Islamophobia - Trends

Trends

Islamophobia has become a topic of increasing sociological and political importance. According to Benn and Jawad, Islamophobia has increased since Ayatollah Khomeini's denouncement of Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses and the September 11 attacks. Anthropologist Steven Vertovec writes that the purported growth in Islamophobia may be associated with increased Muslim presence in society and successes. He suggests a circular model, where increased hostility towards Islam and Muslims results in governmental countermeasures such as institutional guidelines and changes to legislation, which itself may fuel further Islamophobia due to increased accommodation for Muslims in public life. Vertovec concludes: "As the public sphere shifts to provide a more prominent place for Muslims, Islamophobic tendencies may amplify."

Patel, Humphries, and Naik claim that "Islamophobia has always been present in Western countries and cultures. In the last two decades, it has become accentuated, explicit and extreme." However, Vertovec states that some have observed that Islamophobia has not necessarily escalated in the past decades, but that there has been increased public scrutiny of it. According to Abduljalil Sajid, one of the members of the Runnymede Trust's Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia, "Islamophobias" have existed in varying strains throughout history, with each version possessing its own distinct features as well as similarities or adaptations from others. An observatory report on Islamophobia by the Organisation of the Islamic Conference similarly states that Islamophobia has existed for as long as Islam itself.

Assistant Professor Deepa Kumar writes that the modern-day demonization of Arabs and Muslims by US politicians and others is racist and Islamophobic, and employed in support of an unjust war. About the public impact of this rhetoric, she says that "One of the consequences of the relentless attacks on Islam and Muslims by politicians and the media is that Islamophobic sentiment is on the rise." She also chides some "people on the left" for using the same "Islamophobic logic as the Bush regime". She concludes with the statement "At times like this, people of conscience need to organize and speak out against Islamophobia." The writer and scholar on religion Reza Aslan have said that "Islamophobia has become so mainstream in this country that Americans have been trained to expect violence against Muslims — not excuse it, but expect it"

Ziauddin Sardar, an Islamic scholar, writes in The New Statesman that Islamophobia is a widespread European phenomenon, so widespread that he asks whether Muslims will be victims of the next pogroms. He writes that each country has its anti-Muslim extremists, citing Jean-Marie Le Pen in France; Pim Fortuyn in the Netherlands; and Philippe Van der Sande of Vlaams Blok, a Flemish nationalist party in Belgium. Filip Dewinter, the leader of the nationalist Flemish "Vlaams Belang" has said that his party is "Islamophobic." He said: "Yes, we are afraid of Islam. The Islamisation of Europe is a frightening thing."

Sardar argues that Europe is "post-colonial, but ambivalent." Minorities are regarded as acceptable as an underclass of menial workers, but if they want to be upwardly mobile, as Sardar says young Muslims do, the prejudice rises to the surface. Wolfram Richter, professor of economics at Dortmund University of Technology, told Sardar: "I am afraid we have not learned from our history. My main fear is that what we did to Jews we may now do to Muslims. The next holocaust would be against Muslims."

Bryan Fischer (the Director of Issues Analysis for the American Family Association (AFA)) and blogger Pamela Geller are examples of people who deny the concept of "Islamophobia" and say it is "Islamorealism". Geller has sponsored billboards in New York train stations under the banner of what she called "Islamorealism" that claimed that there were 19250 terrorist attacks by Muslims since 9/11 (to August 2012.) Residents of the neighborhood "denounced" the billboards.