Being a ‘suspect community’ in a post 9/11 world – The impact of the war on terror on Muslim communities in Australia

Abstract

The suspect community thesis has been used to explain how and why Muslims have become a stigmatised minority, subject to increased state surveillance and public discourse that constructs Muslims as a potential terrorist threat. Breen-Smyth (2014) argues that a suspect community is generated through national or state security policies and reproduced and reinforced by societal responses and social practices. This influences how Muslims perceive themselves as a suspect community and influences their support for counter-terrorism efforts. This paper will explore the ‘experiential consequences’ of Muslims being stigmatised and labelled as a suspect community and the perceptions this has generated among Muslims living in Australia. We examine how Muslims have reacted to being defined as a terrorist threat and the coping mechanisms they adopt to defend their religious beliefs given Islam is seen by authorities, the media and the public as justifying violence. This paper will explore these issues by reporting results from focus group data collected from Muslims living in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne (N = 104 participants in total). Results illustrate how being defined as a suspect community influences the appraisals Muslims have of themselves, their faith, their community and Australian authorities. Implications for counter-terrorism policies are also identified.