Islamophobia and hostility against Muslims in Germany and Europe (1)

The phenomenon of Islamophobia is one of the most controversial issues in the European and Western context in general, because it reflects a growing state of rejection and hostility to Islam and Muslims at the official and popular levels, which puts the liberal democratic model to the test of its acceptance of pluralism and difference.

Rather, the escalation of the phenomenon threatens the philosophical and political foundations on which it is based, and therefore a challenge for countries that have adopted a participatory approach in managing pluralism, such as the German case, where the German Ministry of the Interior worked 3 years ago, in conjunction with a racist incident in Hanau and other cities, to establish a special and independent committee of experts, which issued a report that can be considered one of the most prominent official documents of a country that is the mediator of the decade in the European context.

The report, which was issued at the end of last June, does not stop only at revealing the extent of the spread of Islamophobia and anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim attitudes in Germany, but also lays foundations and premises through which it explains the different manifestations of Islamophobia in its relationship with the various segments of the Islamic component inside Germany at the social and institutional levels together, in addition to developing proposals and radical solutions to overcome and reduce the dilemma, which makes the report of great importance in Germany and Europe in general, where Muslims constitute a critical mass, and Islam is an issue Pivotal in public debate as well as in academia.

First: Islamophobia. Reading in the introductions

Despite the shocking figures expressed in the report, it should be noted at the outset that the adoption of academic approaches and research studies on Islam and Muslims in Germany in an interactive way in order to research solutions and preventive approaches to the phenomenon makes the German model different from a number of other countries that have taken with the issue of Islam and Muslims the character of a debate for political purposes in which politicians and media professionals have been involved. This is the case of the French model.

Part of a demonstration in Paris against Islamophobia (European News Agency)

The importance of studies and reports remains directed to the political decision-maker in countries that listen to think tanks and research, and therefore relying on the report issued by the expert committee in Germany on the need to address the structural and structural dilemma of Islamophobia will make this country - in which Muslims represent about 5.6 million Muslims and has modernized the immigration system and law with the new government to fill the labor shortage - move away from the fever of the wave of hatred that is expanding day after day, and will bring German society closer to The conciliatory attitude and positive perspective held by great German writers and orientalists towards Islam and Islamic civilization and its cultural and religious components and symbols, and most importantly in the current context the maintenance of the pluralistic democratic model to reduce the effects of totalitarianism and its dangers.

Adopting a vision that divides society on the basis of "us" and "others", that is, the ego and the other, this sharp duality strips the self and pushes it towards purity versus the other, which carries negative characteristics that are not changeable or integrated.

The current concerns about nurturing the political model came as one of the authorized and implicit aspects, as Islamophobia represents a threat to the equal participation of all people in the democratic constitutional state, and ensuring this is one of the central roles of the state that should nurture the commitment to achieve equality for all by providing legal and institutional mechanisms in response to the needs of growing pluralism in society. The data are disaggregated by different domains.

In view of the importance of this level, which the report falls within its context in order to protect and fortify it, it recalled the premises that guide the state and society in nurturing pluralism and equality, and the legal and formal aspects that protect daily coexistence at the level of society, and thus monitored this not only at the level of institutions and the state, but also in terms of the expectations of the population and the images and representations formed by them, which do not start from explicit and conscious discrimination and repeated attacks from the Yemeni populist spectrum in society and parties only, but through defects. Structuralism and a crisis in misinformation and concepts that deliberately spread phobias and hostility against Islam and Muslims, by adopting a vision that divides society on the basis of "us" and "others", that is, the ego and the other, this sharp duality strips the self and pushes it towards puritanism versus the other, which carries negative characteristics that cannot be changed or integrated.

This premise, which is referred to in an attempt to understand the roots of Islamophobia, prompts us to recall the approaches of closed identity discourses, which divide societies on sharp foundations and ready-made templates that constitute one of the features of the discourse of racism and right-wing extremism, where diversity and pluralism are eliminated and the other is in a position of nothingness from the ego, and thus rejection develops into a state of hostility, which prompted the Committee of Experts to consider that Islamophobia in terms of definition or "Muslimophobia" more precisely as aiming There are other forms of Islamophobia that tend to Islam as a religion based on misinformation and false information, but Islamophobia generally carries attitudes or behaviors that express discrimination or threats of varying severity, which actually leads to the social exclusion of people who are perceived as Muslims, and this is done consciously or unconsciously by individuals or institutions, so that Many cases develop into violence.

In its comprehensive study of Islamophobia, the report relied on "the critical perspective of racism as a social phenomenon inherent in all spheres of society, so that racism is understood not as a problem of individuals, but as a social system that in turn influences perceptions, actions, opportunities for participation and social relations" (Mecheril/Melter 2009; see also report, p. 24), and the social context, according to the same perspective, is subject to power relations and the distribution of privileges.

Therefore, Muslims and Islam, according to this vision and the interpretive premise, are subject to use by various parties and fields, fueled by either ignorance of the reality of Islam or the initial rejection of Islam and Muslims, and those aspects with their historical, cultural, political and social dimensions were the subject of the study in the report, and we will stand with each side separately in other articles for the importance of the believed approach, and it is now important for us to stop with some manifestations of Islamophobia through various data.

Young people tend to have less severe attitudes, due to their tendency to communicate personally with Muslims at school, while the elderly growing up in a homogeneous environment and their lack of communication with Muslims in daily life are factors that contribute to the formation of negative representations and attitudes.

Second: Negative attitude towards Islam and Muslims

Attitudes towards Islam and Muslims vary, but according to the detailed data provided by the report and the active reasons in its formulation, they tend to rise in the direction of rejection, which is either a conscious rejection fueled by religious, historical and cultural reasons assuming the separation between Islam and Germany in a group of studies on which the expert committee based its report, and the same for multiple European countries as we will see in the graphs, or through lack of knowledge and ignorance of the reality of Islam through the negative materials provided by the media about Muslims and Islam or what is incorporated in textbooks, in the absence of preventive mechanisms that guide the role of the media or strategies that work to revise textbooks from opinions in support of Islamophobia, in addition to the inappropriateness of the legal and political aspect of the current and future risks that the phenomenon carries on the pluralistic character of society, which allows the expansion and expansion of Islamophobia as shown in the figure below, which explains:

• Perception of Islam as a threat.
• Rejection of the phrase Islam is appropriate for German society.

Universal rejection of Islam compared to the passage of time (Al Jazeera)

The above percentages to monitor two trends, the first of which concerns the perception of Islam as a threat, and the second of the rejection of compatibility between Islam and German society, highlight the extent of rejection expressed either explicitly or implicitly, but the total numbers exceed half, i.e. more than 50%, although the opinion here concerns Islam and not Muslims, but society and through the sources of daily derivation in what is related to Islam is internalized in a wide segment of negative representations that appear continuously with religious symbols in With regard to the hijab, mosques and religious freedom, as reflected in daily life at work, institutions, etc., this situation can be monitored according to the age group as follows:

Perception of Islam as a threat by age group (2015) (Al Jazeera)

Young people tend to have less severe attitudes, and according to the interpretation adopted by the report, this is due to their tendency to communicate personally at school with Muslims in school and training, while the growing up of the elderly in a homogeneous environment and their lack of communication with Muslims in daily life is one of the factors that contribute to the formation of negative representations and attitudes, which should be overcome with educational curricula that encourage acceptance of pluralism and confront hostility to Islam and Muslims, according to the panel of experts, and this is in fact despite the sensitivity of expressive numbers. In the German context, the difference in approach may make the future of hostility to Muslims different between Germany and other European countries, in which attitudes towards Islam and Muslims differ, as will appear in the figure below, which shows:

• Perception of Islam as a threat.
• General suspicion or suspicion of Muslims.

Anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim attitudes through a European comparison (Al Jazeera)

The comparison shows that the dilemma of Islamophobia is a general European situation, so that Germany, Austria and Switzerland are approaching the level of the negative position of half, whether regarding the consideration of Islam as a threat or in the lack of trust in Muslims, while it decreases in Britain and France, but what should be noted in this context is that the data on which the report is based here compared to the French case dates back to 2019, while recent years have witnessed intensive political and societal investment in hostility to Muslims, which created a state of division. Acute in French society in the context of the elections or what Macron and the elite around him, such as the politician Gilles Kepel and others, called Islamic isolationism with the approach of a state of clash with the Islamic component of French society, which means the inevitability of growing rejection within France as well.

Muslims today face a double effort related to correcting the image on the one hand, and then on the other hand, introducing Islamic religious values in a way that suits the current context.

In the context of comparison here, we refer to the nature of the difference in approach between France and Germany, as the growing racist events in Germany prompted the former Minister of the Interior to form a special committee with the character of independence and freedom in its conclusions, which resulted in the report submitted by the current Minister of the Interior in the horizon of promising to work with his recommendations, which are qualitative in the European context, while France created a problem within its social fabric with the third and fourth generations of children of immigrants.

Instead of debating the social and political backgrounds of a crisis underlying the French model, manifested in a sense of marginalization and imperfect citizenship, the displacement was behind a sharp conflict on identity grounds between the values of French secularism, Islam and Islamic religious symbols.

Two young women hold a banner reading "Islam = peace" during a march of members of the Muslim community in Madrid (Reuters)

Therefore, we say that the different approaches in the relationship with Islam and Muslims at the level of countries' policies and strategic approach with regard to pluralism affect in the foreseeable term positively and negatively according to the foundations on which these strategies are based between rejection and acceptance, which makes us likely the importance of listening to think tanks on sensitive issues, and the German model, despite what the numbers reveal of frightening aspects, remains by nature inclined to partnership and dialogue with elites and actors, and this is not a tendency to optimism despite what The figures reflect fears, but it is mainly due to the entire political system of a federal nature, the distribution of centers of power and power between the federal and state governments, and then the management of the religious issue through dialogue.

In conclusion, the dilemma of Islamophobia in Germany – apart from comparing it with France, and as revealed in the important report in terms of study, analysis or foresight and recommendations for the future, as we will see in detail in future articles – is a real threat to the future in the European context.

Therefore, ignoring the voice of knowledge in approaching the phenomenon and not listening to the scientific community in studying, analyzing and predicting, and even developing strategies and options that preserve and protect pluralism will deepen the crisis and lead to its exacerbation.

The limits of responsibility do not stop at the political elites, but the Islamic component in the European context needs creativity at the level of discourse and means to reduce hatred of Islam, and thus spread the real non-stereotypical image established by the media and worked on by the centers of power through cultural and media educational media in the awareness of various societal circles, Muslims today are facing a double effort related to correcting the image on the one hand, and then on the other hand introducing Islamic religious values in a way that suits the current context and makes religion and modernity In a state of reconciliation, not in a state of clash and contradiction, the next article will be about the mechanisms of the work of educational curricula and the media - soft power - in falsifying awareness about Islam and Muslims, or manipulating minds, according to the famous book.

The Islamophobia dilemma in Germany is a real threat to the future in the European context (Anatolia)