‘It’s not paranoia when they are really out to get you’: the role of conspiracy theories in the context of heightened security

Abstract

Conspiracy theories have been seen as important supporting components in extreme political beliefs. This paper considers conspiracy theories in the counter jihad movement, an international network combining cultural nationalism with xenophobia towards Muslims. This paper evaluates the nature of conspiracy belief through the analysis of several key texts published by counter jihad activists, and of content published on a daily basis by three core websites. The findings show the Islamisation conspiracy theory to be highly modular, with authors able to mix and match villains. The analysis of daily published content demonstrates that, at the routine level, conspiracy theory is rarely used openly as a call to action. This is in keeping with other examples of conspiracy theory in extreme right wing movements in which conspiracy is seen as justification for existing prejudices. However, the political and security context the counter jihad operates in also affords the movement opportunities to support some of their claims, often by reproducing or reinterpreting mainstream or quasi-mainstream reporting, without reverting openly to conspiracy tropes. In the case of the counter jihad movement, as well as potentially other far-right movements, conspiracy theory may be taking a back seat to a more sophisticated public relations approach. ARTICLE HISTORY

Understanding Conspiracy Theories

“…By casting even moderates as part of a conspiracy, the rhetoric is used to represent all Muslims as a potent threat to civic life and to justify radical, exclusionary politics—in this case the mass, forced deportation of Muslims. Lee () found that published statements by prominent figures in the so called “counter jihad” movement, which casts itself as the unofficial opposition to the Islamization of the West, seldom use conspiracy theories explicitly to justify extremist political action. Rather, they use conspiracy theories to create the ideological conditions for extremism and political violence.…”

Religious Teaching and Learning in Minority Muslim of Manado Indonesia

“…Cooperative learning process would encourage the students to study about positive sides form their friends. In turn, they would be conditioned within the learning process where a student is studying together with others in the atmosphere containing mutual respect, tolerant and understanding each other [26], [27].…”

Tolerance, Understanding, and Religious Teaching and Learning in Minority Muslim of Manado North Sulawesi

“…Cooperative learning process would encourage the students to study about positive sides form their friends. In turn, they would be conditioned within the learning process where a student is studying together with others in the atmosphere containing mutual respect, tolerant and understanding each other (Lee, 2016;Lenssen, 2010).…”