Islamophobia

Background

Islamophobia has been described as “a new name to an old phenomenon.” Its roots can be traced to early Christian and Jewish polemic against Islam, as well as to more recent theories such as the clash of civilizations thesis. Western involvement in Muslim lands, from the Crusades to the widespread colonization in the 17th and 18th centuries and the more recent political interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere, has created a climate in which hostility toward Islam can thrive. In the postcommunist era, Islam can be seen as being drawn into the vacuum created by the absence of an “Other” for the West.

The media have fed this hostility in two ways: First, the religion of Islam is often presented as inflexible, barbaric, and so stuck in the past that it is not worth engaging seriously with it as an ideology. Second, particularly in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks, Muslims have often been stereotyped as aggressive, uncompromising, potential terrorists. The outcome of this sustained targeting in the media and elsewhere is that hostility against Muslims and their religion has become normalized.

Several organizations have been set up in the West in recent years with the specific goal of challenging Islamophobia, including the Forum Against Islamophobia and Racism in the United Kingdom and the Collectif Contre l'Islamophobie en France. Public awareness of Islamophobia in the United Kingdom was increased with the publication in 1997 of a report by the Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia (an offshoot of the Runnymede Trust) entitled Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All. This report defined Islamophobia as “unfounded hostility towards Islam and therefore fear or dislike of all or most Muslims” and recommended sixty ways of challenging and combating its effects. A follow-up report in 2004, entitled Islamophobia: Issues, Challenges and Action, highlighted the lack of progress in challenging and changing attitudes and discriminatory behavior, and argued that the situation would only be improved through a combination of recognizing Muslim identities in official statistics and the legal system, ensuring equality in employment, changing attitudes through education, encouraging community cohesion in multiethnic neighborhoods, and developing more ethical approaches to the coverage of Muslim issues in the media. The term Islamophobia has quickly come into general use throughout the Western world, from Europe to the United States and Australia, and Middle Eastern politicians and scholars increasingly use it to describe a growing sense of alienation between Islam and the West.

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