Halim Rane

Social media, social movements and the diffusion of ideas in the Arab uprisings

Abstract This article studies the 2011 Arab uprisings as social movements for political reform and regime change. Social media, particularly Facebook and Twitter, are perceived to be playing a central role in these events, which have even been described as ‘Facebook’ and ‘Twitter revolutions’. Using diffusion theory, this article examines the role of social media and the extent to which they can be credited for the emergence and achievement of the goals of the uprisings. It argues that while social media played important facilitation roles in terms of inter- and intra-group communication as well as information dissemination, mainstream mass media are still highly relevant to the process. However, the success or failure of the uprisings largely depends on domestic factors and broader geopolitical contexts. This article demonstrates that the use of social media in the Arab uprisings has significant implications for diffusion theory in terms of contact and identity among the social movements involved.

Towards understanding what Australia’s Muslims really think

Over the past decade, issues concerning Islam and Muslims have featured prominently in public and media discourse. Much of this discourse is stereotypical, anecdotal and often unsubstantiated. Indeed, relative to the extent of comment on Islam and Muslims, few factual data exist on what Muslims really think. This article presents the views and opinions of the Queensland Muslim community based on the findings of a survey conducted at the 2009 Muslim Eid Festival in Brisbane. The findings of this research contradict many of the assumptions made about Australia’s Muslims concerning their views and opinions on a range of social and political issues. The research shows that Muslims highly value Australia’s key social and political institutions, including its democracy, judiciary, education and health-care systems. However, Muslims do express a lack of trust in certain institutions, namely the mass media. Also, consistent with the views of people globally, Muslims are deeply concerned about conflicts in the Middle East as well as the environmental crisis. This article suggests the need for a shift in public discourse to more accurately reflect the commonality, rather than incongruity, between Muslim views, opinions and concerns and those of the wider society.

Islamist narratives in ISIS recruitment propaganda

ABSTRACT The group known as ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) has demonstrated remarkable appeal and ability to recruit Muslims from around the world, including the West. ISIS has effectively used Islamist narratives and selectively appropriated aspects of Islam to recruit to its cause in pursuit of its political goals, which raises important questions concerning the role of Islamism among Muslim extremists and in the process of radicalisation. This article examines the core narratives that characterise ISIS propaganda disseminated through its media productions. ISIS recruitment propaganda not only reflects the group’s selective manipulation and extreme interpretations of Islam as well as the war-ravaged social, economic and political conditions from which it emerges but also that it is a contemporary manifestation of the Islamist political ideology (referred to in this article as Islamism). These factors resonate in ISIS’s selective use of Islamist narratives, images and sounds in its media content and in its descriptions of self and others. Understanding how ISIS is able to exploit the prevalence of Islamism among Muslims is critical for developing an effective counter to its appeal and influence.

Reconstructing Jihad amid Competing International Norms

Authors Preface List of Abbreviations Glossary Introduction Reconstructing Jihad Chapter structure PART I: THE ISRAEL-PALESTINE CONFLICT Origin, Nature, and Progression of the Conflict The United Nations Security Council Resolutions on the Question of Palestine: A Normative Framework for a Just Resolution PART II: THEORETICAL FOUNDATION Constructivism and the Role of International Norms and Identity in Conflict Resolution Contemporary Realities and the Imperative of a Non-Violent Intifada PART III: REFORMULATION The Islamic Doctrines of War and Peace Putting Jihad into Context: Intent, Purpose, and Objectives Notes References Index

Meanings of integration in the Australian press coverage of Muslims: Implications for social inclusion and exclusion

This article uses a framing perspective to analyse the Australian press coverage of Muslim Australians with regard to the issue of their integration into Australian society. Taking a qualitative approach, this study is based on analysis of articles published in The Australian, the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and the Courier-Mail in alternate years from 2002 to 2010. Of particular focus are the themes and definitions associated with integration that arise in the context of the coverage. The study finds the coverage of Muslim integration to contain both favourable and pejorative representations of Muslims. However, the coverage tends to focus on certain themes that represent only a minority of Muslims, such as radicalisation and terrorism. Muslim integration also features as central to debates concerning multiculturalism, Australian values and the citizenship test. The coverage uses narrow definitions of integration that are based mainly on cultural indicators rather than other definitions prevalent in the scholarly literature on integration, such as economic, political and broader social indicators. Overall, the article suggests that these limitations to the coverage have the potential to impact on public perceptions of social inclusion and exclusion in relation to Muslim Australians.

Moving on from 9/11: How Australian Television Reported the Ninth Anniversary

This article investigates how five Australian television stations reported and framed the ninth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States. In Australia, Eid, the Muslim festival held to celebrate the end of Ramadan, coincided with the ninth anniversary of the events of 9/11. This provided an opportunity to examine how television news treated these two events. Our findings are situated within the literature around media coverage of terrorism post–September 11 because of the identified tendency of media to conflate terrorism with Islam and Muslims. This literature provides a context for understanding whether Australian television coverage of the ninth anniversary of 9/11 and the 2010 Eid festival replicated identified patterns of media coverage of Muslim and Islam or if there was evidence of change in the handling of these types of reports.

The Relevance of a Maqasid Approach for Political Islam Post Arab Revolutions

The role of Islam in the politics of Muslim-majority countries has attracted a plethora of scholarly research over the past two decades that generally refers to this phenomenon as political Islam. Much of the focus of this body of literature is concerned with the reconciliation of Islam and democracy. In recent years, the leading scholarship in this field has attempted to anticipate the future of political Islam and the prospect of post-Islamism. Asef Bayets work on post-Islamists examines various social movements in the Middle East, arguing that Muslims have made Islam democratic by how they have defined Islam in respect to their particular socio-political contexts. However, others have expressed pessimism about the extent to which domestic conditions in Muslim-majority countries and external geopolitical factors will allow the development of an Islamic democracy. Abdelwahab El-Affendi, for instance, sees four main options for Islamists: full revolutionary takeover of their respective countries; completely withdrawing from political office to become Islamic interest or pressure groups; building broader coalitions while maintaining their ideology; or radically restructuring in order to emulate the model of Turkeys Justice and Development Party (AKP). What is missing in this discussion is attention to the capacity of Islamic political parties to draw on Islamic tradition and evolve in response to modernity through a focus on Islams higher objectives or a maqasid approach.

Jihad, competing norms and the Israel–Palestine impasse

A central factor in the failure to resolve the Israel–Palestine conflict is the direct competition that exists between its two most central international norms: ‘self-determination’, the fundamental claim of the Palestinians, and ‘self-defence’, the overriding concern of Israelis. Particularly since 9/11, Palestinian violence has been a liability for their cause and has served to validate Israels self-defence arguments. Increasingly, Palestinian violence has been perpetrated by the Islamically oriented under the banner of jihad, which is understood almost exclusively in terms of armed struggle. Non-violence — which has the potential to undermine Israels self-defence arguments and generate external pressure on Israel to adhere to the terms of a just peace — has been under-appreciated by such Palestinians. Non-violence is far from having a normative status in the Muslim world as an Islamically legitimate response to occupation and it is yet to be conceptualised as an effective form of resistance. The concept needs to be reformulated in accordance with the realities and opportunities confronting the Palestinians. Contextualisation combined with a maqasid or objective-oriented approach establishes non-violence as a preferable option to violence both in terms of the higher objectives of jihad, enshrined in the Quran, as well as of the attainment of Palestinian self-determination.

Multiculturalism and the Integration of Multigenerational Muslim Communities in Queensland, Australia

Abstract This article examines the impact of Muslim immigration on Muslim communities in Australia, based on the lived experiences of early Muslim Australians. Much of the literature on Muslim migration to Australia concerns Muslims as migrant communities. To date there has been a marked lack of research on the impact of Muslim immigration on Muslim communities, which have resided in Australia for multiple generations. Using descriptive phenomenology inquiry as the research approach, this study is based on 11 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with early Muslim Australians from the state of Queensland. Our study suggests that the absence of multiculturalism as official policy may have encouraged the early Muslims to practice their faith in a way that was more conducive to the Australian social and cultural context and hence they were better able to integrate in Australian society. The study identifies significant changes to have occurred following the large-scale immigration of Muslims post-1990. These changes were perceived to be both positive and negative, and include the organisation and composition of the community, understanding and practice of Islam, as well as integration and relations with the wider Australian society.

Media-Generated Muslims and Islamophobia

Much of what is known about Islam and Muslims in Western societies is derived from the mass media. Studies have shown that over three-quarters of people in Western societies rely on the mass media, mainly television, as their primary source of information about Islam and Muslims (Rane, 2010b). The scholarly consensus is that, in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the sustained intensity of media coverage of Islam and Muslims resulted in an almost universal awareness of the religion and its adherents. That is not to say that most, or even many, people were then or are now knowledgeable about Islam or know Muslim people as a consequence of their media consumption; far from it. What it does mean is that a media version of Islam is widely known; what we are familiar with are media-generated Muslims. An important question, however, is how widely such images are accepted and what the implications are for intercommunity and international relations. This chapter explores Western public opinion and the extent to which there exist fear and prejudice towards Islam and Muslims, a phenomenon called Islamophobia. To assess the media’s role in this phenomenon, we examine the dominant representations of Islam and Muslims that have been identified by a growing body of scholarly research. In order to understand the origins of the Western media’s representations, we begin with the history of Western thought concerning Islam and Muslims.