Pensar o Islão: Questões coloniais, interrogações pós-coloniais

Abstract

The “Islamic terrorist” and the culturally “inassimilable” Muslim immigrants and minorities represent the two faces of the view of Islam as the “problem of the 21st century”, a view that dominates contemporary public debate and the formulation of national and international state policies in western societies. The nature of the more or less essentialist representations which inspire and distort these debates varies according to the contexts produced by the historical relations (usually colonial) of each nation with Islam, by the institutions and knowledges related to it, and by the composition, profile and weight of Muslim communities in each society. But the logic of identity and security that shapes the discourse of Islam as a problem reproduces the same identity and security concerns generated in the colonial context, redefining them now as problems of multiculturalism, governance, tolerance and security. This article calls for a deconstructive approach to Islam through a critical reading of the Portuguese discourse.

Keywords

• islamism
• terrorism
• collective identity
• postcolonialism
• colonialism
• international policy