The Shared Frustrations of Anarchism, Islamism and the Far Right

Lee Rigby's murderers were described as extremists and radicals and it has saddened me to hear some describing Jo Cox's murder this week in the same terms. Describing any of these people as extremists or radicals places the responsibility on the ideology of the group that the murderer is purported to represent. Both Far Right movements and Islamist movements come from the same marginalisation of the overarching ideology of today. Neo-liberalism, capitalism, freedom, or whatever name it is given, there is no denying that many feel shut out and that some are compelled to take matters into their own hands and revert to a tactic that was last prevalent at the turn of the 20th century, the propaganda of the deed. The anarchists of Paris and from across Europe believed that if they committed a deed horrendous enough they would set a chain of events in motion that would result in the destruction of the State and in freedom for all. The absence of an anarchist contribution to today's political landscape suggests that they did not succeed.

On 12th February 1894, a young man named Emile Henry was so frustrated by the suffering and lack of social mobility that he saw around him that he set off a bomb in the Cafe Terminus near Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris. Two days later Martial Bourdan blew himself up whilst attempting to blow up the Greenwich Observatory in London. Both Henry and Bourdan would be familiar with the world today, many people unable to engage in a deeply divided society where the opulence of the rich was unattainable for most. Bourdan's portrayal as Stevie in Joseph Conrad's Novel, The Secret Agent, also shares similarities with how some of today's violent protagonists are described as mentally ill. Again, this denies the responsibility of society for the conditions that lead to these violent acts.

The description of any of these marginalised and unforgivably violent people, anarchist, Islamist or Far Right, as extreme, radical or mentally ill leads to our failure to discuss and address the root causes of their actions. If we were to recognise that they all stem from the same frustrations, we might be able to start to address the problem. We may not even have to as the racists picketing the local mosque might realise that they have more in common with the Muslims that they are shouting at than with the politician they have voted for. By working together, they would also be more likely to see the improvements in their lives that they are demanding.

Rainbow Fist of Homonationalism

Seeing the news that followed the tragic murders in Orlando and Paris this week led me back to Perry and Puar's work from 2014. The sign of a raised rainbow fist in an article that referred to the killers' Islamic faiths creates a strong visual representation of their theory of Homonationalism and was shown in a two page spread in the Evening Standard (see bottom of page) and across UK media.

Both Puar and Perry explore the notion of the Islamic other as a queer object in their concept of Homonationalism. Their work can be seen as a progression from Foucault’s interest in the construction of subjectivities by marginal lifestyles, Zizek noting Foucault’s particular interest in the ‘sadomasochistic sexual universe’ (Zizek, 1989, xxiv). From the perspective of homonationalism, homosexuals are no longer perceived as queer and deviant individuals and it is suggested that they have been replaced by a queer and deviant Muslim other, the same accusations of sexual and moral deviance now placed on Muslims as was previously ascribed to homosexuals. Puar notes that legislation granting freedoms to homosexuals has often corresponded with legislation withdrawing freedoms from ethnic minorities (Puar, 2014, p199). While Mavelli’s exploration of the secular interpretation of Muslims as irrational subjects has removed secularism's responsibility for the societal conditions that might lead to acts of political violence expressed by Muslims, the homonationalist representation of Muslims as queer and deviant has justified acts of political violence from the West against Muslims (Perry, 2014, p178-9 and Mavelli, 2012 and 2014).

Perry and Puar’s homonationalist interpretations that Muslims are seen as queer and deviant are supported by Baker et al’s work, The Representation of Islam and Muslims in the UK Press, 1998-2008 (2011). This study analysed 200,000 articles in the UK press and found that Muslims were represented as ‘being quick to anger, oppressive towards women, possessing extremist beliefs and at risk from radicalisation’ (p2). President Obama's continued refusal to describe a threat of "radical Islam" follows the recommendations of Baker et al to avoid language that might other Muslims and this chimes with the main body of the articles on the page of the Evening Standard that caught my eye last night and which is copied below. While the main article does not connect the Orlando killings with a generalised Muslim other, the "Islamist Fanatic" in the title makes a connection that has the capacity to divide communities as Baker cautioned against. The placing of the Paris attack which is more easily tied to the notion of an Islamic threat on the same page as the Orlando killing implies a connection between the Orlando attack and a religious ideology in a way that could not be justified in the content of the articles.

The rainbow fist quite rightly signifies solidarity with the LGBT community who have suffered the most tragic of attacks and everyone should be proud that we live in a world where more and more people are free to express their sexuality but Homonationalism cautions that this liberation may correspond with the repression of ethnic minorities and it is easy to see from this page of the Evening Standard where the gaze of the security services might turn. That the clenched fist rises out of words "French Authorities" and a headline that implies that they had not done enough to stop the attack in Paris suggests that a call for repression of Islam continues.

Baker, J. Gabrieltos, C. and McEnery, T. (2011) The Representation of Islam and Muslims in the UK Press, 1998-2008

Perry, B. (2014) “Towards an Ontogenesis of Queerness and Divinity: Queer Political Theology and Terrorist Assemblages.”Culture and Religion 15 (2): 117–186.

Puar, J. (2014) Reading religion back into Terrorist Assemblages: Author's response, Culture and Religion: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 15:2,198-210

Mavelli, L. (2014) Widening participation, the instrumentalization of knowledge and the reproduction of inequality, Teaching in Higher Education. Vol. 19, No. 8,p860-869

Mavelli, L. (2012) Europe’s Encounter with Islam: The Secular and the Postsecular. London: Routledge

Zizek, S. (1989) The Sublime Object of Ideology, Verso: London

Evening Standard 14.6.16