Eighteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

In Australia, the impact of the war on terror on young people’s capacity to speak freely is a highly politicized issue, recently demonstrated by a peak Islamic body’s request for a government-funded “safe space” for youth to express controversial political views. The request provoked intense backlash, with Victoria’s Premier declaring “there is no safe way to rail against the West.” My paper introduces my current research project, the first of its kind in Australia, exploring the comparative racialized impact of the global “War on Terror” on Australian Muslim and non-Muslim youth in terms of their political identities and expression in education settings. Drawing on my ethnographic interview data, and students’ written work produced in writing workshops, I explore how Muslim and non-Muslim youth negotiate the boundaries and limitations of their political and religious subjectivity, and how they understand their place and role within the polity in the context of growing up “in the age of terror.” I argue that one of the effects of Islamophobia is its institutional and structural power to conflate political expression with “radicalization.” My paper explores how the war on terror and the securitization of Muslims has split the racialized category of Muslim youth into “moderate” and “potential radical,” and discuss how this impacts on the capacity for Muslim youth to safely navigate their political expression. I trace the differences between Muslim and non-Muslim youth’s confidence in political expression and engagement both in school and in online spaces, looking at points of difference and intersection.