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What is This?
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SAGE
Los Angeles,
London,
New Delhi,
Singapore,
Washington DC
Anti-Semitism and
Islamophobia new
enemies, old patterns
SABINE SCHIFFER and CONSTANTIN WAGNER
Across Europe activists and some academics are struggling to convey, both to their
governments and their countries at large, the understanding that anti-Muslim racism/
Islamophobia is now one of the most pernicious forms of contemporary racism and that
steps should be taken to combat it. Nowhere has that struggle been more difficult and
poignant than in Germany.
There, because of the necessary attempts to come to terms with the Nazi past and
understand the dimension of the Holocaust, the horror of any form of anti-Semitism can
blind people to new and different forms of racism. And even more than elsewhere, the
contradictions of the Middle East get transferred to internal discussions about a new
anti-Semitism.
Yet there are attempts in Germany both to use anti-Semitism as a comparative with
which to help understand Islamophobia and to expose the nature and extent of it. This
Sabine Schiffer is head of the Media Responsibility Institute (IMV), Erlangen, Germany and author
with Constantin Wagner of Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia: a comparative analysis
(Wassertrdingen, 2009).
Constantin Wagner researches Islam in European textbooks at the Georg Eckert Institute and
works for the IMV.
has not been without problems, as exemplified in the case of Marwa al-Sherbini. On 1
July 2009, this Egyptian pharmacist (who wore the headscarf) was stabbed to death in a
Dresden courtroom by the man she was suing for having insulted her in a public park as
an Islamist, terrorist and whore. In the ensuing tumult, bystanders were injured,
including her husband, who was shot and wounded by a police officer who misidentified
the assailant. Dr Sabine Schiffer of the Institute for Media Responsibility in Erlangen,
who suggested that negligence in the court structures (stemming from Islamophobia)
might have been a contributory factor in Marwa al-Sherbinis death and the police
shooting of her husband, found herself the object of a charge of slander and facing a court
case.1 Below she and colleague Constantin Wagner examine the issues which emerged
around the highly contested conference held by the Berlin-based Centre for the Study of
Anti-Semitism on The Muslim as Enemy, the Jew as Enemy.
Islamophobia
There can be no doubt that, empirically, a phenomenon exists that we describe
as Islamophobia and others describe as anti-Muslim racism or hostility to
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Schiffer and Wagner: Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia 79
Islam. One criticism of the term Islamophobia has been that it defames opponents
of Islamist movements. But even if it is true that the term can be instrumental-
ised, that is not sufficient cause to stop using it. After all, racism, too, has vary-
ing definitions, and is occasionally used in highly problematic ways. This does
not mean that there is no point in continuing to use the term, and certainly would
not justify denying its very existence.
Looking at critical portrayals of Muslims from an anti-racist perspective, there
can be no doubt that Islam is openly being attacked as Islam, and Muslims are
openly being attacked as Muslims. The same applies to physical violence.
Islamophobes often try to legitimise their racism by arguing that they have
nothing against foreigners in general, and even add to their credentials by
explaining they are pro-Israeli; the problem, they explain, is Muslims. Such
Islamophobia has recently begun to be studied in Germany and reported in a
number of published pieces on racism and anti-racism.2
Given the enormous popularity of blogs such as Politically Incorrect, which
publishes nothing but racist incitement specifically against Muslims, it is unde-
niable that there is a racism that is directed primarily at (supposed) Muslims.
The known racist blogs are merely the tip of the iceberg, and can build on very
widespread, historically based anti-Muslim resentments.3
Although many images and points are familiar elements of anti-immigration
discourse and thus recognisable as elements of racism, the empirical phenome-
non of Islamophobia is not entirely coextensive with the definition of racism
(to the extent that there is a universally valid definition of the term). This is
because centuries-old anti-Muslim views inform, shape and extend the current
discourse. This gives anti-Muslim racism a specificity that distinguishes it from
other racisms.
Furthermore, Islamophobia can be considered a new form of racism, a
cultural racism. The target of Islamophobia is not an imagined race, but a
group perceived as a religious community. It is easier to incite hatred using sup-
posed cultural as opposed to racial characteristics and this also affects the
intensity and nature of the necessary resistance.4
Anti-Semitism
Although anti-Semitic attitudes are much more heavily stigmatised in post-Nazi
Germany than other forms of racism, it is by no means true that there is no
longer any anti-Semitism. On the one hand, there are phenomena known
to researchers as secondary anti-Semitism and structural anti-Semitism.
Secondary anti-Semitism refers to the cultivation of resentments against Jews
not just by reference to the traditional prejudices that continue to exist, but also
by using new motifs. One example of this is the idea that Jews, allegedly, pre-
vent Germany from putting its past behind it. This is an updated form of tra-
ditional accusations, such as greed and lust for power. Jews are once again
painted as disrupting German national identity - but this time through
Vergangenheitsbewltigung (the process of coming to terms with the [Nazi] past).
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80 Race & Class 52(3)
they were citizens, we see a similar motif in the discussions of Muslim parallel
societies. This goes so far as to reactivate the clearly anti-Semitic metaphor of a
state within a state, this time in relation to Muslims. In this way, the fact that
one belongs to a religious community becomes a total identification, as if being
Muslim were the sole and decisive factor explaining all of a Muslim persons
actions and attitudes.
Despite the commonalities in the arguments and argumentational styles,
there is a difference on the conceptual and analytical level between the internal
logic of anti-Semitism and of Islamophobia.
Both Jews and Muslims have historically been perceived as a danger for
the Christian West, though in differing ways. The Turks at the gates of
Vienna (part of collective memory) has long been a popular motif both in
relation to the immigration of Muslims and with regard to Islamisation. The
Moors in Spain were always foreign in the sense of outsiders. Opposing
them and driving them out was not only permissible, it was required. Thus,
they fit the classic notion of the foreigner in the racist worldview the external,
visible enemy. Jews, on the other hand, were primarily viewed as an internal
enemy. Modern anti-Semitism faced an enemy which was invisible because
of assimilation. This was combined with the idea of destroyers from within
who needed to be exterminated rather than driven out. Thus, the Crusades
were directed against an actual and/or perceived external enemy, while
anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism were directed inward. In this regard, anti-
Semitism is located on a different historical continuum from Islamophobia.
Furthermore, it should be noted that Muslims tend to be viewed as inferior,
while anti-Semites generally view Jews as superior. Thus, Jews were always
considered the representatives of modernism, whether in the form of liberalism,
capitalism, or communism, while Muslims are perceived as backwardness
incarnate. Here it can be seen that both Muslims and Jews are seen as the coun-
terpart to an ideal, though in different ways. Additionally, there are differences
with regard to explanatory content. Anti-Semitic discourse seeks to explain not
only a part of reality (as do other racist discourses) but the entire world. Thus,
the Jew can be seen to be pulling the strings of virtually any evil: capitalism and
communism, Washington and Moscow, godlessness and the most devout faith.
Anti-Semitism is a total, universal theory.
It is important to understand these differences in order to be able to unpick
and combat the respective analyses. However, the differences in resentment
against inferiors, on the one hand, from those perceived as omnipotent, on the
other, between the external and internal enemy relate to a conceptual level.
Things are not always this clear in (racist) reality.
Empirical shifts
Although this analytical distinction still tends to be valid, there have recently
been empirical shifts that make it more and more necessary to use findings from
the study of anti-Semitism to analyse Islamophobia.
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82 Race & Class 52(3)
Conclusion
Among other things, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia differ in post-Nazi
Germany with regard to the degree of openness with which they are expressed.
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Schiffer and Wagner: Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia 83
References
1 See Liz Fekete, Germany: freedom to speak on racism under threat, IRR News (23 February
2010); Freedom of speech upheld for German academic, IRR News (31 March 2010).
2 See for example Sabine Schiffer, 2005, Die Darstellung des Islams in der Presse (Wrzburg,
Ergon, 2005); S. Schiffer and C. Wagner, Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia a comparative
analysis (Wassertrdingen, HWK, 2009); Iman Attia (ed.), Orient- und Islambilder (Mnster,
Unrast, 2007); Thorsten G. Schneiders (ed.), Islamfeindlichkeit (Wiesbaden, VS Verlag fr
Sozialwissenschaften, 2009); Wolfgang Benz (ed.), Islamfeindschaft und ihr Kontext (Berlin,
Metropol Verlag, 2009); Kay Sokolowksky, Feindbild Moslem (Berlin, Rotbuch, 2009).
3 This was examined in the article on The portrayal of Muslims in the German media see <http://
www.migration-boell.de/web/diversity/48_2529.asp>; <http://www.migration-boell.de/
web/diversity/48_1231.asp>; <http://www.bpb.de/publikationen/PEULKO,0,Der_Islam_
in_deutschen_Medien.html ff>.
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84 Race & Class 52(3)
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