United State, Terror, Nationalism 

T h e W a r o n T e r r o r waged by the United States since 2001 has focused on religion, nationalism, and gender as linchpins in the U.S. discourse about bringing “democracy” and “human rights,” particularly “women’s rights,” to regions that presumably need to catch up with Western modernity. In this social Darwinist model, human subjects trapped in antidemocratic, patriarchal, and tribalistic cultures need to be liberated in order to achieve the “freedom” of individual autonomy promised to the fittest by neoliberal capitalism. Muslim and Arab femininities and masculinities are a central focus of this politics of rescuing and reshaping subjects. Missionary feminism and liberal humanitarianism have infused the rhetoric used to justify the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and to warn of the threats attributed to Iran and Pakistan. Within the United States, notions of “freedom” and autonomy shape liberal definitions of citizenship that divide certain subjects as worthy of belonging from others who must be expelled from the nation. However, this moralized logic of virtue and the rhetoric of “national security” mask U.S. imperial designs and strategic interests in the Middle East and South/Southwest Asia. The reasons that certain individuals or groups are “anti-American” and resist U.S. occupation and corporate control are obscured through a Feminist Studies35, no. 3 (Fall 2009). © 2009 by Feminist Studies, Inc. discourse of “anti-terrorism” that targets Muslim and Arab males but is also preoccupied with women’s bodies. This article describes how constructions of gender are intertwined with religion and nationalism in a state discourse about “terror” and how “good” and “bad” Muslim citizenship are interpreted in the United States after September 11, 2001. What do these gendered performances tell us about U.S. nationalisms, feminisms, and race politics in the War on Terror?. 

26 p.; 23 cm