Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror

How was the “good Muslim/bad Muslim” binary constructed and reified in American media in the post-9/11 era? Does this binary persist in the present day? How has it changed?

Mamdani argues that terrorism should be understood politically rather than culturally. How might political explanations of terrorism work in concert with civilizational or cultural explanations? Does terrorism take different forms in different cultural contexts? How might counterterrorist efforts change to account for terrorism’s political motivations?

Examine how Mamdani connects US Cold War policies, such as the support for the Afghan mujahideen, to the emergence of global terrorist networks. What are the effects of reframing 9/11 as the culmination of historical trends beginning in the Cold War?