The security-prejudice nexus: “Islamist” terrorism and the structural logics of Islamophobia in the UK

ABSTRACT

A growing body of evidence documents that Islamophobia is a significant social issue in the UK. This evidence also reveals an empirical link to “Islamist” terrorism, revealing a nexus between security and the social emergence of prejudice. Drawing on critical approaches to security and applying them to the case of the UK in 2017, this article explores this nexus conceptually and empirically. To do so, it examines the discourses of various governance institutions (including the media, the political elite, and security professionals) as they respond to “Islamist” terrorist events. It argues that these governance institutions individually and collectively – and often unwittingly – stigmatised and securitised “Muslim” identity. The structural emergence (i.e., the institutionalisation) of Islamophobia in the UK, this article contends, can largely be understood through these processes. This article therefore offers an illustration of some of the logics of how prejudice is embedded in societal structures, which has normative implications for how these processes might be successfully contested.

KEYWORDS:

• Prejudice
• Islamophobia
• securitisation
• Islamist terrorism
• structure
• discourse

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Ivan Manokha, Maria Mälksoo, and especially three anonymous reviewers, for their contributions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Islamophobia might be interpreted literally, in the sense of an irrational fear of Muslims, or in a more critical way as a structural problem, where Islamophobia is more akin to an ideology. For these latter perspectives, see (Allen 2010; Sheehi 2011). See Mulinari and Neergaard (2016) and Pakes (2016) for concrete examples in other contexts. See also Feldman (2017) for a comparison of Islamophobia with antisemitism.

2. In 2017, the case study year of this paper, it was 44−7%, down from a high of 59% in 2015. This is despite a large majority of Muslims (93% in 2016) saying they feel they belong to British society (Ipsos MORI 2019a, 7; APPG 2018, 9).

3. According to the report, there was 46.9% from 2015−16, and a 30.6% increase from 2016−17 (Tell MAMA 2018a).

4. Balzacq (2010) offers the categorisation of “philosophical” and “sociological” approaches to securitisation theory to differentiate between linguistic- and practice-oriented approaches.

5. As I explain below, Bigo (2002) also suggests a broader usage. As such, I use the concept to capture the outcome (of securitisation), rather than limit my usage to the (particular) process expounded by the Copenhagen School. One might thereby distinguish between Securitisation and securitisation.

6. There were three “Islamist” terrorist attacks in 2017: the Westminster attack on 22 March, in which 6 were killed including 1 perpetrator; the attack at Manchester Arena on 22 May, in which 23 were killed including 1 perpetrator; and the attack at London Bridge on 3 June, in which 11 were killed including 3 perpetrators.

7. For a discussion of this methodological problem in the context under discussion, see Huysmans (2002).

8. See Huysmans (2011) for a critical discussion.

9. See, for instance, a recent and influential book by Douglas Murray (2017) entitled The Strange Death of Europe. This is also evident in the YouGov data cited in the Introduction.

10. The processes of securitising Muslim identity may also be understood from a transnational perspective – what Buzan and Wæver called macrosecuritisation (Buzan and Wæver 2009). While “middle-level” securitisation focuses on how (usually) states securitise against existential threats (physical and cultural), the concept of macrosecuritisation helps to understand how regions and “security constellations” come to perceive existential threats and collectively take exceptional measures to securitise against them. An example of this is the US and other Western states (including India, Russia, and China) coordinating their security policies in responses to the perceived threat of Islamic terrorism after 9/11, which, Buzan suggests, “triggered a substantial shift in the security agenda” (Buzan and Wæver 2009, 272). Here, the referent to be protected is framed more generally as liberal democracy, freedom, and markets. This expansion of the concept of securitisation helps to understand the transnational aspect of how security (and therefore negative identities) is constructed, and how Islamophobia in the UK can be contextualised in this wider setting.

11. For a critique of the Copenhagen School as being too narrow, see McDonald (2008).

12. In this cited article, Bigo is referring to the securitisation of migration, but I find this framework very insightful to my empirical enquiry. I also acknowledge Balzacq’s (2010) contribution to the “sociological” approach, but find Bigo’s approach more appropriate to this study as it seems to be rooted less in agency, and more able to capture the structural aspect of securitisation which is central to my argument.

13. This is my point, and not Bigo’s, although Bigo does use the term “emerge” rather than “construct” (e.g., Bigo 2002, 65).

14. This might be understood as causation happening the other way: threat does not cause political processes, rather political processes cause “threat”. Of course, in practice, causation happens both ways.

15. In 2013, Boris Johnson talked about “immunising” “against the virus of Islamism” (Johnson 2013); David Cameron about the need to “tackle the poisonous ideology” (Cameron 2013), as an example of how “Islamist” and “Islamism” is used.

16. Prime Minister May in 2017, for instance, seems to have taken a more prudential and conciliatory approach in her use of language, and made explicit attempts to avoid directly stigmatising Muslim identity, such as her move to include the far-right in her definition of extremism and terrorism; far-right terrorism is “every bit as sickening”, she stated (Walker 2017) after the attack at Finsbury Park on 19 June by a “far-right” extremist.

17. This securitising stance continued: in March 2018, in her Easter address to the nation, Theresa May’s opening statement was about the “dark moments” or terrorism since the previous Easter (May 2018). It is striking that the whole year was characterised as such by the prime minister.

18. See statistics cited in the Introduction.

19. For a discussion of Hobbes on societal fear see Corey (2012). In a similar vein, Bigo argues that state officials will tend towards the protection of their own power which is embedded and expressed through state sovereignty (Bigo 2002, 62–65).

20. At the time of editing (January 2019), the British government announced that it will do an independent review of Prevent.

21. Travellers at the major railway stations in the UK will have heard the security message “See it. Say it. Sorted”, which “aims to raise awareness of the vital role the public can play in keeping themselves and others safe” (Department for Transport 2016). The then Rail Minster said that they “want to send a clear message to anyone threatening the security of the rail network that there are thousands of pairs of eyes and ears ready to report any potential threat” (Department for Transport 2016). This is a stark example of participatory surveillance.

22. For academic examples, see work done by Mueller (2007, 2008; 2016).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mark Gilks

Mark Gilks has an MA(Hons) in philosophy and International Relations from the University of St. Andrews and an MSc in Global Governance and Diplomacy from the University of Oxford. He is currently a PhD student at the Brussels School of International Studies where in his primary research he aims to develop an interpretivist theory to understand the experiences of soldiers in war.