Mainstreaming of anti-Muslim hatred

- 26 04 18

HOPE not hate’s comprehensive Islamophobia report covers hundreds of active anti-Muslim and far-right organisations and individuals.

Unlike in America, most of the anti-Muslim ‘counter-jihad’ organisations and activists in Europe generally remain marginal and controversial figures. There are of course some notable and worrying exceptions, such as politician Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, known for his highly-controversial anti-Muslim views and whose PVV party (Party for Freedom) is a major political force in the country.

Generally speaking though, these groups and individuals remain largely marginalised as political actors even if their ideas have still managed to gain traction.

Counter-jihadist tropes and conspiratorial anti-Muslim views have frequently been adopted by supposedly mainstream politicians and media outlets, most infamously in Hungary, where the country’s President, Viktor Orban, has run on a notably anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim (as well as arguably antisemitic) ticket.

Over the last decade, talk of a Muslim ‘invasion’ posing a threat to Western civilisation has moved from the fringes of social media and activists’ blogs to media-grabbing street demonstrations – and now into the parliamentary chambers of Europe.

This worrying process of mainstreaming has been rapidly accelerated since the so-called refugee crisis in 2015 and 2016 and the spate of terrorist attacks that have shaken the continent since. No longer does one have to stand in a fenced-off car park at an anti-Muslim street demonstration to hear of a conspiratorial plot to ‘flood’ Europe with Muslims, when markedly similar ideas are being articulated by journalists, politicians and even prime ministers of member states of the European Union.

The adoption of some counter-jihadist ideas by mainstream politicians is likely both a cause, as well as a result, of rising anti-Muslim sentiment across the continent. A report published in 2016 by the Pew Research Center showed that unfavourable views about Muslims appeared to have surged in numerous European countries. The percentage of unfavourable views of Muslims in Hungary was 72%, 69% in Italy, 66% in Poland and on the rise in many other countries. The research found unfavourable views of Muslims had risen by 12 percentage points in Greece, 9 percentage points in the UK and 5 percentage points in France between summer 2015 and summer 2016.

In eight of ten European countries surveyed by Pew, more than 50% questioned said they felt that incoming refugees increased the likelihood of terrorism in their country.

Negative perceptions of Muslims are also likely affected by the reams of negative and prejudiced portrayals of Muslims by parts of the mainstream press, in ‘fake news’ (often shared on social media), and by right-wing and populist politicians.

Data published in HOPE not hate’s 2017 Fear and HOPE report shows a clear hardening of Islamophobic attitudes among those more sceptical about modern society in Britain. Our survey of 4,000 people showed 39% of people overestimate the proportion of Muslims in the British population, a quarter of English people believe that Islam is a dangerous religion that incites violence and nearly half say their suspicion of Muslims has increased following the recent terror attacks.

A more recent HOPE not hate poll, in early 2018, found that 37% of the 5,200 respondents see Islam as a threat to the British way of life compared to 33% who see the Muslim faith and the British way of life as compatible. A link between Islamic extremism and the failure of integration in Britain is drawn by a high proportion of the British public.

*This is an update and expansion of an article first published by HOPE not hate in our 2017 mini-report Going Mainstream: The Mainstreaming of anti-Muslim prejudice in Europe and North America.

CHAPTERS: 1 2 3

1

Western and Central Europe

Minute Read
Close Chapter
Expand Chapter Close Chapter
Chapter 1: Western and Central Europe

In western and central Europe there has been a rise in the number and size of explicitly anti-Muslim parties, as populist radical-right parties have risen and elevated anti-Muslim prejudice to the forefront of their political agendas.

As such, 2017 was important for measuring just how far anti-Muslim politics have become mainstream, with a number of key elections where anti-Muslim parties and candidates were expected to do very well.

While not the seismic sea-change predicted, 2017 witnessed significant inroads made by far-right and anti-Muslim parties in several countries. Marine Le Pen of the Front National failed to win the French presidency but achieved second place with the support of a third of voters.

The Islamophobic politician, Geert Wilders, of the PVV, achieved second place in the Dutch General Election with 13% of the vote.

The Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz’s conservative Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), meanwhile, has formed a coalition with the anti-immigrant, far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) and, in Germany, Angela Merkel – seen by many as the embodiment of European centrist politics – held onto her post, but with the Islamophobic Alternative for Germany (AfD) party coming in third with 94 seats.

 

Countries

United Kingdom

France

Germany

Netherlands

Switzerland

Austria

 


United Kingdom

In Britain there has not been a mirroring of the American mainstreaming that has seen counter-jihad activists being brought into the mainstream. Most prominent British counter-jihadists have been ostracised by politicians and the media.

However, there has still been a creeping process of normalisation of anti-Muslim rhetoric, with some mainstream media outlets and politicians adopting positions not dissimilar to those promoted by counter-jihadists.

As with much of the rest of Europe, the 2015 migrant crisis and the wave of terrorist attacks on the continent contributed to wider anti-Muslim prejudice in the UK. However, in 2016 the nation also experienced a referendum on its membership of the European Union. While there were legitimate arguments on both sides of the debate, there was often a toxic atmosphere when it came to discussions about immigration, much of which was centred on Muslim refugees.

The Conservative politician Michael Gove suggested that a migrant influx equivalent to the population of Scotland could arrive if Britain voted to Remain. In addition, he and now Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson focused on the issue of possible Turkish migration, with little likelihood that Turkey would be able to join the EU in any near future (even less likely now, following crackdowns against opposition by Turkish President Erdogan).

Leave campaign posters disingenuously stated: ‘Turkey (population 76 million) Is Joining the EU’. Some in the Leave camp also claimed that these possible future migrants were a threat to national security because of supposed higher levels of criminality among Turkish people.

HOPE not hate’s 2017 Fear and HOPE report charted attitudes towards race, faith, immigration and belonging in England, surveying over 4000 people with 140 questions. The report highlighted how the result of the Brexit vote, the recent terrorist attacks on Manchester and London and the rhetoric surrounding these events all hardened Islamophobic attitudes among certain segments of the population.

39% of people overestimated the proportion of Muslims in the British population and just 10% of the public felt that Muslims were similar to themselves (a view prevalent even among those most confident about multiculturalism). 42% of English people say their suspicion of Muslims has increased following the recent terror attacks. Meanwhile, a quarter of the English believe that Islam is ‘a dangerous religion that incites violence’.

An earlier 2016 report by the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) criticised rising ‘racist violence and hate speech’ by both the press and politicians in the wake of the Brexit vote. ECRI bureau member Christian Ahlund said: ‘It is no coincidence that racist violence is on the rise in the UK at the same time as we

see worrying examples of intolerance and hate speech in the newspapers, online and even among politicians.’

The ECRI criticised former UKIP leader Nigel Farage for claiming there was ‘public concern about immigration partly because people believe there are some Muslims who want to

form a fifth column and kill us.’ UKIP has often been a key part of this process of mainstreaming of anti-Muslim ideas, with a raft of leading UKIP figures echoing counter-jihadist rhetoric.

Writing in the Midweek Sport about the migrant crisis Paul Nuttall, also a former UKIP leader, articulated views indistinguishable from those made by counter-jihadists. In essence, he bemoaned a Muslim invasion that would take over Europe and, as counter-jihadists do, argued that ‘we are encouraging this influx through our bleeding liberal hearts.’

Gerard Batten, current UKIP leader and MEP, has even called for ‘an ideological crusade to convert European Muslims to Christianity’ and has described Islam on multiple occasions as a ‘death cult’.

These are just a few examples of the dozens available of prominent UKIP members articulating positions akin to those of counter-jihadists. But UKIP members are not the only ones spouting these views.

A string of academic studies have documented how the British media has engaged in fear-mongering over the past decade. Headlines, often in right-wing tabloids, have perpetuated Islamophobic narratives with claims such as the ‘BBC put Muslims before you!’, ‘Muslims tell British: Go to Hell!’, and ‘Muslim schools ban our culture’.

Outright fabrication with retractions published days later are also common. In 2015, for example, the Daily Express published an article claiming that half of Britain’s 3 million Muslims supported the Islamic State, and The Sun ran a headline that read, ‘1 in 5 Brit Muslims’ sympathy for jihadis’ on its front page. In both cases, the newspapers involved were eventually forced to retract their claims because of their deeply dubious basis. In April 2018, the new editor of the Daily Express told British MPs that much of the reporting of Muslims in the newspaper had been “downright offensive” and “appeared in the past [to] have created an Islamophobic sentiment, which I find uncomfortable”.

A report by the University of Cardiff School of Journalism shows that between 2000 and 2008, when Brits saw a story about a Muslim on their newspaper’s front page, they were most likely to see the adjectives ‘radical’, ‘fanatical’, ‘fundamentalist’, ‘extremist’ or ‘militant’ next to it.

In late 2011, researchers at the University of Leeds conducted a three-month analysis of four mainstream British papers, The Guardian, The Independent, the Daily Mail and The Sun. They found that 70% of articles about Muslims were ‘hostile’ in nature.

Broad generalisations of Muslims in the media are more widely accepted than ever before. Telegraph columnist Simon Heffer wrote in 2015 that the Paris attacks had proven Enoch Powell – a politician made infamous for his ‘rivers of blood’ speech fifty years ago that criticised immigration – right. Powell was sacked from his role as Shadow Defence Secretary for his blistering speech around race but his words remained an influence and his beliefs have worryingly appeared to have gained a mainstream following (a theme HOPE not hate has recently examined in depth).

Moreover, in addition to politicians and the media, public figures from elsewhere have buoyed such discussion. The Archbishop of Canterbury implied in March 2018 in his book Reimagining Britain: Foundations for Hope, that British and Islamic law were incompatible, adding that high levels of immigration from Muslim countries could ‘have an impact on the accepted pattern for choosing a partner’.

 

Back to top


France

France was the first country in Europe to ban Islamic face veils such as the burka and niqab back in April 2011. The issue is a very complex one, centred on debates around France’s staunch history of secularism versus freedom of religion. The face veil ban hit the headlines again in 2016 when the Mayor of Cannes, David Lisnard, banned the burkini (a swimsuit that covers everything except the hands, feet and face), calling it ‘the uniform of extremist Islamism’. While in keeping with France’s secularism, the result shocked many, with pictures emerging of Muslim women being forced by armed police to undress on the beach.

The Front National’s Marine Le Pen has long taken a hard line on Muslims and Islam with much of her rhetoric making only the smallest distinction between Islam and Islamist extremism. However, France has been hit by a number of tragic terrorist attacks in recent years, perpetrated by Islamist extremists, and the result has been that many of Le Pen’s views have been echoed by politicians from the main parties.

Le Pen has called for expulsion of ‘foreigners who preach hatred on our soil’ and to strip dual-nationality Muslims with extremist views of citizenship. Her ideas were endorsed by both the former PM Manuel Valls and former President Francois Hollande. Similarly, Francois Fillon, another former PM, has described radical Islam as a ‘totalitarianism like the Nazis’. Of course, denouncing radical Islam is perfectly acceptable and necessary but he added that Jews, Catholics and Protestants ‘don’t denounce the values of the Republic’ thereby suggesting that Muslims do.

In the end, Le Pen came second in the 2017 Presidential election with 33.94%. While not a victory the result was extremely worrying nonetheless, and shows how electorally powerful Islamophobia is in France.

 

Back to top


 Germany

For many liberal progressives Germany and its Chancellor Angela Merkel have been a beacon of hope due to the nation’s humane and sympathetic refugee policy. However, Merkel’s position has by no means been universally popular and a spate of sexual assaults and terrorist attacks have made many question this policy.

While Merkel has generally held firm, the last few years has seen the growth of a more organised anti-Muslim movement in Germany. The most prominent is the Patriotische Europäer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes (Patriotic Europeans against Islamisation of the Occident, or ‘Pegida’) which was formed in October 2014 in Dresden, Saxony.

Pegida’s targets are Muslims, refugees, the media and mainstream politicians, not least of whom being Merkel. Among those addressing its rallies have been the populist Dutch politician Geert Wilders, the German New Right publisher Götz Kubitschek, the Turkish extremist author Akif Pirincci and Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (AKA Tommy Robinson, former leader of the anti-Muslim street movement, the English Defence League).

Until April 2015, when it had begun to falter, Pegida marched almost every Monday evening in Dresden. Starting with 300 people, the demonstrations grew to a peak of 25,000 in January 2015.

However, while the 2015 migrant crisis breathed some life back into the movement – its two-year anniversary demonstration in October 2016 attracted between 5,000 and 8,500 people – the movement has already passed its peak. Pegida’s initial successes in Dresden spawned copycat groups around Germany and the rest of Europe, all of which have generally been unsuccessful. That said, the Pegida name has become internationally known and the movement has supplanted the Defence League as the go-to counter-jihad street protest brand.

Part of the group’s troubles are the result of competition from the more politically adept and influential right-wing populist party, Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). The party was founded in 2013 by Konrad Adam, Bernd Lucke and Alexander Gauland (Lucke would quit in July 2015 claiming that it had become increasingly xenophobic). The AfD’s growth in recent years has been fast. In the 2013 federal elections it won 4.7% of the vote and by 2014 this had climbed to 7.1% and a gain of seven seats in the European elections. By the end of 2016 it had gained representation in 10 of the 16 German state parliaments.

In 2016 the AfD adopted an explicitly anti-Muslim policy calling for the banning of the face veil, the call to prayer and minarets. It was reported that at the conference in Stuttgart in April a delegate who called for dialogue with Muslims was booed, and the slogan ‘Islam is not a part of Germany’ was used. It seems that the growth of the AfD has resulted in the centre ground shifting right on the issue of Islam and Muslims. In December 2016 Chancellor Merkel said that wearing the full face veil should be prohibited in Germany. At least half of Germany’s 16 states have since banned teachers from wearing headscarves and in Hesse civil servants are included.

At the German elections in late 2017, the AfD became the third largest party with 12.6% of the vote and sent candidates to the national parliament.

 

Back to top


Netherlands

Dutch right wing politcian and leader of the Party for Freedom, Geert Wilders talks at a press conference June 14 2009 in the Danish Parliament building in Copenhagen before attending a conference in the same building. The Danish ‘Society of Free Printing’ has invited Geet wilders to speak at the conference entitled ‘Freedom of Speech and Islam’. AFP PHOTO/SCANPIX DENMARK/Jens Nørgaard Larsen

The Netherlands is home to perhaps the most prominent and successful anti-Muslim politician in Europe, Geert Wilders.

His prominence in Dutch politics has secured his position as the main standard bearer across Europe of the counter-jihad network, and he is feted by its campaigning organisations in North America. Wilders’ extreme views are very controversial and have caused widespread offence. He has called Islam the ‘ideology of a retarded culture’ and compared the Qur’an to Hitler’s Mein Kampf, labelling it the ‘fascist Qur’an’. Despite claiming to be a champion of free speech he has called for the Qur’an to be banned. In addition, he has called for the rewriting of the Dutch constitution to provide for all immigration from Muslim countries to be halted, for paid repatriation of Muslim immigrants, and all Muslim ‘criminals’ to be stripped of Dutch citizenship and deported to ‘back where they came from’.

In 2008 Wilders commissioned the making of the controversial film Fitna that explored Qur’anic-inspired acts of terrorism. The film angered Muslims worldwide and triggered an international debate on free speech. In the spring of 2009 he launched the ‘Facing Jihad World Tour’, a series of screenings of Fitna to public officials and influential organisations around the world, including the United States Senate. As part of the tour he had planned to show the film in the Palace of Westminster but two days before the showing the-then Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, banned Wilders from entering the UK, labelling him an ‘undesirable person’.

In July 2010, Wilders announced his plans to start an international/pan-European anti-Muslim movement called the International Freedom Alliance. It would initially cover France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. Upon its conception it received support from René Stadtkewitz (former Chairman of the Freedom party) and the Politically Incorrect (PI) blog and network. Wilders’ goal was to establish an international alliance to end all immigration from Muslim countries to the West and a complete ban on Sharia law. Wilders has extensive links with other leading counter-jihad activists around the world and attended the U.S. Republican Convention in Cleveland in 2016. In December of that year he was found guilty of inciting discrimination against Dutch Moroccans but was cleared of inciting hatred. The courts imposed no fine or sentence, stating that the criminal conviction was sufficient punishment.

In 2017, the Netherlands went to the polls with Wilders expected to do well. While he himself didn’t win, his Party for Freedom (PVV) did worryingly well, coming second with 13.1% of the vote and receiving 20 seats. This was a clear example of how anti-Muslim politics has become more mainstream and acceptable in the Netherlands.

 

Back to top


Switzerland

In 2016 it was made illegal to wear a face veil in public in the Tessin region following a referendum on the issue back in 2013. Switzerland banned the building of minarets after a 2009 referendum was approved by 57.5% of participating voters. The referendum was in part the result of campaigning by the anti-immigrant Swiss People’s Party, which won the biggest share of the vote in the 2015 national parliamentary elections.

 

Back to top


Austria

In 2016, Austria came uncomfortably close to electing a far-right head of state when Norbert Hofer of the far-right Freedom Party received 46% of the vote. Though his loss to Van der Bellen of the Green party was celebrated by many as proof of Austria ‘rejecting’ the far right, the fact that a leader such as Hofer could receive such a large proportion of the vote was a deeply worrying sign.

Hofer has called for a ban on Muslim women wearing the face veil and during his campaign he promised to build a fence on Austria’s southern border to ‘stop the invasions of Muslims’, leading to some dubbing him the ‘Austrian Donald Trump’. Previously he has said that ‘Islam is not part of our values’.

Then, in October 2017, Austria’s legislative elections were won by the far-right Austrian People’s Party when they received 62 of the 183 available seats. The party’s leader Sebastian Kurz called for stronger borders, more limits on immigration and opposition to political Islam.

During the election campaign Islam and Muslims were generally a hot topic with the Freedom Party producing posters calling for an end to ‘Islamisation’.

 

Back to top

2

Eastern Europe

Minute Read
Close Chapter
Expand Chapter Close Chapter
Chapter 2: Eastern Europe

In Eastern Europe there are numerous worrying examples of prime ministers and presidents adopting hostile anti-Muslim rhetoric, much of which strongly echoes the conspiratorial assertions of counter-jihadism.

Generally, though, explicitly counter-jihadist groups and activists have not entered the mainstream themselves and the movements remains relatively small (indeed, tiny or non-existent in some places), but with mainstream politicians saying the same things, there is little impetus or need for the movement to exist or grow.

Countries

Slovakia

Hungary

Czech Republic

Poland


Slovakia

Slovakia experienced its first large scale anti-Muslim demonstration against the ‘Islamisation of Europe’ in June 2015 in Bratislava, organised by Stop the Islamisation of Europe.

The former Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who resigned in March 2018, once said that: ‘Mass migration of Muslim immigrants who would start to build mosques will not to be tolerated’, and called for the ‘restriction of the freedom of Muslims in Europe’. In 2016 Fico added: ‘Islam has no place in this country.’

In December 2016 a law was passed that effectively banned Islam from gaining official status as a religion. Sponsored by the Slovak National Party (SNS), the law requires a religion to have at least 50,000 members to qualify for state subsidies and to run schools. As there are just between 2,000 and 5,000 Muslims in Slovakia the new law marginalises them completely from public and official life. Andrej Danko, the SNS Chairman, has said: ‘We must do everything we can so that no mosque is built in the future.’

A 2017 report on Islamophobia in Slovakia found that the country’s tiny Muslim community (0.1% of population) meant that Islamophobia had traditionally been a ‘hot topic’ but that this ‘dramatically changed’ during the so-called refugee crisis.

Back to top


Hungary

The Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán, recently re-elected in April 2018, has become a hero of the anti-Muslim movement because of his Islamophobic and anti-refugee views.

Back in late 2015 Tatjana Festerling, then of the German anti-Muslim street movement Pegida, sang his praises at a demonstration in Dresden and the crowd chanted his name in adoration.

Since then, Orbán’s public statements regarding Islam and Muslims have often been indistinguishable from the ideas of counter-jihadists. Of all the European leaders Orbán has gone the furthest in adopting counter-jihad rhetoric and has even echoed their conspiratorial assertions.

Speaking to a Swiss magazine he claimed a left-wing plot was behind the 2016 migrant crisis. ‘You cannot get around imagining that some kind of master plan is behind this’, he said. He then cited essays by ‘the European left and radical American democrats’ that envision the emergence of a transnational ‘European super state.’

His statements about Muslims have been consistently hostile and extreme. In September 2016 he said: ‘I don’t even want to think about the integration of Muslim people in Europe. The most we could hope for is a peaceful life next to each other, which is called a parallel society’ and ‘I don’t even want to envisage a Hungary which accepts migrants.’

In October 2016 Orban held a referendum on closing the door to refugees and more than 98% of participants voted against the admission of refugees to Hungary.

More recently he told German tabloid Bild: ‘We don’t see these people as Muslim refugees. We see them as Muslim invaders’, adding that the arrival of Muslims ‘inevitably leads to parallel societies’ and that Christian and Muslim communities ‘will never unite’.

‘Multiculturalism is only an illusion’, he has stated.

Despite this rhetoric, or perhaps even because of it, Orban won a third term in office in April 2018 after his Fidesz party scored a comfortable victory in the parliamentary elections.

Back to top


Czech Republic

The Czech President Miloš Zeman is the best example of a mainstream politician adopting counter-jihad and anti-Muslim ideas.

In late 2015 he took the shocking decision to speak at a large anti-Muslim demonstration organised by Martin Konvicka and his organisation, ‘Bloc Against Islam’. Thousands of Czech protestors were joined by a contingent from Pegida and Stephen Lennon (AKA Tommy Robinson), founder and former leader of the English Defence League (EDL). The event was another landmark moment in the journey of counter-jihadism from the margins to the mainstream in Europe.

Since then Zeman’s rhetoric has regularly echoed counter-jihadist ideas. In December 2015 he repeated one of its key tropes, stating: ‘I am profoundly convinced that we are facing an organised invasion and not a spontaneous movement of refugees’.

He later added: ‘I believe that the invasion is organised by the Muslim Brotherhood’, saying on Czech radio that: ‘It cannot declare war on Europe, it does not have enough forces for it, but it can prepare a growing migrant wave and gradually gain control of Europe as it has been happening in some West European cities that police are afraid to enter at night.’

Referencing the sexual assaults that took place on New Year’s eve 2015/16, he has stated that Islamic ‘culture’ should not be allowed into Europe or ‘it will end up like Cologne’. He added: ‘The experience of western European countries which have ghettos and excluded localities shows that the integration of the Muslim community is practically impossible.’

The power of anti-Muslim rhetoric was further confirmed in October 2017 when the Freedom and Direct Democracy party, led by Tomio Okamura, performed surprisingly well in elections, getting 10.7% of the vote.

Okamura has stated that, ‘We want to stop any Islamisation of the Czech Republic, we push for zero tolerance of migration’. He has even encouraged people to walk pigs near mosques as an act of protest against Muslims.

Back to top


Poland

During the 2015 migrant crisis Jaroslaw Kaczynski, former Prime Minister and a leading member of Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, said: ‘After recent events connected with acts of terror, [Poland] will not accept refugees because there is no mechanism that would ensure safety.’ Mr Kaczynski has also claimed that the refugees, most of which are Muslims, were bringing ‘various parasites and protozoa’ to Europe.

Current Deputy PM Beata Szydło, also of PiS agrees and has said: ‘I say very clearly that I see no possibility at this time of immigrants coming to Poland’.

In November last year there was a demonstration of around 60,000 people in Warsaw, at which extreme anti-Muslim banners and chants were seen and heard. One banner, for example, showed a Trojan horse labelled ‘Islam’ attempting to enter a fortress labeled ‘Europe’.

A recent academic study by Kasia Narkowicz and Konrad Pędziwiatr explained how the building of mosques in Poland had gone from being, ‘largely unproblematic before the Second World War and during the Communist era’ to being a subject of ‘fierce public debate’.

Back to top

3

Northern Europe

Minute Read
Close Chapter
Expand Chapter Close Chapter
Chapter 3: Northern Europe

Northern Europe is often regarded as more tolerant and liberal towards immigration and Muslims but recent events have led to counter-jihad activists painting countries like Sweden with relatively friendly refugee policies as ‘failed states’ with multiple ‘no-go zones’.

When Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik killed dozens of teenagers and destroyed a government building, partly because the government allowed Muslims to settle in Norway, it created debate in the media over Muslim immigration, terrorism and how welcome immigrants should be made to feel.

Several tabloids peddle the narrative that Islam is a threat to the traditional way of life. The fact that a majority of immigrants in Northern Europe are recent arrivals and have not fully grasped the native languages hampers more useful exchanges.

Countries

Denmark

Sweden

Norway


Denmark

The mainstreaming of anti-Muslim hatred in Denmark has become an increasingly worrying problem in recent years.

The country has long had stricter immigration laws than its neighboring Scandinavian countries but these are becoming more clearly expressed in anti-Muslim terms after the influx of immigration from the Middle East in 2015.

The radical right and anti-Muslim Danish People’s Party proposed a bill in February 2017 defining non-Western immigrants and their offspring as non-Danish. The bill was passed by parliament with 55 against 54 votes. During a parliamentary debate, a Danish People’s Party member said that Muslim immigrants are the main problem.

In the run up to elections that year a prominent Danish professor, Uffe Østergaard, stated he had changed his mind on ‘foreigners; in Denmark, saying that ‘Muslims must become Lutherans, or else we are screwed’ which paved the way for a former minister of the Social Democratic Party (the largest in the country) to state that the party had been wrong regarding immigration. He then said that ‘Muslims were a bigger problem than anticipated’.

Several policies explicitly targeting Muslims have also been proposed during 2017 and 2018. This includes a ban on face-covering Islamic clothing, proposed by the Conservative party, despite a lack of evidence that the small number of women wearing such clothing are doing it against their will. Limitations have also been imposed on the possibility to pray in Danish schools and universities, with the removal of prayer rooms being backed by, among others, the large Social Democratic Party. All in all, these developments show a clear mainstreaming process of anti-Muslim ideas in Denmark.

Back to top


Sweden

Foto: News Øresund – Johan Wessman
© News Øresund(CC BY 3.0)

Having been relatively open by European standards, political rhetoric in Sweden changed with regard to immigration and Muslims during 2015 following wider events. The New Year’s Eve sexual assaults in Cologne, Germany turned much of the immigration debate from a question of capacity to one of cultural differences between ‘natives’ and immigrants.

The debate in Sweden became increasingly anti-Muslim and was revived time and time again in relation to new mosque constructions and discussions on the headscarf. This was exacerbated by an increased international focus on supposed ‘no-go zones’ around the country where police and non-Muslim’s could not enter safely. The notion was dismissed by the police but nonetheless levied by public commentators and some politicians.

The Sweden Democrats, a radical right and anti-Muslim party, are the third largest in the country, polling between 16%-20%. One member, Martin Strid, was dismissed in 2017 after saying: ‘On one end you are 100 percent human, a person, everything that’s part of that concept. At the other end, you are 100 percent Mohammedan’. He later added that Islamic State members were ‘close to being 100 per cent Mohammedan’ but that ‘all Muslims are somewhere on that scale’ and that ‘if you are an ex-Muslim you have come quite far towards being fully human’.

Worryingly, some of the established parties now make use of similar anti-Muslim rhetoric. The conservative Moderate Party (Moderaterna), for example, ran a fear-mongering campaign with anti-Muslim undertones in early 2018 against the so-called ‘no-go zones’. Such popularisation has seen the Swedish radical right shift further rightward still, and has led to the emergence of a debate around repatriation as supposed to just reducing immigration.

Hate crimes against Muslims in Sweden remain high. During 2017, three mosques were set aflame and other types of vandalism against Islamic meeting places and associations where common.

Back to top


Norway

During the election campaign of 2017, the immigration and integration minister Sylvi Listhaug from the Progress Party (Fremskrittspartiet), made use of anti-Muslim stereotyping and fear-mongering rhetoric similar to that of the counter-jihad movement. For example, saying that ‘Fundamentalists who hate our Norwegian system are coming to exploit the boundless Norwegian naivety’. The party received 15.3% of the votes and is part of a coalition government with the Conservative party.

Norway has also seen an increase in the activity of anti-Muslim organisations and groups, especially on social media. However, public expression of anti-Muslim hatred is usually covered critically by mainstream media and typically expressed in relatively veiled terms by politicians. A far-right politician was convicted for hate speech after commenting on a murder of a white woman and a young Muslim by saying that it didn’t matter that he died since he would have ‘become a terrorist anyway’.

Back to top

SHARE THIS PAGE

Stay informed

Sign up for emails from HOPE not hate to make sure you stay up to date with the latest news, and to receive simple actions you can take to help spread HOPE.

Popular

We couldn't do it without our supporters

Fund research, counter hate and support and grow inclusive communities by donating to HOPE not hate today

I am looking for...

Search

Useful links

                   
Close Search X
Donate to HOPE not hate