Governments select Muslim interlocutors only when they accept official assumptions.

Evidence

It should be stressed (see Gilliat-Ray 2004) that New Labour’s engagement with Muslims – and indeed other faith-based groups and organizations – was undertaken on the basis of an unquestioned, taken-for-granted premise. Groups and organizations had to be a certain size, have a particular narrative around the heritage and history of their faith and communities, and have representatives with the right connections, experience and wealth. More importantly, they also had to be willing to unequivocally accept and support certain governmental assumptions. As Woodhead (2010) comments, if they did not – as per the MCB – New Labour’s conditional and — A. Hussain, N. Meer, Framing Muslim Integration, 492

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the ‘creation of safe interlocutors’ thesis in critical Muslim studies and to state-faith engagement critiques; parallels the UN racism-definition framing in this reading set. — connects to: Government engagement with Muslim groups was conditional on accepting state security assumptions. — Runnymede Trust (ed. Farah Elahi & Omar Khan), Islamophobia: Still a Challenge for Us…, 487; UK governments deployed the term Islamophobia only to co-opt Muslims into security policies. — Runnymede Trust (ed. Farah Elahi & Omar Khan), Islamophobia: Still a Challenge for Us…, 486; Counter-terrorism policy forced Muslim groups into complicity or exclusion. — A. Hussain, N. Meer, Framing Muslim Integration, 145
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: how does such conditional endorsement pre-shape which Muslim voices get heard and which get silenced — a definitional-political question relevant to the Runnymede vs Bleich dispute.

Related

• Government engagement with Muslim groups was conditional on accepting state security assumptions. (similarity 0.92)
• UK governments deployed the term Islamophobia only to co-opt Muslims into security policies. (similarity 0.83)
• UK state intervention shaped and rivalized Muslim political representation. (similarity 0.83)
• Counter-terrorism policy forced Muslim groups into complicity or exclusion. (similarity 0.82)
• UK counter-terror funding redirected civic support away from Islamophobia work. (similarity 0.81)
• Integration policy must be decoupled from counter-terrorism aims. (similarity 0.81)
• State engineering of Muslim representation differs from its handling of other minorities. (similarity 0.80)
• Counter-terrorism policy and imposed loyalty requirements shaped Muslim political engagement (similarity 0.79)
• UK integration policy redefined Muslim integration as an antidote to extremism (similarity 0.79)
• British integration policy elites recycled assimilationist rhetoric against Muslims decades after it failed (similarity 0.79)
• Integration rhetoric predates anti-terror policy and lacks an evidence base (similarity 0.79)
• UK integration discourse shifted from organic integration toward a muscular clash-of-values stance (similarity 0.79)
• Official UK integration strategy framed Muslims as a threat to national cohesion (similarity 0.79)
• Integration discourse is deployed as state control over Muslims without evidence (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Government engagement with Muslim groups was conditional on accepting state security assumptions. #corroborates (0.95) — Runnymede Trust (ed. Farah Elahi & Omar Khan), Islamophobia, 487
• UK governments deployed the term Islamophobia only to co-opt Muslims into security policies. #corroborates (0.82) — Runnymede Trust (ed. Farah Elahi & Omar Khan), Islamophobia, 486
• Counter-terrorism policy forced Muslim groups into complicity or exclusion. #expands (0.75) — A. Hussain, N. Meer, Framing Muslim Integration, 145