Term 2, week 3: Islamism and Islamophobia

Hallo again!

Some thoughts about Islamophobia, and a question about Islamism.

In the context of political extremism, and political violence in particular, Islamophobia presents us with a problem. On one hand, it's undeniable that Islamist militants are responsible for one of the key contemporary forms of organised political violence: 'jihadi' terrorists have killed thousands in the name of Islam. Contemporary counter-terrorist initiatives - such as the British government's PREVENT programme - are sometimes accused of Islamophobia, of presenting Muslims en masse as the enemy rather than targeting the small minority of jihadis and their sympathisers. But this may be a price that simply has to be paid (by them), or at worst a forgiveable over-reaction.

On the other hand,  right-wing and nationalist extremists often use Islamophobic themes and vocabulary, as well as - or in preference to - straightforwardly racist discourse: immigrants are seen as a threat to the nation specifically because of their religion. Islamophobia, when vocalised by the likes of Anders Behring Breivik, is part of the problem of political extremism.

On one hand, Islamophobia is part of the vocabulary of contemporary right-wing extremism; on the other, it is an unfortunate error fallen into by otherwise well-intentioned anti-terrorist initiatives. Are these arguments both correct - and if so, how are they connected? How do we relate them to the argument that the Islamists themselves are a politically reactionary force who belong on the extreme Right: is Islamic State a fascist state? If this is the case, opposition to at least some forms of Islam is justifiable in democratic and liberal terms. What about the argument that religion itself is a reactionary force, so that anyone who believes in democracy and progress actually should be 'Islamophobic' - as well as being Christianity-phobic, Hinduphobic and so on?

I'm not going to give you all the answers! But I think the tensions and contradictions we're looking at here can be traced back to tensions and contradictions in history. Specifically, the ideas of democracy and political liberalism - and the idea that religion should not be a political force - developed in Britain, and other Western nations, at a time when those nations were heavily involved in the imperialist conquest of the rest of the world. This means that it was perfectly possible to be a liberal (opposed to conservatism, monarchy and organised religion) while also being an imperialist. In the nineteenth century, many on the Left argued that the British Empire was a positive force, because it would bring the benefits of civilisation to 'backward' parts of the world (such as Afghanistan); John Stuart Mill described the British conquest of India as a "gain to civilisation". Mill argued that, if a society was in a primitive state, the benefit it would gain from enlightened government would outweigh the loss of freedom. In general, the conquest of one nation by another could be beneficial as long as "the subjugated people ... have not reached the state in which it is an injury not to be under a free government" and "the conquerors ... use their superiority in a manner calculated to fit the conquered for a higher stage of improvement". 

Britain's historic - and still continuing - imperialist role in the world has two key effects. Firstly, it gets us into fights: a nation whose government did not still have dreams of imperial grandeur would have thought twice about sending troops into Iraq and Afghanistan. Secondly and crucially, it distorts the way that we see those fights. This is why there is an overlap between the world-view of a reactionary racist like Breivik and the assumptions of the British government's PREVENT programme. If you believe that countries like ours have a right to dominate the world, you are going to find it hard to understand when people in other countries fight back. Liberal imperialists under attack are prone to claim that they are being attacked for their liberalism. This isn't necessarily the case!

Now, the question about Islamism, which is a more pointed summary of the slightly provocative opening section of this week's lecture. It's a sort of multiple choice:

a) Is Islamophobic counter-terrorism more of a threat, to more people, than Islamist terrorism itself?
OR
b) Is this crazy talk?

We'll come back to that next week.