Public Renderings of Islam and the Jihadi Threat: Political, Social, and Religious Critique in Civil Society in Flanders, Belgium

Contemporary political-public concerns with connections between Islam and terrorist violence in West-European societies contribute to ‘the Muslim question’, that is, the construction of Muslims, Islam and Muslimness as essentially ‘different’ from Western culture and society. This chapter focuses on 2014–2015 instances of Flemish public renderings of the ‘jihadi threat’ and explores counter-voices emerging from small initiatives in civil society. The counter-voices are assessed for the ways in which they respond to ‘the Muslim question’ and as such create space for the construction of various forms of agency, religious/secular subjectivity, morality, and citizenship, for Muslims as well as non-Muslims. Moreover, the counter-voices are considered as local actors of religious critique/theory of religion.

I would like to thank the editors for their efforts to organise ‘The Good Shepherd’ panels at the EASR of 2014 in Groningen, the Netherlands; to publish this volume as a result from those panels; and for including and supporting my presentation and chapter. My gratitude goes to Matthea Westerduin, who generously provided insightful thoughts and critical remarks on an earlier version of the chapter. I take full responsibility for the final chapter, including potential omissions and mistakes. I would like to acknowledge both the Centre for the Study of Culture and Gender at Ghent University (BE) and the Gottinger Centrum fur Geschlechterforschung at Gottingen University (DL) where I was during 2015–16 provided with the facilities to write and finish this chapter.