ISLAMOPHOBIA has taken a range of forms in Europe, including the more traditional types of socio-economic discrimination and racist attacks historically suffered by other ethnic minorities. In recent years many high-profile incidents from across Western Europe have exemplified this trend:
-The 2005 publication in a Danish newspaper a cartoon portraying the Prophet Mohammad as a terrorist leading to riots across the Muslim world.
- The online release by Dutch right-wing politician of the movie Fitna, which directly links Islam with terrorism.
- The banning in French schools of the Islamic hijab and the debates which are raging throughout Europe over the right to build mosques.
Add to these examples two major new issues I observed on a recent trip I made to France:
The first one:
"The martyr of the hijab" is what Egyptians are now calling Marwa al-Sherbini. The 31-year-old veiled Egyptian who was fatally stabbed in court by a German man identified only as Axel W, who had been prosecuted for calling her a terrorist (among other things) while she was playing with her three-year-old son in a park. When Marwa's body was interred in Cairo, thousands of angry Egyptians attended her wake, some of them chanting: "There is no God but God and the Germans are the enemies of God."
The case has sparked anger in the Arab world and Egypt in particular for its perceived under-reporting in the western media and a belief that the attack, described by German authorities as an isolated one perpetrated by a "lone wolf", is the culmination of consistent nurturing and legitimization of Islamophobia in Europe.
Bloggers and commentators have played the "what if" game, reversing the race and nationality of the victim and attacker in order to highlight the muted response from Germans and Europeans more generally. The murder of Theo van Gogh by a Muslim extremist in 2004, has been invoked as an example of the unequal value attached to the lives of Muslims and non-Muslims.
The second example is the Burqa Controversy:
Marwa's killing has occurred against the backdrop of President Sarkozy's recent comments on the burqa saying that burqas imprison women and would not be tolerated in France. In a speech at the Palace of Versailles, Mr. Sarkozy said that the head-to-toe Islamic garment for women, the burqa, “is not a sign of religion”, but rather “a sign of subservience.”
Human Rights Watch, and several Muslim groups and clerics have criticized the ban and asked Sarkozy to reconsider his statements citing that the proposal "stigmatized" Islam.
Many French Muslims believe that by framing the wearing of burqas and other body veils under the guise of showing concern for women’s rights, Sarkozy has also found a roundabout way of targeting Muslim women and putting them in the human rights’ defendant’s seat, engendering another religious debate. The number of French Muslim women who wear the burqa is minuscule, and one would have to go out of his way to visit les banlieues (Paris’s poor suburbs) to spot one or two. So why is Sarkozy proposing the ban and stirring all these emotions?
Critics to Sarkozy’s proposal claim that he deliberately initiated a burqa polemic to distract from his low approval rating of 32 percent down from 60 percent for the six months following his election. The burqa is Sarkozy’s nationalistic prop, and its emotional appeal temporally outweighs his unfulfilled promises on such issues as guaranteeing workers five weeks of paid leave annually and the 35-hour workweek which Sarkozy had to get rid of once the economy started to sink. All the while maintaining a flashy lifestyle, which have earned him the title, “le Président Bling-Bling.”
Many European Muslims believe that Europe is in the grip of an anti-Islamic bias that is becoming institutionalized in the continent’s otherwise ordinary politics. In the UK, a research report published by the Institute of Race Relations argued that Islamophobia is hindering efforts to integrate Muslims into European societies.
Follow Jamal Dajani on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jamaldajani
-The 2005 publication in a Danish newspaper a cartoon portraying the Prophet Mohammad as a terrorist leading to riots across the Muslim world.
- The online release by Dutch right-wing politician of the movie Fitna, which directly links Islam with terrorism.
- The banning in French schools of the Islamic hijab and the debates which are raging throughout Europe over the right to build mosques.
Add to these examples two major new issues I observed on a recent trip I made to France:
The first one:
"The martyr of the hijab" is what Egyptians are now calling Marwa al-Sherbini. The 31-year-old veiled Egyptian who was fatally stabbed in court by a German man identified only as Axel W, who had been prosecuted for calling her a terrorist (among other things) while she was playing with her three-year-old son in a park. When Marwa's body was interred in Cairo, thousands of angry Egyptians attended her wake, some of them chanting: "There is no God but God and the Germans are the enemies of God."
The case has sparked anger in the Arab world and Egypt in particular for its perceived under-reporting in the western media and a belief that the attack, described by German authorities as an isolated one perpetrated by a "lone wolf", is the culmination of consistent nurturing and legitimization of Islamophobia in Europe.
Bloggers and commentators have played the "what if" game, reversing the race and nationality of the victim and attacker in order to highlight the muted response from Germans and Europeans more generally. The murder of Theo van Gogh by a Muslim extremist in 2004, has been invoked as an example of the unequal value attached to the lives of Muslims and non-Muslims.
The second example is the Burqa Controversy:
Marwa's killing has occurred against the backdrop of President Sarkozy's recent comments on the burqa saying that burqas imprison women and would not be tolerated in France. In a speech at the Palace of Versailles, Mr. Sarkozy said that the head-to-toe Islamic garment for women, the burqa, “is not a sign of religion”, but rather “a sign of subservience.”
Human Rights Watch, and several Muslim groups and clerics have criticized the ban and asked Sarkozy to reconsider his statements citing that the proposal "stigmatized" Islam.
Many French Muslims believe that by framing the wearing of burqas and other body veils under the guise of showing concern for women’s rights, Sarkozy has also found a roundabout way of targeting Muslim women and putting them in the human rights’ defendant’s seat, engendering another religious debate. The number of French Muslim women who wear the burqa is minuscule, and one would have to go out of his way to visit les banlieues (Paris’s poor suburbs) to spot one or two. So why is Sarkozy proposing the ban and stirring all these emotions?
Critics to Sarkozy’s proposal claim that he deliberately initiated a burqa polemic to distract from his low approval rating of 32 percent down from 60 percent for the six months following his election. The burqa is Sarkozy’s nationalistic prop, and its emotional appeal temporally outweighs his unfulfilled promises on such issues as guaranteeing workers five weeks of paid leave annually and the 35-hour workweek which Sarkozy had to get rid of once the economy started to sink. All the while maintaining a flashy lifestyle, which have earned him the title, “le Président Bling-Bling.”
Many European Muslims believe that Europe is in the grip of an anti-Islamic bias that is becoming institutionalized in the continent’s otherwise ordinary politics. In the UK, a research report published by the Institute of Race Relations argued that Islamophobia is hindering efforts to integrate Muslims into European societies.
Follow Jamal Dajani on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jamaldajani
Europe has a long history of colonialism, anti-semitism and racism. Islam is now the new falvor du jour for hatred and bigotary in Europe.
ReplyDeleteWhat a Hypocrisy
ReplyDeleteWhere is the outcry of Muslims over the killing of innocent people in Jakarta this morning. The death include Muslims too.
Why is the Ummah silent when Muslim kill innocents.
Iraq? Iran? Indonesia? Egypt? When Hamas kill Palestinians supporting Fatah? Hisbollah forces Muslim out of their homes when they do not support them??
K alHaq
Europe and especially Sarkozy's France like to think of themselves as the bastions of democracy when in fact they committed the most atrocities against mankind!
ReplyDelete1. WWI
2. WWII
3. Holocaust
4. Pogroms
5. Coloniolism
6. Algerian Massacre
And the list is long!