‘Out to get us’: Queer Muslims and the clash of sexual civilisations in Australia more

Cont Islam (2009) 3:79–97 DOI 10.1007/s11562-008-0078-3 ‘Out to get us’: queer Muslims and the clash of sexual civilisations in Australia Ibrahim Abraham Published online: 31 January 2009 # Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2009 Abstract Drawing on qualitative data from interviews with twelve queer Muslims in Australia, this article analyses the ongoing struggle for queer Muslim recognition within the context of the so-called ‘Clash of Civilisations’. Analysing the rhetoric of national security and ‘Western’ civilisational identity, this article interrogates the incorporation of sexuality into the cultural and political discourse of the ‘war on terror’, from the xenophobic demonisation of Muslims as sexual predators, to liberal Islamophobia that posits Islam as an aggressive and alien Other against which liberal capitalism must be defended. Within this hostile environment, queer Muslims in Australia are articulating various strategies for finding meaning in their lives. From a Marxist perspective, this article analyses these strategies for recognition which range from complex acts of ‘closeting’ sexual, ethnic and religious identities, to subversive acts of critical hybridity that seek to negate the exclusionary nature of homophobia and Islamophobia within Australia’s multicultural society. Keywords Australia . Homosexuality . Islam . Multiculturalism . War on terror Introduction This article charts the emergence of queer Muslim identities in Australia, amidst vitriolic political debate on the presence of Islam in the so-called ‘Western’ world. This article focuses on queer Muslims’ struggle for due recognition from mainstream Australian society, Australia’s abidingly homophobic Muslim communities, and from Australia’s overwhelmingly secular queer communities wherein 71.5% of individuals claim ‘no religion’ (Pitts et al. 2006). In contrast to previous studies on queer Muslims by Yip (2003, 2004, 2005, 2008) and Siraj (2006) in the UK and Minwalla et al. (2005) in the USA, rather than engaging with queer Muslims on an I. Abraham (*) Dept. of Sociology, University of Bristol, 12 Woodland Rd, Bristol BS8 1UQ, UK e-mail: soiba@bristol.ac.uk 80 Cont Islam (2009) 3:79–97 ethnographic level, this article offers a political engagement with contemporary issues of identity and belonging confronting queer Muslims in an age of ideological warfare. My approach here is Marxist, a tradition that numerous scholars of Islam and the Muslim majority world have worked within, or alongside. In analysing the struggles for acceptance of queer Muslims in Australia, this article reveals the limits of liberal multiculturalism. Insisting that it is essential to properly understanding the social environment in which demands for queer Muslim acceptance are taking place, this article explores three key aspects of the political and cultural conflicts surrounding religion and sexuality in multicultural, late capitalist societies. Firstly, analysing the contemporary rhetoric of national (and civilisational) security that posits some form of ‘Clash of Civilisations’ between ‘Islam’ and ‘The West’ (Huntington 1996), I note the sexual themes in the debate. Secondly, this article expands upon the concept of ‘the closet’, arguing that the personal and social desires to hide homosexuality epitomised by that metaphorical piece of furniture can be observed amongst queer Muslims, who seek at times to conceal their religion and ethnicity, as well as their sexuality. Thirdly, I examine the question of integration and assimilation. For whilst both queer communities and ethnic and religious minorities have vehemently rejected periodic demands to assimilate, multiculturalism must be re-examined in light of increasing ethnic and religious tension, and increasingly reactionary queer politics. The problematic nature of homosexuality within the context of Islam, which in its normative practise condemns homosexuality based on prohibitions in the Qur’an (Jamal 2001), is a rich field for analysis. Although there have been a number of cultural, historical and theological studies of Islam and same-sex relationships and eroticism (Abraham 2008; AbuKhalil 1997; Duran 1993; El-Rouayheb 2005; Haqq 2000; Jamal 2001; Kugle 2003; Massad 2002; Murray and Roscoe 1997; Rouhani 2007; Schmitt and Sofer 1992), to date, only a handful of social scientific studies have been conducted with queer Muslims in the so-called ‘West’—that is, Europe and its settler colonies. In the Netherlands, El Karka and Kursun (2002) studied queer Muslim youths; in the UK, Yip (2003, 2004, 2005, 2008) completed an extensive study of largely South Asian queer Muslims, whilst Siraj (2006) completed a smaller British study; in the USA, Minwalla et al. (2005) undertook a small ethnographic study of members of the queer Muslim group Al-Fatiha, and in Australia, Hammoud-Beckett (2007) produced a small Foucauldian study. Drawing on these previous studies, my work is the first sociological research into queer Muslims in Australia, where a growing, diverse Muslim community is struggling to find its place in a postcolonial society with a visible queer community and policies of liberal multiculturalism. This article also seeks to integrate critical theoretical and historical literature into sociological studies of queer Muslims. Accordingly, I am more inclined towards the term ‘queer’ in characterising my research participants than ‘homosexual’ or ‘non-heterosexual’ preferred in previous studies. Although very few ‘non-heterosexuals’ primarily identify as queer (Pitts et al. 2006), many use ‘queer’ interchangeably with gay, lesbian, etc., and the term avoids the inevitable heteronormativity of a label like ‘non-heterosexual’. In addition to bringing sociological studies of queer Muslims into dialogue with more critical literature on sexual identity, this article also brings sociological studies of queer Muslims into dialogue with contemporary social and cultural theory focussed on Cont Islam (2009) 3:79–97 81 issues emerging from the so-called ‘war on terror’, arguing that sexuality is a part of that conflict and its attendant ideological conflict, the ‘Clash of Civilisations’. Methodology This article is based on data from interviews with twelve queer Muslims in Australia (ten gay men, one bisexual man and one lesbian), undertaken between September 2006 and June 2007. The participants are referred to by letters of the alphabet, based on the order in which they were interviewed, providing greater anonymity than the usual pseudonyms. My research participants are: & & & & & & & & & & & & A., a male in his early 20s, born and raised in Pakistan, studying in Melbourne. B., a male in his early 30s, born and raised in India, working in Melbourne. C., a male in his late 20s, born and raised in Lebanon, studying and working in Sydney. D., a male in his late 20s, born and raised in Indonesia, studying and working in Melbourne. E., a male in his early 20s, born and raised in Bangladesh, working in Melbourne. F., a male in his early 50s, born and raised in Australia, of Anglo/Celtic background, an adult convert to Islam, living and working in Sydney and Egypt. G., a male in his early 20s, born and raised in Malaysia, studying in Sydney. H., a male in his early 30s, born and raised in Bangladesh, educated in the USA, working in Sydney. I., a female in her early 30s, born in Lebanon, raised from an early age in Australia, working in Sydney. J., a male in his late 20s, born and raised in Mauritius, studying in Sydney. K., a male in his early 20s, born in India, raised in Australia, studying in Adelaide. L., a male in his early 20s, born and raised in Australia, of Egyptian background, working in Melbourne. Clearly, the small number of participants and the biases in the sample do not lend themselves to positivist sociology; I will not be attempting to lay down immutable social ‘laws’ here. But as Yip (2003: 2) was aware, even with a comparatively large, gender balanced and ethnically homogenous sample, when dealing with hidden communities one cannot confidently claim a representative sample. Indeed, there has never been an incontestable social scientific study of that rather slippery subject, sexuality. The point remains, as Barrett and Pollack (2005: 437–8) note, a homosexual community’s identity is constituted by those ‘who are open or are known by others to be homosexually active’ which raises the question of who has ‘the resources to be open about their sexual orientation’. This is especially true for minorities-within-minorities. These projects are, therefore, better undertaken as vehicles for political analysis, which is my approach. Evidentially then, there are many biases in my sample, especially in terms of gender. This is not uncommon for male researchers of sexuality; despite our best efforts we often have difficulty in finding female participants. Yip (2003) was 82 Cont Islam (2009) 3:79–97 fortunate in having a female research assistant to carry out interviews with women, a luxury which I did not have. With my primary recruitment method being notices in the queer press, the project was also affected by the male biases of the industry, as well as its urban-focus and class bias. My study replicates these biases, typical of studies of homosexuality (Valocchi 1999). It is only I. and L. who are close to representative of Australia’s Muslim communities, which are largely of Middle Eastern origin—primarily Lebanese and Turkish—largely based in working class western Sydney and northern Melbourne. The other participants are mostly affluent transnationals. The bourgeoisie of the developing world, they have the economic capital to cross political borders for study and non-manual work, but are still searching for the cultural capital to cross social borders. What are we to make, initially, of this rather disparate group of twelve individuals from nine ethnicities? On the one hand, this class bias is not surprising, given that homosexual identities—as (partially) distinct from homosexual activities—have largely been a bourgeois concern (Halperin 1990; D’Emelio 1998; Valocchi 1999). Equally, as we will see, it is also not surprising that migrant professional workers and students comprise the bulk of the sample, given that their situation as single men in large cities, separated from family, mirrors the historical developments that lead to homosexual identities emerging. Despite their differences, they all experience similar patterns of homophobia and Islamophobia, although specific experiences differ on the basis of ethnicity and gender. These participants were primarily recruited via ads in the queer press. This raises one of the abiding differences between my Australian study and those in Britain and the USA—the comparative absence of queer Muslim networks. Unlike the USA and UK, in Australia, queer Muslim networks are limited to several small, sporadic internet groups—none of which my respondents were involved with. These networks cannot offer the advocacy or support available overseas. As A. lamented, ‘at least in the US[A] you have Al-Fatiha and in the UK, Imaan, but there’s nothing down here.’ In analysing the identity construction and performance of queer Muslims and their strategies for acceptance, the relative absence of these networks is important, given the significant role organisations played in queer Muslim identity formation and performance elsewhere. In Yip’s (2003: 9–10) British study, all but one of the participants were able to access these support networks. Moreover, in Yip’s (2003, 2004, 2005, 2008) and especially in the studies of Minwalla et al. (2005), we see the distinct operation of ‘interpretive communities’ (Fish 1980) that shape scriptural hermeneutics and the construction and articulation of individual and collective queer Muslim identity. For example, involvement in a queer Muslim network ‘convinced’ a respondent in Yip’s (2005: 52–3) study that a particular passage in the Qur’an ‘didn’t refer specifically to homosexuality’. Further, in the case of AlFatiha, the subject of Minwalla et al. (2005), we see the interpretive community framing individual and collective queer Muslim identity, as such its identity is explicitly ‘progressive’ in relation to Islam, and politically within the bounds of bourgeois liberalism—hence critiques such as Massad’s (2002) that such political allegiances may render the movement complicit with the USA’s imperialist policies. Without the widespread availability of the social networks of the UK, nor the political advocacy available in the USA, queer Muslims in Australia are forging their own identities in a necessarily different manner. Thus, amidst individual exclusion Cont Islam (2009) 3:79–97 83 and rancorous political debate, Australia’s queer Muslims are articulating opinions and strategies uniquely adapted to life in a time of ideological warfare. It is to several key aspects of these political debates—the rhetoric of sexual security, the closet and identity—that I will now turn. The clash of sexual civilizations In noting the proliferation and interconnection of racist, sexist, Islamophobic, and homophobic ‘Western’ imagery and propaganda in the ‘war on terror’, Puar (2006: 67) argues that the stereotyped image of the Muslim terrorist is a ‘queer, nonnational, perversely radicalized other.’ The conflation of homosexuality and security threats is well established. Edelman (1993) and Johnson (2004) document that the queered subject was considered a major threat to the USA during the Cold War, when ‘queer’ and ‘communist’ were often interchangeable slurs. The same paranoia was evident in Australia, especially in Sydney after WWII when the local Police Commissioner felt his most important task was protecting God-fearing Sydneysiders from Communists and homosexuals (Anemogiannis 2005). This notion of the Muslim Other as a sexual predator was well established before the ‘war on terror’. The fear of miscegenation informed the sexual logic of colonialism (Young 1995: 142–58), of course, but as far back as the Crusades, propaganda depicting the ‘“sodomitical” Muslims’ as bloodthirsty homosexual predators circulated in Christian Europe. Tales of the rape of pious Christians by Muslims supported Europe’s imperial mission in the Middle East, while accusations of returned Crusaders becoming feminised and perverted—that is, queered—by their tours in the Muslim world increased fears of Islam (Boswell 1980: 194–200, 278– 82). As Rodinson (1980/2002: 7) notes, it was Europe’s ‘gradually developing ideological unity’ that required and produced such a demonisation of the Muslim world, the absolute Other that was nevertheless proximate enough to be a threat, and a subject of the imperialist imagination. During the rise of capitalism and its bourgeoisie, Islam again provided a point of ideological unity, serving as a despotic political Other which the nascent middle class could compare their own dwindling aristocrats to (Grosrichard 1998). As we will see, this is also the ideological function of Islam today in much conservative and liberal discourse. Islam functions as an absolute Other against which the supremacy of Western/Judeo-Christian/secular/ capitalist, etc. society is measured. It should not be surprising, then, to learn that one of the first victims of retaliatory violence after the 9/11 attacks was a gay Latino man who was attacked in San Francisco by other Latino men, who thought his less macho behaviour meant he was an Arab (Arondekar 2005: 242–3). More anti-queer violence is expected during the ‘war on terror’. C., a Lebanese-born respondent, told of his concerns with anecdotal evidence of a rise in homophobic violence on Sydney’s supposedly queer-friendly Oxford Street. This comes at a time when police resources in Sydney have been shifted to anti-Islamic terrorist activities and anti-Arab-Australian gang operations in Sydney’s west, leading to a reduced police presence in Sydney’s queer heartland. ‘[The police] are more concerned with terrorists and drugs than people getting beaten up and killed, which is rather ironic,’ F. noted. 84 Cont Islam (2009) 3:79–97 As long as minorities are considered threats to moral order or national security, violence will follow. It is therefore significant that the portrayal of Muslims in Australia’s media appears to mirror the past portrayal of queers, with Muslims abidingly cast as criminal deviants (Collins et al. 2000; Poynting et al. 2004). Following this logic, Australia has seen the tabloid depiction of Muslims— specifically young Arab-Australian Muslim men—as gang rapists targeting ‘Aussie’ women, following the high-profile convictions for sexual assault of several young men of Lebanese Muslim background in Sydney (Gleeson 2004; Poynting et al. 2004). The internally and externally imagined threat of the Muslim Other culminated in anti-Muslim riots in the Sydney suburb of Cronulla in December 2005 (Poynting 2006). Ostensibly sparked by a localised conflict for masculine hegemony on the beach between young working class Lebanese-Australian men and Anglo/CelticAustralian surfers, local politician Bruce Baird called the violence ‘revenge’ for the sexual assaults and Islamic terrorist attacks in the USA and Bali (AAP 2005). Homophobic and Islamophobic rhetoric was a feature of the riots, including slogans such as ‘Mahommid [sic] was a camel f—ing faggot’ (Murphy 2005: 4). These complicated sexual politics in Australian society has found its way into the queer community, with C. fascinated by the attention his relationship with a nonMuslim Anglo-Australian man received. Noting that the focus was always on ‘the Muslim thing’, the couple were assailed with gossip concerning ‘this gay Aussie [who is] going to marry a Muslim Arab.’ As C. laughed bitterly, ‘come on. You can’t even do that in Australia!’ The construction of Lebanese-Australian Muslim masculinity was also an issue raised by I., a Lebanese-Australian lesbian who noted that she did not suffer from the same violent stereotypes as Muslim men. She explained that because ‘the negative press is very male-oriented and I’m a Lebanese woman, they think, “poor woman” ... they don’t feel as threatened as they would by an Arab man.’ The most common Islamophobic trope in this ‘war on terror’ is, of course, the association of all Muslims with terrorism. In the study of Minwalla et al. (2005: 125–6), terrorism was ‘a predominant topic of discussion’ amongst gay Muslims in the USA. In my study L., an Egyptian-Australian, most keenly felt this issue. A devout Muslim, he grew a beard as part of his religious identity and he told me ‘the first time I went out to an openly gay place—and that was a major step for me— there were a few people who did make comments about my beard making me look like a terrorist.’ This association with terrorism was one that all respondents feared, and most had encountered, albeit sometimes at a distance. As Malaysian-born G. said, ‘9/11 has had so much impact not only on the Islamic world but on the gay world as well. People didn’t know anything about Islam, and now they just know Muslims are all terrorists!’ Equally, H. related his ongoing reluctance to reveal his religion to others to his fear of being ‘outed’ as a Muslim in Sydney after 9/11. Similar feelings were expressed by the founder of the British branch of the queer Muslim organisation Al-Fatiha; ‘to them’—meaning the mainstream queer community—‘everyone is like the Taliban’ (Arondekar 2005: 243–4). As we will see further on, terrorism is a key trope in the articulation of an Islamophobic queer identity. The rhetoric of fear works both ways, however, with queer Muslims noticing a desire for each group to reject the supposed sexuality of the other. Thus, the sexually-based Islamophobia found in both mainstream Australia and Australia’s Cont Islam (2009) 3:79–97 85 queer communities becomes coupled with, as A. told me, ‘a rejection of the notion of sexual orientation’ as part of a wider rejection by conservative Muslims in Australia, of ‘western systems of knowledge and practice’. Since the respondent’s fellow Pakistani-Australian Muslim friends argue that ‘the concept of orientation comes from the West [and] the idea of Western identity is rejected’ so too is the notion of sexual orientation, which comes to be viewed as ‘just a choice for hedonism.’ The bigger picture here, he told me, is that ‘we Muslims consider ourselves victims. But we’ve got our own problems, so stop perceiving the West as a machine out to get us. That’s what I see all the time.’ Mauritian-born J. concurred with these views on many Muslim’s biased perceptions of gay male relationships, arguing that most Muslims focus on: anal penetration, which comes visually to mind, and nothing else, which is very, very least and sometimes not present at all in a relationship. Everything of much more importance like love and all the values and virtues that get taught in religion are ignored. The cumulative effect of these discourses of mutual hostility—the notion that the alien Other is ‘out to get us’—renders queer Muslim identities in Australia problematic. Further reasons for this will be explored later, but at this point I want to introduce another aspect within this problematic that I am calling ‘the Muslim closet’. The Muslim closet Whether through fear, or a simple desire to assimilate, the lives of Muslims in Australia are increasingly being governed by the same logic that characterised the regime of the ‘closet’ in queer history. The need to hide queer identity has waned in the ‘Western’ world in recent decades (Seidman 2002), but many of the features of what Seidman calls the ‘regime of the closet’ are familiar to Muslims. The position that queer communities in the ‘West’ endured in the past is the position that Muslims find themselves in now—the targets of violence, police scrutiny, and casual vilification. Accordingly, some Muslims closet their religious identity from nonMuslims, just as they closet their sexual identity from most Muslims. What I am arguing here is a political reading of what Yip (2003: 6) calls the ‘compartmentalisation’ of aspects of queer Muslim identity. Compartmentalisation occurs here when sexual or religious identities are restricted to certain safe spaces. It is an ‘effective strategy’, Yip (2003: 6) insists, describing it as occurring when one identity ‘takes prominence in a particular context, without leading to the relinquishing of the other, which takes on prominence in a different context.’ In other words, queer identity or Muslim identity is placed in the closet, to be brought out at a later date. Compartmentalisation is an integral part of secularisation, particularly in the culture of liberal capitalism with its respect for diversity in the private sphere as an ancillary of the sanctity of private property. As Bruce (2002: 19–20) glosses part of the secularisation thesis, compartmentalisation and its attendant privatisation of religion weakens the basis of shared beliefs. This is especially pertinent for Islam, insofar as it has largely resisted this imposition of 86 Cont Islam (2009) 3:79–97 liberal capitalism, refusing to be reduced to a commodity, or a label of ironic detachment. I would therefore suggest that compartmentalisation is an example of both the limits of liberalism and the fearful, ‘“life-shaping” social pattern’ of ‘deception and duplicity’ that characterises the regime of the closet (Seidman 2002: 7–8). Thus, if the strategy of ‘compartmentalisation’ is ‘effective’, it is merely effective closeting; it is not an effective solution to prejudice. In articulating the psychologically devastating effects of closeting, Seidman (2002: 30–1) argues that the need to conceal one’s true identity affects ‘the psychological and social core of an individual’s life’, through the fostering of fear and shame. Or, as the Muslim lesbian I. put it, ‘it really screws up your head.’ She evocatively discussed the effects of the closet: It’s frustrating when you have to hide because who I am is very confident, very extroverted [but] as confident and as strong as you are, there’s always that bit inside you, saying, just hide who you are, otherwise it will be your downfall. You have to be so many different personalities and you have to remember which is which and to pull back and you become so good at it that it’s almost like waking up in the morning. You meet your gay friends and, well, there you are, you’re gay; then you run into someone in the street who knows you and you’re a good Muslim. It’s like this rollercoaster that never ends ... Everywhere you turn you have to jump into a different closet. Another aspect of closeting was related to me by Indonesian-born D. who argued that ‘you can hide your religious identity.’ When I suggested that for certain people, typically Arabs, it is not easy to hide one’s religious identity, he responded that: despite your physical appearance, you can always deny what you are. It’s the same with before we came out; we’d always deny it, no matter how camp we are, no matter how much of a queen we are. With some Middle Eastern people who aren’t the stereotype, I’m sure it’s a lot easier for them to hide their religious identity. I don’t think it’s because they’re ashamed of it, just that if I reveal it, it will create more trouble for me. It’s more like a choice that they have to make. Again, this would seem to be in line with the ‘life-shaping’ regime of the closet. Malaysian-born G. expressed similar attitudes, explaining, ‘I only tell my religion to gay men if I really know them [and] if I know it’s safe to tell them I’m Muslim.’ G. learnt that in Australia, ‘it’s very rude to ask if someone’s a Muslim because of the whole terrorism thing.’ He explained that he felt fortunate not to ‘look’ Muslim so as to be the target of such prejudice in the queer community. ‘They don’t think I’m a Muslim,’ he said. ‘They think I could be Buddhist or a Filipino boy and a Christian. They don’t think I look Muslim, they think of Arabic guys, they think that they’re Muslim; they’ll be racist to them.’ This prejudice was something that. L., as an ‘Arabic guy’, had become resigned to. ‘There’s some things about yourself that you just can’t change’, he said: With me, in some ways I distinctively look Muslim. I can’t change the way I look or change my ethnicity, so you’ve just got to deal with it. That’s the way I look at it—I just have to deal with it; it’s just there. Cont Islam (2009) 3:79–97 87 We have seen the individual, psychological effects of the closet, but Seidman (2002: 28) insists that the closet also manifests itself on the broader political stage, with the prohibition on public manifestations of homosexuality as part of the regime. In the context of the Muslim closet, one sees this most clearly in the recent debates on hijab in Europe and Australia. Freedom of choice is held up as a bastion of the liberal ‘West’, yet it ran aground when it was observed that young women were making unwestern choices (Abraham 2006). The answer was to rhetorically curtail this by insisting those who acted in a contrary fashion were obviously being coerced; but it is to be hoped that one day they may be liberated, at which point they will be in a position to enjoy their freedom of choice as others do. The sign of this liberation will be their choosing to conform with the norms of liberal capitalist society. This is a perfect example of Adorno and Horkheimer’s (1944) analysis of the consumerist logic of liberal freedom: one is free to choose a religion if it has been neutralised, whereas the freedom to choose ideology is the freedom ‘to choose what is always the same.’ Jakobsen and Pellegrini (2003: 117–22) make a similar point; the liberal respect for difference in the private sphere is typically paid for with public conformity, reinforcing hegemonic cultural norms. Similar again is Fish’s (2001: 56– 74) concept of ‘boutique multiculturalism’, the self-congratulatory acceptance of superficial differences in liberal society. It is not surprising then, as liberal multiculturalism readjusts to the ‘clash of civilisations’, that the celebrated liberal tolerance for superficial difference is increasingly coupled with intolerance of more significant differences which become nationally or civilisationally-defining identity tropes (Fekete 2004; Kundnani 2007). It is to the sexual logic of these debates that I want to now turn, specifically Muslim heteronormativity and queer homonormativity. Against difference: heteronormativity and homonormativity The socio-political regime that gave rise to the queer closet was heteronormativity, the self-explanatory discourse of the normalising of heterosexuality, such that it renders any alternative sexuality deviant and perverse. A new regime may be in the making, defined by Duggan (2002) as ‘homonormativity’. It follows a similar pattern as heteronormativity, but with the lines of inclusion redrawn. Homonormativity works with the return of the strategy of assimilation for both sexual and ethnoreligious minorities found in various flavours of contemporary liberal and conservative politics. Indeed, homonormativity is the logical endpoint of proassimilationist rhetoric from sexual minorities, which has occasionally drawn in religious argument, lead by individuals such as the gay Catholic conservative Andrew Sullivan (1995). The simple premise of homonormativity is that the gay and lesbian bourgeoisie have a great deal in common with affluent heterosexuals, and thus share a similar desire to maintain their power and privilege. I would argue that homonormative attitudes are at least in part responsible for the desire of some queer Muslims to closet their religion. In keeping with the neo-conservative tones of the new debate, crude renderings of race and religion are very much central to the homonormative project, with Muslims in particular emerging as the demonised—though ironically thoroughly queered— 88 Cont Islam (2009) 3:79–97 Other, against which western liberal capitalism can define itself (Arondekar 2005; Puar 2005, 2006; Puar and Rai 2002). This chauvinism is a staple of homonormativity that is reinforced by the notion of ‘Western’ sexual exceptionalism deriving from antiessentialist analysis of sexual identity. Whilst Halperin’s (1990: 8) accurate observation that, ‘[h]omosexuality and heterosexuality, as we currently know them, are modern, Western bourgeois productions’ has no obvious bias behind it, Weeks’ (1992: xi) insistence that the only future for sexuality in the Muslim majority world is to ‘approximate more and more to the secularised Western model, or come increasingly under the sway of a new religious militancy’ is obviously far more problematic. Weeks’ prediction reinforces a reactionary caricature of the Muslim majority world as a religious throwback, whose future lies in emulating the life of the Western bourgeoisie, whose sexuality offers the rest of the world the image of its own future. Now, one cannot ignore the contribution of Canadian lesbian writer and selfdeclared ‘Muslim refusenik’ Irshad Manji in this area. It is no surprise that Sullivan (2004) wrote (largely) approvingly of Manji’s (2004) The Trouble with Islam. Manji neatly combines all the tropes of homonormativity and neo-conservatism, from proUSA boosterism, to racism, Zionism and neo-liberal economics. Manji continues the homonormative neo-liberal assault on welfare (see Duggan 2002: 177–83) but with a neat post-9/11 twist. Shrugging off any pretence to accuracy and any obligation to undertake basic fact-checking, Manji succinctly depicts Muslims receiving welfare as parasitic extremists, ominously warning that welfare allows them to ‘buy the time to organize and execute their plans’ (Manji 2004: 196). Following Žižek’s (1997: 29) analysis of earlier racist anti-welfare drives, we see in Manji’s example the extreme exception (Muslim extremists) being promoted as the normative ungrateful beneficiaries of the welfare system. By means of engaging the crudest racist stereotypes and threats, the whole notion of social security is thus undermined. Setting this aside, it important to understand that for all the reactionary opportunism of homonormativity, it is heteronormativity that adversely affects queer Muslims most of all. One of the key reasons why A. felt unable to ‘come out’ was the inconceivability of a queer Muslim to his Muslim friends. ‘They would say, “you’re a Muslim, how can you be this?”’ he told me. When he and a group of friends were having dinner one evening, one friend mentioned a Muslim lesbian whom he had heard about. The response was disbelief: ‘how can you be a lesbian and a Muslim?’ Such an attitude is the result, he said, of most Muslims’ perceptions ‘that queer people are non-religious.’ Similar to Yip’s (2003: 8, 2004: 340–1) findings, A.’s Pakistani-born Muslim friends believed that homosexuality is a ‘home-grown [that is, ‘Western’-grown] thing’ based on the ‘hedonism’ they see exemplified by Sydney’s world-renowned annual Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras. Butler (1991: 20) notes that heteronormativity works partly through the discernment of ‘unviable (un)subjects’ who dwell within the ‘domain of unthinkability’, existing within discourse ‘as a falsehood’. The Muslim lesbian was one such contradictory ‘(un)subject’, for the friends of my self-identifying bisexual Muslim research participant. Amongst his friends, he is rendered unable to announce his (queer) existence to prove the discourse of impossibility false, because of the ‘unnameability’ of his own identity. Just as the heteronormativity outlined here works through the logic of maintaining ‘unviable (un)subjects’, so does homonormativity. So whereas for conservative Cont Islam (2009) 3:79–97 89 Muslims a queer Muslim becomes the unviable subject, for some in the queer community, a queer Muslim is an impossible—or at least dubious—subject. This has been B.’s experience, encountering the effects of the unthinkability of queer Muslims within the queer community in which he is active, recalling that, ‘sometimes people are surprised that I’m a Muslim and I’m gay [asking,] “how could you be a Muslim and gay” and then all these questions!’ As an Anglo/Celtic convert, F. experienced his own form of this unthinkability, explaining that: friends and people that I meet are always totally shocked to find out that I’m a Muslim. I hear them going on about “fucking Muslims” and all that and I ask, “oh, really? You think so? Well, I’m a Muslim,” and they go, “nooo!” It used to be like that with being queer. It’s the same thing. Friends would be telling gay jokes and not realise that I was gay. This is not a situation that just affects Muslims, however. Hegemonic queer identity has many facets, such that B. said, ‘anyone who is not stereotypical is viewed with some apprehension.’ The response of ‘you’re Muslim and you’re gay?’ was thus likened by him to the response of ‘you like heavy metal and you’re gay? Anything beside the typical gay identity is viewed with doubt.’ F. explained that in Sydney’s ‘superficial’ queer community ‘there’s a prejudice against people who are old as much as there is a prejudice against people who are Muslim. When I reached 35 or 40, I thought I’d passed my use-by date.’ Similarly, L. noted his concerns about body image in the queer community. ‘It’s about religion and race and all that, and then weight,’ he said. ‘At the end of the day there’s always going to be barriers to being accepted.’ For I., there were issues of conforming with the dominant lesbian identity, too. ‘I’m not a vegetarian, short haired feminist,’ she said. ‘You kind of sense that whole “we’re feminists, we don’t eat meat, so what are you doing?” kind of attitude.’ For Indonesian-born D. and Malaysian-born G., the anti-Asian racism prevalent in Australia’s queer community (Ridge et al 1997, 1999; Sullivan and Jackson 1999) was the main non-religious concern. As D. said, ‘there’s a sense of outsider/insider, some ethnic groups are included, and some are not. [In] the gay Asian groups, we talk a lot about exclusion, we talk a lot about alienation.’ For his part, G. laughed when I asked if he’d ever encountered racism in the queer community in Australia. ‘I’m telling you, this is such a common thing amongst gay men! Racism is just, like, racism is just so common amongst gay men!’ The queer Muslims I interviewed were even more critical about the cultural isolation and lack of acceptance of diversity in the Muslim community than the lack of acceptance and insularity of the queer community, however. Lebanese-born C. argued that ‘the Lebanese in Australia are not like the Lebanese in Lebanon—they are living 20 or 30 years behind,’ in something of a simulacra of the Lebanon of yore. In Sydney—home, to Australia’s largest Lebanese community—C. argued Lebanese-Australians, ‘all live in the western suburbs and they don’t mix with all these other cultures living in the city.’ The result of such isolation, he continued, can be devastating for queer Lebanese-Australian Muslims: one Muslim man said to me, ‘It’s like I have a disease’. He gets that from the family, from the culture. And where can he go? He’s stuck, there’s nowhere to go. 90 Cont Islam (2009) 3:79–97 A. and E. made similar points to C. about Muslims from Pakistan and Bangladesh becoming increasingly conservative after migrating to Australia. They’re overcompensating for being a minority’, A. said, ‘to show those within the community that the West hasn’t affected them—it hasn’t corrupted them.’ Yip (2004: 340, 2005: 50) noted similar attitudes in the UK, but this over-performance of conservative religious tropes leads to a discourse of threat and purity. As I. explained, her Muslim community looks at homosexuality ‘as a plague; something that will come and infect them.’ It is little surprise, then, that, as L. noted, there is virtually no mixing of Muslim and queer communities, since each lives ‘in their own culture or subculture.’ Clearly, queer Muslims—arguably more than heterosexual Muslims—have a significant stake in the successful integration of Muslim communities into broader society. This is not to say that a return to assimilation is appropriate—one cannot ask someone to give up their faith, culture or sexuality upon pain of marginalisation or discrimination. This approach is on the agenda again, however, under the guise of ‘social cohesion’. Spearheaded by Britain’s New Labour, the policy is an amalgam of previous policies designed to supersede multiculturalism and adapt minorities to an appropriate economic position and cultural identity in late capitalism (Schierup et al. 2006: 122–3; Kundnani 2007). This requires a commitment to liberal consumer culture as much as anything else, with one’s religious identity being privatised and reduced to the status of something like one’s identity as a football supporter. We may be parochial, but with a properly postmodern sense of irony. Now, a trick of conservative and liberal Islamophobia, especially homonormativity, is to exploit conservative Muslim homophobia to argue for the return of racist policies of yesterday. Indeed, F. and I. were dismayed to read Islamophobic articles in Sydney’s queer press, especially Islamophobic comments from individuals known to be vehement supporters of human rights. It is not hegemonic liberal capitalism that Muslims (or queers) need to be better integrated into. Rather, the real issue lies in C.’s critique of the insufficient mixing with the ‘other cultures’ in Sydney. What is required, therefore, is greater subcultural interaction, beneath the radar of the apparatuses of the multicultural state (e.g. Knight 2004, 2006), in this case between Sydney’s Muslim subculture and Sydney’s queer subculture. Both are isolationist, both maintain internal hegemonies predicated on the demonising of the other, and both are locked in a battle for the status of ‘model minority’. What is needed is a way to cut this knot; to reset the co-ordinates of the problematic. What I am signalling here is a process of hybridity, an integral strategy for queer Muslim recognition that short circuits the exclusionary discourses of homophobia and Islamophobia. Critical differences: hybridity in theory and reality As we have seen, the problem of separatism is not unique to Muslims in Australia. D. was greatly concerned with the separatism of the gay community, arguing that ‘we have to stop seeing ourselves as this group that don’t want to do anything with the rest of society.’ He then related his arguments back to the Muslim community: for so long we demanded for them to accept us. We only ask one thing, inclusion, and yet we are not prepared to understand them. This is why there is Cont Islam (2009) 3:79–97 91 such a gap between the gay community and the straight community and the Islamic community and the rest of society. As we have seen, for both Muslim and queer communities, separatism has lead to essentialised identity constructs. The separatism of the Muslim community in Australia, as part of a broader anti-‘Western’ defensiveness has lead to the inconceivability of queer Muslim subjectivity and broader interactions. Equally, separatism within the queer community has led to the acceptability of selfperpetuating homonormative assumptions that make the recognition of identities such as queer Muslims difficult. If these essentialised identity constructs have resulted from, and resulted in, minority isolation, an obvious alternative would be some form of hybrid identity. Hybridity theory has become a staple of the academy in the past decade. Bhabha (2004: 314–9) has theorised hybridity around the notion of the development of a ‘third space’, in which the cultures of, typically, the coloniser and the colonised function to create an ambivalent space that resists reduction to its composite elements. Hybridity theory has attracted criticism for its bullish optimism. As Papastergiadis (1997: 261) glosses these liberal expectations, hybrids were supposed to be the ‘lubricants in the clashes of culture [...] the negotiators who would secure a future free of xenophobia.’ Marxists have provided necessary critiques of the ‘corporate rhetoric’ (Papastergiadis 2005: 54) of hybridity theory. For whilst it may well be true that ‘no one can “riff” on postcolonial semiotics the way Bhabha can’ (Sanbonmatsu 2004: 87), approaches to hybridity such as his, Dirlik (1994: 333) argues, substitutes ‘post-structuralist linguistic manipulation for historical and social explanation.’ Equally, Ahmad (1992, 1995) notes the immateriality of much hybridity theory that disavows the fact that people are not as free to indulge in the free play of signification that the turbo-profs envisage. Identities—queer Muslim and otherwise—are intimately related to fluid socio-economic realities, which in turn are intimately related to culture and consciousness. A properly critical hybridity recognises the material grounding of identities—whether ‘Muslim’, ‘Australian’ or ‘queer’, identities are ‘placed [and] positioned in a culture, a language, a history’ (Hall 1987: 46). This is also the case for identities in the process of becoming, such as ‘queer Muslim’ identity; we just have better view of that culture, language and history in the making. The interviews I conducted with queer Muslims in Australia seemed to be in line with these Marxist approaches to hybridity. Papastergiadis (2005: 58) argues that: [t]he critical challenge of hybridity theory is not an unending celebration and display of difference but rather a critique of the conditions that constrain the complexities and exclude the totality of cultural exchange. Thus, despite the difficulties with gaining acceptance and the clear concerns with abiding separation between Muslims and mainstream Australian society, the queer Muslims I interviewed do not advocate assimilation as the solution to their problems. Although Australian culture was, in general, celebrated, especially by G. who claims it had taught him ‘how to think independently’ and B. who appreciated Australia’s culture of egalitarianism, evident in women’s greater involvement in Muslim community life, the lack of acceptance of Islam was criticised. ‘Being gay in 92 Cont Islam (2009) 3:79–97 Sydney, you have to live your gay life as a Westerner’s gay way of living,’ Mauritian-born J. complained. ‘You have to choose; you can’t be Muslim and gay, to put it bluntly.’ Whilst H. felt that mainstream Australia has adopted the anti-Muslim prejudice he experienced in the USA. On the other hand, there was little desire for an isolationist approach. In queer networks developed around broad cultural ties, forms of discrimination can simply emerge on other grounds. E.’s Bangladeshi background was a source of discrimination in his South Asian queer context and L. feared encountering Maronite Catholic Islamophobia in a queer Arab group. In regards to Islam itself, the approach was one of celebrating diversity. As B. said, ‘the beauty of Islam in some ways is that [while] the way of worshipping is the same all around the world there are cultural differences.’ Indeed, as D. said, ‘the spirituality of Islam is not fixed. The Turkish, the Indonesian, the Malaysian, we have different interpretations of what Islam is.’ This diversity carried over into the realms of politics. As A. noted, ‘Islam has always been attractive for the marginalised—look at the early converts, most of them were women or slaves.’ Of course, sexuality was considered part of the mix, with A. furious that conservative Islam rejects homosexuality since, ‘it’s always been there in Muslim societies!’ Instead, the participants often articulated a form of the dialectical hybridity theory outlined above that can negate the logic of Islamophobia and homophobia. As D. insisted, ‘assimilation is only a one-way process; the minority is always expected to assimilate into the majority. This is not right.’ What is needed, he asserted, is ‘more two-way interaction’. Specifically, he insisted that ‘we need to incorporate Islam into the wider Australian culture, so it’s not just one way assimilation which is what they’re doing now.’ Here we see a quietly resolute subversion of both assimilationist homonormativity and the rhetoric of exclusion and fear that has emerged in recent years surrounding the presence of Muslims in the West. It is also hard to imagine a more controversial cultural programme than insisting that Australia needs to be more Muslim. In fact, Islam was posited as a solution to homophobia and other prejudices. ‘The conflict becomes the solution. You’re conflicting with your religion while the solution is in it,’ said J. The feeling of many was that if only everyone was as good a Muslim as they were, there would be more acceptance, in contrast to the notion that the culture of liberal capitalism best accommodates diversity. As K. said: It’s repeatedly stressed in the Qur’an and the sayings of the Holy Prophet ... that no one is better than anyone except if they have done good deeds; if they’re a good person at heart. It says if you’re from a different race, speak a different language, are a different skin colour or are rich or poor or man or woman or child, you know, you’re all equal. I guess gay people would be equal to straight people, too. Now, the ‘two-way’ interaction that D. specifically speaks of, and the political critiques of the others—rooted equally in Islamic history, egalitarian politics and appreciation of diversity that comes with the perspective of the outsider—are perfect examples of the ‘decolonizing of the imagination’ that Papastergiadis (2005) argues is necessary for a critical hybridity. This process will necessarily involve, D. argued, a ‘blending-in [of] different aspects of our personality’—as much Muslim as queer or Australian. Indeed, as B. told me, ‘I view myself as a very complex mix. Even Cont Islam (2009) 3:79–97 93 growing up ... I had that dual identity of Muslim and Indian. Then I moved here. So I’ve got Muslim, Indian, Australian and gay.’ Rather than privileging any particular identity—though, if pressed, he found ‘Muslim’ to be the most amenable and inclusive of all the others—this quote illustrates the ongoing process of thoughtful hybridity in the lives of queer Muslims in Australia. Equally, from the queer perspective, J. appreciated the fact that in Australia he could be ‘part of the society and the community. In Mauritius they would feel, okay, you are part of the gay community, but you are still alien to the society.’ In more prosaic terms, G. appreciated being able to attend his mosque with flamboyant died hair and wearing his surf gear and elicit responses of utter indifference from his fellow Muslims. Whilst such inclusiveness may be experienced in Australia on queer and Islamic levels, the mixing of the two is still, of course, somewhat rare. An excellent example of a queer Australian Muslim hybridity came in the form of the semi-annual dance party, Club Arak in Sydney, mentioned by three participants. Promoted as ‘Middle Eastern flavoured dance for queers of all colours’, F. recognised it as a conduit for young people to ‘rebel against their Christian parents’. In this context, the fact that it is explicitly queer and Middle Eastern makes it a doubly subversive hybrid cultural event and a fine example of redrawing the boundaries of political and social identification and belonging. In discussing the possibilities of greater integration of Muslim and queer identity and community, D. used the example of the movement of queer subjectivity into the broader Australian community in a relatively short space of time. ‘We’ve become part of their imagination,’ he said of heterosexual, mainstream Australian society. ‘We’re a part of the heterosexual system,’ he added, noting that as a result: the heterosexual view of themselves also changes. The fact that we are being accepted into the big group shows that they are negotiating themselves to include homosexual identity, desire and pleasures. What is argued is that a similar process needs to take place with sexuality in Muslim communities, and with Islam in broader Australian society. In other words, the equitable or organic integration of a hitherto despised or marginalised subjectivity inevitably involves a process of hybridity. This is not the ‘one-way assimilation’ that D. denounced, nor is it the liberal tolerance that comes from respecting difference at a distance. Nor, again, is it voguish ‘integrationism’ (Kundnani 2007) or social inclusion that occurs under the regime of capital and its attendant multicultural bureaucrats. Rather, the mainstream community and its culture are altered through the inclusion of disparate parts. This will, of course, be very difficult and apart from occasional glimpses at Club Arak and elsewhere, a hybridised queer Australian Islam largely exists as a plan—or a dream—for the queer Muslims I interviewed. After all, ‘you can’t be an activist and discrete at the same time,’ A. said. ‘I’d love to run around and help set up this and that, but I also want to hide in the background,’ I. said. D., more open than most of the participants, was aware of the consequences of a more public Muslim face in a queer context, explaining that: there’ll be a lot of backlash. There’ll be a lot of questions raised like, “oh, you’re Muslim, but here you are seven o’clock in the morning at [a Melbourne 94 Cont Islam (2009) 3:79–97 gay nightclub], dancing with your top off, how can you claim to be a Muslim?” There are a lot of stereotypes that need to be broken down. Nevertheless, the participants were aware that this was necessary, especially in the current climate of fear that the Other is ‘out to get us’. Accordingly, ‘I always make sure I tell people, “no, that’s not what Islam is about”’ I. said. ‘I always defend Islam if any one asks any questions.’ Similarly, F. hoped that the current climate of conflict might be the engine of a more reconciled and inclusive future. As he said: 9/11 brought Islam to the public notice ... of people who had never thought either way about it. They found out more about it through interviews and various reports. So now after this whole mess in Iraq is over, I think things will be better in the world for the acceptance of Islam. Again, however, the question of the acceptance or embracing of queer sexuality in Muslim communities looms as a unique challenge all on its own, but certainly not greater than reversing the current acceleration of division under the rhetoric and reality of the so-called ‘war on terror’. Conclusion This, then, is the challenge for queer Muslims in Australia and elsewhere. In the current context of the so-called ‘Clash of Civilisations’ wherein Muslims and queers are presented as dichotomous antagonists, the queer Muslim question takes on the added political dimensions that have been raised throughout this article. What might appear initially to be a simple matter of liberal decency was quickly revealed to be more a symptom of broader political trends with long histories. Accordingly, what is required to defeat the futile politics of the so-called ‘Clash of Civilisations’ is the resetting of the co-ordinates of political identities and social belonging, along the way debunking fears that the Other is ‘out to get us’. Thus, rather than a ‘clash of civilisations’ between ‘Islam’ and ‘The West’, the real dilemma of our age is what is referred to on the Left as a crisis of civilisation; growing cycles of division, alienation and exploitation. What is necessary is a social realignment away from the nationalist or ‘civilisational’ discourses of those ‘who see salvation only in conventional solidarity’ (Kalra et al. 2005: 63), either in the contemporary regime of ideological unity in Europe and its colonies that previously utilised Islam as a demonised other during the crusades and the rise of the bourgeoisie or its Islamist counter-face. Rather, as Papastergiadis (2005: 59) observes ‘[h]ybridity demands a re-evaluation of the modes of cultural and political affiliation.’ Although queer sexuality could provide one of the necessary discourses to defeat such politics of fear, since along with class it posits a horizontal identity cutting across boundaries, as we have seen, it would seem to have been trumped by national or civilsational identities. This article has shown that in resisting assimilation and separation, heteronormativity and homonormativity, and above all, the fear of the other that besets Australia and other multicultural communities of the ‘West’, queer Muslims are beginning to articulate a critical hybridity. What is necessary for the desired Cont Islam (2009) 3:79–97 95 integration of queer Muslims in Australia is this ‘two-way’ integration of queer Muslims into the normative life of Muslim and queer communities, as a microcosm of the necessary interaction of Muslims with other (sub)cultures and communities. Indeed, it was passionately argued by D, that the desired integration of Muslims into the life of the queer community will lead to the ‘redefining’ of that community. Thus, the queer community would no longer ‘just be about same-sex attraction, it will be about the different things—family, religion and cultural background—that create an individual.’ One can only imagine the ways in which the desired integration of Islam—queer or otherwise—into the life of mainstream Australia and the ‘West’ may begin to ‘redefine’ and re-image it. I would like to think, however, that whatever form this strange hybrid might end up taking, it will feel something like this final scenario, related to me by B.: When I’m invited to dinner at a gay friend’s place during Ramadan, I’ll take my prayer mat with me. After I break my fast with them, I’ll say my prayers. My friends are very accommodating and I don’t conceal that I’m a practising Muslim, nor do I conceal that I’m gay. References AAP. (2005). ‘Terrorism, Gang Rapes Behind Riots’: MP. December 12. Abraham, I. (2006). Hijab in an age of fear: Security, secularism and human rights. Australian Religion Studies Review, 19(2), 169–189. Abraham, I. (2008). ‘Sodomized by religion’: Fictional representations of queer Muslims in the ‘West’. Topia: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, 19, 137–152. AbuKhalil, A. (1997). Gender boundaries and sexual categories in the Arab world. Feminist Issues, 15(1), 91–104. Adorno, T., & Horkheimer, M. (1944). The culture industry: Enlightenment as mass deception. http:// marxists.org/reference/archive/adorno/1944/culture-industry.htm. Accessed 1 June 2007. Ahmad, A. (1992). In theory: Classes, nations, literatures. London: Verso. Ahmad, A. (1995). The politics of literary postcoloniality. Race & Class, 36(3), 1–20. Anemogiannis, C. (2005). The hidden history of homosexual Australia. (Film). SBS/Madman Entertainment. Arondekar, A. (2005). Border/line sex: Queer postcolonialities, or how race matters outside the United States. Interventions, 7(2), 236–250. Barrett, D., & Pollack, L. (2005). Whose gay community? Social class, sexual self-expression, and gay community involvement. Sociological Quarterly, 46(3), 437–456. Bhabha, H. (2004). The location of culture. London: Routledge Classics. Boswell, J. (1980). Christianity, social tolerance and homosexuality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bruce, S. (2002). God is dead: Secularization in the West. Oxford: Blackwell. Butler, J. (1991). Imitation and gender insubordination. In D. Fuss (Ed.), Inside/out: Lesbian theories, gay theories (pp. 13–31). London: Routledge. Collins, J., et al. (2000). Kebabs, kids, cops and crime: Youth, ethnicity and crime. Sydney: Pluto. D’Emilio, J. (1998). Sexual politics, sexual communities. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Dirlik, A. (1994). The postcolonial aura: Third World criticism in the age of global capitalism. Critical Inquiry, 20(2), 328–356. Duggan, L. (2002). The New Homonormativity: The Sexual Politics of Neo-Liberalism. In R. Castronovo, & D. Nelson (Eds.), Materializing democracy: Toward a revitalized cultural politics (pp. 175–194). Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Duran, K. (1993). Homosexuality and Islam. In A. Swindler (Ed.), Homosexuality and world religions (pp. 181–197). Valley Forge, PA: Trinity. 96 Cont Islam (2009) 3:79–97 Edelman, L. (1993). Tearooms and sympathy, or, the epistemology of the water closet. In H. Abelove, M. A. Barale, & D. M. Halperin (Eds.), The lesbian and gay studies reader (pp. 553–574). New York: Routledge. El Karka, I., & Kursun, H. (2002). Mijn geloof en mijn geluk. Islamistiche meiden en jongens over hun homoseksuele gevoelens. (My belief and my happiness: Muslim girls and boys on their homosexual feelings). Amsterdam: Schorer. El-Rouayheb, K. (2005). Before homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic world, 1500–1800. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Fekete, L. (2004). Anti-Muslim racism and the European security state. Race & Class, 46(1), 3–29. Fish, S. (1980). Is there a text in this class? The authority of interpretive communities. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Fish, S. (2001). The trouble with principle. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gleeson, K. (2004). From centenary to the Olympics, gang rape in Sydney. Current Issues in Criminal Justice, 16(2), 183–201. Grosrichard, A. (1998). The Sultan’s court: European fantasies of the east. London: Verso. Hall, S. (1987). Minimal selves. In H. Bhabha (Ed.), Identity—The real me (pp. 44–6). London: Institute of Contemporary Arts. Halperin, D. (1990). One hundred years of homosexuality. New York: Routledge. Hammoud-Beckett, S. (2007). Azima ila hiyati—An invitation in to my life. International Journal of Narrative Therapy & Community Work, 1, 29–39. Haqq, I. A. (2000). Homosexuality and Islam in America. Journal of Islamic Law & Culture, 5, 87–96. Huntington, S. (1996). The clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order. New York: Simon & Schuster. Jakobsen, J., & Pellegrini, A. (2003). Love the sin: Sexual regulation and the limits of religious tolerance. New York: New York University Press. Jamal, A. (2001). The story of Lot and the Qur’an’s perception of the morality of same-sex sexuality. Journal of Homosexuality, 41, 1–88. Johnson, D. K. (2004). The lavender scare: The cold war persecution of gays and lesbians in the federal government. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kalra, V. S., et al. (2005). Diaspora and hybridity. London: Sage. Knight, M. M. (2004). The Taqwacores. New York: Autonomedia. Knight, M. M. (2006). Blue-eyed devil: A road odyssey through Islamic America. New York: Autonomedia. Kugle, S. (2003). Sexuality, diversity and ethics in the agenda of progressive Muslims. In O. Safi (Ed.), Progressive Muslims (pp. 190–234). Oxford: Oneworld. Kundnani, A. (2007). Integrationism: The politics of anti-Muslim racism. Race & Class, 48(4), 24–44. Manji, I. (2004). The trouble with Islam. Sydney: Random House. Massad, J. (2002). Re-orienting desire: The Gay International and the Arab world. Public Culture, 14(2), 361–385. Minwalla, O., et al. (2005). Identity experience amongst progressive gay Muslims in North America: A qualitative study within al-Fatiha. Culture, Health & Sexuality, 7(2), 113–128. Murphy, D. (2005). Thugs ruled the streets, and the mob sang Waltzing Matilda. Sydney Morning Herald, December 12, A4–A5. Murray, S. O., & Roscoe, W. (Eds.) (1997). Islamic homosexualities: Culture, history, and literature. New York: New York University Press. Papastergiadis, N. (1997). Tracing hybridity in theory. In P. Werbner, & T. Modood (Eds.), Debating cultural hybridity (pp. 257–281). London: Zed. Papastergiadis, N. (2005). Hybridity and ambivalence: Places and flows in contemporary art and culture. Theory, Culture & Society, 22(4), 39–64. Pitts, M., et al. (2006). Private lives: A report on the health and wellbeing of GLBTI Australia. Melbourne: La Trobe University. Poynting, S. (2006). What caused the Cronulla riot. Race & Class, 48(1), 85–92. Poynting, S., et al. (2004). Bin Laden in the suburbs: Criminalising the Arab other, Sydney: Sydney Institute of Criminology. Puar, J. K. (2005). On torture: Abu Ghraib. Radical History Review, 93, 15–38. Puar, J. K. (2006). Mapping U.S. homonormativities. Gender, Place & Culture, 13(1), 67–88. Puar, J. K., & Rai, A. (2002). Monster, terrorist, fag: The war on terrorism and the production of docile patriots. Social Text, 72, 117–148. Cont Islam (2009) 3:79–97 97 Ridge, D., et al. (1997). Queer connections: Community, ‘the scene’ and an epidemic. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 26(2), 146–181. Ridge, D., et al. (1999). ‘Asian’ men on the scene: Challenges to ‘gay communities’. In P. A. Jackson, & G. Sullivan (Eds.), Multicultural queer: Australian narratives (pp. 43–68). New York: Haworth. Rodinson, M. (1980/2002). Europe and the mystique of Islam. London: I.B. Taurus. Rouhani, F. (2007). Religion, identity and activism: Queer Muslim diasporic identities. In K. Brown, et al. (Ed.), Geographies of sexualities (pp. 169–179). Aldershot: Ashgate. Sanbonmatsu, J. (2004). The postmodern prince: Critical theory, left strategy and the making of new political subjects. New York: Monthly Review. Schierup, C.-U., Hansen, P., & Castles, S. (2006). Migration, citizenship and the European welfare state. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schmitt, A. & Sofer, J. (Eds). (1992). Sexuality and eroticism among males in Moslem societies. New York: Haworth Press. Seidman, S. (2002). Beyond the closet: The transformation of gay and lesbian life. New York: Routledge. Siraj, A. (2006). On being homosexual and Muslim: Conflicts and challenges. In L. Ouzgane (Ed.), Islamic masculinities (pp. 202–216). London: Zed Books. Sullivan, A. (1995). Virtually normal: An argument about homosexuality. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Sullivan, A. (2004). “The trouble with Islam”: Reform from within. http://www.racematters.org/ irshadmanji.htm. Accessed 1 June 2007. Sullivan, G., & Jackson, P. (1999). Introduction: Ethnic minorities and the lesbian and gay community. In P. Jackson, & G. Sullivan (Eds.), Multicultural queer: Australian narratives (pp. 1–28). New York: Haworth. Valocchi, S. (1999). The class-inflected nature of gay identity. Social Problems, 46(2), 207–224. Weeks, J. (1992). Introduction. In A. Schmitt, & J. Sofer (Eds.), Sexuality and eroticism among males in Moslem societies (pp. 9–11). New York: Haworth. Yip, A. K. T. (2003). A minority within a minority: British non-heterosexual Muslims: Report of research activities and results. 10 May. http://www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk. Accessed 1 June 2008. Yip, A. K. T. (2004). Negotiating space with family and kin in identity construction: The narratives of British non-heterosexual Muslims. The Sociological Review, 52(3), 336–350. Yip, A. K. T. (2005). Queering religious texts: An exploration of British non-heterosexual Christians’ and Muslims’ strategies of constructing sexually-affirming hermeneutics. Sociology, 39(1), 47–65. Yip, A. K. T. (2008). The quest for intimate/sexual citizenship: Lived experiences of lesbian and bisexual Muslim women. Contemporary Islam, 2(2), 103–129. Young, R. J. (1995). Colonial desire: Hybridity in theory, culture and race. London: Routledge. Žižek, S. (1997). Multiculturalism, or, the cultural logic of multinational capitalism. New Left Review, 225, 28–51.