The politics of fear in Yussef El Guindi’s Back of the throat

Abstract

The events of September 11 and the ensuing ‘war on terror’ saw the rise of private and structural Islamophobia in the USA. Centuries-old essentialist myths and stereotypes have been used to perpetuate the image of Muslims and Arabs as the antithesis to the West, most often as could-be terrorists—a danger to both individual and national identity, values and even life itself. As Svendsen (2008), Furedi (2018), Ahmed (2014) and Bauman (2006) argue, whoever controls fear, controls the society. This paper examines the cultural and discursive strategies of disciplining through the reproduction of fear and safety narratives in Yussef El Guindi’s play Back of the Throat. It analyses the reciprocal effects culturally constructed fear has on both its subjects and objects. Finally, it describes the lived experiences of Arab/Muslim Americans in the aftermath of 9/11, in the climate of prejudice-driven fear that undermines their individual freedoms and civil rights.