Critically discuss the nature and effects of British Muslims’ treatment

as ‘securitized citizens’ (Hussain and Bagguley 2012) in

contemporary Britain.

The London bombings of July 7th,2005 proved to be an event that would go on to influence the

relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims in contemporary Britain. In response to the

casualties that followed, the nation collectively pushed for the idea that Muslim communities were a

potential threat, and they branded this threat as ‘home grown terrorism’ (Hussain and Bagguley,

2012). South Asian Muslim communities, in Leeds and Dewsbury especially, became the focus of the

police, politicians, and the media. However, this is just another chapter to add to a history of tense

relations between British Muslim communities and wider British society (Modood, 2005). In this

essay, I will discuss how the media and Politicians have carved out a negative image for Islam and its

followers, as well as outline the effects that these representations have had on both the British

public and Muslims living in Britain.

First, it is important to note that contemporary events such as the London Bombings are often

informed by the racism embedded within Britain’s long history. A need to control the definition of

‘Otherness’, discourses that have dismissed Islam as inferior and the exploitation of Muslims have all

been integral parts to British imperial history (Alam and Husband, 2013). Arguments against Muslim

communities have been rehearsed in the British public sphere since the immigration and border

policies of the 1960s. By the late twentieth century there was already a set of beliefs and feelings

that could be readily mobilized to foster hostility towards Muslims living in Britain. As we will see,

these anti-Muslim sentiments were cultivated by the national media and political discourse that took

place (Alam and Husband, 2013).

The roles that politicians and the media have played in spreading negative portrayals of Islam and

Muslims is widely acknowledged throughout the literature (Abbas, 2005; Brighton, 2007; Fortier,

2008). Through securitization from the media and political discourse, Muslims have been depicted as

the new ‘suspect community’ (Hillyard 1993). Ingram and Dodds (2009) present securitization as a

process by which a group comes to be defined as a security threat that requires government

intervention. Buzan et al (1998) suggest that once a group has been securitized, it becomes

‘common sense’ that they are a threat. It becomes impossible to distinguish between the securitized

group and a sense of security threat. Hussain and Bagguley (2012) make sure to reinforce this idea

that securitization is not limited to the practices of the police and the security services but can be

found in political ideologies and national media’s spotlight.

For example, since the 2001 riots that happened across northern England, the media has developed

a narrative that continuously links South Asian Muslim men with crime and drug abuse (Alexander,

2004). In political discourse, members of South Asian Muslim communities have been represented

as incapable of economic achievement and social success. This re-imagination of South Asian young

Muslim men has run alongside long-term societal concerns about them (Alexander, 2004).

After the perpetrators of the London Bombings were identified as Muslims, the media leapt at the

chance to further paint Islam in a negative light- mentioning Muslims only in relation to terrorism

and major international conflicts (Nickels et al., 2010). The increase in coverage of ‘extremist groups’

and ‘Islamic terrorisms’ has increased significantly (Poole, 2006) and Arabic words such as ‘jihad’

have been appropriated and invested with new meanings related to extremism and violence. In

addition, words such as ‘extremist’ and ‘radical’ have been extensively used in headlines across the

British press (Nickels et al., 2010).

Overall, the nation portrayed the Muslim population as an ‘alien wedge’ within British society that

resisted entering ‘the British way of life’ (Alam and Husband, 2013). They have been labelled as ‘self-

segregating’ and have been held responsible for the challenges faced in inner-city urban areas within

England.

Policy also comes into play when constructing an image of a certain social group. For example, the

counterterrorist polices that emerged following the 7/7 bombings have been widely regarded to

have been exclusively targeted at Britain’s Muslim population (Hussain and Bagguley, 2012). Policies

such as ‘Prevent’ have played an important role in defining Muslims as a suspect community

(Husband and Alam, 2011). Pantazis and Pemberton (2009) contend that the ensuing high-profile

police raids and arrests of Muslim terrorist suspects have a had a clear impact on the public

consciousness. These same Counterterrorism policies have also gone on to influence the media’s

representations of Muslims (Nickels et al., 2010).

The securitization process has also highlighted how international security issues are framed as

evidence that points towards the need for domestic policies in Britain. International events have

been said to have an impact on thoughts regarding Muslims all the way down to a local context. This

is because the connection that non-Muslims make between events elsewhere often provide a

(faulty) framework to make sense of their everyday interactions with members of the Islamic

community (Hussain and Bagguley, 2012).

Whereas Muslims in the sample tended to dismiss these portrayals, non-Muslims tended to absorb

these media representations of Islam. Hussain and Bagguley (2012) conclude that the securitization

of Muslims has had clear effects on some non-Muslims’ views towards the Islamic faith and its

believers.
We see evidence of growing hostility towards the British Muslim population throughout the

literature. For example, Field’s 2007 review on the opinion polls between 1988 and 2006 concluded

that the majority non-Muslim population has become increasingly hostile towards Muslim

communities - by 2006, one in four reportedly had a strongly anti-Muslim perspective. An ICM poll

also found continued hostility towards Muslims and Islam (ICM, 2008). Just over a third of

participants thought of Islamic values as incompatible with British values, whilst just over half of the

respondents felt that Islam was at least partly to blame for the London bombings.

There have also been effects on the British-Muslim community. In Hussain and Bagguley’s 2012

study, Bangladeshi and Pakistani Muslims spoke of feeling that they were being treated by non-

Muslims as ‘one of them’ and are made to feel like the ‘other’ within an increasingly growing

Islamophobic climate. Interestingly, these respondents typically cited the media as the source of

these problems rather than the British public itself.

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