Omar is dead: Aphasia and the escalating anti-radicalization business

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Abstract

The article investigates the effects of a terror attack in Copenhagen and the subsequent escalating anti-radicalization business. On February 15, 2015, Omar el-Hussein was shot dead by the Danish police. Earlier that day, Omar el-Hussein had killed two people: a Jewish guard in front of a synagogue and a participant in a cultural event on freedom of speech. A few days later, the government adopted the largest (counter-) terrorism package in the history of Denmark. Although the package was presented as a firm response to the Copenhagen shootings, the legislation primarily targeted ‘Islamic foreign fighters’. Among acquaintances of Omar el-Hussein, the slippage was clearly noticed. Omar el-Hussein had never fought in the Middle East but was known, first and foremost, as a petty criminal who had recently been released from a Danish prison. I argue that a central condition for the change of scale from ‘criminal Danish citizen’ to ‘Islamic foreign fighter’ is aphasia–the occlusion of knowledge surrounding Omar that was consolidated with his death. The empty space of Omar enabled a new political logic that produced new scales of measurement, which, in turn, led to an accelerating anti-radicalization industry that occluded the killing of other Danish Muslim citizens; namely, the victims of a gang war in Danish housing projects. As the anti-radicalization business grew and created an excess of legislation, institutions and policies that targeted violent extremism by Islamic terrorists, it became increasingly difficult to voice and recognise the extreme violence that primarily targeted Danish Muslim citizens.

Original languageEnglish
JournalHistory and Anthropology
Volume32
Issue number1
Pages (from-to)64-77
Number of pages14
ISSN0275-7206
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2021

Keywords

  • counter-radicalization
  • Denmark
  • Muslims
  • foreign fighters
  • gangs
  • terror

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