175

English Abstracts

Islamophobic Think Tanks. A Case Study of Strategies of Def-

amation and Delegitimization of Muslim Civil Society Actors
by the ‚European Foundation for Democracy‘

Farid Hafez
This chapter deals with the impact of one of the main drivers of what has
been called the “organized Islamophobia Network” (OIN) in the USA or “Is-
lamophobic elite movements from above”. It is one of the first studies to look
at European based think tanks and their role in defining and excluding Muslim
civil society organizations. It specifically looks at how the Brussels-based think
tank “European Foundation for Democracy” (EFD), which has a transatlantic
relationship, systematically produces knowledge to define vocal and represen-
tative actors of the Muslim civil society as potentially radical and Islamist,
which then should lead to state and civil society exclusion. The strategy of con-
structing Muslim Brotherhood-affiliations to the aforementioned actors is an-
alyzed as part of a larger strategy of defamation and delegitimization. Two cas-
es, Austria and Sweden, are analyzed in detail.
Keywords: Muslim civil society, Islamophobia, Think tank, Elite social
movements, Muslim Brotherhood, European Foundation for Democracy

Experiences of Racism of Teachers with a

“Migrant Background”

Karim Fereidooni
This article presents some selected results from a study on Experiences of
Discrimination and Racism of Trainee Teachers and Teachers with a “Migrant
Background” in the German School System (cf. Fereidooni a)1. The intention of
this article is to discuss the different forms of racial discrimination experi-
enced by the respondents and to present their coping strategies. Furthermore,
this article outlines the interviewees’ strategies of dethematisation of rac-

1 The study can be downloaded here: http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/Volltextser-

ver/20203/.
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ism-relevant experiences in the school context.

Keywords: Everyday Racism, School, Teacher, Germany, Coping Strate-
gies

The redefining of far-right extremist activism

along Islamophobic lines

Naved Bakali
Anti-Muslim racism is increasingly becoming a prominent feature of far-
right extremist groups and political figures across Europe and North America.
This article examines the growth of Islamophobic discourse and actions
among far-right political figures and street protest movements in Europe, fo-
cusing on the UK and France, as well as in North America, particularly, Cana-
da and the US. Employing a Critical Race Theory framework, this paper will
demonstrate that anti-Muslim racism, over other forms of racism, is increas-
ingly defining the policies of these political elites, and occupies the foremost
area of concern for these protest movements. This form of ‘Othering’ through
racial and political posturing can have potentially devastating implications for
Muslims living in western nations and can result in such things as targeted leg-
islation, hate crimes, and social marginalization.
Key words: Islamophobia; Critical Race Theory; far-right extremism; an-
ti-Muslim racism in Europe; Anti-Muslim racism in North America; political
extremism

China’s War of Terror: How Islamophobic

Discourse Fuels Occupation

Yasmeen Ahmed Azam

The Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang, one of the five autonomous regions in Chi-
na, have a long history of occupation as the area has had strategic geopolitical
leverage amongst contending empires. This paper looks at the way the Chi-
nese state has framed the Uighur demands for autonomy and independence
over the years. Before 9/11, the discourse around Uighurs was one of ethnic
separatism whereas post-9/11 there is a discursive rupture: the discourse be-
comes one around terrorism and controlling Muslim extremists, exacerbated
by the US-led global following of the “War On Terror”. Using a Foucauldian
discourse analysis, I sample primary and secondary sources to analyze what is
English Abstracts 177

being said, how it is being said, and the geopolitical agenda that is being fur-
thered. I argue that the state deploys Oriental constructs of the Muslim other
in their legislation, their public statements, and media outlets; this discourse
places the Muslims ‘outside the confines of civility’, and thus obfuscates– even
legitimates– the state’s monopoly on violence and their current occupation of
Xinjiang.
Keywords: Uighurs, Xinjiang, Surveillance, War on Terror, Discourse
Analysis, Orientalism

Muslim Counterpublics in the Germen Internet.

The Mosque Report vs. #meinmoscheereport.

Said Rezek
Muslim counterpublics are emerging in the internet at the backdrop of a
distorted and rather negative coverage of Islam in German media. This article
discusses the digital hashtag-movement #meinmoscheereport (#mymos-
quereport) based on Nancy Fraser’s theory of subaltern counterpublics. This
article asks beyond the hashtag-movement #meinmoscheereport if this move-
ment has been an asset or a loss of democratic quality for the public discourse
and democracy.
Keywords: Counterpublic, Islamohobia, Anti-Muslim Racism, Discourse,
Public, Democracy

History of Islamophobia research until publicaton of the report

“Islamophobia: A challenge for us all” (1997). Part 1:
“I nemici dell’Islam” (Ivan Aguéli, 1904)

Armin Muftić
Islamophobie sei ein Kampfbegriff, der nach der iranischen Revolution
1979 von Islamisten jeglicher Couleur, von iranischer Regierung bis Muslim-
brüder, erfunden worden sei, um die berechtigte Kritik am Islam in Verruf zu
bringen – so ein weit verbreiteter Vorwurf, mit dem zugleich vom Gebrauch
des Terminus Islamophobie in der Wissenschaft abgeraten wird. Dieser Vor-
wurf wird nicht nur von denjenigen gemacht, die die Existenz des Phänomens
Islamophobie zur Gänze leugnen und die Kritik an wachsender Diskriminie-
rung muslimischer Minderheiten als ein Mittel der islamistischen Verschwö-
rung gegen den Westen betrachten, sondern auch von manchen Publizisten
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mit wissenschaftlichem Anspruch. In diesem Essay wird die These über den
islamistischen Ursprung des Islamophobie-Terminus auf ihren Wahrheitsge-
halt geprüft. Zudem wird sie zum Anlass genommen, die akademischen Ver-
wendungen der Benennung Islamophobie zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts zu
untersuchen. Im Teil 1 dieser Artikelserie wird ein Essay von Ivan Aguéli als
eine der ersten akademischen Auseinandersetzungen mit dem Phänomen Isla-
mophobie ausführlich besprochen.
Keywords: Ivan Aguéli; Il Convito; En-Nādī; colonialism; Islamophobia
term; clerical Islamophobia; race-Islamophobia; pseudoscientific Islamopho-
bia; anti-Muslim racism.

The German Unification and the Muslim Other

Iman Attia
The German re-centering of national identity in the course of ‘German re-
unification’ is accompanied by the perception of Muslim citizens as foreign
and threatening. In public debates, however, the latter is thematized as a new
development and brought into temporal and causal connection with ‘Islamist’
terrorist attacks. It distinguishes between the period before and after 9/11 and
explains the anti-Muslim threat scenario with the terrorist attacks by ‘Mus-
lims’, attributes the cause of the rejection of Muslims to the fear of them. Re-
garding the way in which Islam and Muslims are dealt with politically and in
media, this only applies to a certain extent: ‘Islam’ was measured and classified
as foreign, backward and threatening, as early as the 1990s but at the beginning
of the 2000s the Islamization of political debates gained momentum and since
then has been moving at a high level. In cultural and social contexts, however,
orientalising images and anti-Muslim argumentations were widespread long
before that, pointing to the long history of the othering of people marked as
Muslims in Europe. In 1989 political debates resorted to them when it came to
(re)creating a German nation from the GDR and the FRG and at the same time
postulating that it was not about nation-building, since Germany had always
been a nation, albeit temporarily divided. Following on from the older Ger-
man nation-building process, post-1989 once again linked the German nation
to origin, language and religion. Muslims thereby have a constituent meaning
for the containment (of GDR citizens as Germans by origin) by exclusion (of
Muslim FRG citizens as foreigners internally and externally).