Muslims as archetypal suspect citizens in Australia

Muslims as archetypal suspect citizens in Australia is a product of the Australian state approach to manage a section of supposedly "rogue population." Muslims have been increasingly framed as a security problem and, therefore, requiring securitisation. The horrendous atrocities of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States followed by a period of similar attacks in various parts of particularly the Western world provided a new stage for an extensive range of discourses involving politicians, public intellectuals, academics and journalists, who swiftly securitised Islam as an existential threat to Australian liberal democracy. This article probes the politics of the Muslim suspect and how the securitising and "othering" of Australian Muslims in the name of managing the security threat to Australian national order render Australian Muslims as archetypal suspect citizens. It suggests the politics of suspecting, securitising and othering of Muslims in Australia transforms security from a problem of producing national order to making Muslims feel like unwelcome citizens.