WestminsterResearch http://www.westminster.ac.uk/research/westminsterresearch The tragedy of Islamism in Britain: a fetishism for politics Danila Genovese School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Languages This is an electronic version of a PhD thesis awarded by the University of Westminster. © The Author, 2011. This is an exact reproduction of the paper copy held by the University of Westminster library. The WestminsterResearch online digital archive at the University of Westminster aims to make the research output of the University available to a wider audience. Copyright and Moral Rights remain with the authors and/or copyright owners. Users are permitted to download and/or print one copy for non-commercial private study or research. Further distribution and any use of material from within this archive for profit-making enterprises or for commercial gain is strictly forbidden. Whilst further distribution of specific materials from within this archive is forbidden, you may freely distribute the URL of WestminsterResearch: (http://westminsterresearch.wmin.ac.uk/). In case of abuse or copyright appearing without permission e-mail [email protected] The tragedy of Islamism in Britain A fetishism for politics Danila Genovese A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the University of Westminster for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy London November 2011 The candidate confirms that the work submitted is her own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement 1 To A ,H, L, M, N, X, Y: terror suspects and terror victims. To terrorised minds and repressed voices. 2 Table of contents Acknowledgements.............................................................................................................................IV A small note on the website................................................................................................V ........... List of abbreviations..........................................................................................................................VI Glossary ....................................................................................................................................................VII Abstract.....................................................................................................................................................VIII Introduction................................................................................................................................1 ............ Chapter 1 The theoretical framework .........................................................23 Chapter 2 The Muslim minority status........................................................43 Chapter 3 The set of Islamic beliefs and beyond ................................71 ......... Chapter 4 The Genealogy of British Islamism ................................107............ Chapter 5 The unpolitical discourses of being political ..............................140 Chapter 6 Representation and self-representation of radical 167 Islamism in the UK..................................................................................... CONCLUSIONS ...............................................................................................190 BIBLIOGRAPHY...............................................................................................................................205 APPENDIX 231 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS There are a number of people whom I must thank for their invaluable help, with this dissertation. A very special thanks goes to Dr Dibyesh Anand: a supervisor and a mentor for me. His constant support on the moral and intellectual level, alongwith his precious and insightful advice enabled me to begin writing this dissertation, and allowed me to trust my own skills in completing it. My debt towards him goes beyond the completion of this thesis. I also wish to thank my other supervisor Dr. Maria Holt, for having been a supportive supervisor and a caring friend through some dark and troubled moments of my fieldwork, when nothing seemed plausible or even worthy of being investigated. Thanks to the people from CAMPACC (Campaign Against Criminalizing Community) and from Birnberg & Pierce solicitors. In particular, thanks to Gareth Peirce. Above all, him has been a great source of inspiration and strength for me: beautifully exempliflying of a relentless struggle against the mechanisms of injustice and abuse. She is a rare example of humanity in her radical and strenuous defense of the abused. My deepest gratitude also to the people who agreed to be interviewed/ʻinvestigatedʼ for this work, and allowed me to share their experiences. Some of them are named and quoted in this dissertation. There are other people, however, whose names and identities could not be disclosed, mostly for moral, ethical or legal reasons. Thank you to all of them as well. Their contributions and the long hours and days we spent together made me realize how this project and my endeavors were worthwhile. My deepest love to my family and my closest friends for their extraordinary patience, love and support as during my work on this dissertation. 4 A small note on websites The existence of the Internet makes a researcherʼs work relatively easy on the one hand and extremely frustrating on the other. Easy, because so many parties and individuals maintain websites that often feature information from leaflets and booklets that make it possible for anyone anywhere to peruse them. Frustrating, because, as is the nature of things, some websites and/or some features on those sites tend to disappear or areʻforciblyʼ removed. This is the case with a few of the sites listed here. However, I should like to emphasise that none of this affects the overall study in question. 5 List of Abbreviations HT Hizbu utʼ Tahrir IHRC Islamic Human Rights Commission MAB Muslim Association of Britain MB Muslim Brotherhood MCB Muslim Council of Britain MPAC Muslim Public Affairs Committee 6 GLOSSARY adat - principle of custom in fiqh arkana al Islam - the five pillars of Islam urf - principle of customary use amir - leader Dar al Harb - ʻhouse of warʼ(i.e. non-Islamic enemy territory) Dar al Iman - abode of faith dawah - missionary action or call fard - obligation according to Shariʼah fatwa - a juridical verdict upon an issue fiqh - Islamic jurisprudence hadith - narration of the Prophet (and sometimes the Sahabah) hajj - the pilgrimage to Mecca that Muslims have to perform at least once in their lives halal -allowed, permissible haram - forbidden hijab - Islamic headscarf ijma -The consensus of the scholars in Islamic jurisprudence ijtiha - the individual legal opinion of a scholars who - starting from previous laws and past events - exercises an independent judgement imam- prayer leader or head of a community or state jihad - struggle khalifah - Caliph khilafah - Caliphate, Islamic state qiyas - analogy ray - principle of opinion in fiqh ramadan - the month of the fast and the holiest month of the Islamic calendar shari’ah - Islamic law shura - consultation sirah - biography and stories related to the Prophet and part of the sunna 7 sunnah - the narrated tradition of the actions and sayings of the Prophet. It is composed of sirahs and hadiths sawm - the word means fasting (the most important fast for Muslims is that of the Ramadan month) ulema - plural of ʻimamʼ ummah - the community of all Muslims and believers in one God vilayet i Faqih - Guardianship of the Jurist; Khomeiniʼs theory of Islamic government wulaa - governors zakat - it means both ʻpurificationʼ and ʻgrowthʼ and refers to the amount of money that all adults Muslims, who are financially able, have to pay to support specific categories of people, who may also be non-Muslims 8 ABSTRACT This dissertation critically argues that the dominant representation of the dominated groups can mirror its way into the self-representation of those groups. Moreover, a fetishism for politics (i.e., a repression and denial of engagement in the political arena) deflects the interaction between the dominant and the dominated groups (in this case, the UK Government and Islamist parties in the UK) and ultimately disempowers them both. This research is an analysis of the discourses and practices of a large number of Islamist parties in the UK over a period of nearly 20 years (1989-2007); a period when they gained public attention during the debates over multiculturalism and the supposed threats to security from the rise of radical Islam. By ʻIslamist partiesʼ, I mean political groups who place their Muslim identity at the centre of their political practices and who see their political future in Islam. Such political groups are not just Muslims, but Islamists. In asserting this, I argue against the commonplace culturalist-orientalist approach that denies and rejects any ʻpoliticalʼ in relation to Islamists. As part of a dominant discourse, this culturalist-orientalist approach consists of a binary view whereby Islam is either a matter of private professed belief or a matter of a terrorist disruption into the Western democratic systems. In response to this stark dichotomy, I adopt a constructionist theoretical approach that sees ʻculturesʼ and ʻreligionsʼ as political acts within the terms of a power-relationship. Practically, I approach the