Fragmenting Muslims into moderates and extremists disseminates Islamophobic ideology as effectively as unifying them.

Evidence

‘Fragmentation’, in what might be misunderstood as being contradictory to unification, asserts that not only by unifying the outgroup can ideological content be disseminated but also through fragmenting and differentiating it as well. This is achieved by fragmenting the outgroup into definite and constituent parts that are subsequently earmarked as being evil and either potentially or actually harmful and threatening to the position and safety of the ingroup. Such processes are however quite irrespective of whether such threats are genuine or not. From the analysis of practice, this mode of operation would appear to have some resonance where a recurrent feature of press coverage was not only the repetitive deployment of such terms as fundamentalist, extremist and so on, but also the use of such descriptors as ‘moderates’ and ‘mainstream’, fragmenting Muslims into ‘friendly’ or ‘good’ and ‘enemy’ or ‘bad’. Unsurprisingly, the ‘moderates’ became the acceptable face, seen to be practicing their religion in ways that were deemed acceptable to outsiders to the faith. In doing so however, the ‘moderates’ became essentialised and normative, a process that simultaneously fragmented those Muslims not being identified as such into a classification and identification that represented them as being in contention with or posing a threat to the ingroup. — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 878

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Runnymede ‘open vs closed views’ framework the reader is surveying — Allen pushes past it into Thompson’s modes of ideology. — connects to: Islamophobia operates by reducing Muslims to a monolithic bloc — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 433; Islamophobic power can deploy oppositional tactics to advance Muslim marginalization; Islamophobia is an ideology sustaining negative meaning about Muslims. — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 910
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: Allen positions ‘moderate/mainstream’ labelling itself as a form of essentialising — this directly troubles the liberal remedy of amplifying moderate Muslim voices.

Related

• Islamophobia comprises ideology, modes of operation, and exclusionary practices (similarity 0.85)
• Labeling some Muslims ‘moderate’ marginalizes all others as its necessary counterpart. (similarity 0.85)
• Islamophobia is an ideology, not a set of actions or practices (similarity 0.84)
• Islamophobia’s meaning is sustained through five named modes of operation. (similarity 0.84)
• Islamophobia functions as an indiscriminate umbrella term serving varied agendas (similarity 0.83)
• Islamophobia is an ideology sustaining negative meaning about Muslims. (similarity 0.83)
• A valid Islamophobia concept must avoid essentialising Muslims or Islam. (similarity 0.83)
• Islamophobia’s ideological content is sustained by five distinct modes of operation (similarity 0.83)
• Thompson’s five modes of ideological operation apply to Islamophobia (similarity 0.83)
• Essentialized views of Islam make any Islamic reform a betrayal of the essence (similarity 0.83)
• Closed views treat Islam as a monolithic, static bloc with no internal diversity (similarity 0.82)
• Efforts to define Islam are what define understanding of Islamophobia (similarity 0.82)
• British Muslims were reduced to terrorists or apologists, collapsing into one stereotype. (similarity 0.82)
• The Runnymede model itself reduces Muslims to Islam as a common denominator. (similarity 0.82)
• Conceptualizing Islamophobia must separate its forms from the phenomenon itself (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Islamophobia operates by reducing Muslims to a monolithic bloc #expands (0.82) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 433
• Islamophobic power can deploy oppositional tactics to advance Muslim marginalization #expands (0.78)
• Islamophobia is an ideology sustaining negative meaning about Muslims. #expands (0.75) — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 910