Religious Correctness or Homophobia: Cross-Examining the Identity of Gay Muslims in Germany
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.19245/25.05.pij.5.1.2Keywords:
hegemonic masculinity, gay Muslims, gay Muslims in Germany, religious correctness, homophobia, critical discourse analysis, cultural hegemonyAbstract
This article offers new ways of identifying and perceiving gay Muslims in Germany through discursive practices, such as the acceptance of queer Muslims in Islam, alongside cultural hegemony of religious gatekeepers. The article specifically explores the utilisation of Norman Fairclough’s (2010) critical discourse analysis to comprehend the identity of gay Muslims in Germany and to advance the current understanding of gay Muslims and their relations within the socio-religious space. The nature of this relationship is demonstrated through discursive choices (the identity of gay Muslims within a religious context and in society); the use of dominant and restrictive subjective narratives and language between group gatekeepers (religious leaders: Imam and Islamic devouts); and the isolated members of Islam (gay Muslims). This enquiry will be illuminated by qualitative critical discourse analysis interviews on YouTube in which specific actors related to the study were interviewed on themes such as identity, acceptance of gay Muslims and relations with them in a religious community or a social space.
References
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Mayeda, D.T., and Vijaykumar, R. (2016), “A Review of the Literature on Honor-Based Violence”, Sociology Compass, 10 (5): 353–363.
McLellan, J. (2017), “Lesbians, Gay Men and the Production of Scale in East Germany”, Cultural and Social History, 14 (1): 89–105.
Mechoulan, S. (2018), “The Case against the Face-Veil: A European Perspective”, International Journal of Constitutional Law, 16 (4): 1267–1292.
Miller, J.A. (2018), Turkish Guest Workers in Germany: Hidden Lives and Contested Borders, 1960–1980s, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
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Noble, G., and Tabar, P. (2002), “On Being Lebanese-Australian: Hybridity, Essentialism and Strategy among Arabic-Speaking Youth”, in H. Ghassan (ed.), Arab-Australians: Citizenship and Belonging Today, pp. 128–144, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.
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The Quran, Surah Al-A’raf 7:81. Available online at https://quran.com/7/81 (last accessed: May 15, 2020).
Rahman, M. (2014), Homosexualities, Muslim Cultures and Modernity, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Rehman, J., and Polymenopolou, E. (2013), “Is Green a Part of the Rainbow? Sharia, Homosexuality and LGBT Rights in the Muslim World”, Fordham International Law Journal, 37 (1): 1–52. Available online at https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2322&context=ilj (last accessed: May 15, 2020).
Reporter (2016), “Homophobie im Islam: Kann Man Moslem und Schwul sein?”, YouTube, June 22, 2016. Available online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZSeb9_0tpk (last accessed: May 15, 2020).
Satti, M. (2015), “Framing the IS on Al Jazeera English and the BBC Websites”, Journal of Arab & Muslim Media Research, 8 (1): 37–53.
Shaheem, S.I. (2014), Emirati Students in the UK: Cultural Identity Transformation, Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, University of East London.
Shier, A., and Shor, E. (2016), “’Shades of Foreign Evil’: ‘Honour Killings’ and ‘Family Murders’ in the Canadian Press”, Violence against Women, 22 (10): 1163–1188.
Sides, J., and Gross, K. (2013), “Stereotypes of Muslims and Support for the War on Terror”, The Journal of Politics, 75 (3): 583–598.
Siraj, A. (2010), “Because I’m the Man! I’m the Head: British Married Muslims and the Patriarchal Family Structure”, Contemporary Islam: Dynamics of Muslim Life, 4 (2): 195–214.
Tagesschau (2017), “Der Moscheereport: die Dar-as-Salam-Moschee”, YouTube, April 24, 2017. Available online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-qfjQWjS0I (last accessed: May 15, 2020).
Tagesschau (2018a), “Moscheereport: Islam und Homosexulität”, YouTube, April 28, 2018. Available online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0dRCzs1hvs (last accessed: May 15, 2020).
Tagesschau (2018b) “Moscheereport: Islam und Frauen”, YouTube, September 6, 2018. Available online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJ6nJqs1iEM (last accessed: May 15, 2020).
Teo, P. (2000), “Racism in the News: A Critical Discourse Analysis of News Reporting in Two Australian Newspapers”, Discourse & Society, 11 (1): 7–49.
Van Leeuwen, T., and Jewitt, C. (2001), Handbooks of Visual Analysis, SAGE.
Von Sikorski, C., Schmuck, D., Matthes, J., and Binder, A. (2017), “Muslims Are Not Terrorist: Islamic State Coverage, Journalistic Differentiation between Terrorism and Islam, Fear Reactions and Attitudes Towards Muslims”, Mass Communication and Society, 20 (6): 825–848.
Waller, L.G. (2006), “Introducing Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis Methodology for Analysing Caribbean Social Problems: Going beyond Systems, Resources, Social Action, Social Practices and Forces of Structure or Lack thereof as Units of Analysis”, Journal of Diplomatic Language, 3 (1). Available online at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=912329 (last accessed: May 15, 2020).
Yip, A.K.T. (2008), “The Quest for Intimate/Sexual Citizenship: Lived Experiences of Lesbian and Bisexual Muslim Women”, Contemporary Islam, 2 (2): 99–117.
Zulkffli, M.A, and Ab Rashid, R. (2016), A Discursive Psychological Analysis of Islamic Sermons on Homosexuality, International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature, 5 (6): 190–198.
Zulkffli, M.A., and Ab Rashid, R. (2019), Discursive Strategies Employed by Homosexual Malaysian Muslim Men in Talking about Homosexuality in Islam, Discourse & Society, 30 (3): 307–320.
Agbedejobi, P. (2017), “Challenging Online Radicalisation: A Refutation of Counter-Radicalisation Strategies, Counter-Narratives and a New Approach”, SSRN, https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2931179 (last accessed: May 15, 2020).
Akachar, S. (2015), “Stuck between Islamophobia and Homophobia: Applying Intersectionality to Understand the Position of Gay Muslim Identities in the Netherlands”, Journal of Diversity and Gender Studies, 2 (1–2): 173–187.
Aly, R.M.K. (2015), Becoming Arab in London, London: Pluto Press.
BBC News (2018), Saudi Arabia Issues First Driving Licences to Women. BBC News. Available online at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-44367981 (last accessed: May 15, 2020).
Connell, R.W., and Messerschmidt, J.W. (2005), “Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept”, Gender & Society, 19 (6): 829–859.
Das Erste Mediathek (2018), Imamin Seyran Ates will freiwillige Abgabe statt Moschee-Steuer. Available online at http://mediathek.daserste.de/Morgenmagazin/Imamin-Seyran-Ates-will-freiwillige-Abga/Video?bcastId=435054&documentId=58922386 (last accessed: May 15, 2020).
De Sondhy, A. (2014), The Crisis of Islamic Masculinities, London: Bloomsbury.
Delgado, R. (2001), “Two Ways to Think about Race: Reflections on the Id, the Ego and Other Reformist Theories of Equal Protection”, Georgetown Law Journal, 89: 2279–2296.
Eco, U. (1976), Theory of Semiotics, Bloomington (IN): Indiana University Press.
El-Tayeb, F. (2012), “‘Gays Who Cannot Properly Be Gay‘: Queer Muslims in the Neoliberal European City”, European Journal of Women’s Studies, 19 (1): 79–95. Available online at https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1350506811426388 (last accessed: May 15, 2020).
Eroukhmanoff, C. (2018), Securitisation Theory: An Introduction. E-International Relations Students. Available online at https://www.e-ir.info/2018/01/14/securitisation-theory-an-introduction/ (last accessed: May 15, 2020).
Ewing, K.P. (2008), Stolen Honor: Stigmatizing Muslim Men in Berlin, Stanford (CA): Stanford University Press.
Fairclough, N. (2010), Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language (2nd edn.), Edinburgh: Pearson Education.
Forgacs, D. (1988), The Gramsci Reader: Selected writings, 1916–1935, New York (NY): New York University Press.
Ganzevoort, R.R, Van der Laan, M., and Olsman, E. (2011), “Growing up Gay and Religious: Conflict, Dialogue and
Religious Identity Strategies”, Mental Health, Religion and Culture, 14 (3): 209–222.
Garlick, S. (2016), The Nature of Masculinity, Vancouver: UBC Press.
Hegarty, P. (2019), “How Do We ‘Other’”, The Psychologist, 32: 48–51.
Hermans, P. (2006), “Ethnic Identities of Moroccans in Belgium and the Netherlands”, in L. Romanucci-Ross, G.A. De
Vos and T. Tsuda (eds), Ethnic Identity (4th edn.), pp. 189–207, Lanham: Altamira Press.
Inhorn, M.C. (2012), The New Arab Man, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Jewkes R., and Morrell, R. (2012), “Sexuality and the Limits of Agency among South African Teenage Women: Theorising Femininities and their Connections to HIV Risk Practices”, Social Science & Medicine, 74 (11): 1729–1737. Available online at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21696874 (last accessed: May 15, 2020).
Koopmans, R. (2004), “Religious Fundamentalism and Hostility against Out-groups: A Comparison of Muslims and Christians in Western Europe”, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 41 (1): 33–57.
Kugle, S. (2010), Islam and Homosexuality, Oxford: One World.
Lears, J. (1985), “The Concept of Cultural Hegemony: Problems and Possibilities”, The American Historical Review, 90 (3): 567–593. Available online at https://www.jstor.org/stable/1860957 (last accessed: May 15, 2020).
Mayeda, D.T., and Vijaykumar, R. (2016), “A Review of the Literature on Honor-Based Violence”, Sociology Compass, 10 (5): 353–363.
McLellan, J. (2017), “Lesbians, Gay Men and the Production of Scale in East Germany”, Cultural and Social History, 14 (1): 89–105.
Mechoulan, S. (2018), “The Case against the Face-Veil: A European Perspective”, International Journal of Constitutional Law, 16 (4): 1267–1292.
Miller, J.A. (2018), Turkish Guest Workers in Germany: Hidden Lives and Contested Borders, 1960–1980s, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Mullet, D.R. (2018), “A General Critical Discourse Analysis Framework for Educational Research”, Journal of Advanced Academics, 29 (2): 116–142.
Noble, G., and Tabar, P. (2002), “On Being Lebanese-Australian: Hybridity, Essentialism and Strategy among Arabic-Speaking Youth”, in H. Ghassan (ed.), Arab-Australians: Citizenship and Belonging Today, pp. 128–144, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.
Partridge, D.J. (2012), Hypersexuality and Headscarves: Race, Sex and Citizenship in the New Germany, Bloomington (IN): Indiana University Press.
The Quran, Surah Al-A’raf 7:81. Available online at https://quran.com/7/81 (last accessed: May 15, 2020).
Rahman, M. (2014), Homosexualities, Muslim Cultures and Modernity, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Rehman, J., and Polymenopolou, E. (2013), “Is Green a Part of the Rainbow? Sharia, Homosexuality and LGBT Rights in the Muslim World”, Fordham International Law Journal, 37 (1): 1–52. Available online at https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2322&context=ilj (last accessed: May 15, 2020).
Reporter (2016), “Homophobie im Islam: Kann Man Moslem und Schwul sein?”, YouTube, June 22, 2016. Available online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZSeb9_0tpk (last accessed: May 15, 2020).
Satti, M. (2015), “Framing the IS on Al Jazeera English and the BBC Websites”, Journal of Arab & Muslim Media Research, 8 (1): 37–53.
Shaheem, S.I. (2014), Emirati Students in the UK: Cultural Identity Transformation, Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, University of East London.
Shier, A., and Shor, E. (2016), “’Shades of Foreign Evil’: ‘Honour Killings’ and ‘Family Murders’ in the Canadian Press”, Violence against Women, 22 (10): 1163–1188.
Sides, J., and Gross, K. (2013), “Stereotypes of Muslims and Support for the War on Terror”, The Journal of Politics, 75 (3): 583–598.
Siraj, A. (2010), “Because I’m the Man! I’m the Head: British Married Muslims and the Patriarchal Family Structure”, Contemporary Islam: Dynamics of Muslim Life, 4 (2): 195–214.
Tagesschau (2017), “Der Moscheereport: die Dar-as-Salam-Moschee”, YouTube, April 24, 2017. Available online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-qfjQWjS0I (last accessed: May 15, 2020).
Tagesschau (2018a), “Moscheereport: Islam und Homosexulität”, YouTube, April 28, 2018. Available online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0dRCzs1hvs (last accessed: May 15, 2020).
Tagesschau (2018b) “Moscheereport: Islam und Frauen”, YouTube, September 6, 2018. Available online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJ6nJqs1iEM (last accessed: May 15, 2020).
Teo, P. (2000), “Racism in the News: A Critical Discourse Analysis of News Reporting in Two Australian Newspapers”, Discourse & Society, 11 (1): 7–49.
Van Leeuwen, T., and Jewitt, C. (2001), Handbooks of Visual Analysis, SAGE.
Von Sikorski, C., Schmuck, D., Matthes, J., and Binder, A. (2017), “Muslims Are Not Terrorist: Islamic State Coverage, Journalistic Differentiation between Terrorism and Islam, Fear Reactions and Attitudes Towards Muslims”, Mass Communication and Society, 20 (6): 825–848.
Waller, L.G. (2006), “Introducing Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis Methodology for Analysing Caribbean Social Problems: Going beyond Systems, Resources, Social Action, Social Practices and Forces of Structure or Lack thereof as Units of Analysis”, Journal of Diplomatic Language, 3 (1). Available online at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=912329 (last accessed: May 15, 2020).
Yip, A.K.T. (2008), “The Quest for Intimate/Sexual Citizenship: Lived Experiences of Lesbian and Bisexual Muslim Women”, Contemporary Islam, 2 (2): 99–117.
Zulkffli, M.A, and Ab Rashid, R. (2016), A Discursive Psychological Analysis of Islamic Sermons on Homosexuality, International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature, 5 (6): 190–198.
Zulkffli, M.A., and Ab Rashid, R. (2019), Discursive Strategies Employed by Homosexual Malaysian Muslim Men in Talking about Homosexuality in Islam, Discourse & Society, 30 (3): 307–320.
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Published
2020-10-23
How to Cite
Agbedejobi, P. (2020). Religious Correctness or Homophobia: Cross-Examining the Identity of Gay Muslims in Germany. PuntOorg International Journal, 5(1), 6–28. https://doi.org/10.19245/25.05.pij.5.1.2
