“From Mild Christian to Islamic Zealot” –Navigating Mediatised Tools of Othering in the case of Muriel Degauque

Oana Nițu

Abstract:

This article scrutinises the media narratives surrounding Muriel Degauque, the first ‘Western’ suicide bomber. Degauque, born in Belgium and raised as a Catholic, does not fit into the profile of the typical suicide attacker. Despite her ‘ordinariness’, I show how she was classed as an outsider in English- and Dutch language media narratives. Through the interaction of her class, gender and religion, she is denied agency in her violence, thus her motivations to commit a suicide attack are reduced to either a ‘working-class rebel’, an infantilised woman who loses her femininity or an erotomaniac who pursued violence because she was ‘brainwashed’ by her husband.      

Nitu_2025_From Mild Christian to Islamic Zealot.pdf

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