Islamophobia and the West

•A resolution proclaiming 15 March as the International Day to Combat Islamophobia was unanimously
adopted by the General Assembly.

•The representative of Pakistan, introducing the resolution calling for establishing the International Day to
Combat Islamophobia, said Islamophobia has emerged as a new form of racism that includes, among
others, discriminatory travel bans, hate speech and the targeting of girls and women for their dress. 
 Islamophobia and the West
•The text called for expanded international efforts to create a global dialogue that will encourage tolerance
and peace centred on respect for human rights and the diversity of religions and beliefs.

•Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has welcomed a decision by the United Nations General Assembly
(UNGA) to approve a resolution setting March 15 as the International Day to Combat Islamophobia.
Islamophobia and the West
 Islamophobia and the West
• Islamophobia is a term used to describe irrational hostility,
fear, or hatred of Islam, Muslims, and Islamic culture, and
active discrimination against these groups or individuals within
them.
• Today, Islamophobia in Europe manifests itself through
individual attitudes and behaviors, and the policies and
practices of organizations and institutions. Examples—which
vary across countries and time—include the following:
 Islamophobia and the West
• physical or verbal attacks on property, places of worship, and people—
especially those who display a visible manifestation of their religious
identity such as women wearing the hijab or niqab

• verbal or online threats of violence, vilification, and abuse.

• policies or legislation that indirectly target or disproportionately affect

Muslims, and unduly restrict their freedom of religion, such as bans on
wearing visible religious and cultural symbols, laws against facial
concealment, and bans on building mosques with minarets
 Islamophobia and the West
• discrimination in education, employment, housing, or access to goods and
services

• ethnic and religious profiling and police abuse, including some provisions
of counterterrorism policing

• public pronouncements by some journalists and politicians—across the

whole political spectrum—that stigmatize Muslims as a group and
disregard their positive contributions to the communities and countries in
which they live
 Islamophobia and the West
• Why is Islamophobia an issue in Europe now?
• In recent years, Islamophobia has been fueled by public anxiety
over immigration and the integration of Muslim minorities into
majority cultures in Europe.

• These tensions have been exacerbated in the aftermath of the

economic crash of 2007 and the rise of populist nationalist
politicians. They have also been aggravated by high-profile
terrorist attacks carried out by Muslim extremists. 
 Islamophobia and the West
• In a climate of rapidly expanding diversity in Europe, Muslim
minorities have been portrayed as non-belonging and wanting
to separate themselves from the rest of society.

• Government policies have failed to ensure equal rights for all,

forcing significant sections of Muslim minorities to face
unemployment, poverty, and limited civic and political
participation, all of which aggravate discrimination.
 Islamophobia and the West
• Minorities often serve as scapegoats in times of economic and political crisis.
• Islam and the approximately 20 million Muslims who live in the European
Union are depicted by some as inherent threats to the European way of life,
even in countries where they have lived for generations.

• The myth of an ongoing European “Islamization” or invasion has been

nurtured by xenophobic, populist parties that are on the rise across Europe.
In fact, Europeans overestimate the proportion of their populations that are
Muslim.
 Islamophobia and the West
• The 9/11 terrorist attacks drastically changed public opinion towards Muslims.
• Since then, terrorist acts such as the attacks by violent jihadists in London, Paris, Brussels,
and Barcelona have increased fear and anxiety.

• The use of Islam by extremists to justify their terrorist acts has made many Europeans
regard Islam as a threat and fear Muslims as the enemy. Since 2001, some media in Europe
have succumbed to reporting based on stereotypes and used the actions of Islamists to
stigmatize Muslim populations.

• There are concerns that stereotypes and generalizations about Muslims are informing
counter-terrorism measures in Europe that restrict liberties for all and negatively impact
Muslim communities.
 Islamophobia and the West
• What are the implications for open society?
• Islamophobia is a “symptom of the disintegration of human values,”
according to former Council of Europe Commissioner for Human
Rights Thomas Hammarberg—values such as nondiscrimination,
tolerance, freedom of thought, justice, solidarity, and equality.

• These values are supposed to be inherent to European societies;

they are values upon which the European Union and the Council of
Europe were built.
 Islamophobia and the West
• The extent and nature of the discrimination and Islamophobic
incidents perpetrated against European Muslims remain under-
documented and underreported due to a lack of relevant data. 

• Many institutions, such as the Organization for Security and Co-

operation in Europe’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human
Rights, and NGOs, such as the Collective Against Islamophobia in
Belgium, have acknowledged the rise in this worrying phenomenon
and noted the increasingly aggravated nature of the incidents.
 Islamophobia and the West
• For instance, the 2017 EU Minorities and Discrimination
Survey found that on average one in three Muslim respondents
faced discrimination and prejudice in the previous 12 months,
and 27 percent experienced a racist crime. Research also
shows that Islamophobia can especially impact women—in the
job market, for example, as is highlighted in recent research by
the European Network Against Racism.
 Islamophobia and the West
• Basis for Islamophobia
• Fear
• As opposed to being a psychological or individualistic phobia, according to
professors of religion Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg,
"Islamophobia" connotes a social anxiety about Islam and Muslims.

• Some social scientists have adopted this definition and developed

instruments to measure Islamophobia in form of fearful attitudes towards,
and avoidance of, Muslims and Islam arguing that Islamophobia should
"essentially be understood as an affective part of social stigma towards
Islam and Muslims, namely fear".
 Islamophobia and the West

• Racism
• Several scholars consider Islamophobia to be a form of xenophobia
or racism.

• A 2007 article in Journal of Sociology defines Islamophobia as anti-

Muslim racism and a continuation of anti-Asian and anti-Arab
racism.
• Similarly, John Denham has drawn parallels between modern
Islamophobia and the antisemitism of the 1930s.
 Islamophobia and the West

• Identity politics
• It has been suggested that Islamophobia is closely related to
identity politics, and gives its adherents the perceived benefit
of constructing their identity in opposition to a negative,
essentialized image of Muslims.

• This occurs in the form of self-righteousness, assignment of

blame and key identity markers
 Islamophobia and the West

• Opposition to multiculturalism
• According to Gabrielle Maranci, the increasing Islamophobia in
the West is related to a rising repudiation of multiculturalism.

• Maranci concludes that "Islamophobia is a ‘phobia’ of

multiculturalism and the transruptive effect that Islam can
have in Europe and the West through transcultural processes
 Islamophobia and the West

• Media
• Some studies argues that it is media that has widely published
the term Islamophobia by giving less representation to Muslim
on media
Islamophobia and Anti-Islamic hate crimes data in the US and Europe
 Islamophobia and the West

• Consequences

• Conclusion