Manufacturing Terrorism in Africa : The Securitisation of South African Muslims

This book uses Securitisation Theory to explore how Muslims have been constructed as a security issue in Africa after the 9/11 attacks in the United States. This book explores, particularly, how western-centred security discourses around Muslims has permeated South African security discourse in the post-apartheid period.

This book uses Securitisation Theory to explore how Muslims have been constructed as a security issue in Africa after the 9/11 attacks in the United States. These attacks became the rationale for the US’s Global War on Terror (GWOT). The centrality of Africa as an arena to execute the GWOT is the focus of this book. This book explores, particularly, how western-centred security discourses around Muslims has permeated South African security discourse in the post-apartheid period. It claims that the popular press and the local think-tank community were critical knowledge-sites that imported rather than interrogated debates which have underpinned policy-initiatives such as the GWOT. Such theorisation seems contrary to the original architects of securitisation theory who maintain that issues become security concerns when institutional voices declare these as such. However, this book confirms that non-institutional voices have securitised the African Muslims by equatingthem with terrorism. This book illustrates that such securitisation reproduces partisan knowledge that promote Western interests.