Conflating the Muslim refugee and the terror suspect: responses to the Syrian refugee “crisis” in Brexit Britain

Madeline-Sophie Abbas

doi:10.1080/01419870.2019.1588339

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe Syrian refugee “crisis” has prompted contradictory responses of securitization of European borders on the one hand, and grassroots compassion on the other, that posit a universal conception of the human deserving of equal rights to safety irrespective of racial or religious difference. However, in the aftermath of the 2015 and 2016 Paris terror attacks there has been a backlash against refugees amid fears of Islamist terrorists exploiting refugee channels to enter Europe, as well as an upsurge in a populist nationalism framing Brexit and anti-Muslim hostility following recent UK terror attacks. I argue that the convergence of the “Muslim refugee” and the “terror suspect” as threatening mobilizes a racialized biopolitics present in intersecting counter-terrorism and asylum regimes that prioritise security concerns above human rights. I advance the Concentrationary Gothic as a framework for understanding continuities in logics of racial terror framing the “Muslim question” within the Syrian refugee “crisis.”

Highlights

The introduction of the 1951 Refugee Convention associated with the “Age of Rights” following the horrors of World War Two recognised human rights as foundational issues whereby, at least officially, refugees’ struggles for freedom should be accommodated within democratic societies (Marfleet 2012, 69)
I discuss the poster because it presents a stark example of how race hate has been mobilized for political ends within the Brexit context and secondly, illustrates continuities in racial terror experienced by Jewish populations during World War 11 and colonial logics of subjection and exclusion that fit with the Concentrationary Gothic framework I am advancing
I advanced the Concentrationary Gothic as a framework for understanding how racialized practices of nation construction, spatial control, racial profiling and surveillance/screening practices, restrictions to freedom of speech and political engagement, and internal divisions produced within the oppressed group, are legitimated by Gothic discourses that present Muslims as uncivilized and barbarous beings who pose a threat to national security and identity

Summary

Introduction

The introduction of the 1951 Refugee Convention associated with the “Age of Rights” following the horrors of World War Two recognised human rights as foundational issues whereby, at least officially, refugees’ struggles for freedom should be accommodated within democratic societies (Marfleet 2012, 69). I use the Concentrationary Gothic framework to show how similar mechanisms have been deployed during the Syrian refugee “crisis.” I approach the UK government’s Syrian Vulnerable Persons Relocation Scheme (VPRS) as an example of racial biopolitics that is part of a wider shift in focus from human rights to security in the treatment of asylum seekers (Huysmans 1995; Weber and Bowling 2004).

Results

Conclusion