Neoliberal Securitisation and Symbolic Violence: Silencing Political, Academic and Societal Resistance 3030712095, 9783030712099

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Neoliberal Securitisation and Symbolic Violence Silencing Political, Academic and Societal Resistance Masoud Kamali

Neoliberal Securitisation and Symbolic Violence

Masoud Kamali

Neoliberal Securitisation and Symbolic Violence Silencing Political, Academic and Societal Resistance

Masoud Kamali Uppsala, Sweden

ISBN 978-3-030-71209-9    ISBN 978-3-030-71210-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71210-5 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of ­ illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and ­transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the ­publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and ­institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Anthony Bradshaw This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface

Neoliberalism in general and neoliberal racism in particular has changed many aspects of human life globally. While it does not come as a surprise that traditional liberal countries such as the USA and the UK have neoliberalised their own countries and have been the main actors in the globalisation of neoliberalism, the neoliberalisation of Nordic countries (traditionally known as ‘mixed economies’ or welfare states) still creates some controversies. The well-­organised control apparatus of universities and the mass media, as the downside of a developed welfare state, hinders alternative research and critical thinking from exploring the consequences of neoliberalism, securitisation policies and related racism in those countries. Moreover, Sweden  – known as ‘the big brother of Nordic countries’  – is a country which have gone further than any other Nordic countries in neoliberalisation of the country and its welfare state (Kamali and Jönsson 2018). The political elite, irrespective of party colours, has neoliberalised the country and changed the traditional social democratic settings of its socioeconomic, political and cultural institutions. Although the country has not been the prime target of terrorism, it has launched a considerable securitisation policy, which has influenced not only the legal protection of free speech and democratic rights but also provided many decision-­makers, such as judiciary, police, media companies, university leaders and municipalities, with new and numerous opportunities to curtail citizens’ democratic and social rights. Such neoliberal securitisation policies have reinforced racism and discrimination in the country, which has influenced the living conditions of many individuals and groups of immigrant v

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backgrounds in general  – and of Muslim backgrounds in particular. Although such policies have influenced many marginalised groups, its consequences for individuals of immigrant backgrounds who are active in the Swedish labour market and public life have not been explored. This is mainly dependent on a growing ‘security thinking’, which has been legitimised as ensuring the protection of the nation against terrorism and foreign threat. The protection of the nation equates to the protection of an uncontrolled global market, combined with the increasing control and surveillance of otherised and ‘non-­loyal’ citizens. Elimination of the policies of multiculturalism, along with the marginalisation of anti-­discrimination policies and anti-­racist resistance, has left the political scene to racist parties and groups to grow and reinforce their political influence in the country. The electoral success of the racist party Sweden Democrats (SD), which has made the party the third largest in the country, is the result of neoliberalisation and securitisation policies deployed by both social democratic and right-­wing Alliance governments since the 1990s. Such policies have also led to the reinforcement of overt racism and freed the leadership of mainstream political parties, mass media companies, universities and municipal authorities, among others, from the boundaries of ‘political correctness’ and enabled them to reinforce institutional racism (Kamali 2008, 2015). Fear of losing electorates to SD have encouraged mainstream parties to adapt their party politics and programmes in line with those of SD and so reinforce racist discourses and extend the boundaries of white racial frames (Feagin 2013). The policies of integration have been reduced to the policies of securitisation of the country from the threat of marginalised and critical groups, as a part of the state’s ‘war on terror’. The discourse of migration has been increasingly related to negativity laden discourses, such as ‘mass immigration’, ‘infiltration’, ‘security risk’ and ‘criminality’. Although some political parties, such as the Social Democratic Party, the Left Party and the Green Party, once used a more migration-­friendly political language, this is no longer the case. The growing anti-­immigrant sentiments that make the majority of Swedes feel negatively towards migration, in a time of the political success of white supremacists in many Western countries, have also influenced such parties’ discourses. The established political consensus among political parties since 2010 (when SD entered Swedish parliament), to not cooperate with SD on the basis that they are a racist party, has since 2017 disappeared. Many mainstream parties, such as the Moderate Party and the Christian Democratic Party, have openly declared

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that they will cooperate with SD in the next election. Such transformation in the political landscape of the country and ‘whitewashing of racism’ encourages many decision-­makers in the country to adjust themselves to the ‘spirit of the time’ and they do not consider the boundaries of ‘political correctness’ anymore; ‘political correctness’, then, now harbours neoliberal racism. Over recent years, many critical politicians, academics, journalists and civil society activists have been subjected to mass-­ media bullying and exclusion from their jobs and positions, accused of not believing in democracy and even of having terrorist affiliations. Many have been accused of either being ‘Islamists’ (or having sympathy for Islamist groups) or being radical leftists with non-­democratic ideologies. Accusations against and the exclusion of those critical of neoliberal racism have dominated the Swedish mass media, which itself has been a major actor in the bullying of those persons. White, critical politicians with immigrant backgrounds have been accused of being non-­democratic or having terrorist sympathies, and critical journalists with immigrant backgrounds have been accused of being involved in ‘identity politics’. Critical academics with immigrant backgrounds have been accused of ‘not fitting in’, ‘propagating leftist ideology’ or ‘radicalising students’. Critical civil society activists have not been excluded from the exclusionary practices of mass media and authorities either. In sum, there have been many cases of media bullying against critical politicians, journalists, academics and civil society activists with immigrant backgrounds, which has made research into such mechanisms of exclusion necessary. Since I was placed as the leader of the Swedish project ‘Inquiry into power, integration and structural discrimination’ (2004–2006) by the Swedish government, I have been contacted by many citizens of immigrant backgrounds, with plenty of stories about the overt and covert racism and discrimination they face on a daily basis. As I could not be engaged in individual cases at that time, I have always desired to undertake research into individuals’ lives and experiences of racism and discrimination. Many mentioned their fear of losing their jobs and of being labelled as a ‘troublemaker’, which would destroy their chances of getting any job or of building a career in their professional lives. I was also told by those persons that I was privileged in being able to be outspoken about racism and discrimination while the weak professional positions of many individuals with immigrant backgrounds did not allow them to react against such injustices in respect of their professional activities. Many spoke about self-­censorship

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and ‘muzzling’ in order to protect themselves from the negative consequences of resistance to neoliberalism and racism. I have also witnessed many cases of politicians and journalists adjusting themselves to the ‘white racial frame’ and actively supporting neoliberal racism, being rewarded for this (in the case of politicians) by becoming members of Swedish parliament or even ministers. I wrote about this already as a part of a report from the governmental inquiry (Kamali 2005). In the years following the inquiry, the entrance of SD into Swedish parliament and the increase in neoliberal racism and securitisation policies within the frames of the ‘war on terror’ encouraged me to study the consequences of such changes for racialised groups. This study is based on the voices of politicians, journalists, academics and civil society activists about their working conditions in mainstream political parties, the mass media, universities and civil society. It aims to explore and understand the consequences of neoliberal reforms and growing racism for their professional activities. Although the neoliberalisation of society has have many consequences for the whole of society, the combination of increasing neoliberalisation and growing racism and securitisation of racialised groups can be best captured by the term ‘neoliberal racism’, which is used in this work. The concept indicates the significance of race in colonial exploitation, the philosophy of the Enlightenment and the history of modernity. Racism, as a part of the original ideas of liberalism, is integral to neoliberal governmentalisation and globalisation. The perception of colonised and non-­European people as ‘inferior races and cultures’ did not disappear with the formal end of colonialism but, rather, continues to be part of ‘modern culture’ and a constitutive element of the perceptions held by ‘Us’/European/modern people. People from the periphery are no longer living in distant colonies but are living in the centre, to use Immanuel Wallerstein’s (2004) term – and this is a neoliberal racial environment structured by the legacy of colonialism and modernity. The colonial discourses and perceptions of racialised groups are influencing the everyday lives of those groups. This work is an attempt to capture their voices and analyse them by the use of sociological theoretical tools suitable for bringing clarity to covert mechanisms of racism and oppression against racialised groups in a country known and appreciated for being the champion of equality, welfare and democracy. Uppsala, Sweden

Masoud Kamali

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References Kamali, M. (2005). Strukturell/institutionell diskriminering (Structural/ Institutional Discrimination). In P. de Los Reyes, & M. Kamali, Brotom Vi och Dom: Teoretiska reflektioner om makt, integration och strukturell diskriminering. Stockholm: Fritzes. Kamali, M. (2008). Racial discrimination: Institutional patterns and politics. New York: Routledge. Kamali, M. (2015). War, violence and social justice: Theories for social work. London: Routledge. Kamali, M., & Jönsson, J. H. (2018). Neoliberalism, Nordic welfare state and social work: Current and future challenges. London: Routledge. Wallerstein, I. (2004). World-systems analysis: An introduction. Durham: Duke University Press.

Acknowledgments

This work would not be possible without the active participation of the many people who kindly agreed to be interviewed and share with me their experiences of racism and discrimination in their professional lives. I want to thank you all for your participation, as well as for your encouragement in finalising this research. Thanks are also due to all others who have been in contact with me over the years and shared their experiences of the overt and covert mechanisms of racism and discrimination in their professional and private lives. Your stories have been a valuable source of information and inspiration for me to continue being engaged in this research area.

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Contents

1 Introduction  1 2 Theoretical Perspectives 25 3 Securitisation and Self-Censorship in Mainstream Political Parties 93 4 Securitisation and Self-Censorship in Mainstream Media119 5 Securitisation and Self-Censorship in Academia151 6 Securitisation and Self-Censorship in Civil Society179 7 Conclusions207 Index251

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Neoliberalism has become the new world order, with devastating consequences for the many, diverse, aspects of human life upon which it impinges. Since the victory of capitalism over what which used to be called ‘the socialist world’, with the leadership of Soviet Union in the early 1990s, neoliberal global capitalism has found itself the only, all-­ encompassing, global system and hegemonic ideology. The globalisation of neoliberalism has led to many heterogeneous practices, which, together, are often labelled as comprising a system infused with the logic of the self-­ regulating free market. The heterogeneity of global neoliberalism has influenced some scholars to make differentiations between the ideological and theoretical aspect of neoliberalism and the ‘actually existing neoliberalism’ (Peck and Tickell 2002; Brenner and Theodore 2012; Cahill 2012). This means that the (neo)liberal concept of an uncontrolled free market without, or with the minimal, intervention of the state seems to not exist in reality. As Brenner and Theodore (2002: 352–53) argue, ‘While neoliberalism aspires to create a “utopia” of free markets liberated from all forms of state interference, it has in practice entailed a dramatic intensification of coercive, disciplinary forms of state intervention in order to impose market rule’; they continue that neoliberalism highlights ‘ways in which neoliberal ideology systematically misrepresents the real effects of such policies on macroinstitutional structures and evolutionary trajectories of capitalism’. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. Kamali, Neoliberal Securitisation and Symbolic Violence, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71210-5_1

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The practices of neoliberal ideology are multidimensional and should be a matter of empirical research and not merely ideological or theoretical debates. As Konings (2012: 55) argues, ‘in order to uncover the nature of neoliberal practices we need to shift to a conceptual register not shaped by neoliberal free-market discourse  – to a framework that allows us to see what such practices affect and do rather than say and project’. This is an important methodological approach, which will help uncover various aspects of neoliberal ideology’s practical dimensions. This means that understandings of the role of the national state cannot be reduced to neoliberal theoretical presentations of the state as a shrinking organisation confronted by a growing globalised free market. The modern nation state, as an actor within the global web of states and state policies, should be understood as the prime protector of the global neoliberal market and policies. For example, securitisation policies, developed increasingly in the post-September-11 era informed by ‘free market’ principles, are not external to the function of the neoliberal global market. As liberalism was born through colonial and imperialist wars and occupations, neoliberalism is developed in a postcolonial world order based on its colonial and imperialist legacies and privileges. Many research traditions in Western countries are influenced by the theoretical approaches and discourses developed in colonial and imperialist countries. Academic institutions in those countries are still highly influenced by such traditions, coupled with West-centric and imperialist policies and ideologies. As Raewyn Connell (2007) argues, the academic community needs to create a new social theory that does not follow its colonial legacy, but instead challenges the dominant paradigms shaping the way social scientists undertake and interpret research. Many sociological researches have been undertaken by ‘men of the metropolitan liberal bourgeoise’ (Connell 2007: 14). Many sociological concepts, such as ‘market’, ‘state’, ‘class’, ‘civil society’ and ‘development’, have been defined through West-centric theoretical and empirical frames and claimed to be ‘universal’ (Kamali 1998, 2006). Connell (2007) calls this form of sociology ‘Northern theory’ and challenges its universal relevance. Kamali (1998, 2006) has also showed that West-centric concepts and theoretical perspectives cannot be applied in, for instance, Muslim countries. He empirically challenges many concepts, such as ‘civil society’ and ‘modernity’, developed in Western countries and uncritically applied in non-­ Western countries and shows the fallacies of assuming the universalism of such concepts. Challenges to these colonial and imperialist theoretical

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legacies have resulted, in turn, in challenges to West-centric classical sociological theories. This means, of course, not the rejection of all valuable sociological theories, but, rather, efforts to modify its colonial and imperialist biases. This is a question of making sociological theories relevant to their universal claim. In other words, reflecting on these issues can be a powerful strategy through which previously colonised people can begin to attain agency (Duenkel et al. 2014) and actively examine our global world. Global neoliberalisation has particularly increased the racism and repression historically associated with far-right, nationalist and authoritarian trends (Ahmad 2016; Bruff 2014; Davidson and Saull 2017; Giroux 2018). Studying the consequences of global neoliberalisation must include understanding neoliberal capitalism’s colonial and imperialist past and its postcolonial (or neo-colonial) present and its imperialist continuity. The ‘American Century’, in which the USA, through the two world wars of the twentieth century and the development of its global military industry, succeeded in establishing its leadership in global capitalism, did not come to an end at the close of the twentieth century but still continues. As Linke and Smith (2009: 21) argue: The coercive reach of American imperialism, with its capture of markets, anti-democratic practices, and war-centered economies, has produced far-­ reaching consequences for global social life. Burned landscapes, wounded bodies, and devastated lives are symptomatic of the predatory forays of empire in the twenty-first century. In the contemporary world order, as in the past, political power is birthed by violence: civil wars, proxy wars, paramilitary wars, wars between states, guerilla wars, revolutionary wars, counterinsurgency wars, and ‘humanitarian’ border wars. But in this era of globalization, terror warfare and civilian suffering cannot be regarded as random events: terror is intimately linked to the logic of a capitalist world system that is commandeered by the conglomerate interests of US global patronage and policing.

American imperialism creates a model that, either with consent or by coercive means (or through a combination of both), forces itself on other countries. This American model of global capitalism, known as global neoliberalism, should be understood in terms of its dynamics and impacts across the world, that is the formation and maintenance of global and national structures, institutions and practices that ensure the reproduction of neoliberal dominance. All institutions and individuals are required to adjust themselves to the neoliberal management of societies. A neoliberal,

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coercive system maintains and reproduces its dominance and ideological hegemony not only by force, but also through fostering a sense of consent on the part of individuals and social institutions. Such consent emerges through governmentalisation (Foucault 2007) and the mechanisms of symbolic violence (Bourdieu 2000). As Foucault (2007) argues, governmentalisation is a process, which starts from childhood onwards, and which disciplines individuals into accepting the current socioeconomic and political system as rational and adjusting themselves to it, including through the exertion of self-control. Pierre Bourdieu (1991, 2000) shows how the disciplination of individuals takes place in different socioeconomic, political and cultural fields. He (2001: 1–2) describes symbolic violence as ‘a gentle violence, imperceptible and invisible even to its victims, exerted for the most part through the purely symbolic channels of communication and cognition (more precisely misrecognition), recognition, or even feeling’. This ‘gentle violence’ is a ‘coercion which is set up only through the consent that the dominated cannot fail to give to the dominator’ (Bourdieu 2000: 170). Whether the consent that is given to neoliberal power occurs consciously or unconsciously, it legitimises and presents the neoliberal system of management and production as if ‘there is no alternative’, in Margaret Thatcher’s phrase. This argument requires, however, some clarification about the concepts of ‘dominance’ and ‘compliance’.

1.1   The System of Domination Over the course of the history of capitalism and modernisation, the role of and interaction between the nation state and the capitalist market has influenced many theoretical perspectives and political ideologies. The nation state has been seen as either the servant of the competitive capitalist market or the enemy of this market and the main organ for demolishing the capitalist market system. One of the main scholars who theorised the role of a liberal capitalist market in The Wealth of Nations is Adam Smith (1776). According to Smith, a well-functioning liberal market is dependent on cooperation between state and market actors, based on the nation state’s support and protection of the market. Smith believed that a well-­ functioning market is the basis of the prosperity and wealth of European nations in general—and England in particular. It is important note that this was a time of colonial occupations and oppression, which put most of the world under colonial reign and control of Western military powers.

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Although Smith was critical of slavery, his critical standpoints were not borne of any ethical or humanist considerations, but mainly based on an economic-rational calculation, which considered slavery to be not as profitable as ‘free labour’. He ignored the role of colonialism for the wealth of European nations and considered this prosperity to be entirely based on their internal economic, socio-political and cultural properties. It was mainly non-European ‘uncivilised’ nations that would gain from the advantages of colonialism. Smith believed that European colonial powers had the mission of civilising the world and the ‘uncivilised’ nations. According to him, cooperation between the nation state, and its control over military power, and the market would guarantee the wealth of nations. Smith believed that the sovereign nation state is an important actor, one which should guarantee the security of the ‘free individuals’ who will compete and work in a free market. In this respect, his ideas were supportive of the necessity of the sovereign state for the well-being of citizens who freely make a social contract with the state. Hobbes (1991) stressed—in his classical work, Leviathan, which was first published in 1651—that in order to create order in a normally un-ordered society (which, based on individualism, would generate conflicts in society), the social contract must emerge, by which citizens accept the power and control of the state in exchange for safety and security. In this line of argument, even colonial people should accept the sovereignty of colonial powers in order to ‘become civilised’. Smith’s close friend David Hume—who, in his Political Discourse of 1752, put forward the revolutionary idea of political economy—is an important philosopher, who discussed the necessity of citizens’ sense of justice in a capitalist society. He located the origins of justice within the need for property and the reliable exchange of resources between members of a society. According to Hume, a sense of justice should exist in all human public relations in order to make the order of things acceptable for individuals. Hume argued that given that, the political realm comprises human conduct that is, in large part, characterised by expressions of self-­ interest, morality should be included in the political life and systems of modern society (Church 2007). Although Hume argues for the inclusion of a moral standard in political life, he sees, in his book Treatise, the necessity of the role of the sovereign state as the organiser of public relations. The role of state, like many other external imperatives on human beings, creates limitations for the liberty of individuals. However, based on their

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experiences or taken-for-granted, normative activities, people feel a kind of ‘looseness or indifference’ in how they come about, and some people wrongly see this as ‘an intuitive proof of human liberty’ (Hume 1768: 110). Human actions take place in socioeconomic, political and cultural contexts which influence the choices made and forms of action followed. Therefore, as Max Weber has claimed, all human social actions include some kind of rational calculation; either they are instrumental or value-­ oriented. He (Weber 1968: 1377) puts it thus: We shall speak of Gmeinschaftshandeln (social action) when human action in meaningfully related to the behaviour of other persons. Social action does not occur when two cyclists, for example, collide unintentionally; however, it does occur when they try to avoid the collision or sock one another afterwards or negotiate to settle the matter peacefully.… An important (but not indispensable) component of social action is its meaningful orientation to the expectation that others will act in a certain way, and to the presumable chances of success for one’s own action resulting therefrom. In particular, instrumentally rational action is oriented towards such expectations. (Original emphases)

This means that human actions can be called social actions only when they are oriented towards other, rationally socialised members of society who have more or less the same understanding and interpretation of human relations. Human beings act socially when they consider how their actions are going to be interpreted by others. However, social action does not take place in a vacuum, but within the contexts of socioeconomic, political and cultural relations. The main features of such relations, however, are formed by domination. As Weber (1968: 941) argues: Without exception every sphere of social action is profoundly influenced by structures of dominancy. In a great number of cases the emergence of rational association from amorphous social action has been due to domination and the way in which it has been exercised. Even where it is not the case, the structure of dominancy and its unfolding is decisive in determining the form of social action and its orientation toward a “goal”.

In this interpretation, and as matter of controversy, the dominator/the ruler and the dominated/the ruled are engaged in a relationship in which both the ruler and the ruled are acting towards a common goal. Such relationships can appear problematic and paradoxical. However, the fact is

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that in all societies such relationships inform the reproduction of power structures and social actions. This is based on a ‘win-win’ formula, in which both the ruler and the ruled gain some advantages from the mechanisms of domination. This is what Weber (1968: 946) calls obedience: To be more specific, domination will thus mean the situation in which the manifested will (command) of the ruler or rulers is meant to influence the conduct of one or more others (the ruled) and actually does influence it in such a way that their conduct to a socially relevant degree occurs as if the ruled had made the content of the command the maxis of their conduct for its very own sake. Looked upon from the other end, this situation will be called obedience. (Original emphases)

As seen in modern institutions, including democratic and political institutions, obedience is a key action for gaining advantages over those who obey, without any protest against or questioning of any command of the rulers. This means that domination ‘does not mean that a superior elementary force assert itself in one way or another; it refers to meaningful inter-relationship between those giving orders and those obeying’ (Weber 1968: 1378). The world order of today is a result of the continuation of domination—and, in many cases, this is legitimised domination established by democratic games. Those engaged in the reproduction of the unjust world order of today and its legitimisation are people who primarily are not forced to follow the command of those in positions of exercising power and influence, but are part of a circle accustomed to obeying orders because to do so provides them with better positions and advantages. Even writing in the early twentieth century, Weber (1968: 952) argued about such specific arrangements of domination: A circle of people who are accustomed to obedience to the orders of leaders and who also have a personal interest in the continuance of the domination by virtue of their own participation and the resulting benefits, have divided among themselves the exercise of those functions which will serve the continuation of the domination and are holding themselves continuously ready for their exercise. (Original emphasis)

Those who share an interest in the reproduction of an unjust world order do not, thus, see any need to change the course of events and development. ‘Development’ means, then, the continuation of the same order

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and the extension of the benefits of privileged groups. This is not a ‘new truth’ but an old one, admitted by many scholars of the social sciences and social protest movements. However, denial of such a fact has been a way of rationalising domination and preserving the status quo. This is brought about by the capitalist and modern belief in a kind of natural law of fate, by which the positions of every individual and social group, both those privileged and those not privileged, are presented as ‘legitimate’. Advantaged groups believe that both their own advantages and the other’s disadvantages are ‘deserved’. This may not come as any surprise, but the problem is that even disadvantaged groups accept such a ‘myth’, to use Weber’s (1968: 953) term: Every highly privileged group develops the myth of its natural, especially its blood, superiority. Under conditions of stable distribution of power and, consequently, of status order, that myth is accepted by the negatively privileged strata. Such a situation exists as long as the masses continue in the natural state of theirs in which thought about the order of domination remains but little developed, which means, as long as no urgent needs render the state of affairs “problematical”.

According to him, this has become the main feature of a normative, rational obedience, which has been institutionalised in modern bureaucratic and democratic organisations.

1.2   The Process of Compliance The ruling system of governance always demands the obedience and compliance of those cooperating or engaging in the reproduction of the system. There are ‘red lines’ that should not be transgressed if one is to remain within the warm circle of privilege. There are, however, many different, often taken-for-granted, ways of demonstrating obedience to and compliance with the ruling strata—and ensuring the reproduction of the established systems of privilege. Thomas Aquinas related obedience to God, that is, as comprising a total compliance to the will of a sovereign God who could see and control every aspect of individual conduct. Enlightenment thinkers, such as John Locke and David Hume, believed that obedience emerges as part of Natural Laws and does not need to be related to metaphysics. However, understandings of obedience have changed since then, and many social

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scientists now relate obedience to individual/psychological or institutional/sociological processes. British utilitarian philosophers argue that obedience derives from an assessment of pleasure and pain by the individual, through which non-­ compliance to the orders of the superior results in pain and suffering, while obedience and compliance lead to pleasure and joy. Meanwhile, such understanding of the mechanisms and processes of the reproduction of obedience at the level of the social system can be found in Bourdieu’s aforementioned theory of symbolic violence. Marx and other socialist writers have argued that obedience arises from class oppression and individual alienation, by which individuals or classes either directly or indirectly comply with the existing capitalist order as the only alternative. Later, during the twentieth century, social scientists, such as Max Weber and Emile Durkheim, developed their own theoretical perspectives on obedience and concluded that, as social reality is relative and as social order is socioeconomically and politically formed (and in many cases problematic), obedience rests on situational factors and should be understood contextually.

1.3   Racism and Strangeness, a Persistent Reality The declarations of the European Union, United Nations and many nation states prohibit discrimination and racism. However, many studies and reports show the persistence of widespread discrimination and racism against people with immigrant and minority backgrounds across Europe (ECRI 2018, 2019; ENAR 2019; Kamali 2008). Many politicians and those engaged in current public debates in many European countries, including Sweden, consider cases of racism and discrimination to be the exception to the rule. This is a bias which is a discursive construction of nation states to democratically preserve white privilege through majority rule. As Christian Delcampagne (1983: 51) argues, ‘Most historians who have studied racism consider it to be characteristic of modern times’. Emanuel Eze (1997), in his book Race and the Enlightenment, shows the relationship between the philosophy of the Enlightenment and racism. Given the role of colonialism for the birth of modernity and modern capitalism in Europe, Michel Wieviorka (1993) argues that racism is part of the modern world and highly influences present-day Europe. The classical works of Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978) and Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities (1983), among other publications, argue that the

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glory of modernity, which has received a resurgence in the post-World-­ War-II era (Kamali 2006), is inherently problematic and harmful. Modernity as a single and peaceful European invention, used to ‘civilise the world’, has been criticised as a model for war and colonial conquests (Kamali 2006, 2008, 2015; Lawrence 1999; Joas 2003). Many studies have shown the role of colonialism and its racist discourses for our present world and its racial hierarchies (Goldberg 1993; Bhabha 2004; Loomba 2005; Kamali 2008; Gabriel 2012; Thomas 2013; Dubreuil 2013). As Lawrence (1999) argues, the racist culture of European modernity, and its legacy of self-interest and narcissism around men of progress and civilisation, was violently globalised through colonial and imperialist wars. All colonial subjects and societies who could not be improved or reformed by European colonisers were ruthlessly excluded and eliminated (Coker 1994); people in Africa and other colonies were simply cleared from the scene as if they were just a disposable part of the natural environment (Lawrence 1999). This was not a ‘side-effect’ of colonialism but lied at the heart of modernity and its philosophy of reason. Significantly, then, the philosophy of the Enlightenment legitimised racism and biological and cultural differences between white Europeans and the others. The dualism of civilised/noncivilised, primitive/modern, Christian/non-­ Christian, Occident/Orient was the constitutive part of a scientific racism created and institutionalised as a result of an Enlightenment philosophy which legitimised racism and genocide more widely in the world. For example, the Swedish natural scientist, Carl von Linné, provided a theory of biological races in which white Europeans were positioned at the top of the racial hierarchy and black Africans at the bottom. His racial model has been used ever since to legitimise colonialism, racism, imperialism and the discrimination of non-whites. Another philosopher of the Enlightenment, John Locke, who is considered by many Western philosophers as the father of modern democracy, provided a racist justification for slavery in the Two Treatises of government. Fredrich Hegel’s theory of a ‘geography of races’ and Max Weber’s definition of Africa as ‘Kulturlos’ are not any exception, but a standard (racist) way of presenting white Europeans as ‘the chosen people of God’ and European societies as the home of humanism. As Sartre, in his preface to Frantz Fanon’s book, Wretched of the Earth, writes (1963: 26): ‘there is nothing more consistent than a racist humanism, since the European has only been able to become a man through creating slaves and monsters’.

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In the official and mainstream narratives of colonialism, military conquest, genocide and oppression of colonised people were given the normative gloss of ‘spreading civilisation’. A Western, racist, humanism has been presented as one of the core features of the culture of modernity—a scientific culture in which development and progress are celebrated. The scientification of racism has helped to make it an integrated part of modern rationality and its structural and institutional properties. Notwithstanding its brutal history of colonialism, slavery and imperialist wars, occupations and violence, European modernity and Western countries have spread a positive self-image of ‘Western civilisation’ related to progress, democracy and humanism. The fact is that, as Adorno and Horkheimer argue in their work Dialectic of Enlightenment, the beliefs and enactment of modernist liberation had, in fact, pushed human beings towards total barbarism (Adorno and Horkheimer 1979). Moreover, as Lawrence (1999: 4) argues, the modernist culture of the capitalist West is blind to its historical specificity and ‘the universalist pretensions of the post-Enlightenment ideology of progress [has] provided a charter for violence, especially against non-western peoples’. This violence, however, as discussed earlier, is not only the physical exercise of violence but must include symbolic violence in order to create consent, as part of the mechanisms of governmentalisation. This is the case more today than it has ever been, as many non-Western people are living in Western societies and their integration and place within such societies are contested as a result of a history of racism. Zigmund Bauman’s discussion about ‘the stranger’, in his work Modernity and Ambivalence, is very useful here for understanding the mechanisms of everyday racism in different areas of social life. The history of modernity has created the opposing images of ‘the familiar’ and ‘the stranger’. Because of the feeling or understanding that the stranger cannot be controlled and ordered, and that she is outside of society’s borders, she is always the object of fear and is a potential threat to society. As Bauman (1993: 55) puts it: The threat he carries is more horrifying than that which one can fear from the enemy. The stranger threatens the sociation itself– the very possibility of sociation. He calls the bluff of the opposition between friends and enemies as the compleat mappa mundi, as the difference which consumes all differences and hence leaves nothing outside itself. As that opposition is the foundation on which rest all social life and all differences which patch it up and

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hold together, the stranger saps social life itself. And all this because the stranger is neither friend nor enemy; and because he may be both. And because we do not know, and have no way of knowing, which is the case. (Original emphasis)

According to Bauman, the stranger is a kind of enemy, but not really like those enemies who ‘can be kept at a secure distance’. He (1993: 59) writes: Yet, unlike other, ‘straightforward’ enemies, he is not kept at a secure distance, nor on the other side of the battleline. Worse still, he claims a right to be an object of responsibility– the well-known attribute of the friend. If we press upon him the friend/enemy opposition, he would come out simultaneously under and over-determined. And thus, by proxy, he would expose the failing of the opposition itself. He is a constant threat to the world’s order.

Being ‘an immigrant’ is connected to strangeness and to belonging to the category of ‘the others’, those who are not to be trusted, who do not belong to here. As Sartre puts it, there is an understanding in majority society that the stranger must leave their country of residence and return ‘home’; this is because ‘[t]he commitment the stranger declares, the loyalty he promises, the dedication he demonstrates cannot be trusted’ (1993: 60). The colonial discourse about the other, the stranger, is still part of our daily uses of language and other means of communication. Discourses are not, however, simply ‘means of communication’. Discourses define and reconstitute the real world, and the reality of a person or event, for the readers, listeners and viewers. Colonial powers have often legitimised their colonial occupations and their imperialist wars and oppressions of other people and countries, with discourses of the inferiorisation of colonised and subjugated people. The Western colonial powers’ wars and colonial missions have been presented as ‘civilising missions’ for civilising ‘the savage’ and ‘the uncivilised’ people. The colonial discourses about ‘the others’, the colonised, did not disappear by the formal end of many colonial occupations. They continued to be integrated and constitutive parts of today’s postcolonial discourses about ‘the others’—irrespective of if they are living in Western countries as ‘the strangers among us’ or in their countries. They are ‘under Western eyes’ and part of their discursive construction of the ‘inferior other’ (Mohanty 1988). Such discourses are in

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common usage in the everyday language of racism (Hill 2008). The colonial past of Western countries and their postcolonial presents, in which white people still control the means of the exercise of power (locally, nationally and globally), have created a ‘racist culture’ (Goldberg 1993). The colonial and postcolonial capitalist system has resulted in a ‘world system’ in which the centre (i.e. Western imperialist powers) forces the periphery (i.e. non-Western countries) to exploit the latter’s resources, destroying their infrastructures and leading to wars, violence, natural disasters and forced migration (Wallerstein 1974; Kamali 2015). Therefore, studies of racism and discrimination must consider the colonial past and the postcolonial present reality of the world in order to make the results comprehensible.

1.4   The Case Study of Sweden Although there exists a common understanding of Sweden as the bastion of equality and social welfare, the reality is not what it seems to be. Sweden is not a separate island which can be situated out of the colonial and postcolonial, or the capitalist and imperialist world order. It has a history of colonialism and racism. As mentioned earlier, the Swedish botanist, Carl von Linné, was one of the first philosophers of the Enlightenment to present a ‘scientific theory of biological different races’, in his famous book Systema Naturae in 1735. His students created the first race biological association in the country, which later, at the dawn of the twentieth century (1912), established a race biological institute’ in the city of Uppsala. Sweden had established its own colony in Saint Barthelemy 1784, and the Swedish king and traders had been actively engaged in slave trade. The Swedish West India Company had trade monopoly and the right to conduct slave trade in West Africa. Yet, the country still tries to not deal with its own history and role in colonialism and slavery (Körber 2019). Even Swedish Christian missionaries have been highly involved with colonial occupations and oppressions in Africa. For example, the Swedish Christian missionaries were highly engaged in the enslavement and colonisation and oppression of the people of Congo from 1881 up to 1920s (Larsson 2016). By analysing the narratives of Swedish Missionary Federation’s engagement in Congo during this period, Larsson shows that the mission cooperated with the brutal colonial power of Congo. The modern history of Sweden is not much better than its colonial and racist past. The history of Swedish social policy and welfare construction shows the existence of a

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racist biological understanding of human beings. When Social Democrats seized political power for the first time in the early 1930s, they started to launch a social engineering programme by which to create a perfect society in accordance with their ideological and political vision. Such an ideology included an understanding of ‘desired’ and ‘undesired’ peoples and individuals. The Swedish parliament in 1934 passed a law called ‘sterilisation law’, aiming at sterilising individuals who were considered inferior and undesirable. The law was in effect for almost 40 years (from 1934 to 1975), during which time 63,000 individuals were sterilised. The majority of such people came from the minority group Roms (Broberg and Tyden 2005). This was in line with the racialist understanding of the aforementioned race biological institute: the ‘strong’, white individuals should be preserved, and ‘weak’ and ‘inferior’ people should be eliminated. One of the major personalities in Sweden’s history of the construction of the welfare state and its modern social policy is Gunnar Myrdal. He was placed as the head of the ‘Inquiry into the crisis of population’ in the early 1930s. The increase in fertility in Sweden and earlier emigration encouraged its Social Democratic government to conduct an investigation, one which would suggest new measures to handle the problem of the shortage of young labour power in the country. One of the questions at that time was whether or not to allow and encourage immigration in order to increase the young population. Myrdal, who was critical of the US apartheid system against Afro-Americans, became very nationalist in his investigation and did not suggest immigration, saying that he was more concerned about ‘the quality of the population’ not the quantity. Based on his book, The Population Question, Myrdal declared, during a lecture at Harvard University in the USA, that racial homogeneity was a recommendation. He meant that a country’s demographic should not be ‘contaminated’ by competing ethnic groups (Barber 2008). This racist understanding of different qualities of human beings has influenced not only Sweden’s social policy but also all aspects of its structural and institutional arrangements. Such arrangements influence the everyday life of people. As Essed (1991: 50) emphasises: Race relations… are a process present in and activated at the everyday level as well as prestructured in a way that transcends the control of individual subjects. Everyday racism is the integration of racism into everyday situations through practices (cognitive and behavioral…) that activate underlying power relations. This process must be seen as a continuum through

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which the integration of racism into everyday practices becomes part of the expected, of the unquestionable, and of what is seen as normal by the dominant group. When racist notions and actions infiltrate everyday life and become part of the reproduction of the system, the system reproduces everyday racism … if we should ignore the permeation of racism throughout the entire social system, if we should fail to perceive its integration into the routine practices of everyday life, we would miss the point, and we would leave racism intact.

There has been an increasing problem of integration of those considered as ‘inferior people’ (i.e. immigrants in Sweden) and after decades of debate on this matter, the Swedish government decided to establish a governmental investigation ‘into power, integration and structural discrimination in 2004. The author of this book, Masoud Kamali, was placed as the head of the inquiry. The results of thirteen reports of the inquiry in which more than 130 national and international researchers participated were concluded in the inquiry’s final report, Integrationens svarta book: Agenda for jämlikhet och social sammanhållning (The Black Book of Integration: Agenda for equality and social cohesion). It suggested that the major problem of integration in the country was an established system of structural and institutional discrimination, in which people categorised as ‘the others’ are hindered in the ability to become part of Swedish society on equal terms (SOU 2006: 79). However, the Social Democratic government lost the election of 2006 and its successor, the right-wing Alliance government, did not do anything about the inquiry’s suggestions. Even the Social Democrats, who had at that time political power in more than 70 years standing, were not satisfied with the results of the inquiry, results which highlighted their role in institutional and structural racism in the country. Since then, both the Alliance government and their later successors, the Social Democrats, have continued their neoliberal and securitisation policies, which have reinforced racism and discrimination against those considered as ‘the others’, or the strangers in Sartre’s words. The government’s and other powerful actor’s increasing demands for compliance and obedience to the current neoliberal order and the securitisation policies that reinforce racism and discrimination have deepened not only socioeconomic inequalities and marginalisation of ‘the others’, but also have negatively influenced many individuals with immigrant backgrounds in their workplaces. Increasing racism and electoral support for

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the racist party, Sverige Democrats (SD), which is the next largest party in Sweden, is alarming. The increasing popularity of SD and its racist policies and discourses has encouraged mainstream parties to adjust their party programmes and discourses in accordance with SD. This is a development that Sweden shares with many other countries in Europe (Kamali 2008, 2015). Part of such a development is the reinforcement of racism and increasing demands for compliance and obedience on the part of people with immigrant backgrounds. The securitisation policies of the state, by which many individuals with immigrant backgrounds in general and Muslims in particular are subjected to surveillance and ‘distrust’, add to the complexity of racism and discrimination. This study aims at exploring such complexity, both within political parties and within the institutions of higher education, journalism and civil society.

1.5   The Main Objective and Questions of This Study The main objective of this study is to examine the consequences of neoliberal securitisation for democratic and professional activities of politicians, journalists, academics and civil society activist with immigrant background in Swedish society. The focus of the study is on increasing limits of the freedom of speech among politicians, journalists, academics and civil society activists in Sweden, in a time of neoliberal globalisation and securitisation of societies. The following questions have guided this study: ‘How do critical politicians, journalists, academics and civil society activists of immigrant background evaluate their freedom of speech?’; ‘How do they evaluate their professional and civic activities in a time of increasing demand for compliance with the neoliberal securitisation?; and ‘How do they handle the challenges of neoliberal racism and securitisation in their professional and civic activities?’

1.6   Method The study is partly based on in-depth interviews with academics, journalists, politicians and civil society activists who are critical of neoliberal racism that influences their professional and civic activities and lives; and, partly on media articles and mediatised political debates influencing

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politicians, journalists, academics and civil society activists of immigrant background in their daily activities. The author’s ambition has been to not limit the research to an approach of knowing, but, rather, to be engaged in the intellectual interpretations and meaning-making that is used to understand the lived world of individuals, their challenges and the way they interpret their living conditions and situations. As the Heideggerian interpretive hermeneutic phenomenology perspective shows, the researcher should provide wider understanding of the lived experiences of individuals participating in a study. Data collection is not separated from data analysis; they take place almost simultaneously and in and through a dialectical process that provides insights into the experiences of individuals and their interpretation of their situations. This means that ‘[t]he qualitative paradigm does not conceive of the world as an external force, objectively identifiable and independent of man [sic]. Rather, there are multiple realities’ (Filstead 1979: 35–36). Positivist ideas about the ‘real world out there’, independent of individuals’ lives and of socioeconomic, political, cultural and historical contexts, are the product of a rigid epistemology premised on the supposed superiority of abstract, methodologically ‘constructed truths’ over the complexity of the real world. For qualitative researchers, in contrast, then, ‘[o]bjectivity is a chimera: a mythological creature that never existed, save in the imaginations of those who believe that knowing can be separated from the knower’ (Lincoln and Guba 2003: 279). We cannot ‘speak of a division between a “subjective” mind and the “objective” world’ (Omery and Mack 1995: 141), and, as Koch (1999: 25) argues, there is no such things as ‘an objectively … true account of “things in themselves”’. There is not even any way of validating such an account that ‘corresponds to this timeless, objective truth’ (Leonard 1999: 60). Social realities are socially constructed and become meaningful in their social, political, cultural and historical contexts. Therefore, ‘there exist multiple, socially constructed realities’ (Koch 1999: 25), which makes it almost impossible for positivist scholars to single out and construct ‘abstract truths’ (although they present it as ‘objective realities’). This study applies a qualitative content analysis method, one which has undergone comprehensive changes by moving from ‘a counting game’ to a more interpretative approach within the qualitative paradigm (Schreier 2012; Egberg-Thyme et al. 2013; Lindgren et al. 2014). This paradigm is not entirely ‘objective’ and ‘value-free’, but a value-based process characterised by multiple realities, the mutual creation of data, and influenced by

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individuals’ multifaceted perceptions of phenomena (Egberg-Thyme et al. 2013). The data is collected qualitatively in relation to other individuals and their life-worlds and experiences. It focuses on and makes use of the context of study and emphasises variations, similarities and differences between both the individuals engaged in the study and the context they are living in. Qualitative content analysis deals both with manifest and descriptive contents as well as latent and interpretative contents (Graneheim and Lundman 2004). Therefore, data and interpretation are interwoven processes, created and developed by the interviewee and the interviewer. The interpretation of collected interviews and texts is a co-production of the researchers and the text (Mishler 1986). This means that a text has not only one single meaning but several (Sandelowski 2011) and that content analysis can be applied and used by those who believe knowledge is either innate, acquired or socially constructed (Lincoln and Guba 1985). Qualitative content analysis considers and analyses the contents of the interviewees’ utterances and texts (manifest and latent), developing the analysis by generating categories and themes. However, the resultant analysis should be still close to the participants’ lived experiences. Qualitative content analysis typically involves the use of one of three models: inductive, deductive and abductive. The inductive model, which is also called data-driven (Schreier 2012) or text-driven (Krippendorff 2013), is characterised by a search for patterns in collected data by focusing on similarities and differences. Such patterns are then described in terms of categories and themes, which are more abstract and general. In other words, the inductive model is a process of starting from the concrete data and moving upwards, to more abstract categories and themes. The other model, that the deductive approach, which is called concept driven (Schreier 2012), takes its starting point in existing theories and abstract concepts about the research subject, and tests collected data against theories. This means that in the deductive model, the researcher moves from abstract theories to data, that is downwards, from the abstract level to the more concrete level. The third model of qualitative content analysis, that is the abductive approach (which is also called complementary (Blackstone 2012), combined (Elo and Kyngäs 2008) or retroductive (Sayer 1992)), is a combination of the inductive and deductive approaches. The abductive approach, which is used in this work, provides, then, a more complete and encompassing instrument for analysing collected data, by simultaneously applying relevant theories in the entire processes of both data collection and data analysis.

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This study is based on the author’s own and many other politicians, journalists, academics and civil society activists of immigrant backgrounds’ experiences of the recent neoliberal and political developments which have led to the reinforcement of neoliberal racism in Sweden. The ontological focus of research should primarily be on what produces events rather than events per se (Meyer and Lunnay 2013). In Margaret Archer’s (1995) words, the explanation of social phenomena is achieved through revealing the mechanism that produce them. The aim of this study is to capture the ‘actual events’ as they actually happened in their societal and structural appearances. Using the abductive model helps to broaden knowledge and stimulate the research process by which new ideas and insights can be achieved (Habermas 1978). Since the complex processes of the recent neoliberal developments have influenced people differently depending on their positions and positioning abilities in socioeconomic, political and cultural structural and institutional arrangements, understanding individuals’ communicative actions requires both an abductive research method and a multifaceted theoretical perspective. This study then, is neither a pure theory driven study, nor a study exclusively based on empirical data; rather, it is a combination of both which enables researcher to see both the shortcomings of a single theoretical perspective to interpret data, at the same time that it avoids the trap of empiricism. The study is mainly based on interviews with politicians, journalists, academics and civil society activists of immigrant backgrounds. However, a few politicians, journalists, academics and civil society activists of Swedish background have also been interviewed as a control group.

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Schreier, M. (2012). Qualitative content analysis in practice. London: Sage. Smith, A. (1776). An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. London: Prined for W. Strahan and T. Cadell, in the Strand. SOU. (2006: 79). Integrationens svarta book: Agenda för jämlikhet [The black book of integration: Agenda for equality]. Stockholm: Fritzes. Thomas, L. K. (2013). Empires of mind: Colonial history and its implications for counselling and psychotherapy. Psychodynamic Practice, 19(2), 117–128. Wallerstein, I. (1974). The modern world-system: Capitalist agriculture and the origins of the European world-economy in the sixteenth century. New  York: Academic Press. Weber, M. (1968). Economy and society. California: University of California Press. Wieviorka, M. (1993). Racism and modernity in present-day Europe. Thesis Eleven, 35(1), 51–61.

CHAPTER 2

Theoretical Perspectives

The collected data in this work cannot be properly analysed and understood without applying relevant critical theories and approaches, in a time when the globalisation of neoliberalism, militarism and marketisation affects all aspects of human existence. In such circumstances, many ‘mediatised truths’ are established through which global inequalities and injustices are reproduced. Resistance to and deviance from such ‘truths’ is considered, at best, ‘anti-democratic’—and, in many cases, it is labelled as ‘terrorism’. Neoliberal and West-centric truths have become as ‘holy’ as biblical or Quran verses for neoliberal and market fundamentalist groups. Neoliberalism and marketisation seem to have become the new religion of humanity. If the old religions invited unprivileged groups to accept the unjust world order and the leadership of kings and priests as necessary for their salvation and rewards in heaven, neoliberalism tries to convince them of the ‘truth of there being no alternative’, of the necessity of marketisation for the worldly salvation of people. Combined with this ‘invitation’ to accept neoliberalism and marketisation, neoliberalism—like old religious and monarchical authorities—makes use of force in the event of non-­ compliance with such soft means of domination. While capitalism and neoliberalism more standardly use soft means to convince people to comply through a system of reward and punishment, this has been, in recent decades, combined with harder means—that is, of punishment enacted by the judicial and police/military systems. The global system and the

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institutionalisation of the ‘war on terror’ has provided an effective means for punishing and silencing any resistance. This work uses critical social theory as its theoretical framework—a combination of Marxist theory, critical ‘race’ theory and sociological theory (Adams 1970; Lemert 1993), thus providing a mechanism from which to critique policies and practices through multiple theoretical lenses (Leonardo 2004). This focus on multiplicity of perspective will help to critically analyse the results of the study, as well as to generate comprehensive understanding of a rather complex world in which the question of adjustment and non-adjustment to the neoliberal world order and its consequences are at the core of the analysis. The neoliberal world order is also acting as and creating a worldwide empire. Hardt and Negri (2000) have, in their book Empire, discussed the emergence of a global empire, which, while not eroding the sovereignty of nation states, is transforming them into a system of national and supranational institutions that lays the ground for the new empire. Different from the early colonialism and the creation of the European imperialism that was built on the national sovereignty of European countries, this empire has no political centre or territorial limits. The power of the empire is based on the global neoliberal order itself. Hardt and Negri write that the new empire has an overwhelming capacity for the oppression and destruction of any deviation from its logic and its system of production and reproduction. The new empire creates a supranational juridical order, which helps neoliberal actors to legitimise the existence of their capitalist empire and world order.

2.1   Symbolic Violence and Socio-political Order The necessity of exercising violence in order to both produce and reproduce the socio-political order in society is recognised by classical sociologists and political scientists. In Durkheim’s theory (1951) of ‘collective consciousness’, there is an inherent need for endemic violence in order to stabilise social order. According to Durkheim, laws and morality exercise control over individuals in each society and is necessary for a modern society, based on the division of labour, to be possible. He emphasises the role of socialisation processes for fostering in the individual an acceptance of her place in society, making her a well-functioning and conformist member of the body social. Underpinning this argument is a view of society, and its laws and norms, as the result not of the arbitrariness of individual

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wills, but, rather, of the structural and institutional arrangements that make such ‘acts of wills’ possible. The function of the ‘collective consciousness’ is thus to impersonalise the order of society and render it a necessary condition of life. The role of the penal system is to punish those who violate or go against the ‘order of things’ in society, and it constitutes the mechanism for social condemnation of those actors displaying deviant behaviour. However, Durkheim saw the order in society as the very condition of human existence and considered domination based on a kind of ‘soft socialism’ (Aron 2018) as the only way forward; he was critical of anarchists and communists who wanted violent revolution. Social order, according to Durkheim, is a moral order in which every individual should act accordingly. Durkheim claims that such an order should have legitimacy in order to be respected. He puts the very basis of such legitimacy in modern education, by which children should be subjected to socialisation processes to become good citizens. He sees such socialisation (or disciplination, in Foucault’s terms) as positive and important for the reproduction of social order. The theories of social order and the reproduction of societies launched by Durkheim and other classical sociologists, sometimes considered as ‘functionalists’, have been criticised by critical social scientists, such as Max Weber, Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault. Such social scientists argue that functionalist theories lack a critical analysis of those in power and those who benefit from an unjust social order. As mentioned in Chap. 1, Weber (1968) claims that privileged groups in society either deny their privileges or present them as a part of a natural order. One of the most influential post-war sociologists, Pierre Bourdieu (1977), meanwhile, contends that it is not enough to show the existence of domination, even in its legitimate forms, within society; rather, we have to explain the mechanisms of the reproduction of domination and the unequal social order. By this, he means that the relation of domination is mainly based on institutionalised relationships and social structures, which provides the condition of life in every society. Such relations of domination are impersonal and institutionalised. As he (1977: 189) puts it: The greater the extent to which the task of reproducing the relations of domination is taken over by objective mechanisms, which serve the interests of the dominant group without any conscious effort on the latter’s part, the more indirect and, in a sense, impersonal, become the strategies objectively oriented towards reproduction.

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Therefore, domination in modern societies moves beyond the ‘elementary forms of domination’, which consist of the direct domination of one person upon another. In other words, domination has been institutionalised in a way that it becomes a part of the ‘natural order of things’. Educational systems of modern societies play a central role in the socialisation of individuals into a world formed by divisions between privileged and unprivileged groups. The political system, mass media and the system of cultural production serve also in this socialisation of individuals into social divisions. Domination becomes, thus, an integral part of the cognitive structure of individuals. Bourdieu (1984: 468) argues that ‘[t]he cognitive structures which social agents implement in their practical knowledge of the social world are internalised, “embodied” social structures’. The hierarchical divisions in society between the privileged and dominant groups and the unprivileged and dominated groups becomes internalised by social agents and legitimised as ‘natural’. Bourdieu (1984: 471) puts it in this way: Social divisions become principles of divisions, organizing the image of the social world. Objective limits become a sense of limits, a practical anticipation of objective limits acquired by experience of objective limits, a ‘sense of one’s place’ which leads one to exclude oneself from the goods, persons, places and so forth from which one is excluded.

This provides a self-regulating mechanism by which individuals accept their place in society and consider them to be the normal conditions of social life. Such realities and conditions of social life in modern societies are not just conditions reproduced by market or social relations. They are highly political. Political institutions in liberal democracies are deeply engaged in the reproduction of ‘legitimate’ principles of domination. As Bourdieu (1984: 291) argues: One of the subjectively acceptable ways of escaping from the contradictions resulting from the fact that cultural capital is a dominated principle of domination lies in participation as a cadre in the organisations claiming to express and defend the interests of the dominated classes. Thus, the distribution of the members of different dominant-class fractions who aspire (with unequal chances of success) to positions as political representatives (which can be gauged by analysing the social characteristics of parliamentary candidates) corresponds fairly strictly to the distribution of their respective fractions in

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the field of the dominant class. It follows from this that political struggles are one of the arenas of the struggle to impose the legitimate (i.e. dominant) principle of domination.

The dominant classes’ democratic struggles in a liberal political system are intrinsically formed by, and demonstrate, the various interests of the different fractions of the dominant classes. This means that the entire system of domination, by which those classes are favoured and privileged by market forces, does ‘collectively’—notwithstanding minor democratic collisions—support and defend the system of domination. This means that, in a bio-political perspective, the control of those participating in the democratic system is not only exerted by the existing ‘democratic games’ or the ‘rules of the game’ being forced on participants in the public democratic scenes, but also takes place at the level of self-­ conduct. Those participating in the democratic system, then, should not only accept the ‘rules of the game’, but also actively work for the reproduction of the democratic system, despite its shortcomings and problems. Bourdieu (1990) argues that the political field is a sphere where the social world is authoritatively represented, and the power of the dominant class is reproduced. It is a field of authoritative nomination and the symbolic fabrication of collectives, such as families, classes, ethnic groups, regions, nations and genders (Bourdieu 1990). All social institutions are sites and spheres of struggles for domination (ibid.). People are engaged in such struggles and they take different positions, depending upon whether they win the struggle or lose it. It comprises their habitus, which they have developed during their disciplination (to use Foucault’s term), that makes them rationalise their participation in domination as ‘the winners’, or makes them accept their subordination as ‘the losers’. Accordingly, there are no economic, social or political institutions that can resist such mechanisms of domination. The term ‘symbolic violence’, coined by Pierre Bourdieu (1977), affords us one of the most accurate means to understand and analyse the subtle ways and mechanisms of exercising violence for the creation of dominant and dominated groups. Max Weber (1968) argued that a ‘minimum of voluntary compliance’ to domination is necessary in all forms of domination. People subjected to the forces of domination must accept their subordination, albeit in different ways. Bourdieu develops Weber’s argument by arguing that domination take place through violence in both its physical and symbolic forms. He argues that domination is reproduced by ‘symbolic

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violence’, that is, by obscuring privileges behind legitimised discursive presentations of domination, which makes obedience a normal stance of social life. Through a sophisticated mechanism of ‘reward and penalty’, individuals are disciplined to adapt themselves to the ‘rules of the game’ in order to satisfy their interests—or, in Weber’s words, to compensate for their ‘helplessness’ (1968: 214; see also Kamali 2015). The effects of symbolic violence can also be been seen in the permanent presence of war-like conditions, to use Foucault’s term, in modern societies. Competition between groups and individuals is more likely develop into violence for the sought elimination of counterparts. In such competitions, the support of privileged and powerful groups in society is decisive in the success of the competitors. A well-developed system of reward and penalty is engaged in the reproduction of privileges and of privileged groups’ positions of domination in society. Those complying and actively helping to reproduce the privileged and powerful groups’ position receive rewards in different ways, and those not complying become subjected to negative sanctions, which influences their chances of progressing and climbing the social hierarchy. Such exercise of power is often conducted by the aforementioned ‘soft means’ of domination: symbolic violence. Complying with the mechanisms of symbolic violence does not take place through adherence to a perceived external power and pressure, but, rather, through individuals’ choices to act in accordance with the habitual schemes ‘incarnated in bodies’—or their habitus. As Bourdieu (1990: 190) puts it: The source of historical action, that of the artist, the scientist, or the member of government just as much as that of the worker or the petty civil servant, is not an active subject confronting society as if that society were as object constituted externally. The source resides neither in consciousness nor in things but in the relationship between two stages of the social, and the history incarnated in bodies, in the form of that system of enduring dispositions which I call habitus.

In order to function, the mechanisms of domination based on ‘symbolic violence’ are presented as ‘something else’, that is not what it is, a mechanism of reproduction of privileges and of privileged groups. Different forms of domination, such as economic domination and political domination, are thus legitimised. This is done, for instance, in the field of economy, by the conversion of economic capital into symbolic capital. Bourdieu (1977: 196) argues that:

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Wealth, the ultimate basis of power, can exert power, and exert it durably, only in the forms of symbolic capital; in other words, economic capital can be accumulated only in the form of symbolic capital, the unrecognizable, and hence socially recognizable, form of other kinds of capital.

What Bourdieu calls the mechanisms of ‘symbolic violence’, internalised by individuals and made part of their habitus, can be compared with, and developed by using, Foucault’s theoretical frame of ‘governmentality’. Governmentality, according to Foucault (1991), is the modern technique of government, which has superseded the pre-modern Machiavellian rule of the Prince or the sovereign. In the past, while the Prince had sovereign power, he was supposed to guarantee ‘the common good’ in society: ‘the common good of everybody means essentially obedience to the law, either that of their earthly sovereign or that of God, the absolute sovereign’ (1991: 95). The modern governance is, however, different from this, according to Foucault (1991: 95): I believe we are at an important turning point here: whereas the end of sovereignty is internal to itself and possesses its own intrinsic instruments in the shape of its laws, the finality of government resides in the thing it manages and in the pursuit of perfection of intensification of the processes which it directs; and the instruments of government, instead of being laws, now come to be a range of multiform tactics.

The modern good governor does not have to have weapons of killing and the right to kill in order to exercise his/her power; she/he needs ‘wisdom’, which, in Foucault’s words (1991: 96), means ‘the knowledge of things, of the objectives that can and should be attained, and the disposition of things required to reach them’. As he goes on to say (1991: 114), it is an axiom that ‘without sub ordination and obedience, no society can be hoped for, and without society every evil is to be feared and scarcely any good can be hoped for.’ This requires the exercise of power by the government. The exercise of such power requires instruments, which cannot only be reduced to military and police action. The means of the governmentalised exercise of power, according to Foucault (1991: 116), are assistance, tutelage and medicalisation (including at the level of the prison and its disciplinary mechanisms, sexuality, psychiatry and the family)—practices and knowledges that, in concert, have woven that ever-tightening web which constitutes the social.

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Foucault (1991: 102–3) defines governmentality as: 1. The ensemble formed by the institutions, procedures, analyses and reflections, the calculations and tactics that allow the exercise of this very specific albeit complex form of power, which has as its target population, as its principal form of knowledge political economy, and as its essential technical means apparatuses of security. 2. The tendency which, over a long period and throughout the West, has steadily led towards the pre-eminence over all other forms (sovereignty, discipline, etc) of this type of power which may be termed government, resulting, on the one hand, in formation of a whole series of specific governmental apparatuses, and, on the other, in the development of a whole complex of savoirs. 3. The process, or rather the result of the process, through which the state of justice of the Middle Ages, transformed into the administrative state during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, gradually becomes ‘governmentalized’. (Original emphasis)

The modern knowledge(able) state—as the ‘outcome’ of a long history of the development of political economy, laws and administration—creates and uses the techniques which make it possible to rationalise governance and convince people, the population, that obeying the laws, rules, norms and the will of the government are necessary in order to create a better society for them. Legitimised obedience, or governmentality, is one of the most relevant theoretical tools for understanding and analysing the processes of controlling people’s minds and deeds in the context of life under late modern states. As Lemke (2001: 191) puts it, the technics of governmentality operate in the following way: On the one hand, the term pin-points a specific form of representation; government defines a discursive field in which exercising power is “rationalized”. This occurs, among other things, by the delineation of concepts, the specification of objects and borders, the provision of arguments and justifications, etc. In this manner, government enables a problem to be addressed and offers certain strategies for solving/handling the problem. On the other hand, it also structures specific forms of intervention. For a political r­ationality is not pure, neutral knowledge which simply ‘represents’ the governing reality; instead, it itself constitutes the intellectual processing of the reality which political technologies can then tackle. This is understood to include agencies, procedures, institutions, legal forms, etc., that are intended to enable us to govern the objects and subjects of a political rationality. (Original emphases)

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Foucault’s concept of ‘governmentality’, combined with Bourdieu’s concept of ‘symbolic violence’, provides a proper theoretical tool for analysing technologies of self as they intersect with technologies of domination—technologies that lay the ground for the reproduction of an established, unjust and unequal social order (Kamali 2015). In such an order, the individual’s freedom is increasingly violated and diminishing. Freedom has come to mean acting free in accordance with a neoliberal market and world order. Any deviance from or acting against such an order will be sanctioned negatively by the socio-political system and political and cultural elites. However, both Bourdieu’s concept of ‘symbolic violence’ and Foucault’s ‘governmentality’ should be used in a way that does not downplay the role of the deliberate, rational calculations of individuals in neoliberal capitalist society. Within the limits of the neoliberal order, individuals’ act in accordance with an individual cosmos of ‘rational choice’, which guarantees their security and well-being. This is not to be misinterpreted as a defence of rational choice theory based on homo economicus principles, but a framework for highlighting and understanding individual, pragmatic action in the neoliberal society of today. Such rational actions, which are chosen by seemingly ‘free individuals’, are shaped through the techniques of domination and disciplinisation. This seems to represent the colonisation of the ‘life world’ by the ‘system world’, in Habermas’ theoretical terms. The private and democratic spheres are increasingly narrowed and regulated, both by open laws and regulations and by imperative normative systems. Individuals are more than ever required to adjust themselves to static political verses, which define the legal frames and limitations of individual freedoms—such as one of the major concerns of this work, freedom of speech. It seems that, using Weber’s (1968) terminology, instrumental rationality (Zweckrationlität) is colonising value-oriented rationality (Wertrationalität) and creating a rational, neoliberal individual whose goals and values are conflated. This means that an individual’s goals legitimise the use of any instrument for their achievement, irrespective of the consequences of individual actions. Justification of individual actions lies in the satisfaction actors receive from their actions. This can be called neoliberal governmentality, which, through the techniques of domination and mechanisms of symbolic violence, forces individuals into the role of uncritical producers and consumers who should adapt themselves to the rules of the game of neoliberal markets and

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politics. Accordingly, many, mainly low-educated and blue-collar, individuals and groups are disciplined into a life informed by Tittytainment, which hinders them seeing the jungle for the existence of many woods. The concept of ‘Tittytainment’ was coined by the security advisor to the USA’s president Jimmy Carter in late 1970s, Zbigniew Brzezinski. The word is a combination of the words ‘tit’ (meaning, breast) and ‘entertainment’, and means feeding the majority of the world’s population, who are living a joyless existence because of the lack of equality, with media entertainment in order to keep them in a relatively good mood (Martin and Schumann 1997). One of the interesting statistical facts referred to in Sweden at the end of 2018 was that the number of applicants to the TV programme ‘Swedish Idol’ was much higher than the number of applicants to teacher education courses (Lärarutbildningen) in Sweden. The higher interest in ‘Swedish Idol’ among youngsters becomes even more interesting given that the shortage of applicants for teacher training has been an important issue for several years in Sweden. The fact is that if a person makes it as one of the top three Idols, she is going to gain much more economic compensation and social attention and appreciation than is a teacher who is forced to fight in the overloaded and problematic classes currently found in many schools. Neoliberal governmentality influences many groups, such as critical politicians, journalists, academics and ¨ civil society activists, who are working and acting within the existing neoliberal (and increasingly racist) Swedish society.

2.2   Political System, Media and Constructed Public Truths A neoliberal world order includes almost all countries across the globe and, indeed, in terms of influence, does not let any single country escape its grip. The US financial control over the global market, which is reproduced by the world’s largest military and killing machine, forces many other countries—through the threat of sanctions and military actions—to accept and actively support such a world order. However, the global neoliberal world order cannot be maintained and reproduced without some degree of consent; therefore, control over global public opinion is of crucial importance for its leaders. Control over traditional mass media, as well as new, digital forms, is central in the creation of means for producing a ‘mass destruction’ of critical faculty. That there is a relationship between

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political agents and media organisations has been known for a long time. Arsenault and Castells (2006) show how the lies about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction became a public truth brokered by the established media, such as CNN and Fox News in the USA. Such media outlets, which have close connections with political parties and agents, provide the political system with important means of disseminating lies, which are constructed for political and economic ends, as established public truths. Chomsky (2007) analyses, for instance, the contributions of the American media to the government project of ‘demonising the Sandinistas’ in Nicaragua, while praising the ‘violent terror states’ backed or directly installed by the United States in the region. Gan (2005) points out that many of the conflicts fought by the United States were possible only because of the fact that the mass media misinformed the public and drew a very negative picture of opponents. The control of the media for political (and military) ends has gone on for so long that there is nothing that remarkable in noting that military personnel based in the US psychological operations units have worked as regular employees for CNN (Cockburn 2000). Such a mixture of political goals of the political elite and the everyday media reporting leads often to veiling the truth and presenting ‘alternative facts’ concerning wars and Western engagements in other countries. As Herman and Chomsky (1998) point out, US involvement in the Vietnam War was defined, in the public imagination, by what it excluded, that is the point that it was the USA and not North Vietnam that was the aggressor in the conflict. Similarly, in a study of Western media coverage of the war in Sierra Leone and Congo, Helm (2002) argues that humanitarian crises were not covered because of the dominance of national foreign policy in framing the agenda of the news media. The open and hidden relationships between media organisations and political agents are based on their mutual needs and services. Many studies have shown the complex relationships between the political system in democratic countries between the political agents (who are in need of being seen by the public) and the media’s interest in making politics a dramaturgic public interest (Mermin 1999; Gan 2005; Chomsky 2007; Giroux 2016; Joseph 2014, among others). The media can legitimise or undermine decisions taken by political policy-makers, and the politicians can provide the media with valuable information about anything which may be of interest to it (Joseph 2014). In the case of the USA, whose gigantic media industry and power influence global news coverage and

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media reports, Joseph (2014) offers undeniable and covert evidence of brokering between the government and media establishments. She presents figures that show millions of dollars donated by NewsCorp to political candidates in order to help with financing the candidates’ electoral campaigns. The latter could pay back its debt by providing the media with valuable information and other political services when they were elected. The media’s role in providing politicians a means of creating ‘imagined truths’, by which to control public opinion, has been a matter of a number of other empirical studies too. An illustration of this is Moeller’s (2004) study, which shows that irrespective of the particular news agency and the American media’s ideological leanings, journalistic conventions facilitated a news environment that prioritised the Bush administration’s political agenda. The situation is comparable in other countries, such as the UK.  There is a pattern of pressure and intimidation on the BBC from governments and politicians to set the agenda for reporting ‘in the national interests’ (David 2008). Such political relations and control of the media has also had a global impact in legitimising Western powers political agendas in other parts of the world. For example, the BBC and CNN launched their own Arabic-language media networks to propagate their politics and influence the local Arab audience (Lahlali 2011: 56). However, to fully understand the inter-relationship between political agents and the media, it is necessary to explore the role of market in this relationship. The mutual dependence and relationship between political agents and the media do not necessarily reflect a clearly articulated strategy on either side but, rather, are fundamentally shaped by market demands. News media outlets have increasingly become ‘active boosters of market values’ (Bennett 2004: 137). Pressure on media actors to adjust themselves to market forces plays a key role in the democratic political relations between politicians and the media (Kellner 2005; McChesney 2004; Zaller 1994).

2.3   Demonising the Enemy Considering the receiver of news and media products as consumers is normally based on an established perception of such consumers as a group who ‘belongs to us’, that is the majority society (Brune 1998; Kamali 2006, 2008). This means that many media productions are directed to a homogenous, white, audience, aimed at reproducing white supremacy

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over minorities and those who are considered as ‘the others’ (Kamali 2006, 2008). However, it is not only about presenting and reproducing some people as ‘the others’, but also demonising and presenting them as the enemy. As Joseph (2014: 231) puts it: Construction of a common enemy has become an integral part of political processes. Governments use the idea of a common enemy as a method of social control, of reinforcing its own values and getting the support of its opponents. In justifying strategic geopolitical policies and corporate interests around the world, the demonisation of opponents is considered useful or even essential. Enemy images are used in propaganda and war preparation by both sides in a conflict and the mass media are often willing participants in this process of demonisation. How the media frame and present threats, as well as the amount of attention that is paid to such issues influence the threat perceptions and responses of the audience.

There exists an alignment of the mainstream media with economically strong and powerful groups (Herman and Chomsky 1998; Jameson 1991; McChesney 2008), groups who can thus legitimise their positions and hone and elaborate what they will present as arguments and ‘public truths’. The globally significant media is mainly controlled and influenced by white, upper-class people. This applies to ownership, as well as to more indirect influences such as through sponsorship (including ownership of advertising agencies as well as the advertisers themselves) and through state power, such as censorship, surveillance, media legislation in general, and other forms of media regulation (Löwstedt and Mboti 2017). Although Joseph (2014) presents her argumentation in response to the news media’s reporting concerning war and conflicts, this is equally valid in everyday situations of reporting ‘the others’ as the ‘enemy within’. Demonising people of backgrounds other than those of the majority society is an integral part of the established securitisation policy, including in the policies of the frontless ‘war on terror’ (Kamali 2015; Finch et  al. 2019). Media outlets are often used as instruments in the hands of powerful agents in society; therefore, they hold a powerful position in conveying, explaining and articulating specific discourses that help represent and misrepresent minority groups (Cottle 2000, 2006). The media plays a central role in racialising and inferiorising those who are considered ‘the others’ (Kamali 2008).

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According to Goldberg (1993), racist discourses may be categorised as aversive, academic, scientific, legalistic, bureaucratic, economic, cultural, linguistic, religious, mythical or ideological. The history of Western racism is highly connected to colonialism, slavery and orientalism and their impact over the ‘modern racist culture’ (Goldberg 1993; Kamali 2008). Recent increasing migration to Western countries—who bear the main responsibility for destroying many non-Western countries’ economy and stability—has been used to reinforce the image of Western countries as superior and as under attack from inferior groups from the orient, among other non-Western countries. The ‘old orientalism’ has been transformed into ‘the new orientalism’, which is based on the ideas of ‘the clash of civilisations’ thesis of Samuel Huntington, as well as the policies of ‘war on terror’ that have been introduced since September 11, 2001. The new orientalism, as part of the reproduction of white supremacy, is exercised and expressed in the media of Western countries against Muslims and Islam, with the accompanying assumption of the superiority of Western culture (Amin-Khan 2012). Demonisation and inferiorisation of ‘the others’ have not been only the social products of political, economic and cultural elites, but have also deeply engaged the academic and scientific elite in Western countries. Scientification of otherisation and racism has been a means of oppression from early colonial wars and occupations onwards (Eze 1997; Kamali 2008, 2015; Goldberg 1993). The following are some of the scientific myths through which colonial wars, occupations and racism have been legitimised: • Social Darwinism • Capitalism and modernity as Western inventions • Western liberal democracy as the only possible system These myths have been part of neoliberal global governance, which has created its governmentality through an established system of rewards and punishment, that is a global system of symbolic violence. Such a system is based on and fosters the Thatcher’s ‘no alternative to neoliberalism’ credo. Social Darwinism Darwin’s theory of the ‘origin of species’ has been, ever since the theory first became known, used as a basis to explain why some species have disappeared and others survived. The theory has been extrapolated by some and applied to human society, to argue that the

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‘stronger species’ have survived and ‘weaker ones’ have disappeared in the course of the human history, i.e. ‘the fittest have survived’ the social struggle. Social Darwinism is an ideology that suggests only the strongest, most suitable and best-adapted humans should exist in society (Bannister 1989). Such theoretical reasoning has been used by colonial powers and their academic allies in order to legitimise colonialism and capitalism. One of the first to deal with the principles of Social Darwinism was Herbert Spencer, with his strong belief in evolutionary theory and the notion of ‘survival of the fittest’ (Stewart 2011). The expression, ‘the survival of the fittest’ was, indeed, coined by Spencer, the most Social Darwinist of all, and Darwin adapted it from him and used it in the context of explaining the natural world (Stewart 2011). ‘The survival of the fittest’ was seen by Spencer as a necessary process by which to expel the ‘low races’, the poor and other undesired groups, and save the ‘universal human society’ in which everybody – who survived such a process – will be prosperous and healthy (Spencer 1851). When the huge cholera pandemic reached England in 1831 and killed thousands, Spencer attacked the British government for its efforts to counteract the crisis by sanitate measures. He believed, and propagated this belief, that the free market will manage the problem by helping the fittest to survive. He wrote that nature demands that every being shall be self-sufficing and that those who are not so, nature is perpetually withdrawing through death (Spencer 1851). He warns, repeatedly, that ‘there is no alternative’, a line which was frequently used by Margaret Thatcher in the current neoliberal era (Stewart 2011). Spencer (1851: 380) defended his Social Darwinism using the following argument: Beings thus imperfect are Nature’s failures, and are recalled by her when found to be such. Along with the rest they are put upon trial. If they are sufficiently complete to live, they do live, and it is well they should live. If they are not sufficiently complete to live, they die, and it is best they should die. And however irregular the action of this law may appear – however it may seem that much chaff is left behind which should be left behind; yet due consideration must satisfy every one that average effect is to purify society from those who are, in some respect or other, essentially faulty.

According to Spencer, there is no exception to the unequal and capitalist society because capitalism and individualism are ‘the conditions of

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things’. He writes: ‘And if such is the constitution of things, we are compelled to admit this same “beneficent necessity.” There is no alternative. Either society has laws, or it has not’ (1851: 42). Those in power and influence have been considered to belong to a ‘stronger species’ or ‘chosen people’, with ‘better race traits’ and intelligence. Such ‘founders of sociology’ and the social sciences as Spencer have, then, not only presented a capitalist and market-based ideology, but also racist and Westcentric ideas about the ‘conditions of things’ and about what should be considered as comprising the ‘universal human’. Although Spencer is critical of colonisation, it is not because it is a wrong doing in first place, but because it costs too much for ‘the mother country’. Although this is not openly elaborated upon by the ruling classes and neo-colonial powers, it is the elephant in the room, which makes itself known without being seen or mentioned. For instance, Donald Trump, the former president of the USA, believes that he belongs to the ‘better species’ with better intelligence since he is rich and managed to become president. Many social theories invented in the colonial era of the nineteenth century socialised categorical natural scientists, such as Carl von Linnaeus and Darwin. Such theorists and their followers contributed a great deal to the spread of racism, institutional racism and the dehumanisation of unprivileged groups in society (Egan 2002; Rafter 2004; Kamali 2008). Social Darwinists and evolutionists institutionalised the racist belief that black people or Africans were the lowest form of human being and made them the subject of overt and covert racist discrimination in many Western societies. Capitalism and Modernity as a Western Invention Ever since the Western classical scholars of sociology and other social sciences started formulating theories about human societies in Western countries, such theories were highly Eurocentric and built-up of very doubtful assumptions. Such assumptions were very much suitable for a new civilisation that was about to present itself as ‘the centre’ and ‘the pearl of the world’. Colonialism and the industrial revolution, which created the production and distribution system of capitalism, were legitimised as the bedrock of a civilisation that had a mission of saving the world from all other, pre-­ modern, forms of production. Scholars such as Max Weber, Adam Smith and Herbert Spencer, among others, believed and propagated the notion that ‘the West’ had an internal potential, which helped them invent and develop an exclusive system of capitalism and the free market. Weber

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argued that the Protestant ethic was a Western invention that helped Western countries to become strong (Weber 1968), Adam Smith hailed the free market as the exclusively Western motor behind its greatness (Smith 1776), and Spencer considered the white Western colonialists as a ‘higher race’, who were chosen by Nature to reign the world through a Western free market (Spencer 1851). Modernity and capitalism were presented in the Western social sciences as a historical phenomenon rooted in the almost homogeneous, historical development of ‘the West’, without influence from any other civilisations or non-Western countries. One of the Western scholars contributing to the imagined division of ‘West and East’ was Arnold Toynbee, who in his classic work, A Study of History, presented one of the most important theoretical frameworks for understanding a world essentially divided between the two categories of West and East. According to Toynbee’s (1946) classification, ‘West’ refers to the Hellenic civilisation, which derived from the Minoan civilisation in the Aegean (c. 1200 BC) in combination with Judeo-Christian elements, without any ‘Eastern’ influences from the Persian and Egyptian civilisations (Kamali 2012). Such understandings and scientification informed theoretical and popular conceptions of the division between a ‘civilised Us’ against an ‘uncivilised Other’, which continues to be part of the imaginations of the current world order. Contemporary social science scholars, such as Samuel Huntington (1993) and Bernard Lewis (2002), in alliance with Western political parties and the media, have tried to reproduce the stagnating historical separation between the ‘modern West’ and the ‘non-modern East’. This is a legacy of colonialism that must be treated as an integral part of the genealogy of Western modernity (Venn 2000). The West as the starting point and the centre of analysis has become a scientific and mediatised tradition (Mohanty 1988). Therefore, all ‘deviances’ from the destructive role and contents of ‘Western civilisation’ have been excluded from the notion of a developed and modern West. The fact that the ‘creed of absolute violence’—that is, the role of war and mass killing in social change, to use Philip Lawrence’s (1999) phrase—has been an integral part of the processes of ‘Western’ modernisation has not been given, until recently, any scientific attention. Such ‘grand narratives’ of classical social theory create the foundation for a selective history-telling, in which the only path to and through modernity is an imagined, Western, singular modernity, formed by development, progress and humanism

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(Kamali 2008, 2012). Modernity has been purified of its dark history, including slavery and war (Joas 2003; Lawrence 1999), and is presented in the social sciences as a history of progress that is the intrinsic property of a superior Western culture. Such imaginaries of Western civilisation as presented by the ‘grand narratives’ of many classical scholars in the social sciences, in which modernity is viewed as a singular development that took place in Europe and occurred almost identically and equally in all European countries, is still haunting us and has laid the ground for a West-centric science, politics and popular culture. However, modernity has not been a singular and homogeneous ‘master process’ wherever modern transformations have taken place. There is no unique European modernity, but instead various paths of modernisation (Kamali 2006). Modern transformations took place in different parts of the world and in various ways—and, aside from their common institutional properties, generated many different institutional and cultural forms and constellations. Neither European nor non-European modernities have resulted from singular or identical developments and models (Kamali 2006, 2008). Modern socioeconomic, political and cultural transformations in Europe have created a variety of modern institutions and political formations, resulting in, for example, distinctly British, French, German, Italian and Scandinavian models of modernity. Each of these models has also had different forms and conditions at different periods of time, making it difficult, if not impossible, to consider even a single country’s modernisation process as a linear, homogeneous process of development (Kamali 2012). Western Liberal Democracy as the Only Possible System  Presenting liberal democracy as a Western invention and the only possible system of governance has been a means of legitimising post-war imperialism and neo-colonialism. Meanwhile, Western colonial powers have, during the history of modernisation, counteracted many (indeed, almost all) ­democratic movements in non-Western countries and, through enacting military coups and the establishment of West-friendly dictators, they have propagated their democratic systems as desirable and suitable for non-­ Western countries. This principle which constitutes a double standard is still being enacted in non-Western countries. The democratic systems which bring to power political parties and groups that are not West-­ friendly are considered essentially non-democratic and face Western pressures, sanctions and even military interventions.

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Alongside such problems, the idea that democracy is a Western invention is problematic and a West-centric assumption, which does not hold as scientific fact from a historical perspective. Despite ideological and West-­ centric reconstructions and presentations of an imagined history of democracy—which is presented as 2000  years old, with its roots in the slave-states in Greece—key democratic developments have taken place almost simultaneously in many Western and non-Western countries, from the eighteenth century onwards (Burns and Kamali 2003; Kamali 2006, 2008, 2012). However, in the case of non-Western countries, democratic movements and governments have been overthrown by (colonial and imperialist) Western countries because they were considered to not be West-friendly and in the latter’s interests. The tradition of destroying any democratic regime that is considered nationalistic and ‘anti-Western’, or anti-imperialism, can be illustrated by looking at the history of many non-Western countries in South America, as well as that of Muslim countries. The Western-led military coup of 1973, by which the democratic government of Salvador Allende was overthrown (with Allende being killed), is just one of the examples of many military coups against democratic governments in South America. Western-led military coups were also conducted in Muslim countries, such as in Turkey and Iran. When an Islamic party, led by Adnan Menderes, won the election of 1950  in Turkey and put end to several decades of Kemal Ataturk’s authoritative secularisation and political reign, Menderes’ government was subsequently overthrown by a military coup in 1960 and he was arrested and executed (Kamali 2006). In Iran, when Mohammad Mossadeq—the leader of the National Front—won the 1951 election, became Prime Minister and started many democratic reforms (including freedom for the establishment of many political parties and a free press), his government was overthrown by a Western-led coup two years later. His democratic reforms and the nationalisation of the oil industry were not considered as being in ‘the interests of the West’ (Azimi 1989; Kamali 1998, 2006, 2012). The capitalist and imperialist world order and its developed form, that is neoliberalism, should be, then, defended and preserved by all means. However, as with many other oppressive systems, it cannot be maintained merely by hard means, but also should include some soft means of legitimisation. The neoliberal control of mass media and other means of mass communication and disciplination, such as education, creates countless possibilities to publicly frame new ‘truths’, which should be accepted

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behind any doubt. As discussed earlier in the chapter, this takes place through a system of reward and punishment, that is what Bourdieu calls symbolic violence. In order to create consent on the part of those subjected to symbolic violence, the government makes use of a disciplination system, or, as we have seen, what Foucault calls governmentality. Educational systems and the mass media play a central role in such a normalisation of obedience to the existing neoliberal and imperialist world order, in which people who are defined as belonging to ‘Us’ should be rewarded and protected while ‘the Others’ should be simply surveilled or killed. The policies of the ‘war on terror’ are discussed by some scholars as the operation of ‘bio-politics’ (in Foucault’s terms) within contemporary Western countries. Such policies are specifically of the kind of power that ‘takes hold of life’, fostering, protecting and managing life through disciplinary and regulatory apparatuses controlled by government. This includes and protects some groups in the body politics and the institutions of power and influence, and simultaneously excludes others from power and influence; indeed, by considering them as ‘anti-normal-life’ beings, and deviant in relation to the category of ‘Us’, it is legitimate to regard them objects of surveillance and control. It is in such a historical moment of exercising governmentalising power that racism becomes the basic mechanism of power and sees in place ideologies that justify the ‘murderous function of the state’ (Foucault 2003: 256). Foucault’s (2003: 256) argument is that the tensions between white society and its power structure are not a matter of military conflict but, rather, a matter of the everyday policies of a state, which allows ‘somebody’ or some groups to be killed: This is not, then, a military, warlike, or political relationship, but a biological relationship. And the reason this mechanism can come into play is that the enemies who have to be done away with are not adversaries in the political sense of the term; they are threats, either external or internal, to the population and for the population. In the biopower system, in other words, killing or the imperative to kill is acceptable only if it results not in a victory over political adversaries, but in the elimination of the biological threat to and the improvement of the species of race. There is a direct connection between the two. In a normalizing society, race or racism is the precondition that makes killing acceptable. When you have a normalizing society, you have a power which is, at least superficially, in the first instance, or in the first line a

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biopower, and racism is the indispensable precondition that allows someone to be killed, that allows others to be killed. Once the State function in the biopower mode, racism alone can justify the murderous function of the State.

By ‘murder’ and ‘killing’, Foucault does not mean necessarily the physical killing of somebody considered as belonging to the ‘inferior race’, but social and political exclusion and ‘every form of indirect murder’. As he (2003: 256) adds to his argument: ‘When I say “killing”, I obviously do not mean simply murder as such, but also every form of indirect murder: the fact of exposing someone to death, increasing the risk of death for some people, or, quite simply, political death, expulsion, rejection, and so on’. This indicates the power of the modern state on life, exercised over both populations (migrants, refugees) and individuals (the abnormal, the dissident), who are considered ‘a threat’ to the normal population. This is a power which has become ever more entrenched, institutionalised in new forms of governance and individuation (see Lazzarato 2009; Terranova 2009). It also shows that the power of the modern state must be related to a liberalism, as a particular economic rationality, which creates specific apparatuses and mechanisms for the regulation of conduct. Since such a liberal and capitalist state has been born through colonial wars and occupations and the creation of the imaginary of ‘the West and the rest’, as well as the existence of different races, the genealogy of the state should correlate with the genealogy of colonialism and its related political economy—that is Western societies’ accumulation of wealth and capital. However, the liberal modern state’s regulation of conduct in general and of individuals’ conduct in particular, is, as discussed earlier (also see Chap. 1), dependent on a well-functioning system of disciplination processes by which individuals learn obedience and compliance. This includes all people living within the national borders of a certain state. Getting access to the means of power and influence requires adjustment and obedience. The higher up the socioeconomic and political hierarchies one climbs, the more adjustment and obedience is required. This means, for example, that the time between being a candidate of membership in the elite to actually becoming a member proper comprises a relatively long period, during which the individual proves her compliance to the system of established privileges and governance. This is equally true for every group of the established institutions of the modern state, such as those engaged in the political system, the banking system, the finance market, academia and journalism.

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Punishment, Self-Control and the Techniques of Normalisation Elias (1999), in speaking of there being mechanisms of self-control (Selbstkontrollapparatur), and Foucault (1976), in focusing attention on what he called techniques of normalisation, both dealt with the hidden structures of social rationalisation by which individuals create their own daily universe. In his classical work The Process of Civilisation (1999), Elias argues that an individual’s self-control is a result of a long process of civilisation in which she develops rational norms of conduct that see her adjusted to a civilised and civilising society. Increasing degrees of self-­ control by individuals leads to changing and decreasing levels of punishment being conducted by the national state; Elias means that the civilisation process, as he refers to it, leads to the creation of a strong state and an increasing human capacity for rational action. Living in 1930s and the rise of Nazism in Germany, Elias was well-aware of the risks and dangers of the breakdown of what he called ‘civilised states’, which also would foster violence and conflicts in society. He (1999) claims that the process of civilisation so characteristic of modern societies can be ‘put into reverse’ and decivilising forces can take over and influence societies negatively. Elias, as an inheritor of and subscriber to Enlightenment ideas, believed that future societies are human societies of peace and ‘civilised coexistence’ and that conflicts and individual punishments will disappear. However, the developments in his own country (Germany) and elsewhere, with the outbreak of World War II, showed that it was not only the breakdown of the central state, but the reinforcement of the national states (such as those in Germany and Italy), that can increase surveillance and punishment of individuals, as well as lead to devastating wars and conflicts. The creation of the Nazi state in Germany and the Fascist state in Italy was not a result of a decivilising process, but the victory of a trend in all modernisation processes: namely, the seizure of political power for the reorganisation of society and the disciplination of citizens in accordance with the state elite’s ideology and political desires (Kamali 1998, 2006; Eisenstadt 2000). In this respect, one can say that ‘the civilisation process’ can also lead to civilised methods of oppression and violence. Even during the time frame in which Elias and other believers and philosophers of the Enlightenment were hoping for the realisation of a peaceful and ‘civilised society’, Western colonial countries were brutally occupying and murdering millions of people around the world, legitimised in the name of ‘the civilising process’.

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While Elias had hoped for increasing rationalisation as part of ‘the civilising process’, Foucault considers the role of the state as an organ that is the main actor for promoting obedience and consent, through a process not only of disciplination, as previously discussed, but, relatedly, of rationalisation. According to Foucault (1991, 2003), rationalisation is a process by which the socioeconomic and cultural systems are made acceptable through state power and control. Individuals became socialised into an already existing, rationalised system of surveillance. Foucault argues that, given the fact that every oppressive system needs some degree of consent on the behalf of the oppressed, the modern system of governance must be rationalised. As discussed earlier (see Chap. 1), Foucault calls such a system governmentalisation. Governmentalisation makes people accept the current socioeconomic and political system as rational and adjust themselves to it and exert self-control. What used often to be called self-­ consciousness, as the essence of Western metaphysics, is essentially a false understanding because in this the ‘self’ is given an abstract and almost a ‘non-social’ position, as a ‘thing’ in itself without interaction with others and the existing systems of surveillance and oppression. Although governmentalisation through disciplination generates obedience among people, such a system should be reproduced on daily basis. The theory of symbolic violence, presented by Bourdieu (1990, 2000), provides a proper means for understanding how the disciplination of individuals takes place in different socioeconomic, political and cultural fields. This ‘gentle violence, imperceptible and invisible even to its victims, exerted for the most part through the purely symbolic channels of communication and cognition’ (Bourdieu 2001: 2) is a necessary mechanism for the reproduction of governmentality and the acceptance of current neoliberal racism. The invisibility of symbolic violence depends on the dominated individuals’ acceptance and incorporation of social hierarchies and structures of domination that make such inequalities of positions seem natural and indisputable. Bourdieu (2000: 170) argues: Symbolic violence is the coercion which is set up only through the consent that the dominated cannot fail to give to the dominator (and therefore to the domination) when their understanding of the situation and relation can only use instruments of knowledge that they have in common with the dominator, which, being merely the incorporated form of the structure of the relation of domination, make this relation appear as natural.

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The existence of symbolic violence is almost impossible if those subjected to it do not accept it. The soft nature of symbolic violence makes it necessary to be ‘exerted only with the collaboration of those who undergo it because they help to construct it as such’ (Bourdieu 2000: 171). The state is at major organ for the construction of symbolic order, that is it holds ‘the monopoly of legitimate symbolic violence’, instituting ‘common symbolic forms of thought, social frames of perception, understanding or memory, State forms of classification or, more precisely, practical schemes of perception, appreciation and action’ (Bourdieu 2000: 175, 186). The exercise of symbolic violence is a necessary condition for the creation and recreation of social order and the existing structures of domination. Although symbolic violence is in action within almost every society around the world, it is more engaged in the processes and structures of domination in Western countries than in those of non-Western countries. Western countries have been more successful in veiling domination and oppression by making them appear natural and acceptable, as necessary for the reproduction of privileges associated with being a ‘Westerner’. It can be said that symbolic violence plays a more important role in democracies than in non-democratic countries. For example, in the colonial order, violence was present in everyday lives of colonised people. As Fanon argues, in colonised countries, colonisers did not make their oppression invisible; on the contrary, they made oppression visible and a part of the colonised people’s everyday lives. The government’s representatives were police and soldiers who used a language of pure violence (Fanon 2004). Symbolic violence is, thus, in contrast to direct, physical violence, invisible and its mechanisms are accepted by those subjected to it as normal. This means that any act of questioning symbolic violence can be understood and categorised as, at the best, social deviation and even, potentially, a criminal act. This makes resistance to symbolic violence more problematic than resistance to direct colonial rule. As Fanon (2004) puts it, revolutionary action in colonised countries renders the colonised subject free from its oppression and is supported by colonised masses. In other words, ‘decolonisation is always a violent event’ in its physical forms (Fanon 2004: 1). Symbolic violence is not as visible as physical violence and, as such, is a hidden and incorporated part of its subjects’ everyday lives. It creates, therefore, a normative control system that exercises surveillance of individuals’ public and social actions. The normal nature of symbolic violence makes it difficult to observe, since, as a norm, it must usually be

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violated to be noticed. This means that those who violate symbolic violence make themselves easily visible and subject to criticism. Those complying to symbolic power and who are subjected to it usually do not want to recognise that such a system exists. As Bourdieu (1991: 164) puts it: ‘symbolic power is that invisible power which can be exercised only with the complicity of those who do not want to know that they are subject to it or even that they themselves exercise it’. Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992: 170) argue that: Intellectuals are often among those in the least favourable position to discover or to become aware of symbolic violence, especially that wielded by the school system, given that they have been subjected to it more intensively than the average person and that they continue to contribute to its exercise.

By using the concept of habitus as ‘structured and structuring structures’, individual actions related to historical socioeconomic and cultural processes became understandable. Individuals earn and reproduce their roles, duties and positions in society and its different fields. The inhabited taken-for-granted schemes of action render them in line with the norms that explicitly govern practices without the individual questioning them. Such actions are legitimised and normalised by referring to ‘good form requires’ or ‘custom demands’ (Bourdieu 1977: 19). Bourdieu argues that it is not the imperative and power of ‘norms’ that forces individuals to act accordingly, but their real place in society and the benefits social actions have for them. Since individual actions are socially (and thus politically) situated, the normative actions of individuals should be understood in relation to given times and spaces. There is a political economy that governs the individual’s social behaviour and her adjustment to what normally are called rules or norms. Foucault claims that individual actions in any certain situation should be understood as a calculation of self-interests in relation to the overall system and structure of domination. He refers to the ways by which individual conduct is socially created as the ‘techniques of governance’: [One] has to take into account the interaction between these two types of techniques – techniques of domination and techniques of the self. He (sic) has to take into account the points where the technologies of domination of individuals over one another have recourse to processes by which the individual acts upon himself. And, conversely, he has to take into account the

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points where the technologies of self are integrated into structures of coercion and domination. The contact point, where the individuals are driven by others is tied to the way they conduct themselves, is what we can call, I think, government. (Foucault 1993: 203–04)

This means that individuals, through a system of disciplination in Foucault’s theoretical approach and the exercise of ‘symbolic violence’ in Bourdieu’s framework, act within the existing system of domination. Their actions are based on a system of self-control and self-governance that makes them ‘normal’ members of each society. There are, of course, many ways individuals can deviate from the mechanisms of symbolic violence and self-governance, or governmentality, but all forms of deviation demand that ‘transgressors’ take into account the negative (and positive) consequences that their actions will certainly evoke. Some groups are more capable of accepting and reproducing the mechanisms of symbolic violence than others. Academics, for instance, as Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992: 170) argue, not only ‘have been subjected to it more intensively’ but also actively ‘contribute to its exercise’.

2.4   The Academy, Neoliberalism and Critical Thinking The academy has always been of interest for economic and political power centres in society and, as the site of knowledge production, it is a strategic institution for the reproduction of cultural hegemony (Bourdieu 1988; Pusser and Marginson 2013). The political elite and majority society use universities as an institution aimed at reproducing their privileges. That is why critical and radical thinking, which disrupts such reproduction, is considered disturbing and is often excluded from universities and higher education. However, it should be said that given the fact that critiques of neoliberalism—as all-encompassing theoretical tools and logics—have been developed in the context of the educational systems of the Global North, they risk leaving aside non-economic dimensions of power and hierarchy, such as those relating to ‘race’ (Windle 2019). As the institution of homo academicus, ‘universities reflect deeply entrenched social inequalities, marked by class, race, disability and migration’ (Gutiérrez Rodríguez 2016: 169). Pedagogy and curriculum are systems that recognise and reward the outlooks, practices and values of middle-class and elite social

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groups, and reproduce the privileges of these groups (Bourdieu 1966; Bourdieu and Passeron 1990). Postcolonial perspectives, and theories and knowledge about the colonial past, slavery and current postcolonial reality, are often excluded from the curriculum of schools and of higher education. That is why critiques of neoliberalism should not be limited to addressing merely economic factors, but also focus on the role of the colonial past, slavery, and the wars and occupations that have played a central role in the institutionalisation of racism and of existing inequalities in the world. Many critiques of the capitalist neoliberal system ignore the problem of racism and its role in the reproduction of inequalities. As Hall (2018) argues, the establishment of capitalism as a world order would not be possible without violent racism, slavery and colonialism (see also Williams 1944; Loomba 2005). As mentioned earlier, the mechanisms of symbolic violence make many individuals compliant with the existing ‘rules of games’ and accept ‘their place in society’, to use Durkheim’s phrase, and become integrated into the system. In other words, the individual’s success is related to their obedience to power structures, organisational frames and institutional routines. As Bourdieu (1991) argues, symbolic power in the hands of a socioeconomic and political elite in capitalist society is a highly efficient means of naturalising certain interpretations of the world and of legitimising classifications based on those with most access to that power. Symbols are the instruments par excellence of social integration; ‘as instruments of knowledge and communication ... they make it possible for there to be a consensus on the meaning of the social world, a consensus which contributes fundamentally to the reproduction of the social order’ (Bourdieu 1991: 166). Even those subjected to symbolic violence are forced to comply with the, for example, a racist system in order to guarantee their success within the educational system and in the labour market (De los Reyes and Kamali 2006; Kamali 2008, 2015). And an obedience to the existing power structures in the academy has, during recent decades, become more important than ever. Although universities have always been major sources of recruitment for the security and intelligence services in Europe and the United States, and major producers of knowledge for security organisations, their role in the ‘securitisation of society’ and in counter-terrorism action has, in the wake of September 11, become more vital. Universities have also been a part of the origins and formation of the leading security and intelligence agencies themselves (Andrew 2010; Jeffery 2011; Weiner 2012).

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The cooperation between universities, intelligence agencies and the political power centres has become more obvious and visible as a result of the policies of the ‘war on terror’. Affected by such all-encompassing policies, universities have become sites of counter-terrorism efforts by security and intelligence agencies and their governments. Securitisation of universities in order to counter terrorism has intensified during the last two decades and highly influenced higher education policy and universities. As Gearon (2018: 57), in his analysis of recent research on the securitisation of universities, concludes: Securitised knowledge is a very powerful political instrument. The what, the how, and the who for (and indeed who is behind) knowledge become paramount. Are securitised universities a re-colonisation? If first generation colonialism was premised on economic principles and masked by epistemological violence in the name of civilisation, is the securitisation of the university a re-colonisation, a new, a global colonisation, of epistemologies masked as the protection of freedoms and security from threat and fear?

Securitisation policies create fear, which is reinforced by the domination of security discourses in the public debate. As Gearon (2018: 57) argues: Fear, justified and actual, in the human and present-day societal setting have thus created a world in which security has become a dominant discourse. Who determines such discourse and who actuates responses to threat is part and parcel of securitisation theory itself. Its relevance to our knowledge of ourselves in these states of (in-)security makes this, as the security theorists tell us, a matter not simply of labels of existential threat. We may yet venture to suggest that our present epistemological preoccupations are also permeated by a deep-seated sense of ontological fragility. The current transformation of universities by security agendas thus becomes an epistemological duty, a political and social responsibility, as well as an ontological and existential necessity.

The securitisation of universities, which has already led to the creation of many institutions of higher education and research projects in the name of ‘security and counter-terrorism’, is legitimised by the ‘policy of fear’, as Gearon argues, and can really be understood as part of a new-colonial policy by which critical and radical voices, as well as many academics with Muslim or migrant backgrounds, are considered the ‘threat within’—to use Giroux’s (2016) phrase.

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There is a tacit alliance of mutual interests between neoliberalism and securitisation, by which critical, radical and unwanted educators and researchers are excluded from universities. Critical and radical voices and individuals are increasingly accused of ‘radicalising’ students and, therefore, of being a security problem. Implementing austerity and securitisation policies in the university over recent decades signals an ideological change, which reinforces institutional racism, migration control and the rationalised division of work. It has created ‘academic capitalism’, by which universities are no longer concerned with collegiality and the defence of science and democracy, but, rather, are entrepreneurial institutions (Slaughter and Leslie 1997; Giroux 2016), acting in a global academic market. Knowledge is a commodity to be sold on an academic market where students are considered as consumers and universities as producers. Universities operate under a market policy that cloaks itself under the guise of student empowerment and quality (Tomlinson et al. 2018). The quality of education is now measured by the employability of students and not the (scientific and critical) content of their education. The way in which schools and teaching practices are being used to maintain the status quo is turning them into mini-marketplaces (Sharma 2018). Neoliberal and neoconservative policies aim at developing human capital and labour power more suited to the interests and owners of economic capital: the capitalist class (Hill 2006). This means that public education under the neoliberal order is simply one component of a larger economic system, and the focus of education policy and curriculum development, which also impacts how teachers think and teach, is organised accordingly (HyslopMargison and Searsl 2006). Securitisation policies are used to secure the reproduction of the power structure of society and maintain the privileges of those in power. Although the governments’ need for knowledge and knowledge control has always influenced the role and function of universities, in a post-­ September-­ 11 era such governmental efforts have been dramatically increased. Growing securitisation of universities has been clearly declared by European security cooperation programmes, such as European Agenda on Security (EAS 2015). European universities have been increasingly drawn into a process of the securitisation of Europe (Davies and Gustafson 2016; De Graaff 2018). EU declares, in its anti-terrorist strategy document (EAS 2015: 15), that:

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The Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN), an EU-wide umbrella network launched in 2011, connects organisations and networks across the Union, linking up more than 1000 practitioners directly engaged in preventing radicalisation and violent extremism. The network enables the exchange of experience and practices facilitating early detection of radicalisation and the design of preventive and disengagement strategies at local level.

Seemingly, the aim of RAN is to ‘de-radicalise’ those at risk of radicalisation, but easily can be used to trace those who, according to national governments, are considered at risk of radicalising others (for instance, students) and of delegitimising the mainstream polities of member states. As EAS (2015: 16) declares: ‘Training and support can usefully be extended to other actors, such as social workers, teachers and healthcare workers’. Such actions are normally presented as neutral ‘training and support’ to professional groups meeting youths in their daily activities, but in reality, they are part of an increasing surveillance, not only of those at risk of radicalisation but also of anybody else who is considered to be a potential radicalising actor, such as critical and radical teachers, social workers, researchers, politicians and civil society actors (see also Finch et al. 2019; Gearon 2018). One of the documents which laid the ground for the European Commission’s counter-terrorism strategy (EAS 2015), was written by Peter Neumann and published by King’s College in London in 2007. Neumann (2007: 45) considered universities to be key sites of terrorism and radicalisation and claimed that: And indeed, there can be no doubt that universities have always been ‘hotbeds’ for radical thought, and that – like prisons and asylum reception centres – they are places in which individuals are prone to experience feelings of isolation and vulnerability.

According to the report, universities, as “hotbeds for radical thought”, must be considered as a reason behind the radicalisation of youths with Muslim backgrounds in Europe. Gearon (2018) argues that the historic and contemporary relationship of European universities to security runs deeper and wider than current counter-terrorist measures. Universities have not only been major sources of recruitment for the security and intelligence services in Western countries, they have also been highly engaged in the formation of the leading security and intelligence agencies (Aldrich 2019; Andrew 2010; Jeffery

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2011; Weiner 2012). Governments and their security and intelligence organs have been highly engaged in the creation of security disciplines in the academy, such as security and intelligence studies or terrorist studies, and its spread into a multitude of fields, not only across the arts, humanities and social sciences, but also across all domains of medical, scientific and technological research (Gearon 2015; Sinclair 1987; Winks 1987). As Gearon (2015: 7) puts it, the involvement of higher education institutions in the securitisation of European societies ‘now includes significant legislative obligations for universities, their staff, their students, the research they conduct, and their legal obligations to assist in matters of security’. This means that universities are increasingly integrated into the operational security apparatus of states almost all over the world. The surveillance of higher education, of research and, thus, of educators and researchers, has increasingly become an important means of ensuring the securitisation of societies. As Den Boer and Wiegand (2015) argue, such governmental securitisation of universities in recent decades indicates a shift, from ‘convergence’ to ‘deep integration’ of security policy. Governments’ securitisation programmes have come to greatly influence the institutions of higher education and research and reduce their freedom and critical content. Many securitising programmes, such as the UK Counter-Terrorism and Security Act, which led to the implementation of an anti-radicalisation programme (as part of a strategy entitled ‘Prevent’), made such programmes a legal duty for higher education institutions (Qurashi 2017; Thomas 2016). The ‘Prevent’ programme has been accused of turning universities into a security organ. Recently, a group of 110,000 personnel in UK higher education started a ‘Boycott Prevent’ campaign and argued that Prevent racially profiles, legitimises Islamophobia, jeopardises learning environments and turns educators into informants. Furthermore, accusing universities of being hotbeds of radicalisation is an unfounded myth, and the idea of extremist ideology, leading to terrorism, being accessible there is a fundamentally faulty assumption (Grove 2015; Yezza 2015). The main aim of the securitisation of universities has little or nothing to do with securitisation, but with a neoliberal system of surveillance of higher education and research. As McGovern (2016: 49) states: In the first place, I want to argue against the stated purpose of the Prevent policy, that in fact the statutory duty and much of the broader field of government measures of which it forms part, has little or nothing to do with

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preventing people being ‘drawn into terrorism’. Rather, they are means to institute a bureaucratised technology of surveillance and compliance directed primarily at a ‘suspect community’ of British Muslims, predicated on a rejection of multiculturalism and the promotion of an integrationist agenda.

Kundnani (2014) argues that the very concept of radicalisation has emerged as a master signifier of the later part of ‘the war on terror’—that is, as a political instrument for policy-makers to talk about what made political violence happen when the rhetoric of evil proved insufficient as a means of conceptualising, justifying and implementing policy. This means that talking about foreign terrorist groups fighting ‘against Us’ in other countries was not significant anymore. The concept of ‘radicalisation’ was invented and used in order to move any focus and analysis of causation away from the macro-structural level of politics, of economics, of policy and foreign interventions, to micro-process-based explanations, such as individual psychological vulnerability (Coppock and McGovern 2014). Current neoliberal universities are using the ‘securitisation discourse’ to utilise governmental power for the surveillance of universities. This technique of governmentalisation, by making both the university staff and students aware of a well-developed surveillance system, as McGovern (2016: 50) puts it, ‘promote[s] a culture of control and compliance, for students and staff, in what is able to be said, taught and researched’. In this context, governments and university leaderships are deploying a considerably politically oppressive approach through the use of apparently anodyne concepts such as ‘risk’, ‘safeguarding’, ‘protection’ and ‘reputation’ (see also Coppock and McGovern 2014). Critical and radical research is under constraint, and its funding is increasingly reduced as a result of the domination of neoliberal ideology and the intervention of political parties and the market in education and research (including in defining ‘desirable research’ and its outcomes). If critical and radical curricula have been marginalised for a long time, they are now openly considered as ‘non-scientific’ and, in some cases, even dangerous and ‘radicalising’. Critical and radical thinking, then, is marginalised and is under continual control by the universities’ managerial and bureaucratic staff. This is a method of disciplining citizens that, as Chomsky (2014) puts it, requires a reduction in people’s expectations for democracy, social justice and their control over the workplace. This policy places emphasis on productivity

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and keeping costs low while taking power away from those who do the work and increasing the power of those in administration—which, in turn, leads to the fall of the faculty and the establishment of ‘all-administrative universities’ (Ginsberg 2011; Brown 2016). The growing influence of administration staff on educators and researchers is creating a neoliberal administrative oppression, one which increasingly diminishes the influence of educators and researchers on education and research in universities (Giroux 2016; Gutiérrez Rodríguez 2016; Morley 2016; Bottrell and Manathunga 2019). This has also lessened the influence of collegial institutions and gradually transformed even professors into mere academic workers without much influence over research funds. Many professors today are overloaded with administrative tasks, which reduces the possibilities for research and protection of the freedom of research. Foucault, is his lectures on ‘the birth of bio-politics’, calls ‘neoliberal governmentality’ the means by which the government is able to realise its will and its programmes. The major body of current education and research in the social sciences aims at creating an imperialistic and colonising ‘neoliberal knowledge capitalism’, which imposes, to use Foucault’s specific term, a dominant ‘regime of truths’ (Davidson-Harden 2013). In such a hostile environment, many critical and radical scholars are under administrative pressures to comply to the neoliberal desires of the university leadership. These increasing neoliberal pressures on educators and researchers leave them with two choices: either comply to the new situation and to administrative directives or resist and be ready to take the negative consequences of such non-compliance. The existing ‘culture of compliance’ (McGovern 2016) influences many critical and even, in some cases, radical scholars to become ‘pragmatical’ and think about their own survival within the hostile environment. Another problem created by the growing neoliberalisation of universities is the increase in existing oppressive systems, such as institutional and structural racism. Universities reflect deeply entrenched social inequalities and are privileged sites for the reproduction of white national elites (Gutiérrez Rodríguez 2016; Pusser and Marginson 2013). The neoliberalisation of universities has also led to the reinforcement of institutional racism and ‘white supremacy’ (Ahmed 2012; Christian 2012; Lee and Cantwell 2012). This has led to the exclusion of many critical and radical academics from their positions or from having an influence on the curriculum and research in universities. Moreover, the institutional mechanisms of racialisation and the exclusion of people of colour and of critical and

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radical scholars from the ‘mainstream body of knowledge production’ cannot be understood ‘without reference to economic and political factors related to developments and changes in national, continental-wide and global capitalism’ (Cole 2009: 92). These mechanisms operate on the basis of a power matrix, the coloniality of power (Quijano 2000), which provides easy means for the inclusion of those considered as belonging to the category of ‘Us’ and for the exclusion and marginalisation of those categorised as ‘the Others’. This takes place mainly through subtle institutional mechanisms, including an established system of exercising symbolic violence as part of the reproduction of commonsense governmentality. Such changes have led to the re-­ evaluating of the principles of ‘multiculturalism’, diversity and inclusion. This can be viewed as a process of ‘re-establishing white boys-networks’ within leading managerial and professional positions at universities (Gutiérrez Rodríguez 2016). However, it must be said that it is not only ‘white boys’, but also ‘white girls’, who are tightening their grip over universities (and other institutions) as part of the white power structure. The growth, in recent decades, of institutional and political racism, which has normalised ‘White Supremacy’, has reinforced ‘white power’s’ control over institutions of higher education, media, politics and other aspects of society and culture, by excluding critical and radical voices, and including and bolstering those who support the white power structure. Despite the increasing visibility of the oppressive mechanisms of ‘White Supremacy’, some symbolic actions are still used to legitimise the whiteness of power. Some women and men of an immigrant or minority background, who accept ‘white supremacy’, are symbolically included in Western countries’ social and political lives in order to counteract accusations of being ‘white supremacist’ or of white-washing the racist power structure. Such white supremacist allies—who sometimes gain leading academic, political and media positions—camouflage the prevalence of structural and institutional racism in society. However, this does not take place by force or any other overt means of violence, but through what Courpasson (2000) calls ‘soft bureaucracy’. Drawing on Weber and Crozier, Courpasson (2000: 142) argues that although ‘soft bureaucracy’ involves domination exercised through the legitimate use of power, it is not ‘exerted by means of, for example, violence, direct punishment or local hierarchical supervision, but through sophisticated managerial strategies’. These ‘sophisticated managerial strategies’ are developed and used to control elite groups, including university educators and researchers

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(Courpasson 2000: 152). Such control mechanisms function through standardisation and ‘normalising professional success’ through ‘objective indicators’—moreover, in this, referring to ‘objective personal responsibility’. The universities’ managerial professionals do not only emphasise imposing normative ‘control strategies’, but also construct a kind of ‘willing compliance’ (Kamoche et al. 2014: 990). This happens through a system of reward and punishment, by which individuals are encouraged or forced to comply with the will of the organisational leadership. The success of such a strategy can be assessed by an increasing willingness to follow managerial directives and, without any visible ‘forceful’ oppression, comply to the power structure and leadership of the organisation. In other words, ‘soft bureaucracy’ functions through fostering ‘willing compliance’ among an organisation’s members. It creates what Barker (1993: 433) calls ‘shared values’, thorough which the ‘team members become both their own masters and their own slaves’. Robertson and Swan (2003) argue that normative control of members of an organisation is achieved through regulation of an elitist identity, whereby scientists, for example, lend their loyalty and compliance to corporate objectives and agree to collaborate with the organisation and achieve its aims because they effectively tie their identity as ‘experts’ to the organisation in which they work.

2.5   Mass Media and the Freedom of Speech in a Neoliberal Era The possibility and ability to express one’s opinion freely and without restriction and punishment is recognised in almost all constitutions of democratic countries and is considered to be an individual’s unquestionable right. However, this is a truth with many modifications. There are plenty of mechanisms that put limitations to such constitutional rights. Some such limitations are media ownership, political structure, an established Us-and-Them divide, neoliberal hegemony, the postcolonial world order and self-censorship. People tend to not choose to ‘be deviant’ in public life since deviation from established norms evokes negative sanctions against the ‘offending’ individual or group. Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky (1998), in their book Manufacturing Consent, argue that the mainstream news media is a crucial tool for legitimising the ideas of the most powerful. David Edwards

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and David Cromwell (2006), meanwhile, see the mainstream mass media as ‘guardians of power’ and argue that the seemingly liberal mainstream media, such as the Guardian newspaper and the BBC, provide effective cover for what is, overwhelmingly, a partisan and conservative set of interests. To put it another way, the mass media constitutes ‘a propaganda system for elite interests’ (2006: 2) and ‘media performance overwhelmingly promotes the views and interests of established power’ (2006: 178). As Mosco (2009: 24) argues, the role of mass media in everyday life must be seen in a context of political economy, which makes us ‘concentrate on a specific set of social relations organized around power or the ability to control other people, processes and things, even in the face of resistance’. This serves to privilege the material relations of power and corresponds to the capitalist relations of production. As mentioned earlier, Bourdieu considers this in terms of processes of the production, reproduction and the function of symbolic power, which refers to the elites’ ability to hegemonise definitions and allocations—not of only economic phenomena but of reality. The elite uses symbolic power for ‘constituting the given through utterances, of making people see and believe, of confirming or transforming the vision of the world and, thereby, action on the world and thus the world itself’ (Bourdieu 1991: 170). In other words, the elite perspective and ‘image of reality’ is created and distributed through the mass media and other means of cultural production influencing public opinion. By such mechanisms, the elite perspective is presented as the only possible and trustworthy understanding of reality. The exceptionally strong position of the mainstream mass media in public life for the creation and preservation of public opinion—that is, in the reproduction of a hegemonic political worldview and the exclusion of minority viewpoints—is exercised in many different ways. One such mechanism is the public punishment of minority and deviant opinions and the use of self-made experts in confirming the advantages of the established worldview in order to keep public opinion in a desired direction. The concept of a knowledge-based society should, therefore, not be considered to indicate a society and economic, political and cultural system based on wholly objective and critical research. Knowledge is produced and communicated and, in a time of the dominance of mass media (which is directly connected to socioeconomic and political power centres), such publicly communicated knowledge should be critically examined. The mass media reproduces established, taken-for-granted ‘truths’ by making them almost akin to religious verses, exempt from any criticism.

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Some truths, such as democracy, the superiority of the West over the rest, and the necessity of wars and weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Western countries, are untouchable narratives that should be accepted without any objection. Powerful neoliberal states controlling a global media communicate and propagate such ‘truths’ without alternatives being offered. Besides, most media institutions are themselves part of a complex chain of market forces and market commodities within the global capitalist economy (Murdock and Golding 1973; Garnham 1979; Herman and Chomsky 1994; Golding and Murdock 1997; Craig 2004; McChesney 2008; Mosco 2009; Kamali 2015; Kamali and Jönsson 2018). The neoliberal domination of the global media, such as in the case of CNN and the BBC, sees the world being presented as a neoliberal and West-centric world, and prevents efforts to fight off any contending representations of the truth. The major body of journalism, as a discursive activity involving the reconstruction of reality (Carvalho 2008), is highly engaged in presenting such an understanding of the world as normal and desirable. This also means that critical research is not given the same attention in the mainstream media as research conducted within the frame of ‘neoliberal knowledge production’ (Kamali 2006, 2008). This is because those expressing opinions favoured by ‘the market’ (i.e. the business elite) have been provided with disproportionate resources and access to influence and power (Herman 1982). Therefore, such a hegemonic ideology, whose central tenets are frequently adopted by the media as default assumptions, is reproduced and reinforced (Preston and Silke 2011). The media, as a central agent in the reproduction of symbolic power in society, is highly engaged in ‘constructing reality’ (Bourdieu 1991; Couldry 2000, 2012). Reality seems to be what is (re)presented in the media. The hegemonic capacity of media shapes the ‘ideological environment’, which influences citizens’ perceptions of reality (Hall 1982). Such a hegemonic capacity influences the forms and contents of people’s communication and interactions since presentations of reality by media discourses is embedded in ‘popular wisdom’ or ‘common sense’ (Gramsci 1971). The focus on the symbolic and hegemonic qualities of today’s media facilitates the analysis of the potential that humans have, via their interaction with media platforms at their disposal, to ‘influence the actions of others and indeed to create events, by means of the production and transmission of symbolic forms’ (Couldry 2012). Bourdieu (1991) argues that such symbols (comprising words, images, beliefs, traditions and practices) function as the instruments of social integration, by which

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individuals prove their belonging to a certain community or society. Media plays, thus, a central role in the transmission of hegemonic symbolic forms, which makes groups or societies prone to mediatisation, and, more specifically, to the mediatisation of politics (Block 2013). Contemporary politics is media-driven (Mazzoleni 2008) and media logic has penetrated all areas of political life (Schultz 2004). Media frames and valuations of newsworthiness seem to have been internalised by political actors and organisations to the point of becoming a built-in part of the governing process (Strömbäck 2008). The mediatisation of politics does not taken place as a singular and one-sided process, but is embedded in a wider socioeconomic and cultural environment in which social life itself appears to ‘become’ mediatised events. This means that the mediatisation of politics is a part of an overall hegemonic struggle occurring in everyday life (Bennet et al. 1981; Hall 1982). Media technologies should never be seen as a single phenomenon, but as embroiled in human actions in a societal context that facilitates changes in the way humans communicate and commutatively construct their world (Hepp 2012; Krotz 2007). In a neoliberal society in which the corporate media dominates and forms reality in accordance with the hegemonic ideology of neoliberalism, the media owners’ profit motives run counter to democratic principles (McChesney 2000, 2004; McChesney and Nichols 2005). It is not the interests of citizens or the public good that inform the motives of media reporting, but the interests of major media corporates and their owners. The owners may manipulate news for their own goals (Baron 2006; Besley and Prat 2006; Duggan and Martinelli 2011; Anderson and McLaren 2012; Petrova 2012). A study of journalism education and its textbooks, conducted by Gilmour and Quanbeck (2010), shows that journalism, as a profession, does not have loyalty to citizens anymore, but, rather, to media corporations’ owners and the established cultural and political hegemony. The authors argue that journalism today is part of the reproduction of a ‘quiet control’ of citizens to act within the limits of the established hegemony. This means that through mechanisms of reward and punishment— as part of the reproduction of the hegemonic culture and policies—citizens’ consent is obtained. The hegemonic media discourse is also normative, that is it forces people to adjust themselves to what is politically and publicly correct and acceptable. There are, however, some alternative theoretical approaches concerning the role of the mass media and its influence on political decision-­ making; and some researchers, such as Davis (2003), believe that political

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and economic decisions take place outside the realm of mass media. He argues for a focus on processes of elite policy-making and on how the media and culture affect elite decisions, meaning here that inter-elite communications and the culture of elites is just as, if not more, significant for sustaining political and economic forms of power in society as is the mass media. A central claim of this is that most negotiations on political decision-­making take place outside the public sphere of the mass media; according to him, mass media debates have been increasingly impoverished and exhausted of political content. Given neoliberal depoliticisation of the public sphere and human conducts, this can be true, but it does not change the reality that the mass media and the economic and political power centres are interconnected and, in a dialectical relation, they reproduce both their power and influence and the status quo in society. The mass media is also used by such power centres to gain legitimacy and extend their realm of influence and power. This is valid irrespective of national diversities. A Swedish governmental inquiry into the role of the mass media in the country concluded that it constitutes the third power centre in Sweden and has close connections with the first and second power centres, that is economic and political powers (SOU 1990: 44).

2.6   Popular Support of Censorship Censorship refers to a restriction of communications by political powers with the specific goal of preventing certain, perceived, harmful effects (Shah et  al. 1999). The ‘prevention’ strategy exercised in such political censorship is, however, often aimed at protecting government from political opposition and critics. It is about preventing people from expressing particular ideas, sentiments or opinions. Such a political action should normally evoke protests and reaction, which it does sometimes. But in many cases the political censorship, like any other form of political oppression, induces consent on the part of those who are censored. This is not dependent on individual self-control or self-restraint, but on the individual not uttering, whether orally or in writing, what she really thinks for fear of negative sanctions which will harm her interests and even security. Self-censorship is, thus, in this sense, an individual action, which can be seen as amounting to a popular rational choice based in individuals’ interests. Insofar as established discourses or uncontested ‘political truths’ have popular support, self-censorship is a part of the everyday lives of individuals who, otherwise, would say openly what they really think and believe in.

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According to the third-person effect (TPE) framework, which is an established research tradition in mediated communication studies, the belief that others are more disposed than the self to objectionable media content motivates public support for censorship (Davison 1983; Feng and Guo 2012; Xu and Gonzenbach 2008). One group’s social identification with group norms and identity, and the categorisation and stereotyping of ‘the others’, increases support for censorship (Ho et al. 2012). As Petersen and Aaroe (2013) argue, although modern society is one of strangers with whom we do not have direct communication, we see these strangers in our mind’s eye, which make it possible for us to feel, reason and judge about the mass societies in which we live. That is why we, as members of a society, have our ideas about other members and groups, as well as about the power structures in society. Our perceptions of the mass media and its influence in public life and political decision-making are, therefore, coloured by our (lack of) knowledge about the relationship between different power centres. Even our sense of belonging to a community or a group is very much based on our knowledge about ‘Us’ and ‘Them’. As Anderson (1983) argues, the imaginary of community underlying the modern nation state emerged because the print press made the dissemination of information that enabled people to imagine those others living within the state’s territory possible. Such imaginary of a group or a nation to whom we belong makes the ‘Us-group’ superior to the ‘Other-­group’. The heritage, or belonging, narratives of a nation purifies everything that can disturb the imaginary of a pure and better nation in comparison to other nations. Such narratives are propagated and discursively established, mainly through national education and by national media (Kamali 2008). Warren (2014) stresses the critical role the mass media plays in the state’s service, by the generation of widespread voluntary compliance through processes of political communication, that is, the production of ‘soft power’. The state’s monopoly over legitimate violence comprises, therefore, both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ means of the exercise of power—with the latter including the use of mass media, which is, in turn, interested in the reproduction of the status quo and existing power structures in society. As mentioned earlier, every act of domination requires some degree of consent on the part of the dominated. The ‘soft power’ of the state and dominating groups is reproduced through the exercise of ‘symbolic violence’ and lies in the state’s control of politics, media, the market and influential

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positions. The state’s capacity to distribute positions to individuals if they comply with the aims and policies of the state and to punish those not complying is something that many learn during their socialisation in established policies and practices (democratic and non-democratic alike). Accordingly, many choose the conformist way of living in modern societies and, in many cases, accept their place in society or cooperate with established power centres, including the state, in order to ‘be accepted’ and be provided a suitable position in politics or in the labour market. In other words, individuals should initially accept their place in society—to use Durkheim’s term, indicating good integration of individuals into society—and if they want to ‘move upwards’ in the socioeconomic and political hierarchy, they must prove a high degree of compliance with existing institutional and structural arrangements and the power centres (Kamali 2008). Edwards and Cromwell (2006: 187) argue that the economic and political elite maintain their control in society and over public opinion ‘not by violence, but by deception, self-deception, and by a mass willingness to subordinate our own thoughts and feelings to notions of “professionalism” and “objectivity”’. Mass media production and its distribution through professional journalists is organised in a way to serve the interests of the elite. Control of the mass media and socioeconomic resources in a capitalist society provides the elite the means to both reproduce their privileged positions and ensure popular compliance to the established socioeconomic order. However, compliance to the power centres as a way of being accepted and rewarded is not only limited to the realm of politics, market or media. Many areas of modern life are colonised by the ‘system world’, that is power centres and their institutions, to use Habermas’ (1984) theoretical framework. This means that the mass media in many countries, including in Western countries’ democracies, have close relations to other power centres—such as the political elite, think tanks and economic agents. This constructs limitation for what is called ‘the thirds pillar of academic activities’. According to the higher education law in Sweden (Högskoleförordningen) academics should, beside research and education, participate in the public debate and inform the public about their research and findings. However, given the close relationship between mass media and the economic and political centres, academics are forced to adjust themselves to the limitations forced on them and their freedom of speech by such power centres.

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2.7   Academic Freedom and the Mass Media Academic freedom has a long tradition and has been embedded in a continuous struggle for freedom from church and state. The founders of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) defined academic freedom, in its 1915 ‘Declaration of Principles on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure’, as follows: ‘The freedom which is the subject of this report is the freedom of the teacher. Academic freedom in this sense comprises three elements: freedom of inquiry and research; freedom of teaching within the university or college; and freedom of extramural utterance and action’. Although the declaration was a central document by which to protect academic freedom from external pressures, it has, over the course of history, been subjected to elite groups’ attacks on academic freedom. Academic freedom has, indeed, always been subjected to the efforts of external forces, such as states and the market, to constrain its independence and freedom and force it to adjust to such power centres. Nation states have been a central organ in controlling universities and limiting the academic freedom that could harm the ambitions of nation states in controlling the ‘life and death’ of its people. Democracy, which, at its birth, was legitimised in the name of controlling the state and providing electoral power to the public, is now increasingly exhausted and has been transformed into mechanisms of controlling the public and of convincing them of accepting such a democracy as the only possible model. As Henry Giroux (2016: 26) argues: [P]olitics can no longer be reduced to participation in elections, access to and distribution of material and cultural resources, or even the regulation and disciplining of the body. On the contrary, politics is increasingly about the power of modern states to impose a state of exception, to condemn entire populations as disposable, and to make life and death the most crucial and relevant object of political control. As violence, insecurity, and fear empty public life of its democratic possibilities and the warfare state is transformed into a garrison state, life and death lose their distinctive meanings as a measure of what it means to live in a genuine democracy.

Reducing democracy to ritual ceremonies, for legitimising political power and providing the state with a free hand to do whatever it sees as necessary to control its people, authorises the state to not only use the soft means of dominance and surveillance but also the hard ones, such as open wars in its various forms. War, which once upon a time was primarily used

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to fight ‘foreign threats’, is now frequently used to make surveillance and oppressive politics possible. As Hardt and Negri (2004: 334) argue, ‘war has gone from an instrument of politics, used in the last resort, to the foundation of politics, the basis for discipline and control’. The domestication and controlling of the mass media, and incorporating it as part of the established, corporate and surveillant, state, goes hand in hand with controlling universities and making them a tamed service-­ provider of the state. As argued in the previous section, this partly takes place through reinforcement of academic administrative organs and the weakening of faculties and independent scientific organs and individuals. As Giroux (2016) argues, the modern university, which once was governed by the faculty, with university senate naming the university president, is now a bureaucratic organisation in the hands of the state and the market. He mentions (2016: 118) that ‘[t]hat era of faculty control is long gone, with presidents now being named by boards of trustees, and governing through hand-picked (and well paid) bureaucrats rather than through faculty committees.’ In addition, recent decades’ aggressive neoliberalisation of societies has highly influenced universities and academic freedom. Political intervention in universities, in the name of efficiency and the social benefits of research and education, has placed many constraints on research and teaching. Such market-driven demands have compromised and gradually eroded the symbolic prestige of academic freedom (Badley 2009; Andreescu 2009). Political control of the academy and the surveillance of critical researchers and teachers are exercised in many ways. One of the most important mediums in the hands of politicians and the economic elite in society for controlling critical academics and defenders of academic freedom is the mass media. Mass media can reward those academics who reinforce neoliberal racism in society and punish those who do not comply and are critical of that (Kamali 2006, 2008). The mass media has increasingly changed its characteristics and functions as the agent of controlling political power, to become a part of the established economic and political powers and functions and an important pillar in the reproduction of the status quo and the privileges of privileged groups. The world is presented by the mass media or the corporate media in a way adjusted to the powerful elites’ interests and ambitions. The corporate media has succeeded in creating and reproducing ‘politically correct’ discourses and truths (discourses adjusted to neoliberalism and racism) by which to sanction any deviations by anybody who dare

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questions such ‘truths’. It does not show any respect for the complexity of reality or alternative discourses and beliefs. Even academics and intellectuals adjust themselves to the hegemonic discourses communicated by the corporate media and sacrifice academic and intellectual sophistication and complexity. As Linke and Smith (2009: 3) argue: “Security,” “safety,” “protection,” and “defense.” These are among the terms circulated as part of a global public discourse of fear which encourages proactive military action, legitimates war as a surgical intervention, and authorizes faraway acts of violence as a means of national border fortification. The securocratic language of the contemporary western state is war talk: it not only empowers a state’s military reach across national borders, but diminishes civil society, abandons human rights, diplomacy, and visions of peace. In US-American militarized media productions, the figure of the enemy outsider is conflated with the terrorist, who is imagined as a syncretic figure, as Muslim-Arab-Black. In this terrain of propaganda, mediatized militarism invigorates a montage of fear and race, recuperating an Africanist Orientalism that resonates across the Atlantic divide, into Europe, and worldwide.

Many academics, media actors and ‘public experts’ are increasingly adjusting themselves to such discourses. Henrik Elonheimo (2016: 1) believes that this is partly self-imposed and argues that ‘perhaps out of the fear of saying something politically incorrect, which would expose them to public shaming, some members of the academia play it safe and resort to banalities or mainstream views which neither develop science nor serve society’. Many scholars of sensitive and critical topics, such as critical ‘race’ studies, postcolonial studies, anti-oppressive studies, and critical feminist studies, have increasingly been targeted by public mass media attacks. As Elonheimo (2016) argues, even some members of the academic community are engaged in ‘virtual punishments against each other’ which often lead to self-censorship among researchers. This means that many critical academics become subjected to hate speech and their academics merits put under question and scrutiny. Academic freedom and academics’ freedom of speech are curtailed as soon as these are considered threatening for the elites. Controlling academics takes place with tactics ranging from mild social distancing against critical academics, to accusations of professional impropriety, to exclusion and policing of procedural compliance (Kipnis 2017; Dreger 2016). This leads often to increased self-censorship influencing the quality of academic

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and public discourses (Chamlee-Wright 2019). It is not only limiting academics’ freedom of speech and academic freedom by administrative sanctions that is problematic, but also the provision of non-critical academics with public space to attack critical academics and supporting them by overemphasising ‘their freedom of speech’. In other words, support of non-critical academics’ and the university leadership’s liberty of speech actually, ‘function ‘to hinder free speech and impoverish our public discussions, as sensible researchers refrain from participating in them due to the tyranny of the loudest’ (Elonheimo 2016: 2). Many academics in general and critical and intellectual academics are also under administrative pressures more generally. As Giroux (2016) argues, they devote less time to their role as well-informed public intellectuals and are more concerned about keeping their jobs and positions in (neoliberal and entrepreneurial and securitised) universities. They ‘live under the constant threat of being downsized, punished, or fired and are less concerned about quality research and teaching than about accepting the new rules of corporate-based professionalism in order to simply survive in the new corporatised academy’ (Giroux 2016: 128).

2.8   Self-Censorship and the Spiral of Silence The matter of censorship and, even more, self-censorship is related to the meaning of freedom and its role for human action. The main philosophical assumption concerning individual freedom is that if the individual is not free, she cannot exercise freedom and act freely. Jean-Paul Sartre (1956: 559) argued that freedom is ‘the first condition of action’ for every individual. According to him, freedom is not something that can be given or taken away from an individual, but a necessity that makes ‘the stuff of my being’ (1956: 566). In other words, we ‘are condemned to be free’ (1956: 567) as there is always a choice for individuals. However, having a choice does not always mean being free and having freedom of action. There are many situations that make individuals act ‘not free’. Johnstone (2011) points out three types of choice that are not based on human freedom: those that emerge from unwanted necessity; those that are collectively undesirable; and those that constitute pointless actions. These are actions that are more or less forced on the individual; individuals act in accordance with external forces, which subsequently limit their ‘free choices’. Such external forces do not need to be seen by anyone other than the acting individual as ‘external forces’. When a critical individual keeps silent when

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another individual is subjected to, for instance, a racist insult or sexual assault, she does this not because she agrees with such actions, but simply because she is afraid of the negative consequences of publicly speaking out. This is to reference the sociological and psychological mechanisms behind many individuals’ adjustment to power and hegemonic discourses in a society, but it does not mean that individuals are without any choice in such situations. Some decide to react and stop violence, aware of its potentially negative consequences for themselves in so doing. However, the powerful elites generally succeed in forcing or convincing individuals to adjust themselves to the elites’ will—and many, even if they are against such insults, keep quiet. Censorship is often related to a power external to the individual, namely the state and its organs. It emphases externally imposed regulations and laws on individual conduct and did not consider individual agency. The traditional understanding of censorship sees individuals as actors who, finding themselves confronted by the constraint of censorship, either adjust themselves to it or protest against it. Self-censorship is, however, something which provides individuals with agency and sees them as active actors in carrying out censorship. Self-censorship is an individual mechanism of providing consent to the political system, to powerful socioeconomic agents, and thus to the status quo. In other words, individuals accept uncritically the mainstream political, economic and cultural discourses and actively help in reproducing the established system, legitimising mainstream discourses. Self-censorship can be related to practices of micro-power in the Foucauldian paradigm, simultaneously constraining and constituting the freedom of the subject (Butler 1987). Individuals’ freedom is, thus, constrained by several normative systems of micro-power in everyday life. This argument can be related to Marx’s concept of ideology as false consciousness, which underpins the social control of desirable and non-desirable, or permitted and non-permitted, thoughts and actions (Bunn 2015). This is a kind of exercising of authority, in Weberian terms, that requires individuals’ and groups’ ‘free’ consent without the direct exercise of raw power. In other words, individuals and groups not only accept authority in society, but also participate in the reproduction of a system which serves the interests of powerful agents, including those of the political power structure. This means that the existence of strong, direct censorship is a sign of the failure of ideology or false consciousness in society, while, conversely, its absence

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typically means that widespread censorship instead occurs by the soft means of symbolic violence—and citizens’ false consciousness. Self-censorship is a result of what Glenn Loury (1994: 430) calls a ‘velvet glove’ tyranny, in the form of social pressure to stay within the bounds of sanctioned opinion. This is not a kind of top-down censorship, but to the contrary. As Schimpfössl et al. (2020: 5) argue: Traditionally, Western-based scholars adhering to liberal approaches to media studies have analysed journalism from the perspective of normative ethics, comprehending censorship as top-down repression and as the natural opposite of free speech. Since the early 1990s, critical scholars have challenged this take on censorship, turning their attention towards ways in which censorship permeates society even when a top-down powerful censor cannot be easily identified.

This means that there is no need for overt laws and regulations and an arbitrary state for enforcing censorship on the media and other social agents in order to control what they are writing, saying and communicating. The mechanism of symbolic violence does it much better than can any dictatorial governance. The higher the level of individual consent is to domination in a society, the higher the level of normative self-censorship. Self-censorship is nothing new, but has a long tradition. As Alexis de Tocqueville already in 1835 had argued, our fear of being considered deviant and, therefore, of being removed from public life leads to censoring our thoughts. He (2010: 418–19) argues that: Princes had, so to speak, materialized violence; the democratic republics of today have made violence as entirely intellectual as the human will that it wants to constrain. Under the absolute government of one man, despotism, to reach the soul, crudely struck the body; and the soul, escaping from these blows, rose gloriously above it; but in democratic republics, tyranny does not proceed in this way; it leaves the body alone and goes right to the soul. The master no longer says: You will think like me or die; he says: You are free not to think as I do; your life, your goods, everything remains with you; but from this day on you are a stranger among us. You will keep your privileges as a citizen, but they will become useless to you. If you aspire to be the choice of your fellow citizens, they will not choose you, and if you ask only for their esteem, they will still pretend to refuse it to you. You will remain among men, but you will lose your rights to humanity. When you approach your fellows, they will flee from you like an impure being. And those who

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believe in your innocence, even they will abandon you, for people would flee from them in turn. Go in peace; I spare your life, but I leave you a life worse than death.

This leads to the ‘tyranny of opinion’, which was later on discussed by John Stuart Mill in his classical book, Utilitarianism, first published in 1859. He (1956: 7) argued that: ‘Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against the tendency of society to impose, by means other than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them’. This means that self-censorship includes a choice influenced by the power structure in society. In this case, the ‘self’ in self-censorship is both the author and the instrument of censorship, ‘through which ordinary censorship is being exercised; whether the censoring self is the initiator or the conduit’ (Horton 2011: 99). Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann contends (1974, 1977) that there is a ‘climate of public opinion’, which many ‘normal’ people know about and adjust themselves to its imperatives. Noelle-Neumann expands her argument thus: science has fixed on five bodily receptors through which people sense and connect to their environment; eyes (sight), ears (sound), tongue (taste), nose (smell) and skin (touch). She, as a pioneer in the emerging field of the studies of public opinion and the role of individuals and intellectuals in the emerging media society, suggests that there is also a sixth sense among members of a given society—namely a quasi-statistical organ, which collects information about what the society is ‘thinking’ and ‘feeling’. People typically understand and can tell which way ‘the wind is blowing’ prior to the capture of such trends by systematic and scientific polls and research; they can more or less sense the climate of public opinion and adjust themselves accordingly. According to Noelle-Neumann, the motor behind the ‘adjustment’ of people to established public opinion is ‘fear of isolation’. Individuals in all societies are highly concerned about being forcing into isolation from their social environment and, therefore, they adjust themselves, often uncritically, to public opinion and its future trends and do not express their own viewpoints, if they believe that their personal opinions are in the minority (Noelle-Neumann 1974, 1977, 1991). The choice of ‘silence’ in such a climate depends on individuals’ fear of negative sanctions by the

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majority and those in control of public opinion. Such negative sanctions can include banishment from the group, long-term solitary confinement, and sanctioned public ridicule, which often are regarded by all individuals in the world as cruel punishments. She claims that ‘only the criminal or moral hero doesn’t care what society thinks’ (1974: 374) anybody else who regards herself to be a ‘normal’ member of society actively avoids being considered a ‘deviant’ or ‘fool’. Noelle-Neumann argues that we can, by asking people two simple questions, ‘see inside people’s heads’: 1. Present climate: Regardless of your personal opinion, do you think most people think … ? 2. Future forecast: Will more or fewer people think this way a year from now? The answers will provide us an understanding of the public opinion and its trends that influence individuals’ personal actions in the public sphere. She considers public opinion as an ‘opinion which can be voiced in public without fear of sanctions’ (Noelle-Neumann 1977: 145) or even ‘controversial opinions one is able to express in public without becoming isolated’ (Noelle-Neumann 1974: 44). She sees the mass media as one of the strongest driving forces for fostering and establishing public opinion. As she (Noelle-Neumann 1991: 276) states: ‘I have never found a spiral of silence that goes against the tenor of the media, for the willingness to speak out depends in part upon sensing that there is support and legitimation from the media’. The media’s role in contributing to the spiral of silence, by which public opinion is created and reinforced through the manufacture of an atmosphere of a kind of rational choice calculation of individuals, is crucial in the knowledge society of today. The theory of the ‘spiral of silence’ presented by Noelle-Neumann (1974) explains the mechanisms through which people ‘choose’ to remain silent even though they may be of another opinion than that expressed by the political establishment and broadcasted by the mass media. The fear of isolation and other negative sanctions, such as loss of job, status and social respect, forces many people with deviant opinions to adjust themselves to the established public opinion. The spiral of silence is thus reproduced, with minority opinions unable to get the support they need to be able to challenge the status quo.

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2.9   The Spiral of Silence and Symbolic Violence Although Noelle-Neumann’s theory of spiral of silence has contributed to an understanding of the mechanisms behind the isolation of critical opinions in public debates, it is very much focused on the individuals’ ‘self-­ protective’ actions. However, there is another aspect to these mechanisms in the public sphere. Some individual’s actions in accordance with the mainstream media and public opinion are also based on a form of strategic thinking concerning ‘self-achievement’. Bourdieu’s theory of symbolic violence will, thus, help in understanding how compliance with power structures, and their hegemonic discourses in society, is fostered. As discussed earlier, the reproduction of capitalist society, and its power structures and its creed of violence, is almost impossible without understanding the mechanisms by which individual consent is achieved. Political Realm of Self-Censorship Engaging in political and democratic life requires acceptance of the established hegemonic ideology and its normalised political variations. This is, in the first place, a process of political socialisation in a system with its established discourses. Robert Michels had already in 1915, in his classical work Political Parties, argued against Rousseau’s concept of direct democracy and showed that existing democracy—which he presented as domination by the leadership elite over society and popular organisations—creates an oligarchy (Michels 1962). This is because large organisations, such as trade unions, political parties and religious institutions, cannot be controlled without turning over effective power to the few who are at the top of these organisations. All large organisations need bureaucracy, and bureaucracy requires the concentration of power in the hands of a few, dedicated bureaucrats who do their best to reproduce the party oligarchy and its hierarchical organisation. Michels wrote, in his introduction to the 1915 edition of the book, that: ‘Democracy leads to oligarchy and necessarily contains an oligarchical nucleus’ (1962: 6). The political oligarchy developed in the democratic societies of Western countries has always been entwined with a process of inclusion, concerning those believed to belong to the category of ‘Us’ and those believed to belong to the category of ‘Them’. In other words, as de Tocqueville argues in respect of the American context, democracy is developed as an egalitarian inclusion of American-European subjects in comparison to an

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inegalitarian relation with non-Europeans (de Tocqueville 2010). This should not, of course, come as a surprise to anybody given that democracy, from its ancient forms (such as that of Greek democracy) onwards, has been an exclusionary patriarchal, classist and racist organisation in which an elite minority have legitimised their rule by the popular support of those trusting in them and sharing their worldviews and interests. Already in the ancient city-states of Greece, slaves, foreigners and women did not have equal political rights to Greek men (Hanchard 2018). Constructing hierarchies of people based on their ‘ethno-national’ backgrounds and gender has thus a long tradition, which still haunts current democracies. As Hanchard (2018: 2) argues: Among the ancients, Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato rendered judgments about the capacity for diverse peoples to forge political communities based on their sociocultural priorities and emphases. The views of the ancients on the best form of government and polity were summoned by modern thinkers to justify the importance of culture, education, and positive political socialization in human development, but also to compare and contrast civilizations, societies, and polities and their relative capacities and potential for modern governance. David Hume, John Stuart Mill, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, Marx, and most famously Thomas Hobbes compared and contrasted various human communities. Hierarchy, however, was comparison’s companion, usually lurking in the background, just a few steps or sentences behind.

Many modern democracies of Europe and extended Europe, such as the USA, Canada and Australia, have been formed by colonialism, slavery and devastating wars and genocide. Some of the most famous and robust democracies in the world, such as France, Britain and the USA, have been created in societies that have been built on profit from slave labour, colonialism and imperialism. Modern democracy, beginning with its ideological and theoretical founders (such as John Lock), has been an organisation of inclusion and exclusion. While universal democratic rights have been recognised for wealthy men, the poor, women, Afro-Americans, natives and other minorities have been excluded from political participation. In other words, modern democracy has been entwined with racism and sexism. The exclusionary politics of modern democracy in nation states have their roots in Athenian autochthony, in which is stressed the mythology of origin. The modern nation states have created the concept of ‘race’ as the means of a political project for homogeneity among a citizen populace,

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making ‘race’ an organising principle for government (Hanchard 2018). This means that people who have not been considered as belonging to the same ‘race’, culture and traditions have been excluded from political power structures and influence in societies. Excluding minorities and racialised groups from political participation is a sign of the existence of systemic racism (Feagin 2006) and part of the reproduction of white privilege (Bonilla-Silva 2006; Jones 2000; Link and Phelan 2001; Kamali 2008). In other words, structural and systemic racism is a tool employed by privileged groups to maintain their privilege and control over resources, such as wealth, political and judicial influence, and housing (Feagin 2006; Kamali 2008). The political realm of many Western countries harbours racism and the exclusion of (racialised and otherised) others in political participation on equal terms. Political underrepresentation of people with immigrant backgrounds in political life tends to increase political alienation and creates democratic deficit (Bloemraad and Schönwälder 2013). Political parties in many Western countries claim the inclusion of people with immigrant backgrounds in the existing political parties as a sign of acceptance of immigrants as a part of today’s societies. However, such claims are not realised for two reasons: (1) many claims often remain just that (i.e. claims) because of such factors as party organisation and its institutional characteristics hindering ambitions of their realisation (Markard and Dähnke 2017); and (2) conditioning people with immigrant backgrounds so that their participation in political parties is based on their total adjustment to existing policies (Kamali 2008, 2015). Previous research shows that majority society members are likely to fear the increasing political participation and power that immigrants gain. The majority’s fear of the loss of their own political power leads often to increasing anti-­ immigrant attitudes (Esses et  al. 2010; Wagner et  al. 2010). Anti-­ immigrant attitudes and sentiments are not only directed towards immigrants but also towards those with immigrant backgrounds (as opposed to being immigrants themselves). Many of those born in a Western country with one or both parents having immigrated to the country in question are, together with other minority groups, subjected to racism and discrimination. The European Agency for Fundamental Rights, in its recent Fundamental Rights Report 2019, shows that discrimination of people with immigrant backgrounds is rising in EU countries. The report (FRA 2019: 89) shows that: ‘Racism, hate crime and ethnic discrimination are rooted deeply in society. Persons from across the social and political spectrum perpetrate them and they manifest themselves in all

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areas of life’. It shows also that racism and discrimination of Muslims is also on the rise and that Muslims are subjected to many hate crimes. This is, of course, nothing new, with many earlier studies having shown increasing racism and discrimination against Muslims. The recent increase of anti-Muslim sentiments in many Western countries, however, reinforces exclusion of people with Muslim backgrounds from political participation and representation (Kamali 2008, 2015; Verkuyten 2018). Even in countries with a long tradition of inclusive democratic participation, such as Sweden, inequality in terms of participation and influence in politics exists as part of a structural discrimination that hinders people of immigrant background from exercising power and influence in society (Dahlstedt and Hertzberg 2005; Kamali 2008). In recent years, many politicians with immigrant backgrounds, who have been participating as members in Sweden’s established political parties, have been accused of ‘not fitting in’ with Swedish political life—or even of ‘supporting non-­ democratic’ and, in some cases, ‘extremist and terrorist’ groups. (In the following chapter, the results of the study concerning the experiences of politicians with immigrant backgrounds in Sweden will be presented.)

2.10   Neoliberal Racism Understanding racism and its pertinence to the social sciences requires knowledge about its relationship with, and embeddedness in, colonialism, capitalism and imperialism, as well as its modern ideological and scientific roots in the philosophy of the Enlightenment (Eze 1997; Kamali 2008). Although theories inspired by structural-based Marxism are important to understanding the structural properties of racism, overemphasising structural mechanisms of racism may lead us to downplay the ways racism is exercised in everyday social relations. Using Michel Foucault’s theory of governmentalisation can help us combine both the structural, institutional and everyday micro-level relations of the reproduction of racism. This observation is particularly significant today given that a central principle of neoliberalism is to minimise the role of the state and let the market and the ‘experts’ be the decision-makers (Mascarenhas 2014). Neoliberalism, in its everyday functions, makes use of the inherent relations between knowledge and power, that is expertise, to make itself the only ‘rational alternative’ of socioeconomic and cultural relations. This means that apart from being an economic system, neoliberalism is also dependent on neoliberal individual subjectivities, that is convincing individuals of its

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rationality—what Foucault calls neoliberal governmentality. These modern individuals, who have been governmentalised by neoliberal disciplination, are referred to by Foucault as ‘docile bodies’, that is subjects who willingly accept the neoliberal order without there having been any overt display of social or governmental control. Hegemonic and established discourses, controlled by experts and professionals, are part of this process by which individuals are disciplined and their rationalities and beliefs are produced and reconstituted as neoliberal truths. Moreover, such discourses contribute to, and are part of, techniques and practices of neoliberal racism. Neoliberal racism is a concept indicating that racism is not an external feature of neoliberalism and/or capitalism, but, similar to modernity, an inseparable property of neoliberalism (Carr 2016; Davison and Shire 2015; Goldberg 2008; Kamali 2015; Roberts 2016; Singh 2017). Following Foucault (2003), it can be argued that modernity has seen racism become an organising principle of society, as a result of the emergence of a new type of power: biopower. This is the administration of life by the state without any threat of death. The modern state is no longer a state that is able ‘to take life or let live’; rather, through mechanisms of biopower, it aims to control biological life, that is ‘to make live and let die’ (Foucault 2003: 241). As Foucault (2003: 254) puts it: ‘I am certainly not saying that racism was invented at this time. It had already been in existence for a very long time. But I think it functioned elsewhere. It is indeed the emergence of this bio-power that inscribes it in the mechanisms of the state. It is at this moment that racism is inscribed as the basic mechanism of power, as it is exercised in modern states’. The neoliberal state governmentalises neoliberalism, to use Foucault’s argument, and creates a ‘thought collective’, that is an intellectual framework capable of absorbing dissent and crystallising consensus (Dean 2014). Neoliberalism should, therefore, be primarily understood as a regime of the production of resilient subjects capable of adapting to the neoliberal mechanisms of production, exploitation, accumulation and dispossession (Chandler and Reid 2016; Dean 2014; Joseph 2013; Schmidt 2015). As Mavelli (2017: 492) argues, ‘governing “the lives of individuals in liberal societies” entails not just nurturing neoliberal mechanisms of competition as frameworks of self-government in a new economic landscape … [beyond] the boundaries of a nation state …, but also caring for the population and drawing the line between who must live and who must die according to logics of bio-­ political racism within and across, national boundaries’ (original emphasis).

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The state is not in a neoliberal system separated from the market and it has not been simply colonised by the market but ‘economised’ and made the protector of the nodal points of the financial system, that is the banks, in order to safeguard their existence. This means that the fundamental task of the state is to safeguard the neoliberal order. The role of the state is, then, no longer just that of saving the market, but of governing and securing neoliberal life. ‘Making life’, in Foucault’s (2003) theory of the neoliberal state, is realised by ‘taking care’ of the ‘dysfunctions’ of, and problems created by, the neoliberal system. This is exercised by bio-­ political mechanisms of care of the population. The neoliberal state is, therefore, also a ‘compensatory state’, which leads not to the shrinking of the state, but rather to its expansion (Mavelli 2017). However, the neoliberal state does not provide unconditional care, but does this within the framework of, and aimed at, the protection of the neoliberal order of society. The neoliberal state is a surveillance state. Additionally, it is important to note that care ‘aimed at promoting life requires also … protecting the majority population from other populations, i.e. the ‘inferior species’, that threaten its possibility to flourish, proliferate and expand’ (Mavelli 2017: 501). The bio-political policies of the neoliberal ‘compensatory state’ inscribes, according to Foucault (2003: 254), racism ‘in the mechanisms of the State’. Racism becomes, then, an essential mechanism of neoliberal state power. In other words, racism is not simply about negative attitudes or descriptions of other ethnic or ‘racial’ groups as inferior races. The modern biological racism, as Su Rasmussen (2011: 34) argues, ‘is not merely an irrational prejudice, a form of socio-political discrimination, or an ideological motive in a political doctrine; rather, it is a form of government that is designed to manage a population’. By dividing populations of modern nation states into ‘Us’ and ‘Them’, the state makes life, as Foucault (2003) mentions, ‘healthier and purer’. Such racist divides should be understood within the wider frames of the socioeconomic, political and cultural organisations and institutions of society. Current racism should also be analysed within its neoliberal structural and institutional frameworks. Neoliberalism is mobilised as a weapon in order to draw a bio-political line between ‘what must live, and what must die’ (Foucault 2003: 255). This means that those who ‘must live’ must flourish and be developed and expanded, and those who ‘must die’ should be reduced, marginalised and kept as minorities. This should be understood as the very basis of neoliberal racism. It indicates that the main task of neoliberal states lies in not only saving the market, but also in

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governmentalising and securitising neoliberalism through identification of ‘those who are with Us’, that is the majority (governmentalised, neoliberal) population, and its enemy, ‘the other’, that is ‘those who are not with Us’ and belong to the ‘inferior species’, in Foucault’s words. Neoliberal racism, as with any form of oppression, often—indeed, almost always—entails a kind of consent from the oppressed. However, as has argued throughout this chapter, such consent does not need to be a conscious act of individuals and groups. Indeed, a central assertion of Foucault’s (2003) (and one which is referred to above) is that governmentalisation sees modern individuals as ‘docile bodies’, who do not need government to force them to comply with the existing socioeconomic, political and cultural systems of governance; rather, the subjection of said individuals to new forms of social control—which has manifest itself in the rise of extensive forms of regulatory disciplining apparatuses and institutions, such as prisons, schools and hospitals—achieves these ends. Neoliberal governmentality creates what Feagin (2014: 26) calls ‘the white racial frame’, that is a neoliberal worldview that ‘interprets and defends white privileges and advantaged conditions as meritorious’ in opposition to the ‘inferiority’ of racially oppressed people of colour. ‘The white racial frame’ functions both back stage and front stage, to employ the terms of Goffman’s social performance theory. Picca and Feagin (2007) argue that whiteness, when performed back stage, takes place in a space dedicated only to white or ‘white-minded’ people and is able to be acted freely and without any ‘politically correct’ restrictions; when whiteness is performed front stage, meanwhile, this involves a space with ‘diverse and multiracial populations’ as an audience. On both stages, however, whiteness is embedded with institutional and structural properties of the system of neoliberalism. Within the white racial frame, the whiteness of public discourses, and its institutional and structural appearances, is presented as natural and invisible (Nakayama and Krizek 1995). Therefore, any attempt to present racism as ‘external’ to liberalism and neoliberalism is the collective denial of racism as systemic and an integrated part of the global neoliberal system. Indeed, neoliberalism protects white elite privilege over capital and is not merely about the existence of ‘free markets’ (Hohle 2015). Even the free-market principles and functions of neoliberalism aim at reproducing white dominance and privileges. As Giroux (2003: 197) argues, ‘under neoliberalism all levels of government have been hollowed out and largely reduced either to their policing functions

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or to maintaining the privileges of the rich and the interests of corporate power holders – both largely white.’ Neoliberal racism has influenced and continues to influence the institutional and structural properties of almost all the world’s societies. Its white and market-driven policies have influenced not only the most liberal states of the world, such as the USA and the UK, but also countries with very strong welfare states, such as Nordic countries (Kamali and Jönsson 2018). As Lipsitz (1998) argues, neoliberal social policies produce ‘a possessive investment in whiteness’, an implicit racial advantaging that impacts on various aspects of social life, from education and employment, through to housing and the accumulation of wealth. This is true even in countries such as Sweden; indeed, according to the OECD country reports, during the last three decades of neoliberalisation of Swedish society, socioeconomic inequalities have increased even more than in the other Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland and Norway (Kamali and Jönsson 2018). This has happened irrespective of the ideology and colour of the governmental political parties. At the same time, racism and ethnic discrimination have increased accordingly (Kamali 2008, 2015). ‘Racial’ discrimination has increased further with the entrance of the racist party Sweden Democrats (Svergiedemokraterna) into parliament and the local political organs. Increasing neoliberal racism has influenced almost all aspects of Swedish society. It is not only the overt appearances of neoliberal racism which should be explored but also the convert institutional consequences (often hidden for the public) that harm many people of immigrant background in the country. The following chapters explore the consequences of growing neoliberal racism for politicians, journalists, academics and civil society activists of immigrant background.

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CHAPTER 3

Securitisation and Self-Censorship in Mainstream Political Parties

This part of the study is based on in-­depth interviews with twenty-­one politicians who come from an immigrant background, nine women and twelve men, who are, or have been, members of Swedish mainstream parties, both right-­wing and left-­wing. Four politicians with Swedish background have also been interviewed as a control group. The main focus of the study has been to capture such individuals’ experiences of being members of these parties and of participating in public political sphere. In their accounts, the interviewees detail how they act in two parallel spheres, in which they have to choose between being either a silent politician or an active politician who wants to ‘make difference for people’— namely, within the party and in the mediatised public sphere. The main themes that emerge from the interviews are: ‘Increasing demand for compliance to the party line’; ‘Securitisation policies and engagement in political parties’; ‘Muzzling as self-­protection’, ‘Being observed and ignored at the same time’; and ‘Choosing the path of success and unsuccess’. The themes are not (at an analytical level) mutually exclusive categories but, rather, are interrelated and build on one another.

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3.1   Increasing Demand for Compliance to the Party Line A theme that has developed during the course of analysing the interviews is the increasing demand for compliance with, and even active support of, the party line, that is what the party leadership decide to be the ‘party’s public face’, as many interviewees themselves say. As a leading party member of the Green Party (Miljöpartiet de Gröna), which is now a governmental party together with the Social Democratic Party, Mohammad says: The rules of the game have changed; they have moved in a more conservative and racist direction. When I started my political membership in this party, I felt that as a politician you had to have facts and an argument for what you said; there is not such a demand anymore. If some members or the party leadership have a conservative or racist agenda, more racist actually, here is not any requirement for facts and arguments, as before.

He goes onto to say he has to work and interact with other members who can now ‘say anything about migrants and minorities without really needing to qualify their statements’. He says that he tries to handle the situation in a way that ‘neither creates problems for other party members or for myself’. Other politicians with immigrant backgrounds put it in the same way, and tell about a xenophobic and racist change in the Swedish political sphere and within their own party. One such interviewee, Rahman, from the Centre Party (Centerpartiet), who has been engaged in the party for more than a decade, illustrates this like so: What earlier was considered as mainstream in politics, like have a gentle tone, a gentle position in the debate, is not the same today; today those who try to follow the gentle tone in the political debate are considered as deviant; they are called PC [politically correct] elite. Previously, those who had horrible attitudes and did not believe in everybody’s equal rights and values had to either make themselves clear and try to legitimise their sayings and present argumentation for their utterances, or keep silence. But today it is different; this is not the case anymore. They feel free to call you whatever, from being ignorant of people’s concerns, for example, about immigration, to being a supporter of terrorism.

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These politicians and party members are referencing a process by which they are being more or less forced to adjust themselves to the new reality. As a member with many years’ experience of working and being a member of the Liberals (Liberalerna), Maryam argues: The situation is not like before; you have to choose. Before and under my relatively long time of membership in the party, you could have deviant attitudes, even against the leadership of the party and felt welcomed to say what you thought, but I feel that this is not the case anymore. I should say that you are left with two kinds of choices: either leaving the party and then losing possibilities for influencing party decisions; or staying in the party and trying to stop some negative trends that we see right now.

Maryam tries here to present arguments for why she remains a party member—that is, using her opportunity to help other people and make Swedish politics more diverse by staying in the party. She says that her ‘mere existence in the party make those with xenophobic ideas cautious about what they say’; if she did not participate in party meetings ‘things would be even worse’. The increase of racism and xenophobia within mainstream parties is also obvious in respect of the largest political party in Sweden. A member of the Social Democratic Party (Sveriges Socialdemokratiska arbetarparti) with an immigrant background, Arezo, says the following about the situation in the party: Things have changed. I wanted to be politically active and use the democratic situation in Sweden and make a difference. I became a member of the party several years ago. It was much easier for us then than for many new members with immigrant backgrounds. The party was more welcoming; you could be appointed to important positions in the party -­­of course, on the local level. To be elected to important positions on the national level was equally difficult even when I became a member. Today, it is more difficult to get important positions even on local levels. It is like, you, as an immigrant, have to be more Social Democratic than members with a Swedish background. You feel a sense of being observed and controlled.

The situation is no better—and actually may, in some ways, even be worse—for members with immigrant backgrounds in the Left Party (Vänsterpartiet) in Sweden. One of the members of the party, who sees his

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immigrant background as a ‘risk’ for his political engagement, is José, who says: I choose the Left Party because of its ideology, its demand for justice and socialism. I thought that it fitted my own ideology and way of life. It was okay at the beginning and really until a few years ago. You could say and write to the party leadership whatever you thought of as being important for influencing politics. This has been changing and I feel that it has become more difficult to feel yourself free to say what you think. Maybe not because of the direct negative sanctions from the leadership of the party, but because of other members’ concerns of not being called communists. The changes are really horrible; even I have been accused of being anti-­­American when I once said that USA and Trump are real terrorists who create problems in the Middle East.

José’s experience is also shared by other members of the Left Party, who, because of their ‘Muslim’ background, even if they are leftist and non-­religious, have been called ‘terrorists’ or ‘terrorist-­supporters’. One of such members of the party, Ahmad, says: The situation has changed dramatically. You cannot criticise USA or Western countries for their role in colonialism and imperialism and the mess they have created in the Middle East and, actually, in the world. If you say, for example, that USA has no right to bomb Iraq or kill Iran’s military leader, you will be accused of being a supporter of the Iranian regime or a terrorist-­ supporter. You are then stigmatised as ‘Islamist’ or the one who supports terrorists. I must say that it is not only some members with Swedish backgrounds who accuse you, but even some members with immigrant backgrounds who use Swedish politics to fight their own fights in their countries of origins -­­for example, Kurds, Iranians, Syrians. This forces you to watch your mouth. I have wondered several times about leaving the party, that it is not anymore the party that I choose to be engaged in.

Given the fact that political parties are organisations with established hierarchical characteristics, which foster certain political agendas imprinted in parties’ programme and policies, they demand loyalty. As recent global, political and neoliberal transformations have also influenced political parties’ programmes and policies, the internal situation for party members has changed and the demand for loyalty to ‘the party’ has increased. Müller (2000) argues that in parliamentary democracies, party members sitting in

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the parliament depend on their party for career advancement and policy influence. However, the dependency on party leadership for building a career is not only limited to those members sitting in parliament, but even affects those members who have ambitions of sitting in parliament or of becoming ministers if the party win the election. This means that individual members’ own values and preferences are subordinate to the party’s politics and programmes. If a change in voters’ preferences, although racist and discriminatory, leads to a change in the party’s politics and electoral strategies, the members are expected to accept these changes in order to remain a member and build a career. This is often legitimised by a democratic rule of game—namely, that members should be open to adapting their preferences in accord with changes in voters’ preferences (Stimson et al. 1995), no matter what that means for racialised others and minorities. Loyalty to political parties requires loyalty to the leadership of the party, given that leaders control the sources of providing individual members better positions in the party and, for already successful members (such as members of parliament), the possibility of re-­election (Kernecker 2017). This situation can be analysed with the help of Bourdieu’s theory of symbolic violence, that is the existence of a system of rewards and punishment. There are plenty of examples, both internationally and in Sweden, of parties rewarding those who help the party leadership to gain electoral success and punishing those who turn against the ‘party line’. This is illustrated in the following quote from, Hamed, one of the members of the Liberals: You see, you can stand up for your own values or accept whatever the party wants you to say and to do. This is a difficult choice; it is not easy as it looks like. See, if you say against what you hear from what Jan Björklund [former leader of the Liberals] you get the response directly. Some try to convince you of the necessity of Björklund’s attack on immigrants, others try to get me understand that “It is not good for your career”, you know. You are confronted and challenging such matters on daily basis…. I know those who were forced to leave the party for not complying to what the leadership wanted and those who did rocket their career by being close to those powerful in the party and supporting them in all cases.

Such party organisational control of members happens both through a system of domination involving ‘soft democracy’ and managerial strategies informed by ‘threat and potential repression’ (Courpasson 2000: 159), and through a subtle appeal to willing compliance obtained by the

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mechanisms of ‘symbolic violence’. As Bourdieu (1990: 127) saliently mentions: Symbolic violence, gentle, invisible violence, unrecognized as such, chosen as much as undergone, that of trust, obligation, personal loyalty, hospitality, gifts, debts, piety, in a word, all of the virtues honoured by the ethic of honour, presents itself as the most economical mode of domination because it best corresponds to the economy of the system.

This means that many party members who choose to stay in a party whose values increasingly stand in contrast to their own values and political beliefs do this because of compliance to the economical mode of domination, that is to obtain rewards and avoid organisational punishment. In this context, the interviewees explain that ‘racist language’ is now more acceptable than ever before, and in some cases is part of the internal party debate; it is, they claim, nothing new, but more prolific than before. This is, according them, mainly because of the electoral success of racist parties such as Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna). This is illustrated by the following quote from a member of the Green Party, Songul: One of the main reasons behind difficulties that we have been subjected to is the change of mainstream parties’ -­­even sometimes my own party’s -­­language and verbal communication. They are using the new racist party’s language and making it to their own. It is a historical change. During the government of Göran Persson in early 2000s, it was almost impossible to talk about discrimination, it was you [the author of this book] who broke the silence, but Persson denied the existence of discrimination; so it was bad then, but today it is much worse.

Such discursive changes in party politics as the result of the electoral success of a racist party have been discussed in earlier studies. This is not only been a Swedish problem, but has also happened in other major EU countries, such as the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Austria (Kamali 2008). Party Members with a Swedish Background As mentioned in the methods discussion (see Chap. 1), a number of politicians with Swedish backgrounds were also interviewed as a control group for this study. Many share some of the experiences of politicians with immigrant backgrounds about the changing climate of public/

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political life in Sweden. However, there are also notable differences. The following member of the Liberals, Gustaf, says: The political landscape of the country has changed, you know; partly because of terrorism and its consequences for our land. We have segregated areas, lack of integration, segregation, problem families, etc. etc. that force us, political parties, to react and take measures against youths from segregated areas moving to Syria, Iraq, and joining terrorist organisations. This is a very important issue that we have to work with and this, of course, requires action from members, politicians with an immigrant background; you know, they [youths with immigrant backgrounds] listen to them.

In this, he is claiming that recent changes have led to a new responsibility being placed on party members and politicians with immigrant backgrounds—their background now being viewed as providing an extra role and sense of responsibility, in counteracting terrorism. The actions of party members with an immigrant background are, then, being given a new dimension, in a situation where terrorism and racism are increasing. As a member with a Swedish background from the Social Democratic Party, Gunilla, says: Listen, when a member, a politician with an immigrant background takes her or his responsibility in counteracting terrorism, criminality among youths with immigrant backgrounds, she or he counteracts racism at the same time. They show that all immigrants are not evil, you know, are not bad, are not Islamists etc. This counteracts Sweden Democrats, who always present immigrants, specially immigrants from the Middle East as terrorists; many listen to them and if politicians with immigrant backgrounds from other parties act properly against terrorism and criminality in segregated areas, then we will see a change; people realise then that what Sweden Democrats say is not true.

A member of the Green Party with a Swedish background, Anders, argues that it is very important to not have Muslim extremists in the party: You see, it is important to not allow anybody with extremist ideas, Islamist ideas, to be a member and represent our party. This is important for two reasons  – both because of people’s concern and media sensitivity to the question, and because such ideas can harm our party and many members are concerned about such issues. Everybody who wants to be a member in our

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party should make it clear that they are not supporting Islamists or other undemocratic ideologies.

Party members an immigrant background should ‘show where they stand’, as a member with a Swedish background, Alexander, from Centre Party says. He argues: You cannot stand behind and look, when terrorists will destroy the very basis of our societies; you have to show where you stand in this situation. We have terrorist organisations, Islamists, who are recruiting youths from segregated areas and taking them to Syria to fight for them, in such harsh situations you have to act; and it is more important for politicians with immigrant backgrounds to say “no, this is not right”, to show their rejection of terrorism and Islamism. Do not misunderstand me; I am not saying that our members with immigrant backgrounds are Islamists or have sympathy for terrorists. But nobody can be silent in a time when we are struggling against Islamism, terrorism. We all should react and take stands against terrorism, but it is more important for members with immigrant and Middle Eastern backgrounds to do this; this is their duty, democratic duty.

Many interviewees with immigrant backgrounds have also mentioned a growing demand on them to ‘show where they stand’ in relation to the ‘war on terror’ and ‘security’.

3.2   Securitisation Policies and Engagement in Political Parties The changing political climate in Sweden since September 11 is also a matter that has influenced the position of many politicians with immigrant backgrounds who are active in mainstream political parties. Compliance to the ‘party line’ is not, anymore, only a question of accepting the leadership of the party and the party programme. It also includes active participation in internal and external securitisation. The ‘war on terror’ has, according to some interviewees, changed the position of party members with an immigrant background, both within the party and in the public sphere. According to such interviewees, as members of Swedish mainstream parties, the resultant securitisation policies have impacted them in many ways.

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A member of the Social Democratic Party, Osman, explains the way recent securitisation policies have influenced him and his actions within his party: I have a Muslim background; I have experienced negative attitudes towards me in school and in many public places, shops, busses, etc. But things have changed dramatically during the last few years, actually since September 11. I was young then but heard from my father that it is going to be difficult for Muslims. I have many times tried to convince teachers and my Swedish friends that Islam is not equal with terrorism, that you cannot mix these two. I see this in my own party. I engaged myself politically and in the Social Democratic Party, because I believed in solidarity, integration, equal rights etc. but see a change even here. It seems that your background is something negative; you have to explain each one of your steps; you have to be careful what you say. I try to think several times, tell what I will say, to myself, and think how it could be understood by others. Because of many internal discussions on terrorism, security and so on, sometimes I have to remain silent even if I have things to say, to say against the racist and Islamophobic comments of other members.

To ‘remain silent when you have things to say’ is something to which many interviewees make reference. They mean here that they feel limited in their freedom of speech and their freedom to express their political views on different questions. Some even talk of ‘the fear of exclusion’ if they ‘act as they did before’. For instance, one of the members of the Liberals, Alessandro, says: It has become more difficult to say what you think; one is afraid of being stamped as a terrorist or terrorist-­­supporter. You cannot, for example, go against somebody who is openly racist and freely utters racist ideas because you can be excluded from internal groups and political posts as a representative of the party. You feel that you cannot act as you did before; one feels himself limited, like you have been given a list of words and phrases that they want you to use, nothing more.

Some interviewees, moreover, talk about ‘bad examples’ within the party that make it difficult to react to racial assaults that they have been subjected to from other members. In other words, they have witnessed what has happened with others who either made a mistake or decided to

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go against the ‘party line’. One member with an immigrant background from the Centre Party, Himan, says: One of the members of our party, who was Muslim, tried to convince the party to fight for providing Muslims in Sweden a legal ‘minority’ status. He was very soon accused of propagating for the implementation of sharia laws in Sweden. Media made a huge hysteria of that and he was forced to leave the party. I am sure that there were party members who provided the media with information, actually with false information, in order to expel him from the party. You know then that if somebody can so easily, and based on false information, be expelled from the party and his political life can so easily be destroyed, then you will be careful, to not do the same ‘mistake’.

A member with an immigrant background from the Moderate Party (Moderata samlingspartiet), Maria, talks about shrinking possibilities that exist for criticising the ‘party line’. She means that she feels that Swedish democracy is becoming more like the political system in her own country, that is a political dictatorship, or, as she calls it, ‘a pretended democracy’. Maria continues: I am not a communist, not a social democrat; I am a member of the Moderate Party. I am not even Muslim, but think that we must act as an independent party and not cooperate with the Social Democrats who, as I see them, are a xenophobic party. We cannot cooperate with them and demand that people with immigrant backgrounds should vote for us. I’ve said that several times and believed that I would get support. I knew that many, or at least several, members share my view about cooperation with Sweden Democrats. All of a sudden, I stood alone in our internal meetings and when I asked others why they did not support me, they said, you see, “The leadership of the party have their own reasons for cooperation”, and one of them even told me that “Maria, I heard that some think that your position against cooperation can harm the party and its reputation for standing for law and order”. I have even been told by another party member, my friend with his roots in Iran, that “You have to be careful not to be associated with leftists and Islamists anti-­­racists”. He added that “These are difficult times, and we have to be careful”. You see, I feel that this is not democracy, but a pretended democracy, really like the political system I had in the country I come from. You can do and say whatever you want as long as you do not disturb the leader and the party.

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All this has meant that she is not as active as she was before and she tries to ‘close her mouth’ as much as possible, as ‘telling uncomfortable truths can be uncomfortable for yourself in the first place’, as she puts it. A point that many interviewees agreed upon is the interconnection of their migrant background and the question of security. As a member of the Left Party, Poya, explains, he has a sense of insecurity since he feels himself as ‘a security problem in the eyes of some other members’ of the party. He continues: ‘If you are not a Swede and you have an immigrant background then you better be careful, even if you utter your political attitudes and standpoints which are completely in line with the party; you never know who is going to transmute that to something negative’. Another member of the Left Party, José, says: I am a leftist, a Marxist; I have been that my entire life. That is why I chose to be a member of the Left Party. During the last few years, I see that it has occurred that a group, maybe a hidden group, in the party tries to exclude real leftist members with immigrant backgrounds; anyway, this is what I feel and see. You feel that in the air, if you understand what I mean. They often talk about you, not talk with you. You know that every time you say something in support of Muslims, for instance, then they consider you to be a supporter of Islamists; an Islamist-­­stamp is exactly what right-­­wing parties put on us. This is very scary; you feel that you are not free anymore to fight for your case, for your political convictions, for the right of everybody. I don’t know, often I have the feeling that I am under surveillance, that they may control my phone, email, papers, etc.

The feeling of ‘being under surveillance’ is a matter that many interviewees in general, and those on the ‘leftist’ and even ‘centre’ parts of the Swedish political spectrum in particular, talk about. A member with an immigrant background from the Centre Party, Kanton, illustrates this, as follows: I do not know if I’ve become paranoid or more realist. I see that the control of what I do has increased; sometimes, people, my party friends, know things about me that nobody knows, or at least nobody whom I have not a relation with knows. Sometimes people say something like, “You who have contacts with Social Democrats or Leftists”, and I think “What, how do they know about my friends, who are not really close friends and I have not contact with them on daily basis, actually a couple of times a year maybe?” Another example is when I visited a mosque to see who are the people

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­ articipating in prayers and what the imam says in his preachings. I heard p that just a few days after, “Who was it that visited a mosque?”, a member of our party asked me. I know that terrorism is a very important problem for us, and we have to handle it seriously, but why I, who fight against terrorism and is far away from such dangerous ideologies, am suspected  -­­yes, suspected is what I feel I am sometimes.

A member from the Liberals, Siros, contends that the problem is the increasing suspicion about politicians with immigrant backgrounds. He means that recent security thinking, which he also defends, is the reason behind increasing sensitivity of political parties towards their members. He, who considers himself a very cautious person who, even before what he claims is the increasing need for security, was concerned about surveillance and control of his private life, says: Years ago, when I started my political career and party membership, I took some measures against surveillance of my private life and my contacts with my friends and family. For instance, when I met my friends and families, I used to take out the battery of my cell phone in order to protect my integrity, but this is not possible anymore. Everything has changed, even the possibilities of surveillance. If they will control you, actually every step that you take, it is very easy to do. They do not need you to be connected to wifi or have your phone on; they can do that in many different ways.

Many interviewees express concern about the increasing control of their lives, even within the private sphere. The very knowledge that a well-­ organised surveillance system exists, and in a way that was maybe impossible only a decade ago, has influenced them deeply. In other words, they have made ‘acting in accordance with the surveillance system’ part of their everyday lives. As Jose says: ‘It seems that my adjustment to the party’s security discourse is not anymore forced on me, but a way of life that I have been used to, irrespective of if somebody says that to me, requires it from me or not’.

3.3   Muzzling as Self-Protection Almost all interviewees say that they have experienced the need to muzzle themselves on many occasions, as their speeches or comments can be considered as either a critique of the party line or in support of radical and, in some cases, even terrorist ideas. The interviewees mean here that while

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they, as politicians, have always to think about what they say in the public sphere, that, in the recent years, their freedom of speech has been curtailed in many different ways. A member with an immigrant background from the Liberals, Ghribeh, illustrates this like so: It seems that, during the last years, or actually decades, the degree of tolerance among Swedes have dramatically decreased. You should think what you say. Actually, I feel that there are those who are just waiting for you to make a mistake, to say something wrong. They will then make a fuss about that and chase you. I do not know if this is the same for many other politicians in other parties, I mean those with immigrant backgrounds, or it is just me; but I’ve talked to other members in my own party who say that they feel the same. If you say something about a point in our party programme or against, let’s say if somebody says something very negative about Muslims, you have a problem then; there are always those who use it to go against you.

This is a common theme among the interviewees. To illustrate it further, the following quotation is from Yonas, from the Green Party: I have always been concerned with how I could be understood by the others; I suppose everybody does it. But I started from 10 years of age, or really after September 11, to be very concerned about this, given my background, religion. Many like us were considered to be exotic, something which was not a threat, just different, like spices on food; but after September 11, I definitively felt that I had to think several times before I uttered my political sentences in order to not be considered as a threat, as not being Swedish. Today, the problem has growth even worse; there are media, journalists and those from other parties who are eager to single out anything you say from its context. If I am invited to a seminar, I censor myself, even if it is maybe a strong word, but true, I choose my words very cautiously; I do not use other discourses or do but very carefully, but nevertheless the day after it stays on social media or in other media, things I never had said in the way they appear in the media. For instance, if I say “I am against violence against women”, they take away the word ‘against’ and write my speech in a way that the reader believe that I said ‘for’ instead of ‘against’. You cannot protect yourself against such attacks and fallacies. That is why you have to muzzle yourself and choose to be silent on many occasions.

Staying quiet is a part of a self-­censorship for many politicians with immigrant backgrounds, in order to protect themselves from being subjected to ‘negative sanctions’, ‘being distrusted’, ‘being excluded from the

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internal group’ and ‘not having the same opportunity as other members for getting important party positions.’ As discussed in Chap. 2, Noelle-­Neumann (1974) claims that ‘fear of isolation’ influences and enforces individuals’ adjustment to established ideas and is the motor behind public opinion. This framework offers a way of understanding why politicians might uncritically adjust themselves to the official opinion of the party and do not express their own viewpoints. As long as individual members consider their opinions as not being in the majority, they keep quiet out of fear of negative sanctions. Bourdieu (2001) explains such reactions of people to established norms, policies and routines through the theory of ‘symbolic violence’. As mentioned earlier, through a system of rewards and punishment, hegemonic and powerful groups reproduce their privileges and power positions. The mechanisms of symbolic violence create consent and adjustment to the power structure and to hegemonic ideas and ideologies. Since such mechanisms are an integrated part of modern life and individuals have learned them through their socialisation process, a vast majority will, in normal circumstances, comply to established powerful groups’ will and to the majority opinion, in order to not be subject to punishment, such as forced isolation, exclusion and other negative consequences; such consequences, when applied to the party political context, can, in the worse cases, lead to the destruction of a person’s public image and political career. Many participants in this study voiced their concerns about the (worst) consequences that their non-­compliance and protests against the party line and the leadership of the party would evoke. One of the members of the Centre Party, Mokhles, assesses the consequences of his non-­compliance and protests as follows: I agree for the most part with my party’s policies and programmes, but of course not everything. From time to time, it happens that I am of another opinion to that which the party or at least the party leadership and party friends have. I may or may not publicly say what I really think; I say it, of course, to my friends and those whom I consider having the same ideas as myself. You feel many times that other opinions than the party leadership is not welcome; you may utter them, but you know that there are not many who listen or care; it is always better to comply and support the party line, otherwise you have problem. I have seen those, not many but a few, who have been excluded from the party; not only excluded but also their public life and public image have been destroyed by some other members and, in some cases, by the party leadership. You know, some can contact the media

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and tell them things about you which can destroy your life, at least your public image and political career. You know, things like he supports Islamists, has contact with Islamists and extremist groups, etc. Nowadays, such things are enough to destroy your life. I must admit that I have several times controlled myself to not say things that could provoke such reactions.

Many interviewees consider muzzling themselves in internal and even, in some cases, external debates and discussions as a way of protecting themselves from negative reactions and sanctions from their parties and co-­members. Individuals’ compliance to often unwritten rules or norms in the party constitutes what Butler (1987) calls practices of micro-­power in the Foucauldian paradigm, which both constrain and constitute the freedom of the subject. Individual adjustment to the party line may not always be a conscious act, but, rather, an act of habit, which Bunn (2015), influenced by Marx, calls false consciousness—a way of perceiving the relation between oneself and the world that, as argued in Chap. 2, underpins social control by making certain thoughts and actions literally unthinkable.

3.4   Being Observed and Ignored at the Same Time The securitisation policies that influence political parties, also influence party members in general and party members with immigrant backgrounds in particular. Many interviewees claim that they feel more and more observed in terms of their daily activities and what they say and do. The following member of the Centre Party, Rafaat, says the following about how securitisation has influenced him: In the early days of my membership in the party, I did not feel that my party friends care so much about me, what I do, what I say, you know; but in recent times, the last year actually, I feel that something has changed. I feel myself observed; it seems that they check on me, want to know what I do, even in my private life, contact with friends, etc.

Rafaat explains later what he feels the reason behind such a change is: This is mainly a result of my internal protest against what I saw as wrong-­ doing of the party, the mistakes that we are making on some matters that I think are xenophobic; in fact, not only concerning questions of xenophobia, but the party’s policy of cooperation with the Moderate Party, which is cooperating with Sweden Democrats [a racist party]. This has changed my

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position within the party, I think. They are always those who will misunderstand you, single out something from what you are saying and then accuse you of being “deviant”, uncomfortable and even the one who goes against the party’s policies and who actually is damaging the public image of the party. I feel that I am observed, that there is a sensitivity towards what I am doing and saying; I feel it even when I am not saying anything and keep quiet. I feel also that they do not want me to be part of the party’s internal affairs, discussions, decision-­­making, etc.

The feeling of being both observed and excluded at the same time is common for many members with immigrant backgrounds who do not comply with the party line or with the positions of the party leadership. Some interviewees refer to the existence of a strong sense of ‘party loyalty’—and a sensitivity towards any deviance from it. One member of the Social Democratic Party, Jermino, says the following about such ‘unwritten codes and norms for how to act as a loyal party member’: When I entered the Social Democratic Party, I did it because I believed in Palme heritage, you know, welfare state, solidarity and so on. I thought that if I am in line with such things, I will be a loyal member in the party, but no; there are other things, you know, unwritten codes and norms for how to act as a loyal party member. The best thing to do, seems to be loyal to the party leadership and to the party line, which really often is very difficult to know what the party line is; you have to be careful and sensitive, try to find out what the party line is, or what the future party policy will be, in order to not make a mistake, to not be stepping on someone’s toes.

This is a point of observation that other interviewees mention; sometimes it is a problem for them, as party members with immigrant backgrounds, to establish what is the real party line and the ‘will of the leadership’. Ali, another member of the Social Democratic Party with an immigrant background, explains it as follows: You never know what the leadership’s will or the party’s policy is. You have to be alert and find out by yourself …. There are many groups with different ideas and sometimes conflictual positions towards each other, you have to be careful and find out who really understands the party line correctly. You know, if you become a part of such internal conflicts between these groups, you may be harmed. You see, you are not like them: they are Swedish; I am an immigrant. They will not be harmed as much as I can be; different mistakes will be cause different reactions in the party. You must find out what is

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the will of the leadership and act accordingly. The problem is that this is not easy; sometimes you have to participate in such internal group conflicts, because if you do not, you can be excluded and surveyed; you can be considered as strange, as deviant or even an enemy of the party.

The reason behind Ali’s and Jermino’s compliance to the party line, or to the internal unwritten codes of conduct within the party, is, as was argued in the previous section, what Noelle-­Neumann (1974) calls the ‘fear of isolation’. This is, however, more than just a ‘fear of isolation’, but also a way to building a career and climbing the internal party hierarchy. To talk in the terms of Bourdieu’s (1984, 1990, 2000) theory of symbolic violence and its mechanisms of rewards and punishment: one must see the members of political parties as active agents who know the ‘rules of the game’ and realise that adjustment to the rules will provide them possibilities of internal success and obtaining better positions within the party. This is what many interviewees witness.

3.5   Choosing the Path of Success or Unsuccess Choosing to be silent, and neither fight for one’s ideas within the party nor protest against ideas, discussions and decisions that are contrary to one’s real beliefs and political orientations, is also an option for party members with migrant backgrounds. This choice is often mainly based on a calculation of positive and negative consequences of a member’s actions. Although the ‘fear of isolation’, as proposed in Noelle-­Neumann’s theory of the spiral of silence (1974), is one reason for the silence of party members with immigrant backgrounds in different Swedish political parties, the possibilities of advancing one’s career and making a successful ‘move upwards’ within the party’s organisation is also a motive to be considered for the choices made by such party members. As argued at the end of the previous section, the possibilities of being rewarded for loyalty to and compliance with the will of the party leadership is part of the members’ motives behind their decisions. The mechanisms of symbolic violence, discussed by Bourdieu (1984, 1990, 2000), help us to understand, on the one hand, the exclusion of some members with immigrant backgrounds from internal groups and positions within a political party and their failure to advance their careers, and, on the other hand, the success of other members with immigrant backgrounds.

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Based on the results of this study, one can say that Noelle-­Neumann’s theory of ‘the spiral of silence’ has shortcomings and must be completed by Bourdieu’s theory of ‘symbolic violence’; doing so allows us to understand both the silence and self-­censorship of some of the politicians with migrant backgrounds, while also highlighting cases of others’ active adjustment to, and support of, the ‘party line’. As Bourdieu (2000: 170) maintains, ‘[s]ymbolic violence is the coercion which is set up only through the consent that the dominated cannot fail to give to the dominator.’ In the context of this study, this means that party members and other politicians with immigrant backgrounds provide the party leadership their consent by adjusting themselves to the ‘party line’ and the will of the dominant groups within the party organisation. They do this not only from fear of isolation but also for the support of the party leadership, in building a career in the party. Active support of the ‘party line’ and the party leadership provokes often positive sanctions from the party leadership. In the quote below from an interview with one of the members of the Centre Party, Aleksandra, who is one of the representatives for the party in a middle-­range city in Sweden, the following is given as the reason for her compliance to the ‘party line’ and the will of the party leadership: You know, you have to make your choice; if you enter a party, you have to adjust yourself to the party policy, programmes and so on. I know that the party programmes and policies will change over time, depending on the party’s cooperation and alliance with other parties. I entered the political life, party politics, became a member of the Centre Party to change society, to make it better. I have to listen to the party leadership and adjust myself to the party line. I can have my ideas and sometimes critiques, but I always do it within the norms and boundaries for good cooperation and membership. The spirit of cooperation is very important; they realise then that you are trustworthy, that they can trust you and give you opportunities and possibilities.

Another politician with an immigrant background but this time a member of the Social Democratic Party, Osman, explains the way the party leadership rewarded him for ‘being nice’ and for being ‘considered to be an important person who could help the party to attract migrants and migrant voters’: It was the party secretary, you know the next most important person after the party leader, the Prime Minister, who contacted me several times and

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wanted me to become a member of the party’s steering committee. As she said, my membership in the steering committee was very important for the party; she really insisted quite a lot. I was considered to be an important person who could help the party to attract migrants and migrant voters. They really liked me and tried to convince me of getting an important position in the party. You know, I was a nice person; of course, I was critical of some members whom I considered as taking their rights to talk for me, as a person of immigrant background, but I did not do it harshly or very publicly; I used to put it forward in a gentle way. I was then elected to become a member of the party’s steering committee in one of the country’s major counties.

As recounted, the way Osman was treated in the country’s most influential party, a party with more than 90 years of governmental power, is a textbook example of what Bourdieu (2000) calls symbolic violence. The compliance of Osman to the party’s ambitions of attracting immigrant voters provided him a good opportunity to advance within the party organisation. He was very soon rewarded by becoming a member of a major county’s steering committee for the Social Democratic Party. According to Osman, the party’s interest in him had to do with the party’s ambition of ‘balancing’ some Islamophobic ideas that existed within the party. The party’s interest was in line with what Osman wanted too, that is to combat those ‘who talked in my name.’ He says that: ‘I became a member of S [the Social Democratic Party in Sweden], because I was more angry with S than with SD [the racist party, Sweden Democrats]; I saw that there were many members in S who talked in my name in a racist and Islamophobic manner’. He says the following about his expectations before he became a member of the party and then later on: During the first period, the membership met my expectations, actually more than I could imagine. I had a prejudice about the party, that before you can achieve any party career you had to be incestuous, i.e. being a member of the SSU [Social Democratic Party’s Youth Organisation], know the right people or belong to a certain group in the party, but no, not really; it went very fast for me, this is my personal experience; I gained trust and positions in the party.

However, Osman’s ‘trust capital’ could not remain intact if he, simultaneously, would remain loyal to his own causes. He says that he realised

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that the party’s overall interests were more important than his own. He illustrates it as follows: I knew even before I became a member that the party, which did not dare say things which were horrible [about migrants and Muslims], choose members with immigrant backgrounds, alibis, to say those horrible things. The Social Democratic Party is a large party with many different groups. It is a people movement -­­as least has been once. There are very different groups in the party. You could hear the most racist comments and talks in the party’s annual meeting, for instance, you know; it has also to do with a power struggle in the party, different groups, you know, smear each other, accuse each other, try to win over the other group, something that I was not accustomed with. I had experiences from NGO-­­organisations; there we, on the contrary, tried to cooperate, not fight each other.

Osman’s endeavour—of not being a part of such groups, but at the same time fighting against racism within the party—was, according to him, the beginning of the end for his engagement and career in the party. He says that it was not only party members with a Swedish background, but even members with an immigrant background (who wanted to build a career within the party, and whom he calls ‘alibis’), who started to combat his anti-­ racist ideas and deeds. Such attacks and confrontations increased when Osman was elected the member of the party’s steering committee in one of Sweden’s major cities. He says: A year ago, I was candidate for the election to the party’s steering committee in [one of the country’s major cities]; one of the alibis wrote an article in a local journal about how an Islamist like [Osman] could be a member of the steering committee, how the party could let it happen and a lot of other lies about me. They tried to stop me, but I received support from other members and became a member of the steering committee. I still received support from the party leadership; the party secretary herself contacted me and encouraged me to even become a candidate to the parliament  -­­you know, “We need you”, etc. But there were people from the other branch within the party who did not want me; there were people who had a problem with me as a Palestine-­­activist, Israel-­­friends and so on, who used this line of criticism against me. There were even people who considered me as conservative within LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender]-­­spheres who had a misunderstanding of me; I could not see myself in any of these images of me, as a “conservative uncle”; everything came at the same time and were communicated in the mainstream mass media. This was because of the

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power struggle in the party; some became afraid of my party career upwards -­­ it came very fast and made them scared.

Osman’s case is an illustration of how the mechanisms of symbolic violence may function in a political party. He was rewarded by the party leadership as a member of the party’s steering committee in a major city, because of his background and engagements with questions that were considered by the party as being important for their electoral success. He was even informed that he would be the party’s candidate for the future parliamentary election. All these rewards were eliminated, however, based on the internal and external attacks on him. The party gradually considered him to be a problem for them, as he refused to accept the party’s recommendations that he be ‘a good soldier’ for the party and ‘publicly declare’ that he ‘believes in the rights of LGBT’ and rejects ‘any associations with Muslim organisations’. Osman says that he had even received a ‘written statement’ produced by the communication centre of the party and was asked by the communicators to sign it: The party line in Social Democratic Party is like in a religious, fundamentalist organisation. Even in the recent media bullying against me, I was asked to stay in the party, but I should quit as a member in the steering committee, publicly defend the party line, be a good soldier and deny what is written about you in media. I said “No, I cannot”, because I cannot accept the picture which is painted about me and who I am: it is not me. If I say that the party is right, then I lose myself. If I accept then what they write about me, everything is a lie; I am not interested in that. It is you who want me in the party, not me; I stay for my beliefs and principles. But the party’s communicators wrote a letter for me, a letter of six pages and asked me to sign it and send it to the media. It stated that “I am inspired by Martin Luther King”, and I do not know what; I said “I am sorry I am not this, I am not what you are writing, this is not me”; I said, “I am not silly, I know how to write a journal article”. They considered it as an assault on the communicators, who contacted the party leadership and I had a heated discussion with the party secretary who wanted me to sign the article; when I refused to do so and instead wrote my own article and published it in a daily journal, I was accused of “violating the party line”.

Such an act of ‘deviance’ from the ‘party line’ was to be the last act of ‘disloyalty’. Osman felt that he could no longer remain a party member and he left.

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Osman’s experience is very much shared by other interviewees, who have been subjected to attacks from both the media and other, contentious party members who did not like such critical voices within the party. Akbar, a member of the Green Party, who in the same manner as Osman was expelled from his rather high profiled position within the party, offers a similar narrative to him: There were members who did not like me as a Muslim; it had nothing to do with my person, I always was nice to everybody and had not any personal conflict with anybody. There were influential persons with “hidden power”, who considered any critique of Israel as anti-­­Semitic. As soon as you mentioned the name Palestine or Palestinians, you were considered to be anti-­ Semitic or an Islamic fundamentalist; you have to be very careful what you say about such matters, you know. The media bullying against me had to do with the same matters. They [the media] were informed by those members I mentioned, that I reject to take women in hand as a sign of my anti-­ feminist position. Of course, this has to do with my religious beliefs and has nothing to do with my respect for women. They [a television station in Sweden] came to my office; they had a hidden camera, because what they show later on TV was not filmed as part of their interview with me. They recorded their entrance to my office by a hidden camera, when I had my hand on my chest instead of taking a female journalist in hand. This was broadcasted and debated as a major crime against human values and a sign of my belief in patriarchalism and a violation of equality between women and men. I was contacted by the party leadership and I realised that I could not remain a member of the party anymore. I left my position in the party steering committee and the party.

Accusing somebody of not following the ‘party line’ is often associated with violations of established ‘politically correct’ discourses (i.e. neoliberal racist discourses) and norms that are shared amongst the party. Given the fact that mainstream political parties are dependent on popular electoral support, and the help of the media in order to attract this support, using such discourses is of central importance to the party leadership. The results of this study show that groups complying to the party line take advantage of ‘politically correct’ discourses and accuse ‘deviant members’ of violating those ‘sacred truths’ as respected and reproduced by mainstream media. Given the widespread anti-­Muslimism in Swedish and European media (Kamali 2008, 2015), accusations of ‘Muslimism’ or ‘Muslim anti-­ Semitism’ have been effective means of excluding Muslim members of

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political parties in Sweden. One of the Centre Party’s members with a Muslim background, Abu, illustrates this as follows: I am critical of Israeli occupation and oppression of Palestinians. I am not Palestinian, but think that occupation and everything related to it is wrong. Some party members did not like it, did not like me, you know. They tried to stop me from getting higher positions in the party. Some of them, I do not know who, but can guess; they were my friends on social media, they were spies, believe me, they tried to find something to accuse me of anti-­ Semitism, and not surprisingly they find a conversation between two others of my friends who also have been critical of Israel but used one not suitable word, which I would never use. They informed the local daily, radio and even national media. The party leadership contact me and wanted me to explain myself; they felt that I was accused of anti-­­Semitism without having had really anything to do with it. I tried to convince the party that I cannot not take responsibility for other people’s comments, which I took right away from my page. Although the Jewish Centre in [Abu’s city] wrote to the party that Abu is not an anti-­­Semite, it did not help since the others in the party, Islamophobics, did not want me to be in the party.

However, as mentioned earlier, it is not only members with Muslim backgrounds who are subjected to the punishment aspects of the symbolic violence exerted by political parties. It is also others who do not follow the ‘party line’ on a different basis. Some are accused of being leftist, patriarchal and other deviations of ‘politically correct’ discourses. It must also be mentioned, however, that not everybody who sometimes deviated from the ‘party line’ has then been expelled from party membership. Some members, who on some occasions deviated from the party line or from ‘politically correct’ discourses, have been allowed to remain a member of the party because they publicly regretted their deviations from or violations of party norms and publicly declared their loyalty to the party and its policies. Paula, a member of Social Democratic Party, illustrates this like so: I was critical, I am a critical person and cannot accept whatever the party or the party leadership says. I protested against the party’s cooperation with the Moderates and also against the party’s migration policies; you know, some racist comments and even policies, as I understood them. I was told by some friends that this is not the way you as a party member should behave; you may create enmity towards you and you may have not any future in the party. I very soon realised that they were right; the party leadership and my friends who had plans for me in the party, contacted me and criticised me.

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They say simply: “If you want to stay in the party, you have to accept party policies”. I thought, “Yes, if I want to be a Social Democrat, I have to accept the policies which have been decided by the party, otherwise, I had to leave”. I thought, “Listen, you are after all Social Democrat by ideology, why not stay, accept party policies and try to make it better?” I contacted many party comrades and explained that I want the party to be successful and popular, that is why I criticised some policies; I was recommended to make my support to the party’s policies known for everybody, which I did. I believe I made the right choice; I have now a much better relation with party comrades and the party leadership, and can even influence party policies.

Many interviewees reference the ‘moment of choice’ as a crucial point in their political career. This choice mainly is between two alternatives: either accepting the party line and adjusting oneself to the established, ‘politically correct’ discourses that circulate within public life, or deciding to ‘defend one’s own political conviction’, which in some cases goes against the party line. The latter alternative does not only influence the political lives of party members with immigrant backgrounds, but, according to the interviewees, has longstanding consequences that highly influence their lives far beyond this. Those who have decided to defend their own political convictions and go against the party line have paid a high price, even in their private lives. In this, they mean that when they have been subjected to media bullying, as well as to the intrigue that contentious party members have generated against them, they have lacked the support of the party leadership. On the contrary, they have been considered as ‘a problem’ for the party. This makes them feel very alone in a turbulent time of media attacks, rumours and accusations, with even former party friends trying to distance themselves from them. The bullying and negative publicity harms the member’s political and even ‘social image’. The member of the Centre Party, Abu, who, as mentioned earlier, was forced to leave the party, says the following about what the media bullying of him has meant for his life beyond his political activities: I was member of different organisations; they have been very interested in me, chased me all the time and tried to convince me to be a member of their organisation. After the ‘affair’ and what I was wrongly accused of, many started to distance themselves from me, even my earlier party friends and other friends. They believed what the media and the party have said about me; even if they maybe not believed in what they said, they became afraid for their own positions and allowances from municipal authorities to their

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organisations. I have my own organisation in a marginalised area, helping many youths; the municipal authorities stopped the economic support to us, even though they know that this is one of the most successful organisations in the area. It is horrible; it is not only me who is harmed by such unjust treatment. The media did not even leave my family and children alone. They were very much harmed by the way media treated them. This is still a problem for me; I have applied for several jobs, but did not get them. You know, when you have an image of “being an anti-­­Semite”, it is over; you have no chance.

To reiterate, this is what can be called the ‘punishment’ aspect of the mechanisms of symbolic violence (Bourdieu 2000), to which those who are not compliant with the party line and the political leadership of the party are subjected. The Swedish labour market is very normative and the matter of ‘fitting in’ as ‘a non-­problematic’ employee is at least as important (and in many cases even more important) than an applicant’s professional qualifications. There are many latent and manifest networks in the Swedish labour market, which makes it difficult for a ‘deviant’ person to obtain a job. This is much more obvious in the case of people with an immigrant background (de Los Reyes 2006; de Los Reyes and Kamali 2006; Kamali 2008).

References Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinctions. A social critique of the judgment of taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1990). The logic of practice. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bourdieu, P. (2000). Pascalian meditations. Cambridge: Polity. Bourdieu, P. (2001). Male domination. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Bunn, M. (2015). Reimagining repression: New censorship theory and after. History and Theory, 54(1), 25–44. Butler, J. (1987). Subjects of desire: Hegelian reflections in twentieth-century France. New York: Columbia University Press. Courpasson, D. (2000). Managerial strategies of domination. Power in soft bureaucracies. Organization Studies, 21(1), 141–161. de Los Reyes, P. (red.) (2006). Arbetslivets (o)synliga murar (The (un)visible borders of the labour market). Stockholm: Fritzes. de Los Reyes, P., & Kamali, M. (2006). Bortom Vi och Dom: Teoretiska reflektioner om makt, integration och strukturell diskirminering [Beyond us and them: Theoretical reflections on power, integration and structural discrimination]. Stockholm: Fritzes.

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Kamali, M. (2008). Racial discrimination: Institutional patterns and politics. New York: Routledge. Kamali, M. (2015). War, violence and social justice: Theories for social work. London: Routledge. Kernecker, T. (2017). Ambition as a micro-foundation of party loyalty. Party Politics, 23(5), 538–548. Müller, W. C. (2000). Political parties in parliamentary democracies. Making delegation and accountability work. European Journal of Political Research, 37, 309–333. Noelle-Neumann, E. (1974). The spiral of silence: A Theory of public opinion. Journal of Communication, 24(2), 43–51. Stimson, J. A., Mackeuen, M. B., & Erkison, R. S. (1995). Dynamic representation. American Political Science Review, 89(3), 543–565.

CHAPTER 4

Securitisation and Self-Censorship in Mainstream Media

This part of the study is based on in-­depth interviews with fifteen journalists who come from an immigrant background, nine women and six men and three journalists with Swedish background, two women and one man as a control group. The main focus of the study has been to capture such journalists’ experiences of Swedish mainstream media in a time of increasing securitisation and neoliberal racism. The mainstream media is a crucial tool for legitimising the ideas of the most powerful agents in societies (Herman and Chomsky 1994), much of its content arranged and working to serve a partisan and conservative set of interests (Edwards and Cromwell 2006). The system for organising media in Sweden is no different to that in other neoliberal countries. As mentioned in Chap. 2, a governmental inquiry into power structures in Sweden concluded that the mass media comprises the country’s third power centre and has close connections with both its first (i.e. economic) and the second (i.e. political) power centres (SOU 1990: 44). The mass media functions in certain socioeconomic, political and cultural environments and plays a central role in maintaining the system that organises and controls it. Also as mentioned in Chap. 2, Bourdieu considers this to constitute processes in the production, reproduction and the function of symbolic power, which aims at ‘constituting the given through utterances, of making people see and believe, of confirming or transforming the vision of the world and, thereby, action on the world and thus the world itself’ © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. Kamali, Neoliberal Securitisation and Symbolic Violence, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71210-5_4

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(Bourdieu 1991: 170). The mass media distributes and popularises the elite’s perspective and ‘image of reality’. Earlier studies in Sweden show the mass media functions in the services of the elite, that is making their assumptions the norm of media activities—and informing the ideas and perspectives that are disseminated within majority society (Brune 1998; Löwander 1998; Norman 2004; Camauër and Nohrstedt 2006; Roald 2013; Kamali 2015, among others). Such studies conclude that the strong position of the mainstream mass media in public life leads to the control of popular opinion, its discourses being circulated and enforced through the means of public communication. It could be said that without a mass media, the hegemony of socioeconomic, political and cultural elites would not be possible. Although the established elites use many different means of reproducing the hegemonic ideology and excluding minority opinions, the prime position of the mass media in our mediatised world makes it a main source of the reproduction of mainstream discourses and governmentalisation. As discussed in earlier chapters, one such mechanism is the public punishment of minority and deviant opinions and the use of governmentalised experts in confirming the advantages of the elites’ established worldviews in order to lead public opinion in the desired direction. In today’s so-­called knowledge-­based society, mainstream knowledge, ideology and ideas are produced and communicated via a mass media controlled by powerful economic and political centres. Taken-­for-­granted ‘truths’ produced by majority society elites, such as democracy, the superiority of the West over the non-­Western countries and people, the necessity of exercising wars and violence (and even the use of the weapons of mass destruction) in other countries, are uncritically communicated and provide an important means of exercising symbolic violence against otherised people. The fact that most media institutions and artefacts are part of a complex chain of market commodities within the wider capitalist economy (Murdock and Golding 1973; Garnham 1979; Herman and Chomsky 1994; Golding and Murdock 1997; Craig 2004; McChesney 2008; Mosco 2009; Kamali 2015; Kamali and Jönsson 2018) makes considering the mass media as an independent set of democratic institutions almost impossible. That is why critical research is not given the same attention in the mainstream media as research conducted within the frame of ‘neoliberal knowledge production’ (Kamali 2015). Löwstedt and Mboti (2017: 114) argue that:

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Under belligerent circumstances, the media may even be described as weapons. The ‘struggle for the sign’ may also involve different forms of censorship, the elimination of messages, and also players or teams from the arena. Certain forms and acts of communication or regulation of communication are violent, or preludes or incitement to violence. The media, then, can be instruments or weapons of their owners, managers, regulators and others in executive positions.

A neoliberal and discriminatory media environment makes it a challenge for many individuals with immigrant backgrounds, such as researchers, politicians, journalists and civil society activists, to work and to act. The mass media is one of the most important instruments the elites possess for exercising their symbolic power, providing them thus a central role in the discursive reproduction of reality; ‘versions of events’ are here constructed in accordance with their desires and ideas (Bourdieu 2003; Couldry 2000, 2012). Those who do not accept the way the mass media functions—that is by discriminating against, for instance, people with immigrant backgrounds—will be subjected to the punishment mechanisms of symbolic violence. A recent sensational news story serves as an illustration of this. In October 25, 2020, thirty-­nine Swedish journalists with immigrant backgrounds, who are working or had worked in the large broadcasting company Swedish Radio (SR), published a protest letter in the major Swedish journal Dagens Nyheter (DN), against racism in SR. They wrote six-­page-­long testimonies about the ways such journalists were subjected to racism both in SR and in the major Swedish public service media more generally. In their protest letter, they stated that: The opinion which was raised against the way black Americans are treated can be seen on the surface as foreign news. This is just half of the fact. To not see the parallels (notwithstanding necessary differences) to the systemic discrimination of and racism against blacks and other racialised Swedes is to fail in our journalistic mission, something we believe that Swedish Radio in many ways does do – fail. We have all experienced the editorial laziness in listening to Afro-­­Swedish voices, shortcomings in organised and multifaceted reporting of this subject in Sweden and the lack of a ‘sense of urgency’ about such questions that are shaking the entire world.

This is exactly a problem that has been addressed in earlier studies about the Swedish media, that is the selective reporting about urgent events that would otherwise disturb the mainstream media’s (racist) image

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of reality (Brune 1998; Camauër and Nohrstedt 2006; Kamali 2008; Roald 2013). The journalists continued that: Our experiences show that Swedish Radio, instead of following our basic humanist values and stand against racism, has chosen to actively play a passive and anxious role. The consequence of such a position is that we who are burning to address such questions [racism and diversity] are placed in the same box as the experts who without any reason are stigmatised as “controversial researchers” or debaters. It is insinuated or is openly stated that our engagement with such questions [racism and discrimination], which should be a normal act of journalism, instead can be a crime against impartiality and neutrality. This bias is based on a “whiteness norm” which is made synonymous with objectivity. We mean that this it is just a pretended objectivity. Simultaneously, we see that when recruiting new persons, in particular to higher positions, the white persons are included in quotas. We cannot find any better explanation than that; it is about affirmative action for whites.

The journalists who signed the protest letter explained that they had been to the leadership of Swedish Radio and complained, but that no one took them seriously; on the contrary many have been considered as ‘deviant’ and ‘defenders of identity politics’—the latter being a term that is frequently used against the raising of any debate or complaint about the shortage of diversity and the problem of racism and racialisation. A few days later, a Swedish tabloid journal, Expressen (October 24, 2020), published an article in which the famous Swedish journalist, Alexandra Pascalido, interviewed new journalists working in Swedish television and radio and published new information about racism and discrimination against journalists with immigrant backgrounds. A journalist, Ametist Azordegan, who has left public service broadcasting because of racism, said here, ‘I felt myself a bastard in that place, like you are not welcome and do not belong to public service broadcasting’. Some others reported witnessing or even being subjected to racism in both its symbolic forms (i.e. symbolic violence) and its more overt forms of violence. The public service journalist, Arash Mokhtari, who had worked in Swedish television but left his job after a series of racist incidents, says here that: ‘The last thing that happened was that my personal locker was vandalised’, that is by some of his white colleagues, who did not like his engagement in questions of racism and discrimination, as a signal to him that this workplace was not safe for him.

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The testimonies of journalists in the Swedish public service, both those referred to above and those who are interviewed for this work, show a harshening situation for journalists with immigrant backgrounds. The next section, which presents the interviewed journalists’ narratives about their precarious positions in the Swedish media, illustrates this fact in more detail. The main themes that emerge from the interviews are: ‘Increasing demand for compliance neoliberal racism and the securitised mass media’; ‘Muzzling as self-­protection’, ‘Being observed and ignored at the same time’; and ‘Choosing the path of success and unsuccess’. The themes are not (at an analytical level) mutually exclusive categories but, rather, are interrelated and build on one another.

4.1   Increasing Demand for Compliance with Neoliberal Racism and the Securitised Mass Media Neoliberalism has left nothing out its fundamental reconstruction of society, putting in place new mechanisms to control individual conduct. As Foucault (1976) argues, the transformation from liberalism to ordoliberalism—that is from exchange to competition—has generalised the logic of competition to apply to the working of all socio-­political, cultural apparatus of society, as well as its subjects, who are increasingly considered as autonomous individuals. Competitive principles work even for ‘cultural workers’ including journalists (Lazzarato 2009). However, such competition does not take place on equal terms. Given the existence of neoliberal racism (see Chap. 2), journalists with immigrant and minority backgrounds experience a number of difficulties in competing with journalists with majority backgrounds. As the content of the narratives told by interviewees in this study would suggest, the institutions of journalism are also formed by racial hierarchies and structural inequalities. Such an unequal and discriminatory reality is often helped by colonial discourses in the process of the racialisation of journalists with immigrant backgrounds. Neoliberal securitisation of Swedish society has also influenced the institutions of the mass media. Given the fact that journalism always engages a public, the nature of its content and concerns both mirrors and (quite significantly) helps to shape the social and political norms of its target audience. Moreover, that this public in Sweden is, in almost all cases, considered to be synonymous with

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white majority society—together with the fact that the Swedish mass media more generally tends to reflect the interests of said majority society—makes journalism a challenging profession for journalists with immigrant backgrounds. As earlier research shows (see Chap. 2), the media serves as an instrument in the hands of those in power, with there being a close relationship between the mainstream media and economically strong and powerful classes and agents (Herman and Chomsky 1998; McChesney 2004, McChesney and Nichols 2005). It has been argued that the globally significant media are, to a large extent, controlled and influenced by white people, by people with recent European, especially Western European, origins. This applies to ownership, as well as to more indirect influences— such as sponsorship (especially advertising, including ownership of advertising agencies, as well as the advertisers themselves) and also through state power (such as censorship, surveillance, media legislation in general, and other forms of media regulation, or through historic momentum, such as the conquest and integration of the world to a North Atlantic centre over the course of the last five centuries). The media is thus dominated especially, but not only, by rich, white males. Journalists interviewed in this study tell narratives about the changing conditions of public debates because of the reinforcement of neoliberal racism and the securitisation of their works. Interviewee Paola, one of the country’s most famous anti-­racist journalists, illustrates this as follows: Questions of racism, discrimination, segregation have come to be taboos in the public sphere, in the public debate. The dominating discourse and narrative today is really “One has to blame herself” and “All are responsible for what is happening”; the state, the society have no responsibility for what is happening in segregated areas, or with migrants, the poor or other groups, you know. This greatly influences the conditions of journalism in the country. It has become much harsher than earlier, harsh debate from some years ago. Although the anti-­­racist debate and programmes have been under attack even before, but it has become much harsher now.

She explains that the Swedish public service broadcasters and mainstream media do not want any reports on or programmes about issues that are considered ‘conflictual’ and, as such, ‘political’; she says that, according to the mainstream agenda, ‘governmental policies, political parties and politicians should be excluded from discussions on racism, inequalities and other problems’. In other words, socioeconomic problems and racist

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oppressions have been depoliticised and presented as individual problems. If the political and elite establishment talk about anti-­racism, they reframe it as ‘understanding each other’, and ‘respecting each other’ in order to create ‘harmony’ in society—a way of denying racism and its societal consequences (Nelson 2013, 2015). Paola, in line with the aforementioned journalists who protested against racism in Swedish public service broadcasting, says that ‘this is a mechanism of whiteness’, that is the leadership of Swedish television and radio broadcasting companies use the concept of ‘neutrality’ and ‘impartiality’ as a way of excluding political and anti-­racist questions and programmes from the public service agenda. A journalist, Sam who had worked in Swedish television for several years before being forced to leave, illustrates this: When I started my journalist career in Sweden, several years ago, you could be political. The media could say that they wanted you to be against some ideas and defend some other ideas. But today it has changed; everything that can be considered political is forbidden; you cannot report or make programmes which they call political; you should be neutral. Now, there are some groups in the parliament who say that they do not accept political programmes in public service broadcasting. By “political programmes”, I mean programmes about racism, diversity, the situation of immigrants in the country, in the labour market, etc.

Sam refers to the racist party Sweden Democrats (SD), which entered the Swedish parliament in 2010 and is now the second largest party in the country. As mentioned earlier (see Chap. 1), the electoral success of SD in Sweden, and the mainstream parties’ adjustment to their racist policies, has influenced many other parts of Swedish society, including the mass media (Kamali 2008, 2015). The anti-­immigrant debate has moved the Swedish ‘politically correct discourse’ to the right and provided it with a more racist content. When Sam started his job in Swedish television, he believed in independent journalism in public service broadcasting: When I started working in Swedish TV, I believed that public service broadcasting could be independent and resist political intervention, but this was just an illusion; politicians could inform the way journalism in public service broadcasting should be carried out. Everything which become sensitive in the parliament, become sensitive in Swedish television too. They closed the journalists’ mouths.

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Some journalists speak about a major change in their ‘journalistic freedom’ since the so-­called asylum crisis of 2015. A public service journalist, Ronya, says: During the last five, six years that I have worked in public service broadcasting, the summer of 2015, prior to the asylum situation in Europe, I had quite a lot of freedom; I received recognition for my competency, all language competency, my jurist background, everything. During the autumn of 2015, it was me who could do reports and programme about all the “burning questions”, from the war in Syria, the asylum crisis and everything there between. They provided me a tenure position because they believed that I could help public service broadcasting with my competency. … From the autumn of 2015, when the political change happened, I started realising that public service editorial was changing and starting to adjust itself to more populist winds; I started realising the change by the way my colleagues argued in our editorial meetings. I had maybe the freedom which was related to my “honeymoon” at public service broadcasting but, after one and a half years, my freedom became very limited; earlier, I was respected, seen and heard for my journalist competency, but gradually my freedom become limited. … It was something which has happened with the development of society -­­an ideological, political change towards a more populist stance.

The increasing importance of securitisation policies for journalism has been mentioned by many interviewees, who explain that such policies have influenced their work in many ways. Sam, for instance, says: Two areas of journalism are more important than other areas today, and they are security journalism and criminal journalism. If you can do journalism in these two areas, the bosses at the TV station will invite you to important meetings and be the first to stand in line and applaud for you. There is a hierarchy in journalism; those areas that I was interested in and is part of my life, our lives, were not important and interesting for Swedish television; they were not areas that you could receive journalist praise. If you make reports related to terrorists in, for instance, Rinkeby [a marginalised suburb of Stockholm], you will receive journalist praise.

The lower status of journalism reporting on migrants, racism and diversity is something that all journalists interviewed in this work have mentioned. Moreover, everybody also made the claim that if they were to do a report or programme on security policies and criminality related to people with immigrant backgrounds, they would be considered a ‘good

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journalist’, that is one who is not reinforcing ‘identity politics’. Many interviewees talk about the harshening climate of journalism, in which positive reporting of diversity is not considered to be important or ‘newsworthy’. This is a substantial change in journalism, according to the interviewees. Many say that when they started their journalism career several years ago, the situation was different. Sadia, who have been working as a journalist for more than fifteen years, illustrates this: When they hired me, everybody, my colleagues, my chiefs, talked about how important my background, language and cultural background was for the journal I was working for, but this has changed very much. Today, they do not want you to write anything about diversity, multiculturalism, etc. But yes, you are welcome to write about criminality in which immigrants are involved or terrorism related to Muslims.

Sardar, who has worked as a journalist for many years, explains how the situation for him and other journalists has been changing because of the reinforcement of security policies in his workplace: Before September 11, it was not like today; you could still do programmes about Muslims and their difficult situation in Sweden. You could show, for instance, that if you were Muslim, you had difficulties in the labour market, in the housing market, and if you were Muslim and black, you had double problems; but today they want a balance, that is: “They are also responsible for their own problems”. For example, if a Muslim explodes himself with a bomb, why don’t all Muslims come out and condemn it; as if a white, let’s say a white American conduct terrorist acts and kill people, all white Americans should go out and condemn him.

Many testify to these harshening working conditions. They illustrate various ways and techniques of exercising pressure on journalists with immigrant backgrounds, to present their engagement in anti-­racist and diversity questions as ‘deviant’ and as not welcome in the organisation. Sam says the following about this: They [the anti-­­immigrant public] used to send e-­­mails to my colleagues and complain about me and what I was doing, my programmes and reports. My colleagues who were not happy with me and with my programmes and reports, like, reports and programmes about racism or diversity, used to tell me that “We are tired of getting these e-­­mails”. They turned even to the

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chiefs of Swedish TV and complained. This was a way of forcing me to be quiet, to stop doing programmes about racism and diversity.

The legal status of the employment of journalists is another reason behind why some journalists accept the limitation of their activities and even practise self-­censorship. Many complain about the insecure nature of much employment within the journalist branch and the way it hinders them from doing journalism about certain subjects, such as racism and diversity. Sara, who today holds a high-­ranking position in Swedish public service radio broadcasting but has previously experienced job insecurity, explains it as follows: I could not do whatever I do today as a journalist if I did not have secure employment. I used to be very cautious about what I did or what I wrote before I had the position which I have today. I could not either sign the [aforementioned] petition about racism in public service broadcasting if I had the same position and employment conditions as I had several years ago.

Even those who are called freelance journalists do not feel themselves safe in writing about ‘sensitive matters’, that is questions about anti-­ Muslimism and racism today. There is, they argue, a scepticism from the media about defending the civil rights of Muslims or being critical against their demonisation. Niko explains thus: I have no steady job, or permanent employment as a journalist. I have to write articles of whatever I can sell to the media in order to be able to pay my rent. I cannot write or do a programme about whatever I want, but write about what the media, my clients so to say, require. After so many years in this branch, I know what they want and believe me, it has become much harsher today. It is almost forbidden to feel pity about Muslims and write a piece supportive of the Muslim community or of those who in some cases are accused of terrorism. You do not find any media which is ready to accept such articles. It is even worse when it [the article] comes from you who has an immigrant background. They think that you may share the same attitudes as them. It was not like this some years ago; there was still room for writing about such things, but not now.

The harshening conditions for many journalists with immigrant backgrounds are mainly related to changing working conditions, neoliberal management (in which editors have gained more power to decide about

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the content to be sent or published in mainstream media), and increasing political racism and securitisation policies influencing journalism. The situation may not be as harsh for journalists with majority backgrounds as for those with immigrant backgrounds, but they confirm that the situation of journalism has changed. Oscar, one such journalist who has worked for many years and published his articles in several mainstream journals, says: We have been influenced by national and even international changes. What happens in the US media, for instance, influences us very much. I may not be harmed as my colleagues with immigrant backgrounds, since they cannot accuse me of being a terrorist, but, yes, even my work has been influenced by such changes. I see that there is not anymore a demand or a market for writing or reporting about racism, segregation or diversity. It seems that such things belonged to another time -­­once upon a time when we had politicians who thought that such questions were important.

The changing conditions of journalism have forced many journalists to adjust themselves to the new rules of the game in order to protect themselves and have a job and make a living. Paola puts it like so: ‘I think that all mainstream parties adjust themselves to the harsher climate, to SD and other racist groups. There is no difference between different parties, all parties have adjusted themselves.’ (Indeed, this is what earlier research on Sweden’s and other European countries’ political development after September 11, 2001, has confirmed (Kamali 2008, 2015).) She continues: I cannot write about or say what is correct about a racist party, such as SD, anymore, you know, because of the pathetic principle of “neutrality” in Swedish public service broadcasting. This provides them [SD] carte blanche to say and do whatever they want, and we critical journalists cannot say anything against them. You know, I avoid mentioning their name and try to instead talk about the phenomenon of racism, as if racism is something that does not exist in Sweden.

Another journalist, Ayaz, who works for one of the country’s major dailies, argues that the harshening situation requires mobilisation and reaction against the ‘powerful agents in society’, who are a threat to democracy and the freedom of speech: Self-­­ censorship is, of course, a threat to democracy and to freedom of speech; even if it is called self-­­censorship, it is something that have been

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forced on us and society must take responsibility for it. I think that self-­ censorship and racism are going to get stronger if we do not do anything about it. It is going to be worse in a few years; it seems that it is very difficult to wake people up and make them concerned about what is happening.

He adds that ‘given the current situation and the growing influence of the racist party, SD, and other racist groups and a situation in which mainstream parties think more about their votes than the principle of human rights and freedom of speech, the future is very dark, I think.’

4.2   Muzzling as Self-Protection The situation of ‘feeling fearful of telling the truth’ or ‘writing and saying what you want to say’ is even worse for journalists with immigrant backgrounds who are explicitly critical of neoliberal racism. Paola, who as mentioned before is one of the most known anti-­racist journalists with an immigrant background in Sweden, illustrates this in the following way: It happens all the time that I think twice or several times before I write or say something, things that are sensitive; not only because of attacks from internet trolls, but because of fear of being cast away by the media. For instance, the worst thing you can do today is to call somebody racist, even if they are racist; or the question of the Palestine/Israel conflict, since it is very sensitive and, like, you cannot participate and discuss their [Palestinians] rights; or problems in marginalised areas – you cannot discuss social factors anymore without being accused of finding a pretext for marginalised people’s problems, what they do. It happens all the time; you have to self-­­censor what you are saying and writing.

Paola’s argument about the fear of ‘being cast away by the media’ is what Noelle-­Neumann (1977) see as the reason for increasing self-­­censure. Noelle-­Neumann argues that individuals’ fear of being marginalised in public life is one of the main reasons behind their choice to not articulate their real ideas. Paola illustrates this even more clearly in the following words: It has happened many times, almost all the time, that I’ve kept silent about a matter that I really want to say something about, to protest about what the others are saying, but because of what I know that will happen afterwards, I remain silent; you know, the free speech is constrained. I can say that this

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happens all the time, in particular because of those questions we are working with, [such as] diversity, equality, racism, anti-­­racism; questions which create a huge reaction today; there is a huge resistance towards discussing such questions, which are [pejoratively] called ‘identity politics’.

The backlash against what has been called the politics of multiculturalism has resulted in many attacks from right-­wing politicians and experts in the media against anyone who talks about diversity and racism. Using the concept of ‘identity politics’ has been part of such anti-­immigrant and discriminatory politics. As illustration is the reaction of the right-­wing liberal journal Götebrogs Posten to the aforementioned protest letter against racism in Swedish television and radio signed by journalists with immigrant backgrounds. The editorial of the journal, signed by the right-­wing journalist Adam Cwejman (September 29, 2020), stated that ‘the problem of Swedish radio is political activism, not racism’. The editorial criticised journalists who made public issues of racism in Swedish radio and who asked for change. As many journalists interviewed in this work say, they are aware that any articles or reports about racism in Sweden will evoke a huge negative reaction, both from majority society and from racist and anti-­ immigrant groups. As Ayaz says: Just the knowledge of what hell any report on racism and discrimination will create for you makes you keep silent; not all the time, of course, but for the majority of times. You know, as a person with an immigrant background, you always risk being “misunderstood” by the chiefs or colleagues, and even by the public, if you know what I mean. You have to be careful and not provoke any such reactions; you have no possibility of being able to handle it. Your chiefs or colleagues are not going to support you. Take me, as a person from a Muslim country. If I, for instance, was to do a report about discrimination against Muslims, I put myself at risk of being accused of supporting Islam or Muslim terrorism. That is why I often keep silent. I do not change my ideas and beliefs but have to keep silent to keep my job.

Ayaz’s strategy of keeping silent is based on his experience of the mechanisms of symbolic violence. He tells the history of a friend working for a famous Swedish journal and about the reasons he was forced to leave his job. Ayaz says that his friend, who did not comply with the ‘almost racist way of reporting about migrants’, was frequently called to the editor-­in-­ chief of the journal and warned of the consequences of ‘do not respecting his colleagues’ attitudes and professionalism’. He was accused of ‘not

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being familiar with Swedish culture and democratic journalism’. Ayaz says that his friends told him that ‘he [his friend] could not stay and keep fighting every day and so he left the journal’. Ayaz sees his friend’s destiny as a ‘lesson’ for him to not express his beliefs openly and he tries instead to keep them to himself. Many journalists with immigrant backgrounds tell stories about the shortcomings of colleagues with Swedish backgrounds in respect of understanding racism and discrimination in the Swedish media. Taha is one such case: When you talk to your Swedish colleagues, they do not understand. It seems that they believe that you exaggerate that [discrimination] and should try to understand the perspective of others in the organisation, if you understand what I mean. You know, it is really very hard to convince Swedish colleagues of the existence of racism and discrimination in the organisation. Let me give you an example. When we discuss criminality among youths, the criminals’ immigrant backgrounds become more interesting than anything else – for instance, their economic background, segregation, psychological problems, school problems, etc., etc.. When you tell them that we have to qualify our news with such facts, they cannot understand you; they think that I want to hide the criminal youths’ immigrant background. They see themselves as a “truth teller”; it is really very hard for them to see outside of the box. It seems that they are programmed like a robot to only see the youth’s immigrant background and see it as an all-­­ explanatory reason behind their behaviour.

Taha’s narrative can be understood with reference to the theory of governmentalisation. Many journalists, in particular those from majority society, have been socialised in a system of neoliberal and racialising governance, through which the structural and institutional mechanisms behind criminality are ignored and explanation is instead reduced to the level of individual reasons and choices. Equally, issues of structural and institutional racism and discrimination are also ignored and, therefore, the overrepresentation of youths with immigrant backgrounds in crimes among youngsters is often explained in terms of the youths’ ‘deviant cultures’ (Kamali 2008; Jönsson 2013). As Paola says: When you try to explain it for them [journalists with a Swedish background], they think that you are from another planet; it is meaningless. The say, “Don’t you see? They have immigrant backgrounds. What are you talking

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about?”. They want easy answers, easy news, to make it easy for Swedes to understand and have their prejudices proven. They often accuse us of not telling the truth to the public. They really believe in what Robert Aschberg [a famous television journalist], who did the racist programme about immigrant youths’ criminality, said – “I do programmes about what is true and interesting, irrespective of its consequences”. He could not understand that what he believes is true – and the majority society finds interesting – can be false, fake news, if you simultaneously fail to discuss the real reason behind segregated youths’ criminality.

As discussed in Chap. 2, Foucault (1976) sees governmentalisation as a process, one that, for any given individual, begins in childhood and involves disciplining them to accept the rationality of the current socioeconomic and political system; throughout life, they must adjust themselves to the external requirements of the social order through the exertion of self-­control. Such journalists who are disciplined and governmentalised in the neoliberal-­racialised system of Sweden are often unable to see ‘outside the box’; nor do they try to understand alternative explanations for the content of the news and programmes they create. This leads often to, as Taha says, ‘a pressure on you to control yourself, to not say what you really want to say; sometimes – or even often – being silent spares you a lot of trouble’. Sara, who, as mentioned earlier, works in public service radio broadcasting says, that she learned in the early stages of her journalist career to muzzle herself and hide her real ideas, this being due to several reasons. She explains one of them thus: The journalist branch is a bit special and different from many other branches. The employment situation is very insecure for a long time, if we talk about your [one’s] position. For instance, one of the reasons that many journalists chose to be anonymous in their [aforementioned] public petition about the lack of diversity in Swedish radio was that they have short-­­term and temporary positions and were afraid of being stigmatised as problem-­­makers who it would be easy to fire; it is very easy to fire somebody who have a short-­ term, six-­­month position – to say “Thank you – and adios”! This is a situation that I had in my first eight years as journalist; it is very common for many journalists. I have worked in major media companies in Sweden; I had a short-­­ term contract for eleven months, but the short-­­ term contracts became shorter and shorter, like three months and then extended it with one month and further one month and further one month. They could ring

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and ask me to do whatever they wanted. I could still pay my rent, but it was very stressful; you do not know if you have a job next month or not. I think this is a reason that leads to self-­­censorship. You have to adjust yourself to what they want; for instance, “What is the major news or line in this media? Okay, they choose news about train or car accidents” and you have to do the same in order to be able to continue to work there. This is what I learned; I had minority journalism as my special area, but this was not something that could give you an extension for your job.

Sara explains that this is not about a conscious form of discrimination, where somebody tells you that you are an immigrant or that you cannot do reports about minority issues, but, rather, it is about ‘a sense of mismatch, that you are not belonging to them, that you are not suitable for the job. That is why if you want to keep your job, you have to identify what is required in this journal, for instance; minority journalism has no high status and it is not going to have such a status either since it is minority journalism’. She adds that: ‘In order to preserve your position and job in the branch, you have to keep silent and do not put certain things under question’. Sam, similarly, speaks about ‘the culture of the organisation’, which, he argues, forces him to keep silent given that complaining about racism and discrimination in the organisation will mean he cannot have any success: You have to be careful to not even react to some of the racist and discriminatory actions and utterances of your colleagues; you have to work with them. And you know that your position is not as strong as theirs; you have to keep quiet in many cases. They have the entire system with them; you have not much chance to even convince the chiefs that you are right, that something or somebody has been racist against you. That is why you keep silent, keep your mouth closed, in order to not create more problems for yourself. This is the culture of the organisation.

Both Sara’s and Sam’s narratives about their working situation can be analysed to understand the ways the mechanisms of symbolic violence function. If Sara and Sam do not comply with ‘the culture of organisation’, they will be punished, while if they comply, they will keep their jobs—and even, as in Sara’s case, they have a better career in the organisation. The punishment, as Bourdieu (2001: 2) puts it, does not happen through physical or harsh violence but through symbolic violence, which is (to use again, from Chap. 2, his famous quote) ‘a gentle violence,

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imperceptible and invisible even to its victims, exerted for the most part through the purely symbolic channels of communication and cognition (more precisely misrecognition), recognition, or even feeling.’ There is also an inequality in terms of the recognition afforded to journalists’ ‘feelings’—with journalists with immigrant backgrounds faring unfavourably on this front in comparison with ‘majority society’ journalists. A journalist, Noor, who has worked in public service broadcasting for many years, explains such inequality in the following fashion: It is very easy for Swedes to feel that they are insulted; you have to be very careful. Even if in many cases they insult you, you have to be silent, since they can accuse you of being harsh, which has often to do with your culture, of course. It seems that you have to accept how things work here, that you are the guest, the deviant, who does not belong to here; you are here for a while and must return to where you come from. All you do, defending your integrity and right to be treated equally as others in the same rank and situation, can be considered problematic, offensive and “not Swedish”, you know. This is, of course, for us and not for them; their feelings are facts but not our feelings. This is adding to why I choose to be silent, muzzle myself in such circumstances; I want to keep my job, that is the way it is.

Many journalists with immigrant backgrounds talk about muzzling as a way of keeping their jobs, or at least sparing themselves ‘a lot of problems’, and also of being accepted by their colleagues as a member of the working group. As a journalist, Melinda who is working at a middle-­ ranged daily, says: ‘I do not want to be deviant anymore; I have experienced it in my earlier workplace and know that it is very tough, to have anxiety every day before going to your job’—this indeed perfectly articulating the dynamics behind what the existence of the ‘spiral of silence’ (Noelle-­Neumann 1974; and see Chap. 2). Some journalists speak about living a double life in order to be able to have a job and make their living. Sadia says that she even uses ‘different language’, that is different discourses, according to whether she is talking to people who share her perspectives or those who do not: I use different language when I talk to those who understand racism compared to when I talk to those who do not share my views or my anti-­­racist engagement and attitudes. It has become part of my life as a journalist who has been engaged in these questions over many years. I know what is going to happen when I say something and to who I say it.

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The aforementioned famous journalist Paola confirms this and say that she has to ‘have very good arguments and even calculate how my articles and TV and radio programmes will be received by different groups and which reactions my journalistic activities will evoke’. The fear of being isolated and of feeling deviant leads, according to Noelle-­Neumann, to people’s behaviour of choosing to be silent and keep their real thoughts hidden; the mass media is one of the strongest driving forces behind people keeping silent or adjusting themselves to politically correct (or media-­ friendly) discourses. As she (1991: 276) puts it: ‘I have never found a spiral of silence that goes against the tenor of the media, for the willingness to speak out depends in part upon sensing that there is support and legitimation from the media.’

4.3   Being Observed and Ignored at the Same Time Journalists who have been interviewed in this work say that their position as public actors put them in a very difficult situation and make them more vulnerable than many other professions. Specifically, they argue, they are observed both by colleagues and superiors in the workplace and media organisations and by the public. Moreover, they have to handle the fact that they are both observed and ignored at the same time. Sam, who, as mentioned earlier, has now left his position on Swedish television, discusses the control the public were able to hold over his journalist activities: They [the public] surveil you and put you under observation all the time. If they do not like the programme you do, they contact the chiefs of the television station and complain. They say that “He is propagating his own ideas and not the attitudes of the public”. This is a way to stop me and others like me from doing critical programmes; from doing programmes about the truth of what is going on in society.

Sam says that, in his particular case, it was not only the public that exercised control and surveillance, but also some of his colleagues, who did not like journalists with immigrant backgrounds. He says that he had been receiving several ‘strange e-­mails’ and comments that aimed to downplay his competence and to bully him. He also reveals other mechanisms of ‘being observed and ignored at the same time’:

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They do not give you the same attractive areas of journalism; it seems that they do not see you; I mean of course they see you, they see your weaknesses, even if they are much lesser than those of many Swedish colleagues, but they ignore you when they choose journalists to do important journalistic jobs, such as political reporting, economic reporting and so on. It also depends on a bigger problem. Many of those journalists [with Swedish backgrounds] have their own sources in the police and other authorities who provide them with information; information that they can use to write about. I do not have those channels; you cannot have such interesting information that you can use to make an interesting programme.

Sam’s narrative is supported by some of the other journalists interviewed, who argue that there is a sense of mistrust towards them among the Swedish authorities. As one such interviewee, Mansour, says: ‘when I ring the police or other authorities, you get the feeling that they think, “Who are you to ask for interview or information?” Almost, like, “Go back to your own country where you come from and do critical journalism there, why do you do it here?”’. Concerning the question of how he evaluates the role his migrant background has played in his professional journalism, Sam answers, ‘It is better to say “How did it not influence my professional activities?”; it influenced all aspects of my job and activities’. He adds that he had applied for many jobs in Swedish television but has never even been called to an interview. He says that ‘they surveil and control whatever you do, your mistakes, but ignore your competence and expertise’. His following narrative illustrates what many journalists with immigrant backgrounds say: When I was hired in Swedish television, they wanted me to find new publics for the organisation; find those who talked other languages, like many migrant groups. The condition of getting the job was, of course, to do that. For example, when they wanted to interview a certain immigrant group, I could do it and their voices were heard on TV. I used also to read social media – Facebook, for instance – where some TV programmes have been criticised; I provided the leadership with such information. I helped them with such things. I even was used as translator; they called me to listen to interviews with people with immigrant backgrounds and tell them [television journalists] what they [people with immigrant backgrounds] talked about. But after a few years I understood that they see you when they need you and, afterwards, they do not care about you and your career.

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Such narratives suggest that bosses of media organisations want journalists with immigrant backgrounds to reinforce ‘the culture of their organisation’, that is the established mainstream assumptions about migrant communities, or ‘the others’. As long as journalists with immigrant backgrounds accept the role provided to them and comply with the will of the leadership, they can keep their jobs and even be seen and accepted within the inner circle of the organisation. However, as soon as the leadership realise that a journalist is not doing what they want or what they believed that they would do, she/he risks being subjected to the punishment mechanisms of symbolic violence. Sam illustrates this in following narrative: I produced a programme about the discrimination of pharmacists with immigrant backgrounds; I had heard that some consumers create problems for them. For example, consumers discriminated pharmacist women with hair scarves by saying “I do not want help from you, but from the other [pharmacist with a Swedish background]”. This forced many pharmacists to “hide” themselves, to not have consumer contact and work “backstage”. This [the programme] helped many people to understand what is going on. I did the same for physicians; the history was the same. But such programmes are not welcomed anymore. They do not listen to you anymore. They do not want you to do such programmes; it is not important if you help society to understand an important problem for many people.

Many journalists say that they have been hired partly because of their immigrant background and have been seen by the media organisation as agents for understanding ‘the others’, but that when they did not comply and started questioning the way news about ‘the others’ is made, they soon realised that such attitudes were not desirable in the organisation. There are many narratives about how journalists with immigrant backgrounds have been called to the leadership and warned against becoming a troublemaker. For example, when journalist Samira and her colleagues (also of immigrant background) protested against the fact that when somebody commits a crime, the media labels him or her as a ‘Swedish citizen’ and not simply ‘Swedish’, their complaints where ignored; indeed, she was almost regarded as a ‘rebel leader’ who aimed to harm the organisation. She was told that she was not following ‘the ethics of good journalism’.

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There are also narratives about censoring or completely excluding a programme from the agenda because it is not considered in line with the will and policy of the media. The aforementioned famous anti-­racist and critical journalist Paola illustrates this with reference to one of her programmes: ‘I’ve done a programme on racism in municipal social services against families with immigrant backgrounds for Swedish television; you know, about taken children [with immigrant backgrounds] in custody. It was never distributed, but today it is even worse.’ Paola’s programme on racism and discrimination in the Swedish social services directed against families with immigrant backgrounds was considered to violate the image of Swedes and Sweden as not being racist or discriminatory and as threatening to disturb the mainstream ‘harmony’ and status quo in society. This exemplifies that if a journalist, such as Paola, does not adjust herself to the requirements of the public and of the private media industry in her country, her programme is not going to be distributed. And while Paola, and many other journalists with immigrant backgrounds, are negatively discriminated against, ‘white Swedish journalists’ benefit from positive discrimination—a consequence of symbolic violence. Indeed, Sara, who, in her current high-­ranking position, does now enjoy better employment conditions than she used to, illustrates how ‘white Swedish colleagues’ are positively discriminated against in Swedish radio. Many years ago, she participated in a short educational course in order to be able to apply for better positions in Swedish radio and television. She says that all of her colleagues with Swedish backgrounds, who had at some point undertaken the same course, were able to build a career in the organisation in which they worked—but not her. She elaborates thus: Although I worked ten times more than my Swedish colleagues, I did not receive any better position in the organisation. I could compare myself with others, my colleagues who participated on the same course as me; I could see how they have become bosses and got higher positions, all of them but not me.…My family name has been a problem for me and is the main reason why I always remained at the same low level in the organisation.

Sara explains that, typically, she has been seen as a ‘white’ journalist because she looks white, but her foreign family name has been a problem at times when it comes to job applications or developing her career. In terms of the aforementioned organisation, she was forced to apply for ‘limited budgets in order to keep her job’:

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I had to apply for limited budgets and when the budget was used, they wanted me to go back and work “on the floor”, as a simple reporter. This means that I was supposed to go ten years back in my career. I can compare with my colleagues with the same education and experience, age and so on. It was good I had participated in the leadership educational course with my colleagues; it was a control group for me to make a comparison: how was their career compared with me?

This is a consequence of both being observed and ignored at the same time. Many journalists relate experiences or argue points that implicitly reference the mechanisms of symbolic violence, i.e. that the media organisation’s leadership rewards some journalists who comply with their will and ‘the culture of organisation’, while punishing those who do not comply and who try to use their journalism to write or do programmes about racism and discrimination in society. As Sardar says: After a few critical observations that I have discussed with my colleagues and in a couple of our meetings, I felt that my relationship with my colleagues had changed; even the boss who really liked me and always said that “You are a fantastic journalist, you have a good journalist’s eye”, became cold towards me, if you understand what I mean; he did not see me anymore; even I felt that he, and even some of my colleagues, do not look at me when they talk. To make a long story short, when I did a reportage about segregation and wrote what people in segregated areas say about police and social authorities, they did not publish it. I went to the editor-­­in-­­chief and asked about the reason for this. He said that “This is not the kind of journalism that we do here”.

The dynamics of being observed and ignored at the same time can also be witnessed with regard to the increasing securitisation policies which have influenced journalism and journalists with immigrant backgrounds. Many journalists talk about an increasing surveillance of their journalistic activities, and of what they do and write. Some say even that they have to use certain publicly acceptable discourses—that is what Noelle-­Neumann (1991) calls ‘media discourses’—in order to not be considered deviant. And this can lead to a feeling of disassociation from one’s own work; as Sadia says: ‘Sometimes I do not recognise myself when I read my own article; I ask myself, “Is this you who wrote this article?” This does not mean that I cannot stand by what I wrote, but I know that I adjust my language to the accepted media language.’

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4.4   Choosing the Path of Success or Unsuccess Interviewees speak about the insecure and difficult conditions that they have to handle, as journalists with immigrant backgrounds, in order to get and keep a job in the Swedish mainstream media. Some claim that they have lowered their ambitions and re-­evaluated their journalistic dreams. For example, Noor says that: When I was young and choose to study journalism, I had “big dreams”; I wanted to be a journalist, like in Hollywood films, you know [laughing]. I wanted to confront powerful politicians, banks, powerful and important capitalists and racists, in order to fight injustices and help in creating a better society for all, for us. But, very soon, already in my first practical courses in education, I realised that the reality is not what I thought it was. You know, I understood that the journalist hat was too narrow for me; I had to re-­­think and narrow my ambitions. You have to have a job, to pay your rent, to eat, to have a life.

She says that she has to balance her ideas in order to keep her job, given that, according to her, ‘there are many unwritten rules that one has to follow’ and ‘not following them or even knowing about them has negative consequences for you’. The lack of job security for many journalists is one of the main reasons behind them complying with the mainstream media’s discriminatory, and in many cases racist, discourses, reports and programmes. Sara, again drawing on her past experiences (see Sect. 4.3), explains the interplay of a lack of job security and the experience of internal discrimination based on one’s ‘minority position’: I have applied for so many positions that I have been qualified for, both in Swedish radio and other media, but I did not get them. This is, of course, very much because of the foreign connotation of my name and not my appearance. I know that I do not come even near my Afro-­­Swedish colleagues’ experiences here [at my workplace]. … There is rarely because of the bosses’ racist attitudes that someone has not been hired here or does not get a better position in the organisation; this is not the way discrimination functions. It has more to do with your minority position which makes you not assimilate in the organisation or among colleagues.

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However, Sara has subsequently adopted a strategy for achieving success and now holds a high-­ranking position in public service broadcasting, that is to act as one of majority society and as if she were a journalist with a Swedish background, in order to be accepted by the power structure in the mainstream media and be, as she labels it, assimilated. She is aware of the role that her white skin has played in her success. She elaborates as follows: I had the luck of being born whiter than my sister and brother, who are darker than me. We are three children of the same parents; I became very light/white, but my younger brother is dark, therefore he has been treated differently during his life in Sweden compared with me, even though we went to the same school and so on. My brother has been stopped by police and forcibly examined for narcotics; my younger sister has been arrested for [suspected] shoplifting – of course, she had nothing. I have not experienced anything like my brother and sister in my life; of course, it has to do with the fact that I have chosen to “be” white: I have coloured my hair blonde, I speak Swedish perfectly, so that if people do not know my name [which has migrant connotations], they treat me as a Swede. I can blend in; I, like, chose to be assimilated, the way to be considered and accepted, or what word should I choose [for this], for having better opportunities to do my job. I have also chosen to do programmes about other subjects [than racism] that have better status. I do not give lectures about minority journalism or write articles about such subjects which do not give you plus points in your career, but on the contrary, make it easier to place you in a certain box.

Many interviewees speak about a choice that they must make in their career as journalists. They learn how the system works. Doing reports or programmes about minorities, diversity or racism does not enjoy high status and is normally considered as being an ad hoc area of journalism. Some have chosen to not do ‘minority journalism’ in order to gain acceptance. Sara again elaborates: I choose very early to adjust my journalism to subjects other than minority journalism, to subjects that were counted. And in particular not to question the subject you were required to do news about; then they considered you a good journalist.

Sara’s choice, to become a part of majority journalism (or the normative way of doing journalism), has helped her to build a career within one

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of the major public service media companies. She has been rewarded as a result of her compliance with the rules of game. This illustrates neatly the ways in which symbolic violence is exercised and functions. In this vein, others, who do not comply and choose another path—that is one of critical journalism—and do not comply with the will of the editors, and to the ‘normal way’ of doing journalism and being ‘a good journalist’ (as Sara labels it), become subjected to punishment. One such journalist, Paola, who, as mentioned, has long experiences of working as a famous journalist with critical and anti-­racist standpoints, has been subjected to systematic punishment for her anti-­racist attitudes, both in public service and private media companies. She says: As you know, everything started by me leading … [a famous television programme in the late 1990s]. They [the leadership of the television station] did not want me to be, as they said, too critical of Swedes. The producer [of the programme] said that, “You know, we Swedes have not been in a war and do not have any experience of racism; therefore, anti-­­racist content can disturb many and we will lose our audience”. After a few months, he even warned me “as a friend”, you know this bullshit, about my future career. I realised that the TV leadership did not like my anti-­­racist attitudes and even if the programme was one of the most popular programmes on Swedish TV, they succeeded to take it from me. Since then, I have not received any better job and really no steady job in the Swedish media.

Paola was not only subjected to the negative consequences of symbolic violence, but was even physically attacked by racist groups. She adds that she is not much worried about her own career as a seasoned journalist but is, rather, more worried about young journalists with immigrant backgrounds who are starting their journey today. She says: As it is known, I have been several times attacked both physically, verbally and by other means from open racist and Nazi groups. But I should say that attacks from mainstream right wingers and other groups with influence are more dangerous. It is this group which can close the doors for your career. I am not talking in my own interest now, because I have a relatively long experience of work and can somehow find my way out, but I’m talking about young journalists who such groups can muzzle. The mainstream media is in the hands of a few powerful agents; the editorial paints a very homogenous picture of what is happening.

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A journalist with a Swedish background, Daniel, who has been working as journalist in different mainstream Swedish dailies and tabloids for decades, speaks about the principle of neutrality. He says that neutrality is important and that he understands that many journalists with immigrant backgrounds want to write about racism and discrimination: We are all the time accused of being biased, not neutral; both from right-­ wing groups and left-­­wing groups. You, as a journalist, should be careful and balance your articles or programmes so that they cannot accuse you of being biased. But I understand that it is easier for me to be neutral than for colleagues with immigrant backgrounds. They are more concerned, rightfully of course, about questions of racism and discrimination than me as a white Swedish man. But the fact is that we, as journalists, are evaluated all the time, by our colleagues, chiefs and the public. You have to make a choice; if you want to be a journalist and do your job professionally, you have to keep a neutral position.

According to Anders, the neutral position is needed to keep your job— which is to act as a white journalist and be engaged with ‘normal’ journalism without doing reports on racism and discrimination or other questions that may not be welcomed by the editorial team or by the white public. This is what is confirmed by Sara, who says that she has adjusted herself to the situation that Daniel describes. Sara says that she has chosen to go her own way by not being as critical as she originally wanted to be, until she has secured a better position in public service broadcasting: I tried to not work for those changes I wanted to see, but to wait until you get the opportunities and the requirements for applying those changes or to influence [the system]. I chose, for example, to be a producer and editor; then I did not take away some subjects; I had the power then to influence the programmes that I made compared with the time when I was a reporter and had to get a producer’s acceptance. It still does not mean that I am free, but freer than before. … But this does not mean that the radio is less racist or that I have not adjusted myself to the system.

She is aware of the fact that her high-­ranking position in the media company today may have corrupted her judgement. She says that: ‘I am sitting here and saying these things, but there are many things that I, for sure, cannot see because of my adjustment to the system’.

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Others, such as Ronya, do not comply with the neoliberal racism that is now dominant in today’s journalism—and with the collective act of silence which has gradually become the norm for the mainstream journalism and not an issue. She says: I realised that we became more and more silent; in an earlier stage, we could support and endorse each other but not anymore. I have also to say that public service broadcasting is very homogenous, very white; I realised soon that I was alone in standing up for some human values – for example, every human being’s equal value – in my journalistic activity. I was more and more put under question; even the fact-­­based journalism was put under question. I protested and said that we cannot mix facts with our attitudes and beliefs. … For me, my journalist integrity as a thinking and critical being is very important, so to say. But, because I refused to self-­­censor, adjust myself to things that I thought were harmful to journalism and to the public exchange of ideas, I faced negative consequences – for example, not being allowed to do what I wanted to do in my journalist activities. This has harmed my career; I become considered a “difficult person”, not a person who follows the “path of least resistance” and is a “yes-­­sayer” who does not question all those things.

Ronya says that she did not choose to keep quiet but, rather, was censored by the media company, who limited the possibilities for her to do the kind of journalism that she believes in. She has, therefore, been subjected to the negative consequences of symbolic violence for her critical standpoints and journalism. She says that the leadership of the media organisation ‘press down the glass roof’ on her and do not allow her to move upward in the organisation. This is also a democratic problem because, as Ronya says, ‘the journalists get lesser and lesser possibilities to do a real journalism’ and have to adjust themselves to the kind of journalism that the mainstream media desire. She is critical of the notion or the principle of neutrality that much mainstream media uses for legitimising its ‘white lens’: I have in my earlier professional life worked in accordance with the principle of neutrality; I know what neutrality is and will never allow irrelevant things to influence my journalism. I think that we have to discuss what objectivity and neutrality means. Today, it is used by the homogenous journalist corps; it is, in reality, valued through a West-­­oriented and white lens, which means that all us others are deviants and have “special interests”, which I protest

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against. To discuss this from a critical standpoint, to have a self-­­critical positioning in our journalistic activities, is very difficult.

Many interviewees speak about the harsh conditions of journalism today, in which they have to act and make their living. Some speak about finding other areas of journalism than those in the mainstream media in order to say what they want to say. For instance, Paola says: I create my own areas, other areas to say what I will to say; I am, of course, not entirely free there either, since the free word is conditioned in this country; but there are other ways. I write theatre, books and use some social media to say what I want, because it is almost impossible to write or make programmes concerning those questions that interest me, that I think are important today.

The enforced self-­censorship and the problems that the negative attitudes of some journalist colleagues have created for them prove sometimes an unbearable burden. Indeed, two of the interviewees cried when speaking about the mental pressure to which they are subjected. Some have even several times seriously considered ‘putting down everything’ and leaving their job. Paola illustrates this: At least once a week, I think of putting down everything, of just disappearing from the public eye. It is not possible right now, for practical reasons, but I think about it all the time. It is the irony of our time; racists say that they cannot say whatever they want in this country, but it is only they who can say whatever they want against us. Just look at your or my Facebook account and comments about us on their pages to understand that they are the only free persons and groups to say whatever they want.

Paola’s assessment of the situation for critical and anti-­racist journalists is shared by many interviewees in this work. As Sardar says; ‘racism, racist articles, attitudes, journalists and parties are free, freer than ever, but as soon as we mention racism and discrimination, this is considered to be an act of identity politics or just groundless complaints’. Some interviewees say that they have been more or less forced to leave the mainstream media because they were considered undesirable. Noor calls it ‘choice under pressure’ and explains that ‘they do not leave any room for you to do a journalism that you can stay for; they create a situation where you cannot bear it anymore; you feel that you are choking, you are airless’.

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4.5   Summary In this chapter, an analysis of interviews with journalists about their experiences of increasing neoliberal racism and securitisation policies has been presented. This analysis suggests that working conditions for journalists with an immigrant background have deteriorated even compared to a few years ago. This situation can be usefully viewed through the theoretical lens of symbolic violence, whereby powerful political and mass media actors reward compliance while punishing non-­compliance and resistance. More specifically, it has been argued that the political and mainstream media’s demands for journalists’ compliance with neoliberal racism and securitisation policies have increased, and a lack of compliance, as narrated by the interviewees, has put their careers and jobs at risk—with some losing their jobs, as well as possibilities for building a career in mainstream media, and others having felt forced to take a more ‘silent position’. Those journalists who have chosen to keep silent about their real ideas and beliefs do so in order to not be subjected to negative consequences by their employers. This has led to the reinforcement of a culture of silence, embedded in the mechanisms of ‘the spiral of silence’. The space for resistance by journalists with immigrant backgrounds in respect of their workplaces is very limited; and the reinforcement of neoliberal racism, as a result of the electoral success of SD and growing securitisation policies, puts them in a very vulnerable position.

References Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and symbolic power. Cambridge, UK: Polity. Bourdieu, P. (2001). Male domination. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Bourdieu, P. (2003). Language and symbolic power. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brune, Y. (1998). Mörk magi i vita medier: Svensk nyhetsjournalistik om invandrare [Dark magi in White media: Swedish news journalism about migrants]. Stockholm: Carlssons bokförlag. Camauër, L., & Nohrstedt, S. A. (2006). Mediernas vi och dom: Mediernas betydelse för den strukturella diskrimineringen [Media’s Us and Them: The role of media for structural discrimination]. Stockholm: Frtizes. Couldry, N. (2000). The place of media power: Pilgrims and witnesses of the media age. London: Routledge. Couldry, N. (2012). Media, society, world: Social theory and digital media practice. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

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Craig, R. L. (2004). Business, advertising, and the social control of news. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 28(3), 233–252. Edwards, D., & Cromwell, D. (2006). Guardians of power: The myth of the liberal media. London: Pluto. Foucault, M. (1976). The History of Sexuality Volume I: An Introduction, trans. Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage Books. Garnham, N. (1979). Contributions to a political economy of mass communication. Media, Culture & Society, 1(2), 122–146. Golding, P., & Murdock, G. (1997). The political economy of the media. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Herman, E., & Chomsky, N. (1994). Manufacturing consent: The political economy of the mass media. London: Vintage. Herman, E. S., & Chomsky, N. (1998). Manufacturing consent: The political economy of the mass media. New York: Pantheon. Jönsson, J.  H. (2013). Social work beyond cultural otherisation. Nordic Social Work Research, 3(2), 159–167. Kamali, M. (2008). Racial discrimination: Institutional patterns and politics. New York: Routledge. Kamali, M. (2015). War, violence and social justice: Theories for social work. London: Routledge. Kamali, M., & Jönsson, J. H. (2018). Neoliberalism, Nordic welfare state and social work: Current and future challenges. London: Routledge. Lazzarato, M. (2009). Neoliberalism in action: Inequality, insecurity and the reconstitution of the social. Theory, Culture & Society, 26(6), 109–133. Löwander, B. (1998). Rasism och antirasism på dagordningen: Studier om televisionens nyhetsrapportering i början av 1990-talet. Sociologisk forskning, 35(3–4), 85–100. Löwstedt, A., & Mboti, N. (2017). Media racism: Beyond modernity and postmodernity. International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics, 13(1/2), 111–130. McChesney, R. (2004). The problem of the media: U.S. communication politics in the 21st century. New York: Monthly Review Press. McChesney, R. W. (2008). The political economy of media: Enduring issues, emerging dilemmas. New York: Monthly Review Press. McChesney, R., & Nichols, J. (2005). Tragedy and farce: How the American media sell wars, spins elections, and destroy democracy. New York: New Press. Mosco, V. (2009). The political economy of communication. Los Angeles: Sage. Murdock, G., & Golding, P. (1973). For a political economy of mass communications. In R. Miliband & J. Saville (Eds.), The socialist register (pp. 205–234). London: Merlin Press. Nelson, J.  K. (2013). Denial of racism and its implications for local action. Discourse & Society, 24, 89–109.

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Nelson, J. K. (2015). Speaking’ racism and anti-racism: Perspectives of local anti-­ racism actors. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 38, 342–358. Noelle-Neumann, E. (1974). The spiral of silence: A theory of public opinion. Journal of Communication, 24(2), 43–51. Noelle-Neumann, E. (1977). Turbulences in the climate of opinion: Methodological applications of the spiral of silence theory. Public Opinion Quarterly, 41, 143–158. Noelle-Neumann, E. (1991). The theory of public opinion: The concept of the spiral of silence. In J. A. Anderson (Ed.), Communication yearbook (Vol. 14). Newbury Park: Sage. Norman, K. (2004). Equality and exclusion: ‘Racism’ in a Swedish town. Ethnos, 69(2), 204–228. Roald, A. S. (2013). Majority versus minority: ‘Governmentality’ and Muslims in Sweden. Religions, 4(1), 116–131. SOU. (1990:44). Demokrati och makt i Sverige: Maktutredningens huvudrapport [Democracy and power in Sweden: The final report from governmental inquiry into power]. Retrieved from https://lagen.nu/sou/1990:44

CHAPTER 5

Securitisation and Self-Censorship in Academia

This part of the study is based on in-­depth interviews with sixteen academics with immigrant background, six women and ten men and four academics with Swedish background, two women and two men. The main focus of the study has been to capture such individuals’ experiences of working at Swedish universities in a time of increasing securitisation policies and neoliberal racism. The academy has long been a site for the critical questioning of established truths; and, notwithstanding different power centres’ endeavours to limit academic freedom, it has always, albeit with varying success, tried to protect its independence. As discussed in Chap. 2, securitisation policies have greatly influenced government policies towards universities and their research and educational activities. Although the securitisation and control of universities was a part of Cold War policies (intensifying with the student movements of the 1960s), the state’s surveillance of universities and related research and educational institutions has increased since the establishment of policies based around the ‘war on terror’. Alongside this, the globalisation of neoliberalism, as the only valid socioeconomic and political system, has added to the complexity and surveillance of universities. This has led to the reinforcement of a deep alliance between nation states and the global market which has made the state the strong defender of a well-­functioning market. Notwithstanding the anti-­statism propaganda of neoliberalism’s intellectual founding fathers, such as Friedrich von Hayek and Milton © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. Kamali, Neoliberal Securitisation and Symbolic Violence, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71210-5_5

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Friedman, who saw an uncontrolled market and a little and weak state as the only path to individual freedom and prosperity, the state has, since the 1970s, continued to grow stronger. Although the state has been colonised by the global market, it has not become a ‘weak organisation’. On the contrary, the neoliberal state has developed to become the bastion and the prime defender of the global market (Kamali and Jönsson 2018). It is true that the neoliberal state is retreating from its role as the welfare state but, simultaneously, it has become a warfare state, launching ‘small wars’ on any group or individual who is considered to be a threat to the global capitalist market (Kamali 2015). The neoliberal states around the world are part of the policies of the so-­called global war on terror, that, in reality, is a war on any threat to the global market. Such a state has institutionalised a very well-­organised neoliberal securitisation apparatus in order to exorcise surveillance dissidence, securitise the market and exclude any ‘threat’ to the neoliberal market and its postcolonial and imperialist global functions. As with all other neoliberal states, the Swedish state has, over the last few decades, launched an extensive neoliberalisation of every aspect of socioeconomic, political and academic life (Kamali and Jönsson 2018, 2019). The neoliberalisation of the Swedish academy has happened in the name of the decentralisation of universities, which, in reality and paradoxically, means increasing both the state’s and the market’s control of universities. Growing administrative power over collegiality, aggressive implementation of New Public Management, and exclusion of critical and radical research and education have all been part of this process—and, as has been discussed by several scholars (Giroux 2007; Andrew 2010; Jeffery 2011; Weiner 2012) it is one that follows the same pattern found in universities across many other countries. In this chapter the results of the interviews with Swedish academics with immigrant backgrounds (both women and men) and an analysis of their narratives will be presented. The main themes emerging from the interviews are: ‘Increasing demand for compliance with universities’ neoliberal racism and securitisation; ‘Muzzling as self-­ protection’, ‘Being observed and ignored at the same time’; and ‘Choosing the path of success and unsuccess’. The themes are not (at an analytical level) mutually exclusive categories but, rather, are interrelated and build on one another.

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5.1   Increasing Demand for Compliance to Universities’ Neoliberal Racism In recent years, Swedish society has undergone widespread and intensive neoliberalisation, including changes at the level of policy and institutional organisation (Kamali and Jönsson 2018). Universities have not been any exception (Kamali and Jönsson 2019) here, manifest in the increasing influence and power of administration over collegial institutions. These changes have, however, had a differential impact on academics, according to the individual’s background and how critical they are in their teaching and research perspectives. Accordingly, many academics with immigrant backgrounds speak out about their deteriorating positions within Swedish academia. For instance, Moayed, a senior lecturer in the social sciences at a major university in Sweden, explains the changes in his working conditions: There has been a deterioration of my working conditions; a deterioration in ‘acceptance’ of us as people with a non-­­Swedish background in the social sciences, pedagogy, sociology, social work; they do not want people with a foreign background in such academic institutions. You know, you should educate yourself to be a medical doctor, physician or engineer, such professions, but not the social sciences; in professions which make money, commercial professions, which can help them. I am the only person with an immigrant background who has received a PhD in pedagogy in our university. They did not hire one single PhD student with an immigrant background, Latin America, Arabic countries, or other places, in our department. Two years ago, they [the department] received funding to hire 15 PhD students in multicultural pedagogy; they did not hire one single one with immigrant background – all of them were young Swedish girls. I see that they are doing research on their own hobbies, not on questions that improve our multicultural society. The situation has gotten worse. I, as a senior lecturer, am not responsible for one single course; I am like a guest lecturer, just giving a couple of lectures on other teachers’ courses. Although I have a tenure position, I am treated like a guest lecturer. At best, they can give you a course that nobody else will have. The situation has changed dramatically over the last few years; there is nobody that can listen to you or can help you  – you are left to your own destiny. So, you as a senior lecturer and researcher, have nothing to say or nothing to do; you must only accept the university and institution leadership’s decisions, you must adjust yourself, accept or leave. You have no other choices.

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Against this backdrop of a deteriorating situation for academics with immigrant backgrounds in Sweden, many interviewees talk about the consequences of neoliberal administrative changes—which are called by some ‘New Public Management changes’—for their positions within the academy. Carlos, a researcher at a major university, illustrates this in the following comment: New changes, there are not really so new, have influenced our academic freedom – my freedom of teaching and doing research. The university leadership can now do whatever they want. You are nothing; they treat you like animals, like rats. The university is like their property and they act as dictators, as monarchs. There is no academic freedom, nothing at all. You, with an immigrant background, are just supposed to accept everything and do whatever pleases them.

The neoliberal leadership of universities in Sweden legitimises its oppressive measures against collegial and academic freedom with reference to guidelines and decisions from the ‘Department of higher education’ (Utbildningsdepartementet) and the ‘Central bureau of higher education’ (Universitetskansliämbetet). This is a way to silence any protest and critique against the neoliberalisation of higher education and its research output. As a senior lecturer and researcher, Lydia who works in one of the largest universities in Sweden, says: I could not take it anymore. All “recommendations”, manifest and latent “warnings” to me; you know that they are warnings and not innocent recommendations. I told the responsible person for our programme that “This is not right; you cannot force me to pass students who did not learn anything, who cannot understand the aims of the course”, etc. She told me that “You are not supposed to act like the head of the department or be responsible for their entire education”. [But] you are an educator, and I/we are responsible for their entire education. When I said that I am the examiner for the course, she showed me a piece of paper from the Central Bureau of Education with a paragraph indicating that the head of department or the VC of the university has the responsibility for the quality of education. She told me simply to “Shut up and do as we say”.

Some of the interviewees say that they have to accept the new conditions of working in the academy. They provide many examples of those

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‘troublemakers’ who have been forced to leave the university by the leadership. Hashim, an associate professor in sociology, says that: Just during the last three years or so, two of our colleagues with immigrant backgrounds have been forced to leave the department; they have been considered as “troublemakers”, you know. This is, of course, not true; I know they have been among our best and most appreciated colleagues. Students loved them; they were very active and published many papers; there was nothing wrong with them. But, you know, their only sin was to not comply with the new head of the department, the new dictator who just is licking ass of the VC and university administrators. What do you do when they do this with such clever and high-­­ranking colleagues; they can do even worse to you. You have to keep quiet and do whatever is necessary in your work, otherwise, honestly, you miss your job, your bread.

The neoliberal university leadership uses every means at its disposal for containing resistance and establishing an academic up-­and-­down system in which everybody, irrespective of their academic position, are its servants. Through a system of reward and punishment, as Bourdieu (1990, 2001) puts it (see Chap. 2), people are forced to either comply with the neoliberal management of the university or leave. As one of the interviewees, Minoo, a lecturer in one of the middle-­ranged Swedish universities, says: Working conditions for me have changed a lot. Actually, not only for me, but also for many other migrants who I know. The head of the department, administrators, the leadership of the university do not ask you anymore to do something, but order you to do it; it is not a question of being collegial and gentle anymore, but they play their roles as chief, as boss, without any hesitation. The new organisation, what is called the system of New Public Management, seems to have wiped out what used to be the “Swedish way of doing things”, which is, being nice and asking you to do things, even if it was meant to be an order, but in Swedish nice way, you know. Not anymore. This is history now; they are very rude actually, no mercy.

She continues by referencing her immigrant background as a parameter for being subjected to an increasing demand from the administration and the university leadership for complying with the neoliberal—and, in many cases, ‘oppressive’—measures forced on her and her colleagues:

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It seems that there is a double standard here; okay, they expect that you, who have an immigrant background, must accept everything without any question, adjust yourself completely to whatever they wish and want you to do. There is no room anymore for any suggestion, question or protest; you just follow and keep quiet. This is based on my own and my immigrant friends who are working here or at other universities; it seems that it is the same everywhere. I have witnessed that the head of the department has a more friendly tone towards our Swedish colleagues than he has towards us, you know – equal treatment is just a myth.

Minoo’s experience is not unique. Many interviewees say, that there is a difference between the way the administration and the head of their department treat them compared with the way their colleagues with Swedish backgrounds are treated when specifically questioning neoliberal changes initiated by the university. Mahan, a teacher and researcher within the field of economics and with lengthy experience of working in major Swedish universities, says: You know the situation has worsened; everything comes from above, an up and down system. It was not the case in the past; when I started my academic journey, we teachers chose our literature, organised the course, but now everything comes from above; this is my problem. They have a Swedish phrase which is “infinna dig”, which means accept your place. I cannot; I have my ideas about the literature I have in my courses, the organisation of the course etc.. This is not welcomed by the administration; nobody even has the time to discuss things with you. Just accept whatever they say; they decide. They want to decide about everything. The superiority of administration over our collegiality, you know.

Many interviewees argue that the power and influence of the university leadership and administration dramatically influences the working conditions of the educator and researcher, transforming them into mere ‘academic workers’, operating in the context of ‘all-­administrative universities’ (Ginsberg 2011; Brown 2016). The analysis of the interviews suggests that the growing role of administration staff has created a situation of neoliberal administrative oppression, one which increasingly reduces the influence of educators and researchers on the content of education and research in universities (Giroux 2007; Gutiérrez Rodríguez 2016; Morley 2016; Bottrell and Manathunga 2019). A researcher and senior lecturer who works in one of the largest universities in Sweden, Rodrigez, says:

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The heads of the department do not encourage research and critical education, as they should do, but are acting as agents of surveillance; they control your schedule and even your thoughts – yes, really your thoughts: how you think, what you believe in, etc. In my case, when I travelled to [a Latin American country] to gather my research material, the head of the department intervened in my research and wanted to know why I was there, which research questions I had, what I did, etc. It creates a situation where you receive no support, no encouragement that will help you to do your research and realise your perspectives freely. This situation forces you to find alternative networks beyond your institution in order to find support and do your research; it is almost impossible to conduct your research within the current neoliberal administration of the university.

Mahan, meanwhile, confirms this, claiming that, due to its increasing power and influence, the neoliberal leadership can do anything they want to stop an individual from being successful or free in their research. She argues: They have always stopped me, hindered me from building my career. They do not want you to be a successful researcher or educator; they stop you. It is not only me. I have many friends with an immigrant background, of course a few of them are more stubborn than me, but even they have been subjected to discrimination from university; they do not allow you, they hinder your success. I have applied for major funding and was stopped; they said that “You are not allowed to apply for funding because you did not ask for permission from us, or you did not engage us in your project; we are not going to get any part of the funding”.

Mahan says that she is aware of the fact that, because of her critical standpoints, she is not going to get any funding and her applications will be turned down irrespective of their scientific qualities. She explains that she is continuing to work (and fight) in the academy because of the responsibility she feels for her daughter and all other young people with immigrant backgrounds who live in Sweden and have no other alternatives. She says that: ‘we have to open the way for them’. Although the neoliberal universities treat educators and researchers with immigrant backgrounds more harshly than they do academics with Swedish backgrounds, the latter are also subjected to administrative oppression because of their critical thinking and positioning. Simon, a

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researcher and educator with a Swedish background, puts this in the following way: Many critical researchers and educators are under pressure; I do not know what is going to happen with me, [but] many others have the same situation; the situation has deteriorated for critical academics. You have to find alternative notions, key words, which are not considered by the administration or fund-­­giving institutions as “problematic”. I had, during a short period of time, help and support from my colleagues with critical positioning such as [two names of his colleagues] here; you have to have a “critical mass” around you, to support you, otherwise you are going to face resistance from the university. This can even result in my retreating, in recent years, from participation in public debates concerning, for instance, racism; I wonder sometimes why I did it. … It has turned out to be more difficult to be critical compared to the uncritical use of some notions, such as radicalisation, Islamisation and so on. It has also to do with a more administrative control of research and education in the university. Not accepting the neoliberal changes in the universities entails risks for you and your position at the university.

Some interviewees with a Swedish background claim that they suffer from the principle of ‘guilt by association’. However, they explain that although their critical positioning is not welcomed by the university administration, they are not harmed by the university leadership and the administration as much as their colleagues with immigrant backgrounds are. Malin, an educator and researcher with a Swedish background working at the department of social work in a medium-­large university, puts it in as follows: They [the university leadership] do not like me; this is something that I have actually experienced since I supported our colleagues with immigrant backgrounds. When I started supporting the critical profile in our department, and thereby my colleagues with critical and immigrant backgrounds, I felt that they do not like me anymore; I am not desirable and welcomed anymore; something happened which reminds me of “guilt by association”, which means that you can be “moderately critical”, but not ally yourself with those who are fighting the university leadership in order to preserve our critical and anti-­­racist profile that the university did not like. The head of the department, some “ass lickers” who adjusted themselves to the power and to everything in order to keep their jobs, stopped even talking to me.

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She says that ‘the situation was even worse for my colleagues with immigrant backgrounds; they were accused of horrible things that everybody knew that they never did’. Malin explains then that the main reason for the deterioration of her working conditions is the fact that the neoliberal leadership of the university do not welcome critical thinking nor want their departments to have a ‘critical’ profile, so they do make it impossible for those involved in critical research and education to stay. She argues that the neoliberal university leadership wanted to ‘destroy the critical mass’ at the department. Many compare the leadership and the administration of the university with the US administration under Donald Trump. Mahan, for instance, says: Exactly like Trump; do you remember when he talked about peace? He said that “I am going to create peace” – that is, a peace that he believed in and thought of. In the past, we had personnel meetings where we discussed different questions about our education and made collective decisions. Now our meetings are just information-­­meetings; they [the head of the department; administration] come and tell you what to do; the decisions are taken by administrators and the university leadership. I feel that the university is undergoing a Trumpisation; anybody who has been in his way and resisted him disappeared, just like here; anybody who resists the university leadership has been destroyed, really physically. The university acts cruelly; those resisting the new system of leadership are considered to have psychological problems, being sick and then physically disappearing from the university. It is serious; there is no room for anything else. I see Trump’s “big politics” in our university corridors and many Trumps at the top and in charge.

Some interviewees, in line with what Mahan says, mention Trump or Trumpisation as a model for the leadership of the university. The neoliberal leadership is considered to be dictatorial and oppressive and a system of governance that does not accept any resistance or questioning of their indisputable right to govern. As Henry Giroux (2018) puts it, Trumpism is an authoritative model of government, which has been developed in the neoliberal system of the USA over the last four decades. Such a neoliberal authoritarian system is based on principles of market and administrative efficiency, cleaned of democratic, equal and human values. According to interviewees, there is a clear trend of a reinforcement of neoliberal leadership and administration of the universities, increasing racism and particular political changes, both in the USA and in Sweden. As one of the interviewees, Khaled, a senior lecturer, puts it:

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[Under] the changing political climate and the electoral success of Sweden Democrats [a major racist party in Sweden], the situation has become even worse. People, even colleagues that you have worked with for several years, feel now that they can go against you and say whatever they want – I really mean whatever they want. Increasing racism in the university is part of the increasing racism in society; things have changed.

Returning to Mahan, meanwhile, she explains that her experience of discrimination from ‘white’ colleagues and the leadership of the department has gone so far that she has decided to find her own strategies for avoiding conflicts and problems. She says that she stays ‘at home as much as possible and goes to the department when there are less people, like during the weekend’.

5.2   Muzzling as Self-Protection Some interviewees say that they feel they have to ‘keep in’ their real beliefs and attitudes during internal meetings at their workplace in order to not then be subjected to harassment, both from the university leadership and from their colleagues. This is mainly based on a person’s calculations about the individual consequences of ‘speaking up’. To choose silence is, then, an act of self-­protection, based in earlier experiences of articulating oneself (Detert and Edmondson 2011); such employees are afraid of the negative consequences of ‘speaking up’ about something that those in power and a higher position in the organisation may consider harmful to their own or to the organisation’s interests. Such individual actions are sometimes defined with the help of ‘implicit theory’, which is a framework for understanding action based on a priori predictions (Levy et al. 2006). Levy et al. mean that the decision of an individual about whether or not to speak up in her workplace always contains an ‘if-­then’ assumption, here concerning the potentially negative consequences that may occur in a specific type of situation. As one of the interviewees, Alexandro, who is an associate professor in sociology, puts it: I kept silent because I knew that it is going to create problems for me; I have bad experiences of it [in the past]. Every time I said something about this matter, students’ exams and cheating, you know, some of the colleagues, those who have no competence, lack education you know, are sitting and drinking coffee for the most part and want to be “friends” with students and

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do not like our critical profile protested. I have even been called to the head of the department because I have insulted my colleagues and “poisoned the working milieu”. That is why I do not care; I keep silent because I know that they want me to say something to have a reason to attack me. As a “black haired” [a person with immigrant background], you should shut your mouth if you want to have a job in this country.

Noelle-­Neumann (1974) argues that such adjustments, as described by interviewees like Alexandro, are part of the spiral of silence (see Chap. 2) and can lead to even greater levels of self-­censorship. The adjustment of critical individuals with deviant opinions is, according to Noelle-­Neumann, a result of the ‘deviant’ individual’s fear of ‘being isolated’. However, it must be said that it is not only the ‘fear of being isolated’ that makes critical individuals or minorities adjust themselves to majority society and the will of powerful socioeconomic or political agents, but also, as Detert and Edmondson (2011) say, the fear of many different consequences that can even lead to the loss of one’s job. Some of the interviewees say that they have been initially very critical of the situation, but that they have realised that their protests have no effect on the ‘top-­down decisions’ of the university’s and the department’s leadership, and that their protests and critical ideas have just harmed themselves and nobody else. A researcher and educator at one of the country’s major universities, Sahran, illustrates this: I was very critical. They did what they wanted to do  – took away critical literature, did not provide me working duties, which are compatible with my expertise, you know, put me in different courses, some of them far away from my area of research and education, forcing me to do what they wanted, and they knew that I did not like such working duties. But they wanted me to quit or keep silent and do whatever they wanted me to do. I have had a long fight with the university and the department, it did not result in any good for me; I got sick and was away from my job for a while. I decided then to keep silent, not totally, but being more silent that earlier. I have simply no energy to continue fighting an endless war without any result.

Some other interviewees say, meanwhile, that they feel they have been naïve in once believing in an open university with high levels of professionalism and freedom of research and education. Tahir, a teacher and researcher in a major Swedish university, says:

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I have been naïve at the beginning. I believed in professionalism and the university’s real will for integration for us and the possibility for free research and education. I believed that I could do my research and be engaged in intercultural education, to develop intercultural pedagogy and teaching. But later I realised that such things did not exist. There were egoistical people with power; they did not care about interculturalism, not about me, the education. They did not care about how I felt, whether I’d be back to the university the next day or not, they did not care. But for themselves, for the white people, it existed; they did care about themselves, about the other white people. If one white colleague has a little problem, they [the leadership of the department] could sit down with him or her for hours and take care of her; but if you and me have problems, they do not care; this is the freedom and justice in our universities.

Tahir then adds that, based on many ‘incidents’ at his university and department, when his protests and complaints did not result in any improvement in his working conditions, he has now decided to isolate himself and keep quiet, that is he has chosen to stay silent because speaking up continues to harm him: Now, my strategy is to ignore them, to be silenced; I go there [to the department] when I should, for example, have teaching; otherwise, I work at home or go to the library. It is not easy to know that they are looking for something you may do wrong, to attack you and hold you responsible for everything. I keep silent and do not speak up against injustices against me and courses.

The aforementioned interviewee Mahan, who has worked for more than fifteen years in one of the largest universities of Sweden, says that she can see a dramatic change in the way the university is running. The recent neoliberal changes have harmed many, both Swedes and those with immigrant backgrounds, but academics with immigrant backgrounds have been influenced more by the neoliberal changes, which, according to her, have reinforced racism. She says: Nobody takes her time to criticise the university leadership’s or the head of the department’s plans and programmes; everything is about the organisation and the needs of the organisation. Because of the changes, both they [the leadership] have become more comfortable to say “No, we do not want to even listen to your ideas”; and I too am more comfortable to keep silent and say “Okay, I do not say anything”. If you do not want to listen to me

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for increasing the quality of teaching, and everything is coming from above, I have then nothing to say. You know, everything is coming from above, even the choice of the literature for our courses; you have to accept your place, in particular when you have an immigrant background: “Who are you to say anything about our universities, our organisations?”. They deny your research, teaching, your competence. My white Swedish colleagues who came to the department after me and have done much less than I have done are now professors and have good positions at the department, but not me. There is no room for discussion; everything is decided in advance and comes to you as information. I call the head of the department Trump, exactly like him, just giving orders, choosing whoever he wants, giving funds and positions and going against me; he has not even signed my applications to the EU. I have contacted the university’s anti-­­discrimination office and talked to them. I tried hard at the beginning to defend myself and my cause; I thought that “This [discrimination against me] is as clear as the sun”, but no, nothing happened. I decided to not continue and fight; I got sick for a while, and now I am staying home for the most part, have no good relations with the department and my colleagues; going to work is a psychological pressure.

In answer to the question of what she does to survive these harsh conditions at work, she says: Since the head of the university’s discrimination office told me that “I do not recommend you pursue the report because of each 100 cases of discrimination, not even one single one has been concluded in the reporter/ employee’s favour,” I do not continue. I just think of getting my wages at the end of the month so that I be able to pay my rent, bank loans, telephone, and not be sick until this period comes to an end. I have fought for 10 years and the consequence has been that, with each fight, I was forced back one step; I think I must be silent and let it go.

She adds that the situation for critical academics with immigrant backgrounds is the same even in other universities. She has changed her workplace several times, but the situation has remained the same for her. She says that ‘either you accept your place in the organisation and are happy and satisfied whatever they do with you, or you are going to be marginalised and discriminated against’. She adds that ‘you as an immigrant, either keep your mouth shut or be critical and accept the bad consequences’. Many other interviewees say that they have no confidence in the university anymore and see it just as a job—or, better said, as ‘a source of income’.

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The aforementioned interviewee Rodrigez, with almost 15 years of teaching and research experience, says that: Since I have never received any funding, you know because of my critical standpoints, I stopped applying for external funding, and you know, internal funding is just out of question. I am here [at the university] and do whatever I must do to keep my job; I do not care much about what is happening at the department because my earlier engagements harmed me too much. I do not trust the university, have no confidence in it. I keep silent in order to keep my job and use the university as a platform which makes me able to be engaged in civil society anti-­­racist activities.

Analysis of these interviews indicates that the reasons for the silence of critical academics with immigrant backgrounds in the universities is less to do with the ‘fear of marginalisation’, but more to do with the ‘fear of negative consequences’, or better said, serious consequences, such as losing their jobs. All interviewees are, more or less, concerned about losing their jobs. As one of the interviewees, Mohsen, says: ‘with respect to the existing discrimination against people with immigrant backgrounds, it will be very difficult to find another job if you lost your job. Every employer will ask what happened in your earlier workplace; you know, Sweden is a small country, and everybody knows everybody’. The data suggests, then, that many who keep silent and stop ‘speaking up’ against the leadership in the universities, do precisely this—as Detert and Edmondson (2011) argue—based on past negative experiences of speaking up. Comprising, then, a form of disciplination in the academy, one that is manifest in having experienced the consequences of ‘speaking up’ or ‘keeping silent’ (and also an example of what Bourdieu (1991) calls the mechanisms of symbolic violence), the academics with immigrant backgrounds who participated in this study make or modify their choices.

5.3   Being Observed and Ignored at the Same Time The situation for many academics with an immigrant background has deteriorated during the last two decades, with their background seeing them being subjected to the suspicion of university leaderships. There has resulted in a dramatic change in work conditions for many, with the terrorist attacks of ‘9/11’ being a notable reason behind this. All interviewees remember exactly where they were and what they were about to do

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when the attacks took place on September 11, 2001—partly because the attacks were directed towards the ‘heartland of the empire’, the USA, and partly because it has subsequently caused a lot of trouble for them. As Alexandro says: I remember 9/11 because of the fact that it coincides with the coup d’état in Chile [in September 11, 1973]. I was working at the department of sociology at the … University. In terms of emotional experience, I experienced them in two specific ways. The first was to re-­­experience the mental and physical impact of a state of exception, where the logic of the military becomes part of the everyday. The second is the change in personal relationships with certain colleagues who become aware [of your non-­­ Swedish background] and are formal and cold in their personal treatment [of you].

Alexandro means that although he is not Muslim, his relationship with his colleagues has changed because they viewed him as ‘belonging to the others’. This is something that many interviewees mention. Although securitisation of universities had been part of the higher education and research domain prior to September 11, it has since become more overt and has been legitimised as a necessary measure to keep universities secure (Giroux 2007). Carlos says that: There have been major changes since September 11. Security thinking entered into our university many years ago. I remember that they started to put the new security system in the university, among other places; they closed the entrance of the department and said that it was because addicted persons used to come to the library and use drugs. This was completely wrong, a lie, since I knew that we have never previously had any such problems. It was my first experience that helped me understand securitisation of my university. Later on, they even closed the library when we moved to another building.

Carlos explains that the securitisation of the university even influenced his scientific activities. He adds: We, all employees, have been encouraged to have blog pages and explain our research to the public, create advertising for the university and articulate ourselves on different social matters. But very soon, they began to control the blog pages and it was decided that only the head of the department and representatives for the university were allowed to write the blogs. Gradually,

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the university stopped all blogs and the pages were eliminated; everything that we have written in our pages was erased. All my critical writings were deleted; I was not given time even to save my own writings.

The securitisation of universities did not happen overnight, but represents a gradual process, which, over the course of a couple of decades, has created a culture of compliance with the neoliberal leadership of the universities (as interviewees mention), and being subjected to surveillance and control. Rodrigez puts it in this way: It [securitisation] happened gradually. After September 11, there was total silence about what the West do in other countries; it was not allowed anymore to discuss other wars, such as the horrible Libyan war or the Iraqi war in 2011. I used to relate September 11 to all these wars, the Libyan war for instance, which was one of the most imperialistic wars; but it was not welcome – there was total silence. I remember that I wrote something about it, and you said also something against it, but there was total silence, even the Leftist Party supported that war. It became difficult for me to stay at the department of sociology at [name of the university] and I moved to my current university. Here too, the situation was not better. Once I was called to the administration and was warned that they have received complaints from students who think that I had a ‘harsh tone’ in my lectures.

Many interviewees with critical perspectives have also been threatened by racist groups. These are very vulnerable, and, in many cases, they have chosen not to pursue the matter through the university. This is for two reasons; one is, as the interviewee Alexandro puts it, an absence of support from the university administration. Alexandro says that he reported the threat several times but that nothing happened: I have reported several times the threats, but they did not do anything. They told me to report this to the police. You know, I am now a bit concerned about reporting; one of my good colleagues told me that the administration think that you are being demanding. I have heard even that some of my colleagues, who are not my friends, you know, are using this to harm me. They have said that “We are not safe; we are afraid that someone who will harm him, will harm us by mistake”. So, I stopped reporting the threats.

The other reason, for those interviewees who have received a response to their reports, is that they do not receive adequate support. Rodrigez

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says that after reporting the threats several times, ‘the security office of the university closed the entrances to the department; this is all they did’. He adds: Many things happened, but more than everything else was the changing attitude towards me, those who they thought were leftists, leftist immigrants, Muslim people etc. They saw us as a threat, almost as terrorists, or terrorist supporters. It was a part of the policy of the state of exception, which meant that nothing is as it was; everything has changed, and it is security police and the university leadership who decide what is right or wrong. Your destiny is in their hands and all talks about democracy, human rights, the rule of law are just gone or just empty words.

‘The state of exception’, and its impact, has been a matter that has been mentioned by several interviewees; they explain that they feel insecure, not only when it concerns their job security, but also their personal security. They believe that this has to do with the increasing securitisation of universities. Alexandro illustrates this thus: Earlier, it was more about different perspectives. Okay, some did not like my leftist and anti-­­imperialist positioning, but this was not a matter of security and I did not feel that this could be a matter of administrative sanctions against me. I am not saying that it was not unproblematic, but just that it was not a serious problem since we were a group with such perspectives. But, during the last few years, I can say since 2009 or so, it is not only my leftist attitudes which are a problem, but also undercover accusations of being a “Muslim lover”, terrorist sympathiser, etc. I have heard what they [some colleagues] say about me; they do not think that this can harm me, if not at the university, in my personal life. I think that this is a reason that I have been threatened and received many threatening calls and mails.

Securitisation of and the state of exception at universities are not only influencing the professional lives of academics with immigrant backgrounds, but also their personal lives. ‘Personal accusations’ are presented by interviewees as a part of the worsening of their working conditions that spills over into their personal lives. For instance, many male interviewees explain that they are very concerned about potentially being sued by the university administration for ‘not doing their jobs properly’ or for ‘not being feminist’, or for even being seen as a ‘man chauvinist’ or a ‘sexual harasser’. These concerns are not just imaginary fears but have had real

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consequences for some of the interviewees. The aforementioned interviewee Mehdi is one of those who has been subjected to accusations of being a ‘male chauvinist’ by a few colleagues, and with support from the university administration: I knew that they did not like me, my radical attitudes and critical perspectives. There were a few women and a couple of men who during a relatively long period of time made life difficult for me. They were always critical of whatever I said and whatever suggestions and discussions that I had at our internal meetings. A few years ago, I was called to the head of the department and was told that “A few women have been to me and complained about your ‘non-­­feminist’ attitudes”. I told him that this is nonsense and how he and those women could say something like this since I was one of those who worked hard for recruiting more female PhD students and colleagues at the department. Of course, they did not hear and I very soon understood that this was a way of forcing me to leave the department. It was, of course, not only those women, but, as the head of the department said, “Their reports are supported by some of our male colleagues”. I asked for the names of those female and male colleagues who reported me; I never received any names – he said that I had no right to receive their names.

Mehdi adds that after talking with other colleagues, it became clear that the reporters were a few female and male colleagues, who ‘I used to call “USA-­lovers” and who had serious “anti-­Muslim” beliefs. We had several fights concerning the role of the USA in the world’. Mehdi says that they received full support from the university administration in their ‘vendetta’ against him. Some interviewees claim that their colleagues and university administration, who do not like their critical perspectives and consider them as a security problem because of their immigrant background, sometimes make use of students with racist attitudes to force them to leave the university. Moayed explains how he was subjected to such mechanisms of exclusion: A couple of years ago, two students, for whom I was supervisor, had cheated; they used my own text without referring to me and my book. The examiner for their thesis, who was against me and had support at the department, found it and accused me as their supervisor of helping the students to cheat in their work. You know, they found something against me. The two girls then start fighting each other and accusing each other of cheating. The

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examiner had said to one of the students that “If you want to go free and get your exam, you should say that you had a relationship with Moayed and that therefore he helped you cheat.” She accepted her proposal and was free; she was not reported to the “disciplinary committee”, but the other student was. Even I was reported to the “disciplinary committee” in order to construct conditions for kicking me out of the university. When we were at the “disciplinary committee”, everything changed, everything turned out to be a bluff: everything. I was free. I decided to do something about it; I hired a lawyer, gathered all information in this case and went to the Vice Chancellor of the university.

Many interviewees feel themselves observed by colleagues, the administration and the heads of the department and the university. They feel concerned about being open with their attitudes: with what they say and do not say. Some talk about their colleagues ‘who do not like them’ reporting false information about them to the department and the university leadership. Some have even decided to gather ‘evidence’ in order to being able to defend themselves against such ‘fake reports’. Tahir, for example, says: All my contacts with my colleagues and the leadership of the department take place via mail, since I do not trust them. Even if someone [a colleague] wants to say hello and meet me, I say “Send an e-­­mail”. Even if I am sitting in a meeting and something has gone wrong [between me and a colleague], I go to my computer and send an e-­­mail to that person and try to say that I’ve misunderstood him or her; I have to make myself clear in order to hinder long-­­standing problems. I say this to my students too; if my students say that a teacher who did not like me has said something against me to the students, I ask them to send an e-­­mail to that teacher and ask him or her to write down what he or she had said about me. It is important to have everything on paper, you know what I mean, to have everything on paper. It is a bloody sick world; you have to be careful and observant every minute, otherwise you are finished.

Analysis of the interviews indicates, then, that under the neoliberal university it is not only institutions that are changing and becoming more oppressive and carceral, but also personal relationships (Giroux 2008; De Lissovoy 2013).

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5.4   Choosing the Path of Success or Unsuccess The neoliberalisation of Swedish universities has taken traction since the early 2000s, as a part of the wider neoliberalisation of society that began in the 1990s. As a political project, neoliberalisation has been implemented in universities as an up-­and-­down process in Vice Chancellors, who are appointed by the state, have been the main agents of such a major reform. It was clear from the beginning of this reform that the administration would gain more influence and weaken collegiality and collegial organs. Such a process had been started and concluded in other countries, such as the USA, long before Sweden. As Giroux (2007) argues, as a result of the state’s neoliberalisation and securitisation policies, universities have now lost their independence and freedom. These policies have transformed universities into ‘all-­administrative institutions’ by emphasising productivity and keeping costs low, while taking power away from those who do the work and increasing the power of those in administration, which has resulted in the fall of faculty (Ginsberg 2011; Brown 2016). Although these changes have influenced almost every academic, the combination of neoliberalisation and securitisation of universities has particularly influenced academics with immigrant backgrounds. Throughout this chapter, interviewees testify to an increasing pressure to adjust themselves to the neoliberal securitisation of their institutions in order to be accepted by ‘all-­administrative universities’. However, the interviews show that reaction of academics with immigrant backgrounds to neoliberal securitisation and racism in the Swedish academy varies. Three following models of reaction can be traced: 1. Active adjustment 2. Resistance and protest 3. Passive acceptance and adjustment The first group of interviewees are those who have chosen to actively adjust themselves to the neoliberal securitisation and racist policies of the university. Some legitimise their efforts to fit in with the ‘all-­administrative universities’ by presenting arguments about the effective and positive aspects of neoliberal securitisation policies. As interviewee Selma says: I think my university has become much better now. There are many who just complain without taking their responsibility for the situation they are in.

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You get a salary and you have to work for it. Okay, I do not say that they are not working, but they are not working effectively. I was appointed as being responsible for the education programme because of my abilities in administration and management. I know who is working and who is not; who has taken much time and must do more and who is working hard. We have a responsibility towards society; universities must be effective and productive.

She says also that she does not any problem with universities’ securitisation policies as such policies are needed—and that ‘I have nothing to hide’. Others stress their competence and working abilities as the reason for their success and the administration’s capacity to see their qualities and let them attain better positions at the university. Amir, a researcher and teacher in a major university, who was recently appointed to an important administrative position at the university, argues that: You have to choose between being a complainer, you know “a pain in the ass”, or working hard and being successful. We have come here to have a better life. Of course, I know too that there is discrimination against people with immigrant backgrounds, but it is against some and not all. We have to accept that it is their society; they have built it over centuries and now we have no right to come here and ask them to change everything because we have chosen to come here. Really, they see your competence; they give you positions. You are an example of this: you, as a migrant, were appointed by the government to a very important governmental investigation and I have been appointed by the VC to this relatively important position.

Meanwhile, the second group of interviewees comprises those who resist neoliberalism and racism. They argue that they cannot not remain silent given that the ‘all-­administrative university’ and its (neoliberal) racism harms them on a daily basis and precisely ignores their competence and merits. As interviewee Sahran, a senior lecturer in a major university, says: You see this every day, every second of your academic life. Your colleagues [with a Swedish background] are successful, get new positions; even those who had gotten their PhD and have been your PhD students are passing you and getting better positions, but not you. You publish, receive the best evaluations from students, are invited by groups out of the university or even by other universities to give lectures on your research and competence, but are ignored and discriminated against in your own department and university. I

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have never been asked to be a member of any internal important groups, be responsible for a course, etc. You cannot then be silent and let it just go; if you do, it will be a betrayal to your own values. My protests against their dictatorial decisions and their latent and overt racist attitudes is the main reason behind my current position at the department: a deviant from the other side. It happens every day, you know; it exists in every action they take.

Sahran’s story is more or less shared by almost every interviewee who has chosen to resist neoliberal racism. One of the mechanisms of neoliberal racism is the increasing demand on academics to secure external funding. Academics should apply for external funding at the same time that they face increasing demands to undertake new administrative tasks and increasing teaching hours. Alongside this, almost all interviewees in this study say that they have applied several times to different fund-­providers, but that they have not been successful. This has been mainly to do with both their backgrounds and the subject of their research proposals. As Moayed says: I’ve applied countless times, but never get any funding. You cannot apply for funding without having white people with you. I think, it depends also on the problem or the question you want to do research on. In my case, they [fund-­­providers] are not interested of questions of ethnicity, multicultural education and discrimination; but I should say that they may give funding to a white who wants to study multiculturalism but not to me with an immigrant background. And, when you do not get funding, it is considered as your “deficit”; you not capable or competent enough to get funding.

He adds that it creates a vicious circle—a matter of ‘Catch 22’, that is he does not get funding because of his immigrant background and the subject of his research, and this is used to reinforce institutional racism and discrimination against him at his department. The aforementioned interviewee, Sahran, adds to the problem the question of language ability and the issues the new administrative requirements create for her: You know, we or better said I, cannot write as fast as my Swedish colleagues. This creates even more problems now when we have received new directives from the administration to do many things, such as documentations, writing reports, communicating with all students at the same time when you have digital lectures, etc., etc. This takes a huge amount of time for me; I have to

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rewrite and read the text several times before sending it to my colleagues, to the administration or the students. We have to fill in many administrative forms, and if you make any mistakes, you are going to hear about it later; they are going to use it against you and take it as a sign of your incompetence. And, when I protest and say that many administrative duties can be done by the administers, they do not like it. Actually, I was called to the head of the department for several things, about the critical literature in my courses, my difficult exam questions, even my aggressive tone in our meetings and against my colleagues, but also for my critique against the administration. He told me once: “Listen, here in Sweden, we act gentle and polite; you may not have been used to it”. You know he pointed out my migrant background.

Sahran claims, then, that both her critical attitudes against the neoliberal administration and her immigrant background are the reason behind the way she has been excluded and marginalised by her department. Similarly, the researcher and teacher, Carlos, who had earlier worked in another university and was forced to leave his position for a new one at another university, says that: I worked in [the name of the university] in the early 2000s. It went very well at the beginning, but the situation gradually changed. The critical and leftist attitudes were not welcomed anymore. … I used to use videos in my lectures; I use a methodology which is called the method of action research, where I use videos to show subaltern perspectives – for example, how people think in Bolivia or Venezuela, how people in grassroots movements, which is called los pobladores, talk about their visions and dreams about revolution, because the major media only show the perspectives of elites. In 10 years, I have built an archive of the popular movements in those countries, but this was not welcome in my department.

Carlos tells a relatively long story about how the department and the university leadership stopped him from doing this or any similar kind of research, which, according to them, ‘went against the official policy of the Foreign Ministry in Sweden’. After a long period of conflicts and disputes with the leadership of the department and of experiencing systemic discrimination, he felt forced to leave the department and move to another university. However, he says that the situation is no better there and that he is free neither to do his research or to exercise his freedom of speech. He gives another example from the new university:

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I have done research for many years on racism and discrimination, as well as on the women’s movements. When the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement started in the USA, I suggested to the university writing a statement of support for the BLM movement. I received support from one professor at our department and even my colleagues, and it was decided that I write the declaration, which would be important for our black and migrant students and publish it on the department’s homepage. I wrote the statement and sent it to the head of the department, who said that she would check it with the university leadership. After a few hours, we received an e-­­mail from her which said that we are not allowed to publish such a statement on our homepage since, according to the law, universities cannot take any position for or against any social movement. I thought that this was ridiculous since the department and the university used to take a stance on other movements, with Pride, for instance; we have rainbow flags on our pages, for instance, and everybody is proud of it. Such things are not considered social movements or political questions; they act selectively – questions which concern racialised groups are not welcome.

He elaborates that, more broadly, his engagement in questions of racism, discrimination and protest social movements are not welcome in Swedish universities: neither as research questions nor as educational subjects. In addition, his intellectual and personal engagements in civil society and social movements have been used against him in the academy. Finally, the third interviewee group is those who, at some point in the process of experiencing and speaking out about neoliberal and racist policies, decide against being radical or even overtly critical and so hide their critical attitudes—either because they see that ‘it is not going to make any difference’ or because ‘it harms me and my possibilities to work here’. Moayed says: I stopped even trying to do anything about it; they do not want to hear anything about this from you; they do not like any discussion about multiculturalism, multicultural education and multicultural pedagogy. My discussions have just harmed me and my possibilities to work here. It is completely a waste of time. They do not even give me responsibility for a course here; I am invited to give lectures on others’ [other teachers’] courses; they ignore you totally and treat you as nothing. I have decided to not participate in internal meetings; go there when necessary, teach and then work from home, when I can do it.

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He also explains that his previously overtly critical position at the department makes it difficult for him to get a job in another university, since new employers always ask for references from an applicant’s former workplace. That is why, as he says, ‘you have to accept the way they treat you and stay’. Sahran speaks of experiencing the same problem: They do not listen to me and my ideas, my critical standpoints. They do not want to really listen, you know; they listen, pretend to listen, but they ignore then what you’ve said and continue to treat you as nothing. When I informed the head of the department that there are some students that I did not want to mention their name, but said that they are racists and have very negative attitudes towards me and migrants; I said that we have to have a system to handle racist insults from racist students. I even contacted one of my friends in an American university and asked her to send me documents about their system for handling racist students and I later sent them to the leadership of our department and university. I expected that they can do something about this, but the head of the department contacted me and said that “We do not have any jobs for you at the department”. I asked them why they were going against me when I had informed them about the racist insults from some students. She said that “We have talked to another department, the department of education, that can provide you some teaching opportunities”. In the middle of my courses, I was forced to move to another department. This is the way they force you out of the university if you are critical and take up questions of racism and discrimination. It is not going to make any difference; it harms only you.

Some have been told clearly that if they want to keep their jobs and stay in their departments, they have to ‘keep their critical views to themselves’. Interviewee Rodrigez illustrates this as follows: They said, “It is enough. Your critical views deteriorate the working environment; your colleagues are not satisfied with your attitudes; they feel that you put them and their work under question. It is better for you to accept the rules that we have in this working group”. When I said that “Please can you specify what I said or did wrong”, he said, “It is better to not go into detail; I am the head of the department and expect that you keep your critical views on our education, literature and pedagogy to yourself”. In other words: “If you want to work here, you have to shut up and follow what we tell you to do”.

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Because of such administrative pressures, many have decided then to be quieter and, as some put it, no longer be ‘a critical voice’. However, many mean that even their silence is construed as a form of protest and they have been told several times that: ‘You have to be more engaged in our internal discussions.’ This is a way of forcing ‘deviant persons’ to publicly show their compliance to neoliberal racism.

5.5   Summary In this chapter, analysis of interviews with academics with immigrant backgrounds concerning their experiences of the increasing neoliberal reorganisation of universities, and of racism and the implementation of securitisation policies in academia, has been presented. This analysis suggests that the neoliberalisation of universities and higher education in recent decades has drastically changed working conditions for academics in general—and for academics with immigrant backgrounds in particular. Such changes have created an ‘all-­administrative-­university’, in which the influence of administrators and VCs has increased while the role of collegiality has decreased. Critical thinking and content, in terms of, for instance, anti-­racist and postcolonial knowledge, has been under attack and successfully excluded from mainstream research and the curriculum. The growing neoliberalism of higher education, political and institutional racism, and securitisation policies have, in tandem, harmed many critical academics with immigrant backgrounds. Although the prime target of the neoliberal reorganisation of universities has been academics belonging to the critical-­thinking tradition, evidence suggests that critical academics with immigrant backgrounds have been more significantly harmed. This depends mainly on a growing racism as a result of the increasing electoral success of Sweden Democrats and their direct and indirect influences on universities. Many academics with immigrant backgrounds speak about the suitable conditions that the advancement of political racism in mainstream parties has created for many racist academics and administrators to discriminate against and racialise academics with immigrant backgrounds. The universities have increased their demands for compliance with the neoliberalisation of higher education and the acceptance of institutional racism. As a result of the mechanisms of symbolic violence, those complying with neoliberal racism are rewarded by keeping their jobs and making minor advancements within the organisation—and those who resist are punished in different ways. Some have lost their jobs and others have been

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forced into sick leave or undertaking marginalised academic activities. An increasing administrative oppression has led to many critical academics choosing to keep silent and not making public their anti-­racist and postcolonial attitudes and values. They practise this strategy even in their classrooms, for fear of some racist students informing the university leadership of their anti-­racist educational activities. The result, which is one that can be explained in terms of Noelle-­Neumann’s theory of ‘the spiral of silence’, is that the space for critical academics with immigrant backgrounds is dramatically shrinking.

References Andrew, C. (2010). The defence of the realm: The authorized history of MI5. London: Penguin. Bottrell, D., & Manathunga, C. (Eds.). (2019). Resisting neoliberalism in higher education volume I: Seeing through the cracks. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Bourdieu, P. (1990). The logic of practice. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and symbolic power. Cambridge, England: Polity. Bourdieu, P. (2001). Male domination. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Brown, C. (2016). The constraints of neo-liberal new managerialism in social work education. Canadian Social Work Review, 33(1), 115–123. De Lissovoy, N. (2013). Conceptualizing the carceral turn: Neoliberalism, racism, and violation. Critical Sociology, 39(5), 739–755. Detert, J.  R., & Edmondson, A.  C. (2011). Implicit voice theories: Taken-for-­ granted rules of self-censorship at work. Academy of Management Journal, 54(3), 461–488. Ginsberg, B. (2011). The fall of the faculty: The rise of the all-administrative university and why it matters. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Giroux, H. A. (2007). University in chains: Confronting the military-industrial-­ academic complex. Boulder: Paradigm. Giroux, H. A. (2008). Against the terror of neoliberalism: Politics beyond the age of greed. Boulder: Paradigm. Giroux, H. A. (2018). American nightmare: Facing the challenges of fascism. San Francisco: City Lights Books. Gutiérrez Rodríguez, E. (2016). Sensing dispossession: Women and gender studies between institutional racism and migration control policies in the neoliberal university. Women’s Studies International Forum, 54, 167–177. Jeffery, K. (2011). MI6: The history of the secret intelligence service (pp. 1909–1949). London: Penguin. Kamali, M. (2015). War, violence and social justice: Theories for social work. London: Routledge.

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Kamali, M., & Jönsson, J.  H. (2018). Neoliberalism, Nordic welfare states and social work: Current and future challenges. London: Routledge. Kamali, M., & Jönsson, J. H. (2019). Revolutionary social work: Promoting sustainable justice. Critical and Radical Social Work, 7(3), 293–314. Levy, S. R., Chiu, C., & Hong, Y. (2006). Lay theories and intergroup relations. Group Processes and Inter- Group Relations, 9(1), 5–24. Morley, C. (2016). Promoting activism through critical social work education: The impact of global capitalism and neoliberalism on social work and social work education. Critical and Radical Social Work, 4(1), 39–57. Noelle-Neumann, E. (1974). The spiral of silence: A theory of public opinion. Journal of Communication, 24(2), 43–51. Weiner, T. (2012). Legacy of ashes: The history of the CIA. London: Penguin.

CHAPTER 6

Securitisation and Self-Censorship in Civil Society

This chapter explores the consequences of neoliberal securitisation policies for civil society activists with immigrant backgrounds in Sweden. It presents an analysis of interviews with key-­actor activists in civil society who are engaged in non-­governmental organisations and associations. This part of the study is based on in-­depth interviews with sixteen civil society activists with immigrant background, seven women and nine men, and four civil society activists, two women and one man, with Swedish background as a control group. Many racialised interviewees are or have been participants in public debates on racism and discrimination in Sweden. Due to the rapid neoliberalisation of the Nordic countries, including of their relatively well-­developed welfare states, the situation for many civil society organisations (CSOs) and associations has dramatically changed. As a result of marketisation and new steering regimes, many civil society organisations (CSOs) are forced to compete with each other for access to the scarce help offered by the state and municipal authorities. This has forced many CSOs—intended to be vehicles for active citizenship, social movement activism and participatory democracy—to adjust themselves to market rules and the marketised demands of governmental and municipal authorities. Many CSOs must suffer the burden of necessarily engaging with commodification and marketisation practices, a situation that has impacted upon their real role and purpose (strengthening human rights and the democratic engagements of people); such organisations are now, © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. Kamali, Neoliberal Securitisation and Symbolic Violence, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71210-5_6

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essentially, market actors, in daily competition for funding (Lundgaard-­ Andersen 2018). Although neoliberal policies have influenced many CSOs activities, the combination of neoliberalisation and securitisation impacts some CSOs and civil society activists more than it does others. CSOs in which people with immigrant and/or Muslim backgrounds are engaged are the prime target of neoliberal racism. As many interviewees in this study say, there is an ungrounded assumption among security police, decision-­makers and politicians that there is a hidden and dangerous alliance between radical Muslims and leftists with non-­Muslim backgrounds in general—and leftists with migrant backgrounds in particular. Although this assumption was politically created by right-­wing politicians, such as Marine Le Pen in France, it has been given a measure of scientific ‘credibility’, with, for example, French philosopher, Pascal Bruckner (2010), calling such assumed alliance Islamo-­leftism (meaning a fusion between atheist far-­left groups and Islamist radicalism). This has influenced the socio-­political conditions in which such otherised CSOs (OCSOs) and civil society actors exist. Although the assumption that religion is a source of violence and terrorism is severely contested (Appleby 1999; Cavanaugh 2009; Juergensmeyer 2003), Muslim people are forced into a binary of either radical or not radical that has resulted in a popular assumption that Islam is to ‘blame’ for the violence of individuals (Brown 2018). This has led to state efforts to counteract radicalisation among Muslims by an intensification of urban governance and surveillance practices, as well as the erosion of civic trust and the development of community policing (the latter here conceived as providing opportunities to surveil rather than serve) (McLoughlin and Cesari 2016; Guru 2012). One area where securitisation policies can be overtly observed is in the relationship of the state and municipal authorities with OCSOs. Securitisation policies particularly directed towards the civil activism of Muslim people in OCSOs creates a fear in these groups that any activism will render them ‘suspect’, of involvement in terrorism (Brown and Saeed 2015). Such consequences of the securitisation of OCSOs have been observed in many other countries too (Heath-­Kelly 2017). Although research shows that neoliberalism depoliticises and deracialises localised community relations initiatives by forcing them into market relations (Nelson and Dunn 2017), securitisation policies highly politicise and racialise localised communities and, indeed, all aspects of

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racialised groups’ activities. Neoliberal depoliticisation may concern the CSOs as the organisational arrangements of its New Public Management strategies. But this is not the case for OCSOs and racialised activists. Based on the policies of the ‘war on terror’, these organisations and activists are considered as ‘security threats’, or ‘the enemies among us’ (Kamali 2015; Kamali and Jönsson 2019). This is highly compatible with the neoliberal state’s policies and ideology through which local communities are, as Foucault puts it, governmentalised (see Chap. 2), rather than being considered as grassroots forms of social organisation (Worley 2005). Although the governmentalisation of civil society aims at disciplining CSOs to adopt neoliberal competitiveness and the marketisation of their activities, the governmentalisation of OCSOs also includes surveillance and control as parts of the state’s securitisation policies. Neoliberal governmentalisation forces individuals and communities to self-­discipline and to practise self-­governance in compensation for the retreat of the state from its responsibilities for the social welfare of people (Kamali and Jönsson 2018). Moreover, OCSOs who fight racism and anti-­ racist activists are not only required to be self-­disciplined and self-­­governed, but also to transform their anti-­ racism into anti-­ terrorist activities. However, given that racism is part of the institutional and structural properties of modern and neoliberal societies (Kamali 2008, 2015), the anti-­ racism of civil society organisations should be, rather, a reaction and mobilisation against neoliberal forces (Nash 2003; Laurie and Bonnett 2002; Kamali 2015; Kamali and Jönsson 2018). This means that OCSOs and civil society activists, who should seek mobilisation against neoliberal states, cannot seek alliances with the state. Moreover, involvement in civil society organisations and activism means that many individuals are also subjected, in a more general sense, to neoliberal racism and the forces of increasing racist and exclusionary practices—including in terms of their willingness or not to openly declare themselves anti-­racist. The main themes that emerge from the interviews are: ‘Increasing demand for compliance with neoliberal racism and securitised order’; ‘Muzzling as self-­protection’, ‘Being observed and ignored at the same time’; and ‘Choosing the path of success and unsuccess’. The themes are not (at an analytical level) mutually exclusive categories but, rather, are interrelated and build on one another.

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6.1   Increasing Demand for Compliance to Neoliberal Securitised Order Growing neoliberal racism and securitisation policies in the name of ‘the war on terror’ have influenced many groups in Swedish society. However, individuals and groups with immigrant backgrounds have been especially influenced by such policies. One of the consequences of such policies is an increasing demand from authorities on civil society agents with immigrant backgrounds—otherised civil society organisations (OCSOs) and civil society activists—to adjust themselves to the neoliberal racist system and its institutional practices. The governmentalisation of OCSOs requires adjustment of such organisations to the established neoliberal order and to neoliberal racism. Furthermore, the interviewed OCSOs and anti-­racist activists and journalists argue that they have become trapped in an almost impossible controversy: while they are required to fight terrorism, they are often accused of being terrorist supporters or apologists. This places constraints on their activities as they consider the Swedish neoliberal state’s demands on them to be a kind of self-­negation, that is stopping their efforts against racism and inequalities. They mean that the situation for their anti-­racist activities has drastically worsened. As Ayshe, a civil society activist and member of an OCSO, who has for many years been involved in civil society activities and public debates concerning racism and discrimination, puts it: The situation or the debate climate has changed drastically over the last few years. The focus has been shifted from discussions on equal rights, equal treatment to integration; how can “We” integrate migrants, “Them”? It makes the situation very difficult for us who fight against racism, see racism as structural. They mean that if they [people with migrant backgrounds] become integrated all problems will be solved, everything from the labour market to other markets. I see a worsening of the climate during the last ten years. If you do not accept their right-­­wing liberal agenda, they commit a character assassination of you, which is they single you out as a troublesome person, one who has a hidden agenda.

Stamping an anti-­racist as ‘troublesome’, as a person with ‘a hidden agenda’ and/or as ‘a terrorist associate’ is something which has been mentioned by many of the OCSOs members, activists participating in this study. In addition, the mainstream media and politicians make use of other mechanisms for the exclusion of critical voices from public debates on

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racism. Ayshe mentions one such mechanisms aiming at the exclusion of individuals with immigrant backgrounds from (neoliberal) debates and activities. She explains that today, when there is a debate or news about migrants or marginalised areas of society, it is not anyone from those groups (i.e. their real representatives) who are invited to discuss the situation, but, rather, others who reinforce the negative image of migration and marginalised groups—and who thereby legitimise neoliberal racism. This is a well-­ established mechanism that has been shown in earlier research (Kamali 2008). Ayshe argues that if those who are able to offer a real analysis of the reasons behind problems in marginalised areas get the opportunity to speak out in the media, neoliberal groups and policies will be challenged; that is why the establishment, media and political parties do not want to have critical voices and anti-­racists included in public debates. The ways in which OCSOs who resist the governmentalisation of civil society have been weakened and countered are many. The neoliberalisation of society at large has also influenced the Swedish organisation of welfare, as well as the relations between CSOs and the neoliberal state. Decreasing financial support for CSOs has resulted in increasing competition between such organisations in getting funding from the state (Lundgaard-­Andersen 2018). Such organisations must prove their measurable effectiveness and their adjustment to the neoliberal social policies of the state. In addition, the question of security, related to the policies of the ‘war on terror’ and the ‘democracy requirement’, has frequently been used by the Swedish state and media in order to ‘sort out’ the OCSOs who are considered undesirable and dangerous for ‘our security and democracy’. Abubaker, who, previously, has been the head of an OCSO, provides the following illustration of the way his former organisation was subjected to authorities’ exclusionary practices: I have been responsible for a civil society organisation for Muslim youths. We have had some funding from governmental and municipal authorities. They decided suddenly to accuse us of having relations with homophobes and almost terrorist groups. They have increased their demands; they [the demands] are not as earlier, concerning democracy and gender, but also condemning terrorism and not having any contact and cooperation with people who are considered not desirable. You do not know who these people are, whom you are not supposed to have contact with; you know that only when you have invited, for instance, somebody from UK to have a

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lecture about Islamophobia here. This is what happened in our case; they stopped giving us any support and funding.

As another interviewee, Gibra, who works with a women’s project in which women with immigrant background participate, says, the reason for the authorities’ discriminatory and sometimes racist actions is that: The competition between many anti-­­racist organisations for getting funding has increased. The authorities can find any reason to withdraw their support. You have to completely adjust yourself to their demands and requirements. Sometimes even this is not enough: you have to be a Swede; migrants have no equal chances of getting funding. You are facing different and new demands each time.

One of the OCSO leaders interviewed for this study, who has participated in many public debates on questions of racism and Islamophobia, Karim, claims that securitisation policies have changed in the Swedish public sphere to the extent that even the use of some words within debates has become effectively prohibited: The debate climate has been worsened. Some words and notions that you could use a few years ago are now impossible to use; words such as racism or other critical words that you used to use are now considered almost forbidden words; words that you could use to talk about, for instance, racist structures in society, that could make people understand what you meant, are now directly counteracted by certain groups who use standard “normalised and ready arguments”. You have to have this with you in any debate; they want eagerly to misunderstand you. For instance, take the example of terrorism and Islam; if you want to provide an argument that terrorism comes from certain policies, for instance, towards the Middle East, that such policies create that, such a discussion is almost impossible to have today, because as soon as you say that, they will present you as a terrorist supporter.

Karim says that he has to find a way to adjust his arguments and participation in public debates by declaring, at the beginning of any debate, his rejection of terrorism and explicitly stating that he hates what terrorists do—otherwise, he will be not allowed to participate in the debate. Another civil society activist, Ayshe, who has frequently participated in public debates on racism and discrimination, puts it as follows:

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The situation is the same in the debate on other concepts, such as racism or whiteness. If you discuss such things, you have to explain in almost one hour that you do not mean that everybody is racist in this country or that you do not like white people, you do not hate them, and that whiteness and white people are two different things. As soon as you talk about racism or whiteness, you hear that this is racism too; reverse racism [racism against white people]. You have to always be over-­­clear and this makes a critical discussion almost impossible; you have to think all the time, all the time, how your discussions will be understood by them: “How can I be critical, have critical standpoints against racism without being considered as a terrorist, a reverse racist or an aggressive individual who hates white people?” You cannot be free to discuss what you believe in anymore, because you have to always think about how you are going to be considered by the other side.

Relatedly, Kazem, an anti-­racist activist, says that his Muslim background is the reason why he is considered ‘unreliable’. He says that he has to explain himself ‘all the time to counter accusations of being a terrorist or terrorist-­lover’: This terrorist business, you know, it has become a huge problem for me. I feel that I am considered unreliable, even when I am in a shop, on a bus talking to authorities or writing an article or participating in a debate. You have to be extra careful and watch your mouth; whatever you say can be used against you by journalists, politicians, media etc. This is really a risky business to be Muslim in Sweden today; even in Europe; in the entire world really. I have to explain myself all the time to counter accusations of being a terrorist or terrorist-­­lover.

Many participants claim that, when they face and counter such accusations, the burden of proof is always on them, and not on those who accuse Muslim activists. Such comments and accusations can be explained by relating them to counter-­terrorism policies and strategies, which position Muslim communities as ‘suspect communities’ (Kapoor 2018; Kundnani 2014; McGhee 2008). A major problem discussed by almost all politicians, journalists, academics and civil society activists participated in this work is the disappearance of any political opposition to increasing neoliberal racism and anti-­Muslimism in society; instead, many mainstream parties and politicians have adjusted their policies and political activities to be in line with

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those of neoliberal racist parties and discourses. The aforementioned interviewee Ayshe puts this in the following fashion: In the same way that New Democracy [a racist party from 1990s] had influenced mainstream political parties in the past, Sweden Democrats [SD] influences the mainstream parties, who have anti-­­ immigrant and anti-­ Muslim attitudes, to become more racist and more anti-­­Muslim. The adjustment of mainstream parties to SD reinforces racism and anti-­­Muslimism as a part of the right-­­wing ultra-­­liberal policies.

Those engaged in OCSOs are very much concerned about the controversial ways in which they are being treated by the government and municipal authorities. On the one hand, under a neoliberal organisation of public life, CSOs are seen as a ‘favoured institutional form’ (Kamat 2013), when the state is retreating from its traditional duties for the welfare of people (Kamali and Jönsson 2018); and, on the other hand, the authorities treat them as a problem for neoliberal governance given that they are capable of building alliances against neoliberalism, particularly in times of polarisation and crisis (Beinin 2014; Dauvergne and LeBaron 2014).

6.2   Muzzling as Self-Protection The growth of security thinking, as part of neoliberal racism, has resulted in the increasing marginalisation of critical thinking and anti-­racist activism. This, in turn, has led to an increased fear among many such activists of sanctions against them—or what can be conceived as comprising the mechanisms of symbolic violence. Many interviewees say that they are concerned about their own lives and careers in Sweden. Some have lost their jobs, while others are afraid of not getting new employment should they leave their current position. Securitisation policies seem to have led to the stigmatisation of any critical and radical thinking in which the structural or institutional changes of neoliberal racism are identified as being ‘a threat’. This has, in the first place, harmed those directly engaged in critical and anti-­racist activities in all aspects of socio-­political life in the country. Many activists in OCSOs and other civil spheres testify to the changing conditions of their activities and the negative symbolic sanctions that they have been subjected to as result of current securitisation policies. Fear of symbolic sanctions has forced many anti-­racist and critical activists to be more cautious in their

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public performances and activities and to keep silent when they should speak out and resist. The aforementioned interviewee, Abubaker, who is one of the most well-­known anti-­racist civil society activists in Sweden and who has participated in many media debates, illustrates this as follows: I must think several times in advance before I say something publicly, since anything you say can be cited selectively. They take a sequence or a part of what you are saying and then use it against you. For instance, if I try to explain why youths are recruited to militant groups in the Middle East, they attack you as if you are the chancellor for the Islamic State terror group and are relativising their criminal acts. That is why I stopped participating in some seminars, forums and debates, and even saying anything publicly in the media, if it is not live, since I can then control what I am saying, and they cannot manipulate it. I have decided to be silent, to not say anything because I was afraid that they could hijack and change what I wanted to say.

Almost all of the interviewees who have an immigrant background report not only having been subjected to symbolic sanctions but also to physical assaults, something which makes them more cautious about their public appearances. One of the members of an OCSO, Siran, illustrates this thus: Threatening and physical attacks have increased in recent years. Such attacks have been more directed towards girls than boys. Such attacks have been directed mostly against those who have been more public. I have been personally threatened by e-­­mails, letters, calls and even people have come up and threatened me. Even when sitting in the metro, some have tried to harass me and provoke me to do something in order to attack me, but I tried to keep my head calm. Of course, such threats make you more cautious; many times, you do not say what you felt that you should say, you know.

Many interviewees say that they have even used discriminatory discourses in their public performances as a result of not wanting to be accused of being ‘a terrorist supporter’ or ‘a radical’. Abubaker argues that: It has happened that I used discriminatory discourses in the media. I did, since if I did not use them, it would be presented as if I relativise terrorism, or accept it, or even encourage such actions. It happened even in live broadcast programmes that I have used problematic discriminatory notions [about Muslim people] just because I have felt the pressure that I had to use such

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notions, otherwise I would be one of those who commit such terrible crimes [acts of terrorism].

Using mainstream discourses, or what interviewees call discriminatory discourses, which reinforce the ‘inferiority’ and otherisation of people with immigrant and Muslim backgrounds, is not the only problem that has been influencing the conditions in which OCSO members and activists publicly perform; additionally, the content of debates on anti-­racism has exerted an influence. Aforementioned interviewee Ayshe, who participates in OCSOs activities and has also participated in many public debates, illustrates this problem: If you are not a politically correct person, do not use the words and notions that is usual to use, it makes it very difficult for us who fight for equality, against racism. This is not only a problem forced on us by the political parties, but also by the major media industry. … There was more space for debate about racism and discrimination ten years ago, to talk about the structural reasons behind marginalisation; it has become much worse today. If I participate in public debates, there are some words and notions that I want to use; if I talk about racism, I want to relate it to social structures, that it is structural; if I talk about Islamophobia, I want to relate it to the war on terrorism. And it is clear that if I talk about such things, I am not going to get the opportunity to participate in the debate. If I say that the Western world has huge interests in oil and other things in those countries they are creating war in, I will be considered a ‘terrorist lover’.

She says then that she has decided to be more silent because ‘the space for anti-­racist debate and activism has shrunk drastically’. She adds that there are problems that she has been subjected to as a result of her reputation as an activist in the resistance movement against racism and anti-­ Muslimism. For example, she and her organisation have been denied locales by municipal authorities to have their meetings, seminars and conferences. She says that even an organisation that had invited her to be a keynote speaker ‘has been denied conference room by municipal authorities who accused the organisation of supporting supporters of terrorism’. A civil society activist who is engaged in debates and activities against racism and anti-­Muslimism, Samad, says that the tremendous attacks to which he has been subjected has forced him to be more silent:

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My long-­­term activities against racism and anti-­­Muslimism have made it difficult for me in my current job. I have been active for many years, and it influences my job today. I work as a social worker at a real estate company. They try to destroy my chances of keeping my job at the company. Unfortunately, it is a natural consequence of it; that you, in many ways, weigh any letter and word you are using [in public]. Because of the destructive attention it created, I have closed my social media sites and stopped my activities of many years.

Samad says that he is now more cautious about what he says in the public sphere and even to his friends. He means that ‘you never know who your friend is and who is not’. He adds that he and many other activists and non-­activists with Muslim and critical backgrounds ‘have adjusted … to the racist and anti-­Muslim reality of the fear of the negative consequences of resistance’. The interviewees’ explanations show the severe effects of symbolic violence on their working lives. As Bourdieu (1990) argues, symbolic violence takes place through the ‘soft means’ of the exercise of power (see Chap. 2). This means that the interviewees’ compliance with the mechanisms of symbolic violence, that is choosing to be silent or cautious, does not take place exclusively in terms of an externally felt power and pressure, but rather through individuals’ choices in accordance with what is good for them right now and in respect of protecting themselves from the harms of being radical activists. This is what members of each society learn and make a part of their ‘habitual schemes incarnated in their bodies’ (Bourdieu 1990: 190). Accepting the status quo is, then, in many cases a choice and not only a result of external forces. As many social scientists, such as Weber, Durkheim, Foucault and Bourdieu, have argued (see Chap. 1), obedience requires some degree of compliance; individuals ‘rationalise’ their obedience through the real or imaginary negative consequences of non-­ obedience and the positive consequences of compliance and obedience. This is because, as Bourdieu (1990) argues, the mechanisms of domination based on symbolic violence should be presented as constituting ‘something else’, that is not what it is—a mechanism for reproducing the privileges of privileged groups. Beyond acts of symbolic violence, some of the members of OCSOs and civil society activists interviewed have (as mentioned earlier in this section) even been subjected to physical attacks and threats that has influenced

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their participation in public debates on racism and discrimination. Abubaker illustrates this as follows: I become more and more cautious for each year because every time that I said something in media, I was subjected to threats, through calls, e-­­mails, and they even sent “powder” to my home; it was so serious that I had a police escort when I participated in the Almedalsveckan [a political event taking place each summer in Sweden]. Yes, I choose a low profile in fear of that something, physical attacks, could happen to me. I have very concerned and worried parents who are constantly worried about me and my engagement.

Indeed, almost all participants say that they have decided to hide their real ideas and when trying to make them public, they use a ‘softer language’ (as one of the interviewees says) to protect themselves from symbolic and even physical sanctions. This includes the fear of losing their jobs or being marginalised and excluded from the public sphere. In other words, muzzling is used as self-­protection in public life. However, members of CSOs and activists who have a Swedish background say that they do not need to be completely silent but instead simply be more careful when using some discourses or when working with some CSO partners. An interviewee who is responsible for one CSO working with the question of integration in one of the major marginalised areas, Kerstin, illustrates this: Of course, it has become more difficult for all NGOs and those working with questions of integration. You have to be careful about who you cooperate with; the mosque is a problem or is considered sometimes to be a problem. We should even be careful about who we invite to our group, to have a chat with or to have him here to have a lecture for us. Some individuals, researchers or others have a “warning flag”, you know what I mean? I do not care about this too much; but I must say that this is in your mind all the time. I say what I think and cannot be silenced, but, yes, it is there.

She means that there are mechanisms of ‘guilt by association’, that is if you work with or are associated with someone ‘suspicious’, one can be ‘put under question’ and be considered as ‘problematic’ and not properly reliable. Aforementioned interviewee Karim explains the way he and other members of the Muslim civil society organisation of which he has been a

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leading member apply self-­censorship in order to be able to act without being subjected to media bulling and negative sanctions from the authorities: Because of the problems that many Muslim youths, who were members of such organisations, are facing, I recommended the organisations not to register members and to not have their names on their homepages. We have to hide our beliefs, our religion; this is a clear example of self-­­censorship. Your engagements in civil society, public debates, etc. can influence your chances of getting a job, even ten years later. Even those youth who have become successful entrepreneurs have to hide their involvement in such legal and normal organisations. Such discussions are now highly urgent for many Muslim people and even others: how to protect the identity and engagements of youths in different organisations; in other words, a kind of self-­ censorship that we have to choose in order to protect ourselves against majority society’s harassment of us, of the youths.

All participants here speak about self-­censorship as a way of protecting themselves and their families from symbolic sanctions in the form of media bulling, as well as not receiving funding from the authorities on equal terms with other civil society organisations and having other difficulties in their private lives, such as being stigmatised so that they cannot get a job.

6.3   Being Observed and Ignored at the Same Time Many of the interviewees say that, in respect of their critical and anti-­racist stances, they feel themselves being observed and ignored at the same time. They tell stories about how their positive work and activities in civil society and in the public sphere are ignored by authorities and the heads of their workplaces, while they are simultaneously watched and controlled. Ayshe says: I know this. I have friends in public service broadcasting [radio and TV]; they have told me that there is a list: this and that person are not going to be interviewed and invited to debate programmes. Your chances and opportunities are related to your colour of skin, your attitudes, radical or not radical. Some persons are excluded and others who accept the established mainstream discourses, media and policies are welcomed and used as an alibi to say that “See, this is approved even by themselves [migrants and the

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­ arginalised]”. You see, they register our ideas, our ideologies, our politim cal beliefs.

She explains that it is not only the established media and authorities who ‘have a list’ or ‘register our ideas’ and have such activists under observation and control but also other actors, who help such organisations to exclude anti-­racist and radical activists from participating in democratic and public debates. She adds: It has become much worse; if I am invited today to participate in a seminar or conference, the racist groups and internet sites mobilise opposition and try to influence those responsible for such seminars and ask them: “How could you invite such a person? She is Islamist, she is radical”. It could not happen for ten years ago. They search and find something that I had said ten years ago and send it to those in charge of such seminars and make them responsible for inviting such a “wrong person” with “a hidden agenda”. Earlier, they discussed only migration or problems with migration; today, such debates are highly related to terrorism, the narrative of terror and terrorism, Muslim people who can threaten democracy, are especially difficult to be integrated in society. Within the frames of the war on terrorism, all migrants have suddenly been Muslim. … You feel yourself observed, watched and controlled. Meanwhile, you are not invited to debates, ignored and discriminated against in the labour market. You are not free; you are watched and controlled by different means.

Ayshe’s narrative highlights the existence of a problem that is twofold; at the same time that she is not contacted by the mainstream media or organisations to participate in a debate or to give a lecture on racism and Islamophobia (and so is being ignored), her every single step is observed and controlled in order to reinforce her isolation and exclusion from the public sphere. And that is why she has, in turn, decided to purposefully isolate herself from the public sphere and instead focus on influencing ‘the target group’ for her anti-­racist activities. She says that: I do not use social media, as I want to have contact with the target group for my engagement; my target group are those who are subjected to racist assaults. My goal is no longer to influence the attitudes of the majority society, but to influence our people, to mobilise them; we can do many things, try to get them out of the “the complex of inferiority”. Social media is a

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system that can be used by the political power, by the majority society to surveil you, to control you.

Some of the interviewees say that there is no way of escaping from or changing an established, mediatised identity as a radical anti-­racist activist who is harmful for ‘our society’. Indeed, many interviewees talk about a life-­long persecution against them that is due to their holding radical and anti-­racist ideas and that is almost impossible to change. Karim, who as previously mentioned, had once been the head of an OCSO, this being some years ago, illustrates this as follows: It has become everyday routine for me to be observant, to be attacked as a radical and even Islamist, even today when I am not anymore the head of the organisation. Everything I say relates to that organisation and is attacked by the media; I have become one with the organisation. I am still countered, controlled and negatively sanctioned by majority society. I can give you an example. I have recently applied to do my foreign practical period, as part of my education in political science, at the Swedish embassy in Jordan, since I can speak Arabic and know the Jordanian society well. I did not get it. I thought that this may have depended on the better qualifications of those who were accepted, but no. I checked those who were accepted and saw that they were not even master students, but undergraduate students. I have many qualifications that many of those students never had; for instance, I have worked with civil society organisations, EU projects and many other things which should normally be a merit for you. It was clear that it had to do with my background and critical activities. They do not care about you normally, but when you will get a job or something else, they see you and they control you. I start to give up, to be convinced that you are not going to get any job or position in this country.

Problems with getting a job because of previous involvement in anti-­ racist activities in OCSOs and beyond, if one is not prepared to then publicly clarify that one no longer holds such ‘radical’ views, is something that many interviewees with an immigrant background have mentioned. The situation for those with Muslim backgrounds specifically are even worse. Ahmed tells about the problems he had in his application for a job as a civil engineer: I applied for a job as civil engineer after finishing my education and practical courses. I was called for an interview. I thought, “Wow, at last”. In that

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interview they asked me why I have been a member of a civil society organisation of Muslim youths; I had to explain myself. It was really not to ask me if I was a member in that organisation, which is completely legal and is still active, but they wanted to know if I am still of Muslim faith; I realised that it was my religion or faith that is the problem.

The policies of the ‘war on terror’ and the securitisation of society have influenced the living conditions for many groups with immigrant backgrounds in general and those with Muslim backgrounds in particular. Some interviewees even tell about their fear of travelling to other countries because of the potential risk of being arrested and jailed. They talk about the insecurity of travelling because they do not know what will be happen to them based on their anti-­racist activities in Sweden, as well as their Muslim background. They mean that their struggle against anti-­ Muslimism could be used to accuse them of being associated with terrorists or terrorist organisations—something that they claim has been used against them in the Swedish public sphere. They are also concerned about the anti-­terrorist laws and regulations in other countries that can harm them. Abubaker says: If you travel to Saudi Arabia or other countries in the Middle East, for instance, you do not know what will happen with you. You do not know what they know about you. I have even decided to not visit some countries, such as the United Kingdom and France, because of the fear for being accused of contact with terrorist groups. I am originally from [says country] but decided to not visit my country and my family who are living there, also because the fear of not being able to come back. Partly because those countries have ‘terror laws’ that can be used against whoever they want. There are ‘terror laws’ in European countries that can make you a terrorist only because you may have had contact with somebody in a country when you did not know that that person is a suspect of terrorism or not; they can then take you in custody and accuse you of being a terrorist.

This means that securitisation policies, as part of the policies of the ‘war on terror’, are not confined within the borders of a nation state, but are global mechanisms that harm many people—either because of their activities against neoliberal racism or their religious or ethnic backgrounds (Kamali 2015; Finch et al. 2019). It shows also that the globalisation of neoliberal racism and the ‘war on terror’, in turn, globalises the mechanisms of symbolic violence. Many interviewees talk about security

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cooperation between Sweden and other countries which makes it difficult for them to travel freely. A civil society activist and member of an OCSO, Merhat speaks about her ‘continuous fear’ and concern about ‘being watched’ and controlled: You became paranoid sometimes; I do not know if it is paranoia really or it is what is going on in society. I feel that I am watched and controlled not only by security organisations, but also by my colleagues. Even when I send an email to a friend and complain about the way society is functioning, is treating Muslim people or youths with immigrant backgrounds, I feel that they are controlling me. It is not only this, but even when I criticise racism in my workplace and when I go to my job the next morning, I have a feeling that my colleagues have read my email. Do not misunderstand me, I am not saying that this is the case, but it happens all the time that when my colleagues criticise me, they use things that I did not know that they know; it seems that, you know, Big Brother sees you and whatever you do – or even what you think.

Merhat argues, moreover, that such interest in her always concerns her ‘mistakes’, or, as she says: ‘[they] find something that they can use against you, but not for your competency and for giving you a better position’.

6.4   Choosing the Paths of Success and Unsuccess Many interviewees speak about the problems that their activities in civil society—including participation in public debates—create for them. Increasing demand for compliance with the neoliberal system and the expansion of securitisation policies make many civil society activists of immigrant backgrounds very concerned about their life chances in Sweden. The aforementioned interviewee Abubaker, who is one of the most famous civil society activists in the country to have a Muslim background, speaks about his concerns: Participating in public debates reduces drastically your career possibilities in the labour market. Already if you say that racism is a problem and we have to do something about it, to counteract it, already there your possibilities to get a job in the labour market shrinks; many employers think that it is “uncomfortable” to hire such engaged person. And then, I am a person who has a power-­­analysis of what is happening and therefore I have chosen sometimes to keep silent and not say anything because of the fear of its economic

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consequences for me. When everything comes around, I have to support myself and my family and to live a normal life.

Abubaker’s concerns about the reduction of his chances on the Swedish labour market because of his critical and anti-­racist stance in civil society is an illustration of the way symbolic violence functions in society. He is afraid of being punished by being denied a job. It shows also that he chooses to keep silent and hide his real thoughts and beliefs because, in line with Noelle-­Neumann (1974) theory of the ‘spiral of silence’, he fears being isolated and excluded, including in terms of access to the labour market. He chooses to hide his real ideas and share them with his closest friends through social media. He says: I have alternative ways of being active and of saying what I want to say. For instance, I have created a Facebook group; it is closed; it is for those with common beliefs, where I know that I will not be misunderstood; my words are not taken away from their context and misused. I can discuss freely and discuss important matters with other people. I use those platforms to freely articulate and verbalise my thoughts in the way I want. But in public circumstances, I try to articulate myself a bit differently.

Some others have decided to stop their public engagements in order to preserve themselves from being subjected to negative sanctions. Karim illustrates this: I can put it in this way. I think that it may not be worth risking so much; I do not participate in public debates, I concentrate me on internal activities, to influence our youths. I have, for instance, closed my Twitter [social media account] since I thought it is not worth so much threat and so on. For instance, I had a conflict with a Nazi who had been in Ukraine and fought for Nazi groups there. It has been a discussion between him and some other racialised groups who turned against his racist comments about Muslims and non-­­Muslims. He started to attack me and the organisation on my Twitter account and created a lot of problems; you know, “That Karim, bloody immigrant, should not be here”. He [the racist person] is a person who has pictures of himself holding weapons on Twitter and has no problem with expressing extreme attitudes. Even on other social media – Facebook, for instance  – it is the same. The threats made me close my social media accounts and engagements. I have even taken down a pod cast that I had with a friend of mine because of attacks and threats.

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He adds that he has retreated from all forms of public political engagement for two reasons: ‘partly because my engagement does not pay anything, I cannot succeed; and partly because it is harmful to my life and career possibilities; I see my friends, what happened to them’. He adds that: When I apply for a job, I can see it now after applying for many jobs, that it is my person which makes it impossible to get that job, not my qualifications. They do not want anybody who deviates from their norms. An example can make it clearer. I applied and got a job in a Muslim school; I was loved by students, parents, the VC of the school, everybody; the VC increased my salary and gave me appreciation; this could not happen in a public school. My background or my political and anti-­­racist activities did not counteract my career, on the contrary. But this will not happen in a public school. As you see, there are only two alternatives left for you: either self-­­censorship or just give up everything.

This is something that many interviewees speak about. The pressures from majority society have forced many to live a ‘double life’, that is a public and a private life. By hiding their real ideas and critical standpoints, they try to appear as, one of the interviewees, Samad, puts it, ‘acceptable and gentle’, and find their own private spheres for sharing their ideas and discussing different matters of interests with their close friends. One of the civil society activists, Amud, says: Many of us are even afraid of sharing some articles on our social media, Facebook for instance. There are articles, for instance about Palestine and Israel’s crimes in occupied areas, but we chose to not share that because of the fear of being accused of anti-­­Semitism or getting a terrorist stamp on us. These are not leftist or Islamist articles, just facts; many of them published in, for instance, New York Times, BBC or somewhere else that everybody accepts as a normal source of information. I am afraid of sharing many political articles because it will be used against me. You know, they will say, “Look, he hates Israel, loves terrorists”, etc.

Amud adds that this curtails possibilities for him to participate in democratic activities on equal terms with others. Such limits on participation as Amud describes illustrate a broader argument, that full access to democracy is arguably conditional, that is dependent on the individuals’ ‘imagined belonging’ based on her ethnicity, religion, colour of skin and place of birth. He also argues, as do some other interviewees, that because of

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their young ages, some civil society activists may be attractive on the labour market; therefore, they have to ‘hide their anti-­racist attitudes’ in order to not ‘be stamped as a troublemaker’ or ‘not Swedish’ and therefore be successful in getting a job or building a career on the Swedish labour market—because, as Amud says, ‘it will be much more difficult when we get older’. Hiding real ideas and attitudes is something that almost all participants speak about. Such behaviour is, according to many interviewees, very common among activists with immigrant backgrounds. The mechanisms of symbolic violence force such individuals to hide their anti-­racist attitudes because of the negative consequences—that is symbolic punishment—to which they can be subjected. Many provide examples of symbolic punishments that they or their friends have experienced due to their anti-­ racist and critical standpoints. Some have even lost their jobs. Siran’s story illustrates this: I was relatively open, you know; I was not stupid enough to be too critical but used to mention some problems at my workplace  – mentioning the problematic attitudes that some clients or even a few of my colleagues had about migrants. I say “problematic”, but they were really racist; openly racist attitudes. Once I was called to the boss and was warned to not offend my colleagues; I said that I did not mention anybody or criticised anybody directly, but she did not want to hear me. This created a huge problem for me. They started criticising me for not being professional, having bad contacts with clients, God knows what else, even having the wrong clothes, etc. Once I went to the boss and said, “I know that the only problem I have is my migrant background and my anti-­­racist attitudes”. There is a long history, you know; I was openly told to find another job before “it is too late”, which means that they wanted to fire me. The union did not do anything about this; they sit on the employers’ knee. Simply, I lost my job and had to find a job which was not in accordance with my competency.

The harsh situation that many anti-­racist and critical civil society activists face sometimes leads to a sense of anomy among them. Many speak about their almost daily experiences of questioning their own beliefs. Abubaker illustrates this: Sometimes you put your own ideas, your own person under question, because there are even people with your own background who tell you that “You are so radical, it is your radical ideas, the way you say things, that have

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made you impossible”; as if it is me who has worsened the situation, racism in this country; you become very thoughtful about such things, because you are under question all the time, from different people; you are constantly attacked by majority society as well as by those with your own background.

Notably here, Abubaker says that it is not only majority society but also ‘those with your own background’ who tell him that his ‘too radical ideas’ and his own anti-­racist behaviour are the reasons behind his difficult situation in the public sphere, as well as on the Swedish labour market (Abubaker has had many problems in getting a job and today works in a civil society organisation with very insecure working conditions). Indeed, many individuals with immigrant backgrounds who have adjusted themselves to the neoliberal racist system see very clearly that the only way of building a career and being a part of Swedish society is – as one such individual, Hanif, says—accepting that people with migrant background have ‘moved to Sweden and must accept this society as it is’: You know, people used to complain all the time about racism and discrimination. Yes, such things exist but not as such groups claim and try to put the blame of all their failures in Sweden on the system and Swedes. We should accept the fact that we or our parents have moved to Sweden and must accept this society as it stands. They cannot change their society, their history because we are here. I have no problem at all with being here; of course, there are minor problems, even of racism, but not of the kind that many immigrants say. I adjust myself to the, so to say, ‘rules of the game’ and have no problem in society. There are those who have problems in society, even immigrants in my own organisation, but not me.

Hanif has a steady job and also works voluntarily in a CSO in his leisure time. He says that sometimes his friends with immigrant backgrounds want him to support them or sign a petition against racism but that he refuses because he feels it can influence his career in Sweden. He adds that he also does not believe in such things and that the ‘best thing is to get a job and stop talking so much about racism’. As he says, ‘in comparison with the countries we are coming from, we have it much better here’. Hanif’s story illustrates the existence of the mechanisms of ‘symbolic violence’ by which some people who do not accept the requirement to adjust themselves are punished and those who adjust themselves are rewarded. He chooses, then, the latter alternative by arguing that ‘we have to use whatever opportunities to build a career and get better positions in

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society’. Exemplifying here the dynamics of ‘the spiral of silence’ (Noelle-­ Neumann 1974), he says that the lack of compliance among people with immigrant backgrounds and anti-­racist activists can lead to their isolation and marginalisation and says that ‘this is not a problem at all, but the rules of the game; as the saying goes, you have to adjust yourself to the customs where you are’ (a Swedish saying: ta seden dit du kommer). But the reality is problematic for those who do not comply with ‘the rules of the game’. Many civil society activists engaged in anti-­racism explain that they are subjected to racism not only in their daily activities and because of their anti-­racist attitudes, but because of their background and how they look. As one of the members of an OCSO, Amina, puts it: I am black; I wear a headscarf; it is obvious that I am Muslim, how can I pretend something else? They see me, on the bus, in the metro, everywhere I am subjected to racism in all its different ways; from looking at you as if you are criminal, terrorist, from another planet. I am a gentle person really, but, yes, I am a Muslim woman with a headscarf and that is why I am subjected to racism and discrimination here and not because of my deeds.

Many speak about the changing conditions of civil activities in Sweden. They mean that many radical anti-­racists have changed their activities and, in some cases, have adjusted themselves to the normalisation of racism. For instance, Ayshe says: Today many researchers, journalists and activists who were radical some years ago have changed their attitudes and activities. They have become like anybody else and act as anybody else; they have adjusted themselves to the demands of majority society and do whatever majority society wants them to do. This makes our work much more difficult, because we have become alone against so many racists and in a racist system.

Increasing neoliberal racism has influenced the activities of many CSOs, including OCSOs. Many CSOs’ are dependent on the Swedish governmental and municipal authorities for financing their activities. Although such economic funding is not of great amounts, if it is not paid to such organisations, they may not be able to carry out their work. Over the last few decades, and because of the neoliberal reorganisation of society, many CSOs have been forced to adjust themselves to the neoliberal practices of New Public Management. This means increasing competition between CSOs in getting funding from national and local municipalities

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(Lundgaard-­Andersen 2018). In addition, increasing control of civil actors and people with immigrant backgrounds in the name of securitisation and ‘the war on terror’ (Kamali 2015) has led to a deterioration in OCSOs’ working conditions. Some has lost their funding because of the accusation of ‘not being democratic’. One of the leaders of an OCSO which has precisely lost its funding, Abubaker, says: It is really about forcing you to do whatever they [authorities] want you to do. You have to work in accordance with what they see as a “normal” – say, white, civil society activity. It seems that they want to determine every moment of your activities. They said first that we were not democratic; we showed that we have followed all democratic rules in the organisation. They said then that we were not feminists; we showed that the female members of the organisations are even more than men and that many female members are responsible for our activities, organise and plan our activities. They did not listen to us and instead cut and then ceased our funding. It is horrible; we have many young people who see our organisation and activities as the only place to come together and get inspiration and energy.

As mentioned earlier, the neoliberal reorganisation of CSOs’ activities leads to increasing competition between various CSOs. For OCSOs specifically, these scarce resources combined with racial attitudes towards them have negatively influenced their activities. This forces many OCSOs to try to adjust themselves to the authorities’ sometimes discriminatory requirements for securing funding. As aforementioned interviewee Gibra, who is active in a female Muslim organisation, says: You have to check what they [authorities] want. This is not done equally for every CSO; it seems that there are different requirements, different rules, for different organisations. Our organisations are more subjected to control and surveillance than other organisations. It does really do not matter how much you work with your application or how democratic and good you are; you are not a white organisation, they do not trust you; you are condemned without any trial. It seems that they have their covert meetings and evaluation systems that see you as terrorist, as not Swedish, as not loyal to the system. I am really tired, we are tired, tired of trying all the time to convince them of our innocence. It is really not a matter of choice, but a matter of total surrender to their racist demands and system.

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The electoral success and increasing influence of the racist party, Sweden Democrats (SD), has added to the increasing oppression on freedom of association. SD, as the country’s second-­largest party, is in control of some municipalities and counties as well as being an important party in parliament. The party, which has a severe anti-­Muslim ideology, has introduced many restrictions for Muslim people such as a veil ban and a prayer ban in workplaces, in those municipalities in which they have the majority in the county councils. In an article in the weekly journal Dagens Samhälle (18 September 2020), 17 SD politicians sitting in different country councils argued for the ban on municipal funding of a major OCSO, Ibn Rushd. The organisation is a cultural organisation in cooperation with many other CSOs and has nothing to do with any extremism or radicalisation debate in the country. Many of its members are members of mainstream parties. SD politicians wrote that ‘Our common taxes should not help to radicalise youths, polarise our society and reduce the problem with honour killing’. SD is a party with many members who have been convicted of tax fraud and other criminalities. Since its appearance on the Swedish political scene in late 1990s, many leading members of the party has been convicted of crimes, such as racist assaults, tax fraud, mistreatment and sexual abuse. Since the party’s racist and anti-­Muslim ideology has influenced many mainstream parties and the latter have increasingly adjusted themselves to SD’s party programme, rhetoric and discourses (Kamali 2008, 2015) in order to attract racist and anti-­immigrant electorates, the control and surveillance of OCSOs have increased in recent years. The increasing racism and discrimination of OCSOs has led to many difficulties for them. Many interviewees say that some such organisations have lost their funding and many also speak about difficulties of finding a place to gather or to host a conference. One major problem is the growing racism in the mainstream media, in which many OCSOs are presented as deviant and ‘dangerous for Us’. An illustration of this is Abubakar’s story: When MUCF [authority for youths and civil society questions, which is responsible for funding CSOs] refused to give us funding, almost all the major dailies and journals celebrated. They wrote in their editorial how brave MUCF has been and praised MUCF. What a joke it is to be called brave when an authority cuts a civil organisation’s funding with groundless accusations of not being democratic. This is what they use all the time for excluding us from being a part of society. Mainstream media in Sweden is racist and should be honest by saying the truth; saying that we do not like

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immigrants or Muslims to be here; we do not want you. To come up with different accusations at different times and all the time is just ridiculous. They cannot fool us or anybody else.

Many interviewees claim that the increasing pressure on OCSOs from authorities are aimed at forcing them, as Abubaker says, ‘to completely adjust ourselves to the authorities’ racist demands’. And as Siran says, it seems that ‘they have a problem with your existence; your appearance, who you are, how you look like, really everything that has to do with your person or the group you belong to’. Another problem facing such organisations is the aforementioned increasing neoliberal competition between different CSOs, a situation that deteriorates relations between such organisations and even creates enmity between them. As the civil society activist, Farhad, says: There is another problem. Some of our former friends, with whom we had good cooperation, seem to have turned against us because we both are forced to compete for the same resources. Other migrant organisations who do not share our beliefs in anti-­­racism can contact municipal authorities and give them very fake news and fake information about us and our activities. Such mean-­­spirited activities are naturally well-­­received by the authorities because they have already their own ideas about us, you know. They almost search for somebody to say something mean about us and our activities to be able to say “What was it we said?; They are not trustworthy”. This is a very mean and non-­­solidary way of buying authorities’ support and it results in destroying another migrant organisations’ reputation.

As Farhad illustrates, choices around being successful or unsuccessful are made in a context of a racist and neoliberal society, where securitisation policies are used to exclude some undesirable OCSOs from the warm circle of society, while including others. Growing racism and demands to adjust to the system has dramatically decreased OCSOs’ possibilities of participating in public debates and in defending themselves against media bullying and accusations of being radical and non-­ democratic. Amina argues that: You know, we cannot participate in public debates anymore, not even compared with a few years ago. As soon as you say something about racism and discrimination, you are accused of being too radical and even radicalising people. If you speak about racism you are considered radical. I mean that

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there is a hostile climate today compared with years ago. I think that mainstream parties, major mass media companies and public service are responsible for such a situation. Today, when there is news about asylum-­­seekers, migrants or marginalised areas, there is never a person from those groups who is given a voice to comment; and if somebody from those groups is given the opportunity to say something, he or she is somebody who reinforces their [mainstream media’s] prejudices about migrants, marginalised areas or asylum-­­seekers.

Interviewees’ descriptions of the situation for their activities today indicates the existence of a ‘hostile environment’ in which, as Williams and Mohammed (2013: 1152) argues, institutional racism creates ‘policies and procedures that reduces access to housing, neighborhood and educational quality, employment opportunities, and other desirable resources in society’. As they argue, a combination of institutional racism and cultural racism, ‘at the societal and individual level, negatively affects economic status and health of racialised groups by creating a policy environment hostile to egalitarian policies’. The hostile environment, which is reinforced by securitisation policies and the aim of the surveillance system to control ‘the others’ and their activities, has created its own discourses. In other words, some discussions and terms that are in accordance with ‘politically correct’ discourses are promoted while others are excluded and, as one of the interviewees, Amina, says, prohibited. As Ayshe suggests: ‘When I participate in a public debate on the positions of migrants in society, I have to use some concepts, such as discrimination and racism; but if I use such concepts, I am immediately considered as a terrorist lover’. Although some have adjusted themselves to the neoliberal racist system, others continue to fight back and resist racism and securitisation policies. As Abubaker says, ‘if we do whatever they want us to do, we betray our children and many others who are subjected to racism and discrimination and have no voices’.

6.5   Summary The chapter has presented an analysis of interviews with civil society activists participating in CSOs. These interviewees testify to the deteriorating socioeconomic and political conditions of their civil society engagements. As a result of policies of neoliberal securitisation and increasing racism and discrimination, the activities of OCSOs have been curtailed and civil

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society activists are under growing control and surveillance. They explain the increasing demand from the authorities, and even from the mainstream media, to adjust themselves to racist and discriminatory policies— policies which harm them and diminish their freedom of association and their freedom of speech. All reference, in their narratives, the existence of mechanisms of symbolic violence that reward those complying with neoliberal securitisation and a racist system, while punishing those who do not comply. As a consequence, all participants say that they have changed their manner of participation in public debates or in other forms of public engagement. They say that they exercise self-­censorship in order to protect themselves from the otherwise negative consequences that would ensue. It has also led to the reinforcement of a feeling of needing to keep silent—a part of ‘the spiral of silence’. Many have chosen to hide their real ideas in public and try to create their own contexts where they can exercise their freedom of speech and share ideas with their close friends. Although some have adjusted themselves, others reject any acceptance of this process of silencing resistance—and despite the harsh consequences of resistance, they remain actively engaged in fighting neoliberal racism and securitisation. However, the latter group is much smaller than those who do adjust themselves to neoliberal securitisation policies.

References Appleby, S. (1999). The ambivalence of the sacred: Religion, violence and reconciliation. London: Rowman and Littlefield. Beinin, J. (2014). Civil society, NGOs, and Egypt’s 2011 popular uprising. South Atlantic Quarterly, 113(2), 396–406. Bourdieu, P. (1990). The logic of practice. Cambridge: Polity Press. Brown, K. E. (2018). Introduction: Radicalisation and securitisation of Muslims in Europe. Journal of Muslims in Europe, 7(2), 139–145. Brown, K.  E., & Saeed, T. (2015). Radicalization and counter-radicalization at British universities: Muslim encounters and alternatives. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 38(11), 1952–1968. Bruckner, P. (2010). The tyranny of guilt: An essay on Western masochism. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Cavanaugh, W. T. (2009). The myth of religious violence: Secular ideology and the roots of modern conflict. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dauvergne, P., & LeBaron, G. (2014). Protest Inc.: The corporatization of activism. Cambridge: Polity Press.

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Finch, J., Jönsson, J. H., Kamali, M., & McKendrick, D. (2019). Social work and countering violent extremism in Sweden and the UK. European Journal of Social Work, 1(1), 1–12. Guru, S. (2012). Under siege: Families of counter-terrorism. British Journal of Social Work, 42(6), 1151–1173. Heath-Kelly, C. (2017). Algorithmic autoimmunity in the NHS: Radicalisation and the clinic. Security Dialogue, 48(1), 29–45. Juergensmeyer, M. (2003). Terror in the mind of god. Berkeley: University of California Press. Kamali, M. (2008). Racial discrimination: Institutional patterns and politics. New York: Routledge. Kamali, M. (2015). War, violence and social justice: Theories for social work. London: Routledge. Kamali, M., & Jönsson, J.  H. (2018). Neoliberalism, Nordic welfare states and social work: Current and future challenges. London: Routledge. Kamali, M., & Jönsson, J. H. (2019). Revolutionary social work: Promoting sustainable justice. Critical and Radical Social Work, 7(3), 293–314. Kamat, S. (2013). Preface. In A.  Choudry & D.  Kapoor (Eds.), NGOization: Complicity, contradictions and prospects (pp. viii–xii). London: Zed Books. Kapoor, N. (2018). Deport, deprive, extradite: 21st century state extremism. London: Verso. Kundnani, A. (2014). The Muslims are coming! Islamophobia, extremism, and the domestic war on terror. London: Verso. Laurie, N., & Bonnett, A. (2002). Adjusting to equity: The contradictions of neoliberalism and the search for racial equality in Peru. Antipode, 34(1), 28–53. Lundgaard-Andersen, L. (2018). Neoliberal drivers in hybrid civil society organisations: Critical reading of civilness and social entrepreneurism. In M. Kamali & J.  H. Jönsson (Eds.), Neoliberalism, Nordic welfare states and social work: Current and future challenges. London: Routledge. McGhee, D. (2008). The end of multiculturalism? Terrorism, integration and human rights. Maidenhead: Open University Press. McLoughlin, S., & Cesari, J. (2016). European Muslims and the secular state. London: Routledge. Nash, C. (2003). Cultural geography: Anti-racist geographies. Progress in Human Geography, 27, 637–648. Nelson, J., & Dunn, K. (2017). Neoliberal anti-racism: Responding to ‘everywhere but different’ racism. Progress in Human Geography, 41(1), 26–43. Noelle-Neumann, E. (1974). The spiral of silence: A theory of public opinion. Journal of Communication, 24(2), 43–51. Williams, D. R., & Mohammed, S. A. (2013). Racism and health I: Pathways and scientific evidence. American Behavioral Scientist, 57(8), 1152–1173. Worley, C. (2005). ‘It’s not about race. It’s about the community’: New labour and ‘community cohesion’. Critical Social Policy, 25, 483–496.

CHAPTER 7

Conclusions

The main objective of this study has been to examine the consequences of neoliberal securitisation for the democratic and professional activities of politicians, journalists, academics and civil society activists with immigrant backgrounds in Swedish society. This has involved placing a focus on the increasing limits of the freedom of speech among these groups in Sweden, in a time of neoliberal globalisation and the securitisation of societies more broadly. The following questions have guided this study: ‘How do critical politicians, journalists, academics and civil society activists of immigrant background evaluate their freedom of speech?’; ‘How do they evaluate their professional and civic activities in a time of increasing demand for compliance with the neoliberal securitisation?; and ‘How do they handle the challenges of neoliberal racism and securitisation in their professional and civic activities?’ The neoliberal reorganisation of societies has a relatively short history. Starting in countries such as the USA and the UK in the 1970s, and reinforced during the reigns of Regan (in the USA) and Thatcher (in the UK), neoliberalism soon became established as a world system, a system that successfully propagated the idea that there are ‘no alternatives’; the fall of what is called the socialist bloc in the early 1990s made neoliberalism, as Thatcher put it, ‘the only alternative’ in the world. Sweden was not any exception to this rule and since the 1990s it has reorganised its society in accordance with neoliberal socioeconomic, political and cultural principles. Neoliberal policies and an aggressive marketisation have drastically © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. Kamali, Neoliberal Securitisation and Symbolic Violence, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71210-5_7

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altered one of the world’s most developed welfare states (along with those of the other Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland and Norway) (Kamali and Jönsson 2018). However, Sweden still constitutes something of an image of an alternative to neoliberal capitalism, presented as a ‘mixed system’ or a ‘soft socialism’ (to borrow Raymond Aron’s (2018) words when discussing Durkheim’s desire for the reconstruction of modern societies). Sweden and other Nordic welfare states have succeeded in developing the world’s most admired welfare states in certain historical circumstances in which they could provide balance between the two powerful actors of the Cold War era. However, the existence of strong welfare states has not meant a lack of racism and other inequalities. Sweden’s modern history shows the existence of structural and institutional racism and discrimination, with its roots going back to the very beginning of modernisation and the growing popularity of the ideas of the Enlightenment (de Los Reyes and Kamali 2005). As mentioned earlier (see Chap. 1), the Swedish botanist, Carl von Linné, was the first philosopher of the Enlightenment to present the ‘scientific theory of different races’ in his famous book, Systema naturae, in 1735. Racist attitudes in Sweden have influenced even the social democratic government which has been in power, except for a few short periods, since the early 1930s. The reputation for Swedish solidary has, however, been utilised in denying the existence of racism and discrimination in the country. As participants in this study say, many who migrated to Sweden have had an understanding of it as a country with a long tradition of international solidarity, welfare and democracy. Many suggest that they had very soon, and in confrontation with structural and institutional racism, realised that they are not going to be a member of Swedish society on equal terms with those characterised as Swedes. The common colonial history of white Europe is an important parameter which must be considered in all research on inequalities and racism, as the failure to address the past colonial histories of Europe leads to the dismissal of present-­day postcolonialism and to understanding the mechanisms behind current global and national inequalities (Bhambra 2016). Neoliberalisation of the country, which started after the collapse of the Soviet system in the early 1990s, was not only a right-­wing and conservative parties’ project but also a social democratic one. Both social democratic governments and the right-­wing governments have, since the 1990s, changed the Swedish socioeconomic model harbouring one of the world’s most developed welfare states. Neoliberal reorganisation of the country

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went much further than in any other Nordic countries and, again since the 1990s, the socioeconomic gaps between the richest and the poorest increased by 30 per cent (Kamali and Jönsson 2018). As a result of neoliberal changes, Sweden has the most uneven pattern of wealth distribution in Western Europe and inequalities have risen dramatically over the last few decades. For example, the top 1 per cent of the population owned 18 per cent of all household wealth in 2002, but by 2017, this had risen to 42 per cent (Therborn 2018). This has also led to growing racism and discrimination in society. As Davidson and Saull (2016: 2) put it, ‘the revival of the far-­right is suggestive of the political pathologies in particular and organic necessities of neoliberal political economy’. In particular, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2011, have helped right-­wing parties and many governments to reinforce the already existed racism and anti-­Muslimism in society, which, in its turn, has resulted in increasing marginalisation and segregation in the country (Kamali 2015). The ‘war on terror’ has been used in launching comprehensive securitisation policies, creating a hostile environment in which many people with immigrant backgrounds, including those participated in this study, feel insecurity and see themselves as surveilled and controlled. Loic Wacquant (2010) writes that neoliberal policies are mainly used to monitor and discipline poor people in societies, where socioeconomic gaps increase and necessitate the use of police and other kinds of violence against people of colour and the poor. Neoliberalism creates a ‘disciplinary society’ in Foucault’s terms, by which to force people to, in Durkheim’s integration model, accept their place in society. Recent research shows the relationship between post-­welfare state practices and the rise of racism and xenophobia (Dalakoglou 2013; Demmers and Mehendale 2010; Goldberg 2009; Kaika 2012; Kamali 2008; Lentin and Titley 2011; Simonsen 2015). Although this is true in neoliberal Europe and beyond, the most substantial political consequence of the rise of racist parties in Europe, such as Sweden Democrats (SD) in Sweden, is their indirect impacts on mainstream parties and policies. Concerned and scared by the increasing electoral success of racist parties, mainstream parties adopt racist parties’ (racist and xenophobic) programmes and discourses (Kamali 2008, 2015). The policies of ‘the war on terror’ are used to legitimise both neoliberalism and increasing racism against, and surveillance of, otherised people. The established process of the otherisation of individuals who are not considered to belong to the category of ‘Us’ is now combined with securitisation policies, which, as Foucault (2003)

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argues, seek to remove and prevent any dangers and abnormalities in society in order to maintain life. In this concern, people with immigrant backgrounds are considered as abnormal and ‘the enemies among us’ (Kamali and Jönsson 2019). Racialised groups have always been the target of security governance. As Michael Dillon (2008) argues, ‘Race is one of those mechanisms by which biopolitics adjudicates life for the purposes not only of saying how life is to be promoted but also which life has to be disempowered and disenfranchised in that cause.’ Governments who are promoting the kind of life that they consider as worthy of protecting and maintaining through disciplination and control simultaneously exclude those lives that cannot be disciplined and are considered to be ‘racially and culturally’ different from the category of ‘Us’. It is not enough anymore to discipline and control the lives of majority society, given that such lives are considered to be under threat from those undisciplined—and, so, uncontrollable—lives. Securitisation policies are, therefore, part of the racialisation and otherisation of people with migrant and minority backgrounds. Although securitisation policies have always been part of modern states’ apparatuses, they have been developed in particular ways during the Cold War. The Cold War states have been deeply engaged in a silent war aimed at destroying the enemy, which has influenced all aspects of societies. This created a military-­industrial-­academic complex, which, in turn, created advanced security surveillance systems (Giroux 2016). In the post-­Cold War era, some scholars have tried to theorise securitisation and make it an academic discipline. Classic securitisation theory (presented by Wæver et al. 1993; Wæver 1995; Buzan et al. 1998; Buzan and Wæver 2003) has created a binary composition of the world, in which Western ‘normal politics’ (conceived as reasoned, civilised dialogue) and securitisation stand in contrast to a racially coded, uncivilised ‘state of nature’, that is, non-­ Western or former colonised countries. The theory, which, of course, reflects the real imperialist politics of former Western colonial and neo-­ colonial countries, influenced by ‘civilisationist theory’, justifies current imperialist and racist global politics. As Howell and Richter-­Montpetit (2020: 3) argue, securitisation scholars use the theory of civilisationism in order to sanitise ‘colonial projects and the racial violence of normal liberal politics’, and continue to ignore the destructive role of colonialism, racism and imperialism for many non-­Western countries. The racist foundation of securitisation theory and its belief in a ‘norm/ exception’ distinction (derived from the German philosopher, and one of

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the architects of the legal structures of the Third Reich, Carl Schmitt) has, however, been explored by other scholars (Huysmans 2008; Neal 2009). They argue that securitisation theory and policies are based on racialised threat imaginaries (Ibrahim 2005; Mofette and Vadasaria 2016), whereby securitisation policies must be used in and by Western countries to neutralise the threat of the ‘uncivilised’ world. According with such understanding of the existence of a ‘civilised Us’ and an ‘uncivilised Them’ has been the constitutive and legitimising imaginary of colonialism, racism and imperialism. This has justified a permanent state of exception by which the civilised Western world continues its confrontations and wars with the ‘uncivilised’ enemy countries and untrustworthy people. Classic securitisation theory, which is still the foundation of securitisation policies in many Western—and also non-­Western—countries, is fundamentally structured not only by Eurocentrism but also by civilisationism, mythological whiteness and anti-­black racism (Howell and Richter-­Montpetit 2020). Colonial and imperialist theoretical approaches, such as Samuel Huntington’s ‘Clash of civilisations’, are nothing but ‘The clash of ignorance’, as Edward Said (2001) argues. Securitisation theory ignores the power politics of securitisation measures and policies. It overlooks not only the colonial past and the postcolonial and racist present of Western societies but also the fact that racism and white supremacy are systems of power (Bonilla-­Silva 2006). This has mainly to do with a well-­established system of knowledge production in Western countries that has created epistemic racism inherent to Western knowledge structures and that is not only a failure of individual scholarship (Bhambra 2014; Grosfoguel 2003). This has not only legitimised and influenced the colonial wars and violence forced on non-­Western countries in the past but also highly influenced the current postcolonial and imperialist wars and politics. The ‘uncivilised’ and ‘savages’ who has been living in ‘the state of nature’ and ‘primitive societies’ are now defined as migrants from former colonies, Muslim societies and other ‘non-­ developed’ or ‘developing’ countries. Despite cosmetic changes, racist discourses are frequently used, in the mass media, in political debates and in academic circles and products, to discursively reproduce the binary differences of civilised/uncivilised and Us/Them. This has also institutionalised and created structural racism, discriminating against many groups with immigrant backgrounds in European societies, including Sweden (de Los Reyes and Kamali 2005; Kamali 2008, 2015; Kamali and Jönsson 2018). Current anti-­Muslim counter-­terrorism programmes not only use social

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and health services to identify suspected ‘terrorists’ (Kundnani 2014; Qureshi 2015) but also use the administration of universities, schools and employers in public and private organisations to surveil employees and students with immigrant backgrounds. Securitisation policy is a continuation of the colonial mission of civilising ‘non-­civilised’ people, not only by having the monopoly over the means of violence but also through established systems of socialisation and disciplination (i.e. governmentalisation) and the mechanisms of symbolic violence. Such policies are not only exercised in non-­Western countries but are highly efficacious in shaping the everyday lives of Western countries. Indeed, this study has shown that people with immigrant backgrounds working and active in Swedish political parties, mass media, the academy and civil society are subjected to racialisation, surveillance and racial discrimination in ways that influence both their professional and private lives. Through their narratives, they testify to how recent decades’ rapid neoliberalisation has increased racial discrimination against them and forced them to either totally accept the existence of neoliberal racism and white supremacy or to instead accept being negatively sanctioned through the mechanisms of symbolic violence. The analysis of the interviews with politicians, journalists, academics and civil society activists with immigrant backgrounds has generated a few themes that are common for all four groups participating in this study. The themes are ‘increasing demands for compliance with the neoliberal system’, ‘muzzling as self-­protection’, ‘being observed and ignored at the same time’ and ‘choosing the path of success or unsuccess’. In this final part, the conclusions of the study will be explored and presented.

7.1   Increasing Demands for Compliance with the Neoliberal System Since the collapse of the so-­called socialist bloc in early the 1990s, the neoliberalisation of society has led to increasing racism and xenophobia in Sweden. The entrance of the racist party, SD, into the Swedish parliament in the election of 2010 reinforced racist tendencies in society. The electoral success of SD encouraged many mainstream parties to gradually adopt SD’s political agenda and programmes, in order to attract back their former (racist and anti-­ immigration) electorates; this has shifted even ‘politically correct’ discourses to the right (Kamali 2008). This process has

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reinforced white supremacy, as well as placed constraints on deviance from and resistance to the neoliberal racist order, and is an example of the rise of what Joe Feagin (2013) refers to as the ‘white racial frame’. More specifically, Feagin (2013: 3) argues, here in respect of the US context, that: The principal reason for these strong racialized views is the white racial frame. … this dominant frame is an overarching white worldview that encompasses a broad and persisting set of racial stereotypes, prejudices, ideologies, images, interpretations and narratives, emotions, and reactions to language accents, as well as racialized inclinations to discriminate. For centuries now, it has been a dominant and foundational frame from which a substantial majority of white Americans—as well as many others accepting or seeking to conform to white norms and perspectives—view our still highly racialized society.

As interviewees in this work say, their work situation in general and the scope for their freedom of speech has deteriorated over the last few years. They speak about ‘a witches circle’ of silencing, which forces many to choose to keep silent and hide their real thoughts and ideas. This happens often as a result of the fear of exclusion and (symbolic) punishment. The dominance of neoliberal racism and its related ‘white racial frame’, in turn, reinforces the ‘spiral of silence’ (Noelle-­Neumann 1974; see Chap. 2), as a self-­protecting strategy among people of immigrant backgrounds living and working in Sweden. Indeed, all participants in this study have witnessed a growing demand on them to comply with the system, irrespective of the systematic racism and discrimination to which many are subjected. However, they do not choose one single way of facing these demands but, rather, individual approaches that can be seen to broadly comprise one of three distinct strategies: . Active compliance with neoliberal racism 1 2. Passive compliance with neoliberal racism 3. Non-­­compliance and resistance with neoliberal racism Figure 7.1 illustrates these different strategies, and their social ‘outcomes’, in terms of the theoretical concept of symbolic violence. In the sections that follow, these three types of strategy will be presented in turn, each one being discussed in relation to all four interviewee groups: politicians, journalists, academics and civil society activists.

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Fig. 7.1  Strategies for facing the increasing demands for compliance with neoliberal racism

7.2   Active Compliance with Neoliberal Racism The analysis of the interviews shows that amongst each group of research participants (politicians, journalists, academics and civil society organisation leaders and activists), there are a significant number who choose to actively comply with the political and organisational demands for individual adjustment; indeed, they comprise the majority of interviewees. Active Compliance with Neoliberal Racism and ‘the Party Line’ Amongst the politicians interviewed were those who have decided to actively comply with neoliberal racism. They do not only adjust themselves totally to the increasing demands for compliance but also legitimise the racist system of oppression by, for example, saying that ‘it is their society’, and that ‘we have to accept that we have come to Sweden not vice versa’ and therefore ‘you accept the norms and values of the country you move to’. This group seek active cooperation with the white leadership of their workplaces and not only adjust themselves to the white norms and values but also help to reproduce them—for instance, by putting the blame for the negative sanctions against those who do not comply with neoliberal racism on them. This group of politicians do not see any problem with increasing demands for compliance with the mainstream parties’ racist and neoliberal policies. They legitimise their active defence of their party’s racist policies through established discourses, such as ‘democracy’ and ‘the freedom available in Sweden compared with our former countries’. By using the discourse of democracy, they argue that they, and others with immigrant backgrounds, have to accept the democratic rules, or, as they say, ‘the rules of the game’.

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The majority of actively complying politicians argue that they really believe in the democratic system and, therefore, they defend it and are totally loyal to their parties. They defend ‘the party line’, despite its racist and neoliberal policies. This group normally deny the adaptation of their parties to racist parties, such as SD, and the domination of xenophobic and racist discourses in Swedish political spheres. They see their important positions in their parties as a sign of the falseness, or at least the ‘exaggeration’, of claims of racism in politics. The denial is often based on the rewards they have received through the mechanisms of symbolic violence (Bourdieu 2001; see Chap. 2). They deny the influence of SD and racist discourses on their parties, although many studies have shown the increasing influence of extreme right-­wing and racist parties on mainstream parties’ programmes and discourses in many European countries, including Sweden (Williams 2006; Kamali 2008; Auestad 2013; Witteveen 2017). Although a few of the interviewed politicians say that they have been critical of some of the party’s policies, they argue that such critical standpoints should be raised within the party, ‘like in a family’, and should not become a ‘public matter or media news’. They are critical of those party members with immigrant backgrounds who turn against the party line and ‘harm the party’s reputation’. Such politicians who do not comply with ‘the party line’ are accused of having ‘a hidden agenda’ or ‘personal problems’, such as ‘difficulties with cooperating with others’ and ‘not believing in the party’s ideology and programmes’. These politicians are supportive of the ‘politically correct’ discourse even when this is (mis)used against their colleagues with immigrant backgrounds who have been subjected to internal racism and media bullying. In addition, they consider the current political ‘anti-­immigrant’ discourses, which have recently gained substantial popularity in the country, as being a ‘reflection of a real problem’, that is the ‘problem of immigration and integration’. There are also some other variables that make their active compliance with the increasing demand to complying with the party line and securitisation policies easier for this group. Those belonging to this group enjoy, or have plans to obtain, a better position in the party, such as being party representative in the county councils or planning to be elected to the parliament.

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Active Compliance with Neoliberal Racism in the Mainstream Media This group of journalists with immigrant backgrounds choose to comply with the ideological and political demands of mainstream media companies and journalism, and, in so doing, support the status quo harbouring neoliberal racism. These journalists either deny the existence of systemic racism or see it as a very minor problem. Even when they admit that there is racism in society, they see it as ‘a few stupid individuals who cannot see people who are better than them’ in their profession. Such journalists relate the difficulties and problems in their work to the ‘problems of the profession’. They argue that ‘it is not racism, but how journalism is organised’, that is ‘the insecure forms of employment as a journalist’ that makes their position very vulnerable. They are, in principle, satisfied with their working conditions as journalists and praise democracy and freedom of speech in the country. Many of these journalists have never lived in the countries their parents come from, but often have a stereotypical—and, occasionally, racist—understanding of those countries’ cultural and political realities in particular and of people with immigrant backgrounds in general. They argue that ‘we have to comply with the democratic system of Sweden and then maybe try to improve the system, as does everybody else’. They also argue that the problem of people with immigrant backgrounds have mainly to do with their ‘deviant cultures’, ‘religious fundamentalism’ or ‘the lack of democratic thinking and tradition’. Some of the journalists who actively comply with the mainstream norms and values of journalism in Sweden have avoided dealing with ‘immigrant questions’ in their work, that is doing reports or new pieces about migration, integration and racism. They mean that such questions have ‘low status’, ‘are problematic’ and may stigmatise them as ‘migrant journalists’, which is an obstacle in their efforts to advance their positions in the media organisation in which they work. That is why they try to take on topics associated with high-­ status journalism, such as ‘economic questions’, ‘election questions’ and ‘education and health care questions’. Others have undertaken journalism about ‘the problem of migration and segregation’ without relating such problems to the structural and institutional roots of such problems—and instead presenting them within the ‘white racial frame’ (Feagin 2013), in order to not only avoid stigmatisation and marginalisation as ‘deviant’ but also be rewarded with better positions in their media organisations. The analysis of interviews with this group of

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journalists shows the positive consequences of active compliance with the neoliberal systemic racism in society for journalists, that is being rewarded through the mechanisms of symbolic violence (Bourdieu 2001). These journalists often legitimise their active compliance with the neoliberal racist system by referring to the demand for ‘journalistic neutrality’. They argue for an ‘objective and neutral positioning’, which is to actually take a position within the ‘white racial frame’, with ‘neutrality’ often serving as a denial of the complexity and diversity of the real world. Such ‘neutral’ positioning, based on the claim of ‘objectivity’, is a camouflage to hide the power structures in society articulated through media. As Chris Atton (2003) argues, beyond the rhetoric of ‘public interest’, ‘the public’s right to know’, ‘media professionalism’, ‘search for truth’ and ‘press freedom’, each aiming at legitimising the myth of objectivity, is a motivation to promote the interests of the economic and political elites in society. This is based on severe structural and institutional arrangements, irrespective of the consciousness of journalists engaged in the reproduction of such socioeconomic and political structures and institutions. Accordingly, the main aim of the claim of objectivity is to mask, camouflage, and legitimate the authority of society’s powerful groups over less powerful or powerless sections of the population (Hirst and Patching 2005; Mahtani 2005). This group of journalists say often that they are ‘neutral’ and ‘objective’ and that they ‘do not lie’ but just ‘tell how it is’. As Jay Rosen puts it, objective reporting is a way of achieving acceptance of the journalist’s account by saying that they do not have any individual interest in what they are reporting and asking the audience to ‘accept it because this is the way it is’ (Rosen 1993: 50). Some of them are aware that their ‘white appearance’ and compliance with ‘the rules of the game’ have helped them with building a career within their media organisation but see it as a ‘smart move’ for getting ‘round the obstacles which otherwise exist’. However, such obstacles are presented by this group as the result of personal choices. Active Compliance with Neoliberal Racism in Academia Academics with immigrant backgrounds who actively comply with the racialised, neoliberal and all-­administrative universities in which they work argue that they do not see racism and the increasing neoliberal policies within universities as a problem for them. They claim that the question of ‘racism at universities’ has been given too much influence in the debate

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(this is while studies highlight that there is an almost total lack of any discussion in Sweden about racism in academia). In line with the actively complying journalists, this group of academics explain that they have chosen ‘non-­sensitive subjects’ on which to do research. They also claim that there is a sensitivity among students about talking about racism in Sweden because of it being considered a ‘minor problem’. Concerning the reason why these academics have better positions compared with some of their colleagues also with immigrant backgrounds, they argue that many of these are people who have problems and conflicts with the leadership of their universities and who ‘either did not learn to handle small disputes with their colleagues or have personal shortcomings’. Such arguments are highly influenced by the ‘white racial frame’ (Feagin 2013) in which the institutional problems and racism are reduced to be individual problems of racialised groups. As Curry and Curry (2018: 658) argue: The interpretation of the inferior position that racialized groups occupy in the United States is grounded in how whites often think of themselves in relation to problem populations. This relationship is often rationalized by avoidance and by the denials of whites about being causally related to the harsh conditions imposed on nonwhites in the world. Philosophy, and its glorification of the rational individual, ignores the complexity of anti-­­Black racism by blaming the complacency, if not outright hostility, towards Blacks on the mass ignorance of white America.

Although the citation concerns the US context, the situation is similar in Sweden (de Los Reyes and Kamali 2005; Kamali 2008; Kamali and Jönsson 2018). Academics belonging to this group see compliance as a ‘natural position of an academic who has decided to work in the Swedish academy’. These individuals have often been rewarded with membership in academic collegial and administrative organs, such as becoming the vice head of the department, a member of the faculty council or a director of studies at their departments. An important aspect of this group’s positioning is to not take part in anything that can ‘violate academic purity’. This means that they avoid ‘political matters’, which ‘can create disputes with other colleagues who may support other political ideologies’. The actively complying academics legitimise their compliance with reference to national educational directives and say that they ‘must apply the Swedish Higher Education Authority’s rules and recommendations’. They follow the same manner when dealing with the authority of those who

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control universities, that is Vice Chancellors and other administrative personnel. Taking such an active commitment to unquestionably follow whatever is decided by the higher education authorities and the university administration is often combined, as they say, with individual ambitions to be a ‘good colleague’ and an ‘objective academic’. Active Compliance with the Neoliberal Securitisation of Civil Society In recent decades, and as a part of the policies of the ‘war on terror’, the government’s control of otherised civil society organisations (OCSO) has increased. Many civil society organisations (CSO) in general and some OCSOs have adjusted themselves to the new policies. This is mainly because of the changing policies of governmental and municipal funding support for CSOs, which has resulted in growing competition between CSOs. Neoliberalisation has led to implementation of market rules among CSOs, which have to show their compliance with neoliberal and securitised rules and demands. Neoliberalisation does not reduce state control or the state apparatus in favour of the market—on the contrary. It is true that the neoliberal state transfers public assets into private hands, as well as deregulating areas that were considered a public responsibility in the past, privatisating public services and programmes, and launching various market-­based public policy reforms (Harvey 2005; Peck 2010; Schram 2015); but it also reinforces its repressive power. While the neoliberal state is withdrawing from its traditional responsibility for the provision of welfare, it is increasingly becoming an organisation for providing services to the market and for surveilling and controlling people (Kamali and Jönsson 2019). The neoliberal state is a more oppressive state, one which has to reinforce its policing structure. It assists in the militarisation of the world, the securitisation of its domestic affairs and the reinforcement of a huge security apparatus (Kamali 2015; Finch et al. 2019; Neocleous 2008). As Paul Virilio (2012: 15) puts it: States are tempted to create policies for the orchestration and management of fear. Globalisation has progressively eaten away at the traditional prerogatives of states (most notably the Welfare state), and they have to convince citizens that they ensure their physical safety. A dual health and security ideology have been established, and it represents a real threat to democracy.

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Neoliberalisation of Swedish society, including its formerly strong welfare state, has increased marketisation, securitisation and surveillance of racialised and otherised people. As Ericson (2018: 95) argues, ‘the idealisation of Sweden as a modern and gender-­equal country [is] articulated as a focal point in the establishment of threat and crisis narratives in the political debate’, in particular since the ‘refugee crisis’ of 2015. He adds that ‘the myth of Sweden as an exceptionally modern, secular, and equal society [is] evoked in processes of securitisation, nationalistic protectionism, and normalisation of xenophobia’. Neoliberal securitisation has also influenced the CSOs in general and OCSOs in particular. As Larner (2000) suggests, neoliberalism is both a political discourse about the nature of ruling and a set of practices that facilitate control from a distance. Marketisation and creating competition between CSOs is a driving force for changing their discourses and practices and for facilitating their adjustment to neoliberal state policies (Lundgaard-­Andersen 2018). As a result, those CSOs and even OCSOs who actively comply and follow the securitisation and governmentally decided goals for their activities gain better funding and other kinds of support from the government and municipalities than those organisations which do not do the same. In Sweden, like in many other European countries, such organisations accept and even actively support the securitisation and otherisation of OCSOs and civil society activists who do not comply with securitisation and discriminatory state and municipal policies. During the last few decades, many CSOs and OCSOs have emerged in Sweden working to address so-­called honour-­related violence. Such organisations receive hundreds of millions of Swedish Crowns in support from the government and municipal authorities. Many such organisations reinforce the otherisation of people with immigrant backgrounds in general and people with Muslim backgrounds in particular (Kamali 2008, 2015). Some of the members of OCSOs participating in this study who actively comply with the neoliberal and securitisation demands of authorities argue that such policies are ‘necessary to counteract terrorism’. They believe in ‘severe cultural differences’ between migrants (in general and Muslim people in particular) and Swedes. The notion of ‘cultural difference’ is often used to legitimise their position as ‘a bridge between migrant cultures and Swedes’. Some individuals from this group participate in public debates and defend what can be called ‘Swedishness’, that is neoliberal racism and securitisation policies. They admit that the lack of compliance among people with immigrant backgrounds and anti-­racist activists can

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lead to their isolation and marginalisation and, as mentioned earlier, say that ‘this is not a problem at all, but “the rules of the game”’ and state that ‘you have to adjust yourself to the customs where you are’ (a Swedish saying: ta seden dit du kommer). Many legitimise their active compliance by saying things along the lines of: ‘We cannot change their society, their history because it is we who have chosen to come here and are living here.’

7.3   Passive Compliance with Neoliberal Racism This group of interviewees (again, comprising politicians, journalists, academics and civil society organisation members and activists with immigrant backgrounds) choose to accept the pressures of neoliberal racism and keep silent in order to not be subjected to the negative sanctions of the leadership of their organisations and authorities. This group does not deny the existence of racism and institutional and individual discrimination, both in society and in their organisations, but argue that ‘resistance costs too much’ and that they ‘have no other places to go’. They have decided to accept ‘the state of affairs’ and adjust themselves, though not actively, to it. They neither support nor resist neoliberal racism but try to find ‘a place in the system without supporting racism and discrimination’. Passive Compliance with Neoliberal Racism and ‘the Party Line’ Politicians with immigrant backgrounds who are members of mainstream political parties in Sweden provide many reasons for their engagements in such parties. The two main reasons that they present for their engagements are ‘changing society for the better’ and ‘defending democracy’. Although the members of this category of politicians admit that there is racism and discrimination both in Sweden and in their parties, they decide to not leave party politics because they believe that their participation in their party is ‘better than leaving the field’. Although mainstream parties in Sweden have been influenced by the electoral success of SD and increasing racism and xenophobic sentiments in the country (Kamali 2008, 2015), these members of mainstream parties with immigrant backgrounds see their existence in such parties as ‘an obstacle to more racist and discriminatory policies within the party’. Many of the party members who passively accept increasing racism in their parties, legitimise their silence by adopting an ‘in-­between’ position. They accept the existence of racism

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and discrimination against people with immigrant backgrounds, including themselves, but also reference ‘the problems of migration’ and ‘young immigrants’ criminality’ as reasons behind growing racism. However, some speak about the existence of hidden structures in their party that limit the possibilities for them to build a career in the party. This sub-­group is composed of those members of mainstream political parties who see themselves as ‘coffeemakers in party meetings’, through to those who hope to make major careers and are among candidates to municipal political assemblies. Although offering criticism of the party structure and even of the party leadership, they often legitimise the party leadership’s adoption of more racist and discriminatory discourses, political programmes and policies, by referring to the ‘changing political climate in society’ and the electoral success of SD. They are critical of such changes but do not practise active resistance because they have often witnessed the harsh consequences of resistance and ‘disloyalty to the party line’. One can clearly see that the position of this group is mainly based on their (tacit) understanding of the mechanisms of symbolic violence, in which compliance, or at least active compliance, is rewarded and non-­compliance and resistance is punished (Bourdieu 2001). However, understanding the position of this group should also involve the theory of ‘the spiral of silence’ (Noelle-­Neumann 1974). Some of them speak about the reaction they receive from their colleagues and the party leadership if they raise questions of racism and discrimination in society. Although such questions are not particularly welcomed in the party, raising questions concerning racism and discrimination in the party is even more ‘dangerous’ for their career. As one of the interviewees said this looks something like ‘swearing in the church’ (svära i kyrkan). There is a serious fear of marginalisation that forces many of the members of this group to keep silent and to not talk about racism and discrimination in the party—and, hence, they help in reproducing ‘the spiral of silence’. This group also admit that they do not have much to say against ‘the party line’ but explain that even if they have their ‘reservations’ about some of the party’s policies and discourses, they hope to be able to ‘influence the party’s programme and policies’ when they have succeeded in gaining a better position in the party. There are some of the members of this group who, as a result of experiencing ‘severe barriers’ to their political ambitions, had left their parties and moved to other (also mainstream) parties. A few others are, meanwhile, about to do the same, citing not existing racism in the party’s

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discourses and programmes but, rather, the ‘severe obstacles’ to their career and political and organisational advancement in the party. Passive Compliance with Neoliberal Racism in the Mainstream Media All journalists participating in this study speak about their ambitions to be hired by or to have a career in the Swedish mainstream media. They reveal the insecure employment conditions that they experience and that make them very vulnerable. Many start their careers by working freelancers and having to sell their articles and media programmes in a very competitive market. This forces many journalists with immigrant backgrounds to adjust themselves to a media market dominated by major media organisations and neoliberal racism. Those belonging to this category speak often about ‘the lack of alternative media’, which otherwise would be a workplace for them. The major media industries in Sweden are controlled by a handful of owners. Additionally, and as has been argued earlier (see Chap. 2), there is a close connection between political parties and the mainstream media in Sweden (SOU 1990: 44). The vast majority of national and local media is directly and indirectly connected to and controlled by mainstream political parties. This limits critical journalists’ possibilities for leaving one major journal for another. As some journalists belonging to this group say, ‘you sometimes are stigmatised because of their problems with the editor or other colleagues’ and therefore ‘it becomes very difficult for them to find a job in other dailies.’ Almost all journalists belonging to this category claim that they have to frequently keep silent about many things that they do not agree about, such as the racist discourses that the editors and other colleagues use, because they ‘have to pay their rents’ and make a living. Although working with ‘migrant journalism’ is seen by these journalists as ‘something negative’ for their careers, they have to ‘passively accept’ doing so because this is what the media requires from them. The journalists explain that their appearances and names play a role in forcing them to accept undertaking ‘migrant journalism’ because many of them are considered ‘culturally competent’ to do so. However, this competency has been (mis)used many times to reinforce majority societies’ prejudices about people with immigrant backgrounds. Avoiding complying with the media leadership’s discriminatory requirements can lead to many problems for them and even the loss of their job. This is the main reason

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behind the passive compliance of some journalists with the discriminatory requirements of the mainstream media and the acceptance of working within the ‘white racial frame’ (Feagin 2013). However, there are some journalists with immigrant backgrounds whose appearances, including their names, cannot be considered as corresponding with, to use Max Weber’s (1968) term, the ‘ideal type’ in respect of popular images of immigrants in Sweden; such journalists look more like Swedes and can ‘hide their ethnic backgrounds’. These individual journalists also choose to not undertake journalism about migrants, racism, integration and other ‘migrant subjects’, as they call it. This has been a way for them to avoid subjection to the negative consequences of symbolic violence. They are aware of the role that their ‘white appearance’, and their avoidance of practising resistance to racist discourses within the media industry, has played for their careers in mainstream media. This is an archetype of the mechanisms of symbolic violence, by which compliance is rewarded and resistance punished. As Weber (1968: 214), on which Bourdieu developed his theory of symbolic violence, suggests: Loyalty may be hypocritically simulated by individuals or by whole groups on purely opportunistic grounds, or carried out in practices for reasons of material self-­­interest. Or people may submit from individual weakness and helplessness because there is no acceptable alternative.

Although Weber’s account of obedience and loyalty to the powerful agents in society can be useful, Bourdieu provides a more comprehensive understanding of how the covert system of domination functions. He (2001: 2) argues that the system of creating loyalty is very much helped by the mechanisms of symbolic violence, which is (as outlined in Chap. 2) ‘a gentle violence, imperceptible and invisible even to its victims, exerted for the most part through the purely symbolic channels of communication and cognition (more precisely misrecognition), recognition, or even feeling’. Symbolic violence, then, provides the powerful agents in society with obedience from dominated groups. Violence, when exercised symbolically, creates ‘coercion which is set up only through the consent that the dominated cannot fail to give to the dominator’ (Bourdieu 2000: 170). The journalists belonging to this category provide examples of colleagues with immigrant backgrounds who have been subjected to punishment from the leadership of their media organisation and their Swedish

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colleagues because of their non-­compliance with what Bourdieu calls the symbolic system of coercion. It seems that they act, as Weber puts it, in self-­interest and provide passive consent or compliance with the ‘white racial frame’ (Feagin 2013) in the context of the existing system of neoliberal racism. This group of journalists have even been used as an alibi for the denial of neoliberal racism in the mainstream media. This can be illustrated, as one pertinent example among many, through the reaction of the leadership of a major national radio broadcasting company, Swedish Radio (SR), to journalists who complained about experiencing racism. As mentioned earlier (see Chap. 4), thirty-­nine journalists with immigrant backgrounds protested, in the form of a letter and petition to the leadership of SR, against the existence of racism in the organisation. SR’s CEO, Cilla Beknö, responded to their protest (SR, 25 September 2020) as follows: When we check the facts that are in this document [the protest letter] which is about recruiting [journalists to SR], we find things that are not included, or things which are really not correct. … One in four of our colleagues in SR have a foreign background, this we could not have if we were a company with structural racism.

This protest letter and petition, along with a similar letter that was subsequently sent to Swedish Television (SVT) by journalists with immigrant backgrounds working there, has been criticised by the leadership of the SR and SVT because of the existence of other journalists with immigrant backgrounds who did not sign them. Passive Compliance with Neoliberal Racism in Academia One category of academics with immigrant backgrounds are those who passively comply with the neoliberal racism and policies of ‘all-­ administrative-­­universities’ (Ginsberg 2011; Brown 2016). Neoliberalisation of universities has increased precarity and created insecure employment positions (Loher and Strasser 2019). It has created the ‘corporate university, run on autocratic, business-­minded principles of profit and loss’ (Brienza 2016: 95). This degradation of working conditions is, however, concerned not only with the employment conditions of academics but also about the so-­called academic freedom of researcher

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and educators (Bousquet 2008; Donoghue 2008; Gerber 2014; Ginsberg 2011). In addition, neoliberalism and securitisation policies, the latter of which have their roots in the Cold War, have placed ‘universities in chains’, as Henry Giroux (2016) puts it. Not only have democratic organs been disarmed by the rise of ‘all-­administrative-­universities’ but also collegiality and scientific excellence (Giroux 2016; Ginsberg 2011; Brown 2016). As universities are no longer an institution of emancipation but, on the contrary, replicators of racism and structural violence (Donoghue 2008; Tomlinson and Lipsitz 2013, Navarro 2017), with increasing neoliberal securitisation in the era of the ‘war on terror’, the working conditions of academics with immigrant backgrounds has worsened and their freedom of speech has been lessened. Although academics with immigrant backgrounds generally see their disadvantages in the academy as a result of institutional racism and discrimination against them, some of them, who are categorised as those who are passively compliant, take a silent position against racism and see muzzling as a way of self-­protection. In contrast to those who choose to be non-­compliant with neoliberal racism in the academy (see Sect. 7.4), this group does not keep silent as a temporary and tactical action but as a strategy for their academic life. The main goal of passive compliance with racism and discrimination is self-­ interest (in Weber’s terms), to protect themselves against administrative punishment as a result of the mechanisms of symbolic violence (to use Bourdieu’s theoretical framework) and even to protect themselves against exclusion from their ‘collegial groups’. Some of those who belong to this category did not choose to keep silent at the beginning of their careers as academics. Indeed, they explain that they protested against racism and discrimination early in their careers, but that they have learned that resistance and protest is meaningless and will not change anything. They have had ‘bitter experiences of protesting against racism and discrimination in the academy’, as they say, that made them change their strategies for survival. Some have experienced negative sanctions, such as ‘not getting the same salary as their Swedish colleagues’ and ‘being ostracised by their colleagues’. Such negative consequences have since reduced and even been transformed into positive sanctions— such as ‘feeling included in the group’—when they stopped ‘being critical’ and started using the same discourses and working manner as their colleagues. As some of the interviewees belonging to this group say, they not only keep silent but also have to give their consent to what they believe to

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be wrong. This transformation of these academics’ roles and positions can be understood in terms of Noelle-­Neumann’s theory of the ‘spiral of silence’. Starting by keeping silent about racism and discrimination leads often to gradual adaptation of discriminatory discourses and mechanisms. Many of these interviewees say that they were used to claiming respect for their academic positions, such as having a PhD or being professor, in order to counteract administrative oppression and disadvantages, but they realised that this is not the ‘right way to go’, given that the all-­­administrative universities (Ginsberg 2011; Brown 2016) have increasingly decreased the role of collegiality and scientific excellence in the favour of administration and low-­ranking educators, such as adjuncts. As several of them say, in the current neoliberal university context, ‘an administrator or an adjunct has much more influence in the organisation than a professor.’ All participants in this category speak about the lack of freedom of speech at Swedish universities. Even those who have a tenure state that this is more as a reward for conformity than providing any real security for the exercise of free speech (Donoghue 2008). As Hamer and Lang (2015: 903) argue, the prevailing image of the university as ‘a space of unrestricted dialogue and debate’ is not true as universities have many incentives for self-­censorship; concerns about ‘getting tenure’ and ‘not being promoted’ force many academics to ‘bite their tongues’ and keep silent. Many interviewees in this work raise the same worries of losing their jobs or not being promoted because of their critical standpoints, arguing that the combination of their standpoint and their membership of a racialised group/s does not put them in a favourable position and can lead to many harms. That is why they keep silent and are even forced to give their passive consent to the neoliberal university and its institutional racism. Keeping silent is not only a ‘neutral position’ but also a way of giving one’s consent to the continued existence of neoliberal racism. Passive Compliance with Neoliberal Racism in Civil Society Organisations and individuals with immigrant backgrounds who passively comply with the neoliberal and racist requirements of authorities and the mainstream media claim that efforts at resistance are very costly, for their organisations, their professional activities and their private lives. They base this belief on examples from other OCSOs and civil society activists who did not comply with neoliberal and increasing political racism in society. Three major changes have greatly worsened the conditions for OCSOs’

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and racialised activists’ civil engagements and activities: (1) the neoliberalisation and marketisation of CSOs and activities; (2) increasing racism in general, and political and mediatised racism in particular; and (3) securitisation policies within the frame of the ‘war on terror’. As discussed in Chap. 6, the first change is neoliberalisation, which has influenced all aspects of Swedish society including the organisation of the relationship between authorities and CSOs. CSOs have been forced to compete with each other in a competitive market of fund-­raising (Lundgaard-­Andersen 2018). This has forced many OCSOs to not only compete with CSOs but also compete with each other over getting a part of the decreasing funding of civil society activities. The second change concerns the growing electoral success for the racist party, SD, and its influence on mainstream parties’ programmes and discourses—both of which have altered the conditions of civil society activities for such organisations and activists. SD’s demonisation of migration and migrants, as well as every issue related to migration, such as ‘multiculturalism’ and Islam, has led to decreasing political interest in respect of OCSO’s civil activities. This has been completed by the growing securitisation of society and the policies of the ‘war on terror’. Many OCSOs in general and Muslim OCSOs in particular have, during the last several years, been subjected to securitisation and surveillance policies. Media bullying of such organisations has increased and many such organisations have lost their funding from municipal and governmental authorities. An illustration of this is the right-­wing celebration that took place when both a ‘Leftist youths organisation’ and a ‘Swedish Muslim youths organisation’ lost their governmental funding as a result of such policies. The major right-­ wing tabloid in Sweden, Expressen (19 December 2016), wrote that ‘this is a welcome U-­turn’ and praised the ‘Governmental organ for youth and civil society questions’ for their ‘brave’ decision. The editorial of the journal claims: ‘the state’s water tap [funding] does more harm than good’. Such negative decisions, against both leftist CSOs and OCSOs, are almost always based on accusations, such as a ‘lack of democracy or democratic principles’, which frequently receive media attention and foster media bullying against such organisations. Such changes together have helped to increase both competition among and caution and self-­censorship within OCSOs. Many of the interviewees discuss of those OCSOs and civil society activists who have been subjected to the negative consequences of the mechanisms of symbolic violence. The OCSOs who have lost their support and funding from

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authorities, present illustrations of what can happen for those who do not comply with the neoliberal racist system and the ‘white racial frame’ (Feagin 2013). Also, civil society activists who participate in public debates and are critical of neoliberal racism are subjected to symbolic violence. Many say that they can be ‘harmed by their own deeds’ and that they ‘have to think of their families’ too and to not ‘put them in danger’. Those belonging to this category argue that the system does not leave ‘a third alternative’ or ‘a position between’ the two poles of either complying with the system or actively counteracting it. Although this group complies with neoliberal racism and the ‘white racial frame’ established in society, they take a passive position because they are aware of the existence of racism and discrimination and do not want to be part of its reproduction. This does not mean that they are aware of the mechanisms of symbolic violence; they seem to ultimately accept neoliberal racism and ‘hope for a change’ without having a clear understanding of how such changes are possible and who the agents are for bringing about such changes. In line with Bourdieu’s (1991) framework, this group sees symbolic violence, which powerful groups, media and authorities exercise, as constituting ‘something else’. However, they still realise that resistance will lead to negative sanctions against those resisting the system, and seeing themselves as ‘rational individuals and organisations’ who are functioning in a neoliberal system, they feel they are ‘having to always do calculations’ before acting. As many say, they have to think about paying their rent and making a living. This ‘rational thinking’ is what Foucault (1991) calls the principle of ‘governmentality’, that is internalisation of the goals of disciplination and socialisation, by which individuals accept the ‘order of things’ in accordance with the will and interests of powerful groups, authorities and governments. In other words, the exercise of governmental power needs an instrument, which cannot only be reduced to military and police action. The means of the governmentalised exercise of power according to Foucault (1991: 116) are ‘assistance, tutelage, medicalization (not to mention areas … such as the prison and its disciplinary mechanisms, sexuality, psychiatry and the family); practices and knowledges [which] together have woven that ever-­tightening web which constitutes the social’. That is why this group defends their ‘passively complying position’ to neoliberal racism as a ‘rational and necessary way’ of living and acting. Additionally, although many admit the problems that they are confronted with because of increasing securitisation policies in society, they legitimise it as a ‘way to protect citizens from terrorism’.

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7.4   Active Resistance to Neoliberal Racism and Securitisation Resistance and non-­compliance lead almost always to negative sanctions for individuals and groups. However, there are politicians, journalists, academics and activists with immigrant backgrounds who do resist neoliberal racism and oppression. Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and increasing securitisation policies in Sweden, the living conditions of many individuals with immigrant backgrounds in general, and those with Muslim backgrounds in particular, have both dramatically and gradually changed for the worse. Securitisation has increased the surveillance and control of otherised people who are considered as ‘the enemy within’. Failed integration policies, which have been thus mainly because of the existence of structural racism and discrimination in society, have come to be blamed on otherised people themselves (Kamali 2006, 2008; de Los Reyes and Kamali 2005). The invention and globalisation of the ‘war on terror’ has been used as a pretext for reinforcing neoliberal racism and its ‘white racial frame’. Many of those who have participated in this study and who did not comply with neoliberal racism testify to the negative sanctions that have been forced on them by political parties’ leadership, editors-­­in-­chief and executors of mainstream media companies, university VCs and administrators, and governmental and municipal authorities. Although critical party members, journalists, academics and civil society activists with a majority society background have also been subjected to symbolic violence and their careers have, in many cases, been impacted by their non-­compliance with neoliberalism and the ‘white racial frame’, the negative consequences of symbolic violence against the aforementioned groups with immigrant backgrounds have been much greater and created many personal tragedies. Non-compliance with Neoliberal Racism, Securitisation and ‘the Party Line’ Increasing demands for compliance with neoliberal racism and ‘the party line’ as the result of increasing neoliberalisation, securitisation and racism have also created resistance among some party members with immigrant backgrounds. Of course, party members with immigrant backgrounds are not a homogenous group, with the same political ideology and orientation. Those participating in this study are members of different parties

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from across the political spectrum in Sweden—and this is true also for those who demonstrate resistance in their narratives (the only party not represented in this respect is being the racist party, SD). However, all the party members with immigrant backgrounds belonging to this category share in common the fact they have once held a democratic ambition of ‘making a difference’ and of, as many mentioned, ‘making Sweden a better place for everybody’. However, the following parameters and changes have forced them to re-­evaluate their confidence in democracy and how it works in reality: • The party oligarchy • Rapid neoliberal changes • Securitisation as a result of the ‘war on terror’ • Mainstream parties’ adjustment to and adaptation of political racism Already in 1915, Robert Michels, in his classical book Political Parties, wrote about the oligarchical tendencies of modern democracy. He (1962: 6) wrote that: ‘Democracy leads to oligarchy, and necessarily contains an oligarchical nucleus.’ This oligarchy has to do with ‘domination over masses’, irrespective of party belonging and divisions. Indeed, although some of the interviewees belonging to this category have left their political parties and moved to other parties, they experience the same problems in their new political home because of the common interests of all political parties’ oligarchical leadership. This is, as Michels (1962: 343) puts it, because ‘Sooner or later the competition between the various cliques of the dominant classes ends in a reconciliation which is effected with the instinctive aim of retaining dominion over the masses by sharing it among themselves.’ All Swedish mainstream and parliamentary parties have more or less accepted and adjusted themselves to neoliberalism and its ‘white racial frame’ (Feagin 2013). Committed to the principles of liberalism, or better said neoliberalism, all political parties legitimate their adjustment or commitment to neoliberal racism by referring to the ‘will of masses’, although this is just a pretext for keeping the party oligarchy and leaderships and their capitalist clients satisfied. As Michels (1962: 47) writes: ‘For the liberals also, the masses pure and simple are no more than a necessary evil, whose only use is to help others to the attainment of ends to which they themselves are strangers.’ Political parties do not leave any room for internal opposition to their leadership and oligarchical organisations. Based on the accounts of the

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interviewees participating in this study, it must be said that it is, however, not only the leadership of the political parties who sanction non-­­compliance with ‘the party line’ but also the party members who believe in the party line and its neoliberal ideology. They are important gate-­keeping and conservative agents for preserving and reproducing the party oligarchy. These members have been governmentalised, and they do not see the exercise of symbolic violence against those who protest or resist ‘the party line’ and neoliberal racism in the party as a problem. It is normally argued that political parties are based on democratic principles. However, narrative data from this study indicates that democracy or the claim to the democratic organisation of a political party can be used to exclude political opposition to ‘the party line’; moreover, there exists a ‘majority dictatorship’ and a ‘party dictatorship’, both of which symbolically reward compliance and punish non-­compliance. Although there are many efforts to legitimate the punishment of non-­compliance in a political party by reference to ‘democratic rules’, and presenting political opposition to the party’s neoliberal racism as ‘a danger to democracy and securitisation of society’, the democratic parties’ oligarchical dictatorship has been known about for a long time. Indeed, Michels (1962: 349) wrote, on the eve of the previous century, that: There is little difference, as far as practical results are concerned, between individual dictatorship and the dictatorship of a group of oligarchs. Now it is manifest that the concept of dictatorship is the direct antithesis of the concept of democracy. The attempt to make dictatorship serve the ends of democracy is tantamount to the endeavor to utilize war as the most efficient means for the defense of peace, or to employ alcohol in the struggle against alcoholism. It is extremely probable that a social group which has secured control of the instruments of collective power would do all that was possible to retain that control. (Original emphases)

As Michels (1962: 353) argues, the party leadership, like a government or a state, always comprises a minority who rule over the majority by establishing a ‘legal order, which is the outcome of the exigencies of dominion and of the exploitation of the mass of helots effected by the ruling minority’. He concludes then that: ‘The majority is thus permanently incapable of self-­government.’ This may need some qualification that sociological theories had not yet developed when Michels did his study. The majority, that is the masses, are not, as Michels argues, ‘permanently

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incapable of self-­government’. The modern processes of socialisation and disciplination of the masses has led to the self-­government discussed by Foucault (1991) as governmentalisation. This study illustrates the existence of the mechanism of governmentality in political parties, mainstream media, universities and civil society organisations. For example, the majority of party members, who are governmentalised and accept neoliberal racism and the ‘white racial frame’ as ‘natural’ phenomena without any alternative, exercise their loyalty and compliance with the party oligarchy by resisting any opposition to ‘the party line’. The other change that has influenced party members with immigrant backgrounds in mainstream parties is the rapid neoliberalisation of Swedish society. Many members with immigrant backgrounds who have typically believed in ‘Sweden as the champion of equality and democracy’ have seen a rapid change, which they call ‘increasing administration’, ‘increasing the power of party leadership and internal organs over members’ and ‘decreasing faith in the welfare state’. It seems that many party members with immigrant backgrounds have held a strong ‘ideal typical imagination’, in Weber’s words, of the ‘Swedish model’. Those belonging to this category admit that ‘the reality proved this to be wrong’ and they ‘felt within their bones’ that ‘the differences between Sweden and other “liberal” countries, such as England and the US, are not too many’. The third change affecting party members with immigrant backgrounds is related to growing securitisation policies, by which party members have been forced to ‘choose sides’, that is to accept the division between ‘friends’ and ‘enemies’. In other words, they have to be ‘either with Us or against Us’ in the ‘war on terror’ and operate in the terms of G.W. Bush’s black-­and-­white world, a worldview which seems to have been adopted by all Western countries, including Sweden. Securitisation policies, which have been widely implemented through this framing of a ‘war on terror’, have primarily targeted people with immigrant backgrounds in society. Given the political parties’ role in drafting and passing new security laws and legitimising security polices, party members with immigrant backgrounds generally feel an increasing demand for compliance, and any resistance to neoliberal racism and stigmatisation of immigrants (as ‘security risks’ or ‘enemies within’) is considered a sign of disloyalty or enmity to the Swedish democratic system. The neoliberalisation of society has also influenced the political parties’ internal competition for winning influential positions in the party or becoming the party’s representative on the country’s political and decision-­making assemblies. This has, according to

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interviewees, led to increasing plotting within the party, which often harms members with immigrant backgrounds. This takes place in a political context informed by security thinking and a competition between mainstream parties for convincing the masses of the need to be tough on crime, migration and terrorism. Protest against or resistance to the neoliberalisation of society is considered and presented through the media as non-­compliance with the country’s democratic system. Finally, the increasing racism that has led to the electoral success and the entrance of SD into the Swedish parliament and local assemblies has reinforced a ‘white racial frame’ and the adjustment of mainstream political parties to the new political racism in the country. Due to the fear of losing their xenophobic and racist voters to SD, and in order to attract back such voters, the mainstream parties have adopted SD’s xenophobic and racist discourses and party programmes (Kamali 2008). Many participants in this study speak about ‘very little tolerance for deviant voices’ in their parties and the normalisation of racist discourses, the (open) articulation of which would ‘have been unthinkable a few years ago’. As mentioned earlier, it is not only the party leadership but also party members with Swedish backgrounds who are active agents in excluding resistance to neoliberal racism. Interviewees mean that discourses belonging to the ‘multicultural era’ have disappeared and been replaced by discourses of ‘law and order’, ‘counter-­terrorism’ and ‘countering radicalisation’. All such discourses are frequently used within the framework of securitising society against a ‘foreign threat’, a framework that is normally aimed at those with immigrant backgrounds. Such changes, together, have created an almost unbearable situation for those party members with immigrant backgrounds who do not comply with neoliberal racism. Those who did not comply with ‘the party line’ and, as they say, ‘believed in open democratic conversations’ have experienced a process of demonisation and exclusion in the party, which has often been coupled with bullying through the mass media. Their party’s need to present themselves as ‘real anti-­terrorist’, ‘tough on crime’ and ‘tough on migration’ has dramatically reduced otherised party members’ possibilities for being critical and resisting neoliberal racism. The data from this study suggests that there is a close connection between party members believing in neoliberal racism/the ‘white racial frame’ and the mainstream neoliberalised media. Some of the interviewees in this study who belong to the category of those who do not comply with neoliberal racism have been subjected to internal ‘hate campaigns’ that were to gradually become

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mediatised. One of the most effective means for excluding party members with immigrant backgrounds who do not comply with neoliberal racism is accusing them of supporting terrorism or having ‘Islamist ideologies’. Those subjected to these accusations have been members of different parties, such as the ruling parties (the Social Democrats and the Green parties) or the opposition parties (the Centre and Moderates parties), and their only common denominator has been their migrant background. There are different ways of excluding otherised members who do not comply with ‘the party line’ and its neoliberal policies. One of the most established methods of exclusion is the spreading of rumours within the party about members being engaged in anti-­racist activities. Depending on the members’ ideological, religious and ethnic backgrounds, different strategies are used. Those with a leftist ideology are subjected to accusations of ‘being Marxists’, ‘supporting a proletariat dictatorship’ and ‘having undemocratic attitudes’. Others with Muslim backgrounds are accused of ‘supporting radical Muslim groups’, ‘being anti-­Semite’ and ‘having a hidden agenda’. Otherised party members who resist neoliberal racism are often presented as a danger for the democratic system and majority society’s security. Such accusations are often reported to both the party leadership and mass media. In some cases, even internal emails are sent to the media as proof of such accusations. When the media bullying has then started, it has created a very suitable situation for the party leadership and racist groups in the party to exclude from the party those who do not comply with neoliberal racism. The established neoliberal racism in the mainstream media in Sweden helps neoliberal racist groups in different mainstream parties to purify such parties of politicians who do not comply with neoliberal racism and who can create ‘problems’ for the established ‘white racial frame’ (Feagin 2013). Non-compliance with Neoliberal Racism and Securitisation in the Mainstream Media The analysis suggests that working conditions for journalists with immigrant backgrounds have deteriorated, and this has been largely occurring during the past few years. The political and mainstream media’s demands for compliance with neoliberal racism and securitisation policies have increased—with a lack of compliance putting journalists’ careers and jobs at risk. This is a result of well-­established mechanisms of symbolic violence, by which powerful political and mass media agents reward

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compliance with the system and punish non-­compliance and resistance. This has led to some journalists losing their jobs and/or possibilities to forge a career in the mainstream media, while others have been forced to take a more ‘silent position’ concerning their real ideas and beliefs in order to not be subjected to such negative consequences. This has led to the fostering of a culture embedded in the mechanisms of ‘the spiral of silence’. The space for journalists with immigrant backgrounds to practise resistance in their workplaces is very limited and the reinforcement of neoliberal racism as a result of the electoral success of SD and growing securitisation policies places them in a very vulnerable position. Many have borne witness to increasing institutional and individual racism in the mainstream media. Their testimonies are clear indications of the existence of symbolic violence in mass media organisations. Journalists who resist neoliberal racism and its ‘white racial frame’ become subjected to a systemic pressure to either leave behind their anti-­racism or leave the media company. Such pressures are exercised not only by the leadership and the editorial team of a journal or other media but also by other governmentalised journalists who apparently see no problem with growing neoliberal racism. The following are among the tactics used to either force anti-­ racist journalists into the ‘spiral of silence’ or expel them from their jobs: • Forcing them to be ‘culturally competent’ journalists • Accusing them of not being impartial and neutral • Not allowing them to undertake journalism about racism • Excluding them from doing ‘attractive journalism’ Many journalists belonging to this category have been hired by the mainstream media to ‘help the media to understand’ otherised groups. Many speak about the ‘good spirit of diversity’ at the beginning of their employment in the media company. They have been used as ‘culturally competent’ journalists in doing reports about, or for ‘understanding’, ‘the others’. However, the position of being ‘culturally competent’ about ‘the others’ has been a part of a discriminatory and, in many cases, racist imaginaries of ‘the others’ as deviant and as a problematic category of people (Kamali 2002). Some journalists have even been asked to ‘play criminals’ or ‘Muslims’ in some television and radio reporting. Andreas Huyssen (1995) suggests that national identity and images of culture have always been linked with racism. Such journalists are considered to belong to

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‘them’ as a faceless and collective being (de Los Reyes and Kamali 2005). As Neil Farrington et  al. (2012: 16) argue, ‘the others’ are grouped as one, problematically possessing no individuality and whose cultural features are seen to clash with ‘homeland values’—which arguably results in a feeling of ‘us’ versus ‘them’, the ‘insiders’ against the ‘outsiders’. When journalists who do not accept neoliberal racist journalism start questioning such discriminatory actions and otherisation of people with immigrant backgrounds (including journalists themselves), they have been subjected to symbolic violence, both from the leadership of the company and their colleagues. There is a false claim to ‘objectivity’ and ‘neutrality’ in the Swedish media, which is frequently used as a pretext for the reproduction of neoliberal racism by excluding any critical reports on issues of said racism. Many of the journalists participating in this study, who have been engaged in doing journalism about racism and discrimination, have been subjected to accusations of violating journalistic impartiality and neutrality. Notions of impartiality and neutrality are based on an imaginary of ‘race-­neutrality’ and ‘colour blindness’, which is part of what Flores (2016) refers to as hegemonic whiteness. Sociologists Bonilla-­ Silva and Baiocchi (2001) argue that the claim of ‘objectivity’ and ‘neutrality’ is used to obscure racism and discrimination in society. When journalists with immigrant background do reports and journalism about racism, it is often then said that they are not ‘objective’ and ‘neutral’. Some such reports and programmes have been stopped by the leadership of, for instance, Swedish television and radio broadcasting and have not been presented to the public. Many journalists—including those aforementioned critical journalists, who recently made public the issue of racism in public service broadcasting by writing a protest letter (DN, September 25, 2020) and giving interviews (Expressen, October 24, 2020)—speak about the existence of ‘a list of experts’ who ‘should not’ be contacted and be given the opportunity to speak in public service media. These experts are generally anti-­ racist researchers, who the mainstream media call ‘controversial individuals’. Critical journalists working in public service broadcasting and interviewed for this study argue that the media leadership excludes journalism about racism as ‘political’, as something which goes against the company’s ‘neutrality’. Many also argue that racist parties and groups are frequently allowed to ‘spread racist discourses’ in public service broadcasting but that counter-­discourses are considered to be ‘loaded’ and ‘political’. There are, however, exceptions. Some have been initially successful in doing reports

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and programmes about racism, but soon realised that this kind of journalism is not deemed desirable by the mainstream media leadership and even can be dangerous for their careers. Journalists belonging to this category, who ‘did not give up’ their ambitions, have been forced to leave mainstream media or, in some cases, forced to do something other than what they really wanted. Many have been forced to work within less attractive areas of journalism and have not been allowed or asked to work on more important issues, such as those covered in ‘political’ or ‘economic’ journalism. Continuing to resist racism and discrimination, both in society and within a media company, contains serious risks of being subjected to symbolic violence. Some speak about the enmity of colleagues against them, which shows itself in their exclusion not only from ‘the warm circle of collegiality’ (cf. Noelle-­Neumann 1974) but also through other kinds of serious insults—such as their personal belongings being vandalised in the workplace and offensive mails being sent to them. Non-compliance with Neoliberal Racism and Securitisation in the Academy The academy has been considered a place of unlimited discussion and questioning, of generating new knowledge and of freedom of speech. However, this is not really true—not in Sweden and not in many other countries. As Hamer and Lang (2015: 899) suggest, ‘political pundits, legislators, and the general public often assume that universities are rarified places separate and distinct from the broader society. Many of us who work in university settings also like to pretend that campuses are places of equity and inclusion where differences are touted as part of enlightened curricula, policies, practices, goals, and missions.’ They continue: ‘we are reticent to highlight the far more quotidian patterns of structural violence that occur every day on our campuses’ and add that academics should fight against such ‘structural violence in the academy’. However, this is easier to say than to do. The majority of interviewees in this study have chosen to more or less keep silent in order to preserve their positions and not be subjected to the negative consequences of symbolic violence and exclusion. This is because the recent decades’ neoliberalisation and securitisation of universities and higher education have drastically changed the working conditions for academics in general and for academics with immigrant backgrounds in particular. Such changes have created an ‘all-­ administrative-­­university’, in which the influence of administrators and

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VCs has been increased and the role of collegiality has been decreased. As a result, neoliberal securitisation and racism have influenced the position of academics who do not comply with the demands of these trends in universities. Such changes for non-­complying academics can be categorised as follows: • Exclusion from collegial groups • Subjection to symbolic violence by an alliance of collegial and university administration • Devaluation of their academic competency • Students’ evaluations being used against them • Forced onto sick leave • Forced to quit their positions at universities This study suggests that there is an understanding of ‘the spirit of the time’ by which university leadership and administration receive almost unlimited power and influence over their institutions. Many governmentalised academics with a majority society background have adjusted themselves to the ‘all-­administrative universities’ and have become ‘academic workers’ for the market and the administration (Ginsberg 2011; Brown 2016). Such academics chose to adjust themselves to the neoliberal organisation and power structure in order to be rewarded through mechanisms of symbolic violence. As some of the non-­complying academics say, colleagues with majority society backgrounds do not see any problem in allying themselves with the stance of the ‘all-­ administrative universities’ against any resistance and protest against neoliberal racism. This is because such academics are governmentalised within the ‘white racial frame’ and a complex system of decades of neoliberalisation. This creates many difficulties for cooperation between academics who uncritically comply with neoliberal racism at universities and those who do not comply. The imbalance of power between these two groups often leads to the exclusion of non-­ complying academics from collegial cooperation and relations. Moreover, the governmentalised academics are aware of the support of the university leadership and administration in their discriminatory actions against non-­ complying academics. The analysis of the interviews suggests that the growing influence of administration staff on educators and researchers has created a neoliberal administrative system of oppression, one which increasingly reduces the influence of educators and researchers on the education and research

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practices that can take place in universities (Giroux 2016; Gutiérrez Rodríguez 2016; Morley 2016; Bottrell and Manathunga 2019). Many interviewees complain about a devaluation of their academic competency by their colleagues and the administration. For example, many lose responsibility for running their own courses and are instead forced to participate as an educator on ones that are led by colleagues who are less qualified. Critical and anti-­racist content has been largely pushed out of the mainstream. While the neoliberal reorganisation of universities has negatively impacted critical academics in general, those with immigrant backgrounds have suffered more markedly. This differential is fostered mainly by growing racism that has emerged as a result of the increasing electoral success of SD. Many academics with an immigrant background speak about the suitable situation that the advancement of political racism in mainstream parties has created for many racist academics and administrators to discriminate and racialise academics with immigrant backgrounds. This political change has meant a growing racism in the society, which influences the students of higher education—some of whom are critical of anti-­racist academics. The faculty administration and governmentalised colleagues frequently use racist students’ evaluations of non-­complying academics in criticising their academic competency. Many non-­complying interviewees claim that they normally receive very good evaluations of their courses but that often there are some racist students who do not like their anti-­racist stance and write racist comments in the evaluations. Such documents are then used as ‘proof’ of the non-­complying academics’ professional shortcomings. The harsh situation for non-­complying academics, and the problems that the ‘all-­administrative-­universities’ and their governmentalised colleagues create for them, has resulted, in many cases, in their experiencing sickness and psychological problems. Some have had different periods of sick leave in order to feel able to continue in their jobs. However, some others have left their jobs or are thinking of leaving their positions. Non-compliance with Neoliberal Racism and Securitisation in Civil Society Almost three decades of neoliberalisation and reinforcing securitisation has deteriorated socioeconomic and political conditions for CSOs and civil society activists. Although neoliberalisation has influenced many CSOs generally, policies of neoliberal securitisation and increasing racism and

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discrimination have forced many OCSOs specifically to consider increasing demands to adjust themselves to the neoliberal racism sanctioned by authorities. Many OCSOs and otherised civil society activists have come under growing control and surveillance. Such interviewees testify to the increasing demand from the authorities and even from mainstream media to adjust themselves to racist and discriminatory policies and discourses that harm them and reduce their freedom of association and freedom of speech. As a result of the mechanisms of symbolic violence those CSOs, OCSOs and civil society activists who do adjust themselves to neoliberal policies and the neoliberal racism are rewarded or at least not sanctioned negatively; meanwhile, those others who do not comply and who continue to fight racism and discrimination, as well as protect their freedom of associations, are subjected to negative sanctions. They lose their funding and are subjected to media bullying. It seems that there is an interplay between neoliberal authorities and the mainstream media in their fight against those OCSOs and otherised activists who do not accept neoliberal racism, who keep fighting racism and discrimination and who try to protect their freedom of association and speech. Growing securitisation have forced many OCSOs and otherised civil society activists to more or less exercise self-­censorship in order to protect themselves from the authorities’ and mainstream media’s negative sanctions. Although they continue to fight against racism and discrimination, almost all OCSOs and civil society activists belonging to this category have decided to keep silent concerning increasing racism for fear of the serious consequences of speaking out for both themselves and their families. Those who have been subjected to the negative consequences of symbolic violence in general and media bullying in particular have lost possibilities of getting a ‘decent job’ or ‘a job in accordance with their competency and education’. Some speak about many negative replies to their job applications because of the ‘existing public image’ of them that the mainstream media have created. Many provide illustrations of the reproduction of the ‘spiral of silence’. They admit that they have changed their manner of participation in public debates or in other public engagements, explaining that they exercise self-­censorship in order to protect themselves from negative consequences—that is, in the study’s terms, from symbolic violence. Neoliberal racism and its surveillance policies change the role and function of CSOs, including OCSOs, and reduce their democratic functions. Contrary to the view that civil society, and its organisations and activists, has ‘instrumental effects upon the daily

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functioning of transformative liberal-­ democratic institutions’ (Doran 2010: 14), neoliberal surveillance, control and exclusionary policies disarm democracy and social cohesion. Neoliberal securitisation’s impact on CSOs in general and OCSOs in particular endangers democracy and the freedom of speech. The alliance between authorities funding CSOs and the mainstream neoliberal media against OCSOs results in self-­censorship and also a reduction in civil engagements by many who find themselves the target of public racism. Media bullying is very effective in stigmatising members of OCSOs and civil society activists as ‘deviant’ and the ‘enemy among Us’. Such governmental actions against OCSOs and activists, as well as against many other groups who resist neoliberal racism, is a mechanism of the ‘authoritarian fix’ (Bruff 2014: 125) in neoliberal states, as ‘a response to increased resistance to neoliberalism and aspirations for alternatives to neoliberalism and imperialism’ (Ismail and Kamat 2018: 570). An authoritarian neoliberalism increasingly uses constitutional and legal mechanisms against those who do not comply with its imperatives and moves away from seeking their consent (Ahmad 2016; Bruff 2014), which, in turn, undermines democracy and civil engagement. Neoliberal authoritarian states are not interested in any form of compromise with those who resist neoliberalism, but, rather, operate to exclude and marginalise the poor and people of colour (Ismail and Kamat 2018).

7.5   Final Remarks This study suggests that neoliberal racism is a growing phenomenon in Swedish society and one that harms many people of immigrant backgrounds in their professional lives, forcing them to face overt and covert racism in different ways. Many are forced to leave their jobs or take sick leave. Others suffer from forceful self-­censorship and being otherised and feeling themselves forced to fight for their dignity and equal chances: a fight which becomes very difficult in the face of increasing political support for institutional and structural racism. The surveillance state and increasing political racism provide possibilities for the reinforcement of the whiteness of power by excluding racialised and critical politicians, journalists, academics and civil society activists from access to the means of power and influence in society. A minority of racialised politicians, journalists, academics and civil society activists who are compliant with the system of neoliberal racism are allowed to gain some positions in the white power

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structure of the country. Those who completely comply with neoliberal racism and actively help towards its reproduction are rewarded, and those who resist and fight against it are punished. Such mechanisms of symbolic violence, which reward consent and compliance and punish resistance, are always presented and accepted as normal. It is normally based on the existence of ‘public truths’ reproduced by powerful agents, such as politicians and the mainstream media, in society. Mainstream media is the guardian of these neoliberal racist ‘public truths’, and, as Herman and Chomsky (1998) suggest, mainstream news media is a crucial tool for legitimising the ideas of the most powerful groups in society. As the ‘guardians of power’, mass media’s seemingly ‘neutral’ and ‘objective’ news and reports are a cover for what is a partisan and conservative set of interests (Edwards and Cromwell 2006). The democratic organs, such as a free mass media, seem to be increasingly used to maintain the whiteness of power and to reproduce neoliberal racism. Mainstreaming of the stereotype of ‘fearsome strangers’ and presenting them as ‘Islamists’, ‘terrorists’, ‘non-­democratic’, ‘inferior’ and ‘culturally deviant’ through racist colonial discourses, deployed in a securitised neoliberal political and mediatised context, is increasingly disarming democratic institutions and violating racialised individuals’ rights, along with their freedom of speech and their job security. Although some try to resist or even fight neoliberal racism, they constitute a comparatively small (and disappearing) number of groups and individuals, who are subjected to much pressure and punishment from white majority society. Many racialised and critical politicians, journalists, academics and civil society activists have been forced or choose to keep silent about increasing neoliberal racism, mainly because of their fear of losing their jobs and ability to make a living. This has created a spiral of silence, by which the reaction to oppression and punishment of resistance has been silenced. In a time where neoliberal racism silences resistance and rewards compliance, democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of research and freedom of associations are in danger. Anti-­terrorism acts and policies have, during the last few decades, enabled the executive power to avoid democratic control and accountability. As Bronwyn Stevens (2006: 3) argues: ‘Democracy, however, should be more than an elected dictatorship. It implies the rule of law, the right to stand for election and to join political organisations. It encompasses a role for opposition, freedom of speech and the availability of information so that governments can be accurately judged.’ Ethnic and religious minorities’ democratic rights are

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increasingly reducing, and they are subjected to governmental-­based discrimination as a result of securitisation policies (Finke 2013). People of immigrant background, since September 11, 2001, in particular, have been characterised as threatening ‘Western civilisation’, and this has ‘justified’ emergency measures and the suspension of normal rights and rules (McDonald 2008). This process is highly apparent in this study, and the state of exception seems to be permanent for racialised groups. The reinforcement of institutional and structural racism in the country should encourage many researchers to explore the problem and suggest changes. This seems, however, to be wishful thinking rather than a realistic hope. Many academics interviewed in this work say that it has almost become impossible to get funding for critical research on racism. Alongside this, the pressures from the administration and research leadership, such as white professors, make it very difficult to even compose such a research application. Many speak about difficulties in finding and convincing co-­ applicants because they are afraid of doing ‘deviant research’, which is not appreciated and supported by the department, faculty, administration and university leadership. There are also politicians, journalist, academics and civil society activists interviewed in this work who claim that there is no need for further research about such an ‘obvious’ problem as racism. They argue and provide examples about the already existing research and reports showing clearly the existence of overt and covert racism in the country. They mean that there must be ‘political willingness’ for challenging and addressing systemic racism. However, given the current political climate, in which the racist party, Sweden Democrats, is the third largest party in the country, and in which mainstream parties adopt ever more racist policies and programmes by adjusting themselves to said party’s position, the chances of such political willingness emerging seem very distant.

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Index

A Academic freedom, 66–69, 151, 154, 225 Academics of immigrant backgrounds, vii, 16, 17, 19, 81, 151–154, 157, 162–164, 167, 170, 176, 177, 207, 212, 217, 218, 221, 225, 226, 230, 238, 240 Alibis, 112 American imperialism, 3 Anti-Muslimism, 114, 128, 185, 186, 188, 189, 194, 209 B Bio-politics, 44, 57, 210 Bullying, vii, 116, 136, 234 media bullying, vii, 113, 114, 116, 191, 203, 215, 228, 235, 241, 242 C Capitalism and modernity, 9, 40–41 Censorship, 37, 63, 64, 69–72, 121, 124

popular support of, 63–65 Centre Party, 94, 100, 102, 103, 106, 107, 110, 115, 116 Civil society activists of immigrant backgrounds, vii, 16, 17, 19, 81, 179, 180, 195, 207, 212 Collective consciousness, 26, 27 Colonialism, viii, 5, 9–11, 13, 26, 38–41, 45, 51, 52, 75, 77, 96, 210, 211 Coloniality of power, 58 Compliance, 4, 8, 9, 15, 16, 29, 45, 56, 57, 59, 64, 65, 68, 74, 93–100, 107, 109–111, 123–130, 143, 147, 152–160, 166, 176, 181–186, 189, 195, 200, 207, 212–230, 232, 233, 235, 236, 243 process of, 8–9 Counter-terrorism, 51, 52, 54, 185, 211, 234 Critical social theory, 26 Critical thinking, v, 50–59, 157, 159, 176, 186

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. Kamali, Neoliberal Securitisation and Symbolic Violence, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71210-5

251

252 

INDEX

D Democracy, vii, viii, 10, 11, 28, 38, 42, 48, 53, 56, 61, 65, 66, 74, 75, 96, 97, 102, 120, 129, 167, 179, 183, 192, 197, 208, 214, 216, 219, 221, 228, 231–233, 242, 243 Demonisation, 37, 38, 128, 228, 234 Demonising the enemy, 36–50 Deviant cultures, 132, 216 Disciplination, 4, 27, 29, 43–47, 50, 78, 164, 210, 212, 229, 233 Discrimination, v, vii, 9, 10, 13, 15, 16, 40, 76, 77, 79, 81, 98, 121, 122, 124, 131, 132, 134, 138–141, 144, 146, 157, 160, 163, 164, 171–175, 179, 182, 184, 188, 190, 199, 200, 202–204, 208, 209, 212, 213, 221, 222, 226, 227, 229, 230, 237, 238, 241, 244 against individuals of immigrant backgrounds, v, vii, 15 against Muslims, 77, 131 Domination cognitive structure of domination, 28 legitimised domination, 7, 30 mechanism of domination, 7, 27, 29, 30, 33 soft means of domination, 25, 30 system of domination, 4–8, 29, 50, 97, 224

F Fear of isolation, 72, 73, 106, 109, 110 Freedom of speech, 16, 33, 59–63, 65, 68, 69, 101, 105, 129, 130, 173, 205, 207, 213, 216, 226, 227, 238, 241–243

E Enlightenment, viii, 8–10, 13, 46, 77, 208 European imperialism, 26

L Left Party, vi, 95, 96, 103 Liberal democracies, 28, 38, 42 Liberalism, viii, 2, 45, 80, 123

G Governmentalisation, viii, 4, 11, 47, 56, 77, 80, 120, 132, 133, 181–183, 212, 233 Green Party, vi, 94, 98, 99, 105, 114, 235 H Hegemony cultural, 50, 62 ideological, 4 neoliberal, 59 Homo academicus, 50 Homo economicus, 33 I Identity politics, vii, 122, 127, 131, 146 J Journalists of immigrant backgrounds, vii, 19, 81, 121–124, 127–132, 135–141, 143, 144, 147, 207, 212, 216, 221, 223–225, 230, 235–237

 INDEX 

Liberals, v, 2, 4, 29, 45, 60, 71, 78, 81, 95, 97, 99, 101, 104, 105, 131, 182, 210, 231, 233 Loyalty, 12, 59, 62, 96–98, 109, 115, 224, 233 party loyalty, 108 M Mainstream global media media, 37, 59–61, 74, 112, 114, 119–147, 182, 192, 202, 204, 205, 216–217, 223–225, 227, 230, 233, 235–238, 241, 243 media discourse, 191 Marketisation, 25, 179, 181, 207, 220, 228 Minority journalism, 134, 142 Minority position, 141 Mission of civilisation, 40 Modernity, viii, 2, 10, 11, 38, 40–41, 78 Muzzling, viii, 93, 104–107, 123, 130–136, 152, 160–164, 181, 186–191, 212, 226 N Neoliberal governmentality, 33, 34, 57, 78, 80 Neoliberalism, v, viii, 1–3, 25, 38, 43, 50–59, 62, 67, 77–80, 123, 151, 171, 176, 180, 186, 207, 209, 220, 226, 230, 231, 242 Neoliberal racism, v, vii, viii, 16, 19, 47, 67, 77–81, 119, 123–130, 145, 147, 151–160, 171, 172, 176, 180–183, 185, 186, 194, 200, 205, 207, 212–243 Neoliberal securitisation, v, 16, 123, 152, 170, 179, 204, 205, 207, 219–221, 226, 239, 240, 242

253

Non-compliance, 9, 25, 57, 106, 147, 213, 225, 230–242 legitimised obedience, 9 O Obedience, 7–9, 15, 16, 30–32, 44, 45, 47, 51, 189, 224 Oppression, viii, 4, 9, 11–13, 26, 38, 46–48, 59, 63, 80, 115, 125, 202, 214, 227, 230, 239, 243 administrative, 57, 156, 157, 177 Orientalism, 38, 68 P Party oligarchy, 74, 231–233 Politicians of immigrant backgrounds, vii, 19, 77, 93, 98–100, 104, 105, 110, 221 Postcolonialism, 208 Public truths, 34–37, 243 R Radicalisation, 54–56, 158, 180, 202, 234 Repression, 3, 71, 97 S Securitised knowledge, 52 Security thinking, vi, 104, 165, 186, 234 Self-censorship, vii, 59, 63, 68–77, 93–117, 119–147, 151–177, 179–205, 227, 241, 242 Self-control, 4, 46–50, 63, 133 Smith, Adam, 4, 5, 40, 41, 75 Social control, 37, 70, 80, 107 Social Darwinism, 38–39 Social Democratic Party, vi, 94, 95, 99, 101, 108, 110–113, 115

254 

INDEX

Socialisation, 26–28, 65, 74, 106, 212, 229, 233 Soft bureaucracy, 58, 59 Soft socialism, 27, 208 Spiral of silence, 69–77, 109, 110, 135, 136, 147, 161, 177, 196, 200, 205, 213, 222, 227, 236, 241, 243 The state of exception, 167, 244 Strangeness, 9–13 The stranger, 11, 12, 15 Surveillance, vi, 16, 37, 44, 46–48, 54–56, 66, 67, 79, 103, 104, 124, 136, 140, 151, 152, 157, 166, 180, 181, 201, 202, 204, 205, 209, 210, 212, 220, 228, 230, 241, 242 Sweden Democrats (SD), vi–viii, 16, 81, 98, 99, 102, 107, 111, 125, 129, 130, 147, 160, 176, 186, 202, 209, 212, 215, 221, 222, 228, 231, 234, 236, 240, 244 Symbolic violence, 4, 9, 11, 26–34, 38, 44, 47–51, 58, 64, 71, 74–77, 97, 98, 106, 109–111, 113, 115, 117, 120–122, 131, 134, 138–140, 143, 145, 147, 164, 176, 186, 189, 194, 196, 198, 199, 205, 212, 213, 215, 217, 222, 224, 226, 228–230, 232, 235–239, 241, 243 reward and punishment, 44 Systemic racism, 76, 216, 217, 244

T Techniques of normalisation, 46–50 Terrorism, v, vi, 25, 52, 54–56, 94, 99–101, 104, 127, 128, 131, 180, 182–184, 187, 188, 192, 194, 220, 229, 234, 235 Tittytainment, 34 Trumpisation, 159 Trumpism, 159 Trust capital, 111 W War on terror, vi, viii, 26, 37, 38, 44, 52, 56, 100, 151, 152, 181–183, 194, 201, 209, 219, 226, 228, 230, 231, 233 West-centric world, 61 Western civilisation, 11, 41, 42, 244 Western culture, 38, 42 Whiteness, 58, 80, 81, 125, 185, 211, 237, 242, 243 White racial frame, vi, viii, 80, 213, 216–218, 224, 225, 229–231, 233–236, 239 X Xenophobia, 95, 107, 209, 212, 220