Perverse Muslim masculinities in contemporary orientalist discourse: The vagaries of Muslim immigration in the West

This chapter explores a series of highly-publicized gang rape incidences in Australia and France which contributed to the emergence of moral panics not only in these national contexts but fed into a more globalised and globalising discourse. Through the identification of the perpetrators as young Muslim men, popular debate drew heavily on classic Orientalist scripts of the perversity of Muslim masculinity, alongside reference to current geo-political concerns around immigration, terrorism and managing ethnic diversity. From these rapes the concept of the ‘tournantes’ – literally translated as ‘taking turns’ – was appropriated by Neo-Nazi and white supremacist websites in various locations across the West and used to promote an international moral panic on the moral vagaries/evils of immigration from Islamic countries: a position that was strikingly similar to the anti-multicultural arguments presented within mainstream immigration debates in Europe and Australia.