British Muslims feel compelled to publicly denounce terrorists to be seen as legitimate

Evidence

‘There has been an implicit failing in Islam to defend itself. Muslims do not speak out about the wrong things that people do in Islam. There are Muslims like Anjem Choudary who are proverbial thorns in the side of Islam who refuse to condemn the Woolwich attack and the killings committed by ISIS. We are so demonised that we need to explicitly state that we disagree with the actions of ISIS. Unless we do that, people do not know where we agree or not. I am comfortable to speak out against the abhorrent actions of ISIS. These people are doing so much damage to the image of Islam that not to speak out is a bad thing.’ (Adam) Participants also reported that the Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal had led to a spike in Islamophobic hate crimes, both online and offline. — Irene Zempi and Imran Awan, Islamophobia, 111

Categorization

• XREF: Directly parallels the ‘performing good-Muslim status requires denouncing terrorism’ highlight from the Islamophobia and the Novel reading.
• DEEPTHINKING: The burden of collective denunciation treats an entire faith as on probation, and here the pressure is voiced by Muslims themselves — a rare, uncomfortable inversion of who polices Muslimness.