Islam Between Inclusion and Exclusion: A (Decolonial) Frame Problem

Ali, Syed Mustafa (2017). Islam Between Inclusion and Exclusion: A (Decolonial) Frame Problem. In: Hofkirchner, Wolfgang and Burgin, Mark eds. The Future Information Society: Social and Technological Problems. World Scientific Series in Information Studies, 1 (8). Singapore: World Scientific, pp. 287–305.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1142/9789813108974_0016

Abstract

In this chapter, the 'Frame Problem' in AI is mobilized as a trope in order to engage the 'question' concerning the inclusion and/or exclusion of Islam (and Muslims) from European – and, more broadly, 'Western' – society. Adopting a decolonial perspective, wherein body-political, geo-political and theo-political concerns are centered, the meaning and applicability of categorical dichotomies such as 'religion' and 'politics' and their relationship to the historical entanglement of 'religion' and 'race' in the formation of the modern world are interrogated in the context of understanding the nature of the relationship between Islam and Europe/'the West'. It is argued that the tendency within Western liberal democratic discourses to (1) frame the problem of Islamophobia and 'the Muslim question' in terms of misrepresentation – that is, misinformation, disinformation and 'distortion' of the flow of information – and (2) frame the issue of "Islam and Europe/'the West'" in terms of inclusion and/or exclusion of the members of a 'religious' minority into a post-modern, post- Christian/'secular' polity circumvents disclosure of the violent historically-constituted structural background or 'horizon' against which such 'options' are generated. The essay concludes by sketching some possible decolonial responses to this critical and existentially-problematic state of affairs.

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