Refusing to name the Muslim enemy can itself reinforce state biopolitical control

Evidence

This slightly “undercooked” quality is characteristic of the book as a whole. For example, although Saturday invites reading as a kind of allegory—with Baxter standing in for those excluded from the benefits of material society, the wretched of the earth, whose anger at injustice may break out in violence, and Perowne embodying the rich, complacent, and entitled “West”—the correspondences are not consistent enough to make the allegory work, nor do the connections reveal any new insights. McEwan is careful to avoid making Baxter an Islamist. However, he has recognized that the novel is open to allegorical reading. Baxter’s status as a generalized damaged misfit seems an attempt to evade the real issue and the “real enemy.” Stephen Morton makes the connection for us when he points out how Perowne’s surgical intervention on Baxter “mirrors the liberal British state’s regime of biopolitical control”: “This narrative can be read as an allegory for the British state’s attempt to define and produce a ‘good British Muslim subject’ in the aftermath of 9/11 and 7/7.” — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 111

Categorization

• XREF: Powerful lens for the reader’s own project: how does Hamid’s unnamed American protagonist, or Naqvi’s framing, evade or reproduce a ‘good Muslim subject’ discourse? Compare with Morton’s reading. — connects to: Denying that Muslims are enemies can itself construct them as threats — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 577; Denying Muslims are enemies can itself activate Orientalist registers and construct them as threats — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 589; the MOC “The Enemy-Making Machine: How Ourselves, the True, and Every Other Are Built from War”
• QUESTION: What kind of narrative naming — explicit vs. displaced — actually contests rather than reproduces the state’s production of good versus bad Muslim subjects?