Neoliberalism and Islamophobia: Schooling and Religion for Minority Muslim Youth 303118114X, 9783031181146

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Neoliberalism and Islamophobia Schooling and Religion for Minority Muslim Youth

Zainab Mourad

Neoliberalism and Islamophobia

Zainab Mourad

Neoliberalism and Islamophobia Schooling and Religion for Minority Muslim Youth

Zainab Mourad School of Education Western Sydney University Penrith, NSW, Australia

ISBN 978-3-031-18114-6 ISBN 978-3-031-18115-3 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18115-3 © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 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 credit: © Harvey Loake This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Dedicated with all my love to Fatima and Ali

Acknowledgements

In the name of Allah, the most Merciful, the most Gracious. All praise is due to Allah, we praise Him, seek His help and ask for His forgiveness. I am thankful to Allah who has given me the strength, knowledge, ability and opportunity to undertake this research and write this book. Without His blessings, this achievement would not have been possible. This book is the result of a culmination of part of my work that went into my Ph.D. and could not have been completed without the guidance, support and assistance of many. I would like to begin by sincerely thanking my supervisor, Professor Carol Reid, and co-supervisor, Dr. Mohamed Moustakim, for their guidance, wisdom, support and encouragement during all stages of the research journey and beyond. I would like to thank the principals of the studied schools for agreeing to participate in this project, and the teacher and student participants who generously gave their time to take-part in this study. This research would now have been possible without you. I would also like to thank Western Sydney University for the Research Higher Degree Scholarship. My sincere and profound gratitude goes to my family to whom I am infinitely indebted. First and foremost, my gratitude goes to my mother and father for the sacrifices they have made and the support they have given me. My heartfelt thanks and appreciation goes to my sisters for their love, encouragement and always being there in times of need. I would also like to thank my brother, Ali, for his insights and the hours he would

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

spend to discuss everything theory, religion and politics. My deepest gratitude goes to my husband Mohamad, my daughter Fatima and son Ali, who have been patient with me while I juggled family, work and study. Mohamad, thank you for being my most constructive critic and strongest supporter, and thank you for the drive you give to aim high in all that I do. Fatima and Ali, you are my heart and soul, and I hope this work inspires you to always aim high in everything you do, and to always be proud of your identity.

Contents

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1

Introduction Islamophobia, Neoliberalism and the ‘Muslim’ Problem in Australian Schools Questioning Equity in the Schooling Experiences of Muslim Students Study Design Book Organisation Conclusion References

5 9 17 19 19

Neoliberalism and Islamophobia: The Politics of Naming Muslims Introduction What Is Islam and Who Are Muslims? The Politics of Naming Muslims Conclusion References

23 24 24 28 48 49

Mapping the Australian Context Introduction Liberal Pluralist Multiculturalism and Racial Governance in Australia Conclusion References

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59 60 60 75 76

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CONTENTS

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Power and Pedagogy: Reproducing and Resisting the Dominant Discourse in Schools Introduction Reproducing Islamophobic Discourses in Public Schools Resisting Islamophobic Discourses in Public Schools Resisting Islamophobia Through the Islamification of Schooling Conclusion References

97 101 102

Speaking Back to Power: Minority Muslim Youth Challenging Islamophobia in Schools Introduction Reinforcing Islamophobic Hegemonic Discourses Challenging Hegemonic Discourses Conclusion References

105 105 106 117 124 126

Conclusions Recommendations for Future Research Recommendations for Learning Practices and Future Policy Reflections References

129 131 132 133 134

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Index

83 83 85 93

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List of Tables

Table 1.1 Table 1.2

Outline of case study schools, teacher and student information Outline of student focus groups across schools

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Abbreviations and Acronyms

ABS ACL AMS CALD CCTV CDA CT CVE DET DIAC EAL/D HREC HREOC ICSEA ISA ISIL ISIS MENA MTI NBC NGO NSW OPEC PBUH PVERA RSA

Australian Bureau of Statistics Arabic Community Language Arab Muslim Students Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Closed-Circuit Television Critical Discourse Analysis Critical Theory Countering Violent Extremism Department of Education and Training Department of Immigration and Citizenship English as an Additional Language or Dialect Human Research Ethics Committee Australian Human Rights Commission Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage Ideological State Apparatus Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant Islamic State of Iraq & Syria Middle East and North Africa Media Tenor International National Broadcasting company Non-Governmental Organisation New South Wales Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries Peace Be Upon Him Preventing Violent Extremism and Radicalization in Australia Repressive State Apparatus xiii

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ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS

UK US WOT WWII

United Kingdom United States War on Terror World War Two

Glossary

Ahl al Sunnah wa’l-jama’ah

Ahlulbayt Angel Gabriel

Daesh

fiqh Hadith

Imam

One of the two sects or branches of Islam. This sect differs from Shia in its understanding of Islamic Sunnah and in its acceptance of the first three caliphs. The family of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). ‫ جبرائیل‬An archangel in Islam sent by God to various Prophets, specifically Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) to convey the Quran. Al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi al-Iraq wa alSham, a derogatory term for ISIS translated as Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Islamic jurisprudence. A culmination of traditions containing quotes by the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) which, with accounts of his Sunnah, constitute the major source of guidance for Muslims apart from the Quran. Religious minister in Islam.

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GLOSSARY

Islam

Imamah

Ithna-A’shariyyah/IthnaAshari

Maghreb Mashreq Quran

Ummah

‫ اسلام‬An Abrahamic monotheistic religion of Muslims who believe in Allah as the sole deity and in Muhammad as his Prophet. The 12 infallible leaders of Shia Islam who were designated by God to preserve the religion following the death of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). The largest branch of Shia Islam who believe in a succession of 12 Imams beginning with Imam Ali and ending with Imam Mahdi. West of the Arab world. East of the Arab world. The Islamic holy book believed by Muslims to be the word of God dictated to the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) by the Angel Gabriel. The community of Muslims bound together by ties of religion.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Abstract This chapter discusses Islamophobic political discourse and the subordinate position of Muslims in the West. The chapter aims to highlight the ways in which wider structural dynamics impact institutions (schools) and individuals (Muslim youth), and provides an insight into the complex relationship between neoliberalism, Islamophobia and schooling of Muslim students. Following the contextual overview, the introductory chapter narrows the focus to policies adopted in the Australian context relevant to the schooling of Muslim students, namely the Living Safe Together policy. The analysis in this chapter highlights the ways in which these policies are discriminatory towards Muslim students and operate to create inequitable schooling experiences. In the final section of this chapter, the methodology of the study is outlined, including the sample, schools, methods, researcher positionality and ethical considerations. Finally, a glimpse into the structure of the book is provided to set the scene for an examination of neoliberalism, Islamophobia and the schooling of minority Muslim youth. Keywords Living Safe Together policy · Researcher positionality · Ethical considerations · Minority Muslim youth

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 Z. Mourad, Neoliberalism and Islamophobia, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18115-3_1

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Islamophobia, Neoliberalism and the ‘Muslim’ Problem in Australian Schools Since the late 1970s, the West1 has continued to problematise the Middle East, Islam and Muslims. Following events such as the Islamic Revolution in Iran, in which the United States (US)-backed monarchy was overthrown and replaced by an Islamic form of republicanism (Prashad, 2016, p. 68), the Gulf War of 1990, the September 11 events, the ensuing War on Terror (WOT), and the rise of ‘homegrown’ terrorism and ‘lone-wolf’ attacks by terrorist groups such as Daesh on ‘Western soil’, Islamophobia dominated political and media discourses. The discourses regarding Islam and Muslims across the West and other parts of the world, were inextricably bound with issues related to religious extremism, radicalisation and terrorism (Semati, 2010). Following suit in other Western societies, Australian ‘soil’ was not spared from ‘terrorism’. Several events involving Muslims as victims and perpetrators occurred, such as the Lindt Café siege in Sydney in 2015, the Bourke Street attack in Melbourne in 2018 and the murder of Curtis Cheng in Sydney, all of which contributed to Muslims’ association with terrorism in the media. At the same time, the resurgence of right-wing political parties and organisations, such as Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party, the Australian Liberty Alliance, Reclaim Australia and the United Patriots Front also contributed to further demonisation of Muslims in discourse. These groups have anti-immigration and Islamophobic agendas that further conflate Islam with terrorism (Briskman & Latham, 2017, pp. 17–20). As a result of discursive framing, Muslims have continued to be a focal point for media and political discourses regarding ethnoreligious incompatibility, in which their ‘allegiance to the state’ has been questioned, and Muslim communities have become central to local discourses of security, radicalisation and suspected terrorism. As a result of the state-led anxieties about Muslims, it is unsurprising that anti-Muslim sentiment is increasing. The Scanlon Foundation’s Social Cohesion Survey (Markus, 2017, p. 3), which has been polling Australians on attitudes towards Islam since 2007, indicated that Australians display a ‘relatively high negative attitude towards Muslims’. A 1 The use of the term ‘West’ in this study refers to societies that have a JudaeoChristian, Graeco-Roman historical outlook and have recently attracted waves of migration.

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decade-long survey conducted by Western Sydney University researchers found that almost half the population held anti-Muslim sentiments (Forrest & Dunn, 2007). Similarly, Essential Research’s 2016 survey reported that almost half of all Australians want to ban Muslim immigration, indicating a level of hostility that Essential Research related in part to fears of terrorism. The schooling of Muslim students was not spared from the abovementioned discursively mediated anxieties about Islam and terrorism. Their schooling has been intensely debated and also become central to discourses of radicalisation and extremism, particularly concerning Muslim students in public and private schools. Media and political discourses have highlighted how schools are targeted by extremists as ‘breeding grounds for junior jihadis’ (Little, 2017). In Sydney in 2017, newspaper reports indicated that 19 public schools were identified as being ‘at risk from radicalized recruiters seeking to exploit vulnerable students’ (Reid, 2017). As a result, several initiatives and programs were implemented in schools in the name of ‘national security’, aiming to make Australia safer by countering violent extremism (CVE) and deradicalising children as young as six years old (Nadim, 2016). Private Islamic schools have also been implicated in the WOT, faced opposition regarding development (Natour, 2011) and perceived as potentially encouraging future jihadists. For example, in 2004, Prime Minister John Howard announced the government’s intention to ‘get inside Muslim schools to ensure they were teaching Australian values … and not supporting terrorism’ (Maddox, as cited in Coleman, 2017, p. 5). During the early phases of Muslim and Arab immigration to Australia at the school level, the education of Arabic youth—particularly Lebanese youth—was constructed as a pedagogical challenge (Mansouri & Wood, 2008). More recently following the global and local Islamophobic discourse, the schooling of Muslim youth is considered a highly complex issue with political and sociological overtones, moving beyond concerns regarding educational achievement to issues of national security and hostile identity formation (Mac an Ghaill & Haywood, 2017). Muslims, especially Muslim youth, are being constructed by the media and political discourses as a major sociopolitical problem for the state that threaten social cohesion and state security due to radicalisation. Arguably since the 1980s, and intensively following September 11 in 2001, an entire generation of Australian Muslim youth are born and growing up in the context of the global circulation of fears and moral panic about the Muslim

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‘other’. These youth were born into what is commonly falsely understood as a ‘clash of civilisations’ (Huntington, 1996) between Islam and the West, and in this turbulent context, schools are faced with the challenge of managing this complex phenomenon. In addition to Islamophobic discourse and its influence on schooling, neoliberalism, which is the dominant form of capitalism, also shapes the education of Muslim youth. On one hand, neoliberalism is interwoven with Islamophobia. Neoliberalism is an ideology that arose alongside the current form of Islamophobia in the 1980s, although the two did not result from each other. Following World War II when America replaced Britain as a dominant global power, American hegemony and the instantiation of the liberal stage of world capitalised were witnessed across the globe (Karatani, 2018). Since then, the US has worked to consolidate its global hegemony through hard military power, economic weight and financial commitments, in addition to the soft currency of hegemonic values, cultural influence and prestige (Wallace, as cited in Shain, 2017). In relation to Islam and Muslims, the US and its allies have employed Islamophobic discourse as a ‘soft currency’ deliberately through framing and negative news coverage for the purpose of justifying the US’s neoliberal expansion across Muslim-populated states in the name of establishing democracy and unquestioned patriotic support for retaliatory wars. Economically, this occurred through the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, given Iraq’s oil reserves and Afghanistan’s strategic position relative to central Asia, South Asia and the Middle East for pipeline projects (Chomsky, 2013). Under the umbrella of the WOT, these invasions opened up new markets for US companies as part of the ecopolitical ambitions of the US under neoliberal expansion (Klein, 2007, p. 308) to strengthen their hegemony. On the other hand, neoliberalism has also permeated education ideologically across the west and in Australia. School systems have been shaped by a market agendas (Campbell et al., 2009), whereby education becomes ‘displaced by competitive training, competition for privilege and social conformity’ (Connell, 2013, p. 110). Neoliberal reforms to education also affect the democratic function of schooling, as: The value of knowledge is now linked to crude instrumentalism, and the only mode of education that seems to matter is one that enthusiastically endorses learning marketable skills, embracing survival of the fittest ethic,

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and defining the good life solely through accumulation and the disposing of the latest consumer good. (Giroux, 2012)

Therefore, the relationship between neoliberalism, Islamophobia and schooling of Muslim students is a complex phenomenon. Neoliberalism and Islamophobia are structural, ideological, material and discursive dynamics that permeate educational institutions and subsequently shape the schooling experiences of Muslim students. This book unpacks the nuances of this relationship through an approach that focuses on the macro-, meso- and micro-levels of society.

Questioning Equity in the Schooling Experiences of Muslim Students Against the abovementioned tense sociopolitical climate and beyond the negative attitudes, at the meso-level, Islamophobia has been inscribed in institutional structures and anti-terrorism has been comprehensively institutionalised as governmental policy across multiple sites. Education is a prime example. This is evident through the deradicalisation and Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) policies (Australian Government Department of Home Affairs, 2018) that have been rolled out in schools. In Australia, the ‘Living Safe Together’ initiative was introduced in 2014 as part of a A$630 million counterterrorism package (Cherney & Murphy, 2016, p. 3). Mirroring the United Kingdom’s (UK) PREVENT policy (Misra, 2018), Living Safe Together has been employed in 19 schools in New South Wales (NSW) and ‘provides resources and training for schools, teachers and parents to help them identify young people at risk of radicalisation and help them access support services’ (Urban, 2017). As part of the UK’s counterterrorism strategy (Saeed, 2016), PREVENT’s duty has been criticised by civil society groups as ‘the biggest spying operation of all times’ (The Guardian Letters, as cited in Latham, 2018), whereby employees across several institutions—such as health workers, teachers, social workers, council staff and childcare workers—have been obliged since 2015 to report suspicions of radicalisation to authorities. These policies, which are embedded in social institutions, may have dominating effects on individual human subjects (Haugaard & Cooke, 2010, p. 1), particularly Muslims. Institutionalising these policies in schools reflects a form of power domination, due to the culture and age group of the students and their

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subordinate position to teachers. As subordinates to adults in schools (Mayall, 2001), students comply with teachers because they believe in the legitimacy of the position that gives teachers the authority to exert power or control over students. According to the Living Safe Together policy, school staff have been trained to ‘identify’ young people who might be vulnerable to supporting extremism (Bergin, 2016). In this sense, teachers are recruited to assist in the WOT and effectively become security officials who are expected to identify and report on students who display warning signs of radicalisation or are ‘at risk’ of becoming radicalised. Keenan (Ministers Department of Education & Training Media Centre, 2015) states that: We want to explain to teachers who are really on the frontline of this— because we know that school children are being radicalized—to look out for certain signs that would lead them to be concerned about somebody, and if they are concerned about somebody moving down the dark path of radicalization, moving down the path of violence, then they’ll know what they can do about it.

According to the ‘Radicalization Awareness Kit’, which is part of the Living Safe Together initiative (Australian Government, 2016), the complex process of radicalisation has been reduced to a ‘checklist of behaviours for general consumption which could result in targeting Muslim students’ (Aly, as cited in Safi, 2015). The way this relates to the illegitimate use of power is when teachers who do not understand the complex process of radicalisation become security agents, as mentioned above. The policy guidelines give the teacher the authority to exercise power to determine if the student is prone to radicalisation, but teachers may not be qualified to understand the complex process of radicalisation. As ‘security officials’, teachers need to keep a close eye on Muslim students, so their words and actions are scrutinised more carefully than those of others given the policy guidelines—including the ‘checklist behaviours’, situated within a wider Islamophobic context. The policies exacerbate surveillance of Muslim students under the assumption that they are prone to fall for a radical Islamist ideology or could be groomed by Daesh in the classroom, at a time when Muslims are living in a society where more than 40% of the population has negative attitudes towards them (Essential Report, 2016). Briefly, this means that the CVE program targets Muslim students

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in the form of surveillance and may conflate Muslim student religiosity for a propensity to commit acts of violence, and schools and teachers are implicated in the surveillance process. In the US, an example of illegitimate use of power by teachers where the actions and words of Muslim students have been scrutinised and reported include when 14-year-old Texas student Ahmed Mohamed was arrested at school because teachers feared a clock he had assembled was a fake bomb (Kaplan & Phillip, 2015). In Australia, a teacher in Canberra referred her Muslim student to the police because she believed he was at risk of radicalisation due to an essay he wrote on Muslim terrorists and Western intervention (Cook, 2019). Another example was the case of an 8-year-old Muslim boy in Sydney’s south who was referred to the principal’s office for carrying his backpack across his chest and accused by a classmate of mentioning he was ‘carrying a bomb’ (Cook, 2019). In Melbourne, a student was reported to police by his teacher who spotted a ceremonial sword in his car (Cook, 2019). Examples of reporting children under the UK’s PREVENT policy included their use of common Arabic words such as ‘Alhamdulillah’ (‫ )الحمدلله‬and ‘Allahu Akbar’ (‫الله‬ ‫)اکبر‬, starting to wear hijab, drawing a ‘cooker bomb’ (later discovered to be a cucumber) in kindergarten, using the word ‘eco-terrorism’ in a class discussion on the environment, supporting Palestinian rights and borrowing a book on terrorism from the school library (Latham, 2018). This reporting demonstrates how Muslim students are perceived to be potential terrorists hidden in plain sight, who are guilty until proven innocent, and it is the teacher who is responsible for uncovering or identifying this security risk or threat at school. Due to the age range of the students the policies target, unequal power relations are harnessed between students and their teachers, and Muslim students with their non-Muslim peers, or Muslim peers who may not display visible cultural signs of ‘Muslimness’. According to the Living Safe Together initiative, the program targets students who are aged between 6 and 14, and those nominated will be sent to counsellors or support groups for ‘deradicalisation’ (Nadim, 2016). This means that a student who is in kindergarten or Year 1 is ‘at risk of being radicalised by Islamist groups such as ISIL (Islamic State) … and while radicalization can take different forms, certainly their radicalization comes from contact with ISIL’ (Holm, 2015). In the UK, Muslims were 32 times more likely to be referred than non-Muslims, and out of 3,704 referrals for Islamist concerns, roughly 1,000 related to children under 15 (Latham, 2018).

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Moreover, CVE policies inhibit Muslim children and young people’s rights to social and political agency (Coppock, 2014). In the unequal power relationships identified above, student voices may be subjugated due to the oppressive power of a teacher’s authoritarian voice (McLaren, 2003). The emergence of the ‘new’ sociology of childhood (Cocks, 2006) offered a different conceptualisation of children and childhood. In contrast to the dominant framework that views children as becoming adults, this approach supports the actualisation of children’s right to selfdetermination by positioning children as people who have a voice and deserve to be heard in schools and in society. For this reason, the students themselves have been included in the current study, as their voices tend to be absent from debates that concern them (James, 2007). However, it is not only the illegitimate use of power by teachers at school that makes schooling unequal for AMS. At the institutional level, the identified policies demonstrate how domination is structural and embedded in the fabric of institutions through policies. Due to CVE policies, institutions such as schools have become securitised mediums for surveillance and intelligence gathering, which has dominating and material consequences for how Muslim students are treated in schools and the opportunities available to them. An example of the material consequences can be seen in relation to the student from Melbourne whose teacher referred him to police for having a ceremonial sword in his car, who then missed out on the university placement of his choice because he did not pass the required police check (Cook, 2019). This also demonstrates that the manner in which students are racialised could impact their long-term educational opportunities (Lee et al., 2017). The targeting of Muslim students could be considered racist and Muslims students a racialised group, as Muslim students are targeted due to cultural makers of being Muslim. Thus, in keeping the spotlight on power relationships within society, forms of hegemony (Gramsci, 1971) in schools are evident in the CVE policies described above in terms of their dominating effects on AMS, and through teacher pedagogy that requires teachers to identify students they deem as being at risk of radicalisation. It is clear from the policies that target Muslim students and the student experiences above that due to embodying cultural markers of Muslimness, students are treated unequally and become the subjects of domination because their actions and words are heavily scrutinised for simply being Muslim or appearing Muslim.

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Study Design The research presented in this book is a qualitative cross-sectional case study (Gray, 2014) that was conducted across three schools in South Western Sydney. One of the schools was an independent Islamic school and the other two were government schools. To engage a breadth of perspectives and provide a holistic understanding of the dynamics and dimensions that shape the schooling experiences of AMS, two participant groups were included: teachers and students. Ten semi-structured interviews were conducted with the teachers across all three schools. The semi-structured interview format provided room for deductive findings to arise during discussions with the participants as they shared their stories. Focus groups were conducted with the students. The Schools (The Context) Wallcove Public School Wallcove Public School (Wallcove PS) is a primary government school in the South Western Sydney suburb of Wallcove. The suburb is a constituent of the Paramount Council and has been described as having a low socio-economic index for areas (SEIFA) rating for disadvantage in Sydney. The low rating for the Paramount Council indicates a relatively higher degree of disadvantage for the people of this region than in other parts of Sydney, including lower average household incomes, low levels of educational attainment, high levels of unemployment and a high concentration of employment in unskilled labour. Paramount’s population density is about 46 persons per hectare in the council area, and in Wallcove, the population density is 79 persons per hectare. Due to the densely situated low-cost apartments in Wallcove and its neighbouring suburbs, it has historically attracted waves of recently arrived immigrants. In comparison with the figures of Sydney’s overall statistics divisions, Paramount Council is also one of the most ethnically diverse municipalities of Sydney. The area has a significant proportion of Lebanese, Pakistani, Bengali, Pacific Islander and Vietnamese background residents, with more recent migrant settlement patterns characterised by a higher proportion of migrants from Indian subcontinent backgrounds. Currently, the Paramount Council area is home to one of the commercial and religious centres for Muslims in Sydney. The Arabic-speaking background Muslim community continues to have quite a visible presence

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and is a well-established community in the area, with various small businesses and Middle Eastern and other halal food outlets, local mosques, musallahs, (prayer rooms), Islamic centres, community organisations and Islamic schools in the neighbouring suburbs. Much of South Western Sydney’s Arabic-speaking background population—most of whom are Lebanese—settled in the area as a result of the humanitarian resettlement program of the 1980s when Lebanese were displaced by the Lebanese Civil War and Israeli-Lebanese conflicts. The Lebanese background community in the Paramount Council area comprises 10.9% of all residents, which is considerably higher than Sydney’s total population of Lebanese background who make up only 3.2% of the city’s population. Arabic is the most commonly spoken language at home, at 13.2% in comparison with Sydney’s statistical division of 3.9%. In terms of the student population, Wallcove PS is comprised of over 600 students, with 98% of students from a LBOTE. There were 39 languages’ backgrounds and 31 countries of origin represented across the student population, with Arabic the largest language group, comprising 42% of the student population. Wallcove PS taught Arabic, Vietnamese, Bengali and other community languages. The school celebrated multicultural events such as Harmony Day and Multicultural Day. The ICSEA value of the school ranged between 970 and 980 in 2018. Carelton Public School Carelton Public School (Carelton PS) is a primary government school in the South Western Sydney suburb of Carelton. The suburb is also a constituent of the Paramount Council, with Carelton at one end of the local government area and Wallcove at the other. In 2017, the estimated population density for Carelton was 36.8 persons per hectare. In Carelton, the three largest ancestries in 2016 were Lebanese (19.8%), Australian (15.25%) and English (12.6%). This was followed by Chinese (12.4%) and Vietnamese (11.95). The largest single religion in Carelton was Islam (26.4% of the population), followed by Western (Roman) Catholic (18.35%) and Buddhism (10.8%). The religious affiliation statistics have shifted in this area. Islam has increased from 20.8% to 26.4% from 2011 to 2016, while Western (Roman) Catholic has decreased from 20.4% in 2011 to 18.3% in 2016. With regard to the languages spoken at home, in Carelton, 60.9% of people spoke a language other than English at home, with Arabic as the dominant language spoken at home (22.8%), followed by Vietnamese, Greek and Bengali. In terms of occupations of

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employment, the three most popular jobs held in Carelton were technicians and trade workers, professionals, and clerical and administrative workers. For qualifications and levels of schooling, 35.6% of the population aged 15 and over held educational qualifications, and 54.0% had no qualifications. Carelton PS comprised approximately 670 students, with 86% of students having English as an additional language or dialect (EAL/D). There were 36 different language groups represented across the school, with Arabic the largest language group, followed by Vietnamese. Carelton PS taught Arabic and Vietnamese community languages. As with Wallcove PS, Carelton PS celebrated Harmony Day, Multicultural Day, Eid, Christmas and other cultural and religious celebrations according to the school’s annual report. The ICSEA value of the school ranged between 940 and 950 in 2018. Qalam College Qalam College is an independent Islamic school. It is located in the suburb of Redwood in Sydney’s south and is part of the Hillview municipality. Redwood is a dense residential suburb with roughly 32 persons per hectare in the Hillview municipality and 38.7 persons per hectare in Redwood. This is quite dispersed in comparison with Wallcove PS, but similar in relation to Carelton PS. Like the Paramount municipality, this area is also very ethnically diverse, with the highest percentage of residents with Australian, English, Chinese, Greek, Irish and Lebanese ancestry. In Redwood, the three largest ancestries according to the 2011 census were Lebanese (10%), Australian (7.6%) and English (6.8%). Arabic was the first most common non-English language spoken by 22% of residents in this suburb, compared with 7.3% of residents in the Hillview municipality. In Redwood, Islam is the most practised religion for 12.9% of residents, followed by Western Roman Catholics (9.9%) and Macedonian Orthodox (3.2%). Hillview is also characterised as a low socio-economic region, based on the SEIFA index of disadvantage, but it is relatively higher than Paramount’s level of disadvantage. Qalam College consisted of approximately 450 students ranging from Kindergarten through to Year 12. In addition to the key learning areas outlined by the DET, the Arabic language, Islamic and Quranic studies were taught to students. Statistics on the religious, cultural and linguistic backgrounds of students have not been published; however, half of the

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teacher population of the school is of Muslim background. The other half is of mixed religious and cultural backgrounds. Wallcove PS and Carelton PS have relatively similar socio-economic contexts as they are both within the same council area and share a similar ICSEA value. Both schools have relatively high percentages of LBOTE students and are similar in student population size. However, Qalam College had a smaller student population and a relatively smaller ICSEA value (1000–1010) compared to Carelton and Wallcove PS. Participants As for the participant sampling, the requirements of the sample varied depending on the participant group. Sampling was selective (Gray, 2014). For the students, it was required that they were from an Arab and Muslim background and were in Years 5 and 6 at the schools participating in the study. The students interviewed were not necessarily taught by the teachers being interviewed. A total of 5 focus groups were conducted across three schools (see Table 1.2). Students For all three schools, student participants were Year 5 and 6 female and male students from Islamic faith who had Arabic heritage. Most of the students were born in Australia and some had parents who had also attended Australian schools. Choosing this age group for the study stems from my teaching experiences, in which I taught students from kindergarten to Year 6 for several years, initially as a mainstream classroom teacher and then as a community language teacher. The cultural background and age group were selected due to the lack of research literature available on the schooling experiences and media/political discourses concerning Muslims with this age group. As the student participants are typically aged 10–12 years, they were born in the years 2005 and 2006, respectively. Thus, they were born and had grown up in a post-September 11 era (see Tables 1.1 and 1.2).

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Table 1.1 Outline of case study schools, teacher and student information School site Teacher Gender Pseudonym name

Student Pseudonym name

Gender

Background

Year

Wallcove Public School

Faten Zahra Emma Susan

F F F F

Carelton Public School

Roula Reanna Aisha

F F F

Qalam College

Shadia Farah Mr Matthews/John

F F M

Yasmin Reem Amani Zara Noah Ahmed Sami Adel Sahar Hana Walid Yasser Aref Emad Sarah Zeinab Iman

F F F F M M M M F F M M M M F F F

Lebanese Syrian Jordanian Iraqi Lebanese Lebanese Lebanese Syrian Lebanese/Syrian Lebanese Lebanese Lebanese Lebanese Lebanese Lebanese Lebanese Lebanese

5 5 5 5 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 5 6 6

Abir Fadia Mariam Mahdi Mahmoud Jaafar Ammar

F F F M M M M

Lebanese Lebanese Iraqi Lebanese Lebanese Lebanese Lebanese

5 5 5 6 6 6 6

Teachers Teachers who participated in the study included K–6 mainstream classroom teachers at the participating schools from several cultural backgrounds. Both male and female teachers participated, but most were female. All 10 teachers who taught at the participating schools were invited to participate during staff meetings where an overview of the study was provided (see Table 1.1).

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Table 1.2 Outline of student focus groups across schools

Wallcove PS

Carelton PS

Qalam College

Girls’ focus group

• • • •

Yasmin Reem Amani Zara

• • • • • •

Boys’ focus group

• • • •

Noah Ahmed Sami Adel

• • • • • • • •

Sahar Hana Walid Yasser Aref Emad

Sarah Zeinab Iman Abir Fadia Mariam Mahdi

Mahmoud • Jaafar • Ammar

Theoretical Framework and Methodology The theoretical perspective framing the study was critical theory (CT). Crotty (1998) argued that the goals of critical inquiry are a just society, freedom and equity, which suggests that critical inquiry can lead to a more just society than exists presently. Regarding the schooling experiences of AMS, Islamophobic discourses in wider society have constructed Muslims as fundamentalists (Carr & Haynes, 2015). Schools do not exist in isolation of their sociopolitical context, and on this basis, discourses can permeate societal institutions through policy (Olssen, 2010) and pedagogy. This may cause inequitable experiences for AMS because of the connections between wider society and education as a social apparatus. CT situates power at the core of inquiry, and through the flexible theories of power (Foucault, 1982; Gramsci, 1971), allows for an investigation that considers bidirectional connections. This includes both top-down power structures such as ideology and discourse, and bottom-up approaches that investigate individuals. As the study explores the schooling of AMS and is based on the premise that schools do not operate in isolation of their context, theories of power including ideology, hegemony and discourse have been employed to unpack the complex ways power operates through the multiple levels of the study. This includes the structural or macro-level of society; that is, the context of schooling. In this dimension, two dynamics have been focused on: neoliberalism and Islamophobia. Gramscian hegemony is employed in this analysis to understand the material foundations

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that underpin Islamophobic discourse; that is, neoliberalism. It is also employed to understand how education as social apparatus has hegemonic functions. But in what ways does hegemony work through ‘ideological state apparatus’? The answer to this is through discourse; that is, through policies and pedagogy as forms of discourse. Policies have hegemonic functions that mandate the way phenomenon is understood as required by the ruling bloc. However, the ways this occurs are through the discourse and language of the policy that defines the phenomenon, as prescribed by the ruling bloc or those in positions of power. Therefore, Foucauldian discourse is also employed to understand Islamophobia as a discourse that operates through policy and pedagogy to manufacture understandings about Muslims. In this way, discourse is used to understand the construction of Muslims, while hegemony is employed to understand how the structures that position Muslims as different are dominant. Despite these approaches conceptualising power in different ways, they are not inherently contradictory (Stoddart, 2007, p. 193); rather, they are co-constitutive to CT. Both theories focus on power domination and oppression. For Foucault, power is everywhere and relations of power are embedded in social life. From the cradle to the grave, life in a society inevitably involves actions being exercised on others’ actions (Smart, as cited in Daldal, 2014, p. 149). This view adopts a bottom-up approach to power. For Gramsci (1971), power operated mostly at the level of mutual interactions of culture, economy and politics within the realm of hegemony. A common feature between Gramsci and Foucault in relation to power domination or hegemonic power is that power is never complete. Therefore, wherever power domination or hegemony is prevalent, counterhegemony or counter-domination also exists. Some scholars have argued that Foucault’s conception of power leaves no space for resistance (Driver, 1985; Low, 1996). However, in The Subject and Power (1982, p. 794), Foucault states that: At the heart of power relations and as a permanent condition of their existence, there is an insubordination and a certain essential obstinacy on the part of the principles of freedom, then there is no relationship of power without the means of escape or possible fight.

According to this view, struggles consist of taking the forms of resistance against different forms of dominating power as an initial starting

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point of counter-domination. Thus, while this study focuses on the hegemonic forms of material and discursive power, counter-hegemony or resistance to power domination also exists. In accordance with the theoretical framework described, the current study was conducted using a critical ethnographic approach and case study method. An ethnographic approach allows researchers to enter into a group’s natural setting to examine various phenomena as perceived by participants. The ‘critical’ aspect of critical ethnography is central to this study because as a teacher, parent and member of the Arab and Muslim community in Sydney, I am already situated within the group on whom this research focuses; that is, I am an insider. Furthering my insider status, one of the participating schools in this study was a school where I taught Arabic community language, from where my interest in this research emerged. Therefore, while my relationship with the participants was always respectful, it was not entirely equal in terms of negotiating my positionality as a teacher, colleague and researcher. Thus, critical ethnography provides a valuable space to reflexively consider the power imbalances between researchers and participants during a research process. Reflexivity is a disposition that I have learned during this research. The process of reflexivity enabled me to ensure clarity regarding the views and positions expressed by the participants, and reconsider my own views about the issues explored and the perceptions I held when I entered the study. In the initial stages of the study, I assumed that many of the participants held perceptions about the dynamics of the dimensions similar to my own. This perception was held due to interactions and conversations from personal and professional experiences. However, through constant critique and analysis with supervisors, I developed a reflexive disposition in the early phase of the research, and this allowed me to hold back my perceptions and carefully listen to my participants. The benefit of holding an insider positionality while adopting a reflexive disposition was that the interviewees felt a greater freedom to talk about their religion without fear of reprisal, and felt that I could understand their experiences. As a visibly Muslim woman, we shared some common reference points, allowing me to build a rapport with my interviewees and enabling them to share personal information with me. Before conducting the interviews and focus groups, ethics approval was obtained from Western Sydney University Human Research Ethics and the NSW State Education Research Ethics Applications Process.

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For the data analysis, critical discourse analysis (CDA) was employed (Fairclough, 2013). The experiences of the students were considered in the wider context in which they existed, rather than in isolation. This served to develop empirical findings that contribute to existing literature on the schooling of Muslim students, with consideration of an age group that has not been previously examined in relation to this specific phenomenon within the Australian context.

Book Organisation The contents of this book are organised according to the following structure: This introductory chapter provides an overview of Islamophobic discourse and the position of Muslims in the West, the ways in which wider structural dynamics impact institutions (schools) and individuals (Muslim youth), and an insight into the complex relationship between neoliberalism, Islamophobia and schooling of Muslim students. Following this contextual overview, the introductory chapter provides an insight into the policies adopted in the Australian context relevant to the schooling of Muslim students, namely, the Living Safe Together policy. This analysis highlights the ways in which this policy is discriminatory towards Muslim students and creates inequitable schooling experiences. In the final section of this chapter, the sample and research methodology are outlined. This includes an overview of student and teacher participants in terms of gender, religion (for teachers), ethnicity and a description of the schools and demographics of the suburbs where the study was undertaken. This is followed by an explanation of the ethical challenges and reflexive positionality the researcher adopted throughout the study considering she is from the same ethnoreligious background of the student participants. This way, the macro-, meso- and micro-aspects of the set the scene for the chapters that follow. Chapter 2 discusses Islamophobic discourse and the ways in which it operates as a form of racialised governmentality in racial states across the West. It provides an outline of the origins of the hierarchical and civilisational classification of people stemming from the period of the Enlightenment and linked to the discourse of Orientalism. Islamophobic discourse is then contextualised in a post-communist/colonial era and linked to neoliberalism under US hegemony to explain how ‘otherness’ is embedded in the fabric of states through an analysis of the discursive

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constructions of Muslims and the underpinning material dynamics which shape these discourses. This includes geopolitical and economic goals of global powers, to strengthen their neoliberal ideology and maintain global supremacy. Chapter 3 provides an overview of the policy responses to migration and discourses which construct Muslims, and Muslim youth, as deviant and disloyal in relation to national multicultural discourses. In terms of policy responses, it examines migration since Federation in 1901, to highlight how the state has employed policies to maintain its Anglo core and construct migrants as groups that need to be managed. This overview traces policies broadly viewed as moving from assimilation and integration to multiculturalism. Chapter 3 then narrows the focus to the Muslim community. It provides an overview of Arab and Muslim migration and settlement in Australia, followed by an investigation of discursive constructs of the deviant, disloyal and threating Muslim other, and how this operates as a form of disciplinary power to manage Muslims who embody the positionality of ‘the other’ in society. Chapter 4 demonstrates the ways in which Islamophobia was reproduced and resisted in schools by teachers. In terms of reproducing Islamophobia, the teachers noted that the neoliberal curriculum lacked diversity at the institutional level. Teachers also discussed the ways in which Muslim students need to adopt Australian practices and integrate into Australian society. This links to multiculturalism explored in Chapter 3. In terms of resisting the discourse, the teachers discussed the pedagogical practices they understood to make the students feel included, such as wearing the headscarf in support of Muslim students. While these were positive initiatives, they could be argued as superficial as teachers were socially agnostic and did not adopt critical pedagogical practices. Chapter 5 discusses the ways students experienced Islamophobia both in the wider society and at school, by drawing links to the hijab, the beard and the Arabic language. These are emphasised in wider discourses that relate to Muslims. Chapter 5 then discusses the ways students challenged the dominant discourse and spoke back to power. They blamed the media, distanced themselves from the Islamophobic discourse and strongly identified with their religious beliefs to increase solidarity with each other. Aligned with the literature on the new sociology of childhood that supports the actualisation of children’s right to self-determination (as opposed to ‘children becoming adults’), this chapter highlights resistance and agency as exhibited by Muslim youth aged 10–12 years.

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Chapter 6 concludes the study and summarises the ways in which the wider structural dynamics have material impacts on the lives of the students. It highlights how Neoliberal and Islamophobic governance in schools regulated the conformity of Muslim students to create inequitable schooling experiences for Muslim students in comparison with their nonMuslim peers, and this has long-term consequences for Muslim minorities living in Australia, whereby since their migration in large waves since their 1980s, they have been a disadvantaged group in society, and this pattern continues to repeat itself across generations.

Conclusion Chapter 1 presented the background of the study, the research problem, research design, and the organisation and structure of this book. The research problem addresses the context of schooling for Muslim youth and investigates wider dynamics, such as Islamophobia and neoliberalism, and their influence on schools through policy and pedagogy, which subsequently shape the schooling experiences of AMS in public and private schools. Insight into the schooling experiences of AMS is important, particularly when examined through CT because this framework considers structural and individual power dynamics. It also situates experiences within a wider context to develop a holistic, in-depth understanding, rather than examining the problem by isolating the schooling context. Chapter 2 explores the global context of Islamophobia and the ways in which Islamophobic discourse functions hegemonically to dominate Muslims and position them as subordinate aligned with the insinuation of neoliberal ideology as imposed by current global hegemons.

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Campbell, C., Proctor, H., & Sherington, G. (2009). School choice: How parents negotiate the school market in Australia. Allen & Unwin. Carr, J., & Haynes, A. (2015). A clash of racializations: The policing of ‘race’ and of anti-Muslim racism in Ireland. Critical Sociology, 41(1), 21–40. https:// doi.org/10.1177/0896920513492805 Cherney, A., & Murphy, K. (2016). What does it mean to be a moderate Muslim in the war on terror? Muslim interpretations and reactions. Critical Studies on Terrorism, 9(2), 159–181. https://doi.org/10.1080/17539153. 2015.1120105 Chomsky, N. (2013). Power systems. Penguin Books. Cocks, A. (2006). The ethical maze: Finding an inclusive path towards gaining children’s agreement to research participation. Childhood, 13(2), 247–266. Coleman, A. (2017). Different, threatening and problematic: Representations of non-mainstream religious schools (Doctoral thesis). Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane. Connell, R. W. (2013). The neoliberal cascade and education: An essay on the market agenda and its consequences. Critical Studies in Education, 54(2), 99–112. https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2013.776990 Cook, H. (2019, 13 April). ‘What have I done wrong?’: Students falsely reported over terrorism. The Age. https://www.theage.com.au/national/vic toria/what-have-i-done-wrong-students-falsely-reported-over-terrorism-201 90412-p51dpe.html Coppock, V. (2014). ‘Can you spot a terrorist in your classroom?’ Problematising the recruitment of schools to the ‘War on Terror’ in the United Kingdom. Global Studies of Childhood, 4(2), 115–125. Crotty, M. (1998). The foundations of social research. Sage. Daldal, A. (2014). Power and ideology in Michel Foucault and Antonio Gramsci: A comparative Analysis. Review of History and Political Science, 2(2), 149– 167. Driver, F. (1985). Power, space, and the body: A critical assessment of Foucault’s discipline and punish. Environment and Planning d: Society & Space, 3(4), 425–446. Essential Report (2016). Ban on Muslim immigration. https://www.essentialvis ion.com.au/ban-on-muslim-immigration Fairclough, N. (2013). Critical discourse analysis: The critical study of language. Routledge. Forrest, J., & Dunn, K. (2007). Constructing racism in Sydney, Australia’s largest EthniCity. Urban Studies, 44(4), 699–721. Foucault, M. (1982). The subject and power. Critical Inquiry, 8(4), 777–795. Giroux, H. (2012). The post-9/11 militarization of higher education and the popular culture of depravity: Threats to the future of American democracy. International Journal of Sociology of Education, 1(1), 27–53.

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Gramsci, A. (1971) Selections from the prison notebooks (Q, Hoare & G. N. Smith, Trans.). International Publishers. Gray, D. (2014). Doing research in the real world (3rd ed.). Sage. Haugaard, M., & Cooke, M. (2010). Power and critical theory. Holm, C. (2015, September 25). Radicalisation Awareness Kit: Government Booklet for schools links green activism, ‘alternative music’ to terrorism. ABC News. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-24/anti-radicalisationkit-under-fire-from-green-groups-teachers/6803024 Huntington, S. (1996). The clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order. Simon & Schuster. James, A. (2007). Giving voice to children’s voices: Practices and problems, pitfalls and potentials. American Anthropologist, 109(2), 261–272. Kaplan, S., & Phillip, A. (2015, September 16). ‘They thought it was a bomb’: 9th-grader arrested after bringing a home-built clock to school. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/ wp/2015/09/16/they-thought-it-was-a-bomb-ahmed-mohamed-texas-9thgrader-arrested-after-bringing-a-home-built-clock-to-school/?utm_term=.c05 0086cb3ea Karatani, K. (2018). Neoliberalism as a historical stage. Global Discourse, 8(2), 191–207. https://doi.org/10.1080/23269995.2018.1464614 Klein, N. (2007). The shock doctrine: The rise of disaster capitalism. Alfred A. Knopf. Latham, S. (2018, 28 July). Countering violent extremism training is institutionalising Islamophobia. The Power to Persuade. http://www.powertopersuade. org.au/blog/countering-violent-extremism-training#_ednref2 Lee, S., Park, E., & Wong, J. H. S. (2017). Racialization, schooling, and becoming American: Asian American experiences. Educational Studies, 53(5), 492–510. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131946.2016.1258360 Little, L. (2017). Lessons of hate: The Australian schools at risk of extremism. Nine News. https://honey.nine.com.au/latest/lessons-of-hate-the-australianschools-at-risk-of-extremism/d3a7d480-f7b8-455f-9c23-f2b23984086e Low, S. M. (1996). The social production and social construction of public space in Costa Rica. American Ethnologist, 23(4), 861–879. Mac an Ghaill, M., & Haywood, C. (Eds.). (2017). Muslim students, education and neoliberalism: Schooling a ‘suspect community’. Palgrave Macmillan. Mansouri, F., & Wood, S. P. (2008). Identity, education and belonging. Melbourne University Press. Markus, A. (2017). Mapping social cohesion: The Scanlon Foundation surveys 2017 . https://scanlonfoundation.org.au/archived-research/mapping-socialcohesion-survey-2017/

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Mayall, B. (2001). Understanding childhoods: A London study. In L. Alanen & B. Mayall (Eds.), Conceptualising child-adult relations (pp. 114–143). Routledge Falmer. McLaren, P. (2003). Life in schools: An introduction to critical pedagogy in the foundations of education (4th ed.). Pearson Education. Ministers Department of Education and Training Media Centre. (2015). The Hon Michael Keenan MP Media release. https://ministers.education.gov.au/ node/64/8191 Misra, A. (2018). Australia’s counter-terrorism policies since September 11, 2001: Harmonising national security, independent oversight and individual liberties. Strategic Analysis, 42(2), 103–118. https://doi.org/10.1080/097 00161.2018.1439325 Nadim, H. (2016). Schools not the place for deradicalization programs. The Interpreter. https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/schools-not-place-der adicalisation-programs Olssen, M. (2010). Liberalism, neoliberalism, social democracy: Thin communitarian perspectives on political philosophy and education. Routledge. Poynting, S., & Mason, V. (2007). The resistible rise of Islamophobia. Journal of Sociology, 43(1), 61–86. Prashad, V. (2016). The death of the nation and the future of the Arab revolution. University of California Press. Reid, J. (2017). 19 Sydney schools ‘at risk’ from radicalisation. The Educator Online. https://www.theeducatoronline.com/k12/news/19-sydney-schoolsat-risk-from-radicalisation/233923 Saeed, T. (2016). Islamophobia and securitization: Religion, ethnicity and the female voice. Palgrave Macmillan. Safi, M. (2015, September 25). Anti-radicalisation kit never meant for use in schools, says key author. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/sep/25/anti-rad icalisation-awareness-kit-never-meant-for-use-in-schools-says-key-author Semati, M. (2010). Islamophobia, culture and race in the age of empire. Cultural Studies, 24(2), 256–275. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502380903541696 Shain, F. (2017). Dangerous radicals or symbols of crisis and change: Retheorising the status of Muslim boys as a threat to the social order Farzana. In M. Mac an Ghaill & C. Haywood (Eds.), Muslim students, education and neoliberalism: Schooling a ‘suspect community’ (pp. 17–34). Palgrave Macmillan. Stoddart, M. (2007). Ideology, hegemony, discourse: A critical review of theories of knowledge and power. Social Thought & Research, 28, 191–225. http:// www.jstor.org/stable/23252126 Urban, R., (2017, September 3). 19 schools in NSW anti-extremist project as principal threatened. The Australian. https://www.theaustralian.com.au/ nation/education/19-schools-in-nsw-antiextremist-project-as-principal-threat ened/news-story/84123f7bbd2a30aa06bd3de4834a06df

CHAPTER 2

Neoliberalism and Islamophobia: The Politics of Naming Muslims

Abstract The focus in this chapter is on Islamophobia and neoliberalism within a global context, and the ways in which these dynamics operate as a form of racialised governmentality in racial states across the West. The chapter provides an outline of the origins of the hierarchical and civilisational classification of people stemming from the period of the Enlightenment and linked to the discourse of Orientalism. Following this, Islamophobic discourse is contextualised in a post-communist/colonial era and linked to neoliberalism under US hegemony to explain how ‘otherness’ is embedded in the fabric of states through an analysis of the discursive constructions of Muslims and the underpinning material dynamics which shape these discourses. This includes geopolitical and economic goals of global powers, to strengthen their neoliberal ideology and maintain global supremacy. Finally, the focus is narrowed to surveillance and the schooling of Muslim youth to draw connections between the context and schools. Keywords Racialised governmentality · Orientalism · US hegemony · Neoliberal ideology

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 Z. Mourad, Neoliberalism and Islamophobia, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18115-3_2

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Introduction Chapter 1 provided an insight into the schooling of Muslim students in relation to the macro-level context and the meso-related policies of schooling. It also discussed the theories about power employed in this research to examine the schooling of AMS across the three distinct, yet interwoven levels. This chapter operationalises the theories of power to understand the politics of naming Muslims in the present era. It begins with a foundational overview of who Muslims and Arabs are, and what Islam is, with an emphasis on heterogeneity of Islam in terms of ethnic, linguistic and cultural backgrounds. This is followed by an outline of several conceptualisations of Islamophobia. Then, Islamophobia as a form of racialised governmentality (Foucault, 1982) is explained, drawing on social, political and economic factors to explain the hegemonic functions of Islamophobia as a form of discursive racialised governance in the present era, before the focus is narrowed again to schools.

What Is Islam and Who Are Muslims? Prior to discussing how Islam, Muslims and Arabs have been discursively constructed in Islamophobic discourses as the focus of this research is on Arab Muslim students, it is worth to providing an overview of what Islam is, as a doctrine and faith, and who Arabs and Muslims are. The purpose of this section is twofold. First, it provides some foundational information on Muslims, Islam and Arabs for those who may be unfamiliar with Islam. Second, it seeks to explain the social, ethnic and linguistic diversity of Muslims and Islam, which is practised around the globe in a plethora of ways, to explain the differences between commonsense understanding constructed through discourse and the reality of their heterogeneity. It provides a counter-narrative to arguments such as those by Huntington (1996), which argue that Islam and the West have always been diametrically opposed, and the concept of civilisation is unique to the West. Foundations and Heterogeneity of Islam, Muslims and Arabs In commonsense understandings, the terms Arabs and Muslims are used interchangeably and are often conflated (Shaheen, 2003); however, not all Muslims are Arabs. Arabs are people who speak Arabic or have an Arabic

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background, share common cultural traditions and claim common Arabic identity. An Arab is one of 359 million people (Mirkin, 2010) who resides in or has heritage from one or more of the 22 Arab states (Shaheen, 2003). There are estimated to be 17.5 million Arabs in countries outside the Arab League, yielding a total of close to 359 million Arabs worldwide (Mirkin, 2010). Geographically, the Arab world is the point where Asia, Europe and Africa come together. The Arab world has traditionally been divided into two parts (east and west of the Nile River): the Maghreb or the West, which includes Morocco, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Sudan and so on; and the Mashreq or the East, which includes Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and all the countries to the east up to, but not including, Iran. Iranians and Turks are not Arabs (Kumar, 2010, p. 261). The Middle East and North African region has the highest concentration of Muslims of any region of the world: 93% compared to 30% in sub-Saharan Africa (Desilver & Masci, 2017). Although the vast majority of Arabs are Muslims, about 15 million Arab Christians, including Chaldean, Coptic, Eastern Orthodox, Episcopalian, Roman Catholic, Melkite, Maronite and Protestant reside there. Arabs, Persians and Muslims have made significant contributions to the flourishing of economic, cultural and scientific knowledge during the Islamic Golden Age from the eighth century to the fourteenth century under the Abbasid reign, while Europe was going through the Dark Ages (Bassiouni, 2012). The contributions to knowledge made by Arabs and Muslims during this period prior to the Mongol invasion and the Siege of Baghdad were vast (Bassiouni, 2012). For example, Arab and Persian physicians and scientists inspired European thinkers like Leonardo da Vinci (Shaheen, 2003). Around the year 803, the Arabs invented algebra and the concept of zero, created new mathematical knowledge and broadened the scope of maths thousands of years before European thinkers made significant advances in the field (Bassiouni, 2012). Numerous English words, including algebra, chemistry and coffee have Arab roots from the ninth century (Bassiouni, 2012). Arab intellectuals made it feasible for Western scholars to develop and practice advanced educational systems. Arabs also used astrolabes for navigation in astronomy, star mas, celestial globes and the concept of the centre of gravity (see Shaheen, 2003, p. 173). In geography, they pioneered the use of latitude and longitude, among other significant contributions in agriculture, architecture, secular literature and scientific and philosophical thought.

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The region also gave the world three major religions, a language and an alphabet (Shaheen, 2003). While identifying as Arab is an ethnic affiliation, identifying as Muslim reflects a religious affiliation with the religion of Islam (‫)الحمدلله‬. Islam is a religion and the Arabic term Islam (‫ )الحمدلله‬can be translated as ‘submission to God’; a Muslim is someone who identifies with Islam and follows the practices and beliefs particular to that religion, and the term can be translated as ‘the one who submits to God’. Looking at the emergence and definition of the word Islam in the Quran and the most cited Quranic commentaries, such as Tafsir al-Mizan (1892–1981) and Tanwir al-Miqbas (~800), the term Islam has been equated with ethics, blessings and being away from any form of savagery, crime and imperfection (Mirza & Bakali, 2010, p. 51). Contrary to commonsense understandings that are discussed further below, Islam is not a homogenous religion; it is a diverse set of practices that vary from culture to culture. The Muslim ‘community’ is also not homogenous, it incorporates over a billion people (PEW Research Centre, 2012), stretches across six continents and encompasses hundreds of cultures, traditions and practices. Over the last few decades, Islam has had a huge political, social and cultural impact on human life (Esposito, 2010), and today, Islam is among the fastest-growing religions in many African, Asian, American and European countries (Esposito, 2010; Hamm, as cited in Samaie & Malmir, 2017, p. 1352). It is estimated that the number of Muslims is expected to increase by 70%, from 1.6 billion in 2015 to nearly 3 billion in 2060, moving from 24.1% to 31.1% of the global population (Lipka & Hacket, 2015). While the Middle East and North African region has the highest percentage of Muslim-majority countries, the country with the largest number of Muslims is Indonesia, where 87.2% of the population identifies as Muslim (Lipka & Hacket, 2015). However, more than 300 million Muslims—one-fifth of the world’s Muslim population—live in countries where Islam is not the majority religion (PEW Research Centre, 2009) when comparing ratios of Muslims within the wider population of a country. For example, India has the third-largest population of Muslims worldwide, China has more Muslims than Syria, and Russia is home to more Muslims than Jordan and Libya combined (PEW Research Centre, 2009). As these figures demonstrate, not all Muslims or Islam can be conflated with Arab countries.

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Further, the religion of Islam emphasises the unity and oneness of God. Muslims are monotheistic and subscribe to the core tenets of Islam, proceeding with there being only one God and Muhammad is His Prophet. Muslims also all embrace the five pillars of Islam, which are the central articles of the Islamic faith forming the foundations of the global ummah (or community of believers) (PEW Research Centre, 2012). The epistemological foundations of Islam are based on a combination of revealed sacred knowledge comprising of the Holy Quran, historical narratives based on the narrations of prophetic knowledge and wisdom (hadith), and hermeneutic interpretations of these sources, from which Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) is derived. Islamic law (Shariah) is based on scholarly legal interpretations of the Quran and hadith. The exegesis of the Quran is a commentary based on an interpretation of the sacred text. The revelation of the Quran to Prophet Muhammad was through the Archangel Gabriel (‫ )الله اکبر‬who was sent by God to convey the Quran. Throughout the period of revelation, the companions of Muhammad would transcribe the verses of the Quran and its compilation was completed shortly after the death of the Prophet and has remained unchanged and true to its original form. This foundational information aims to counter Islamophobic discourses which construct Muslims as homogenous and ‘uncivilised’. Muslims are categorised into one of three religious schools of thought: Sunnis, Shia (or Shiite or Shi’a) and Kharijites (Nasr, 2016). The majority of Western discussions on Islamic matters tend to focus on Sunnism (Nasr, 2016), as the majority of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims are Sunnis, with Shia representing a population of 130–195 million; that is, 10–15% of the global Muslim population (PEW Research Centre, 2012). Both Sunni and Shia Islam are far from a political or religious monolith; they are extremely diverse Islamic entities that also branch into denominations. The Shia world and Sunni world overlap and intermingle geographically, and the Shia globally consider themselves as marginalised due to their minority status, in terms of both their number among wider Muslims and geopolitical rifts between the two sects. As already stated, most Muslim-majority societies are Sunni, although Iran (95%), Iraq (50%), Azerbaijan (65–75%) and Bahrain (65–75%) are Shia majority but also include other groups such as Yazidi, Ismaili and Fatimi, which are smaller branches of Shia. There are also significant Shia populations in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan (PEW Research Centre, 2012). The Shia are far from a monolith,

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they are not under the control of a single authority or leader, and the prospect of a pan-Shia polity is remote (Nasr, 2016). This emphasises their heterogeneity. The four countries with the largest Sunni-majority populations are Egypt (99% of Muslims are Sunni), Indonesia (99%), Bangladesh (99%) and Pakistan (87%) (PEW Research Centre, 2012). However, in the Islamic ‘heartland’, from Lebanon to Pakistan, there are roughly as many Shias as there are Sunnis, and around the rim of the Persian Gulf, Shias constitute 80% of the population (Nasr, 2016, p. 34). Thus, followers of the two main sects, Sunni and Shia, are diverse in language, ethnicity, geography and class. There are Arab, Persian and South Asian cultural zones, to name a few, and within these zones are further linguistic and ethnic divisions; for example, in Iraq, there are differences between Arab, Kurdish and Turkoman Shias. Adherents of the Shia ithna-A’shariyah imamate make up 90% of the world’s Shias, while adherents of Zaydism, Ismaelism, Alawism and Alevism among others, as sub-sects or denominations of Shia, account for the remaining 10%. There are also a few Muslim groups that are difficult to classify as either Sunni or Shia, such as the Druze or the Nation of Islam movement in the US (PEW Research Centre, 2009). Further, there are disagreements within each branch over politics, theology and religious law, in addition to the divide between the pious and less vigilant, or the ‘outright secular’ (Nasr, 2016, p. 25). While this overview is far from exhaustive, it reflects the diversity and complexity of Muslims around the globe.

The Politics of Naming Muslims This section examines Islamophobia in the present era and demonstrates how it operates as a form of racialised governmentality to manage Muslims. It begins with a broad overview of Islamophobia, followed by Islamophobia as a form of racialised governmentality. What Is Islamophobia? Scholars have suggested that it has become customary to begin any writing on Islamophobia with a discussion of the controversy and inadequacy associated with the term (Jackson, 2018, p. 2; Sayyid & Vakil, 2017). This is not surprising given the scholarly literature that has examined Islamophobia spreads across the fields of sociology, religion, Middle

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East studies, media and cultural studies, politics, ethnic studies, postcolonial studies, English, history and women’s studies, among others. The origins of the term have been traced as far back as 1913 in a French article by Etienne Dinet and Sliman Ben Ibrahim, who wrote ‘accès de délire islamophobe’ (as cited in Saeed, 2016). However, it is generally agreed that the British Runnymede Report of 1997 popularised and secured its common usage (Considine, 2017; Poole, 2008, p. 215). While the term and concept of Islamophobia has been widely debated over the last several decades in academic, in March of 2019, the UK Labour Party, having consulted more than 750 British Muslim organisations, 80 academics and 50 Members of Parliament, produced the following definition: ‘Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness’ (Perraudin, 2019). The recognition of the term as aligning with racism by the UK Labour Party demonstrates its relevance as a contemporary phenomenon. Islamophobia has been described a form of cultural racism based on the premise that race is understood as a social construct rather than a biological reality. This is aligned with theories of ‘new’ racism (Hall, 1992). One aspect that is emphasised in understandings of cultural racism is that physical or material cultural markers are markers of difference, and this difference is dynamic and contextual. In this sense, Balibar (1991) argues that the ‘new’ racism is ‘racism without races’. This ‘neo-racist’ view counters conceptualisations of biological racism, which views ‘the other’ or an individual who is non-white, as inferior according to biological differences of race. Thus, according to new or neo-racist logic, the other/self dynamic is not only understood through an inferior/superior framework as with previous understandings of racism, but added to this is a belief of cultural ‘difference’. Contrasting with Eurocentric conceptions of racism, which have been underpinned by biological constructs as the basis of racism, cultural racism: Is the insurmountable ability of cultural differences, a racism which, at first sight, does not postulate the superiority of certain groups or peoples in relation to others but ‘only’ the harmfulness of abolishing frontiers, the incompatibility of life-styles and traditions. (Balibar, 1991, p. 21)

In relation to governmentality, cultural racism can be understood as characteristic of the ‘coloniality of Western culture that operates as a

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form of social governance’ (Hesse, 2004, p. 21). This constitutes racism in the ‘era of decolonisation and the reversal of population movements between the old colonies and the old metropolises’ (Balibar, as cited in Modood, 2005, p. 28; Semati, 2010). Accordingly, as a form of cultural racism, Islamophobia has a governmentalising function, whereby it operates to discipline, regulate and control Muslim subjects. The notion of Islamophobia as governmental racism or an expression of racialised governmentality is supported in the literature (Hesse, 2004; Hesse & Sayyid, 2006; Kundnani, 2016; Nabi, 2009; Waikar, 2018). This overview of Islamophobia as a form of racialised governmentality is extended and operationalised below to map the politics of Islamophobia in the present era. Islamophobia as a Form of Racialised Governmentality To understand Islamophobia as racialised governmentality (Birt, 2009; Finlay & Hopkins, 2019; Kaya, 2011; Nabi, 2009), this section begins by providing an overview of Islamophobic discourse that explains how the media operates as an ideological and discursive state apparatus to produce knowledge about Muslims and eventually make these constructions understood as common sense. Following this, the preconditions that allow these constructions of Muslims in the media possible in the first place are explained, including an outline of the origins of the hierarchical and civilisational classification of people stemming from the period of the Enlightenment and linked to the discourse of Orientalism. Islamophobic discourse is then contextualised in a post-communist/colonial era and linked to neoliberalism under US hegemony to explain how ‘otherness’ is embedded in the fabric of the state and Islamophobia is bound up in the ‘unfinished business of empire’ (Kundnani, 2007, p. 20). Surveillance as a process of Islamophobia’s governmentalising function is then explained both broadly and within the ‘ideological state apparatus’ such as education. Despite the term being widely used across academic and in sociopolitical discursive contexts, Allen (2010, p. 195) argues that Islamophobia is not really a ‘phobia’; rather, it is a form of governmentality or an ideology: Similar in theory, function and purpose to racism and other similar phenomena, that sustains and perpetuates negatively evaluated meaning

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about Muslims and Islam in the contemporary setting in similar ways … that inform and construct thinking about Muslims and Islam as Other.

Foucault replaces ideology with discourse. Taking this into account, according to Allen’s (2010) definition, as part of its governmentalising functions, Islamophobia operates racialised discourse (Ghauri et al., 2017; Sharifi et al., 2017; Waikar, 2018; Welply, 2018). The reason it can be considered a racialised discourse is because Islamophobic discourses about Muslims do not represent Muslims; instead, they represent what it means when an individual is made a type of Muslim. In understanding Islamophobia as a discourse, knowledge about Muslims is constructed and manifested as a depiction of reality to operate as a form of power domination (Foucault, 1982) of one group—that is, the producers of knowledge, which is those who construct the discourse (the ruling bloc or elites) through ISAs such as the media (Gramsci, 1971)— over a dominated group of Muslims or those who display visible signs of Muslimness. This categorisation of the Muslim/non-Muslim ‘other’ through discourse works to preserve the hegemony of powerful states over others (Abrahamian, 2003). As such, involvement in Islamophobia as racialised governmentality is both an understanding of the negative discourses that construct Muslims and the politics of representations. Media Constructions of Islam and Muslims Extensive research has examined constructions of Muslims in media and political discourse. In scholarly literature, it has been established that most representations of Muslims are negative in a post-September 11 world (Ewart et al., 2017), particularly in states associated with the ongoing US-led WOT (Gale, 2006; Kuhn, 2009; Poynting & Mason, 2006, 2007). Yet, it is important to note that the origins of the representations can be found in the 1980s (Semati, 2010), but were intensified after September 11. For example, in Australia, politicians have consistently linked Muslims with terrorism or violence. In South Western Sydney in July–August 2001, some Australian youths of Middle Eastern background were charged with gang rape and the incident was linked with ‘Middle Eastern Muslims’ by then NSW Premier Bob Carr. Several letters to newspaper editors and radio talkback programs condemned the Muslims (Poynting & Noble., 2004, pp. 187–194). Following this, both men and veiled women implicated in the Tampa incident involving Afghan asylum seekers were regarded as Muslims who should not be allowed to enter

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Australia, highlighted by then Australian Defence Minister Peter Reith’s warning that these asylum seekers could create a pipeline for terrorists to Australia (Kabir, 2007). However, following September 11, Islamophobic discourse was amplified, with Muslims constructed through ‘taken for granted frames’ and depicted as monolithic, sexist, backward, prone to terrorism and engaged in oppression (Kumar, 2010; Kundnani, 2016). Since then, Islam has been seen as antidemocratic (Zine, 2008); Muslims were framed as violent (Karim, 2006; Manning, 2004; Rane & Ewart, 2012); the Arabic language seen as the language of terrorism (Considine, 2017; Hodges, 2019; Lo Bianco, 2009); Muslim women depicted as either hidden radicals or oppressed victims (Haque, 2010; Mishra, 2007; Mouhanna, 2014; Saeed, 2016); Muslim men seen as aggressive and misogynistic (Mac an Ghaill & Haywood, 2017); and Islam/Muslims associated with terrorism (Manning, 2004; Sultan, 2016; Yusof et al., 2013). This raises the question of how these discourses become dominant and what preconditions made the discourses possible in the first place. As an ideological state apparatus, the media has played a central role in framing Muslims through negative discourses that eventually become common sense, because they are kept in circulation while other discourses are fenced off. For example, Media Tenor International (MTI), a research institute based in Zurich, Switzerland, that studies data for NGOs and governments, reported that between 2007 and 2013, news outlets such as Fox, NBC and CBS exclusively depicted Islam as primarily a source of violence (as cited in Considine, 2017). In a 2011 report, MTI found that US and European news outlets largely focused on the Middle East in the context of Muslim militancy. Based on an analysis of 2.6 million news stories from predominantly Western outlets (including the US, Britain and Germany), MTI later argued that media coverage about Islam was worse in 2014 than it was following the September 11 attacks (as cited in Lean, 2017, p. 99). This reflects the extensive and exclusive coverage of Muslims in the media through a negative lens. As Foucault (1982) asserted, some statements are circulated widely while others have restricted circulation. A ‘statement’ according to Foucault extends beyond a ‘simple inscription of what is said’ (Deleuze, 1988, p. 15). Instead, he argues that a statement, not in its linguistic form as a sentence, has a function (Foucault, 1972). The statement as a function can be considered as a ‘discursive junction-box in which words and things intersect and become invested with particular relations of power,

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resulting in an interpellative event’ (Althusser, 1971). The function of the statements about Islam and Muslims in news coverage operates to construct Muslims as inherently violent and dangerous, and this operates as a form of power domination. One of the ways in which the function of the statement manifests to acquire dominance is through repetition. This is evident in news reporting about Islam and Muslims. Studies of news coverage of attacks that involve Muslims are disproportionate in comparison with attacks of a similar nature committed by non-Muslims (Lean, 2017). For example, in a study on news coverage from LexisNexis Academic and CNN of all terrorist attacks in the US between 2011 and 2015, researchers found that news outlets gave drastically more coverage to attacks by Muslims, particularly foreign-born Muslims, even though these attacks are far less common than other kinds of terrorist attacks (Kearns et al., 2017). On average, attacks by Muslim perpetrators received 449% more coverage than attacks carried out by non-Muslims (Kearns et al., 2017). In 2018, research from the University of Alabama found that terrorist attacks committed by Muslim extremists received 357% more US press coverage than those committed by non-Muslims, with attacks by Muslims accounting for 105 headlines to just 15 for others (Chalabi, 2015). Additionally, while Buddhist extremists have killed many civilians in Burma, Zionists continue to attack Palestinians in their illegal settlement, these incidents have not been framed through the lens of terrorism nor amplified in media reporting. Further, in terms of the violence committed by non-Muslims, a study conducted by the Triangle Centre on Terrorism and Homeland Security (cited in Lean, 2017, p. 13) found that post-September 11, over a period spanning more than nine years, 11 Muslim Americans had successfully executed terrorist attacks in the US, killing 33 people. Yet, at the same time, the US had witnessed approximately 150,000 murders. Five years later in 2016, the Centre reported that 46 American Muslims were associated with violent extremism that year, a 40% drop from the year before, but that year was overshadowed by the Orlando nightclub shooting in which 49 people, including the gunman, were killed (Lean, 2017). Thus, it is evident from these examples that the function of the statement can be achieved through repetition. Indeed, as noted by Hall (1998, p. 1050), ‘in order for one meaning to be regularly produced, it has to win a kind of credibility, legitimacy or taken-for-grantedness for itself’. The function of the statement operates as a form of power dominance where terrorism and violence are seen as being exclusive hallmarks of Islam and Muslims

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to legitimise neoliberal hegemonic expansionism. The preconditions of these constructions in relation to a hierarchical view of civilisation have been explained below. The Production and Construction of Race The preconditions (Foucault, 1972) of Islamophobic discourse originate from the period of the Enlightenment, when hierarchical classifications of humans were created to dominate people. This hierarchy placed European Caucasians at the top of the racial hierarchy and colonised peoples close to the bottom (Blumenbach, 1865) for the purpose of power and domination of an ‘enlightened’ worldview of the white race over non-whites during expansion of the European colonial enterprise. During the Enlightenment in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the expansion of the European colonial enterprise took political, economic and cultural forms (Said, 1985), and it was during this time that racialised understandings of society were produced. These understandings incorporated a civilising view of history, where Western European and US society were constructed as more rational, advanced, progressive and capable of change. Values such freedom, rationality, science, progress, intellectual curiosity and the spirit of invention were seen as the core Western values. The West was constructed as a unique civilisation with its roots in ancient Greece (Kumar, 2010), and every other civilisation was then defined in relation to this notion of a superior West. This construction of knowledge of the superior West to dominate (Foucault, 1972) defies the previously noted contributions (and existence) of Muslims and Arabs during the Islamic Golden Age between the eighth and fourteenth centuries, well before ‘Western Enlightenment’. While Europe underwent the Dark Ages from the fifth to fifteen centuries, Muslims were making significant advancements in scientific knowledge. Thus, the characteristics of advancement and progression given to the Enlightenment were neither exclusive to the era nor to Europeans; they merely reflect one scope of knowledge formation. Therefore, because European knowledge stemming from Enlightenment had hegemonic functions, it produced Orientalism. Orientalism’s structure promoted the difference between the familiar—which included Europe, the West, the people of the ‘Occident’ or ‘us’—and the strange— which encompassed the ‘Orient’, the East, ‘them’ or ‘the other’ (Said, 1985). In the West, Orientalism was seen as more than a system of knowledge and study; it was a mode of control (Said, 1985). To better control

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their subjects, Western scholars were commissioned to develop knowledge about what they called the ‘Orient’, and this ideology became prevalent (Said, as cited in Kumar, 2010, p. 257). The production of hegemonic knowledge pertaining to Muslims has been controlled by the norms, values and beliefs of European colonial thinkers. For example, with the encounter of the peoples of Middle East and North African region when Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1798, he took with him not only soldiers but an army of scientists, botanists, biologists and architects, all with the goal of producing a ‘scientific’ survey of the country that was designed for use not by the Egyptians but by the French (Said, as cited in Kumar, 2010, p. 258). In this context, it was only possible to understand Muslims through the belief system that was underpinned by European colonialism; thus, Orientalism functions as a Eurocentric ideology for representations of Islam and Muslims. Given that European colonial-capitalism was a profit-driven enterprise that sought to rationalise its domination of Muslims, the knowledge it produced was embedded with the ‘language of race’ that collectively defined Muslims as inherently backward, and thereby in need of liberation from their alleged backwardness by European colonialism (Waikar, 2018). Thus, colonial subjugation would not only benefit the West, but also the Orient itself (Said, 1979). Muslims and Islam were not understood for who they were on the premise that they were equal to the West, they were constructed as inferior despite making significant contributions to civilisation prior to European Enlightenment during the Islamic Golden Age. In relation to the concept of race, whiteness was, and still is, fundamentally linked to the language of race and racism because it was created as a category to claim dominance and exert power (Giroux, 1997). This means that processes of racialisation of groups or racialised discourses were not merely neutral acts used to categorise people but acts of power, which aim to delineate who is white and who is not, and thus, who qualifies for the privileges linked to whiteness in a hierarchical classification of humans. Therefore, race and the process of racialisation have long been linked to the inferiority and superiority of races, and this was used as an act of power and domination of an ‘enlightened’ worldview of the white race over non-whites. In relation to Islam and Muslims, this is the discourse of Orientalism. Thus, in relation to domination of Muslims in the past, this was achieved through Orientalism, where knowledge about Muslims was constructed by the West to suit the West’s colonial expansion, which

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was achieved through racial hierarchical categorisations as a form of soft power (Gramsci, 1971). In terms of the difference between Islamophobia and Orientalism, it is clear that Islamophobic discourses in the current era are rooted in Orientalist constructs in relation to the hierarchical and unequal civilisational view. Some research suggests Islamophobia is merely an extension of Orientalism (Beydoun, 2017); however, other scholars argue that understanding Islamophobia as an extension to Orientalism fails to consider the specificity of each context in which antagonism towards Islam/Muslims emerges. For example, Sayyid (2010, pp. 15–17) contends that ‘Islamophobia continues to be “marked by the racialised hierarchies of Europeanness and non-Europeanness”, but Islamophobia needs to be related to the presence of Muslims in the contemporary world’. Several scholars support the distinction of the contextual specificity of Islamophobia (Birt, 2009, p. 218; Poole, 2008; Tyrer, 2003, p. 68). For example, Poole (2008) argues that Islamophobia is not simply ‘an extension of previous forms’; rather, there are a number of contemporary political factors that suggest Islamophobia is unique to a postcolonial era. This leads to considering the conditions significant to the present era that shape Islamophobic discourse and mould its meaning. To understand Islamophobia in the present era, it needs to be recognised as more than a ‘legitimizing shell that provides justification for state practices’ (Kundnani, 2016, pp. 24–25). Kundnani (2016) argues that Islamophobia is embedded in the fabric of societies. He suggests that examining imperialism cannot be fully explained in terms of the economics of resource wars; it also requires an understanding of race as constitutive of the American state (Kundnani, 2016). This means that the state has incorporated race as a central part of its existence, rather than a marginal or specific activity. Similarly, Omi and Winant (1994) argue that modern nation states should be understood as racial states because they were founded by deeply racialised processes that involved internal unification and the differentiation of peripheral others. In this view, Muslims and Islam in the current era are just ‘part of the package of the otherness, along with non-Whiteness/non-Europeanness … who stood in opposition to the empire’ (Poynting, 2019), and Islamophobia is bound up in the ‘“unfinished business” of empire’ (Kundnani, 2007, p. 20) because it is tied to maintaining a racial order marked by racialised hierarchies of Europeanness and non-Europeanness.

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Therefore, in examining the management of Muslims in Western societies through discourses of Islamophobia, the racial state thesis is applicable because the continuity of the imperial project through neoliberal forms of power dominance is maintained and draws on an ethnoreligious lens as the basis for differentiation. This emphasises the material underpinnings of a top-down approach to power (Gramsci, 1971). The Rise of Neoliberalism and the Constructions of Islam and Muslims There are several social, political and economic factors that shape Islamophobia in the present era. The underlying premise that situates the US as a global power is central to understanding these factors and the rise of neoliberalism in relation to the constructions of Islam and Muslims. Following World War I, the US became a global de facto hegemon (Karatani, 2018, p. 200). After World War II, the US replaced Britain as a dominant global power, which resulted in confirming American hegemony and instantiating the liberal stage of world capitalism (Karatani, 2018). Since then, the US has worked to consolidate its global hegemony. This has occurred through hard military power, economic weight and financial commitments, in addition to the soft currency of hegemonic values, cultural influence and prestige (Wallace, as cited in Shain, 2017). More recently under the Trump administration, it also operates through strengthening relations of power among allied states (Kagan, 2006). The US has relied on these methods that have worked hand in hand to strengthen its power under a neoliberal ideology, which has been the dominant mode of capitalism since the 1980s. Harvey (2005) argues that neoliberalism has successfully influenced American politics on the domestic and foreign fronts. The first steps of neoliberalism were made in the 1980s during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, whose change of political direction gave way to the birth and rapid development of neoliberalism in the US. At the same time, consolidation of the political and economic directions adopted by the US was also taken on by other states across the globe—specifically, in Britain by the ‘new right’ conservative government led by Margret Thatcher (Shain, 2017, p. 26), who suggested There Is No Alternative (TINA) (Gregory, 2016, p. 54). Neoliberalism is a political and economic ideology that promotes free trade, privatisation, minimal government intervention in business and minimal public expenditure on social services. Brown (2006, p. 692) describes neoliberalism as:

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A governing rationality through which everything is economized and in a very specific way: human beings become market actors and nothing but, every field of activity is seen as a market, and every entity, whether public or private, whether person, business or state, is governed as a firm.

In this sense, neoliberalism is distinct from the traditional Marxist depiction of capital’s transformation of everyday life in that it ‘construes even non-wealth generating spheres … and submits them to market metrics and governs with market techniques and practices’ (Brown, 2006, p. 692). A key dimension of neoliberal capitalism is that it is perpetually expansionist (Waikar, 2018, p. 159). For Karatani (2018, p. 197), this suggests neoliberalism is an historical stage that is linked to imperialism, as its very nature is to aim for global expansion of the market. Accordingly, Karatani (2018) contends that modern imperialism is not necessarily expansionist in terms of territory as was the case for previous world empires or hegemons; instead, it aims at expanding trade and its global expansion occurs through the market economy by trying to gain surplus value. Thus, as the current global hegemon, the US strengthens its hegemony through the expansion of neoliberal capitalism across the globe to create new markets and new consumers to be governed under neoliberal control; that is, under US control. This governance is both material and ideological, entailing forms of hard power and soft power, or in Gramscian terms, coercion and consent. In terms of soft power and consent, neoliberalism is depicted as the ideology of the free (Harvey, 2005) and the democratic (Chomsky, 1999) in commonsense understandings. These understandings are manufactured by a matrix of agents including think tanks, politicians, academics, the security apparatus and various media that circulate their ideas to the general population (Kumar, 2010), which communicate these constructs as commonsense so that liberal and democratic values become inherently associated with neoliberalism. Thus, it is expansionist not only in the economic sense by gaining surplus value through exploiting the world’s resources and wealth, but also in its ideological underpinnings. Neoliberalism is continuously on the hunt for opportunities to ideologically proselytise—and thereby justify and enable capitalism’s global neoliberal project (Waikar, 2018)—projecting itself as an ideology that represents high moral universal values (Peters, 2001). To represent itself as holding these values, the success of its expansionism is reliant on its

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ability to locate belief systems as ideological others in need of liberation (Reed, 2013). That is, the way neoliberalism claims to be the ideology of freedom, dignity and peace is by stipulating that other ideologies lack these values. In this sense, neoliberalism creates a hierarchy of ideologies and places itself at the top (Waikar, 2018, p. 161). Thus, for the abovementioned matrix of agents to construct concrete understandings of neoliberal values of democracy and freedom, other ideologies need to be constructed as inferior and lacking in these values. In the present day, Islam and Muslims occupy the position of being a threat to the neoliberal expansionist project in a postcolonial/post-communist narrative, and the Islamophobic discourses explained above have contributed to constructing Muslims as ‘lacking’ neoliberal values. While the amplification of Islamophobic discourses in the media began in the 1980s, and some have argued the rise of Islamophobia paralleled the rise of neoliberalism, the two phenomena did not result from each other (Waikar, 2018). Several events during the 1980s contributed to the negative portrayal of Islam and Muslims in the West, which exacerbated Islam’s inferiority as a religious and political ideology in relation to Western liberal values. These events included oil shortages in the US; the onset of the Islamic Revolution of Iran in 1979, which resisted US neoliberal capitalism; and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, after which Western-trained Islamic militants began to pose a sporadic threat to US global hegemony (Shain, 2017, p. 23). It also grew belligerent during the periodic crisis over Libya and the Middle East in 1980s (Said, 2008) and continued to occur as Islam became the ideological other to the West following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the communist threat. The ‘oil shocks’ occurred when member states of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) raised oil prices, resulting in thousands of car owners in the US queuing for hours for petrol (Abukhalil, 2003). This oil crisis was mostly caused by Arab members of OPEC during the Arab–Israeli War in 1973 as retaliation for the US’s contribution and support of the Israeli military in their illegal colonial endeavours in Palestine. This instigated the first major wave of anti-Arab rhetoric in the US and Western Europe. The Islamic Revolution of Iran in 1979 was another key event that was discursively constructed in a way to worsen perceptions of Muslims in the West. The revolution prompted a frame shift of Islam in the US press that evolved past the traditional Orientalist representations of the Arabian sheikh, belly dancers and the desert savage into the image of the

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religious fanatic (Reid, 2013). Before the revolution in Iran, the Shah had adopted pro-Western foreign policies and aimed to create a ‘state modeled after Westernism and Europeanism with secular ideas’ (Hsu, 2018). However, the revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini overthrew the US-backed Pahlavi dynasty and replaced it with an Islamic form of republicanism (Prashad, 2016, p. 68). Imam Khomeini was steadfast in his criticism of US hegemony, with statements such as: ‘America is the great Satan, the wounded snake’ and ‘Brothers and sisters must know that America and Israel are enemies to the fundamentals of Islam’ (cited in Lean, 2017, p. 46). During the revolution, 52 US citizens were held hostage for 444 days in Iran (Semati, 2010), and this reinforced negative representations of Islam and Muslims in the West in media reporting. As a result of these events and several coalesced factors, and due to resisting American hegemony, America and its European allies began to construct Iran as evil and dangerous. McAlister (2005) contends that the threat of Islam and terrorism has supplied the cultural logic of US foreign policy since the 1979 events of the Islamic Revolution of Iran despite Iran not being an Arab country. He posits that ‘anti- Iranian sentiment in the US drew heavily on the stereotyped representations of the Arab Middle East that had become so prevalent in the 1970s, particularly the image of “Arab terrorism”’ (McAlister, 2005, p. 214). Conversely, Bazian (2018) purports that during these years: Anti-Iranian and anti-Shia discourses in the Western and Arab press were balanced at the time with constructing a favorable view of the Sunni Afghan Mujahedeen, who had an important strategic function in confronting and bleeding the Soviet Union in Afghanistan … [Thus, a] Sunni jihadi worldview was incubated in the US and Europe that supported, on the one hand, the war in Afghanistan and on the other a readiness to oppose and confront the Iranian revolution, the pretext of defending the eastern gate of the Arab world from the Iranian Shia expansion.

In this sense, Bazian (2018) suggests that between 1979 and the collapse of the Soviet Union, Islamophobia had a distinct anti-Shia character rather than an all-encompassing strategy of demonising Muslims of all sects and denominations, and the ‘Islamic threat’ specifically meant the Iranian-Shia threat, whereby ‘our allies’—that is, the Afghan Mujahedeen—were the Sunni jihadi fundamentalists that encompassed the

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full spectrum of Sunni-oriented groups and sects. The narrative was constructed as a US strategy to ‘carefully cultivate alliances that would resonate and enable Sunni majority governments to mobilize their intelligence agencies to recruit individuals to participate in the two-front war, the Afghan war against the Russians and on the Iraqi front opposing Iran’ (Bazian, 2018). Accordingly, notions of Islam have been reproduced in historically contingent ways, depending on the political and economic interests of hegemonic states, including the US. During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979–1989), the Afghan Mujahidin—who were backed and trained by the US, then later regarded as ‘terrorists’—were referred to by US President Reagan ‘freedom fighters’. This construction of Muslim political activists as ‘our friends’ occurred during the Cold War period (1945–1991) when the Soviet Union was the US’s prime competitor (Kundnani, 2012). Hippler (1995) suggests that Islam was not perceived as a threat to the West during the Cold War because of its decidedly antiSoviet political position. The US sought to promote Islam as a ‘bulwark against secular nationalism’ (Kumar, 2010, p. 1079). The Soviet Union and communist ideology were portrayed throughout the capitalist West as the evil empire that threatened ‘Western freedoms’ and ‘free enterprise’. Prince (as cited in Semati, 2010, p. 260) posits that it was in this context that ‘terrorism’ became ‘a term which functioned essentially as a synonym for communism but was sufficiently new and vivid that it could carry a great deal of political freight, unlike the somewhat discredited antiCommunism’ of an earlier period. Subsequently, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the communist threat of the red ‘evil empire’ was replaced with the new enemy of the West, Islam, and terrorism then became the hallmark of Islam and Muslims. Additionally, while the term ‘jihad’ had older resonances, it was during these years that the Saudis, the West and Pakistanis sequestered the concept to tackle the growth of secular nationalism and communism in Afghanistan (Prashad, 2016, p. 66). The Afghan adventure produced the dynamic of jihad, from the ‘well of Islamic theology to mean the one who does Jihad’ (Prashad, 2016, p. 66). This construct of jihad was also evident in Australian media discourse (Akbarzadeh & Smith, 2005), reducing the term from its multiple meanings, including the struggle to become a better person, to war against the Soviets and then to the defence against Islam (Prashad, 2016, p. 67).

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This new form of Islamophobia was all-encompassing and included Muslims across all sects and denominations. It emerged in connection with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the immediate outcome of the Gulf War and the Palestinian uprising, which provided the stage for problematising Islam and Muslims as a single collective threatening subject (Bazian, 2018). In terms of the Palestinian uprising, resistance groups in the region were continually reported on in the media from a Western vantage point that interpreted them as terrorist organisations, rather than groups resisting Israeli occupation. Thus, European colonial legacies were drawn on once again to construct a new ideological enemy in the final years of the Cold War and its aftermath (Kundnani, 2016, p. 19). These years were central to Western representations of Islam coalescing around notions of conflict and violence, reinforcing the notion of Islam as a material threat to the US. The hierarchical classifications of humans based on the civilisational view were consolidated academically with the US establishment of many area studies programs, including those on the Middle East, that saw scholars move from Europe to the US to take up positions at various universities (Kumar, 2010, p. 259). One such scholar was Bernard Lewis, who is known for his highly circulated 1990 Atlantic Monthly article, ‘The roots of Muslim rage’. According to Lewis, the West and Muslims are deeply rooted in a conflict that is not linked to political issues such as the Israel-Palestine conflict or Western backing of Middle Eastern autocrats, but must be understood as a product of the Islamic culture itself (as cited in Kundnani, 2016, p. 17). Lewis coined the phrase ‘clash of civilisations’—a thesis, made popular by Samuel Huntington in 1993 (as cited in Bazian, 2018), who offered a new framing for post-Cold War era: It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation-states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.

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According to Huntington (1996, p. 125), the post-Cold War world was characterised by ‘alignments defined by culture and civilisation’, and given the ‘Muslim propensity towards violent conflict’, this would lead to a clash of civilisations. In this way, the post-Cold War climate was not only based on economics and politics, but on culture, with Islam and Muslims inherently culturally inferior and posing the most serious threat to Western neoliberal capitalism. The ‘clash of civilisations’ thesis has been heavily critiqued and forcefully rejected by experts (Mottahedeh, 1995; Trumpbour, 2003). Yet, it was heavily drawn on to frame Islam’s relationship with the West and explain ‘all kinds of phenomena in the Middle East including social problems, economic failures, political stalemates, corruption’ (Semati, 2010, p. 261). This is because ‘Huntington’s paradigm is far easier to comprehend for journalists and their readers than complicated explanations of the Middle East politics, especially as it “purports to explain politics all the way from Morocco to Indonesia” (Abrahamian, 2003, p. 534)’ (Semati, 2010, p. 263). In the September 11 era and ensuing years, these sectarian tensions were part of the media’s coverage of the WOT. As an industry (Lean, 2017), the media deliberately employs processes of framing and disproportionately negative coverage of news relating to Muslims to serve the interests of elites (Herman & Chomsky, 1988; McCombs, 2004). During the September 11 era, the US’s neoliberal hegemonic expansion continued. Economically, this occurred through the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, given Iraq’s oil reserves and Afghanistan’s strategic position relative to central Asia, South Asia and the Middle East for pipeline projects (Chomsky, 2013). Under the umbrella of the WOT, these invasions opened up new markets for US companies as part of the ecopolitical ambitions of the US under neoliberal expansion (Klein, 2007, p. 308). In terms of ‘soft currency’, this expansion also occurred though an amplification of media and political discourses that consolidated each other for the unquestioned, patriotic support of retaliatory wars (Kellner, 2004). The rhetoric at the time again drew on hierarchical civilisation theories; for example, on the day of the attack, President George Bush stated: Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts. The victims were in airplanes, or in their offices; secretaries, businessmen and women, military

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and federal workers; moms and dads, friends and neighbours. Thousands of lives were suddenly ended by evil, despicable acts of terror.1

He later also drew on the clash of civilisation thesis when he stated, ‘We face an enemy that has an ideology. They believe things. The best way to describe their ideology is to relate to you the fact that they think the opposite of what we think’ (Bush, as cited in Kumar, 2010, pp. 259–260). Ultimately, this set the tone for all discussions concerning the positionality of Muslims and Islam and the hierarchy of civilisations created by the West in the aftermath of September 11. However, the dynamics of the Muslim other changed in the post-September 11 era, as under neoliberalism in the current era, a defining feature of Islamophobia is that the Muslim threat is now from within, rather than a threat from abroad. Surveillance of the ‘Threat Within’ In the immediate aftermath of September 11, counterterrorism concentrated on, but was not restricted to, fighting an external enemy (Renton, 2018). The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and pursuit of Al-Qaeda and Osama bin laden were consciously styled as a traditional war operating within a militarised landscape beyond the homeland (Renton, 2018). However, this changed in the era of Daesh and the increase of ‘lone-wolf’ attacks. Following several attacks on ‘Western soil’, including attacks in London, July 2005; Boston, 2013; Paris, 2015; Brussels, 2016; London, March 2017; Manchester, May 2017; and London Bridge and Borough Market, June 2017 (see Kaya, 2011 for an extensive list), the ‘conceptual geography’ of the war shifted and the threat became ‘homegrown’ (Renton, 2018). Consequently: Policymakers, academics, and analysts responded with a new politicomilitary form of knowledge and practice for terror prevention, dedicated to the tasks of identifying, apprehending, and treating those who have become, or are becoming, potential terrorists (extremists)—the process widely known since 2004 as ‘radicalization’. (Kundnani, as cited in Renton, 2018, p. 2127)

1 See http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010911–16.html and http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010912–4.html.

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To counter radicalisation from a threat that is within, the state exacerbated its surveillance across state apparatus and embedded it in structures of the state. Surveillance is a ‘routine and focused attention to personal details for the purpose of influence, management, care and control’ (Lyon, 2006, p. 403). As a mechanism for control, surveillance promotes unequal relations of power between the surveillant and the surveilled. Constituting the object of the surveillance reflects a power relation in which the person who surveils can exercise hierarchical power over the surveilled. The September 11 attacks have been identified as a turning point for Islamophobia and surveillance studies. Following these attacks, states invested heavily in the protection of their national borders against the Islamic threat from both within and abroad (Kaya, 2011). This included investment in an impressive array of policing technologies: personnel (Border Patrol agents), material structures (fences and lights) and surveillance devices (helicopters, ground sensors, TV cameras and infrared night vision scopes) (Kaya, 2011). The main motive of surveillance post-September 11 is ‘suspicion’ (Lyon, 2006, p. 9). Surveillance practices have provided the state with enhanced forms of visibility to effect containment strategies that ensure its dominance (Fiske, 1998). For example, cities are precisely zoned to ensure ethnic and religious minorities are contained within particular geographic spaces and marked as being out of place when they transgress the boundaries (Hesse, 2004). An example of this in Australia is in Sydney, where some suburbs are monocultural and others have been labelled as ethnic enclaves (Veiszadeh, 2011). The transgression of boundaries was evident in the Cronulla riots of 2005 (which will be discussed further in Chapter 3) and emphasised spatial and cultural dominance. Enclavisation is also evident in Europe (Turner, as cited in Qurashi, 2018, p. 3). Qurashi (2018) also maintains that in an era of globalisation characterised by mobility, strategies of containment operating at a national level have extended to operate across the world to manage and contain global mobilities. Shamir (as cited in Qurashi, 2018, p. 3) elaborates on this, suggesting that ‘the emergence of a global mobility regime underpinned by a paradigm of suspicion that operates to treat people differently: to enable the movement of those considered “safe” while containing and blocking the movement of those constructed as “dangerous”’. This has also been evident in Australia following the war in Syria. In 2015, the Abbot government restricted the intake of Syrian refugees to minorities

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that were largely Christian, claiming they would take ‘no more Muslim men’ (Henderson & Uhlmann, 2015). It was also evident in the ‘Syrian refugee crisis’ in Europe (Ostrand, 2015). Surveillance has also been a central mechanism of CVE policies in Australia. Following the threats from lone-wolf attacks and rise of homegrown terrorism, the government earmarked A$630 million for 2014–2018 to boost national security agencies’ counterterrorism efforts in the form of ‘hyper’ counterterrorism and national security legislation amendments and bills (see Misra, 2018 for an extensive overview of CVE policies since 2011). Surveillance was also evident in schools. This was discussed in Chapter 1 in relation to CVE policies in Australia and PREVENT in the UK. In the Australian case, federal government funding was committed to support the construction of ‘protective’ security infrastructure via the A$18 million Schools Security Programme (launched in 2007 as the Secure Schools Programme) which provided ‘non-recurrent funding for security infrastructure, such as closed-circuit television (CCTV) systems, lighting and fences, and for the cost of employing security guards’ (Commonwealth of Australia, 2018, p. 3). The Preventing Violent Extremism and Radicalisation in Australia (PVERA) booklet, published as part of the Australian Government policy strategy Living Safe Together (2016), also encourages family, community groups, schools and law enforcement to ‘intervene’ and ‘prevent’ (so-called) radicalisation to violent extremism, which emphasises the role of surveillance within the schooling context as a ‘soft’ approach to counterterrorism. The way surveillance operates as a form of unequal power relations also rests on the notion that not all citizens and migrants are subjected to the same amount of surveillance. CVE and (de)radicalisation policies (such as PREVENT in the UK) target Muslims specifically (Qurashi, 2018) and are no longer confined to Muslims who are deemed suspect or prone to radicalisation. Surveillance programs are enacted to police all Muslims because the ‘moderates’ cannot be distinguished from the ‘radicals’ (Bazian, 2018), due to Muslims being a monolithic bloc in commonsense understandings and all are inherently violent. The ways Muslims can be identified, and therefore imbricated in surveillance, are through cultural markers of Muslimness. This can include clothing, language, names, a beard and cultural/religious markers such as praying. In this sense,

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Islamophobia is not only a discourse, it is also a form of racialised governmentality that works to govern Muslims through institutional forms of surveillance. Using surveillance to manage and contain a population provides the necessary detailed knowledge to ‘see’ it and break it down into governable units (Haggerty, 2006). The surveillance gaze allows a population to be known, which is a prerequisite for it becoming a site of action: identifying the ‘risks’ that need to be neutralised; the unacceptable, abnormal behaviours and ideas that need to be disciplined by way of extending social norms to mould ideas and behaviours (Fiske, 1998). Attempts to contain a particular population and its political agency using surveillance technologies are a prelude to a broader strategy of discipline aimed at inclusion into the neoliberal capitalist order (Fiske, 1998). These views towards Muslims, as created and embedded in the structure of the state, undeniably have material consequences. Whether Muslims are terrorists or not, because of the way they are depicted in media reporting and the role of the media as a soft currency in shaping public opinions, individuals begin to act on that (provided) knowledge of Muslims. Thus, while Muslims are not inherently associated with terrorism, violence or the constructs highlighted above, in effect, they are treated as such. This is evident in the growing body of work that has examined the discrimination of Muslims. This discrimination can take two forms: institutional discrimination, which is related to racialised governmentality because it includes the visible markers of Muslimness; and individual discrimination, such as physical attacks. Institutional discrimination not only occurs in schools, it is evident across institutions through forms of racial profiling. For example, there are numerous cases of Muslims being banned from flying, such as Khairuldeen Makhzoomi, who was removed from a Southwest Airlines flight because his appearance reportedly set off ‘alarm bells’ (Considine, 2017), and the case of Juhel Miah (Rowlands, 2017). In 2019, four Sikh members were removed from a flight because a passenger felt ‘threatened’ due to their turbans, which resemble Muslim turbans (Miller, 2019). Sian (2015) has written extensively on the hate crimes waged against the Sikh population who have been mistakenly targeted in racist attacks directed at Muslims. In addition to racial profiling, discrimination manifests through direct physical attacks and abuse. For example, in the UK in 2017, there was a surge in Islamophobic attacks with 1,201 reports submitted, reflecting a

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26% increase on the previous year (Marsh, 2018). In Belgium in 2018, there were 908 attacks reported (online hate crimes doubled in Sweden, 2019), and 950 attacks reported in Germany in 2018 (Saeed, 2018). The body of Islamophobic discrimination has grown significantly (Abbas, 2011; Allen, 2010; Awan & Zempi, 2016). In this sense, any form of Muslim visibility—regardless of whether the individual is Muslim—deems a person dangerous and associated with violence, to the extent that being Muslim inherently correlates as being a fundamentalist (Carr & Haynes, 2015). Thus, Islamophobia can be understood as a form of racialised governmentality. As a discourse, Islamophobia is manufactured by hegemonic states and facilitated through social apparatus. It functions to govern Muslims, who are identified by cultural markers of Muslimness that have been constructed as ‘different’. Consequently, they need to be disciplined and governed, whereby the difference they embody through their cultural markers is constructed as dangerous and threatening. Through social institutions of the states, this occurs via policies that operate as forms of surveillance, which guides Muslims’ conduct, and thus manages them.

Conclusion It is clear that global systemic, structural and institutional forces work hand in hand to demonise Islam and Muslims in commonsense understandings because racism is embedded in the fabric of states. At the structural level, as part of its expansionist project, neoliberal ideology creates a hierarchy of ideologies, placing itself at the top and the ‘Orient’ at the bottom following Islam’s emergence as a threat to global capitalism and neoliberalism after the demise of the communist threat. To consolidate its power, the currently hegemonic US used ‘soft’ mechanisms of power to demonise Islam and Muslims in commonsense understandings, creating a discourse of Islamophobia to govern and manage Muslims. As an ISA, the media has been instrumental in this process through framing and disproportionate negative media coverage of news relating to Muslims that positions Islam and Muslims as a threat. As a discursive state apparatus, education is also implicated in this project and has hegemonic functions, which occur through surveillance policies under the guise of counterterrorism or deradicalisation policies exclusive to Muslim students, as argued. These discourses and institutional forms of racialisation and surveillance have material consequences

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for Muslims, whereby visible Muslims or those who ‘look’ Muslim based on cultural traits have been discriminated against. Thus, because Islamophobia is part of the structure of society operating at several levels, it can be considered a form of racialised governmentality that works to control and manage Muslims in Western societies. The emphasis in this chapter has been on mapping Islamophobic discourse as a form of racialised governmentality in the global context at the structural and systemic levels. It has highlighted the ways knowledge about Muslims has been constructed to dominate Muslims and guide their conduct. The following chapter narrows the focus to the Australian context. To map the Australian context, theories of disciplinary power (Foucault, 1991) have been drawn on to examine multicultural discourse and the construction of Arabs and Muslims as deviant and suspect to Australia and its people.

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Poynting, S. (2019, March 18). Terrorism has no religion. Counterpunch. Retrieved from https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/03/18/terrorism-hasno-religion/ Poynting, S., & Mason, V. (2006). Tolerance, freedom, justice and peace?: Britain, Australia and anti-Muslim racism since 11 September 2011. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 27 (4), 365–391. https://doi.org/10.1080/072568 60600934973 Poynting, S., & Mason, V. (2007). The resistible rise of Islamophobia. Journal of Sociology, 43(1), 61–86. Poynting, S., & Noble, G. (2004). Living with racism: The experience and reporting by Arab and Muslim Australians of discrimination, abuse and violence since 11 September 2001: Report to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. Centre for Cultural Research, University of Western Sydney. Prashad, V. (2016). The death of the nation and the future of the Arab revolution. University of California Press. Qurashi, F. (2018). The prevent strategy and the UK ‘war on terror’: Embedding infrastructures of surveillance in Muslim communities. Palgrave Communications, 4(17), 1–14. Rane, H., & Ewart, J. (2012). The framing of Islam and Muslims in the tenth anniversary coverage of 9/11: Implications of reconciliation and moving on. Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 32(3), 310–322. Reed, A. (2013). Marx, race and neoliberalism. New Labor Forum, 22(1), 49. Reid, J. W. (2013). Hollywood representations of Arab terrorism and counterterrorism, 1991–2011 (Master’s thesis). The University of Adelaide. Retrieved from https://digital.library.adelaide.edu.au/dspace/bitstream/ 2440/85040/8/02whole.pdf Renton, R. (2018). The global order of Muslim surveillance and its thought architecture. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 41(12), 2125–2143. https://doi. org/10.1080/01419870.2018.1456670 Rowlands, A. (2017, February 24). Juhel Miah, barred entry to the US, is part of our school family. We will defend him. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/ 23/juhel-miah-barred-entry-us-trump-travel-ban Saeed, S. (2018, March 3). 950 Attacks on Muslims recorded in Germany last year. Politico Pro. Retrieved from https://www.politico.eu/article/germanyislam-950-attacks-on-muslims-recorded-in-germany-last-year/ Saeed, T. (2016). Islamophobia and securitization: Religion, ethnicity and the female voice. Palgrave Macmillan. Said, E. (1979). Orientalism: Western representations of the orient. Pantheon. Said, E. (1985). Orientalism reconsidered. Cultural Critique, 1, 89–107.

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Said, E. (2008). Covering Islam: How the media and the experts determine how we see the rest of the world. Random House. Samaie, M., & Malmir, B. (2017). US news media portrayal of Islam and Muslims: A corpus-assisted Critical Discourse Analysis. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 49(14), 1351–1366. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2017. 1281789 Savelkoul, M., Scheepers, P., & van der Veld, L. H. (2012). Comparing levels of anti-Muslim attitudes across Western countries. Quality & Quantity, 46, 1617–1624. Sayyid, S. (2010). Out of the devil’s dictionary. In S. Sayyid & A. Vakil (Eds.), Thinking through Islamophobia: Global perspectives (pp. 5–18). Hurst & Co. Sayyid, S., & Vakil, A. (2017, November 29). Reports of Islamophobia: 1997 & 2017. Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project. Retrieved from https://irdproject.com/reports-of-islamophobia-1997-2017/ Semati, M. (2010). Islamophobia, culture and race in the age of empire. Cultural Studies, 24(2), 256–275. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502380903541696 Shaheen, J. (2003). Reel bad Arabs: How Hollywood vilifies a people. The Annals of the American Academy, 588, 171–193. Shain, F. (2017). Dangerous radicals or symbols of crisis and change: Retheorising the status of Muslim boys as a threat to the social order Farzana. In M. Mac an Ghaill & C. Haywood (Eds.), Muslim students, education and neoliberalism: Schooling a ‘suspect community’ (pp. 17–34). Palgrave Macmillan. Sharifi, M., Ansari, N., & Asadollahzadeh, M. (2017). A critical discourse analytic approach to discursive construction of Islam in Western talk shows: The case of CNN talk shows. The International Communication Gazette, 79(1), 45–63. Sian, K. P. (2015). Spies, surveillance and stakeouts: Monitoring Muslim moves in British state schools. Race Ethnicity and Education, 18(2), 183–201. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2013.830099 Sultan, K. (2016). Linking Islam with terrorism: A review of the media framing since 9/11. Global Media Journal , IX (2), 1–10. Trumpbour, J. (2003). The clash of civilizations: Samuel Huntington, Bernard Lewis, and the remaking of the post-Cold War order. In E. Qureshi & M. Sells (Eds.), The new crusades: Constructing the Muslim enemy (pp. 88–130). Columbia University Press. Tyrer, D. (2003). Institutionalized Islamophobia in British universities (Doctoral thesis). Institute of Social Research, University of Salford. Veiszadeh, M. (2011, November 12). Is Sydney a city of enclaves? The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved from https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/ is-sydney-a-city-of-enclaves-20111111-1nb68.html

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CHAPTER 3

Mapping the Australian Context

Abstract Following the global analysis of Islamophobia, Chapter 3 narrows the focus to the Australian context to set the scene of schooling of minority Muslim students. The chapter provides an overview of the policy responses to migration and discourses which construct Muslims, and Muslim youth, as deviant and disloyal in the relation to national multicultural discourses. In relation to policy responses, the chapter examines migration since Federation in 1901, to highlight how the state has employed policies to maintain its Anglo core and construct migrants as groups that need to be ‘managed’. Following the broad overview of migrants, Muslims as a minority group are then examined by providing an overview of Arab and Muslim migration and settlement in Australia, followed by an investigation of discursive constructs of the deviant, disloyal and threating Muslim other, and how the associated discourses operate as a form of disciplinary power to manage Muslims who embody the positionality of ‘the other’ in society. Keywords Disciplinary Control · Managing Muslims · Liberal pluralist multiculturalism · Positionality

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 Z. Mourad, Neoliberalism and Islamophobia, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18115-3_3

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Introduction Since the establishment of the Australian Federation in 1901 on Aboriginal land, several policy responses to migration have been enshrined in the Australian state as a means to maintain its Anglo core and construct migrants as groups that need to be managed. Over the century, these policies included the White Australia Policy, though to assimilation and integration policies to multiculturalism. The chapter begins by providing an overview of these policy responses. Next, the chapter provides an overview of Arab and Muslim migration and settlement in Australia, followed by an investigation of discursive constructs of the deviant, disloyal and threating Muslim other, and how this operates as a form of disciplinary power (Foucault, 1991) to manage Muslims.

Liberal Pluralist Multiculturalism and Racial Governance in Australia Disciplinary Policies from the ‘White Australia’ Era to the Era of Multiculturalism This section outlines Australian policy responses to migration from 1901 to the era of multiculturalism. Its purpose is twofold: to show how racism is embedded in the fabric of the state and white hegemony is cemented in Australia through policy responses to migration; and to show how policies and legislation operate as a form of disciplinary control to ‘manage’ migrants who do not conform to Anglo-Celtic culture. The focus will then be narrowed to the discursive constructions of Arabs and Muslims in the contemporary Australian context through discourses of (dis)loyalty to the state and its people. Racism towards, and racialisation of, the migrant ‘other’ has not been a marginal activity in Australia—it has been embedded in the fabric of the state since 1901 and evident in policy responses to migration. The birth of modern Australia (through Federation) in 1901 was soon followed by two pieces of legislation intended to ensure Australia remained predominantly British. The first, the Immigration Restriction Act 1901, formed the basis of the ‘White Australia policy’, which was designed to preserve racial purity and protect labour conditions by limiting the immigration of non-Europeans to Australia (Batrouney, 2006, p. 6). This was followed by the Naturalisation Act 1903, which denied Asian and other non-European

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people the right to apply for naturalisation (Batrouney, 2006, p. 6). The White Australia policy was the first legislative move to formalise the exclusion of non-European and non-Christian migrants. It remained in place until the end of the 1970s. These policy responses had hegemonic functions (Gramsci, 1971) because they operated to maintain white hegemony in Australia by disseminating the desired culture through the state’s apparatus and institutions using policies and legislation. Through the Immigration Restriction Act 1901, Australia initiated a process of controlling the shape and character of its population and communicated to itself (and to its Asian neighbours) a strong desire for a ‘homogenous population of British subjects’ (Galligan & Roberts, 2004, p. 52). Markus (1994) contends that the policy reflected the hopes of modern Australia’s founders for Australian society to be a projection of a white racial identity; that is, Australia as an expression of constitutive whiteness and an example of what (white) British people could achieve. Conversely, it expressed a fear that this whiteness was threatened and needed to be protected by a stringent racial policy, particularly because Australia was geographically isolated from the culture of its mother country, Great Britain (Meaney, 1995). The Immigration Restriction Act 1901 enabled the government to exclude any non-European person who, ‘when asked to do so by an officer fails to write out at dictation and sign in the presence of the officer, a passage of 50 words in length in a European language directed by the officer’ (Tavan, 2005). In 1905, this was changed to ‘any prescribed language’, and from 1932, the test could be given during a person’s first five years of residence in Australia and any number of times (Jupp, 2002). The next policy response to immigration which was in place between the 1950s and 1970s was assimilation. It also worked to maintain Australia’s Anglo core. During this period, ‘white Australia’ became an issue for Australian governments through anti-racism, anti-discrimination and decolonisation movements (McCaffrey, 2016, p. 30). Specifically, ‘British influence was becoming diluted and weaker due to factors such as the decline of the British Empire, Australia’s need to engage with Asia and the growing need to include Aborigines in the nation’ (McGregor, 2013, p. 10). As the 1960s approached, the racial tenets of the White Australia policy became increasingly unacceptable internationally (Markus, as cited in Hage, 2002, p. 423). Despite this, former immigration minister Arthur Calwell promised in 1946 that there would be 10 British migrants for every other European migrant (Davidson, 1997). This was echoed

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by promises from numerous ministers that Australia would preserve its national identity as ethnically ‘white’ and culturally British, and through assimilation, immigration would not affect this (Hage, 2003, p. 55). In several speeches, successive prime ministers promised to maintain Australia’s white racial make-up and fend off invasion from ‘the Asiatics’ (Davidson, 1997, p. 67). The assimilationist model rested on at least three assumptions—namely, that an Australian (1) looked a certain way, (2) acted a certain way and (3) had a distinctive, transmittable culture that could be adopted by new immigrants (Hage, 1998). Hage (2002) argues that assimilation carried a clear message to Australia’s white population—who feared a loss of European ‘whiteness’ and the lifestyle and privileges associated with this identity in Australia— that ‘migrants will not perturb or change Australia’s Anglo-Celtic culture. It is the migrants who have to change themselves to fit into it’ (Hage, 2002, p. 424). Based on this policy, immigrants from non-British backgrounds were expected to abandon their languages and cultures to conform with dominant Australian values and become citizens as quickly as possible. Assimilation emphasised the shedding of past loyalties and affiliations and the adoption of the language, culture and institutions of the host society. Its motivation was not primarily economic or political but cultural, and the culture to which immigrants were expected to assimilate was British-Australian (Batrouney, 2006, p. 8). In this sense, rather than relating to racial specifications (as the Immigration Restriction Act 1901 had been), assimilation was about culture. This represents a shift from ‘old racism’ to ‘new racism’ (Dunn et al., 2007). Yet, racism operated in different ways in both cases to maintain white hegemony in Australia. This related first to skin colour and later to culture, whereby migrants, even if they ‘looked different’, needed to conform to the culture of the settlers. This type of racism did not operate in clear opposition to the ‘white’ culture; rather, it was determined based on a particular degree of deviance from what is deemed ‘acceptable’. In some instances, this would be ‘tolerated’, while at different times, it may be erased depending on white power which determines how other groups are defined in different points in time. This operated as a form of disciplinary power in which migrants’ cultural practices are regulated by the state. Research has suggested that assimilation simply did not work (Hage, 1998; Stratton, 1998). By the 1960s, difficulties began to emerge, resulting in high numbers of migrants returning to their home countries

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and material and social difficulties for migrants who stayed (Tavan, 2005). This necessitated a new policy to manage Australia’s diverse population. By the mid-1970s, Australian governments had adopted a policy of multiculturalism, which was identified as a liberal response to ‘non-white’ migration (Hesse, 2000, p. 11). Multiculturalism in Australia rested on two key principles: access and equity. The main aim of the multicultural policy was to aid immigrants in accessing material and linguistic resources to become ‘full’ members of Australian society (Jupp, 2002). The secondary aim was to recognise the importance of cultural maintenance for immigrants (Zubrzycki & Martin, 1977). Under the banners of justice and equity, it was deemed necessary to allow immigrants to maintain their cultural practices, although within limits specified by the state and largely in the private sphere (Hage, 1998). In the public sphere, the promise of cultural inclusion made by the host state to minority communities was reduced to displays of tokenistic forms diversity, such as food festivals and national day celebrations. Fish (1997, p. 378) described this as ‘boutique multiculturalism’. Hage (2000, p. 117) referred to this form of inclusion as contributing to the ‘white fantasy’ of multiculturalism, which has been described by Turner (2003, p. 416) as ‘a utopian fantasy masquerading as social policy’, whereby migrants remain in a perpetual touristic state, contributing to the host nation but being provided with minimal agency in return. These elements meant that by the 1980s, multicultural policy was increasingly criticised for eroding social cohesion by valorising ‘differences’ at the expense of ‘common bonds’, even though it purportedly stressed commonality (Jupp, 2002). Liberal pluralist multiculturalism was also criticised for being a ‘covert form of assimilation’ (Gunew, 2004, p. 43). Bannerji (1990, p. 146) similarly proposed that it operated to manage the ‘seepage’ of ethnic ‘others’. However, the primary problem with liberal pluralist multiculturalism was that Australian society, although characterised as increasingly multicultural in demographic, was still struggling to extricate itself from a legacy of Anglo privilege and cultural dominance (Hage, 2002). British heritage was given a prominent place in the conception of multiculturalism. This aligns with Hage’s (2002) proposition of multiculturalism as national identity, which essentially means, ‘we are an Anglo-Celtic society with a number of diverse non-Anglo cultures that we strive to “manage”’ rather than being ‘an Anglo-Celtic multicultural society because we have been transformed by the existing diversity of cultures’ (Hage,

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2002, pp. 428–429). British birth or ancestry has been central to the dominant culture in providing the nation’s language, law and institutions, to which those from different backgrounds have long been asked to conform (Forrest & Dunn, 2006). According to this view, Anglos are not an ethnic group because they are the founding (settler) group (Johnson, 2001) and hold the reins of cultural and economic power, and therefore consider themselves (and be considered by others) the dominant culture (Forrest & Dunn, 2006). To sustain this cultural hegemony, they institutionalised the abovementioned policies to manage migration and the diversity it would create. Thus, multiculturalism still operated as a form of racialised governance in that it concerned experiences of racism and supported the hegemony of whiteness (Ahmed, 2008). Migrants’ cultures were not considered equal to that of the settler group; their position was additional, rather than central, to the workings of society. For Hage (1998, pp. 10, 87), this was the ‘fantasy of a nation governed by white people’ in which non-white, racialised ‘others’ became objects of governance, evident in seemingly egalitarian discourses of ‘tolerance’ that ‘presuppose white control’. The 1970s and 1980s were defining decades in Australian history. Along with the adoption of multicultural policy and ensuing discontent with multiculturalism, these years saw a rise in neoliberal governance and the migration of a large wave of Lebanese Muslims to Australia. The following section explains how discourses of values and disloyalty operated to govern Arab Muslims in Australia by constructing them as a threat to Australia and its people. Discursively Constructing the Deviant and Disloyal Australian Muslim The advice I have is that out of the last 33 people who have been charged with terrorist-related offences in this country, 22 of those people are from second- and third-generation Lebanese Muslim background … Malcolm Fraser did make some mistakes in bringing some people in. (Then-immigration minister Peter Dutton, ABC News, 22 November 2016)

As the current study focuses on Arab Muslims, this section explores how, in the Australian context, Arab Muslims have been governed through

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discourses associated with deviance and disloyalty and presumed to be a threat. It begins with an overview of the migration of Lebanese and Muslim people to Australia, and then explains the discursive constructs of the deviant, disloyal and threatening Muslim Australian, which operate as a form of disciplinary power (Foucault, 1991). Muslims comprise 2.6% of the Australian population, constituting 604,230 people, and are Australia’s third-largest religious group (ABS, 2016). While Australian Muslims are defined largely by religious affiliation, they come from 183 different countries, making them one of Australia’s most ethnically and nationally heterogeneous communities (Hassan & Lester, 2015; Saeed, 2003). In 2011, 38% of Muslims in Australia were Australian-born and another two-thirds were born overseas in countries including Lebanon, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkey and Bangladesh (Hassan & Lester, 2015). Muslims in Australia speak many languages other than English, with Arabic and Turkish the most widespread (Human Rights & Equal Opportunity Commission, 2004). Australian Muslims are urban dwellers and 50% of them live in Sydney (ABS, 2011). Their age profile is younger than that of the overall Australian population, with 58.6% aged 29 years and under (compared to 39.9% of the total Australian population in the same age group). The majority (81.8%) of Australian-born Muslims—mostly second-generation Australians, who account for 36% of Australia’s Muslim population—are aged under 25 years (Hassan & Lester, 2015; Peucker et al., 2014). In the past 15 years, the size of the Arabic-speaking communities in Australia has increased by approximately 50% (ABS, 2011), and Arabic is now the third most common language in Australia (ABS, 2017). Across Sydney, the distribution of Muslims and mosques is culturally influenced (Dunn, 2004, p. 343). Lebanese and Turkish Australians comprise a substantial portion of Australia’s Muslim population. Lebanese Australians have settled in areas of affordable housing, close to employment and public transport (Mackie, as cited in Hosseini & Chafic, 2016, p. 6). In Sydney, sectarian concentrations include those of Sunni Muslims in Lakemba, Shia Muslims around Arncliffe (Burnley, as cited in Dunn, 2004, p. 343) and Sunni Lebanese Muslims in the Canterbury and Bankstown local government areas, close to the Imam Ali Bin Abi Taleb mosque, completed in 1977. Shia Lebanese Muslims have settled in the regions of Kogarah, Rockdale and Hurstville, which are close to the Al-Zahra Muslim Association mosque in Arncliffe, completed in 1980 (Dunn, 2004, p. 343). Muslim contact with the Australian landmass began as early as the seventeenth century, with Macassan trepang fishermen (Kabir, 2013).

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Arabs also have a long history of settlement in Australia, having arrived in different eras under various categories of migration. The Lebanese are the largest and longest-settled of the Arab-speaking communities in Australia (Batrouney, 2006). They came in three waves of migration that occurred over a period of 100 years (Batrouney, 2002, p. 29): the first between the 1880s and the 1920s (Batrouney, 2006, p. 32), the second between 1947 and 1975 (Batrouney, 2000) and the third in 1975–1976. It was this final wave, who migrated due to the Lebanese Civil War under Australia’s humanitarian program (Abdel-Fattah, 2016, p. 325), whom Peter Dutton referred to as the ‘Fraser mistake’. In 2011, 76,450 people in Australia were born in Lebanon (Hassan & Lester, 2015). Just over half the Australian Lebanese population is Christian, consisting of Orthodox, Maronite and Melkite sects, while 40% is Muslim (DIAC, as cited in Abdel-Fattah, 2016, p. 324). The following section explores how Arab Muslims have been constructed in the Australian national imagination as deviant, disloyal and threatening. ‘Managing Muslims’ Through Discourse Several studies have examined the deviance of immigrant communities within their host societies (Bui, 2009; Khondaker, 2007; Spencer & Le, 2006). In Australia, a discourse of deviant and enemy Muslims has been perpetuated through the media and manifested in a history of racist attacks on Muslims (especially immigrants), ranging from property damage and verbal abuse to physical assault and worse (Akbarzadeh & Smith, 2005; Benham & Moshtaghi Zenouz, 2008; Human Rights & Equal Opportunity Commission, 1991; Jahedi et al., 2014). For many Arabs and Muslims, this discourse represents ingrained racial ideologies stemming from ethnocentric ‘European/Christian consciousness since the first Crusade’ (O’Brien, as cited in Poynting & Mason, 2007). In this study, deviance is regarded as ‘behaviour that the majority of members belonging to a particular group agree to be unacceptable and immoral, and [which] often receives a collective negative response’ (Tittle & Paternoster, 2000). Discourses of deviance of Australian Arabs and Muslim manifest in relation to ‘values’. This is explored below across multiple settings including media reporting and academic analysis in a consolidated analysis that explains the ways in which discourse operates to manage Muslims.

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The ‘Values Discourse’ Arabs and Muslims in Australia have been constructed as deviant, disloyal and threatening through discourses of values. Both sides of the government have invoked Australian values as a means of defining Australia’s ‘unique’ identity (Chisari, 2018, pp. 32–33). These values encompass notions of ‘mateship’, ‘a fair go’, freedom of speech and respect for equality among different groups (Chisari, 2018, pp. 32–33), as well as democracy and the rule of law (Austin & Fozdar, 2017). Since the Howard era, Australian values have been offered as the solution to problems associated with multicultural policy; however, while these values have been portrayed as uniquely Australian, it is clear that they share much with basic human rights (Chisari, 2018). The construction of Arabs and Muslims as deviant and disloyal to Australian values has been facilitated by global events and the construction of obstacles to settlement. For example, when Lebanese Muslims came to Australia in the 1970s, several historical circumstances operated as obstacles to their integration. Many of the Lebanese immigrants who came to Australia following the Lebanese Civil War during the era of multiculturalism were in a worse situation than their predecessors, who had migrated in times of peace. In Lebanon, education had been disrupted or nonexistent for many years (Batrouney, 2001, p. 567). The whole pattern of Lebanese people’s lives was geared towards survival in war. Also, they had mainly come from rural areas of Lebanon (Abdel-Fattah, 2016), and few had the ‘cultural capital (especially qualifications and English language skills) to secure skilled or professional work’ (Humphrey, 1998, p. 24). When they came to Australia, they had to pick up the pieces of their lives in a strange country (Batrouney & Batrouney, 1985). Additionally, aid was not forthcoming when it was most needed, and there was a lack of resources and support available to help the third wave of Lebanese migrants to participate in Australia’s social, economic and cultural life (Batrouney & Batrouney, 1985). This subsequently affected their employability. Similarly, Lebanese who arrived in Australia in the early 1980s came at a time of major economic recession (Humphrey, 1998). Thus, the disproportionate disadvantages that contemporary Lebanese Muslims face are best explained by historical circumstances (Betts & Healy, 2006; Humphrey, 1984).

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In addition to these obstacles, discourses at the time about Lebanese Muslims’ lack of integration was framed to construct them as incompatible with their host society due to their ethnoreligious backgrounds. For example, in the early stage of migration, Franklin (2007) commented on the alleged lack of capacity among Lebanese Muslims to integrate, stating: ‘The Fraser cabinet was also told many of the refugees were unskilled, illiterate and had questionable character and standards of personal hygiene’. Other commentators (e.g. Bolt, 2010; Jones, 2005) claimed that religious and cultural differences explain Lebanese Muslims’ unwillingness to embrace the ‘Australian way of life’. For example, Bolt (2010) stated: So why have Lebanese from Christian backgrounds done so much better here on almost every measure, even providing Victoria with a premier and NSW with a governor? … Is the difference really nothing to do with Islam, the faith of so many poor nations? Is Muslim poverty, terrorism and crime really just the fault of our miserable society?

It was also during the 1980s, in the early days of neoliberal governance, that the notion of ‘shared fundamental values’ was promoted as integral to the policy of multiculturalism (Fraser, as cited in Chisari, 2018, p. 31). However, these values did not yet have the sinister function they later acquired (as will be explained). Central to these arguments was that character deficiencies and high levels of unemployment and illiteracy had caused problems for Lebanese Muslims’ integration. Bolt (2010) took this further, saying that these characteristics were inherent in Lebanese Muslims’ religious beliefs because Lebanese Christians had not faced similar issues. Thus, due to their Muslimness, they were constructed as subscribing to values that deviated from the ‘enlightened’ Western values of the dominant white group. Several global events and associated political and media reporting laid the foundation for discourses of the deviance and disloyalty of Lebanese Muslims in relation to their host society. This included the reporting of the Gulf War, which saw the first serious moral panics directed at Australians ‘of Middle Eastern appearance’ and those who observed the Islamic faith (Poynting et al., 2001; Wakim, 1992). Hage (2000) recalled that during the Gulf War backlash, talkback radio and newspapers’ letters pages were full of calls for ‘Arabs’ to prove their loyalty to the nation or ‘go home’, which were sometimes fuelled by journalists, politicians and media personalities. Gradually, this intense racist hatred towards Arabs

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and Muslims died down—at least until the next moral panic, about Lebanese ‘gangs’ (Collins et al., 2000), during which Arabs and Muslims were constructed as disloyal to Australia and antithetical to Australian values and laws. The ‘Lebanese gangs’ moral panics developed over a number of years of media reporting on ethnic youth gangs. It commenced in 1998, when Edward Lee, a 14-year-old schoolboy of Korean background, was mortally stabbed by a group of young men of Lebanese background (Collins et al., 2000, p. 1). Journalists such as Andrew Clennell and Les Kennedy in 2001 reported that Lee had been stabbed during a fight that ‘had started when the group of five, all Asians, got out of the car and a group of Lebanese men who were on the road at the time decided they did not like the group’. These young men were secondgeneration Lebanese Australians who had been born, raised and educated in Australia. Following this, a ‘zero tolerance’ police crackdown against Lebanese youth was enacted. The second major panic over ‘Lebanese gangs’ took place in August 2001, during the trial of a group of young Lebanese Australian men who, in 2000, had gang-raped a young women in western Sydney (Manning, 2004). A theme that emerged in each of these panics was the supposed failure of Lebanese youth (even those born in Australia) to integrate into white Australia and accept Australian values. Debates raged in the media over whether the rapes were racially or ethnically motivated: ‘The rapists, Muslim Lebanese Australians, had apparently told their victims that they were targeting “Aussie pigs”’ (Mansouri & Percival-Wood, 2008, p. 18). The then-Premier of NSW, Bob Carr, established himself as a commentator on this trial, asking Lebanese Australian parents to ‘take control of your boys’ (Mansouri & Percival-Wood, 2008, p. 18). Carr was criticised for his contribution to the media’s portrayal of the rapes as ethnic crimes associated with the culture of the entire Sydney Lebanese Muslim community. Hage (2003, p. 242) posited that Carr had invited ‘everyone in the State to make a public link between “Lebanese”, “gangs” and “rapists”’. Thus, in addition to depicting Lebanese youth as disloyal to Australia and showing a lack of respect for Anglo women, these discourses contributed to the emergence of the violent Muslim/Lebanese male stereotype in a similar way to the production of global discourses about Muslim men.

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Discourses conflating Arabs and Muslims were evident in the leadup to and following the Cronulla riots.1 On 4 December 2005, a fight between lifesavers and a group of young men of Lebanese background occurred on Cronulla Beach. The lifesavers had reportedly insulted their assailants with taunts such as ‘Lebs can’t swim’ (Kabir, 2011, pp. 245– 246). It was also claimed that Lebanese males had previously come to the beach ‘in a pack’ and verbally abused some of the local women with comments such as, ‘You’re a slut’ (Kabir, 2011, pp. 245–246). On 11 December 2005, around 5,000 people, many of them carrying Australian flags, gathered at Cronulla. Some attendees waved and wrapped themselves in Australian flags, sang Waltzing Matilda and traced the words ‘100 per cent Aussie pride’ in the sand (Poynting, 2006). Others went further, singing racist chants such as, ‘Go ‘Nulla, fuck Allah’ (Quayle & Sonn, 2009) and proudly displaying slogans such as ‘Fuck off Lebs’, ‘Ethnic cleansing unit’ and ‘Aussies fighting back’ on T-shirts, placards and even skin (Poynting, 2006). Fuelled by excessive amounts of alcohol, they proceeded to physically assault anyone who appeared to be Lebanese, including a Jewish man and woman of Greek ancestry (Mitropoulous, 2006). The next day, a group of Lebanese Australians launched a reprisal attack by smashing shops and cars and threatening people who stood in their way (Kabir, 2011, p. 246). These events strengthened the view that Muslims in Western democracies posed a serious threat to public safety and social stability and further exacerbated the stereotype of the violent Muslim male. In the academy, explanations have been offered about both the immediate and the long-term causes of the Cronulla riots (Clements, 2006; Poynting, 2006). One is that the riots were a manifestation of white Australian anxiety, which had been exacerbated by the mass media and politicians (Poynting, 2006). According to this theory, the racial politics of a series of moral panics over Arabs and Muslims had merged to create the pre-eminent ‘folk devil’ in contemporary Australian society—young Lebanese Australian Muslims (Poynting, 2006). Scholars also highlighted the role of media personalities, community relations between microstakeholders, histories of gendered and racialised ‘place possessiveness’, 1 Cronulla is a predominantly white Anglo-Saxon Protestant beachside suburb of Sydney in an electorate held by the Liberal Party. Former Prime Minister John Howard once described the area as ‘a part of Sydney which has always represented to me what middle Australia is all about’.

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and the structural context of white privilege (Dunn, 2009; Poynting, 2009; Strike Force Neil, 2006; Wise, 2009). In the lead-up to the riots and in their aftermath, much of this discourse was delivered by then Prime Minister John Howard (see McCaffrey, 2017; Poynting, 2006; Quayle & Sonn, 2014). ‘Shock jock’ Alan Jones also made inflammatory statements and incited violence on 7 December 2005 with comments such as, ‘Biker gangs to be present at Cronulla railway station when these Lebanese thugs arrive’, ‘Australians old and new should not have to put up with this scum’ and ‘We don’ have Anglo-Saxon kids out there raping women in western Sydney’ (as cited in Bodey, 2011). For Itaoui and Dunn (2017, p. 316), the Cronulla riots were ‘a blatant manifestation of Islamophobia’ or ‘new racism’. In addition to these and other events—such as the Tampa incident, the September 11 attacks and the 2005 London bombings—Prime Minister Howard, who was influenced by Ronald Regan and Margaret Thatcher (Johnson, 2007; Roose, 2016), ‘initiated a reliance on the rhetoric of Australian values that emerged as a “moral language” through which to define a singular national “ethos”’ (McKenna, as cited in Chisari, 2018, p. 35) while simultaneously denouncing the values of others (Bhandar, as cited in Chisari, 2018, p. 35). His views on national identity included ‘an attempt to restore the central role of the Anglo-Celtic heritage in Australian identity, which is implicitly the most privileged form of both European identity and whiteness’ (Johnson, 2007, p. 197). Thus, those who conform to Australian values (as defined through discourse) are situated at the top of a moral hierarchy, and those who do not—such as Lebanese and Arab Muslims—are placed on its lower ranks because they deviate from acceptable identities, beliefs and behaviours. Creeping ‘Shariah’ Mummendey and Wenzel (as cited in Rissanen, 2012, p. 5) argued that when the pressure for a uniform society increases, deviance is more likely to be regarded as a threat. Uniformity was emphasised through discourses about Australia’s unique identity and values, which were promoted and foregrounded. Howard’s discourse of a single national ‘ethos’, together with catchphrases such as ‘team Australia’ (Abbott, as cited in Cox, 2014), increased the pressure for uniformity. For example, Abbott stated that, ‘everyone has got to be on Team Australia … to put this country, its interests, its values and its people first’ (as cited in Cox, 2014). In doing

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so, he was ‘hoping to appeal to the nation’s self-proclaimed ideals of fairness and egalitarianism as the term alludes to Australia’s illustrious sporting culture … According to this logic, Team Australia naturally embodied the principles of Australian values’ (Chisari, 2018, p. 36). Thus, a dichotomy was established and promoted whereby the self—that is, ‘us’—could be characterised as good, genuine, Australian, mainstream and legal, while ‘the other’—that is, Muslims—were distinguished as ‘them’: radical, dangerous, different, incompatible, deviant, threatening and Middle Eastern. The ‘Muslim threat’ has been discursively constructed by framing Muslims as wanting to take over Australia by incorporating sharia law into national policy and legislation, imposing Muslims’ cultural practices onto Australia and committing violence against the general public. For example, Australia was claimed to be on the verge of becoming an Islamic state, despite Muslims comprising just 2.6% of its population (ABS, 2016). In her maiden speech in 2016, One Nation founder Pauline Hanson stated, ‘We are in danger of being swamped by Muslims, who bear a culture and ideology that is incompatible with our own’ (as cited in Markus, 2017). In the same speech, Hanson claimed, ‘If we do not make changes now, there will be no hope in the future. Have no doubt that we will be living under sharia law and treated as second-class citizens with second-class rights’ (Markus, 2017, p. 41). These fears of Muslims having a separate set of laws for themselves were expressed in a media uproar when a newspaper reported that Centrelink had been paying spousal benefits to the second and third wives of Muslim men (Higgins, 2016). This anxious discourse, led by the likes of Pauline Hanson, Scott Morrison and Cory Bernardi, centred on how Centrelink had become ‘sharia compliant’ (Higgins, 2016). The National Australia Bank also offered sharia-compliant home loans, which was reported under the headline, ‘Jihad finance coming to Australia’ (Jolly, 2017). In addition, the incorporation of Islamic customs into Australian political traditions has contributed to a public and political backlash. For example, in 2013, Australia’s first Muslim Australian federal minister, Ed Husic, took his oath of office on the Quran in his swearing-in ceremony with then-Governor-General Quentin Bryce. Husic was subsequently subjected to a wave of online abuse and religious attacks and was described as ‘disgusting’ and ‘un-Australian’ (McDonald, 2013).

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Assertions about Muslims seeking to impose their religious laws on Australia’s population are false; yet, the attitudes of Australia’s nonMuslim society towards any form of shariah law remain negative (Abdalla, 2012). Shariah has been categorised dichotomously: as ‘good shariah’ and ‘bad shariah’ (Black & Sadiq, 2011, p. 383). Australia’s government and its majority non-Muslim population are more resistant to the family-law areas of shariah law, such as marriage, divorce and inheritance, than to its banking and financial elements. This contradiction—between harnessing shariah law in the political and economic sphere, yet rejecting it in the personal domain—has been considered a form of neoliberal multiculturalism (Roose & Possamai, 2015), whereby the practice is considered acceptable if state institutions and the private sector can capitalise on it. One way that shariah law could supposedly be imposed on Australian law was shown in discourses on halal certification. In 2014, George Christensen claimed that money devoted to halal certification could be used to fund terrorist movements and help implement shariah law in Australia, arguing in his online blog, ‘I don’t know whether my grocery spend is going to fund extremist versions of that religion or extremist religious activities that I would rather not see in Australia’ (Cole, 2017). Thus, the topic of halal certification has also formed a part of discourses of the disloyal, threatening Muslim. Politicians and public figures have suggested that halal certification is used as a financial enterprise to fund terrorism. The anti-Muslim Q Society—later the Australian Liberty Alliance—enacted a scare campaign on this topic, alleging that unwitting Christians had contributed to the funding of terrorism through fees charged in the certification process (Hussein, 2015). This claim was even made in relation to Sydney’s Lindt Café siege, when it was claimed that the café had been chosen as a terrorism target because of Lindt’s refusal to implement halal certification (Hussein, 2015). In 2015, Cory Bernardi suggested there is ‘surely’ a link between certification organisations and ‘the end outcome of extremism’ (Cole, 2017) and demanded that a Senate inquiry be conducted into third-party food certification. On 1 December 2015, in the publicly released results of the inquiry, it was revealed that there was no evidence to support the assertion that the halal certification processes had funded terrorist or criminal organisations (Cole, 2017). As a result of these constructions of the threat of Muslims and Islam, as well as discourses about threats of homegrown terrorism, successive governments have introduced changes in the counterterrorism laws

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and expanded the Criminal Code Act 1995 based on the recommendations of the Council of Australian Governments (Misra, 2018). This has included passing new laws to prevent Australian citizens who joined Daesh from returning to Australia; and providing greater powers to intelligence and police agencies for investigations, arrests and crackdowns; and strengthening community cohesion against radicalisation, in a context where being Muslim is conflated with terrorism. This indicates a comprehensive preventive and enforcement counterterrorism response (Misra, 2018). Yet, scholars have been critical of terrorism law reform since the September 11 attacks, terming it ‘hyper-legislation’ that suffers from ‘dubious enforcement’ and describing it as ‘highly political’ and costly to democratic freedoms and civil liberties (Misra, 2018, p. 112). Discourses of deviant, disloyal and threatening Muslims operate as a form of disciplinary control and governmentality. Conforming to Australian values is linked to disciplinary power (Foucault, 1991); these discourses work to discipline the non-mainstream other who does not conform to Australian values, as defined by discourse. Those who are deemed incompatible with these values, such as Muslims, are then required to regulate their behaviour to reassure the Australian people that they do not threaten Australia’s peaceful society. In terms of governmentality, policy responses institutionalise conformity. For example, in February 2015, at the launch of the National Security Statement that followed the Lindt Café siege, then Prime Minister Tony Abbott (as cited in Chisari, 2018) declared that his government’s greatest responsibility was to ‘keep Australians safe’. In this process, Abbott drew on Australian values as a way to instruct migrants on how to conduct themselves as ‘Australian’ citizens but also as part of counterterrorism activities, stating, ‘No one should live in our country while denying our values and rejecting the very idea of a free and open society’ (as cited in Peterson & Bentley, 2016, p. 231). Abbott claimed that Australia ‘is being challenged by people who reject our values and who are prepared to resort to violence against us’, adding that ‘Australians are angry that this threat can come from people who have enjoyed our hospitality and generosity’ (as cited in Peterson & Bentley, 2016, p. 231). To consolidate this view, he highlighted the government’s investment in counterterrorism capabilities in the fight against what he termed ‘homegrown terrorism’. This suggests that the government was targeting Muslim migrants by

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implying they subscribed to inferior values, did not appreciate the superiority of Australia’s ‘enlightened’ Western values and therefore needed to be ‘civilised’ through these ‘superior’ values. It is evident that Australian values are employed as a discourse of power and used as a disciplinary mechanism for Australia’s Muslim because the government’s dialogue with Muslims is repetitively framed within the language of counterterrorism. There is a constant reminder given specifically to Muslims about Australian values when issues of national security arise, through routine issues, and in relation to multiculturalism. For example, multiculturalism was implicated in concepts of national security and linked to citizenship in the Turnbull government’s Multicultural Statement in 2017. Despite the statement’s inclusive elements, one section addressed terrorist attacks around the world and indicated that ‘the Australian Government places the highest priority on the safety and security of all Australians’ (Department of Home Affairs, 2017, p. 3) and unambiguously repudiates behaviour that undermines Australian values. The statement emphasises that citizenship entails an obligation to demonstrate allegiance to Australia, and posits English as the national language and a ‘critical’ feature of ethnic integration. The way in which racialised discourses about Muslims operate as a form of disciplinary control is through the framing of the Muslim community through the lens of the ‘problematic’. This denies seeing Muslims as established communities of faith with vibrant and complex histories; instead, they are problems that need to be addressed. Media discourse views Muslims only through their ‘Muslimness’ which is often defined by political actors and the security services and not through Muslim agency (Mac an Ghalil & Haywood, 2017). Therefore, as a form of management, this ‘threat to the established value system’ (as cited in Reid, 2019, p. 88) posed by Muslim Australians could thus be resolved by allegiance to Australian values and individual promises to be responsible citizens. In terms of disciplinary control, this means a Muslim must be disciplined into adhering to the values imposed by the state—which are essentially universal values—even though they are conveyed as being uniquely Australian in the discourse.

Conclusion In conclusion, the policy responses to migration, from Australian federation to the policy of multiculturalism operated as forms of disciplinary

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power to manage migrants and maintain the white Anglo core of the Australian nation. Arab Muslims in Australia, as a minority migrant group, have been constructed through discourses of deviance, disloyalty and a threat to Australia, and these discourses also operated as forms of disciplinary power and governmentality to govern and discipline the actions of Australian Muslims.

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CHAPTER 4

Power and Pedagogy: Reproducing and Resisting the Dominant Discourse in Schools

Abstract Following the contextual mapping of the global and local contexts of schooling, chapter 4 begins to discuss the micro dynamics. The chapter explores the responses of teachers of Muslims students and highlights the ways in which Islamophobia was reproduced and resisted in schools. In terms of reproducing Islamophobia, teachers noted that the neoliberal curriculum lacked diversity and discussed the ways in which Muslim students need to adopt ‘Australian practices’ to be able to integrate into Australian society. To resist the racist discourses, the teachers discussed pedagogical practices they employed to make the students to create inclusive schooling experiences. The analysis reveals that while these were positive initiatives, they were not critical or transformative pedagogies, rather, they were ‘surface-level’ practices. Keywords Neoliberal curriculum · Resisting Islamophobia · Pedagogy · Inclusive schooling

Introduction This chapter presents explains the ways in which the dominant discourses filtered through to the pedagogical practices of teachers in NSW primary

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 Z. Mourad, Neoliberalism and Islamophobia, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18115-3_4

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schools and how the pedagogical practices manifest themselves in relation to AMS. The data drawn on in this chapter include transcripts of interviews with teachers and focus groups with students. The findings in this chapter have been grouped according to school setting; that is, the public and private schools, respectively. This is because religious and secular education represent two different apparatus of knowledge or regimes of truth (Foucault, 1982), and the different settings have the potential to influence teacher practices. Wallcove PS and Carelton PS are both state secular schools, governed by the NSW Department of Education. In relation to diversity, they employ several access and equity policies, such as the Anti-racism Policy and Multicultural Education Policy (DET, 2018). The public schools also provide special religious education, such as Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist and Sikh, among others, and ethics as a secular alternative (DET, 2019a, b). In the day-to-day organisational structure of the school, as a secular institution there is minimal attention given to religious/cultural instruction or practice; yet, according to the DET Calendar for Cultural Diversity (Department of Education NSW, 2019a, b), cultural events are recognised. Multicultural Day and Harmony Day are also events run at the school, as outlined in the schools’ annual reports. Qalam College is an Islamic school governed by the NSW Association for Independent Schools. School enrolment is selective at Qalam College, which means students have to undertake mandatory testing and be high achievers to be accepted. The school accommodates the needs of Muslim students in its organisational structure. This includes incorporating prayers into the school’s daily routines, celebrating and observing religious events, and officially allowing for holidays in the school calendar, such as Eid. All teachers who were present at the staff meeting across the three schools were invited to participate; yet eight out of the 10 teachers who volunteered from Wallcove PS, Carelton PS and Qalam College were of Muslim background. The reason for this was identification of interest in the research topic. The topic of the study had personal and professional significance to the Muslim teachers. For example, Roula, a teacher from an Arab Muslim background at Carelton PS was also writing and publishing stories for Muslim students. She described how she wanted to be interviewed for the study because she had several challenges in teaching AMS and wanted to share her experiences for the betterment of their schooling. Faten, an Arab Muslim teacher from Wallcove PS, also

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explained how she had stories to share from her own schooling growing up as a Muslim in Australia, as well as her teaching experiences with AMS in the classroom. Non-Muslim teachers who participated, such as Mr Matthews, also commented that the choice to participate was motivated by wanting to discuss challenges with teaching AMS and increase understanding of AMS for the betterment of their schooling experience. Given the two school contexts and diversity of teacher opinions, this chapter begins by explaining how public schools reproduced and resisted culturally racist Islamophobic discourses and stereotypes that emerged as a result to liberal pluralist multiculturalism manifested in teacher practices. The ways in which Qalam College resisted Islamophobic discourses is discussed in what follows within this chapter.

Reproducing Islamophobic Discourses in Public Schools Research has suggested that education is implicated in the ‘politics of culture’ (Apple, 1993, p. 222). The curriculum, for example, is ‘produced out of the cultural, political, and economic conflicts, tensions, and compromises that organize and disorganize a people’ (Apple, 1993, p. 222). It is evident in the ways the knowledge of the dominant group in society is defined as legitimate and official knowledge, while other groups’ knowledge is marginalised in the curriculum. This depends on who has power in society (Apple, 1993). This section begins by examining teachers’ accounts of the ways knowledge in the explicit curriculum impacted the schooling of AMS. This is followed by an overview of the ways culturally racist discourses (Modood, 2005; Shah, 2017)—constructed by those who have power in society—were reproduced by teachers in relation to AMS. These processes work to oppress powerless individuals. ‘In Terms of Curriculum, in Terms of Literature, There Needs to Be More Diversity’ In the one-on-one interviews, Roula commented that the JudaeoChristian orientation of the curriculum made it challenging for them to address concerns that arose in the schooling of AMS. Due to this curriculum orientation and other historical reasons, the Muslim perspective has been viewed as irrelsevant (Donohue-Clyne, 2010).

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Roula was a passionate Year 3 (8–9 year olds) teacher from a Lebanese Muslim background who had been teaching at Carelton PS since 2010. She grew up in Western Sydney and attended a school close to Carelton PS as a student. Her classroom, where the interview was conducted, was vibrant, inviting and had a pleasant atmosphere because of the colourful artworks of students and murals constructed by Roula covering walls from floor to ceiling. She explained how she became a teacher because she wanted to enhance the lives of AMS. Roula noted that one of the challenges she had faced in teaching AMS stemmed from the curriculum because it lacked inclusion and representation of diverse cultural groups: For example, in terms of curriculum, in terms of literature, there needs to be more diversity. That is where we need to see change. We need to focus more on that … what is happening with the terrorists around the world, and how Muslims are getting treated, it’s a massive issue, and kids who are 8 years old are dealing with things that kids who were 8 years old 10 or 15 years ago didn’t have to deal with. I feel that the curriculum needs to move in a direction that teaches acceptance. There is a massive crisis in the US now and the whole world is moving in this direction. The teacher’s role needs to be flexible because we need to be able to teach them more about acceptance. The teachers need to teach them because if we don’t, who is? They spend six hours a day with us. There needs to be more interfaith dialogue. That needs to happen.

Roula raised concerns about the curriculum. Her comment had echoes of Fraser’s (1997) theory of justice, particularly in the politics of recognition. In addressing the educational context, Fraser (1997) refers to social justice in terms of three related aspects: politics of redistribution, recognition and representation. The politics of redistribution refers to the ways the economy works, how it is controlled and those whom it benefits. The politics of recognition deal with misrecognition as a form of status subordination by focusing on reciprocity and equal human worth. Misrecognition refers to the way the lack of diversity in the explicit curriculum works to marginalise AMS because it hinders the production of knowledge AMS need for living in a socially and politically turbulent context. The students alerted to this context when they recounted witnessing or personally experiencing discrimination and blamed the media for their stigmatised status. In this sense, the lack of diverse literature in the explicit curriculum worked to reproduce their subordinate

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status in school and in society at large, and this was compounded by culturally racist discourses. Roula emphasised that diversity in the curriculum was crucial because she was aware of the structural disadvantages faced by AMS, and their subordinate positionality in society. Roula commented: Yeh we have the shorter end of the stick, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t be who you want to be. You will probably have to jump through more hoops and because of what is happening around the world, and it is unfortunate that it has come from the parts of the world that we are from, It’s unfortunate but that shouldn’t deter you to be successful and it shouldn’t deter you to follow your dreams… They need to mentally prepare themselves… If I have to go to an out of area suburb, I have to mentally prepare myself for abuse. I’m not saying that everyone does it, but nobody would understand that more than I would understand that, because I have been through it. I have to go: “well hang on a sec, if I go to an all-white area, I’m more prone to getting looks, getting stares and even getting comments, than the average other person does”. So, when they come to this society and when they have to assimilate into this community, they have to mentally prepare themselves for that.

Roula’s comment emphasises the extent to which structural dynamics and otherness disadvantage AMS, reflecting their positionality in relation to the politics of misrecognition emphasised in the wider society. As such, the curriculum would not be considered socially just, because to be so, it needs to ‘draw upon the vernacular knowledge of marginalised groups as well as the canonical knowledge of academic disciplines to produce truly powerful knowledge’ (Wrigley, 2018, p. 4). Therefore, the lack of diverse literature in the explicit curriculum was one of the ways AMS faced marginalisation in their schooling. It operated as an obstacle that limited the possibility of challenging culturally racist discourses in schools, hindering the socially just function of schooling. Implicit forms of curriculum facilitation also worked to reproduce both culturally racist discourses and liberal pluralist discourses (Gunew, 2004; Roxas et al., 2015) in public schools.

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‘Teachers Feel Like They Have to Change These Kids and Make Them Australian’ As public institutions, schools operate as key sites for instilling the norms and values of the nation and narrating the terms and conditions of belonging. The teachers in the study expressed their views about the ways in which practices of their colleagues and school policies reinforced Islamophobic and liberal pluralist multicultural discourses in Wallcove PS and Carelton PS, to enforce a form of covert assimilation. This was expressed by Faten, who was a Year 1 teacher at the time of the interview. Faten was an enthusiastic teacher from Wallcove PS who had taught classes from Kindergarten to Year 2 during her 12 years of teaching. Like Roula, Faten was of Lebanese Muslim background and who grew up close to the school at which she taught. She was very active in the schooling of AMS, which was apparent in the events she established and ran, such as cultural celebrations, lunchtime prayer groups and Ramadan iftars. Faten noted how culturally racist Islamophobic discourse was reproduced through teacher practices, which she believed contributed to the exclusion of Muslim students. During the interview, Faten commented: I know that as Muslim kids, they like to pray 5 times a day … and as a school, we don’t offer them any facilities to pray … And when the kids here are found praying in the playground, teachers get annoyed, because they are in-between a ball game or because they don’t understand what the kids are doing, so the teachers would approach them and when a student didn’t give them the answer they want, the teacher would come and ask me because I am the same faith as the student. So, they would say what are those kids doing? so it would be discrimination in that sense and misunderstanding in that sense. And being in a school where the majority is Muslim, they can’t be that ignorant and not know what is happening. I mean why can’t they just stand there, and when they finish praying, have the conversation with them. And tell them calmly, is this a good area to be praying? maybe you could move to the side, I’m sure there are other places that might be quieter. Maybe in the library, you could ask Miss for a corner in there, so just talk to them, don’t attack them or make them feel like they are an inconvenience to the playground.

Faten suggested the teacher who had forbidden students praying in the playground viewed cultural practices such as praying as an inconvenience, because they posed safety risks. However, Faten believed there was an underlying prejudice towards these students and the restriction

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placed on praying at school was fuelled by Islamophobia rather than the reference made to risk management. That is, Faten is suggesting the reference to safety was a subterfuge of an underlying prejudice because she did not offer the students an alternative safe space to pray. NSW public schools are part of a system that claims to espouse egalitarian ideals and values (DET, 2018); therefore, forbidding students from praying in the playground was dissonant with these values because it explicitly discriminated on the grounds of difference, yet under the guise of safety. In forbidding students praying, this also mobilised political discourses related to the WOT and notions of ‘the clash of civilisations’ to restrict the participation of youth in the public school (Ghaffar-Kucher, 2012; Maira, 2009). Forbidding prayers in the playground without providing an alternative space also reflected the teacher’s lack of understanding of Islam and Muslims, because she failed to recognise that Islam does not separate the private from the public, and that religion is expressed in every aspect of life, character, mannerism and clothing (Sirin & Fine, 2008, p. 51). This was emphasised in student focus groups when they explained that they prayed five times a day and undertook other Islamic practices such as fasting (Noah, student, Wallcove PS; Sami, student, Wallcove PS; Mahdi, student, Qalam College). The practice of forbidding praying in the playground without providing an alternative space parallels wider Islamophobic discourses and controversies about Muslims. These discourses postulate that the visibility of Islam in public spaces can be conceptualised as a form of agency that is manifested through ‘religious difference that cannot be thought independent of the materiality of culture, namely aesthetic forms, dress codes, or architectural genres’ (Gole, 2011, p. 383). In this sense, it was Muslim worship that was controversial, and the act of praying brought about the visibility of the Muslim students, which the teacher found ‘inconvenient’. On a wider scale, the way this manifests is through opposition to Muslim schools (Al-Natour, 2011) and mosques (Vahed & Vahed, 2014) being developed in Australia and on a global scale, which is also believed to be fuelled by Islamophobic discourse but discursively expressed under the guise of safety and planning. In an analysis of minaret bans in Europe, which also echo disputes in the Australian town of Bendigo (Corsetti, 2017), Gole (2011, p. 383) suggests ‘the debates for or against the banning of the construction of mosques and/or minarets reveal the tumultuous transition of Muslims from the status of the invisible migrant-worker to that of visible Muslim

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citizenship’. Therefore, ‘public visibility is approached as a radically disruptive, transgressive, provocative form of transformative agency that is intrinsically related to the political process of becoming citizens’ (Gole, 2011, p.383). In relation to the narrative provided by Faten, this means that the act of praying reflected a form of deviance. Giving AMS the opportunity to perform their cultural practices on public school grounds would reinforce their agency and equal worth as individuals. Their cultural practices then become acceptable and valid, and this could be considered a threat to existing hegemonic structures that centre on Anglo-Judaeo-Christian culture. In this sense, forbidding students from praying was a form of disciplinary control employed by a teacher who was in a position of power to reproduce discourses that maintain the subordinate position of AMS. As with Faten, who noted the actions of unsupportive colleagues to AMS, Fadia, a Year 6 teacher of Muslim Lebanese background from Carelton PS suggested there were teachers in the school who had negative perceptions of Muslims. Fadia had been teaching at Carelton PS for approximately six years. She taught students across all stages and had several roles in the school, including as a mainstream classroom teacher, special education teacher and support teacher. She was active in school sports events and programmes and enjoyed this part of her teaching role. Fadia commented on her colleagues’ perceptions of Muslims and Islam: I have worked with a lot of teachers who have come from the Shire, or who have come from Cronulla, and those areas that don’t have a lot of Arabic-speaking kids or this demographic, and they come with a mentality that they are going to change these people. They come with the mentality that when I went to school we only had Anglo kids, all of us knew how to swim, these kids don’t know how to swim, and they feel that they come to these schools to make a change and empower themselves. They are making a difference with a different community … they feel like our community and our students, because of their backgrounds, are disadvantaged, because they are not Anglo, and they want to expose them to the Anglo-culture with things like swimming, and gymnastics, and ribbon twisting, and other things … out of area teachers feel like they have to change these kids and make them Australian. They don’t actually accept these kids for what they are and build on their strengths, they want to change them to something else. And these teachers feel empowered, they are so positive, and they are so enthusiastic, but their mentality is so different to someone like me. You see that a lot.

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Fadia suggested that her colleagues disregard the importance of human recognition (Fraser, 1997) in the sense of seeing students in terms of the fullness of their complex experiences and attachments instead of reductive stereotypes (Jaffe-Walter, 2013). In other words, Fadia commented that her colleague from ‘the Shire’ did not see the cultural or religious background of these students as important or valid enough to be acknowledged; rather, they viewed them as deviants who needed to be ‘changed’. This attitude echoes the micro-level Orientalist discourses as explained in Chapter 2, and the belief that colonial subjugation would not only benefit the West, but also the Orient itself (Said, 1978). By teaching the students how to swim, Fadia’s colleague saw herself as being helpful to the students because she was teaching them skills or practices that were, in commonsense understandings, exclusively central to Anglo-Australian culture. Her reference to the teachers being from the ‘Shire’ also drew on liberal pluralist multicultural discourses that reproduce stereotypes; that is, just as the AMS have been depicted as lacking in sports skills, teachers from the Shire—a predominantly Anglo-Saxon area in Sydney—have been constructed as discriminatory. The lack of acknowledgement of the equal worth of AMS cultural backgrounds was also evident in the comments of Faten (teacher, Wallcove PS): I am part of the Christmas celebration committee, and I was decorating the Christmas tree in the hall while the kids were doing a drumming activity, and a little boy, he comes up to me and he says ‘Miss, see how you are decorating the Christmas tree, and we are having a Christmas celebration, why can’t we do something for Eid’. Eid is not even acknowledged! There is nothing from the school telling kids to enjoy their Eid, when about 80 percent of our kids are Muslim. On Eid, the school changes its whole day because it is empty from students, so it is obviously affecting us as a school, yet it is not acknowledged in any way, shape or form.

Faten was arguing that organisational adjustments were made at school during the days of Eid because of the significant Muslim student population at the school; however, Eid was not acknowledged by the school as a religious celebration despite its significance to the school’s Muslim students. This reflected the ways in which cultural practices of AMS were treated as insignificant or peripheral at their school.

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Conversely, the students were exhorted to celebrate Christmas, not Eid, and in this sense, the school operated to transform Muslim youth into more acceptable, modern liberal subjects of the nation state (JaffeWalter, 2013, p. 64) through coercive conforming. As noted in the discussion in Chapter 3, such examples of conformity to one celebration, without recognition of others, emphasises to AMS that their culture is not considered equal to that of the dominant culture, whereby their position was additional, rather than central, to society. However, had there been recognition of both Christmas and Eid, this incident would be aligned with an integrationist approach underpinned by liberal multiculturalism (Roxas et al., 2015). In this way, the school could recognise and acknowledge practices or traditions from both religions, those that are part of the student’s heritage and those that are adopted by the host society, which is the view taken under the NSW Multicultural Education Policy (DET, 2018). In the excerpts above, the teachers endorsed a covert brand of assimilation (Jaffe-Walter, 2013) that was enforced by teacher practices and school policies. It was covert because of the power teachers held within the school in relation to students. Power domination attempted to persuade the students to adopt practices the teacher believed to be exclusively Australian. In Faten’s comment about her colleague, the act of prohibiting praying without providing an alternative space for the students to pray, reflected a form of coercion that encouraged students to shed Islamic cultural practices in the school setting. In Fadia’s example, the students were encouraged to adopt aspects of Australian culture while simultaneously eroding cultural or religious practices associated with being a Muslim. In the Christmas celebrations example, the students were obliged to take part as per school policy, while their Islamic cultural celebrations were not acknowledged. This suggests that practicing Islam is discouraged and students need to be transformed into self-actualised liberal subjects who embrace commonsense understandings of ‘Australian’ culture that emerge under liberal pluralist multiculturalism, and it is the teachers—in their positions of power—who operationalise the process of covert assimilation. The process of assimilation facilitated by teachers suggests the teachers do not understand the complexity of identity of AMS. Abu El-Haj (2010) contends that while restrictive immigration laws and external displays of national identity reflect outward nationalism, in schools, a form of ‘banal nationalism’ is reflected in everyday practices and school routines that

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reinforce borders by emphasising who does and who does not belong to the national community. The way this occurs is through instilling normative ideas of behaviour and identity in public schools that transform outsiders into citizens (Abu El-Haj, 2010), echoing discourses of ‘team Australia’ referred to in Chapter 3. This becomes problematic when associated with an assimilationist approach, because the students who are descendants of immigrants live within webs of connections that extend beyond cultural and national borders. Normative ideas of behaviour and identity are illustrated through wanting to encourage the children to adopt sports, which are central to static understandings of Australian culture, and fail to consider the complex and dynamic aspects of culture. Abu El-Haj (2010) argues that due to the multicultural nature of public schools—or the encounter between students from religious minorities and the secular and multi-faith environment in public schools—there is potential to either oppress or liberate Muslim students. This depends on how Muslim students interpret and view themselves within the power relationships of their schooling. Based on the narratives provided above, it is clear that teacher practices can work towards oppressing Muslim students. First, this evident in Roula’s narration through the lack of recognition of Muslims or Islam in school curricular and the approach to diversity that discourages critical engagement with discourses at Carelton PS and Wallcove PS. Second, covert assimilationist approaches were adopted when the religious or cultural practices of the host society were enforced on Muslim students through teacher practices and school policy, including the lack of acknowledgement of Islamic events. However, given that teacher practices are diverse, there were several instances in which Islamophobic hegemonic discourses were resisted in public schools, and teacher practices were central to this process.

Resisting Islamophobic Discourses in Public Schools Research has suggested there is an overemphasis in the literature on the negative, one-sided and often decontextualised portrayals of the schooling of Muslim students by teachers in public schools (see Niyozov & Pluim, 2009). This literature investigates the ways public schools and teachers display racism and phobia against their Muslim students, thus damaging students’ self-esteem and identities (see Niyozov & Pluim, 2009). However, there is a small body of work that has examined the

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positive contributions teachers make to the schooling of Muslim students (see Niyozov & Pluim, 2009). Aligned with the research on the positive contributions that teachers make, this study also found that teachers and school staff attempted to resist culturally racist Islamophobic discourses in schools. ‘We Can Shift Their Thinking’ Research has suggested that schools teach students about their racial positionality through everyday interactions between teachers and students (Lee et al., 2017). In the current study, teacher practices in public schools demonstrated the different ways teachers attempted to resist or challenge Islamophobic discourses that constructed Arabs and Muslims as a subordinate group in society. This also extends to the stereotype of the Anglo-Celtic racist Australian. In relation to a narrative about a Year 1 student who had negative perceptions about police, Faten commented: I think there is a stigma about being smart if you are an Arabic-speaking child to some extent … I’ll never forget this one story, when I was teaching Year 1, and we had to write a speech about what we wanted to be when we grow up, and every Lebanese boy or every Arabic boy wanted to be a plumber, a tradie, and one little boy, Shadi his name was, he wanted to be a police officer. So he did his speech he had to discuss it with his partner. You know think, pair, share—what you want to be, why, whatever… and he turned to this little boy, Hassan, and Shadi said: ‘when I grow up, I want to be a police officer’. And Hassan said, what, you want to be a ‘khanzeer’, which means you want to be a pig. So, this little boy has come to school with the mentality that you don’t be a police officer because police officers are pigs. Yet this other Lebanese boy, same kind of parents, migrants with the same kind of history, he wants to be a police officer. In our school, we had the local police come and give the kids a talk and this is a regular thing, so it is not like this mentality is coming from the school. But it was coming from outside of school, and that affected what he wanted to be when he grew up and his mind set about police officers and workers in the community and that affected his learning because of the way he looks at these workers and I think this extends to his teacher too maybe. And when we were learning about police officers, he wasn’t interested in learning about them because of that.

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In relation to shifting perceptions, Faten was concerned that Hassan’s perception of police as ‘pigs’ would extend to his teacher, and highlighted the long-term ramifications of holding such perceptions, including ‘affecting what he wanted to be when he grew up’. These perceptions about police officers were challenged when Faten explained: I think it comes from home, but look, they spend the majority of their time at school. So we can shift their thinking at the same time. So when kids come from home thinking that police officers are bad, and then they come to school, they meet a police officer, he shows them his badge, his gun, he takes off his belt and they talk to him, he mucks around with them, they get to sit in his police car, their whole thinking changes and their mindset changes. And so they go home to tell their parents about their positive experience and they are happy so their parents are happy. I have made the shift, as a school’.

As a result of Islamophobic discourse, Faten commented that AMS students had placed themselves at the top of a hierarchy in relation to subjects they considered undesirable, and this had the potential to result in discriminatory attitudes towards others: Especially in terms of religion, like when we sit and talk about things. Our Arabic Muslim kids, when they come to school, they are always right in terms of the religion. There is a god, and if a child is Hindu or if a child is celebrating Christmas then they are going to go to hell. So, a lot of times, we always have this discussion and I always tell the kids, look around us, look around the room, do we all look the same? Do we all eat the same lunch? Do we all have the same kind of shoes? Look at your hands, do all your fingers look the same? We all look different and we all act different and that’s okay, we all belong to the same school and we all belong to the same class. So that’s a conversation I have to have all the time. And that’s because they come with those ideas from home. But then they change, the longer they stay at school, the more they change, and because I teach the younger ones, I get the first phase of that mentality, so that first phase from home, where only Arabic Muslim people go to heaven, not everyone, everyone else goes to hell. But then as you see them grow older, and I have been to so many year 6 graduations, their best friends are not Muslim anymore, they don’t even have Muslim friends anymore. And they loved everybody, and they participate in the Christmas cards competition and all these things they never use to do when they were with me, that’s because as they stayed in school, they have understood that my teacher is not Muslim,

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and she is lovely, my principal doesn’t speak Arabic but she’s the best, the school does so many good things for me and that shifts their thinking.

Several important points emerge from Faten’s comment. The first is that negative perceptions about the ‘other’ operated in the social imagination of the students. These perceptions have the potential to emerge under liberal pluralist multiculturalism (Roxas et. al., 2015). Faten believes it is through exposure to the other that imaginary perceptions could be challenged, and this was evident when the students, who were in Year 1, ‘shifted their thinking’ by the time they reached Year 6. This demonstrates that racialisation is a two-way process (Garner, 2010) in the sense that in racialised societies, all groups become racialised. The students believed non-Muslims would dislike the students because they were Muslims, and it was Faten who was countering these beliefs held by students about groups that did not share similar belief systems. The second point is that, for Faten, the classroom operated as a micropublic (Amin, 2002) for the wider society when she stated, ‘We all look different and we all act different and that’s okay, we all belong to the same school and we all belong to the same class’ (Faten, teacher, Wallcove PS). Belonging to the school and to the class, despite the differences in the way ‘they all look […] and act’ (Faten, teacher, Wallcove PS), sets an example to the students of belonging in the wider society. Teachers and leaders have a responsibility not only to deal with racist and religious hatred incidents, but also to prepare students for life in a multicultural and multi-faith society. The way Faten was preparing students for a multicultural society is through emphasising that despite the differences in appearances and practices, all students constitute part of the fabric of society. Third, Faten’s pedagogical practices also reflect the productive capacity of power (Foucault, 1982), where culturally racists discourses were countered in the classroom. In racialised societies, as stated above, all groups become racialised. The students came to school with stereotypical understandings of their peers, but through Faten’s pedagogical practices, she challenged the constructs of culturally racists’ discourses and in-turn, this shifted relationships between students of different cultural backgrounds. This reflects that broader macro-discourses are resisted in the school setting at the micro-level, and the teachers play a central role in this process.

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Resisting Islamophobia Through the Islamification of Schooling Studies have found that Islamic schools embed Islamic epistemology and praxis into the formal and hidden curricula and teach all subjects from an Islamic perspective (Merry, 2007; Zine, 2008, pp. 13–22). As an Islamic school, Qalam College incorporated Islamic practices, such as praying, into its organisational structure. Its student population consists only of Muslim students, most of whom were of Arab heritage. Concurring with previous research, the teachers in the current study had a role in the Islamification of schooling for AMS at Qalam College. The Islamification of schooling refers to ways in which Islamic schools embed Islamic epistemology and praxis into the formal and hidden curricula, teach all subjects from an Islamic perspective (Merry, 2007; Zine, 2008) to Islamise the Western-dominated curricula. This will be explained in more detail in relation to the findings of the study. ‘If They Are Misbehaving, I Can Link It Back to Their Faith’ At Qalam College, half the teachers were of Muslim background while the other half were of mixed cultural and religious backgrounds. Mr Matthews was a Year 5 and 6 teacher of Catholic background. He had been at Qalam College for about three years. Before teaching at Qalam College, he was a primary school teacher at a Catholic school in the UK. Despite exclusively teaching in religious schools, Mr Matthews noted in the interview that from his teaching experiences, he would prefer to separate religion from education; yet, despite this stated preference, his students, who participated in the focus group, discussed how he would employ Islamic discourse in aspects of their schooling. The girls in the focus group at Qalam College commented: Sarah: I always think about it how we have Catholic teachers, but then, I like the way how they respect us and teach us, like they don’t look at the difference between us and them which is like really nice. Sarah: Like our teacher, Mr Matthews, he actually knows how to say the Salawat in the morning, he knows how to say Dua Al Hujjah, which is like, when you look at him, and he says it, it brings like joy to you. Fadia: And when like we pray at school, he like cares. Iman: He actually cares.

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Zeinab: He cares, so if someone is, like silly, he starts telling us God is watching you. Sarah: ‘You’re praying to your God, not to us.’ Iman: And I’m not, like, we stop over there, and everyone is talking and one of the boys says listen, shoosh, he’s waiting for you, and then he says I’m not waiting for you, your God is waiting for you. So, like he actually cares, and he teaches us like English and Maths and we teach him our religion, we show him what we believe in.

The way Mr Matthews Islamified their schooling was through references to religion to encourage students to complete compulsory tasks or practices at school. For the students, it was a positive quality to be a practising Muslim who completes prayers and other pillars of faith, and Mr Matthews, as a non-Muslim, encouraged this. This was significant to the students because as excerpts from the focus groups in Chapter 5 will demonstrate, they had experienced discrimination in the wider society due to being visibly Muslim. Due to his practices, they found it comforting that practising faith was encouraged by their non-Muslim teacher. Similarly, Farah, a Stage 2 teacher from the private school commented on how she drew on Islamic teachings in her practices: The dynamics are similar in terms of the students in the school that I was at before and the school here, but here, for example, if they are misbehaving, I can link it back to their faith, and you can’t do that at a public school.

Both examples reflect how teachers Islamified some of their practices with the students. The referral to religion in these cases also operates as a form of disciplinary control; however, it had positive connotations. In stating that ‘your God is waiting for you’, a form of surveillance was employed to regulate the conduct and behaviour of the students for them to integrate into an Islamic way of life and become model individuals through self-regulation of their behaviour. Therefore, the teachers at Qalam College mobilised aspects of the Islamic faith and referred to them in their pedagogical practices to both inculcate a strong Muslim identity in the students and direct their behaviour to conform to being an ideal Muslim. However, this implicit practice was not the only way teachers Islamified the schooling of AMS at Qalam College. The other practices employed are explained below.

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‘I Personally Try My Hardest to Incorporate the Islamic Teachings into Learning’ In line with the Islamification of implicit forms of pedagogy, the teachers at Qalam College incorporated Islamic perspectives and teachings into the explicit curriculum. Farah, a Stage 2 teacher from Qalam College commented how she included Islamic teachings in her lesson plans to make lessons more ‘meaningful’ to students: Yeh, it makes what they are doing more meaningful for example, I am constantly talking to my students about their conscience and how I give them hadith and they reflect more and they become more effective … it is their identity and those who come to an Islamic school know exactly who they are and what they believe in, but obviously it is restricted in the public school, and you can’t use it towards your advantage … [The] parents at home might have conversations with them, but I think what sheikh does is incredible, and each class sees an Islamic teacher three times a week, and obviously, if you have a non-Muslim teacher, then it’s not the same. For example, the literacy this term is based on the event of Karbala. Each week we do a different story from Karbala and I personally try my hardest to incorporate the Islamic teachings into learning, I just think with my class, I am trying to make everything meaningful and link it back to their faith and inculcate it in their learning and I have had so much positive feedback about that from the parents.

Making school meaningful in this context meant building Islamic knowledge for AMS. The teacher encouraged the identification with Islamic beliefs because the event of Karbala, commemorated by Shia Muslims worldwide annually, particularly draws on principles of social justice and refusing the status of being oppressed. At the beginning of the interview with Shadia, a Year 4 teacher from Qalam College, she commented on having worked at multiple schools, both private and public, but had returned to Qalam College to teach because she wanted to give back to her community; that is, the Arab Muslim community. In employing student-centred learning, Shadia stated that: We did a program based on how we express ourselves, that was the transdisciplinary theme, and our planner was about the media and how the media expresses themselves. Now we didn’t delve into too much because the kids were still younger, around Year 4, and I didn’t want them think

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that we live in a racist society and Muslims are targeted all the time. So we did touch base, but they came back with all sorts of responses like miss did you hear about what happened in Syria last night, why didn’t we hear about it on Australian TV and news, and that’s how it became about Islamophobia. They picked it up and turned it into this topic. And there was something on the news that day was irrelevant, and they were asking why are they showing irrelevant things and innocent civilians are not recognised on the news. So basically, they come up with it but I gave them the terminology and told them that it is Islamophobia and that’s how we spoke about it.

Shadia and Farah’s pedagogic approaches are examples of how Muslim teachers in private schools Islamicise the existing curricula and pedagogy by replacing the Eurocentric perspective with an Islamic one, and giving due recognition to Islamic epistemology. This aligns with research that suggests Islamic school teachers infuse the Quran and hadith into the topics in the existing curriculum to integrate Islamic and secular knowledge, while framing their students’ lives within Islamic ethics (Merry, 2007; Niyozov & Plum, 2009; Zine, 2008). While the inclusion of the Muslim perspective in the curriculum has the potential to nurture Muslim student identity, it can also hinder building critical literacy. Islamifying schooling could impede the development of analytical skills and the opportunity to engage in open-minded discussion, exposure to more than one view, and the ability to reflect upon the existential and social questions of the day. Mahdi (student, Qalam College) referenced this when he suggested that being in an Islamic school is ‘like being in a bubble’. Niyozov and Pluim (2009, p. 664) argue that until teachers and students in Islamic schools: Problematize the curricular content and take risks in handling religious and other sensitive issues, including examination of dogmas and doctrines, and are able to distinguish between criticism of religion and religious prejudice, all efforts at culturally relevant, empowering, and meaningful education will be irrelevant and futile no matter who teaches the multicultural student population.

Therefore, incorporating Islamic perspectives into curriculum content and practices at school reflects a form of normativity (Walton et al., 2016), foregrounding one version of knowledge formation. In the case of Qalam College, it was Islamic knowledge formations, as opposed to the

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secular knowledge formations underpinned by Judaeo-Christian heritage in state schools. This goes back to the initial point highlighted in relation to Roula’s comment in the earlier section of this chapter, that it is not only teaching about diversity based on rich culturally diverse curriculum content, but the approach adopted towards culture that is central. This means the knowledge that is facilitated in schools needs to be critically examined in relation to embedded power dynamics and structural inequalities; yet, the forms of knowledge facilitated across both school contexts did not challenge structural inequalities.

Conclusion In conclusion, it is evident from the participants’ narratives that schools do not operate in isolation of culturally racist discourses and stereotypes that emerge as a result of liberal pluralist multiculturalism. The neoliberal curriculum also marginalised forms of knowledge, harnessing Islamophobia by not addressing the needs of AMS in their schooling. The semi-structured interview and focus group responses demonstrated that schools and teachers filtered Islamophobic discourses inside and outside the classroom through the explicit and implicit curriculum. The school— as a private or public apparatus—also played a central role in shaping the way discourses were filtered in the schools by restricting or encouraging Islamophobic discourses to be mobilised in several ways by school staff. The biased pedagogical practices of teachers manifested themselves in relation to AMS in multiple ways. At Carelton PS and Wallcove PS, teachers drew on Islamophobic discourse to enforce a brand of covert assimilation, which could be read as a form of oppression. Under this brand of assimilation, the students were required to forgo visible Muslim practices and denied the opportunity to openly practise their faith, to be constituted within the fabric of the school and not be cast as outsiders. This was evident when the teacher forbade students from praying in the playground without providing them with an alternative space, and when students were encouraged to adopt normative aspects of Australian culture such as sport. Thus, the teachers abused their position of power within the school to facilitate a form of oppression that dictated who belonged and who did not. In this way, their practices reproduced the culturally racist discourses that were discussed in earlier chapters. At Qalam College, due to the homogenous student population and the inclusion of Islamic practices in the organisational structure of the

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school, Islamification of the schooling of AMS was exhorted. In implicit teacher practices, Islamification operated as a form of disciplinary control, evident in the excerpts from the girls’ focus group and Farah’s interview. The Islamification of explicit curriculum operated to resist experiences of discrimination that students faced or witnessed as a result of Islamophobic discourses that had positioned them as deviant members of society.

References Abu El-Haj, T. R. (2010). ‘The beauty of America’: Nationalism, education, and the War on Terror. Harvard Educational Review, 80(2), 242–275. Al-Natour, R. (2011). The constructions of Sydney’s ‘Muslim ghettoes.’ Contemporary Islam, 9(2), 131–147. Amin, A. (2002). Ethnicity and the multicultural city: Living with diversity. Environment and Planning A, 34(6), 959–980. Apple, M. W. (1993). The politics of official knowledge: Does a national curriculum make sense? Teachers College Record, 95(2), 222–241. Corsetti, S. (2017, 16 June). Study of reaction to Bendigo mosque proposal unveils extent of community polarisation. ABC News. Retrieved from https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-16/study-into-bendigo-mosque-rea ction-shows-community-polarisation/8620884 Department of Education NSW. (2018). Multicultural education policy. Retrieved from https://education.nsw.gov.au/policy-library/policies/multic ultural-education-policy?refid=285843 Department of Education NSW. (2019a). About the department. Retrieved from https://education.nsw.gov.au/about-us Department of Education NSW. (2019b). Calendar for cultural diversity, 20th anniversary. Retrieved from https://schoolsequella.det.nsw.edu.au/file/156 ab4df-66ec-4788-8fe1-3cefc23bacd7/1/NSW%20DoE%20Calendar%20for% 20Cultural%20Diversity%202019b.pdf Donohoue-Clyne, I. (2010). The political framework for the establishment of Islamic schools: Conflicts between curriculum and identity. Paper presented at The ATEE Conference. Stockholm, Sweden. Foucault, M. (1982). The subject and power. Critical Inquiry, 8(4), 777–795. Fraser, N. (1997). Justice interruptus: Critical reflections on the ‘postsocialist’ condition. Routledge. Garner, S. (2010). Racisms: An introduction. SAGE. Ghaffar-Kucher, A. (2012). The religification of Pakistani-American youth. American Educational Research Journal, 49(1), 30–52.

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Gole, N. (2011). The public visibility of Islam and European politics of resentment: The minarets-mosques debate. Philosophy & Social Criticism, 37 (4), 383–392. Gunew, S. (2004). Haunted Nations: The colonial dimensions of multiculturalisms. Routledge. Jaffe-Walter, R. (2013). ‘Who would they talk about if we weren’t here?’: Muslim youth, liberal schooling, and the politics of concern. Harvard Educational Review, 83(4), 613–662. Lee, S., Park, E., & Wong, J. H. S. (2017). Racialization, schooling, and becoming American: Asian American experiences. Educational Studies, 53(5), 492–510. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131946.2016.1258360 Maira, S. M. (2009). Missing: Youth, citizenship, and empire after 9/11. Duke University Press. Merry, M. (2007). Culture, identity and Islamic schooling: A philosophical approach. Palgrave MacMillan. Modood, T. (2005). Multicultural politics: Racism, ethnicity and Muslims in Britain. Edinburgh University Press. Niyozov, S., & Pluim, G. (2009). Teachers’ perspectives on the education of Muslim students: A missing voice in Muslim education research. Curriculum Inquiry, 39, 637–677. Roxas, K., Cho, F., Rios, F., Jamie, A., & Becker, K. (2015). Critical cosmopolitan multicultural education (CCME). Multicultural Education Review, 7 (4), 230–248. Said, E. (1978). Orientalism: Western representations of the Orient. Pantheon. Shah, S. (2017). Education of Muslim students in turbulent times. In M. Mac an Ghaill & C. Haywood (Eds.), Muslim students, education and neoliberalism: Schooling a ‘suspect community’ (pp. 17–34). Palgrave Macmillan. Sirin, S., & Fine, M. (2008). Muslim American youth: Understanding hyphenated identities through multiple methods. New York University Press. Vahed, Y., & Vahed, G. (2014). The development impact of Mosque location on land use in Australia: A case study of Masjid al Farooq in Brisbane. Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 34(1), 66–81. Walton, J., Priest, N., Kowal, E., White, F., Fox, B., & Paradies, Y. (2016). Whiteness and national identity: Teacher discourses in Australian primary schools. Race Ethnicity and Education, 2(1), 16. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 13613324.2016.1195357 Wrigley, T. (2018). ‘Knowledge’, curriculum and social justice. The Curriculum Journal, 29(1), 4–24. Zine, J. (2008). Honour and identity: An ethnographic account of Muslim girls in a Canadian Islamic school. Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, 19, 35– 61.

CHAPTER 5

Speaking Back to Power: Minority Muslim Youth Challenging Islamophobia in Schools

Abstract This chapter discusses the ways students experienced Islamophobia both in the wider society and at school, by drawing links to the visible or physical markers of Muslimness that make them distinct. Drawing on the voices of the students, chapter 5 then discusses the ways young Muslims resiliently challenged the dominant discourse and spoke back to power. The students blamed the media, distanced themselves from the dominant discourse, and strongly identified with their religious beliefs to increase solidarity with each other. Aligned with the literature on the new sociology of childhood that supports the actualisation of children’s right to self-determination (as opposed to ‘children becoming adults’, this chapter highlights resistance and agency as exhibited by Muslim youth aged 10–12 years who reflect an awareness of Islamophobia, yet challenge it. Keywords Agency · Resistance · Cultural racism · Muslim youth

Introduction This chapter explains how AMS understand their place within wider Islamophobic discourses. The findings from the students are presented below as follows. First, an explanation of the racialised experiences of © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 Z. Mourad, Neoliberalism and Islamophobia, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18115-3_5

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AMS due to cultural markers of Muslimness is provided. This section focuses on microaggressions as a way to understand the connections between Islamophobia, media discourses and human interactions. Second, narrations of students about state surveillance in schools are detailed. Third, the ways in which hegemonic Islamophobic discourses have been countered by the students is discussed.

Reinforcing Islamophobic Hegemonic Discourses This section explains how Islamophobic discourses are reinforced. It explains how the discrimination experienced by students constitutes a form of cultural racism. In terms of how AMS understand their place in the context of the wider discourses, it is evident from their responses that they see themselves as a racialised group, and they understand that Islamophobic discourses are racist discourses. This response was elicited from the microaggressions the students faced in their day-to-day lives. As a result of the material manifestations of Islamophobia in society through experiences of cultural racism, the AMS occupy a suspect positionality. In this book, Islamophobia has been discussed as a form of cultural racism; that is, it moves beyond biological constructs of racism, working to dismiss and discriminate against a group based on a cultural and religious belief system that is deemed inferior and unworthy in the twenty-first century (Modood, 2005). In this understanding, racialised experiences are not limited to skin tone or pigmentation, but involve a myriad of attributes, including cultural traits such as language, clothing and religious practices. These cultural traits operate as categories of difference that are discursively mediated in wider discourses. They were drawn upon by the students, who embody these visible cultural markers. Several of the boys discussed in the focus groups how they were identified as Muslim through their names and the long beards of their fathers, uncles, friends and older family members (Mourad, 2022). The boys discussed how the visibility of these traits associate them with danger and terrorism. The girls noted the hijab—referenced in the interviews as ‘the scarf’1 —is considered a visible marker of being Muslim, which also inherently associates girls who wear it with terrorism. For both the boys and

1 The scarf refers to the hijab in the vernacular of Australian Lebanese Muslims.

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girls, they discussed how the Arabic language was associated with fear and terror. The Beard: ‘If We Had a Beard, They Think We Are with ISIS’ In Islamophobic discourse, Muslim boys across the world have been portrayed as potential home-grown terrorists and criminals. During the focus group discussions with the boys across the three schools, it was clear that the boys were not obliviant to the discursive constructs because they had experienced material consequences of discrimination. For example, Noah, a Lebanese background Year 6 student from Wallcove PS stated during the focus group that: I sometimes see the news, there’s random people, they tell them they are Muslims and they are terrorists and that’s affecting our society and now they think we are terrorists and we are bad … because people, once they look at someone, they’ll be like don’t go near him because he might have a knife or something. Because they have probably seen the news and when they see a Muslim person in real life, they’ll be like oh don’t go near him.

Ammar, a Year 6 student from Qalam College shared similar views in terms of his suspect status: We were in Kmart, and we bought stuff, there was this lady walking in front of us, she wasn’t Muslim and she was holding bags, she went past and the security guard didn’t even care, but when we went past, he said can I check your bags. And then he checked them and there was nothing in there … And there are other people, who are walking past, and they see you holding a bag, and they say what’s that in your bag, is there a bomb in there?

In these responses, the boys have established an association between being Muslim and danger, terrorism and criminality by making references to carrying objects such as knives and bombs. When the students were asked about how people could identify that they were Muslim, Ahmed, a student from Wallcove PS noted, ‘they do long beards for the men and they wear scarves for the ladies’. Carelton PS student Walid also observed that people can tell he is Muslim from his name: ‘They can’t tell by my first name but they can tell from my last name’.

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These responses reveal that the boys understand they occupy a suspect positionality due to embodying cultural makers by which identify them as Muslim. The primary markers of visibility that deem the boys dangerous were the beard as explained by Ahmed (Wallcove PS, Year 6) and their names (Walid, student, Carelton PS). However, these cultural traits do not openly identify Muslim visibility for the young boys due to their age, as they do not yet have beards because they are primary school students, and names are only revealed through verbal forms of communication; thus, not always visible. Mahdi, a Year 6 student from Qalam College suggested it was more difficult for girls who wear the hijab because it is more obvious: ‘Yeah it’s a lot harder for girls, because we don’t wear scarves and no one can detect us, but girls, you can tell straight away’. In Mahdi’s comment, he used the term ‘detect’, which generally means to expose or reveal something that is hidden, in this case for the boys, their Muslimness is concealed due to their age. However, this was not the case for the girls who wear the hijab. The Hijab: ‘Her Scarf is a Garbage Bag Wrapped Around Her Head’ In a recent report on Islamophobia in Australia (Briskman, Iner, Krayem, Latham, Matthews, Pearson and Zayied, 2017), women, especially those with Islamic head covering (79.6% of the female victims), were found to be the main targets of Islamophobia. Following terrorist attacks, the visibility of the ‘veiled’ Muslim woman in the public space has increased, making her more vulnerable to Islamophobic attacks (Allen, 2010; Githens-Mazer & Lambert, 2010; Meer & Modood, 2010; Tyrer & Ahmad, 2006; Zebiri, 2011). The hijab was described by both the students as an ‘Islamic flag’. According to this description, for Muslim women who wear the hijab, it is akin to carrying a flag signalling Muslim identity. Muslim women wearing the hijab have long been the main targets of discrimination, and for young girls who participated in this study, the hijab was depicted as a threat. Sarah, a Lebanese background Year 5 student from Qalam College noted that: My mum’s friend, she was in the car, and I think it was around Christmas, she was in the car and they stopped at a traffic light, and there were two cars next to each other. Her window was open and now there was this other guy that was sitting in the car, and then he started like swearing at

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her, and telling her that you’re like a terrorist and that. She put up her window.

In this excerpt, the student’s mother’s friend was the target of verbal harassment because of the hijab. Sarah specifically indicated that it was during Christmas, a Christian religious and/or cultural celebration. By drawing links between Christmas, the hijab and verbal harassment, it could be argued that Sarah sees this harassment as an uninviting gesture for her presence in Australia. In this instance, Sarah’s reference is being made to the ‘hidden radical’ evident through the use of the term ‘terrorist’. Key elements in widely accepted definitions of the term ‘terrorist’ include: (1) intentional violence, (2) that violence is used to spread fear in a wider audience and (3) political motivation (Ender & Sandler, as cited in Phillips, 2015, p.227). The ‘hidden radical’ is the visible female Muslim who embodies these traits and ‘hides’ them under her hijab and seeks to damage the fabric of society due to her beliefs. In the same focus group at Qalam College, two students reveal the relationship between being seen as a threat and belonging: Iman: It feels like we are not welcomed, as if they don’t want us here. It feels as though we are not welcomed and not allowed to be here, there’s something wrong with us, and as if they don’t want us to be there. Sarah: They tell you to go back to your own country. This is our country. We were born here like they were born here.

For both Iman and Sarah who were born in Australia, this is their country. However, the references they are making about being born in Australia and being Australian are expressed as an assertion of a legal entitlement, but perhaps not as a statement of identity. This means that despite having legal citizenship, the students did not have access to substantive citizenship, which includes the ability to exercise the rights of legal citizenship. The citizenship rights of the students were undermined because they were considered outside the realm of allegiance to the state and this is an important facet of citizenship. One of the reasons they may have been constructed outside a realm of allegiance could have been because of their visible Muslim identity. Most of the students participating in the study were born in Australia, except for a few students who were born in Syria, Iraq and Jordan. However, during

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the focus group discussions, the students constructed themselves outside the commonsense understandings of being Australian by suggesting that Anglo-background individuals were real Australians, despite the students being born in Australian or obtaining citizenship. This was evident in comments made by Sahar, a Year 6 student from Carelton PS: Sahar: And there is also a girl, she is an Aussie. Hana: Miss, every time she gets into a fight with someone, she calls them ISIS or terrorist, especially if they are Muslim. She got into a fight with this girl, and she said her scarf is a garbage bag wrapped around her head.

This commonsense understanding of an Australian as an individual with Anglo-heritage reflects multicultural discourses2 that stipulate those who are not Anglo, evident through visible cultural markers of Muslimness, occupy a marginal position in society in the sense that they do not constitute part of the core or dominant culture of their multicultural society as explained in Chapter 3. The references made to the hijab not only position the women and girls as marginal in society because they do not meet the visible standards of commonsense understandings of being Australian, the hijab was also depicted as a degrading form of clothing. For example, Abir, a Year 5 student from Qalam College commented that: One of my aunties, she was in the train, and then like a woman dropped juice on the floor, and then she just told all the people, just get the blanket that is on her head and take it off … so like they just judge you.

The girls commented that the hijab represented modesty, identity and religious piety and respect for their faith. Despite being meaningful to the girls, the train passenger exposed her contempt for these qualities by

2 This refers to what has been explained in Chapter 3 about multiculturalism as a national identity where ‘we are an Anglo-Celtic society with a number of diverse non-Anglo cultures that we strive to “manage”’ rather than being ‘an Anglo-Celtic multicultural society because we have been transformed by the existing diversity of cultures’ (Hage, 2002, pp. 428–429). This means that in the conception of Australian multiculturalism, Anglo privilege has been given a prominent place within the conception of multiculturalism.

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positioning the hijab as a form of degrading clothing akin to an unhygienic mop with which Muslim girls cover their hair. Suggesting that Muslims were unhygienic reflects how the train passenger attempted to ‘dominate, criticize, or dehumanize members of out-groups’ (Gudykunst et al., 2003, p. 146), implying the subordinate positionality of Muslims and the religion of Islam, as explained in Chapter 2. As stated above, Hana, a Year 6 student from Carelton PS also shared a similar narrative through which the hijab was compared to a garbage bag, but in this instance, it was by a peer at school. Hana suggested the scarf was compared to a ‘garbage bag wrapped around her head’. In both experiences, the hijab operates as a visible marker and identifier of Muslimness that reflects a form of degradation and dehumanisation, in addition to cultural threat believed to be a physical manifestation of a primitive religion that disturbs the liberal fabric of Australian society. It brings relations of domination and subordination between the non-Muslim and visible Muslim, which lurk beneath the surface, to the fore. Language: ‘They Start to Say Allahu Akbar and Start Bombing up Stuff’ In the focus groups, the Arabic language as the students’ background language was also a dimension discussed to understand how students perceive their heritage language, given that it has been inextricably tied to terrorism (Hodges, 2019; Lo Bianco, 2009). At the time of when the research was being conducted, there was significant discursive media controversy about an ad for a telecommunications company that had Arabic writing placed in a south west Sydney shopping mall, which was also an area of Sydney highly populated with individuals of Arab background. When students were asked about their opinions in regard to the discursive controversy, the students recognised the conflation of the Arabic language with terrorism in public discourse. In response to the explanation of the ad, Sarah, a Year 6 student from Qalam College noted: That’s where the racism comes from. They don’t like us Muslims. They wouldn’t mind if it had Chinese writing … they don’t say anything if it’s Chinese … because that’s how they write in our Holy Quran.

Mariam, a student from the same focus group, further stated:

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There are some people that do some Arabic writing because they are Arabic but they are Christian. But they are not Muslim … if you speak Arabic they think you are Muslim straight away, so you say something in Arabic or you think something in Arabic and they judge.

Mahdi, a Year 6 student from Qalam College, in response to the description of the discourse about the ad commented: Because it is in Arabic they might of thought that they wrote something bad, like it might say we are going to kill you. Some people they don’t normally hear Arabic. Like when we say Allahu Akbar, they might think we are saying something bad but all we are saying is God is Great. Out loud, they are going to think we are terrorists.

Despite the phrase being part of every practising Muslim’s daily vernacular, and is uttered by the pious and the not-so-pious, it is evident that the students are aware of the discourses that conflate the Arabic phrase with terrorism. Further, although Arabic is also the language of Arab Christians, its association with Islam and Muslims has given it violent connotations, and in this instance, it has also contributed to the subordinate positionality of the students. In the focus groups, students were also asked about racist interactions that have occurred at school, either experienced by them or interactions they have witnessed. During these discussions, Year 6 student Sahar, from Carelton PS mentioned that the phrase ‘Allahu Akbar’, literally meaning ‘God is the greatest’, was often said to Muslim students by other students to tease them: ‘They always say Allahu akbar to tease us’. Hana, a student from Carelton PS built on this point by indicating that: In the video, people start twerking and they start to say Allahu Akbar and start bombing up stuff … he just plays it, so every time he walks past one of us he says Allahu akbar … or he says there is a bomb behind you.

Twerking may have several meanings but can be broadly known to be a sexually provocative dance move undertaken mainly by females. In this excerpt, the students have linked twerking to the Arabic language. However, the emphasis in this excerpt is between the Arabic language and violence because the student emphasised associations between the bomb and Allahu Akbar, rather than the provocative dance move.

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It is evident from these excerpts that the discursive constructs of the Arabic language as the language of terrorism are mobilised at the microlevel and used to associate those who speak the language with violence. It is also clear that the students and their peers at school were not oblivious to Islamophobic discourses which operated as a form of cultural racism (Modood, 2005). The narrations of the experiences of AMS demonstrated that they understand they are a racialised group due to the cultural and physical traits that visibly identity them as Muslim. In the case of the girls, this is the hijab, and for the boys, this is a beard or their names and for both, the Arabic language. Interestingly, several students from the public schools (Sahar, Hana and Noah, all in Year 6) commented early in the discussion that they do not speak Arabic. But although the boys were young and do not embody the physical or visible markers of being Muslim such as beards, it is their presence with an individual who embodies these traits, that they understand these are the markers of being Muslim that position them as suspect or dangerous. This was also the case when they were in the presence of females who wore the hijab. Sahar, a Year 6 student from Carelton PS further noted that her peers knew she was Muslim because she ‘took days of school in Ramadan’, Eid and other Islamic celebrations. Based on their experiences, the students see themselves as a racialised group because they have not been afforded the privileges of appearing as having Angloheritage; due to this, they occupy a subordinate positionality due to the culturally racist discourses to which they have been subjected. This positionality has social impacts for the students, as they believe they will be subjected to unfair treatment because of their status in society (Mourad, 2022). The students were asked about their future aspirations during the focus groups, and across all three schools, many of the students indicated that they had future career plans and high aspirations. This concurs with wider research showing that Muslim students ‘aim high’ (Abbas, 2011; Shah et al., 2010). The jobs they aspire to hold included being a doctor, lawyer, business woman, fashion designer, carpenter, policeman, plumber and teacher. Across all three schools, most students mentioned they were able to pursue their career aspirations because they believed the multicultural society in Australia gives everyone a fair go. This was the case especially for the boys, because as mentioned above by Mahdi, their suspect status was ‘harder to detect’ (Mahdi, Year 6, student, Qalam College). However,

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while discussing future aspirations, Sahar suggested that due to the status of Muslims in society, there are restrictions for the potential aspirations: Zainab: Do you see yourselves working in these jobs when you are older? Walid: Yes. Sahar: Yeh its multicultural so we can. Hana: I hope so. Sahar: It kind of depends to be honest. Hana: Yeh because people think we are terrorists. Sahar: I’m not sure to be honest but I feel like people are scared of us … because in today’s society, people only focus on the media, and the media only shows negative things and that is what people want to see and that is what people believe, that is what they think Muslims are like. … Hana: Yeh they show pictures of Muslims being terrorists. Walid: Yeh there this video on YouTube of a Muslim, he throws bombs in cars and the title was ‘Muslims…’

In this discussion between the students, Sahar and Hana are concerned that status will be an obstacle for them in gaining employment. While Walid first commented that he believes he is able to reach his career aspirations, his thinking shifted as a result of the discussion with his peers. This is evident in the last comment above, when Walid demonstrated the ways in which discursive constructs of the threatening Muslim are mobilised, by providing YouTube as an example of a mediascape (Appadurai, 1990) that produces and mobilises imagery. In brief, this section has demonstrated that the students had experienced Islamophobic discourses and the material impacts of media discourses through microaggressions in their day-to-day lives. This produced forms of cultural racism, which was brought to the fore in their social life and schooling. Cultural racism operated as a form of degradation, where they were constructed as threats to the social fabric of the state and inferior members of society. Their experiences demonstrate the connections between Islamophobia, media discourses and human interactions.

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‘We Want to See in Australia … Every Single Muslim School … What They Are Teaching Them’ The students were concerned that due to their status in society, they were imbricated in mechanisms of surveillance and this operated as a form of disciplinary power. According to Haggerty (2006) managing and containing a population requires surveillance that provides the knowledge to ‘see’ it and regulate it into governable units. The surveillance gaze allows for a population to be known, which is a prerequisite for it to become a site of action: identifying the ‘risks’ that need to be neutralised; the unacceptable, abnormal behaviours and ideas that need to be disciplined by way of extending social norms to mould ideas and behaviours (Fiske, as cited in Qurashi, 2018, p. 3). As ISAs, schools have been considered mediums of surveillance and this was highlighted in the focus group at Qalam College. Year 6 student Abir, with some emotion, commented that she had seen something on television about Islamic schools being monitored to see what Muslim students are taught: I saw this woman, I think it was the day when they were voting for the prime minister or something, I saw this lady, anyways it was on the news, she said that we want to see in Australia, every single Muslim school, to see what they are teaching them, to see what they are showing them, why they are saying these to them. We don’t want children to risk their lives and come up with being Muslims and growing up being Muslims when they should follow our own religion of being Australian. So they want to change our religion and turn into them, when actually, we never done anything to them.

In this comment, Abir homed in on two Islamophobic discourses. The first suggests that Islamic schools are breeding grounds for terrorists, as Muslims were constructed as the suspect other. The surveillance gaze of the state or ‘politicians’ was evident in her comment when she said that ‘we want to see what they are teaching them … showing them’ (Abir, student, Qalam College). The second construct highlighted in her comment is assimilationist discourses that suggest Muslims are deviant-to-Australia’s Anglo values. This was emphasised when Abir said ‘change’. In combining these discourses—that is, the suspect Muslim and the deviant-to-Australia Muslim—surveillance operates as a form of disciplinary control. First, the schools would be surveilled to know what was

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taught, and second, alternative commonsense Australian views would be adopted though a process of normalisation. The concept of surveillance was not limited to the private school. During the boys’ focus group at Wallcove PS, when asked about what they liked and did not like about the school, Year 6 student Noah indicated that the security cameras installed by the principal, which were placed around the playground, was an aspect of his school with which he was not comfortable: I hate the fact that we can’t bring our own balls to school because I use to like shooting hoops and I have a good ball at home, over there, but now they replaced it with cameras, which they don’t even need for the school ... Mrs Winston put them last year ... if there’s a fight in the playground, she can know who started it.

Noah did not indicate that the cameras had an association with being Muslim; however, he did indicate that they were there because of ‘fights’ that may occur in the playground. According to Faten (teacher, Wallcove PS), 80% of the students at Wallcove PS are Muslim, and dominant discourses stipulate the Arabs and Muslims are inherently violent (Carr & Haynes, 2015). Nonetheless, the students are aware they are being watched while in the playground. Although CCTV in Australian schools is not a new phenomenon, this is problematic because it creates an atmosphere of suspicion in the school environment. The concept of surveillance highlighted by Noah can be understood using Foucault’s panopticon theory of surveillance and disciplinary control, in which power is made invisible and the objects of power are made visible (Mills, 2003). In the case of schooling, the objects of power are the students. For Noah, he plays both the role of someone who is in power and that of someone who is powerless. The ‘oppressor’ (Mills, 2003)—that is, Mrs Winston—may well be absent, but Noah has internalised the behavioural code outlined by the principal and will behave as though he is constantly being watched, even though he did not suggest that the cameras were placed specifically to monitor the behaviour of Muslim students.

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Challenging Hegemonic Discourses The above sections have demonstrated how Islamophobic discourse manifests as a form of cultural racism at the micro-level. This section explains the different ways in which the students discursively countered hegemonic discourses in the media through distancing and solidarity. ‘It’s All the media’s Fault’ There is a substantive body of the literature connecting Western media representations of Islam and Muslims to negative constructs. In Australia, surveys have revealed that both Muslims and non-Muslims are of the view that Muslims are unfairly represented in media (El-Matrah & Dimopoulos, 2008). During the focus groups, students blamed media representations for manufacturing incorrect information about their communities and the unfair treatment and discrimination they have faced and/or witnessed. Sarah, a Year 6 student from Qalam College, in response to the mentioning of the Paris attacks in November 2015 that occurred shortly before the interviews were conducted, commented: I think the media are trying to, because of that [the attack] … the people have more bad things about us. Like they started thinking more bad stuff about us, which is all the media’s fault, which is what I personally believe … I actually blame the media for all of this … ISIS is wrong, we all believe that ISIS is wrong but the media play a massive role in it by making people think bad about all Muslims when actually the majority of the Muslims are all good people, they want peace like other people do, and a very small amount of people want a bad life … Also, an example of the media reacting to this and making it such a big problem. In 2012 I think, when we were here for Ashura,3 in the mosque, and then that man came with a bag and apparently he had a bomb, he said bomb, and then everyone started running out. Before the police even got here, Seven News was already here reporting it. So, the media does play a big role and does put bad things into people’s heads to believe it.

3 Ashura is an annual religious commemoration of the Imam Hussein who is the grandson of Prophet Muhammad, commemorated primarily by Shia Muslims.

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Sarah is aware that the media manufactures incorrect information about Muslims and positions her in such a way that she defends her faith. This is evident in her noting that only a fraction of Muslims are ‘bad’, while the majority of Muslims are ‘good people’. The technique used to do this was highlighted by Sarah, showing her awareness of how the media overstates and magnifies news stories about Muslims to shape public opinion. In the same focus group, Abir noted that: You know when like, let’s say ISIS attack Syria or something … they say on the news they were Lebanese, they were Muslim, they were this, they were that. But how do they know? And then when they find out on the news it was ISIS, they don’t say it on the news, oh no, it was ISIS, they say it’s Muslims, and then people think it’s Muslims, and then they have a bad idea of Muslims and it’s not actually Muslims.

The students not only blamed the media for constructing false information about Muslims by associating them with terrorism and danger, they also believed that Muslims are unfairly targeted by the media in comparison with other minorities or religious groups. For example, in a discussion at Carelton PS about Muslims in the media, including social media, the students commented: Aref: I notice that on some news, like for example nine news, umm, if someone dies or someone shoots them, they would always say it is a Muslim first. Then later they say nah it’s another religion … but they don’t say the name of it if it’s another religion. Like if it is Vietnamese, they wouldn’t say it is Vietnamese. But if it is a Muslim, they straight away keep saying it’s a Muslim Muslim Muslim. Sahar: … if some place was to get bombed, they would go terrorist, Muslims, Muslims. Aref: And when you think of terrorists, you would straight away think of Muslims. Yasser: Miss, did you hear about the thing that happened at Bankstown? How they didn’t let anyone in or out apparently because there was a robber and they straight away assumed that it was Muslims that were doing everything. Zainab: Why do you think they always assume that it is Muslims? Aref: Because they probably watch … they probably see the wars, and they say these things.

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Sahar: Or they can tell from the clothes. They wear the things they wear when they go to the mosque like the hat. Yasser: Maybe they think those are the clothes you wear to cover your identity.

In this exchange, the students discuss the ways that the media draws on cultural traits of being Muslim, such as clothing/hat worn to a mosque, to explain how the media manufactures constructs of the Muslim terrorist. Yasser also adds that acts of violence are attributed to Muslims by default, even though they may not be associated with such acts. The responses of the students suggest that the media discursively positions Muslims as terrorists, and it is the media who is responsible for manufacturing these constructs. Due to the microaggressions experienced by the students as a result of the public backlash of such discourses, they distance themselves from the discourses and also challenge them by standing in solidarity with each other within global Muslim ummah.4 ‘We aren’t like What the Media Says, We Are Very Much the Opposite’ While the above section demonstrated how the students blame the media for manufacturing Islamophobic discourses, this section explains how they distance themselves from the Islamophobic discursive constructions. Distancing and alienation are considered to be reactions to discourses that depict all Muslims as terrorists (Rousseau & Jamil, 2010). Individuals who employ distancing strategies do so through openly stressing that terrorists, or in the comments of the students, ISIS, are different from most Muslims, including themselves. In an exchange during the boys’ focus group at Qalam College, the students commented: Mahmoud: They believe too much what they hear on the news and they think it’s us. Mahdi: They think all Muslims are just one religion, they don’t think anything else. Jaafar: And they think ISIS are Muslims and like I don’t think they are Muslims because they kill.

4 Ummah is a concept in Islam that expresses the unit and theoretical equality of Muslims from diverse cultural and geographical settings.

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Mahmoud: They say things like ‘Allahu Akbar’, we done it, we are going to go heaven now, but they are not really going to go heaven they are going to go to hell.

Mahmoud and Jaafar distanced themselves from constructs that depict Muslims as a monolithic group to promote a counter discourse of intragroup heterogeneity, with ‘true’ Muslims at one end of the spectrum and ISIS at the opposite end. In Carelton PS, Sahar also articulates that real Muslims are different to the media representations of Muslims by suggesting that they are ‘opposites’: Sahar: If you become friends with someone who isn’t Muslim, they would get to know you, and they will realise that we aren’t like what the media says, we are very much the opposite. Yasser: We can show people that Muslims aren’t as bad as they think and they can become your friends, and then maybe they would even become Muslim and they can see that we [are] actually good.

At Qalam College, Sarah also reinforced the notion that Muslims are ‘good people’ who ‘want peace’: ISIS is wrong, we all believe that ISIS is wrong but the media play a massive role in it by making people think bad about all Muslims when actually the majority of the Muslims are all good people, they want peace like other people do, and a very small amount of people want a bad life’.

In these excerpts, the students discursively distance themselves from ISIS and media constructs about Muslims. The students emphasised that what it means to be made Muslim, is different from the reality of Muslims. They did not consent to the structural domination of the discourses and moved towards a form of emancipation. This reflects that the students had the capacity to take up agency because they questioned the discourses and discussed them with other students, embodying tenets of the new sociology of childhood (Cook-Sather, 2006), but not all. Agency has been defined by James et al. (1998) as an action of choice that can lead to change. Aligned with this definition, their agency operated mainly at the micro-level. The new sociology of childhood provides new understandings of childhood by advocating that children are social actors who are influenced by and who use their agency to influence organisational practices that form structures within schools. There was no evidence that their

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agency extended to influencing meso and macro processes in terms of structure of schools or hegemonic discourses. Distancing was not the only strategy employed to counter hegemonic discourses. The students also expressed their solidarity with other Muslims to refute their stigmatised status. ‘Muslims Defend Themselves in a Good Way, They Defend not just Them, They Defend Their Whole Religion’ Research has suggested that when members of a social group are being demonised, a coping mechanism they employ to counter the demonised status is strong identification with that group’s beliefs (Rousseau & Jamil, 2010). For Muslims in the face of the WOT, this has been evident in several studies (Nagra, 2011; Rousseau & Jamil, 2010). Identification with a group’s beliefs increases the sense of solidarity among members of the group (Rousseau & Jamil, 2010) and is one of the ways Muslims who face discrimination deal with their stigmatised status (McDonald, 2011; Rousseau & Jamil, 2010). Across the focus groups, all the student participants affirmed their sense of commitment to Islam had been strengthened in response to media discourses associated with the WOT. The AMS globalised their local predicaments through the association with a global Muslim ummah and its teachings of Islam to strengthen their Muslim identity. Iman, a Year 6 student from Qalam College, in response to a focus group question about the strengths of Muslims, commented: They actually defend their religion, they actually defend it in a good way, so they care about it. The good thing is that they care, so on the news, people just say this is this about Muslims and they get people to talk of why they are doing it, why they are doing this this this. Now the Muslims actually care so they defend themselves in a good way, they defend not just them, they defend their whole religion. So actually, they are defending us too.

Here, Iman is stating that for Muslims, ‘they defend their whole religion’, rejecting an individualised status and drawing on collective action by associating with a global Muslim ummah as a form of solidarity. She further states that ‘they are defending us too’, reinforcing her belonging to an ummah because she had been cast as an outsider in her country.

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In the first section of this chapter, it was made evident that the students were constructed as outsiders to the fabric of Australian society because they embodied cultural markers of Muslimness. As a result, their religious beliefs can be seen as an alternative regime of truth, which they have turned to as a form of comfort from hegemonic discourses that cast them as outsiders, because it gives them a sense of belonging. Turning to religion also counters hegemonic discourses because it demonstrates that the students have not accepted their suspect status as normative; they still resist this construct, which has given them a subordinate positionality in society. It also demonstrates that the countering of one regime of truth and relying on another has the potential to lead to a better understanding of an individual’s religious identity and beliefs. In this way, othering does not always lead to feelings of oppression by marginalised groups, it can also lead to a better understanding of the self. This turn to religion as a regime of truth and intragroup solidarity to counter hegemonic discourses can be facilitated when the students are in contexts with a majority Muslim population; that is, where those who they identify with have a physical presence. ‘There Are Other Kids that Are the Same Religion and Same Background as Us’ The students commented that they were comforted by being in schools where the majority population was Muslim because they believed if they went to a school where the majority were not Muslim, they may be ‘teased’ for being Muslim or called a terrorist by other students. Several studies have indicated that religious minority groups often face challenging incidents at school because of their religious status (Blumenfeld, 2006; Dupper et al., 2015; Kuusisto, 2010). In Australia, research suggests that racism and religious intolerance remain widespread in both primary and secondary schools, with discrimination coming from both students and teachers (Grieve, 2019). One-third of students had been subjected to racism from other students in Victoria and NSW, and nearly half of the students surveyed said they had seen teachers racially discriminating against other students (Grieve, 2019). Despite all the boys stating they had been to a public school before coming to Qalam College, and had not experienced discrimination from other students, in response to a question about the differences between private and public schools, the boys at Qalam College commented that:

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Jaafar: The teachers there are so kind and we experience new religions and stuff and we get new friends who are not Muslims. Mahdi: Yeh it is more multicultural … say there’s a bubble, you can’t stay in the bubble of your religion and everyone out of the bubble is bad … my old school had Arabic but not Islamic. Jaafar: Me too. But every Wednesday you would go to scripture and learn about your religion. So, there were multiple religions, and they would look at your religion and send you to Arabic or Islamic or Greek and stuff. … Ammar: Yeh and at public schools, you get bullied a lot. Mahdi: Like they would call you a terrorist.

While the boys had previously stated that they enjoyed being at a private school because they learn about their religion and this strengthened their Muslim identity, in this excerpt, they are commenting that being in a public school is advantageous because it can promote social cohesion in the face of discriminatory rhetoric. Attending a private school has been associated with ‘being in a bubble’, in which students are shielded from peers who have different faiths or backgrounds. There are several studies that have suggested that racially diverse schools have benefits for all students in the domain of academic achievement and building connections with others (Braddock & Gonzalez, 2010; Goldsmith, 2010; Wells et al., 2009; Wells et al., 2009). Mahdi and Jaafar yearned to build relationships and connections with students from different cultural backgrounds and the public school setting, as a micropublic (Amin, 2002, p. 959) of society, reflected this. Yet, at Wallcove PS, the boys explained that they are comforted by being around Muslim students at school because having a high population of Muslims may prevent them from being bullied for being Muslim: Zainab: And do you think it’s hard to be Arabic and Muslim at this school? Sami: No Noah: Because its multicultural this school Sami: And there are other kids that are the same religion and same background as us. Ahmed: They don’t even have to be the same language and country, but they are still Muslims.

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Sami: If you are the only person in the school, people will bully you, but once in a group they won’t bully you. Zainab: Why would they bully you if you are the only person in the school? Noah: Because they think you’re weak and you have no body to help us so people say let’s go tease this small guy he has no friends. Zainab: But why would they tease you? Noah: Because of our religion.

This excerpt reflects the discursive shift from ethnicity to religion as a form of cultural othering (Mac an Ghaill & Haywood, 2017). The students emphasise that it is their visible traits of Muslimness that subjected them to bullying, rather than their ethnicity or ‘Arabness’. As explained in Chapter 3, prior to anti-Muslim sentiment that was amplified after September 11, anti-Arab sentiment occupied discourse in the Australian context (Poynting & Mason, 2007). As a result, the boys are comforted by being among other Muslims because their subordinate suspect status becomes diffused. Being around other Muslim students gives them a sense of solidarity and also decreases the otherness they experience. It makes them less ‘different’. Therefore, the excerpt also demonstrates that the school the students attend, and the demographic of the student population, also influences experiences of discrimination.

Conclusion In conclusion, the discussions with students demonstrate that they have experienced the material impacts of Islamophobia, both at school and in wider society, through experiences of cultural racism (Modood, 2005) due to embodying visible cultural markers of being Muslim. This manifested through microaggressions in their day-to-day lives. Based on the dominant discourse, the terms and their associated meanings in relation to Muslims that the students primarily referred to, were ‘ISIS’ and ‘terrorists’. Due to these references through narrations of the AMS, it is evident that the students understand their positionality as being that of the ‘suspect other’ in society, and this operated as a mediated discourse, evident in the use of terms such as ‘detected’ for the boys (Mahdi, student, Qalam college). For the girls, it was the hidden radical (Saeed, 2016). They built on this point to explain that they have been or will be treated unfairly. The

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students indicated that they may not be able to gain employment in the future; yet, they are aware they have been incorporated into securitised discourses and are subjected to institutionalised discrimination through surveillance. Although most of the students were native-born Australians, they did not see themselves as part of the fabric of society. They believed they lived in a multicultural society that positions individuals of Anglo-heritage as the dominant group, and Muslims occupy a subordinate positionality in this hierarchy as a group in society that needs to be managed. This management took the form of surveillance at schools. At the public school, it was through the management of the prayer group, and at Qalam College, it was through suggestions from politicians to monitor what occurs in Islamic schools. Surveillance operated as a form of power domination to a subordinate minority whose beliefs were constructed as threatening to the state, and as such, surveillance operated as a form of disciplinary power to assimilate the students into the ‘correct’ model of being Australian through rejecting their deviant beliefs and adopting the customs of individuals of Anglo-heritage. Thus, due to their positionality of the suspect other, which was constructed through experiences of Islamophobia they have encountered in their local communities, the students believed they were undermined as Australian citizens and occupied a subordinate position. In terms of their place, the students believed their loyalty to Australia was questioned because they embodied cultural traits of Muslimness that positioned them as deviant. The students were denied the recognition of being a part of a people who constitute a nation. While they reflected that they aspire to be responsible citizens, it was evident that they were afforded fewer rights than other citizens due to their suspect positionality. In terms of the relationship between wider discourses and schooling experiences for young AMS, the dominant discourses were filtered through to the school setting in multiple ways. At Wallcove PS, disciplinary control though surveillance was operating in the school setting reflecting a form of racialised governmentality that aimed to discipline the behaviour of AMS so they become self-regulating individuals. The discourses were also filtered among the students, whereby the students at Carelton PS indicated they have been ‘teased and bullied’ for being associated with ISIS and terrorism, which were terms mobilised by students and their peers from adopted hegemonic Islamophobic discourses. Thus,

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the hegemonic functions of the discourses were prevalent through institutionalised forms of domination over AMS, through forms of surveillance at the meso level and constructing unequal power relations between students themselves at the micro-level. However, despite the prevalence of hegemonic discourses at the schools, as stated in several parts of this book, hegemony and power domination are never complete. This means that while Islamophobic discourses have hegemonic functions when they create commonsense understandings of Muslims and materially shape their lives through forms of cultural racism, there is still space in this process for resistance to hegemony. This was evident in the strategies the students had employed to discursively counter hegemonic discourses. For example, AMS have affirmed their Muslim identity by referring to Islam, its teachings and an ummah as a regime of truth, and recognised their belonging to a global Muslim ummah to cope with cultural racism and reclaim their faith in this turbulent sociopolitical context. They also distanced themselves from the dominant discourse by emphasising that they are ‘respectful Muslims who want to peace’ (Sarah, student, Qalam College). In this sense, because they have experienced forms of cultural discrimination, they counter the regime of truth that has constructed the discourses that position them as suspect and other, and turn to a regime of truth of a global Islamic ummah to reaffirm their belonging, and schools are central sites in which this process occurred.

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CHAPTER 6

Conclusions

Abstract Chapter 6 concludes the book. This chapter summarises the ways in which the wider structural dynamics have material impacts on the lives of the students at the micro-level. While neoliberalism has infiltrated all aspects of life, and Islamophobia as a dominant discourse has negatively impacted the lives of students, they still worked with their limited agency to challenge the discourses that construct them as inferior in society. Since their migration in large waves since their 1980s, despite working hard, aiming high and striving for a better life, Muslims have been a disadvantaged group in society, and this pattern continues to repeat itself across generations due to wider structural factors. Thus, to enhance the schooling of Muslim students, this chapter provides recommendations for future research and policy, and a reflection to be considered for all the social-agnostic teachers who attribute Muslim student disconnection from schooling to their cognitive, emotional and behavioural deficits. Keywords Disadvantage · Structural racism · Schooling of Muslim youth

The dynamics and dimensions that shaped the experiences of the students operated at the structural macro and meso levels and filtered their way through to micro-level schooling experiences of AMS. The dynamics were © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 Z. Mourad, Neoliberalism and Islamophobia, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18115-3_6

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the wider forces explored; namely, Islamophobia and neoliberalism. The dimensions were gender, religion, and language. At the macro and meso levels, state and media apparatus, underpinned by capitalist neoliberal expansionism, constructed culturally racist gendered, ethnic and religious discourses of the deviant, disloyal and threatening Muslim. The hegemonic functions of these discourses positioned Muslims in a culturally subordinate status. At the micro-level, the discourses were mobilised in different ways by teachers in public schools. They were harnessed, resisted and reproduced, operating as a form of intertextuality (Fairclough, 1992). Fairclough (1992, p. 84) argues that properties of texts means they have ‘snatches’ of other texts, which can be merged, assimilated, contradicted or echoed. At the public schools, which are explicitly underpinned by a secular framework, the ways culturally racist discourses were harnessed was evident in the echoing of discursive constructs of the potentially deviant, disloyal and threatening AMS. Examples include when a teacher banned praying in the playground, and when the school failed to recognise Eid as an important event to its student population, while exhorting the entire school population to actively participate in the school Christmas celebrations. The approaches to diversity and difference to promote social cohesion between Muslim and non-Muslim students also demonstrated that the discourses of liberal pluralist multiculturalism at the macro-level were echoed at the micro-level. Conversely, discourses were resisted in the public schools when Roula questioned explicit and implicit forms of curriculum and teaching that were not considered inclusive because they did not cater to AMS. At Qalam College, the ways the school and teachers sought to resist the discourses was through Islamicising implicit and explicit forms of curriculum delivery. In doing so, they gave the students an alternative form of power to draw on, not the state secular regime that had constructed them as deviant, rather, a transnational Islamic ‘higher power’; that is, God or Allah. In other words, an alternative truth proposed by the school displaced mainstream secular power by calling upon a much greater, more authoritative and omnipresent, all-knowing divine power. In implicit and explicit forms of curriculum delivery, the teachers mobilised discourses of Islamic beliefs that brought into sharp focus the narratives of oppression, and in doing so, were disrupting forms of injustice and tyranny. Their role in discursively facilitating this knowledge reflects the ways power relations emerge from a centralised agency

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and are also diffused into the very grains of individuals (Foucault, 1982). While teachers believed this higher power would help the students build a strong Muslim identity and resist the discourses, they were not addressing the unequal power relations of the state/secular regime of truth in society that positioned them as subordinate, because this form of religious education did not promote critical literacy and openness. Thus, they were not challenging structural forms of inequality, they merely maintained the status quo. While there are many discursive constructs of Muslims in society, some had more marginalising effects on the experiences of AMS students. For example, gendered forms of Islamophobia were central to the students because AMS had noticed forms of discrimination as a result of gendered cultural markers of Muslimness, such as the hijab or the beard. In addition to gender, discursive constructs of the Arabic language as the language of terrorism was also poignant to all students. The findings of this research concur with the findings of other research that has explored the dynamics of Islamophobia and neoliberalism (Shain, 2011; Welply, 2015). The students experienced forms of racism within the school context due to their Muslimness, and this was shaped by wider structural discourses that permeated their way into schools through implicit and explicit forms of curriculum. This study makes three significant contributions to the body of the literature on the schooling of AMS. First, it demonstrates that the inequality and inequity the students face is structural; not structural in the Marxist sense, but structural in the discursive sense. Second, it demonstrates that the structural inequities and experiences of racism that the students suffer at a secondary level were also prevalent within the schooling for AMS at the primary school level. Third, it provides a localised contribution to the available literature on the schooling of Muslim students by grounding the phenomenon of the study in the Australian context. These findings emerged from theoretical and methodological frameworks, and methods, that have guided and been employed in the research.

Recommendations for Future Research The findings of this research have created opportunities for future research to build a deeper understanding of the schooling experiences of AMS within the context of neoliberalism and Islamophobia. There are

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two recommendations suggested for future research. The first recommendation is a mixed method study, including both qualitative and quantitative methods, to explore whether the phenomena examined in this study is overarching or similar in a larger group of AMS across Muslim-majority and non-Muslim-majority schools in NSW and in other regions, especially Melbourne, which has the second largest Muslim population in Australia. Second, the study could also either be conducted at a school where non-Muslim students are the majority, or it could include interviewing non-Muslim students in Muslim-majority schools. This could help identify misconceptions that non-Muslim students have towards Muslim students, if they exist, and reveal how misconceptions affect students’ interactions and contribute to experiences of cultural racism. These directions could expand the literature to gain a better understanding of the schooling experiences of AMS.

Recommendations for Learning Practices and Future Policy Gramsci (1971) argued that one of the tasks of counter-hegemonic education was not to throw out elite knowledge; rather, he suggested that should be reconstructed in terms of its form and content, so it served genuinely to progressive social needs. This could be achieved by adding multiple knowledge formations such as indigenous knowledges and other formations (Connell, 2016) to the curriculum. The knowledge should not only focus on the local, but should also emphasise the global (Rizvi, 2009). This could direct education towards the capacities needed to build more equal social relations. In terms of educational policy, recognition at the institutional level of the structural inequities AMS face should be acknowledged. Despite the Multicultural Education Policy requiring schools acknowledge and be inclusive of religious diversity, findings from this study suggest egalitarianism has not been practised uniformly within schools and this has led to inconsistency. As such, a deeper recognition and examination of the complexities and challenges of addressing of guidance including professional development, policy support documents and pre-service teacher training for schools, should be considered by policymakers. This could students’ religious needs within the explicit and implicit curriculum, and the provision work towards addressing gaps between policy and practice.

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In addition to the Access and Equity policy, Anti-Racism policy and Multicultural Education Policy as instruments targeting equity for the NSW DET (2018), departmental policies should also include Islamophobia explicitly in relation to equity policies, and it should be recognised as a form of racism. Tackling Islamophobia in schools through critical awareness workshops and professional development should be provided for teachers, and non-Muslim students should also be provided with space to learn more about Muslims and ask questions, as multiculturalism should also be formally recognised as a curriculum area important to all, not just students from diverse ethnic backgrounds. Teachers should also be engaged in critical, informed and transparent discussions about surveillance in schools, their use, and implications for privacy and security.

Reflections This study has examined the dynamics and dimensions that shape the schooling experiences of AMS at a primary school level in public and private schools in Sydney. At the beginning of the study, I sought to understand the challenges associated with the schooling of AMS and the different educational contexts; that is, the public and private. Employing critical theory and co-constitutive theories of power as a lens through which to examine this inquiry allowed me to build a reflexive disposition to critically engage with the assumptions and presuppositions I held at the beginning of the study. The challenges associated with the schooling of AMS are not only influenced by the immediate and local school context; rather, they are imbricated and situated within a wider patchwork of malleable dynamics and dimensions that permeate schools discursively in complex ways to shape the schooling experiences of AMS. This study has mapped neoliberalism and Islamophobia as two dynamics in the present era that operate at the structural and systemic level of society, by employing theories of power domination/hegemony and subordination (Gramsci, 1971; Foucault, 1982). This analysis has shown that both these dynamics discursively produce inequity and inequality and have hegemonic functions to consolidate state power. Neoliberalism intensifies the effects of Islamophobia. Together, they maintain the status quo and exacerbate fragmentation in society. The study has examined how these dynamics, which operate beyond the school context, discursively shape the education of AMS. This was evident through neoliberal school choice and implicit/explicit forms

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of curriculum that demonstrated how neoliberalism and Islamophobia discursively filter their way into schools to produce inequitable schooling for AMS. However, as Foucault and Gramsci remind us, hegemony and power domination are never complete. The students demonstrated several strategies they employed to resist and challenge the culturally racist discourses they were subjected to, despite their schooling contexts and teacher pedagogy operating as obstacles to this process. To challenge the structural inequality and inequity AMS face in schools, first, it has been recommended that the NSW Department of Education and schools need to formally recognise Islamophobia as a form of racism. The curriculum needs to also recognise the multiple value systems and knowledge formations espoused by the Australian population, such as Arabs and Muslims. Only then can schools claim to be equitable places to learn and flourish in a free and democratic society for all.

References Connell, R. W. (2016). Decolonizing sociology. Contemporary Sociology, 47 (4), 399–407. Department of Education NSW. (2018). Multicultural education policy. https:// education.nsw.gov.au/policy-library/policies/multicultural-education-policy? refid=285843 Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and social change. Polity Press. Foucault, M. (1982). The subject and power. Critical Inquiry, 8(4), 777–795. Gramsci, A. (1971) Selections from the prison notebooks (Q, Hoare & G. N. Smith, Trans.). International Publishers. Rizvi, F. (2009). Towards cosmopolitan learning. Discourse: Studies in the cultural politics of education, 30(3), 235–268 Shain, F. (2011). The new folk devils: Muslim boys and education in England. Trentham Books. Welply, O. (2015). Re-imagining otherness: An exploration of the global imaginaries of children from immigrant backgrounds in primary schools in France and England. European Educational Research Journal, 14(5), 430–453.

Index

A agency, 8, 18, 47, 63, 75, 89, 90, 120, 130 Althusser, L., 33 assimilation, 18, 60–63, 88, 92, 101

C capitalism, 4, 35, 37–39, 43, 48 citizenship, 75, 90, 109, 110 civilisation, 24, 34, 35, 43, 44 clash of civilisations, 4, 42, 43, 89 commonsense, 24, 26, 38, 46, 48, 91, 92, 110, 116, 126 counter-domination, 15 countering violent extremism, 3 critical ethnography, 16 critical literacy, 100, 131 critical theory, 14, 133 Cronulla riots, 45, 70 culture, 5, 15, 26, 29, 42, 43, 60–62, 64, 69, 72, 85, 89–93, 101, 110 curriculum, 18, 85–87, 99–102, 130–134

D Daesh, xv, 2, 6, 44 disciplinary control, 60, 74, 75, 90, 98, 102, 115, 116, 125 disciplinary power, 62, 76, 125 discourse, 4, 14, 17, 18, 24, 30, 31, 35, 41, 47–49, 66, 71, 72, 74, 75, 97, 111, 112, 120, 124, 126 domination, 8, 15, 16, 34, 35, 92, 111, 120, 126

E Enlightenment, 17, 30, 34, 35 equity, 5, 14, 63, 84, 133 ethical challenges, 17 ethnoreligious, 17, 68 Eurocentric, 29, 35, 100

F Foucauldian discourse, 15 Foucault, M., 14, 15, 24, 31, 32, 34, 49, 60, 65, 74, 84, 96, 116, 131, 133, 134

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 Z. Mourad, Neoliberalism and Islamophobia, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18115-3

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INDEX

G geopolitical, 18, 27 globalisation, 45 governmentality, 24, 28–31, 47–49, 74, 76, 125 Gramsci, A., 8, 14, 15, 31, 36, 37, 61, 132–134

H hegemony, 4, 8, 14–17, 30, 31, 37–39, 60–62, 64, 126, 133, 134 hierarchy, 34, 39, 44, 48, 71, 95, 125

I ideology, 4, 6, 14, 18, 19, 30, 31, 35, 37–39, 41, 44, 48, 72 inequitable, 14, 17, 19, 134 insider, 16 institutional structures, 5 Islamic Golden Age, 25, 34, 35 Islamic school, 9, 11, 84, 97, 99, 100 Islamophobia, 2, 4, 5, 14, 17–19, 24, 28–31, 36, 37, 39, 40, 42, 44, 45, 47–49, 71, 89, 97, 100, 101, 106, 108, 114, 124, 125, 130, 131, 133, 134 Islamophobic discourses, 4, 14, 15, 17, 19, 24, 27, 30–32, 34, 36, 39, 49, 85, 88, 89, 94, 95, 101, 102, 105, 106, 113–115, 117, 119, 125, 126 Islamophobic governance, 19

L Liberal pluralist multiculturalism, 63 Living Safe Together policy, 6, 17

M material, 5, 8, 14, 16, 18, 19, 37, 38, 42, 45, 47, 48, 63, 106, 107, 114, 124 microaggressions, 106, 124 Middle East, 2, 4, 25, 26, 29, 32, 35, 39, 40, 42, 43 Middle Eastern, 10, 31, 42, 68, 72 multicultural, 10, 18, 49, 63, 64, 67, 88, 91, 93, 96, 100, 110, 113, 114, 123, 125

N national security, 3, 46, 75 neoliberal governance, 64, 68 neoliberal hegemonic expansionism, 34 neoliberalism, 4, 5, 14, 17, 19, 30, 37–39, 44, 48, 130, 131, 133, 134 new racism, 62

O oppression, 15, 32, 101, 122, 130 Orientalism, 17, 30, 34–36

P pedagogy, 8, 14, 15, 19, 99, 100, 134 positionality, 16–18, 44, 87, 94, 106, 108, 111–113, 122, 124, 125 power, 4–8, 14–16, 18, 19, 24, 31–35, 37, 38, 45, 46, 48, 49, 60, 62, 64, 65, 74–76, 85, 90, 92, 93, 96, 101, 115, 116, 125, 126, 130, 133, 134 power domination, 5, 15, 16, 31, 33, 125, 126, 133, 134 Private Islamic schools, 3

INDEX

Q qualitative, 9, 132 R racialised, 24, 28, 30, 31, 34–36, 47–49, 64, 70, 96, 105, 106, 113, 125 racialised governmentality, 17 racism, 29, 30, 35, 48, 60–62, 64, 71, 84, 93, 106, 111, 113, 114, 117, 122, 124, 126, 131–134 radicalisation, 2, 3, 5–8, 45, 46, 74 reflexively, 16 regime of truth, 122, 126, 131 resistance, 15, 18, 126 S Shia, xv, xvi, 27, 28, 40, 65, 99, 117 social apparatus, 14, 15, 48

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social justice, 86, 99 solidarity, 18, 117, 119, 121, 122, 124 structural, 5, 8, 14, 17, 19, 48, 49, 71, 87, 101, 120, 129, 131–134 subordination, 86, 111, 133 Sunni, 27, 28, 40, 65 surveillance, 6, 8, 30, 44–48, 98, 106, 115, 116, 125, 133 systemic, 48, 49, 133

T terrorism, 2, 3, 5, 7, 31–33, 40, 41, 46, 47, 68, 73–75, 106, 107, 111–113, 118, 125, 131

W whiteness, 35, 61, 62, 64, 71