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Ethnic and Racial StudiesISSN: 0141-9870 (Print) 1466-4356 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rers20
Articulations of Islamophobia: from the extreme to
the mainstream?
Aurelien Mondon & Aaron Winter
To cite this article: Aurelien Mondon & Aaron Winter (2017): Articulations of Islamophobia: from
the extreme to the mainstream?, Ethnic and Racial Studies, DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2017.1312008
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2017.1312008
Published online: 26 May 2017.
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Download by: [86.172.180.139] Date: 26 May 2017, At: 04:42
,ETHNIC AND RACIAL STUDIES, 2017
https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2017.1312008
DEBATES AND DEVELOPMENTS
Articulations of Islamophobia: from the extreme to
the mainstream?
Aurelien Mondona and Aaron Winterb
a
Department of Politics, Languages & International Studies, University of Bath, Bath, UK;
b
Department of Criminology, University of East London, London, UK
ABSTRACT
This article will examine the construction and functions of, as well as relationship
between, the diverse and changing articulations of Islamophobia. The aim is to
contribute to debates about the definition of Islamophobia, which have tended
to be contextually specific, fixed and/or polarized between racism and religious
prejudice, between extreme and mainstream, state and non-state versions or
undifferentiated, and offer a more nuanced framework to: (a) delineate
articulations of Islamophobia as opposed to precise types and categories; (b)
highlight the porosity in the discourse between extreme articulations widely
condemned in the mainstream, and normalized and insidious ones, which the
former tend to render more acceptable in comparison; (c) map where these
intersect in response to events, historical and political conditions and new
ideological forces and imperatives and (d) compare these articulations of
Islamophobia in two contexts, France and the US.
ARTICLE HISTORY Received 19 April 2016; Accepted 9 March 2017
KEYWORDS Islamophobia; anti-Muslim racism; liberalism; France; US; terrorism
Introduction
In the aftermath of the attack on the office of Charlie Hebdo in January 2015,
one could see and hear the statement “Je suis Charlie” appearing throughout
Paris, France and the world. The public narrative was unequivocal: this was an
attack on freedom of speech – designated as the cornerstone of democracy
and freedom itself. Charlie Hebdo’s journalists were proclaimed as martyrs
in the struggle for free speech, their courage symbolized in the 2006 publi-
cation of provocative cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed. They did what
“We” were afraid to do and mourning their loss seemed insufficient: “We”
must identify if not become them in solidarity and resistance. On the 7th of
January and for weeks to come, the streets of Paris and the west, Facebook
pages and Tweeter feeds were filled with those calling themselves “Charlie”.
CONTACT Aaron Winter a.winter@uel.ac.uk; @aaronzwinter; https://aaronzwinter.wordpress.
com/; https://uel.academia.edu/
© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
, 2 A. MONDON AND A. WINTER
Criticizing this essentialist and absolutist understanding fell outside of
freedom of speech and was considered something akin to cowardice if not
treason, as witnessed in the many headlines about children refusing to
obey the minute of silence in French suburbs (Berretta, January 10, 2015;
Beyer and Verduzier, January 20, 2015; Leconte, January 14, 2015). This com-
munion around the slogan “Je suis Charlie”, and the self-righteous defence of
freedom of speech under the protection of the state, its police and army, hid a
multitude of inconsistencies and contradictions. The most notable was the
photo opportunity with the leaders of the “free” and not so free world (and
the war on terror) leading (or pretending to lead) the march of solidarity,
whose record with regard to freedom of speech and the press was heavily cri-
ticized as hypocritical (Sherriff, January 13, 2015). Yet, despite such discrepan-
cies at the core of the hegemonic discourse, the overall pattern is familiar:
widespread and normalized criticism of an essentialized Muslim threat for
its hatred of “our” liberal freedom and tolerant societies, even as “our”
countries pass – and the population at large chooses to ignore – counter-ter-
rorism and extremism legislation that curtails those very freedoms. This has
become common place since US President George W. Bush (September 20,
2001) stated in his 9/11 address, prior to the establishment of Homeland
Security and the Patriot Act, “They hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion,
our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with
each other”, which became a mantra of the American-led war on terror. Islam
has become central to the contradictions inherent to the construction (and
presentation) of our identity and self-image as citizens of free and egalitarian
liberal democracies: from evocations of free speech in defence of Islamo-
phobes, while monitoring and censoring political speech under the auspices
of countering Muslim “hate” preachers and extremism, to evocations of
gender rights in the west, particularly around banning the hijab and burka
in the name of emancipation. As such paternalistic narratives developed
and disproportionately targeted Muslim communities, they have distracted
from failures to achieve gender equality on a structural level, as well as
failing to acknowledge the growing anti-feminist backlash within western
liberal culture.
This article will examine the construction and functions of, as well as
relationship between, the diverse and changing articulations of Islamophobia.
The aim of this article is to contribute to debates about the definition of Isla-
mophobia, which have tended to be contextually specific (and sometimes
universalized), fixed and/or polarized between racism and religious prejudice,
between extreme and mainstream, state and non-state versions or undifferen-
tiated, and equip those interested in the issue with a more nuanced frame-
work to: (a) clearly delineate articulations of Islamophobia as opposed to
precise types and categories; (b) highlight the porosity in the discourse
between the more extreme articulations widely condemned in the
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