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In the Shadow of Gaza: Islamophobia and Visions of Purity and Danger

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The recent escalation in hate crimes against Muslims in the United Kingdom is a stain reminding us of our failure to construct a multicultural society. Hateful acts against peaceful communities are propelled by a narrative that associates the entire Muslim population with the actions of a few individuals engaged in faraway conflicts. What is happening in the UK is not an isolated phenomenon; rather, it reflects a larger pattern of Islamophobia that has surged in the wake of geopolitical events. With statistics indicating a 140 per cent increase in hate crimes  against Muslims  as well a staggering 1,350 per cent increase in antisemitic crimes compared to last year, we must confront the reality that our communities are facing extreme adversity as our political class prefers to silence concerns instead of addressing them with an open mind. Without wanting to underplay the alarming magnitude of antisemitic prejudice in our societies to which I will return, there is no avoiding t...
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The "angry Muslim": a history of misrecognition

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Danish artist Kurt Westergaard died at the age of 86 on 14 July 2021.  The  illustrator was the creator of one of the twelve drawings published by Denmark's  largest daily conservative newspaper   Jyllands-Posten  on  30 September 2005, in an article entitled  Muhammeds ansigt  (The face of Muhammad).  Flemming Rose, the culture editor of the daily had written about the project commissioned by him and which  Kurt Westergaard was part of : Modern, secular society is rejected by some Muslims. They demand a special position, insisting on special consideration of their own religious feelings. It is incompatible with contemporary democracy and freedom of speech, where one must be ready to put up with insults, mockery and ridicule. It is certainly not always attractive and nice to look at, and it does not mean that religious feelings should be made fun of at any price, but that is of minor importance in the present context. ... we are on ...
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Western Europeans more likely than Central and Eastern Europeans to say they would accept Jews, Muslims into their family

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There is a line separating Western and Eastern Europeans when it comes to public attitudes toward Muslims according to the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan organization that generates data on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world .  The questions Pew Center asked related to the public's acceptance of Muslims in familial, and public contexts as well as to the association of religion to national identity.  The continental divide in attitudes and values can be extreme in some cases. For example, in nearly every Central and Eastern European country polled by the  Pew Research Center ,  fewer than half  of adults say they would be willing to accept Muslims into their family; in nearly every Western European country surveyed,  more  than half  say they would accept a Muslim into their family.  In a separate question, Western Europeans also are much more likely than their Central and Eastern European counterparts to say they w...
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The new Athens mosque

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As Athens is probably the only European capital without a mosque for its 500,000 Muslim residents, discussions about constructing a purpose-built mosque started in the 1990s. A motley crew of "patriots" and "concerned Christians" have been mobilised by political entrepreneurs from across the political spectrum to frustrate the project as it was deemed by them to be unnecessary, undesirable and dangerous. 
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Brown and white men and other stories ...

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Courtesy of Washington Post A cartoon that appeared recently in the Washington Post reminded me of a topic I have often discussed in classes and have written about in my book Islam in Europe , notably the construction of the Muslim woman as "subaltern". The cartoon powerfully points out the aporia of the woman over whose body two men, representing ‘Islamic traditionalism’ and ‘European secularism’ respectively are challenging each other. Gayatri Spivak has pointed out this aporia in her discussion of widow self-immolation in colonial India: "The relationship between the imperialist subject and the subject of imperialism is at least ambiguous. The Hindu widow ascends the pyre of the dead husband and immolates herself upon it. This is widow sacrifice… The abolition of this rite by the British has been generally understood as a case of "White men saving brown women from brown men." White women-from the nineteenth-century British Missionary Registers to M...
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Lost in the Aegean ...

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It may seem it was very long ago but ... In July 1934, the German jurist and political theorist Carl Schmitt, considered to have been the chief political theorist of national socialism, published in the Deutsche Juristen-Zeitung  (the journal of national socialist lawyers of which he was editor in chief of) an article that relates to his Political Theology and his theory of sovereignty [1] entitled "Der Führer schützt das Recht" (The Führer protects the Law), effectively justifying in it the murderous Night of the Long Knives by recognizing in Führer's sovereign authority the "highest form of administrative justice" ( höchste Form administrativer Justiz ).  I was reminded of this as I was thinking about how international treaties and legislation regarding refugee protection have been flouted by EU member states to the point that they are not worth the paper they have been printed on, or how our right to free movement is being curtailed by regimes of ...
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Charlie Hebdo: ... s'est reparti

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Recently, Charlie Hebdo featured a cartoon that purportedly provided commentary on the refugee situation and accusations of sexual misconduct in Germany by controversially depicting Aylan Kurdi—the three-year-old Syrian boy whose tragic drowning captured global attention—as a grown "pig-faced" individual chasing "white" women. The questionable caption asks what Aylan might have grown up to become, implying he would be an assailant in Germany. The illustration, created by Laurent Sourisseau, who is the magazine's current director and a survivor of the terrorist attack at Charlie Hebdo's offices, appears to underscore the claims that refugees, including Syrians, were among the perpetrators of the sexual assaults reported in Cologne, Germany, on New Year's Eve. Despite the claims of Charlie Hebdo that it champions a "healthy critical attitude," the overtly provocative nature of the cartoon borders on sheer sensation-seeking. Indeed, misinterpreta...
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