It’s not about security, it’s about racism: counter-terror strategies, civilizing processes and the post-race fiction

Abstract

Using a range of international examples, this article examines the ways in which members of the black and minority ethnic population continue to be viewed as problematic and deviant, challenging the claim that we are now living in a post-race state. The article considers how race and racism are still in reality, used to socially order society-and specifically criminalize those black and minority ethnic groups of (real or perceived) Muslim background-what I call "brown bodies". Turning its focus to the United Kingdom, although offering an analysis applicable to other countries with similar racialized conditions, the article discusses how sub-measures under current counter-terror discourse not only serve to control and regulate Muslim populations, but more so, the civilizing undertone of its Western (or, British) values and national security narrative continue to normalize and perpetuate antiMuslim sentiment and construct Muslims as "suspect" communities at every possible opportunity. This process draws on a "post-colonial fantasy" and re-uses established practices of "race-consumption" to control brown bodies. This ensures that anti-Muslim racism remains a key feature of contemporary British society. The article ends noting its support for that body of literature that critiques the claim that we are now living in a post-race state. This article is published as part of a collection on racism in counter-terrorism and surveillance discourse.

Securitising education: an exploration of teachers’ attitudes and experiences regarding the implementation of the Prevent duty in sixth form colleges

“…Similarly to Busher et al (2016), Miah (2017) but also Coppock and McGovern (2014), concerns about the stigmatisation of Muslim students were raised by the participants who felt that the Prevent policy required them to specifically target Muslim students, which created discomfort. The argument that the Prevent duty leads to the development of Muslim communities being viewed as suspect or risky (Awan 2012;Heath-Kelly 2013;Patel 2017) was also supported to some extent. It appears that the intense media coverage of contentious referrals through Channel of individual Muslim students has participated to this stigmatisation (Busher et al 2016) and reinforced the fear of the public.…”

Seeing and unseeing Prevent’s racialized borders

“…The construction of racialized Muslim difference as threatening to, and outside of, white Britain is produced through Prevent’s regulation of ‘brown bodies’ (Patel, 2017). Muslim bodies are racialized through a mixture of ‘religious, cultural, and phenotypical identification’ which converge to produce an idea of ‘Muslimness’ (Sian, 2017: 4).…”

“…While some contributions have tentatively explored the links between counter-radicalization practices and racialized Muslim populations (Martin, 2018; Ragazzi, 2017, 2015), in other work these concerns are under-theorized, leaving them either implicit (Heath-Kelly, 2013), marginal and/or absent (Heath-Kelly and Strausz, 2018; Heath-Kelly, 2016, 2012; Martin, 2014a, 2014b). Instead, this article engages with scholarship that centres processes of racialization (Kapoor, 2018; Qurashi, 2018; Patel, 2017; Sian, 2017; Cohen and Tufail, 2017; Sabir, 2017; Kundnani, 2014). However, what is yet to be addressed in these accounts is how constructions of Britishness are also racialized.…”

Radical reform and reforming radicals in Australian schooling

“…Heath- Kelly et al, 2015), nor the legacies of western colonial imperialism (cf. Patel, 2017), nor the "the histories of individual, political or social bodies" that may contribute to the decision to take violent action (O'Donnell, 2018, p. 985). Case study examples include:…”