Constructing ”the other” A qualitative study of how Muslims are produced in the public domain

This essay aims to determine how Muslims are produced in the public domain in Swedish contemporary time. My study is based on three different materials; Hot mot demokrati och värdegrund – en lägesbild från Malmö investigating Islamist radicalism and extremism in Rosengård, articles on Omar Mustafa and his resignation from the Social Democratic Party and Gun Holmertz article Islamismen får allt större fäste i Hjällbo and the following debate. The method used is discourse analysis as the purpose of the study is to examine how Muslims are produced within the prevailing discourse. Theoretical points have been Postcolonial theory, Orientalism, Islamophobia and “us” and “them”. The results of the study confirm the results of earlier studies, namely that Muslims are not produced in a beneficial way. Consistently for all materials is how Muslims are produced in a homogenizing way but also that Muslims are not allowed to represent themselves. The stereotype of a Muslim is that he is violent and oppressive of women, and that the Muslim women are oppressed. Muslims are also often represented, they are not given the opportunity to speak for themselves, resulting in Muslims themselves must never speak about their own position. Muslims are portrayed as "the other", those who are very different from “us”