ABSTRACT
While the idea of Muslims as a potential danger to social cohesion and security has been part of Dutch integration and minority policies since the 1970s, following 9/11, and even more so after the Madrid attacks and the murder of Theo van Gogh in 2004, an all-encompassing and comprehensive approach to the perceived potential of future clandestine violence by Muslims has been implemented. This counter-radicalisation, or preventing/countering violent extremism (P/CVE) approach, also called the ‘broad approach’, is based upon a mixture of penal and administrative laws, care practices, and rhetoric of surveillance that extends to broad sections of the Dutch Muslim population. As Muslims are rendered allies as well as people at risk or risky people, the racial securitisation is a complex multi-layered and ambiguous phenomenon. This contribution highlights these complexities based upon ten years of ethnographic research with various Muslim activists and organisations, and an analysis of 50 years of counter-radicalisation and P/CVE policies to show that the racialising governance of security operates as a form of interpellation which triggers and enables responses from Dutch Muslims but does not determine them. In doing so, I will contribute to debates about the complexities of counter-radicalisation efforts, racial securitisation, and talking back.
