Denying Muslims are enemies can itself activate Orientalist registers and construct them as threats

Evidence

International relations scholar Clara Eroukhmanoff argues that “political actors can both securitise Islam and simultaneously declare that ‘Islam is not a threat’ or that ‘Islamophobia is a shame’.” Statements like “Muslims are not the enemy” effectively construct Muslims as the enemy, even though the literal meaning of the phrase indicates the exact opposite because such speech activates, Eroukhmanoff argues, “an Orientalist set of assumptions about Islam” without the speaker having to resort to blatant and overt forms of racism. It works in ways akin to dog whistle tactics where certain words stand in for fully developed racial meanings among racist constituencies. As she puts it, “pre-existing registers of meaning” are typically “activated when the codewords ‘Islam’ or ‘Muslim’ are interpellated in more covert forms of speech.” She refers to this process as “indirect securitization.” Indirect securitizing speech inoculates the speaker and listeners from charges of racism. Thus, securitizing actors and audiences believe that they have not transgressed the bounds of a “post-racial,” multicultural society. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 589

Categorization

• QUESTION: Directly relevant to the reader’s comparative test: is ‘indirect securitization’ a generic feature of state racism, or tied to the specific dog-whistle register of US/UK multiculturalism? Eroukhmanoff’s framing of ‘white people constituted as victimized subjects’ suggests a claim about liberal-inclusive states broadly.
• XREF: connects to: Denying that Muslims are enemies can itself construct them as threats — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 577; Even denial statements about Muslim threat can partially activate anti-Muslim assumptions — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 589; Refusing to name the Muslim enemy can itself reinforce state biopolitical control — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 111 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Even denial statements about Muslim threat can partially activate anti-Muslim assumptions #corroborates (0.95) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 589
• Refusing to name the Muslim enemy can itself reinforce state biopolitical control #expands (0.80) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 111