Elham Asaad Buaras
Owing largely to the rise in power of the far right, last year marked a “remarkable rise of Islamophobia and the policies that it inspires” in Europe, said the Collective for Countering Islamophobia in Europe (CCIE) in its annual report.
The Belgium-based NGO said it received 787 alerts of Islamophobic cases throughout 2022, including 527 Islamophobic acts, 467 acts of discrimination, 128 acts of provocation, 71 insults, 59 acts of moral harassment, 44 acts of defamation, 27 acts of physical violence, and 33 acts linked to the fight against radicalisation and separatism.
These occurred mostly in public spaces, particularly in schools, it said.
In its annual Islamophobia report published on January 25, the CCIE found that Muslim communities often serve as the foundation of political discourse, which regards them as persona non grata on the continent and indulges in increasingly extreme forms of dehumanisation towards them.
For the first time in the EU’s history, one of its founding countries has been governed by the extreme right since October last year. Giorgia Meloni, leader of the Fratelli d’Italia party, was elected president of the European Conservatives and Reformists Party, which is affiliated with the European Conservatives and Reformists Group, an alliance of over 40 right-wing and far-right parties from across Europe.
Meloni pledged to fight “against the Islamisation of Europe and mass immigration.”
She said: “We will defend God, the fatherland, and the family; make no mistake. We will fight against the Islamisation of Europe because we have no intention of becoming a Muslim continent.”
In Sweden, the country’s second-largest party, the Sweden Democrats, founded by neo-Nazis, governs by proxy through its votes on the executive’s proposed laws, which set government policy. A member of the S.D. party said, at an international conference, that “Muslims are not 100% human beings.”
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— Tom Van Grieken (@tomvangrieken) December 2, 2022
According to a December 2022 poll in Belgium, the Flemish nationalist, anti-immigration party Vlaams Belang is leading in Flanders’ projections for the 2024 elections, garnering over 25 per cent of voting intentions. The second-largest party in the polls, the N-VA, currently governing the region, is also rooted in nationalism and has historically taken an extreme stance against immigration and Muslim communities.
The CCIE also cited the long-term presence of far-right power in Hungary, where Viktor Orbán, who has been in power for 12 years, was re-elected as Prime Minister in April.
“Islam has never belonged to Europe; it has invited itself there,” said Orbán, who insisted that “Islam will never be part of the identity of European countries.”
“Europe’s migrants are “muslim invaders”, not “refugees”.
You (Angela Merkel) wanted them.
We do not.”
Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) August 14, 2020
He also demonised Muslim refugees as invaders. “We do not see these people as Muslim refugees. We see them as Muslim invaders. We think that large numbers of Muslims will inevitably lead to parallel societies because Christian societies and Muslim societies will never unite.”
The CCIE also illustrated how Orbán’s villainizing of Muslim refugees is now an open practice across Europe thanks to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, which ‘cruelly highlighted the obvious difference in treatment given to Ukrainian refugees and refugees fleeing wars in countries with a Muslim majority.’ The report cites how ‘the political and media treatment’ of Ukrainian refugees exposed ‘racist and Islamophobic discourse and practices.’
‘Constant comparisons have been made between Ukrainian refugees, on the one hand, who are considered to be essentially compatible with the European way of life, and Syrian, Afghan, Iraqi, and other refugees from Africa and the Middle East, on the other hand, who are seen as coming to subvert European customs,’ say researchers.
The terms used to describe Ukrainian refugees as neighbours and their Muslim counterparts as invaders are ‘indicative of a European way of thinking that still sees itself as opposed to the rest of the world and, in particular, the rest of the Muslim world.’
The opposition between the “good,” Western, deserving, and civilised refugees and the others has been recurrent since the outbreak of war. The Bulgarian Prime Minister, Kiril Petkov, said in March 2022 about Ukrainian refugees, “These are not the refugees we are used to. They are European people. They are intelligent, educated people.” He branded other refugees as “people with troubled pasts, who may be former terrorists.”
Santiago Abascal, leader of Spain’s far-right Vox Party, said his country should welcome Ukrainian refugees but not Muslims. “Everyone can distinguish between them and the invasion of young men of Muslim origin, of military age, who have thrown themselves on European borders in order to destabilise and colonise Europe,” he said in parliament on March 2, 2022.
That discriminatory mindset was officially voiced as an EU opinion on October 13, 2022, when the head of the EU’s foreign policy, Josep Borrell, declared that “Europe is a garden. Most of the rest of the world is a jungle, and the jungle could take over the garden.”
And in April, a racist and Islamophobic group called Hard Line organised raids in Muslim-majority neighbourhoods in several Swedish cities during Ramadan, claiming to want to burn the Qur’an or wrap it in ham.
25 members of the Reich Citizens movement, including former elite soldiers, were arrested in Germany for plotting a coup on December 7. CCIE argue the failed coup to establish a military regime serves as a reminder of these groups’ radicalisation and a warning of their dangerous progress in European public space.
Muslim communities are frequently the first to be targeted. Another worrying phenomenon is the rise in Europe of Indian nationalism linked to Hindu nationalist extremism known as Hindutva, which violently targets Muslim minorities. There is evidence to suggest an international syndicate network, and the UK is being targeted to propagate Hindutva.
Photo: Last year marked a “remarkable rise of Islamophobia and the policies that it inspires” in Europe, owing largely to the rise in power of the far right, according to a newly released report by the CCIE. (Credit: CCIE)
