Xenophobia and Islamophobia in Europe

Notes on Raymond Taras’s book by the same name, 2013, Edinburgh University Press.

Critique of book

Substance, style, organization, argument, author’s point of view

Definitions of Xenophobia, Islamophobia

Does Europe suffer from both?

Symptoms, Diagnosis, Measurement

Xenophobia

Ethnic hierarchies – favor northern, southern Europeans, then North Africans and Asians, then Turks (78)

History of “hospitality” toward foreigners as guests, BUT

Migrants – indeterminancy, have over-stayed the conditions of hospitality

Asylum – perhaps even more so as more or less permanent right to stay

Islamophobia

Eurobarometer

Report higher levels of racial tensions in countries with the strongest economies and the highest concentrations of Muslims

EU15, >3% Muslim, 40% report high religious tensions

New EU states, <.1% Muslim, no significant religious tensions

Muslim underclass (may overstate these differences but)

Higher rates of unemployment, lower rates of education, lower incomes in UK, NE, FR, DE (124)

Muslims DO experience discrimination – in seeking work, in

Political Questions Raised by the book

When did xenophobia become Islamophobia? How much of Europe’s antipathy toward foreigners, migrants, etc., is xenophobia and how much is Islamophobic?

Does it matter?

Is one more serious, more of a threat to liberal order than the other?

His Argument

I. Prejudice is “natural” but need not turn to racism

Other conditions need to be met

Scarcity, competition, self-interested motives

Cultural difference matters, i.e., the degree of difference does increase the degree of prejudice against a group

II. Conditions contributing to rise of Xenophobia, Islamophobia in Europe

Structural variables:

Collision course between labor shortages of 1960s (impact of WWII, smaller family sizes)

And 1970s economic downturn, rise of OPEC, increased energy costs

Deindustrialization, economic restructuring

Globalization, neo-liberalism

Normative variables:

Human rights revolution: UN Declaration of Rights, European Convention on Human Rights

Commitment to protection of refugees, right to asylum, right to family reunification makes Europe unable to dampen down immigration as economic situation changes

Commitment by European political elites to liberal values, human rights (guilt, atonement**)

*Out of step with European publics, especially as deindustrialization proceeded apace in the 1990s

**This same rights revolution led newer immigrant groups to demand recognition, rights that earlier groups did not

e.g. right to “be different”

to maintain cultural community, language, religious practices, other behaviors, symbols

assimilation now seen as cultural genocide

***free speech and free exercise FOSTERS political Islam in ways not possible in countries of origin

Political variables:

Decolonization

Pressures to absorb, integrate post-colonial “subjects” and “citizens”

1968 UK Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech

EU: laissez-faire on immigration, subsidiarity

Member states – various approaches to “integration”

“assimilation”

Multi-culturalism and corporatism (the Netherlands, Germany)

Integration (through the workplace, schools) (UK)

Assimilation (FR) – non-recognition of groups, group identities, Republicanism

End of Cold War,

disintegration of the Soviet empire, eventual enlargement of EU

Leads to increased migration from the newer member states to the older

Inflames already contentious situation

Result: rising right-wing movements

National, cultural defensiveness

Provocative Statements in this book

Repeatedly endorses Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” thesis

Is this overstating the tension?

Can/should/must liberal societies tolerate “intolerance”? Be intolerant of those who do not subscribe specific tenets of liberalism, e.g., Gender “equality,” same sex marriage

Belgian MEP speaks out against Belgian Islamic Party

The Culture Wars in Europe

The veil – interpreted not as freedom of expression or religious exercise for the individual but a VIOLATION of the norm of SECULARISM in the PUBLIC SPHERE

Banned in Belgium, France (in public places)

Law in Italy criminalizing covering one’s face in public (masks and veils, need for public safety to identify people)

Muslim council worker in Belgium sacked for not shaking hands with women

Europeans interpret this as an affront to female citizens

Is it?

Should civil servants, elected pols be required to have physical contact with consituents of the opposite sex?

Role of Media in Inciting, Perpetuating Islamophobia

Study finds that European Muslims find most Islamophobia in the media

See argument made at DesertPeace site