ABSTRACT
As we advance into the twenty-first century it seems that horrifying headlines provide an incessant reminder of the widespread presence of extreme forms of Islam. As any internet perusal will quickly indicate, headlined reports of Muslim extremists beheading foreign hostages as well as Muslim opponents seem to be on the increase. And with the headlines there comes the inevitable result of much media commentary, and too many people tending to equate “extreme” with “mainstream,” thereby tarring all Muslims with the same brush of hostile response. The headlines are certainly part of the terrorist project, for communicating the message is as much a tool of terrorism as is the destruction wrought by the violent act itself. As Schmid (2004, 212 and passim) notes, communication is one of the “five conceptual lenses” whereby terrorism may be helpfully analysed and understood. Terrorism is a complex phenomenon, and its relation to religion is no less so. Whether it is yet another report of an extra-judicial beheading – an American journalist, a British aid-worker, a volunteer convoy driver by agents of the so-called Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL); or the act of Boko Haram beheading a Nigerian officer for “serving the State instead of Allah” (Godwin 2014); or the execution of a French mountaineer, also beheaded, by an Algerian affiliate of the Islamic State (BBC 2014); or the many and various reports of other beheadings that all too often come our
way – the cumulative effect is inevitable: hostile reactions, whether by way of threat or act, emerge. Muslims with no link to the extremists find themselves targeted. Muslims in Oklahoma being threatened with beheading is but one of the many postings on the website of the Council for American-Islamic Relations.1 The upsurge in aggressive anti-Muslim rhetoric and acts within the USA – a society that historically has been marked by the acceptance of religious otherness and diversity – is disturbingly marked. And by the time this article is published, the examples I have cited above will be well and truly eclipsed by others. That will likely also be the case with respect to evidence of an increasing reactionary extremism emanating from many non-Muslim quarters not only targeting the Islamist extremists themselves, but also, more disturbingly, aimed at any Muslims anywhere.
