Islamophobia

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Symbol often used by enemies of Islam

As Islamophobia , the hostility is Muslims and their categorical devaluation and discrimination referred. In addition, there are competing terms and concepts of anti-Muslim hostility , Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism , which set different priorities and evaluations when looking at the phenomenon. It is disputed whether Islamophobia should be viewed as a form of racism or as a closely related form of group-related misanthropy . Islamophobia is now also used as a " battle term ".

Example of anti-Muslim slogans by right-wing extremists: The Dutch People's Union (NVU), which calls for a “return to the Germanic-Christian culture”, writes “No Islam in Europe” (2011)

Definition and naming

Definitions

According to the British sociologist Chris Allen , Islamophobia creates a reality in which it is considered normal to view Muslims as fundamentally different from non-Muslims and, consequently, to treat them unequally. Islamophobia is considered a relatively young phenomenon and has only received media attention in recent years. The beginnings of modern Islamophobia, however, go back well into the 20th century and have several historical precursors, for example in the medieval-Christian image of Islam, but also in modern western orientalism . The academic debate about Islamophobia started comparatively late. The first comprehensive study of the phenomenon and the attempt at a definition date from 1997. The name, classification and scope of the term have been controversial since then.

Chris Allen defines Islamophobia as an ideology , which Muslims and Islam as the negative connotations " Other " constructed and thus excludes from the group with which one identifies himself. Islamophobia spreads one-sided negative views about Islam and Muslims and discriminates against other people. Muslims identify them on the basis of supposed or actual characteristics and peculiarities of Islam, i.e. not on the basis of the self-image of the persons concerned. Allen emphasizes that Islamophobia is not always explicitly expressed. Rather, it is also present in everyday practices and discourses, without those involved necessarily having to understand themselves as hostile to Islam. Discrimination against Muslims is therefore also expressed in actions and statements that are taken for granted by all those involved. Islamophobia aims to establish negative perceptions of Muslims and Islam as “knowledge”, ie as statements that are held to be objectively true. At the same time, she also strives for a political and social disadvantage for Muslims in society. According to Allen, specific content is therefore of lesser importance, since it could be replaced by others over time and Islamophobia is changeable - apart from the negative assessment of Islam and Muslims themselves. Nevertheless, historical continuities are empirically observable.

Allen describes Islamophobia as an ideology related to but not identical to racism ; after all, cultural models of argumentation are mainly used to justify them. Such cultural racism is not only problematic because it is controversial within racism research . The “culturalization” of Islam and Muslims also contributes to the fact that both are seen as homogeneous and monolithic. Since when defining an Islamic culture one has to assume a certain form of Islam or the constitution of Muslims, one accepts to categorize both the religion and the people over their heads.

Allen agrees with this attitude in Robert Miles and Malcolm D. Brown , who also emphasize the differences between racism and Islamophobia in their publications: Although there is content-related and functional overlap between the two phenomena, both are just as separate from each other as from sexism or Homophobia , if you want to avoid inflation of the concept of racism and take into account the historical peculiarities of Islamophobia. In contrast, racism theorists such as Étienne Balibar and David Theo Goldberg have argued that Islamophobia, like modern anti-Semitism, is just one of many forms of racism. They see both culture and race as socially constructed categories that are not based on any real essence. At the same time, they emphasize the merging of religious aspects with classic biological-racist discourses.

According to Olaf Farschid , an Islamic scholar and constitutional protection officer , the following ideologies are characteristics of Islamophobia: (1) The assumption of an “irreconcilable cultural difference between Muslims and non-Muslims”; (2) The assumption that Islam and democracy are "fundamentally incompatible and that Muslims can therefore never be integrated into Western societies"; (3) The assumption that “violence is a constitutive part of Islam”; (4) The assumption that “Muslims are pursuing a secret strategy of Islamization”; (5) Concern “about the allegedly imminent introduction of Islamic traditions and norms into European societies”; (6) The assumption that "Muslims work with deliberate deception" and (7) the "equation of Islam and totality, which turns Islam into an ideology and denies it the status of a religion."

Naming issues

The English and French expressions “ islamophobia ” / “ islamophobie ” are based on the Greek word “xenophobia” ( xenophobia ). This designation is considered problematic because the word component of the phobia indicates a pathological or psychological cause of the phenomenon and thus pathologizes it .

The term was first used in 1997 in a scientific study by the British " Runnymede Trust " ("Islamophobia - A Challenge for all of us"; "Islamophobia - a challenge for all of us"). Admittedly: “The then head of the“ Runnymede Trust ”, Trevor Phillips , who commissioned the study, has now distanced himself from the term 'Islamophobia'. In a 2016 comment for the Times , he complained that the term had served to prevent an open debate on Islam and stigmatize critics of immigration and integration policies ”. In the opinion of some scientists, the term is therefore only suitable for cases in which there is a pronounced, subjective fear of Islam. Parts of German-language research therefore prefer the term Islamophobia, which is based on xenophobia, and accept that it is a term that is less internationally compatible.

In particular, the focus on Islam instead of the affected individuals, the Muslims, is criticized as problematic. For this reason, Yasemin Shooman advocates the use of the term “anti-Muslim racism” or “ anti-Muslim racism ”. This is intended to underline the parallels to classic racism and explicitly name Muslims as victims of the phenomenon. Allen rejects similar suggestions, citing the differences between Islamophobia and racism, and says that none of the terms is capable of capturing the complex strategies in which Muslims are attacked indirectly through Islam or Islam as a whole, but not Muslims , be the focus of hostility. As a consequence, he argues in favor of sticking to the established expressions for the time being.

Armin Pfahl-Traughber is of the opinion that the distinction between terms such as Islamophobia, Islamophobia, Islam criticism , Muslim hostility and Muslim criticism is "by no means just about a dispute about words". Rather, behind the terms stand "different contents that move between the two poles of an enlightening and human rights criticism of Islam on the one hand and a xenophobic and inflammatory hostility to Muslims on the other". He advocates a clear separation between the terms and an objectification of a debate in which, in a gray area that should not be neglected, critics of Islam who "question individual components or interpretations of religion and its effects in society" as " Islamophobes "were defamed, as well as actual Muslim enemies asserted their resentment as" Islam criticism ". The sociologist Samuel Salzborn argues in favor of rejecting the term Islamophobia entirely. Only Islamists and right-wing extremists would benefit from the vagueness of the term. In addition, in his view, the term Islamophobia is used in particular by Islamist groups who try to immunize themselves against criticism of their own anti-democratic statements and actions. The French social scientist Gilles Kepel , who also teaches at the London School of Economics and Political Science , complained that increasingly often lectures and public lectures by academics who deal critically with Islam are being used by pro-Islamic groups using the battle notion of “Islamophobia “Would be disturbed.

Parallels between Islamophobia and anti-Semitism

The relationship between anti-Semitism and Islamophobia has been the subject of scientific analyzes and debates for several decades. Etienne Balibar referred to anti-Semitism as early as 1988 in order to make the “hostility towards Arabs” understandable. Conferences of the European Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) and the OSCE also dealt with this topic, and further studies were carried out by historians such as Dan Diner , Matti Bunzl and David Cesarani .

The comparability of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia is controversial. Authors such as Daniel Goldhagen , Matthias Küntzel and Clemens Heni criticized the 2008 comparison as equating the qualitative differences between the two structures of prejudice and thus running the risk of leveling the specifics of the Holocaust . Wolfgang Benz , on the other hand, takes the view that "the anti-Semites of the 19th century and some 'Islam critics' of the 21st century are working with similar means on their enemy image". Common to both anti-Semitic and Islamophobic prejudices is “the division into good and bad as well as the phenomenon of exclusion”. When comparing anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, however, a fundamental difference can be identified: “In contrast to the late 19th century, it is no longer about the emancipation of Jews, but about the integration of Muslims”. Benz rejects equating Islamophobia and anti-Semitism; he compares "the methods of exclusion". Just as it was a method of “some 'experts'” to justify hostility towards Jews first with the contents of the Talmud and later, from a racist point of view, with “Jewish” genes through which Jews were “led to evil”, there are experts today who similarly argued: “What used to be Talmud baiting is now Koran baiting. A minority is stigmatized as dangerous because it is supposed to be ordered by religion. ” Micha Brumlik , who pointed out semantic overlaps in Treitschke's and Sarrazin's utterances , and Norbert Frei gave Benz the socio-psychological comparison of today's Islamophobia with the anti-Semantism of the late 19th and 20th centuries early 20th century law. Also, Salomon Korn and Sabine Schiffer looked similar parallels. The political and Islamic scholar Thorsten Gerald Schneiders points out that the debate about the parallels between anti-Semitism and Islamophobia must also be viewed against the background of the anti-Islamic discourse. The relevance of Islamophobia is enhanced by such comparisons, which above all protagonists and sympathizers of the Islamophobic scene cannot be right.

The thesis of the similarity of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, on the other hand, contradicted Julius H. Schoeps , among others , who argued that Islamophobia lacked “parallel delusions”, i.e. correspondences with, for example, the legends of ritual murder and the theory of world Jewry . Matti Bunzl does not completely reject the comparison, but stressed that Islamophobia, in contrast to historically grown anti-Semitism, was a phenomenon that only emerged at the beginning of the 21st century. Heribert Schiedel is of the opinion that anti-Semitism proceeds deductively , that is , the individual Jews are pressed into a pre-existing, precise conception of Judaism, while anti-Muslim racism, however, inductively , it generalizes and inferred from one or more to all Muslims. He also lacks the "double distinction" that characterizes anti-Semitism: the definition of Jews on the one hand "as a group alien to the community", on the other hand their identification "with the modernity that destroys the community". Anti-Semitism makes it possible "to understand the whole (social) misery from a single point and to trace it back to a culprit". Volker Weiß argues similarly, emphasizing that anti-Semitism offers "a much more dense view of the world to defend against the Enlightenment ". The side effects of universalist modernism ( secularization , women's emancipation , cultural industry, Marxism , liberalism ), considered by the right to be harmful, would not be blamed on Islam, the rise of which is considered to be a threat “as a consequence of universalism”, the direct form of which is seen by anti-Semites in Judaism . According to Monika Schwarz-Friesel , the tertium comparationis to compare the phenomena is missing . Another argument against the comparison is the statement that, unlike Jews, some Muslims actually do real violence and terrorism with explicit reference to their religion.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung argues that it would be wrong to claim “that Islam itself and the behavior of Muslims have no part in creating negative views about them. Jews have never carried out terrorist attacks on civilians, issued fatwas against cartoonists who would have drawn crooked-nosed rabbis, or publicly declared their aim to 'conquer' the European continent, as prominent Muslim representatives have repeatedly done. Jewish schools did not indoctrinate their pupils with hatred of Western civilization ”. Henryk M. Broder added that anti-Semitism is based "on hysterical fears, inventions, projections and feelings of envy", while the criticism of Islam has "a real basis" "which transforms any prejudice about the tolerance inherent in Islam into an established judgment". Mathias Brodkorb contradicted , Broder misunderstood the essence of National Socialist anti-Semitism. This is not primarily constructed "by medievally guaranteed abstrusities such as the thesis of the 'well poisoners' or 'ritual child killers'", but on the contrary from various "experiences that he [...] in an absurd and inadmissible way within the framework of a scapegoat theory generalized “, which is why a comparison is permissible.

In a statement by the Berlin Jewish Cultural Association , the Islamophobia of the 21st century was compared with anti-Semitism: "Increasingly, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia seem to be two sides of the coin in which stereotypical behavior and new misunderstandings are engraved in large letters."

Content, function and consequences

Islamophobia can take very different forms, depending on the time, regional and political context. Their superficial content can easily change without affecting the anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim core. However, based on its basic ideological assumption, it always shows similar functions and modes of action.

External signs and symbols play an important role for Islamophobia. They not only serve to identify Muslims, such as a headscarf wearer as a Muslim, but also to represent Muslims and Islam. A mosque is perceived not only as an architectural symbol for the presence of Muslims, but as a symbol of all the negative characteristics of Islam and Muslims. Chris Allen describes the mosque in this case as a "sign", while the negative images of Muslims and Islam represent the "designated" or the meaning. The Islamophobia knows a variety of such symbols, such as hijabs , halāl-certified food or the Koran , which all fulfill the same function. They are located on a “conceptual map” on which they play a specific role in the negative interpretation of Muslims and Islam. This map can be used to classify individual signs in the existing ideological context, but individual signs can also be used to convey negative ideas about their wearer, the Muslim.

The hijab as a symbol is supposed to convey negative interpretations of Islam and Muslims in the world view of Islamophobia, which serve to legitimize their rejection.

Chris Allen draws a comparison between Islamophobia and racism towards blacks : The religion of Muslims, Islam, has a similar status as skin color for black men. Both would primarily be understood through the lens of this external sign, namely as a homogeneous group. This would transfer negative meanings associated with this sign to all of its carriers. As a result, the affected groups were discriminated against: While about black men under suspicion imagine the crime and therefore the presumption of innocence disregarded that Muslims are consistently seen as potential terrorists and subjected to so stringent security measures than other people. According to Allen, this means that it is less the discriminatory practices that are anti-Islamic, but rather the patterns of interpretation on which they are based and which are introduced as legitimation for the discrimination. Members of the affected groups cannot escape this treatment without getting rid of all external signs, because they are always reduced to the one negative interpretation of themselves. The acceptance of the unequal treatment with reference to the negatively connoted interpretations makes Muslims an external, “different” group that is essentially different from all other people. At the same time, the ingroup is positively valued - be it because it lacks the negatively connoted signs of the Muslim outgroup or because it has positive connotations that the Muslims lack. In the headscarf dispute , for example, the hijab serves to portray its Muslim women as unemancipated and their husbands and fathers as misogynist and backward-looking, or to perceive women themselves as terrorists or at least to accuse them of sympathy with extremism. What functions as a sign and what does not are always subject to fluctuation and therefore cannot be determined in advance. However, the signs can always be identified from the outside through their postulated reference to Islam, even if this reference does not have to be explicitly formulated.

Studies have shown that perceived religious discrimination and the perception of an Islamophobic society lead Muslims in Europe to identify more with their religion and less with the respective European state. In addition, studies suggest that the increase in negative attitudes towards Muslims has a negative impact on the health of members of Muslim minorities in Europe. According to a study from 2012, the perception of a hostile environment alone is sufficient to have a negative impact on the mental health of Muslims, regardless of whether the affected person has had personal experience of discrimination.

history

The question of the extent to which current Islamophobia is to be seen in the tradition of medieval confrontation between Christian Europe and the Muslim empires in Europe, North Africa and Asia is controversial in research. The same applies to the orientalism of the 19th and 20th centuries. However, the consensus is that contemporary Islamophobia has adopted many motifs from the time of the Crusades , the Turkish Wars and Orientalism. The most important of these elements include the generalized image of Muslims as violent, oversexualized and uncivilized, as well as the idea of ​​an allegedly insurmountable antagonism between the Christian and the enlightened West and a romanticized and original, but also irrational Muslim Orient. Since Islamophobia can take on very different forms even within the same period of time, it is difficult to define clear start or end points for its development. However, roughly two phases can be identified - the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

20th century: emerging antagonism

Photo of Ruhalla Chomeini at a rally
A decisive event in the history of modern Islamophobia: Ruhollah Khomeini's takeover of power in Iran in 1979. The Islamic Revolution was interpreted as a fundamental conflict between Western and Islamic values.

The frequent assumption that modern Islamophobia was born was the attacks of September 11, 2001 , is contradicted by Gottschalk / Greenberg. The decisive events for today's form of Islamophobia, according to their counter-thesis, were rather in the 1970s and 1980s and were to be found both in Western societies and in the political development of Muslim states. The first conflicts between Islamic and Western countries occurred in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and during the oil crises from 1973 onwards. Both events, however, were not understood primarily in religious, but in national categories. The Iranian Revolution of 1979 , in which the Iranian population overthrew Reza Shah Pahlavi , who was supported by the West, caused a sensation in the Western public . As a result, a radical Islamist regime under Ruhollah Khomeini took the lead in the state. The Western media interpreted and presented the revolution primarily as a conflict between Western values ​​and interests and those of Islam. At the same time, Islam was given the same attributes in this report as in Orientalism: backward, violent, unenlightened; a religion that is mainly spread through the sword. This emerging antagonism between West and Islam initially remained ineffective, among other things because it was masked by the capitalist - communist confrontation in the Cold War . In 1988 Salman Rushdie's book The Satanic Verses was published , in which he referred to the " Satanic Verses " and had the Prophet Mohammed appear. The work has been interpreted by many Muslims as blasphemous and a degradation of Islam. Although the state of India banned the book first, the greatest attention was drawn in 1989 by Khomeini's fatwa against Rushdie, in which he called for his killing. Rushdie had to go into hiding, translators of the book were murdered or seriously injured by attackers. There were protests around the world against the Satanic Verses . A public burning of the book by a group of Muslim British people was picked up by the media and compared to the book burning in Germany in 1933 . This not only fueled the negative images of Islam that had arisen ten years earlier. The Christian majorities in the West also developed an awareness for the first time that Muslims lived not only in Asia and North Africa, but also in the national societies of Europe and North America. At the same time, all Muslims were equated in the media presentation and placed in the vicinity of Khomeini.

Colorized map of the civilizations after Huntington's
The cultures of the world according to Samuel P. Huntington with a clear distinction between Western (dark blue) and Islamic world (hatched in gray). Cultural theories such as the clash of civilizations portray Islam as incompatible with Western culture and, towards the end of the 20th century, made a decisive contribution to the image of Muslims as aggressors.
The right-wing populist politician Pim Fortuyn , who was murdered in 2002 , had already spoken out against the “ Islamization ” of Dutch culture in the 1990s .

Around the same time, there was a change in the self-image of many minorities in Western Europe. The numerous guest workers, emigrants from the former colonies and their descendants in western states had long defined themselves on the basis of national or ethnic categories. By contrast, Muslim Pakistanis, were for example Buddhist Sinhalese and Hindu Indians in the UK since the 1950s by authorities and governments indiscriminately at first about skin color ( color ), race ( race finally ") and Blackness defined and consolidated." All of these categories were externally imprinted names and contradicted the self-image of the groups that were sometimes in conflict with one another. Many minorities from South Asia never saw themselves as black and felt disregarded in this minority discourse. Even if the British definition of race was later extended to include “mono-ethnic” religious communities (such as Sikhs or Jews ), Britons from Pakistan, for example, were neither recognized as Pakistanis nor as Muslims or even as British in the true sense of the word. At the same time, from the 1970s onwards, the racist discourse dispensed with classic racist argumentation models and now referred to characteristics and characteristics of minorities that did not coincide with biological racism. Both the need of the minorities to define themselves and the emergence of the " new racism " led to the fact that Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Indians increasingly defined themselves according to their religion. “Asians” became Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs. This redefinition of the British minorities went hand in hand in the western media with the perception of Islam as an external threat. The protests of small, radical groups were interpreted as an attitude of "Islam" or "Muslims" and thus equated the national Muslim minorities with Islamist fundamentalists . Similar developments took place a short time later in France, where the Muslim population groups from the former colonies are increasingly perceived as part of a global, homogeneous Islam.

After the collapse of the Eastern Bloc , communism fell away as a threat to the Western world and a common enemy of the West and Islamist movements. The focus shifted to the assumed contrast between Western and Islamic culture. Also contributed to works such as Samuel P. Huntington's clash of civilizations in which divided the world into monolithic, defined religious-cultural and incompatible blocks and predicted the increase in conflicts between these parts of the world. Conflicts such as the Second Gulf War , the Bosnian War and the First Chechen War were increasingly interpreted as a struggle between the Christian West and the Islamic East.

21st Century: Increasing Islamophobia

Image of the Statue of Liberty and the burning World Trade Center
The attacks of September 11, 2001 became the starting point for a new wave of Islamophobia: They were understood as an attack on Western values ​​such as freedom and progress and used as legitimation for the fight against global Islamism . At the same time, Muslims identified with Islamist terrorists.

Although the stereotypes and images from this discourse had gained in importance, they were not at the center of public and political perception until the end of the 20th century. The wars in Iraq , Yugoslavia and Chechnya were strongly ethnically and politically dominated, religion did not necessarily play a dominant role. This changed with the attacks of September 11, 2001 . The attacks by Islamist terrorists not only created awareness of the existence of religiously motivated terrorism. As a result, they also provided the framework for a discourse in which this terrorism, Islam and Muslims were equated worldwide or at least placed in great ideological proximity to one another. There had been tendencies towards this before, but it was only through the enormous media impact of the attacks in 2001 that these patterns of interpretation came into the consciousness of the general public. The terrorist attacks served not only as a legitimation for military operations against supposedly or actually Islamist regimes and terror groups in the world. Through the identification of Islam with terrorism, they also provided the basis for an Islamophobic discourse in western countries that revolved around national minorities.

Right-wing extremist and right-wing populist parties in Western Europe turned to Muslims as a new enemy and demanded their removal from society, while in the 1990s they had regarded asylum seekers and economic refugees as evils to be combated. The Islamophobic discourse also found its way into established politics and mainstream media in North America, Australia and Europe. Thus the question of the compatibility of Islam and thus of Muslims with the principles of Western societies was raised. Minorities were no longer spoken of as Albanians, Moroccans or Pakistanis, but as Muslims. The portrayal of Islamic countries as underdeveloped, the image of Islam as an anti-liberal ideology and the idea of ​​Muslims as people who tend to be reactionary, homophobic and misogynist dominated the media. Muslims were seen as potential terrorists and were subjected to stricter security controls, for example in air traffic. In 2005, the Mohammed cartoons led to violent outbreaks by Muslim groups, which the majority of the Western media viewed as an expression of an attack on freedom of expression and religion. After 2001, Islamophobia was not limited to verbal utterances, there were desecrations of mosques, murders such as that of Marwa El-Sherbini or the attacks by Anders Behring Breivik , who cited the “Islamization of Europe” as the reason for his actions. The victims of such attacks were not only Muslims but also people who were mistaken for them, such as Sikhs in Great Britain. Regardless of this, Islamophobia is still widespread in all parts of European societies, for example in tourism, with travelers staying in Islamic countries taking on an Islamophobic position in addition to an exoticist attitude.

Research and conceptual history

The origin of the term “Islamophobia” can be traced back to 1910 in the French-speaking world. As part of the French headscarf debate 2003-2004 was also one of the journalists in German-speaking Caroline Fourest and Fiammetta Venner discussed launched interpretation that the Iranian mullahs should have coined the term "Islamophobia" in the 1980s to secular -oriented opposition to as un-Islamic brand; The latter rejected regulations such as the veil requirement due to an aversion to Islam. This assertion was countered by Bernhard Schmid , for example , that the word “Islamophobia” with its Greek roots does not exist in Persian and that the Khomeni regime therefore did not refer to unveiled women as “Islamophobes”, but optionally as zed-e eslam (“ against Islam ”) or as zed-e enqelab (“ against the revolution ”). In today's social science context, the term was probably first used in the late 1980s by Tariq Modood, a Muslim researcher at the UK Policy Studies Institute . It probably comes from the British Muslim communities themselves, which in the early 1980s used this term to denote the aversion and discrimination they faced. The anti-racist British Runnymede Trust in 1994 was the first non-Muslim entity that took up the idea and Islamophobia in the report A Very Light Sleeper: The Persistence and Dangers of Anti-Semitism as the anti-Semitism similar panelist. Among other things, this report formed the basis for the creation of the Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia (CBMI), which was to deal with the phenomenon of Islamophobia.

In 1997 it finally appeared with Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All. Report of the Runnymede Trust Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia was the first scientific publication that primarily dealt with the definition, description and localization of Islamophobia. The report, usually briefly referred to as the Runnymede Report , was published by the Runnymede Trust and the CBMI . The report concluded that Islamophobia was based on a “closed worldview”. The report thus referred to a concept by the American social psychologist Milton Rokeach - an approach that was not only criticized for its penchant for behavioralism . Chris Allen criticized, among other things, the lack of historical localization, the preconceived judgments of the study and the lack of theoretical bases for the derivation of the definition of Islamophobia. He also criticized latently Islamophobic positions in the study itself, which alleged Muslims to be jointly responsible for Islamophobia. The Runnymede Report has also been criticized by many other sociologists, but its pioneering role in research into Islamophobia is undisputed. Malcolm Brown made an early comparison of racism and Islamophobia in 2000 . He concluded that the two phenomena had separate historical roots. Although they are fundamentally different, they influence one another. Brown came to the conclusion that racism and Islamophobia should be analyzed separately. While racism is a modern phenomenon, Islamophobia is an anachronism from premodern times. Brown's analysis was taken up and deepened in his and Robert Miles ' new edition of the standard work Racism from 2003.

After September 11, 2001 and the political developments that followed, there was increased awareness of Islamophobia. As a result, the number of scientific works that dealt with the phenomenon also increased. Most of these publications, however, worked with relatively vague and theoretically poorly founded definitions. As a rule, they limited themselves to the history of the phenomenon, or they only analyzed current manifestations. It was not until 2010 that Chris Allen presented a more extensive monograph which was specifically devoted to the definition, ideological foundations and theory of Islamophobia.

Historical studies for individual states lie for France with Thomas Deltombes L'Islam imaginaire and for the United States with Islamophobia. Making Muslims the Enemy by Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg. Chris Allen has traced the history of Islamophobia in the UK in several publications. Achim Bühl has written a volume of Islamophobia in Germany , and Thorsten Gerald Schneiders from the University of Münster has published two extensive specialist volumes on the subject that deal with Islamophobia and, by comparison, with the negative attitude towards criticism of Islam . The Berlin Center for Research on Antisemitism , among others, deals with the current situation in Germany ; in Austria Farid Hafez publishes the yearbook for research on Islamophobia .

The psychological research is beginning to work on the topic: The Institute of Religiosity in Psychiatry & Psychotherapy organized in 2011 the first psychological conference at the Islamic Center of Vienna under the auspices of the Vienna mayor Michael Häupl . The psychiatrist Raphael M. Bonelli from the Sigmund Freud University in Vienna analyzed the psychological roots of Islamophobia on the one hand as part of xenophobia , on the other hand as part of a general hostility towards religion that stands for an irrational fear of Islam.

The role of the media in connection with the growing Islamophobia is increasingly an issue on a socio-political and scientific level. The Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) of the European Union, which monitors the observance of fundamental rights in the EU, repeatedly draws attention to anti-Islamic attitudes of the media. In recent years, scientific surveys have also proven anti-Islamic positions and statements in various media. Research into Web 2.0 content is still in its infancy. Lohlker and Schiffer devoted themselves to the Islamic content of blogs, Thurner examined online forums of so-called quality newspapers using discourse analysis . The hate post is also discussed in a journalistic context .

Situation in Germany

Islamophobic crimes

In June 2014, the German government responded to a small question about Islamophobia. Accordingly, between January 2012 and March 2014 - i.e. in 27 months - there were 78 anti-Muslim incidents in and around mosques.

Since 2017, Islamophobic crimes have been systematically recorded by the authorities (previously only “crimes directed against religion” were recorded in general). That year there were around 1,000 Islamophobic crimes, including attacks, graffiti and desecration of objects. 33 people were injured. For comparison: The number of attacks on Christians and their institutions during the same period was 127. In 2019, 871 attacks on Muslims and their institutions were recorded. Two people were killed, 33 people were injured.

Islamophobic attitudes

According to Wilhelm Heitmeyer ( German Conditions ), approval of anti-Islamic statements was relatively stable between 2003 and 2011. Between 20 and 30% of the population was of the opinion that Muslims should be banned from immigrating to Germany, and between 30 and 40% felt "because of the many Muslims [...] sometimes a stranger in their own country."

A study by Andreas Zick and others in 2011 found that 46.1% of those questioned were of the opinion that there were too many Muslims in Germany, and 54.1% that Muslims made too many demands. This put Germany in the middle of the field compared with other European countries (Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Portugal, Poland, Hungary).

The representative Leipziger Mitte study from 2018 found that 44% of the respondents were fully or partially of the opinion that “Muslim immigration to Germany should be prohibited”. More than half of the respondents said that they “feel like a stranger in their own country because of the Muslims”. This means that the negative attitude towards Muslims has increased further since 2016. According to this survey, Islamophobia (or hostility towards Muslims) is higher in eastern Germany (50.7%) than in the west (42.4%) and more pronounced among people without a high school diploma (48.4%) than among people with a high school diploma (27, 2%).

According to a representative survey conducted by the Bertelsmann Foundation from 2017 to 2019, around 50% of people in Germany perceive Islam as a threat (East: 57%; West: 50%). The editor described this as “widespread skepticism towards Islam”, which however “should not necessarily be equated with Islamophobia”. Furthermore, according to the survey, 30% of people in the east and 16% of people in the west did not want Muslim neighbors.

The historian and prejudice researcher Wolfgang Benz refers to publicists such as Hans-Peter Raddatz and Udo Ulfkotte , who would stir up fears of Islam and conjure up dangers through “scare tactics”. The latter conjures up a “Muslim world revolution” and a “secret plan to infiltrate non-Muslim states”, which comes from his imagination, but which, as with the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, is sufficient as an assurance for xenophobes. The sociologist Naika Foroutan gives Thilo Sarrazin's bestseller Germany abolishes (2010) a share of responsibility for increasing Islamophobia. The "tendentious and generally derogatory" statements would have "broken dams". The discourse space has shifted to the point of public defamation. Foroutan sees a connection to increasing Islamophobia. Sarrazin could therefore "be understood as a catalyst for German sensitivities".

Wolfgang Benz describes the Politically Incorrect weblog, founded in 2004, as one of the most important Islamophobic sites. At the end of 2014 the movement “ Hooligans against Salafists ” (HoGeSa) was formed and later in Dresden and later elsewhere the movement “ Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West ” (PEGIDA), the latter often being characterized as anti-Islamic.

The independent Commission against Racism and Intolerance of the Council of Europe (ECRI - European Commission against Racism and Intolerance ) published a country-specific report in March 2020 and, in its sixth audit report on Germany for the period between 2014 and 2019, noted with concern that "there ... a high Degree of Islamophobia [exists] and the public discourse… has become increasingly xenophobic ”because“… the constant Islamophobic and xenophobic rhetoric of the extreme right… has been reflected in the general political discourse ”.

literature

Literature cited
  • Chris Allen: Justifying Islamophobia: A Post-9/11 Consideration of the European Union and British Contexts. In: The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 21 (3), 2004. pp. 1-14. ( Full text ; PDF; 127 kB)
  • Chris Allen: A Brief History of Islamophobia . In: Arches Quarterly 4 (7), 2010. pp. 14-23.
  • Chris Allen: Islamophobia . Ashgate Publishing, London 2010. ISBN 978-0-7546-5139-0 .
  • Étienne Balibar : Is there a 'Neo-Racism'? In: Étienne Balibar, Immanuel Wallerstein: Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities. Verso, London and New York 1991. ISBN 0-86091-542-5 , pp. 17-28.
  • Malcolm D. Brown: Conceptualizing Racism and Islamophobia . In: Jessica ter Wal, Maykel Verkuyten: Comparative Perspectives on Racism . Ashgate Publishing, Aldershot 2000. ISBN 0-7546-1123-X , pp. 73-90.
  • Achim Bühl: Islamophobia in Germany. Origins, actors, stereotypes. VSA-Verlag, Hamburg 2010. ISBN 978-3-89965-444-8 .
  • Naime Cakir: Islamophobia. Anatomy of an enemy image in Germany . Bielefeld 2014. ISBN 978-3-8376-2661-2 .
  • Jocelyn Cesari: Introduction . In: Jocely Cesari: Muslims in the West after 9/11. Religion, Politics and Law. Routledge, Abingdon 2010. ISBN 0-415-77655-4 , pp. 1-6.
  • Thomas Deltombe: L'Islam imaginaire . Éditions La Découverte, Paris 2005. ISBN 2-7071-4672-2 .
  • Clive D. Field: Islamophobia . In: Journal of Contemporary Religion 26 (3), 2011. doi : 10.1080 / 13537903.2011.616070 , pp. 509-511.
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  • Peter Gottschalk, Gabriel Greenberg: Islamophobia. Making Muslims the Enemy. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham 2008. ISBN 0-7425-5286-1 .
  • Siegfried Jäger, Dirk Halm (ed.): Medial barriers. Racism as an obstacle to integration . Münster 2007. ISBN 978-3-89771-742-8 .
  • Luzie Kahlweiß and Samuel Salzborn : "Islamophobia" as a political battlefield. On the conceptual and empirical criticism of the term Islamophobia ( PDF ), in: Armin Pfahl-Traughber (Ed.): Yearbook for Research on Extremism and Terrorism 2011/12, Brühl 2012.
  • Jonas Rønningsdalen Kunst, David Lackland Sam, Pål Ulleberg: Perceived islamophobia: Scale development and validation . In: International Journal of Intercultural Relations 2012. doi : 10.1016 / j.ijintrel.2012.11.001 .
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  • Margreth Lünenborg et al .: Migrant women in the media. Representations in the press and their reception . Bielefeld 2011. ISBN 978-3-8376-1730-6 .
  • Robert Miles, Malcolm D. Brown: Racism. Second edition. Routledge, London and New York 2003. ISBN 0-415-29677-3 .
  • Sabine Schiffer : The representation of Islam in the press. Language, images, suggestions. A selection of techniques and examples . Würzburg 2005. ISBN 3-89913-421-4 .
  • Sabine Schiffer: Limitless hatred on the Internet. As “Islam-critical” activists argue in weblogs . In: Schneiders, Thorsten Gerald (Ed.). Islamophobia. When the lines of criticism blur . 2nd edition VS-Verlag, Wiesbaden 2010, pp. 355-375. ISBN 978-3-531-16257-7 .
  • Thorsten Gerald Schneiders (ed.). Islamophobia. When the lines of criticism blur . 2nd edition VS-Verlag, Wiesbaden 2010. ISBN 978-3-531-16257-7 .
  • Ingrid Thurner: The dark side of the post. Discourse patterns and discourse strategies on Islamic topics . In: Yearbook for Islamophobia Research 2012, pp. 154–176. ISBN 978-3-99036-001-9 .
  • Ingrid Thurner: Tourists and Islam. In: Yearbook for Islamophobia Research 2014. Vienna: new academic press 2014, pp. 146–161. ISBN 978-3-7003-1886-6
Essay

Web links

Commons : Islamophobia  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Islamophobia  - Quotes
Wiktionary: Islamophobia  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Andreas Zick; Beate Küpper; Andreas Hövermann: The devaluation of others . 2011, p. 46 .
  2. ↑ a b Allen 2010b , pp. 151–153.
  3. ↑ Johannes Kandel : Islamophobia - On the career of a controversial term. (PDF) Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung , 2006, p. 5 , archived from the original on April 12, 2015 ; accessed on January 2, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Allen 2010b , p. 190.
  5. ↑ Allen 2010b , pp. 141-142.
  6. ↑ a b Allen 2010b , pp. 187-190.
  7. ↑ Allen 2010b , pp. 151–157.
  8. ↑ a b Brown 2000 , pp. 88-89.
  9. ^ Miles & Brown 2003 , p. 164.
  10. ↑ Balibar 1992 , pp. 23-24.
  11. ↑ Goldberg 2006 , pp. 359-364.
  12. ↑ Dietmar Molthagen : Recommendations for action to deal with Islamist extremism and Islamophobia . Ed .: Friedrich Ebert Foundation. 2015, p. 26 .
  13. ↑ Allen 2010b , p. 136.
  14. ^ "Two decades since Runnymede was first credited with coining the term 'Islamophobia' in our flagship 1997 report ..."; in: "Islamophobia" , Runnymede 50 Years (Festschrift)
  15. ↑ Heiko Heinisch : " Ideological tunnel vision of the" enemy image Islam " " , mena-watch.com, 10 Dec. 2019
  16. ↑ Shooman 2011 . Retrieved March 31, 2012.
  17. ↑ Allen 2010b , pp. 135-138.
  18. ↑ Armin Pfahl-Traughber: Islamophobia, Islamophobia, Islam criticism - a guide through the jungle of terms. In: bpb.de. March 17, 2014, accessed May 1, 2016 .
  19. ↑ Luzie Kahlweiß and Samuel Salzborn : "Islamophobia" as a political battle term. On the conceptual and empirical criticism of the term Islamophobia ( PDF ), in: Armin Pfahl-Traughber (Ed.): Yearbook for Research on Extremism and Terrorism 2011/12, Brühl 2012.
  20. ^ Samuel Salzborn: Global anti-Semitism. A search for traces in the abyss of modernity. Beltz Juventa, Weinheim 2018, p. 132.
  21. ↑ Five years of "Charlie Hebdo" How terror changed France , Martin Bohne, ARD-Studio Paris on tagesschau.de on January 7, 2020, accessed on the same date
  22. ↑ a b c Thorsten Gerald Schneiders : Competition of those who suffer . Federal Agency for Civic Education, March 17, 2014
  23. ↑ Benjamin Weinthal: Dangerous equation. In: Haaretz.com. December 26, 2008, accessed October 4, 2018 .
  24. ^ Philipp Gessler: Conference of the Berlin anti-Semitism researchers. Jew haters versus Islamophobes. In: taz.de. December 10, 2008, accessed October 4, 2018 .
  25. ^ Wolfgang Benz: Anti-Semites and enemies of Islam. Hetzer with parallels . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , January 4, 2010.
  26. ↑ "The enemy of the Jews replaced by Muslims" . Text archive of the German Bundestag, May 17, 2013
  27. ↑ What used to be Talmud baiting is now Koran baiting . Der Standard, October 2, 2014
  28. ↑ Anti-Semitism researcher Wolfgang Benz is retiring. Historian Norbert Frei: Benz saw himself as a “public enlightener”. In: Deutschlandfunk , Kultur heute, October 21, 2010, accessed on September 9, 2011.
  29. ↑ New Enmity - Old Patterns . Deutschlandradio Kultur, January 28, 2010
  30. ↑ Micha Brumlik: “New and old anti-Semitism in Germany. Analysis and educational interventions. ”In: Mechtild Gomolla, Ellen Kollender, Marlene Menk (eds.): Racism and right-wing extremism in Germany. Figurations and interventions in society and state institutions. Beltz Juventa, Weinheim 2018, p. 73
  31. ↑ Competition between those who suffer. In: Federal Agency for Civic Education , Dossier right-wing extremism, accessed on July 31, 2015.
  32. ↑ Julius H. Schoeps: Abwegige Parallels ( Memento from July 16, 2010 in the Internet Archive ). In: Die Jüdische , January 16, 2010.
  33. ↑ Heribert Schiedel: "Anti-Semitism and völkische ideology: Is the FPÖ a right-wing extremist party?" In: Stephan Grigat (ed.): AfD & FPÖ. Anti-Semitism, ethnic nationalism and gender images. Interdisciplinary research on anti-Semitism, vol. 7. Facultas, Baden-Baden 2017, p. 116 f.
  34. ↑ Volker Weiß: The authoritarian revolt. The New Right and the Fall of the West. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2018, p. 227
  35. ↑ James Kirchick: The new old Jews. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , August 29, 2014, accessed on July 22, 2015 .
  36. ^ Henryk M. Broder: Essay: Are Muslims the Jews of Today? In: Welt.de , January 13, 2010.
  37. ↑ The "Critical Theory" eats its children - anti-Semitism researcher Wolfgang Benz is suddenly an anti-Semite himself . Die Zeit, malfunction reporter , January 26, 2010
  38. ↑ Against Islamophobia - Terror has no religion (A letter from the Jüdischer Kulturverein Berlin eV and a speech by the chairman of the Muslim Council in Munich, Berlin, November 19, 2004)
  39. ↑ Allen 2010b , pp. 148-151.
  40. ↑ Allen 2010b , pp. 163-167.
  41. ↑ Andrea Dernbach: “The new hatred.” Www.zeit.de, July 8, 2009
  42. ↑ Allen 2010b , pp. 171-172.
  43. ↑ Art, Tajamal, Sam & Ulleberg 2012 .
  44. ↑ Verkuyten & Yildiz 2007 .
  45. ^ Johnston & Lordan 2011 .
  46. ↑ a b Kunst, Sam & Ulleberg 2012 .
  47. ↑ Allen 2010a , pp. 14-15.
  48. ↑ Gottschalk & Greenberg 2008 , pp. 37–40.
  49. ↑ Allen 2010b , pp. 38-44.
  50. ↑ Allen 2010a , pp. 16-18.
  51. ↑ Allen 2010b , pp. 38-44.
  52. ↑ Allen 2010b , pp. 38-44.
  53. ↑ Brown 2000 , pp. 82-83.
  54. ↑ Cesari 2010 , pp. 1-4.
  55. ↑ Sindre Bangstad, Anders Breivik and the Rise of Islamophobia , Zed Books, 2014
  56. ↑ Allen 2010b , pp. 101-111.
  57. ↑ Thurner 2014 .
  58. ↑ Alain Quellien: La politique dans l'Afrique Occidentale Française musulmane , 1910, p 133
  59. ↑ Caroline Fourest & Fiammetta Venner: Islamophobia? About the career of a term. In: Jungle World No. 51, December 10, 2003, feuilleton. Translation of a French article by Caroline Fourest & Fiammetta Venner: Islamophobia? In: ProChoix N ° 26-27 (Automne-Hiver 2003).
  60. ↑ Bernhard Schmid: Who is afraid of difference? About the camouflage of racism as criticism of religion. Second part of a debate about "Islamophobia". In: Jungle World No. 52, December 17, 2003, feuilleton.
  61. ↑ Allen 2010b , pp. 5-14.
  62. ↑ Allen 2010b , p. 52.
  63. ↑ Allen 2010b , pp. 58-72.
  64. ↑ Miles & Brown 2003 , pp. 164-166.
  65. ↑ Miles & Brown 2003 , pp. 162-168.
  66. ↑ Field 2011 , p. 511.
  67. ↑ Deltombe 2011 .
  68. ↑ Gottschalk & Greenberg 2008 .
  69. ↑ Allen 2010a .
  70. ↑ Allen 2010b .
  71. ^ Allen 2004 .
  72. ^ Bühl 2010 .
  73. ↑ Schneiders 2010 .
  74. ^ Conference on "Islamophobia and related phenomena" in Vienna. In: ORF .at. June 20, 2011, accessed December 29, 2014 .
  75. ↑ Stefan Beig, Wiener Zeitung from April 25, 2011: When Islamophobia becomes pathological ( memento of the original from January 26, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed December 29, 2014 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.wienerzeitung.at
  76. ↑ http://fra.europa.eu/fraWebsite/home/home_en.htm
  77. ↑ Schiffer 2005 .
  78. ↑ Jäger / Halm 2007 .
  79. ↑ Lünenborg et al. 2011 .
  80. ↑ Lohlker 2009 .
  81. ↑ Schiffer 2010 .
  82. ↑ Thurner 2012 .
  83. ↑ Ingrid Thurner: Everything is allowed? About the hate post. In: Die Presse , November 25, 2010.
  84. ↑ Printed matter 18/1627 (June 4, 2014) (pdf, 20 pages)
  85. ↑ What is behind 78 anti-Muslim incidents
  86. ↑ The Ministry of the Interior counted at least 950 Islamophobic crimes in 2017. Retrieved March 28, 2019 .
  87. ↑ a b Berliner Morgenpost- Berlin: More than 1,000 Islamophobic crimes in 2017. February 14, 2018, accessed on March 28, 2019 (German).
  88. ↑ Katharina Heflik: Islamophobia: Government records 871 attacks on Muslims in 2019 . In: The time . March 28, 2020, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed on March 28, 2020]).
  89. ^ Wilhelm Heitmeyer: German conditions - The unlocked decade. 2011, accessed March 28, 2019 .
  90. ^ Andreas Zick; Beate Küpper; Andreas Hövermann: The devaluation of others . Ed .: Friedrich Ebert Foundation. 2011, p. 70 .
  91. ↑ Gert pimples; Alexander Yendell: Religion as a conflicting factor in connection with right-wing extremism, hostility towards Muslims and the AfD election . In: Oliver Decker; Elmar Brähler (Hrsg.): Escape into the authoritarian: Right-wing extremist dynamics in the middle of society . Psychosozial-Verlag, Giessen 2018, p. 223-224 ( boell.de [PDF]).
  92. ↑ ZEIT ONLINE: Religion: Every second person sees Islam as a threat . In: The time . July 11, 2019, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed July 11, 2019]).
  93. ↑ Every second person perceives Islam as a threat . In: sueddeutsche.de . July 11, 2019, ISSN  0174-4917 ( sueddeutsche.de [accessed July 11, 2019]).
  94. ↑ a b Wolfgang Benz: Source text: Islamophobia and anti-Semitism are similar to one another | bpb. March 17, 2014, accessed March 28, 2019 .
  95. ↑ Wolfgang Benz: Islamophobia and anti-Semitism are similar to one another . Source text of the Federal Agency for Civic Education , March 17, 2014
  96. ↑ Naika Foroutan; Corinna Schäfer; Coskun Canan; Benjamin Schwarze: Sarrazin's theses put to the test . Ed .: Naika Foroutan. Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-86004-258-8 , pp. 46 f .
  97. ^ ECRI report on Germany (sixth round of examinations) . ECRI country-specific approach: Report on Germany, No. 6 . Council of Europe , Strasbourg March 2020, pp. 8 (54 p., Institut-fuer-menschenrechte.de [PDF; 1.9 MB ; accessed on July 18, 2020]).

Footnotes directly after a statement confirm this individual statement, footnotes directly after a punctuation mark the entire preceding sentence. Footnotes after a space refer to the entire preceding text.