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Sociology David TYRER Institute of Social Research University Of Sociology David TYRER Institute of Social Research University of Salford, Salford, UK Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, October 2003 InsttutionaIised Islamophobia in British Universities Abstract This thesis is a conceptual study of institutionalised Islamophobia in British universities. My analysis is illustrated, although not driven, by exemplars drawn from fieldwork undertaken in four case study universities. The thesis is situated in the paradoxical context of increasing provisions for Muslim students that occurred throughout the 1990s while simultaneously fears of Muslim student 'fundamentalism' on campus were also on the increase and resulted in targeted action by the National Union of Students, the Committee for Vice-Chancellors and Principals, and a number of individual universities concerned about the possible threat to campus harmony posed by Muslim students. Employing a conceptual vocabulary influenced by anti-foundationalism and psychoanlysis, I explore the ways in which racialised governmentality is exercised over Muslim students. This analysis includes consideration of the functions of formal multiculturalist practices as strategies for the governance of bodies, and through which racialised exercise of disciplinary power over Muslim students can be exercised. The thesis begins with a general consideration of the reasons why perceived distinct changes to the ways in which Muslims articulate their identities should so often be seen as potentially transgressive or disruptive, It then proceeds to an analysis of the ways in which Muslim students are constructed through institutional practices, paying particular attention to strategies for stabilising representations of Muslims, whiteness and the west which range from lslamophobic hoaxing to lslamophobic violence. Acknowledgements This thesis is dedicated with all love and duahs to my sister Jehan. I would like to thank from the bottom of my heart my supervisor Dr Salman Sayyid, whose patience and support have been invaluable, and whose work and thoughts have proved a great source of inspiration over the years. I would also like to thank all in ESPaCH and ISR at the University of Salford, Dr lain Law of Leeds University, Dr Elaine Baldwin of ESPaCH, and CGEM/Development Studies in the University of Manchester. I also owe a huge debt of gratitude to all of my respondents - I hope my work has done you justice. Thanks also in no particular order and a range of different reasons to my family, Jalil Karim, Naseem Anwar, Amrit, Leena, Shaila Bibi, Majid Azaim, Nina, Elizabeth Bananuka, Farhat Mian Sadeeq, Kerim (hello to Lyon!), Antonio Sferrazzo and all the Lentini clan (including the other Antonio Sferrazzol), Ray Yuill, Rob Ferguson, 'Uncle' Allan Cattell, Paul Burns, Tahir 'Bossman' Khan, Vandana, Shaida, Shamser, Nilam, Jarrah, Osaid, Latifa, Zubaida, Saleem, Pritee, Kam, Zainab, Pandeli, Bilal, lannis, 'Greek Michael', 'Big Kostas', 'Little Kostas', Antonis, Iris, Katerina, Emma, Vikki, Dona, Toni, Daniel, Anne, Priscilla, Evelyn, all at Black Health Agency, Mushtaq, James, and Karine. Finally, thanks to Piaggio for having designed something in the Vespa 50 Special that has given me even more cause to tear my hair out than the PhD! Glossary of terms al Muhajiroun - An Islamist group which emerged in Britain in the mid-I 990s following a split within the leadership of the group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Omar Bakri is the head of al Muhajiroun in Britain. al Muhajiroun's main aim is the re-establishment of the institution of Khalifah. Azan - The Muslim call to prayer. BNP - British National Party, a far-right white racist political party which has experienced some success in council elections in Britain in recent years. The BNP has attempted to distance itself from claims of white racism and justifies its emphasis on (slamophobia through unsubstantiated claims of support from Hindu and Sikh communities. BOSS - British Organisation of Sikh Students. Discourse - By discourse, I mean a discrete system of sentences or practices which offer us a particular conceptual vocabulary through which to construct specific forms ofknowledge, construct identities by delineating possibilities and exclusions, and constituting social relations. The exercise of power is central to all discursive operations. Dislocation - A dislocation of the social is an event that cannot be adequately symbolised within the logics of the existing symbolic order. Epistemic violence - Epistemic violence is a figurative violence carried out through the production of knowledge, and is frequently associated with an attempt to read one discourse through the logics of another. Essentialism - the logic that the signifiers we use are immutably tied to underlying a priori truths and that, as a consequence, human identities can be understood in terms of essences or inherent traits to which they are assumed to be immutably bound and which shape them. Hijab - Literally means 'curtain', although commonly deployed as a reference to the headscarl worn by many Muslim women. Hizb ut-Tahrir - an Islamist group formed in the West Bank in 1953. Hizb ut-Tahrir is active in Britain and takes as its central aim the re-establishment of a global system of Islamic states under the leadership of the institution of Khalifah. Ideology - In a strictly Althusseran sense, ideology would signify the imaginary relations between an individual and her/his 'real' conditions of existence, tying in with Marxian notions of false consciousness. However, ideology is deployed in this thesis in recognition of the ways in which it influences actions and behaviours and is implicated in the ways in which conditions can be understood as being in some way 'real', influencing perceptions and experiences of the world and responses to it. HVK - Hindu Vivak Kendra (a Hindu Nationalist organisation). Muslim News - A weekly Muslim printed and internet newspaper in Britain. NUS - National Union of Students. Q News - A Muslim news magazine. Salafi - Salafi is an Arabic term derived from the term 'Salaf', which literally means one following a path of righteousness and is often used as a reference to the companions of the Prophet Mohammed. Adherents of Wahhabbism tend to call themselves 'Salafi' rather than 'Wahhabi', possibly because the latter term is frequently employed in a derogatory sense by some Muslims in Britain. Salah - Prayer. Symbolic order - the social world of intersubjective relations and epistemic conventions made possible in Lacanian terms by acceptance of the conventions and protocols governing both desire and communication, through which it is possible to gain entry to, and symbolise, a world of others. UJS - Union of Jewish Students. Wahhabbism - A 'reform' movement which emerged in the Arabian peninsula during the eighteenth century aimed at eradicating the corruption that was felt to be spreading among Muslims. Wahhabbism tends to emphasise more literal interpretations of the canonical texts of Islam than other strands of Islam. Wudhu - The ritual ablutions Muslims perform prior to prayer. Wudhu involves making supplication to Allah and washing the head, face, insides of mouth and nose, neck, ears, hands, forearms up to elbow, and feet including ankles. Contents Partone—SettingTheScene Chapter 1 - Tales from the other side... Page 1 Chapter 2 - The Rushdie affair and the emergence of Muslim identities in Britain Page 19 Chapter 3— We defective westerners: Islamism and Islamophobia Page 53 Part two - Operationalising 'fundamentalism' and Islamophobia Chapter 4 - Pulp friction: constructing fundamentalism': racialising the university (1) Page 85 Chapter 5 - Antisemitism and Islamophobia on campus: racialising the university (2) Page 137 Part Three - Whiteness and Islamophobia in the University Chapter 6— White racism and the NUS Page 174 Chapter 7 - White Governmentality, Muslim Students, and Equal Opportunities Page 226 Part Four - Discipline and...Resistance Chapter 8 - Muslim students, political voices, and resistance Page 263 Chapter 9 - Conclusions... Page 292 Appendix I - The four case study universities - a summary Page 299 Appendix 2 - Provisions in the case study universities Page 302 Appendix 3 - Respondents and fieldwork Page 334 Bibliography Page 341 Part One - Setting The Scene Chapter One Tales from the other side... I Pulp fiction Conventional discussions of Islam are often rather like airport news stand murder novels. The narrator gathers us around the fireplace in order to introduce us one-by- one to the usual range of suspects and reveal once and for all their motives, failings, and moral proclivities. Among them we have the 'modernisers' (usually rendered as the typically Christie-esque vulgar oriental, bulging out of his imitation Savile Row suit and never quite able to leave the spirit of the bazaar behind) the orientalists (the entirely commodious holidaying couple from Islington or Idaho) and the 'fundamentalists' (the villains in black up to their 'turbans' in subterfuge and betrayal). In such tales, the narrator retroactively reads Muslims through her/his own logics in order to pluck from nowhere one of those 'and-now-for-what-I've-brought-you-all- here-for' moments and reveal once and for all who-done-what: those charming tourists from Idaho (who, in their harmless, bumbling way, helped solve the mystery); the suited orientals (whose greed and inept readings of their modernising functions in this tale made them complicit in various acts of villainry); the villains
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