Held on the 11th Apr 2019
at 5:30pm to
7pm
In March, fifty Muslims were murdered at the hands of a white supremacist in Christchurch, New Zealand.
In the aftermath, commentators linked violent anti-Muslim discourses to white supremacy.
In this talk I will argue that anti-Muslim discourses are linked to radical ethno-nationalist narratives more broadly. In Australasia and other Western nations these islamophobic views are typically tied to white supremacy, yet violent anti-Muslim narratives also appear in non-Anglo countries such as India, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Myanmar to name a few.
Why, then, are Muslims specifically targeted and treated as a scapegoat amongst these diverse ethno-nationalist groups? The answer, I will argue, is due to the physical visibility of Muslims in these countries which dovetails with a nativist anxiety around physical displacement.
This fear is exacerbated by a rising tendency across the globe to tacitly permit violence against Muslims. It is important to understand and analyse the underlying viewpoint of these ethno-nationalists in order to diagnose the growing danger of anti-Muslim violence and thereby better police and combat violent extremists that target Muslims.
In understanding this we may help avoid future killings.
About the Presenter
Dr James Stewart is an Honorary Fellow at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Deakin University. His research has primarily been concerned with the study of political and religious groups in South Asia and Australasia. His most recent book concerned the study of animal rights groups in Sri Lanka.
