Tom Gallagher

Tom Gallagher is the chair of East European Studies in the Department of Peace Studies at Bradford University and a research fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington DC. In his capacity as a terrorologist and a 'leading Scots academic on religious affairs' he has repeatedly condemned the Scottish Government for its alleged role in being 'soft' on radical Islam.

Attack on Alex Salmond

Following the terrorist attack on the Glasgow airport, Gallagher launched a sweeping attack against Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond for his nuanced approach toward Scottish Muslims. Gallagher accused Salmond of pandering to 'minorities' comparing him to 'Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt or the Irish leader Michael Collins', men who he argues were out to harm Britain. Writing on the blog Harry's Place, he has also compared Salmond to Hitler on another occasion.

Islam and 'Culture Talk'

Gallagher has contributed material to Harry's Place While in his writings Gallagher is always at pains to attack what he calls 'Islamism' rather than Muslims, this is not so obvious from the implications of his statements. Following the terrorist attack on the Glasgow airport, Gallagher wrote an article for Open Democracy which reads:

[Osama] Saeed's argument that the Muslim community's moderation is a given might be confirmed by the absence (in those parts of Glasgow where most Scots Muslims reside) of the Islamic bookshops, bitter young men and fully-covered women that are characteristic of parts of London and of other English urban conurbations with large Muslim populations.

Here is he definig 'moderation' by the absence of things he lists: the presence of 'Islamic bookshops, bitter young men and fully-covered women' would presumably be an example of Muslim community's lack of moderation. Of course Glasgow has Islamic bookshops, and many fully covered women. But does a Muslim's strict observance of Islam translate into political immoderation? It is also not unlikely that there are bitter youth in Glasgow. It is not self-evidence however that this is due to Islamic immoderation rather than socio-political reasons. This deliberate blurring of cultural and political categories -- what the noted African scholar Mahmood Mamdani has called 'Culture Talk' -- allows Gallagher to indict all observant Muslims by implication.

On Osama Saeed, a frequent target of his attacks, he writes:

Media outlets which have reported police appeals for vigilance have not raised with Saeed his political track-record; none appears to have approached him in the spirit of sceptical inquiry that animates coverage of other prominent figures (for example, suggesting that there might be a tension between his extravagant condemnation of the Glasgow attack and support for radical Islamism, even that that this combination might be part of an intellectual taqiyya[deception]). A shaken Scotland, it seems, is not in the mood for tough questions.

For Gallagher Saeed's membership of the Muslim Association of Britain, a mainstream Muslim organization, seems to suffice as evidence of his support for 'radical Islamism'. Then he makes the further spurious connection that there is somehow a contradiction between Islamism and condemning terrorism. As Arun Kundani has noted, this has been the general strategy of neoconservatives and liberal interventionists to impute to Islamism an immanent violent essence thereby erasing the 'different discursive strands within Islamism...articulated in specific contexts'. Kundani notes: 'The distinction between Islam and Islamism is important, for it insulates this discourse from the straightforward charge of Islamophobia'. He adds that much of this type of writing 'trades on this ambiguity over who are Islamists and what re their defining beliefs...By collapsing all these different dynamics into a singular threat, "Islamist" becaomes a term that designates any political appropriation of Islamic concepts as dangerous, effectively silencing most democratic forms of Muslim politics in Britain and elsewhere'.

Gallagher continues:

The tenor of the SNP's public statements suggests that Salmond, in private conversation, did not ask for greater effort from religious leaders in challenging extremism or disavowing attacks on free speech even when Muslim sensibilities are offended.

In making reference to the 'religious leaders', Gallagher is suggesting that the actions of the men stem from their religious belief, and somehow the community is collectively responsible for them.

Publications, Resources, Contact, Notes

Books

• His two most recent books are The Balkans in the New Millennium (Routledge, 2005) and The Balkans After the Cold War: From Tyranny to Tragedy (Routledge, paperback edition, 2005).
• His Theft of a Nation: Romania since Communism (Hurst & Co, 2005) is published in the United States as Modern Romania.
• Gallagher, T: Theft of a Nation: Romania Since Communism, London: Hurst & Co, 2005
• Gallagher, T: The Balkans in the New Millennium, London: Routledge 2005.
• Gallagher, T: The Balkans After the Cold War: From Tyranny to Tragedy, Routledge, UK, 240 pp., May 2003, ISBN 0-415-27763-9.
• Gallagher, T: ‘The Balkans Since 1989: The Rocky Road From National Communism’, in Developments in Central and East European Politics 3, edited by Stephen White, Palgrave 2003, pp 74-91.
• Gallagher, T: 'Minorities in Eastern Europe' in the reference work,Central Europe 2003, Routledge, 2002.
• Gallagher, T: Nationalism and Romanian Political Culture in the 1990s, Post-Communist Romania: Coming to Terms with Transition, Light D, Phinnemere D (eds) Palgrave, pp 104-126, 2001.
• Gallagher, T: Outcast Europe: The Balkans, 1789 - 1989, Routledge, London, 2001.
• Gallagher, T: Democratie Si Nationalisme in Romania, 1989-98, Editura Ali, Bucharest, pp 405, 1999.
• Gallagher, T: 'Romania', in Eastern Europe and the C.I.S. 1999, 4th Edition, Europa Publications, London, pp 609-612, 1999.
• Gallagher, T: 'Conflict between East European States and Minorities in an Age of Democracy', Democratization, Vol. 5, No 3, pp 200-224, 1998.
• Gallagher, T: 'Ceausescu's Legacy', The National Interest, No 56, pp 107-111, Summer 1999.
• Tom Gallagher (1987) Edinburgh Divided: John Cormack and No Popery in the 1930s Edinburgh: Polygon.
• Gallagher, Tom 1987, Glasgow The Uneasy Peace: Religious Tension in Modern Scotland, Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Articles by Tom Gallagher

• Tom Gallagher Nationalism and Islamism in Scotland by Tom Gallagher, Bradford, 2008 14. pp. Democratiya, Autumn 2008.
• Tom Gallagher, Scotland’s nationalist-Muslim embrace, OpenDemocracy, 11 July 2007.
• Tom Gallagher, 'The SNP and the Islamist threat The SNP is playing a deadly game with Islam' The Spectator, Wednesday, 25th July 2007
• Tom Gallagher, Articles written by Tom Gallagher Prospect Magazine.

Further reading

• openDemocracy Tom Gallagher, accessed 23 March 2009
• Gerry Hassan, The Scottish Nationalists, Alex Salmond and the Slur of Fascism, OurKingdom, openDemocracy, 4 October, 2010.