Saving Muslim women legislation legitimizes surveillance of Muslim communities

Evidence

This exploration of the geopolitical terrain in which we find ourselves illustrates the dire need to reject such explanations that locate patriarchy in pre-modernity and that position Western feminists as poised to help their Muslim sisters into modernity. As we shall see in the next two chapters, Western nations, pressed by feminists, have enthusiastically responded to the call to save Muslim women from their violent families. The enacting of legislation against forced marriages and banning of faith-based arbitration have enabled Western parliaments to claim the high ground as progressive and feminist. At the same time, Western states win the unqualified right to engage in practices of surveillance of Muslim communities, practices that intensely regulate the movements of Muslim men. The regular management of immigrant populations receives a boost in this environment and the way is paved for the immigrant and the refugee as exceptions, banished to places beyond full citizenship. — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 250

Categorization

• SEED: The forced-marriage and no-faith-based-arbitration laws as a trade: symbolic feminist wins bought with expanded state surveillance power — an essay on how progressive victories fund securitization.
• XREF: Echoes the moral-panic mechanism from the panic literature I’ve curated, and the ‘who gets cast out’ thread of this book’s thesis.