A decade of suspicion: Islam and Muslims in Denmark after 9/11

Abstract

In 2011, al-Qaeda leader, Osama Bin Laden, was killed in Pakistan and the US president, Barack Obama, concluded a decade of global 'war against terror'. In light of this, it seems only sensible to explore what implications the post-9/11 international developments have had on a local basis in specific national contexts. With this in mind, this article focuses on Denmark and discusses how the critical event of 9/11 motivated a security/integration response, including various pre-emptive measures that have cast the Muslim population as the usual suspects. It will discuss how these changes have affected the everyday lives of ordinary Danish Muslims over the last ten years and changed the relationship between majorities and minorities. Finally, it will also examine how and why recent national and international events have created the potential for another shift in majority-minority relations.

Triggerfactoren in het radicaliseringsproces

“…Bij het nagaan van de literatuur valt de verscheidenheid aan termen op die gerelateerd kunnen worden aan het concept triggerfactor. Zo komen we termen tegen als 'trigger event' (Bakker, 2008;Veldhuis & Bakker, 2007;Veldhuis & Staun, 2009;Van der Valk & Wagenaar, 2010), 'key event' , 'critical event' (Silke, 2008;Rytter & Pedersen, 2014), een 'gebeurtenis' of 'beeld' (Van San, Sieckelink & De Winter, 2010) en 'turning point' (Rutter, 1996;Soyer, 2014 …”

Everyday Diplomacy

“…Cull raises interesting issues about the potential diplomatic roles to be played by migrant communities. Yet there are also clear ethical issues that arise from treating migrant communities and diasporic groups in such a strategic manner, and these have been widely recognized by ethnographic work on Muslims migrant communities in the context of the so-called 'war on terror' (Howell and Shryock 2003;Soares and Otayek 2007;Werbner 2010;Buggenhagen 2012;Green 2014;Rytter and Pedersen 2014). Indeed, the ethical issues of involvement in such morally problematic aspects of foreign policy have no doubt been a further factor in encouraging anthropologists to steer clear from seeking to engage in a dialogue with students of diplomacy.…”

Branding Rights: The position of political cartoons in the securitisation of population groups in a democracy

“…The discourse of securitisation that accompanied the War on Terror provided justification to an already anti-immigrant political climate to tighten the criteria for immigrants entering or seeking permanent residence in Denmark (Rytter & Pedersen, 2014: 2305. The stringent criteria that immigrants must meet to be considered for permanent residency speak to the intolerance and exclusion of minority ethnic groups from Denmark's democratic society (Holtug, 2013).…”