hatred

Sevgi Akarçeşme

Gunnar Stalsett, the bishop emeritus of Oslo, warned about a hatred of Islam at a joint panel discussion organized by the Abant Platform and Fountain Magazine in İstanbul on Friday.

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John L. Esposito: Islamophobia is symptom of broader problem

Moinuddin Ahmed

Living in a globalized world poses a great challenge for theologians and scholars as they try to develop an understanding of how people belonging to different religions and faiths can coexist.

However, we are living in a time where stereotyping a particular community has become a common practice and hampers the functioning of pluralistic societies.

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U.S. Muslims are not measured by the exemplary work of its mainstream

Jihad Turk and Salam Al-Marayati *

As American Muslims, we are civically challenged - challenged by some of our fellow Muslims, by the media, and by our limited success in having our voices (and those of the mainstream of our community) heard. Our e-mail boxes are replete with Muslim condemnations of the violent protests in reaction to the video, “Innocence of Muslims,” yet the perception remains that Muslims are silent to extremism.

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Murdering the US ambassador to Libya: Anti-Westernism and Islamophobia

Ahmet T. Kuru *

US Ambassador Christopher Stevens was killed a few days ago as a result of either a calculated terrorist attack or random violent anti-US protests in Libya.

It is not known yet exactly who the murderers are, but it is not early to explore the global significance of the incident.

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