Representing Muslims: Islamophobic Discourse and the Construction Of
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Representing Muslims: Islamophobic discourse and the construction of identities in Britain since 2001 Leonie Jackson BA, MA A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy April 2015 This work or any part thereof has not previously been presented in any form to the University or to any other body whether for the purposes of assessment, publication or for any other purpose (unless otherwise indicated). Save for any express acknowledgments, references and/or bibliographies cited in the work, I confirm that the intellectual content of the work is the result of my own efforts and of no other person. The right of Leonie Jackson to be identified as author of this work is asserted in accordance with ss.77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. At this date copyright is owned by the author. Signature……………………………………….. Date…………………………………………….. 1 Abstract Employing critical race theory as a theoretical and analytical framework, this thesis explores the nature, structure and purpose of Islamophobic discourse, and offers two central contributions to the scholarly debate on Islamophobia. First, it contributes to the literature on the nature of Islamophobia by analysing the form and structure of discourse that seeks to represent Muslims and Islam in a number of social and political sites. Second, the thesis addresses a significant gap identified in the scholarly literature, which has largely overlooked the purpose that Islamophobic discourse serves for those employing it. In order to address the nature and structure of Islamophobic discourse, the thesis analyses representations of Muslims and Islam in dominant national community cohesion and counterterrorism discourses; rearticulation of these discourses at the local level in the West Midlands town of Dudley; the use of Islamophobic discourse by the English Defence League; and the ways in which Islamophobic narratives were used to mark national boundaries in Switzerland, Denmark, the Netherlands and France. I explain the convergence of narratives across these levels by extending Ghassan Hage’s theoretical formulation of racism as nationalist practices to Islamophobic discourse and argue that, as a cultural racism, Islamophobia can be conceptualised as upholding a system of Eurocentric supremacy, where Western subjects receive a better social, economic and political ‘racial contract’ and seek to defend these privileges against real and imagined Muslim demands. Whether employed for local, national or civilisational purposes, Islamophobia relies on the notion that space has been culturally compromised by Muslims and must be 2 restored to authenticity by legitimate non-Muslim cultural managers. Islamophobia operates through a three-stage ideological process, and restores fantasised power to those who perceive Muslim cultural difference to be unacceptably changing the spaces in which they reside by representing Muslims as making incongruous demands of a territory, singling out a particular timeless value that is under threat, and reifying this value to an absolute. Through this process Muslims are put back in their place, while those employing this discourse experience a restoration of their cultural power to decide the values of a space. 3 Contents Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................................... 4 Chapter One – Introduction ................................................................................................................ 5 Chapter Two - Islamophobia: A literature Review ............................................................................ 31 Chapter Three - British Muslims and the construction of British national identity after 2001: The community cohesion and counterterrorism discourses ................................................................... 70 Chapter Four - British Muslims and the Discourses of Dysfunction: The Dudley Mosque Controversy ..................................................................................................................................... 113 Chapter Five - ‘Not racist, not violent, just no longer silent’: Racist discourse construction and the ideology of the English Defence League ......................................................................................... 149 Chapter Six – Islamophobia and national identity construction in Europe .................................... 187 Chapter Seven – Theorising Islamophobia ..................................................................................... 232 Chapter Eight - Conclusions ............................................................................................................ 279 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 307 4 Acknowledgments I would like to thank my supervisor, Professor George Kassimeris, who has supported me with patience through every up and every down, and whose unshakeable vision has guided me through this maze. I also owe a huge debt of gratitude to Daniel Koczy, who has helped me in immeasurable ways throughout the course of this research. Without you I would not be who or where I am now. Thank you for sharing in the laughter, tears, frustrations and absurdities. Thank you to Sian Jackson for patiently and good naturedly submitting to learn about Islamophobia, and for innumerable conversations that helped me get my head and heart in order. Dal Nijjar, thank you for your belief and understanding. I could not have asked for a finer cheerleader. And Simon Hayward. For every night spent animatedly discussing, learning and living this research. This journey has been all the sweeter for having spent it with you. This thesis is dedicated to my mother, Mandy Jackson, who taught me to read, question, struggle, and survive. 5 Chapter One – Introduction This thesis contributes to the understanding of Islamophobia in Britain through an analysis of its form and content and a theoretical exploration of its function. The research has two aims, first to understand the nature and character of Islamophobic discourse in Britain since 2001, and second to theorise its purpose; why do individuals and groups employ this discourse at diverging social and political sites? And what benefits does this mode of representation offer its proponents? In the last decade or so there has been burgeoning scholarly interest in Islamophobia and a number of approaches have sought to conceptualise and explain the phenomenon. The merits and weaknesses of these approaches are discussed in chapter two, however, this increased attention to Islamophobia has served to illustrate the diverse social and political sites at which it is employed by individuals and groups to explain the world as it is and as it should be. It is this ideological operation of Islamophobia that the present thesis is concerned with. Each chapter of this thesis has a different analytical focus, and the methods used to apprehend and understand Islamophobic discourse are therefore discussed in each respectively. Nevertheless, a broad theoretical understanding of how to approach the phenomena underpins them all. The present chapter sets out the theoretical framework in which the research is situated, considering first the implications of conceptualising Islamophobia as a form of cultural racism, and 6 second, the theoretical contributions that a critical race theory framework offers to the understanding of Islamophobic discourse. I discuss the assumptions and limitations of these perspectives in order to synthesis and explicate the theoretical framework for the thesis, and conclude with a brief outline of the following chapters. A conceptual framework for Islamophobia I conceptualise Islamophobia in this study as a form of cultural racism. This is hardly controversial, and the ways in which scholars have employed this understanding is discussed further in the literature review. At this stage I wish to foreground the theoretical consequences of approaching Islamophobia from this perspective and the research questions that present themselves as a result of this conceptualisation. The understanding of Islamophobia as a form of cultural racism is based on the new racism thesis developed by scholars in the 1970s and 80s. This perspective holds that new, unlike ‘old fashioned’ or ‘blatant’, racism is ostensibly non-racial and turns on the emphasis of cultural signifiers that are believed to 1 condition human behaviour. Although the language of biological or genetic race 1 New racism has variously been conceptualised as: ‘subtle’ (Thomas F. Pettigrew, “Reactions Toward the New Minorities of Western Europe,” Annual Review of Sociology 24 (1998): 77–103; Thomas F. Pettigrew and R.W. Meertens, “Subtle and Blatant Prejudice in Western Europe,” European Journal of Social Psychology 25 (1995): 57–75.); ‘covert’ (M. Augoustinos, K. Tuffin, and M. Rapley, “Genocide or a Failure to Gel? Racism, History and Nationalism in Australian Talk,” Discourse & Society 10 (1999): 351–378; Kevin Durrheim and John Dixon, “Theories of Culture in Racist Discourse,” Race and Society 3, no. 2 (2000): 93–109; Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 1994).); ‘symbolic’ (John B McConahay and Joseph C Hough, “Symbolic Racism,” Journal of Social Issues 32, no.