Paper short abstract:

Anti-terror policies increasingly focus on preventing radicalization. These policies claim the promotion of tolerance and diversity as their goal. However, they also contribute to an othering of Muslims and therefore function as a self-assurance of the liberal-secular paradigm in European societies.

Paper long abstract:

While the "othering" of Muslims in Europe has many facets that are often not immediately visible, in the engagement with Islamist terrorism this "construction of otherness" manifests itself more directly. A growing fear of Islamist terror has led to various political strategies in reply to this security threat. Within the last decade, anti-terror politics in many European states have shifted from exclusively relying on repressive security measures to softer, preventative methods. Consequently, the German government funds a vast variety of civil-society initiatives to prevent radicalization and, by extension, terrorism. While these initiatives claim their goals to be political/democratic education, diversity and tolerance; the policy of prevention reinforces existent and actively creates new differences between the Muslim population and "the rest". By constantly addressing Muslims as one self-contained entity and discursively linking migration with radicalization/terrorism, it is paradoxically strengthening the dichotomy of "us" versus "them" it aims to overcome. Consequently, projects propagating diversity and tolerance often lead to a labelling of Muslims as backwardly, undemocratic and unenlightened. Muslims are invited to actively participate in this battle against radicalization, but only if they act as best-practice examples of "westernized" citizens. Scholars like Schirin Amir-Moazami and Michael Reder argue that it is necessary to overcome the liberal-secular frame, to be able to perceive Muslims not solely as anti-modern, illegitimate actors. Following this approach, this contribution argues that the othering of Muslims within the policy of preventing Islamist radicalization is also a vehicle of self-assurance of the liberal-secular paradigm in European societies.