Abstract

The years since 9/11 have been characterised by a continuing interplay between racist foreign policies and structurally Islamophobic domestic policies that are shaped by global political discussions of race and ‘otherness’. These policies and the discourses surrounding them ultimately fuelled a cultural project destined to redefine what it means to belong in Western societies. Semi-structured fieldwork interviews with British Muslim men undertaken in 2021 revealed that, within this cultural project, Muslim men have come to predominantly experience Islamophobia through the lens of securitisation—a lens through which they are presented as uniquely dangerous physical threats and innately programmed aggressors that are beyond saving and in need of ongoing control, regulation, and punishment. As such, I argue throughout this chapter that Muslim men have become ‘othered’ and dehumanised within the public consciousness to such an extent that they are frequently presented as only conditionally entitled to, or else pointedly unworthy of, the rights, freedoms, entitlements, and protections deemed to be central to Western value systems. Consequently, the perceived deficiencies and threats posed by Muslim men provides a vehicle through which Western hegemony is maintained over acceptable forms of masculinity and Muslim men become forced to negotiate and respond to an environment wherein their very existence demands apology, concession, and submission. However, as I conclude, patterns are emerging suggesting an empowerment of Muslim men through the activation of a Muslim model of masculine performance that is built upon the examples of active citizenship found within Islam itself—a model of masculinity that disrupts and rejects the socio-political hierarchy promoted by the cultural project of the War on Terror.