ABSTRACT

This chapter explores some of the ways in which non-Islamiosity is implicated in Iranians' attempts to make community. Non-Islamious media and art production open up the space within which a unified diasporic community can be imagined and have visible manifestations. In television, media representation of Islam and Muslims is produced and made credible in a variety of programmes using a number of methods. The speaker's tone and terminology are also important elements. The tone is often harsh, relentless and rhetorical, with much 'evidence' being presented in the so-called Socratic Method. The community magazines and newspapers concentrate in their target audience mainly on Iranians in London and the wider UK. Abner Cohen's insistence on the interplay between culture and politics in the context of Notting Hill Carnival (NHC) opens up an interesting avenue for research into modes of collective and unified action within a greatly heterogeneous immigrant group.