‘Non-violent Islamist extremism’ has become an important political issue in Britain in recent years. Since 2011, with the government’s counter-radicalisation strategy, Prevent, non-violent Islamist groups have been considered as a security risk for spreading a divisive ideology that can lead to violence. Concerns with these groups intensified in 2014 for their alleged role in providing the ‘mood music’ for the radicalisation of British Muslims joining the Islamic State’s insurgency. Yet, terrorism isn’t the only concern regarding non-violent Islamists in Britain. In the last few years, the government has expressed concerns about their impact on social cohesion and civil liberties, including women’s rights. It has also voiced concerns regarding non-violent Islamist extremism and entryism within key British institutions. In 2015, it created the Extremism Analysis Unit—the first official body dedicated to study violent and non-violent extremism—and published its first ‘Counter-Extremism Strategy’. The key protagonists of non-violent Islamist extremism allegedly include groups and individuals associated with the Muslim Brotherhood and Jama’at-i-Islami. Some analysts describe them as part of the ‘global Muslim Brotherhood’, but do they constitute a singular phenomenon, a social movement? Adopting a conceptual approach informed by New Social Movement theory and the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, this thesis answers this question affirmatively, detailing how such groups and individuals are networked organisationally, bonded through ideological and cultural kinship, and united in a conflict of values with the British society and state. Using original interviews with prominent movement leaders, as well as primary sources, this thesis shows how it is not so much ‘Islamist’, in aspiring for an Islamic state, but concerned with institutionalising an Islamic worldview and moral framework throughout society. Its conflict with the government does not simply concern the control of state institutions, but the symbolic authority to legitimise a way of seeing, thinking and living.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:686387 |
| Date | January 2016 |
| Creators | Perry, Damon Lee |
| Contributors | Bew, John Patrick Arthur ; Rainsborough, Michael Lawrence Rowan Smith |
| Publisher | King's College London (University of London) |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/the-global-muslim-brotherhood-in-britain(05f199f6-23d4-40c6-b0c6-a7cc0d54a3d7).html |
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