Council of Europe's HR Commissioner on Islamophobia

A new online magazine focused on news relating to Muslims and Islam, Globalia, has an interview with Thomas Hammarberg, Commissioner for Human Rights at the Council of Europe, in which he discusses the phenomenon of Islamophobia in Europe (full disclosure: Thomas Hammarberg and I are related).

His assessment of Islamophobia in contemporary Europe:

Thomas Hammarberg 

The problem as such is in fact very serious. Unfortunately we see signs that it is spreading. We see that it begins to affect the main course political debate in several countries. Some political parties that take on an islamophobic agenda have won support in elections in a manner which is very unfortunate. Hungary, the Netherlands and Sweden were the last examples. So I think we have to be extremely careful now and see this as a major threat against human rights and the basic european values.

In the interview, the HR Commissioner makes a general reference to "some recent ... opinion poll,... which indicated that anti-muslim feelings are widespread in Germany." He is most likely referring to the study "Die mitte in der krise" published last fall by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. 

Among other things, the report showed that 58.4% of Germans agree with the statement that the religious practices of Muslims in Germany ought to be severely restricted in the future. In the areas of the former DDR (East Germany), the same figure was 75,7%. You can access the report here, but it is German. The relevant figures can be found in table 4.3.8 on page 134.

In the UK, a heated debate about how bad Islamophobia really is, or if it is an appropriate label at all, has flared up over the last few weeks. This round of debate was prompted by Baroness Warsi's recent assertion that hostility towards Muslims and Islam has now passed what she called the "dinner party test." By this, the conservative party co-chairman and herself a Muslim meant that it had become socially acceptable to openly express "anti-Muslim bigotry and hatred."

The controversy notwithstanding, Lady Warsi's statement is, unfortunately, capturing a real-world phenomena that is hard to deny. And as the HR Commissioner points out, it is not just present in Germany or the UK, but across much of Europe (and also the United States). 

About the U.S. by the way. This blog - which partly focuses on and is critical of the phenomenon of Islamophobia - is soon set to reach a thousand hits. A cause for celebration for sure. But it is depressing to compare these numbers to a rabid Islamophobic blog like Pamela Geller's Atlas Shrugs, which according to Wikipedia has posted videos suggesting that Muslims have sex with goats and describes Islam as "the most antisemitic, genocidal ideology in the world." Atlas Shrugs allegedly receives about one million hits per month...

The overblown threat from 'Islamic terrorism' | Stephen M. Walt

Harvard IR Professor Stephen M. Walt has an entry on the Foreign Policy blog about EU's 2010 Terrorism situation and trend report. Walt:

Remember the avalanche of Muslim-based terrorism that was about to descend upon the West? Well, according to the EU's 2010 Terrorism Situation and Trend Report, the total number of terrorist incidents in Europe declined in 2009. Even more important, the overwhelming majority of these incidents had nothing whatsoever to do with Islam.

More precisely, there were 294 terrorist attacks in EU member states during 2009. Of those, one (1) was classified as "Islamist": an attack against a military target in Italy. (The figures do not include 124 attacks on Northern Ireland, none of which would classify as Islamist.) Here's the relevant table that lists all EU countries that had reported attacks:

From EUROPOL's 2010 Terrorism Situation and trend report, p. 12.

As can be seen clearly from the table, separatist ethno-national terrorism remains the most threatening form of political violence aimed at the state, society, or international organizations located within the EU. Most of this violence is focused on France (Corsican and Basque separatists) and Spain (Basque separatists). 

The report notes that the total number of attacks constitute a 33% drop from the year before and "is almost half the number of attacks carried out in 2007."

The overblown threat from 'Islamic terrorism' | Stephen M. Walt

“Buds”?: Official Turkey said to be making plans for attending April 24 ceremonies - Genocide | ArmeniaNow.com

Just in. New openings in Turkish-Armenian relations? “Buds”?: Official Turkey said to be making plans for attending April 24 ceremonies - Genocide | ArmeniaNow.com

Egemen Bağış's decidedly unhelpful remarks

It's election season in Turkey, and it is perhaps this we see in some recent statements by leaders from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Their rhetoric on the stalled EU negotiations has been turned up quite a few notches. I have previously commented on Prime Minister Erdoğan's feisty Op. Ed. in Newsweek as well as his deputy Ali Babacan's warning that the EU is turning into a Christian club.

The location of Mr. Bağış's speech: Auschwitz.

The most recent addition to the AKP chorus of frustration is a speech by Turkey's EU minister and top negotiator, Egemen Bağış, given during a commemorative visit to Auschwitz last week. Bağış took the occasion to expand on his colleagues’ criticism against what they perceive as the increasingly parochial attitudes within several EU countries toward enlargement and their respective Turkish minorities.

One can think of few better places to raise the topic of the dangers of European parochialism, and the EU minister went on to emphasize the important point that

we cannot tolerate anti-Semitism and racism in any form.

Unfortunately, Mr. Bağış did not end his remarks there, but went on to offer an analysis of the growing presence of racism in today's Europe by reference to the continent's dark past:

It is unfortunate that the EU, founded in order to eliminate the threats of that period to peace, is today under the risk of conquest by a racist mentality that cannot internalize its own values and emulates the fascist methods of 1930s.

Happy Yom Chechechehe!

The lovely coincidence of antisemitism and Islamophobia in
Texas. Watch, laugh, and weep a little.

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Elizabeth Shakman Hurd on the Myths of Mubarak

I want to post a link to Elizabeth Shakman Hurd's recent post about Western interpretations of the past and current political situation in Egypt, on The Immanent Frame blog. It is slightly off the topic that I typically dwell upon here (Turkey and the EU), but much like my own work, Shakman Hurd's piece deals with constricting Western narratives of Islam that juxtapose secular/modern/stable with Islamic/radical/fundamentalist. Her analysis is insightful and the EU's current inability to deal with the Turkish membership bid in a thoughtful and productive manner must, I believe (with her), be seen in precisely that wider context.

Perhaps most of all, I enjoyed the quote by Michel Foucault, who at the time of the Iranian revolution remarked that:

the problem of Islam as a political force is an essential one for our time and for years to come, and we cannot approach it with a modicum of intelligence if we start out from a position of hatred.

In many ways, this distills my own position and the main problem that I have with much of the EU discourse on e.g. human rights or the situation of Kurds in Turkey. While much of the critique that is routinely (ritually, we might even say) leveled against Turkey in the European Parliament may be well-founded, the broad tenure of the discourse is so infused with fear, distrust, and even prejudice, as well as a rather smug sense of superiority, that it not only poisons the climate of negotiations but also obscures the actual issues under consideration and prevents what could be a more authoritative and ultimately more influential treatment of said issues.

Myths of Mubarak « The Immanent Frame

A Model of Middle East Democracy, Turkey Calls for Change in Egypt | Time

News: Erdoğan comments on Egypt today again. Link to Time magazine article: A Model of Middle East Democracy, Turkey Calls for Change in Egypt

Turkey tells Mubarak to listen to the people | Reuters

Just in: Erdogan today (Tuesday) gave a speech that was broadcast live in parts of the Arab world, in which he urged Mubarak to "listen to the shouting of the

people" and to "satisfy people's desire for change."

Turkey tells Mubarak to listen to the people | Reuters

Ways out of the Turkey-EU deadlock

Euractiv.com has a good and balanced analysis of the current deadlock in the accession negotiations written by Amanda Paul, an analyst at the European Policy Centre (and columnist for Today's Zaman).

Amanda Paul
picture from www.ecp.eu

 Unlike too much of current mainstream media commentary on Turkey-EU relations, Paul does not lay the blame for the current impasse squarely at Turkey's feet. Instead, she points to the mutual failure to reach an agreement on Cyprus as the main stumbling block, noting that:

No doubt some member states will be hoping that Turkey's patience will snap and Ankara will draw a line under its own membership process, but this is unlikely. Contrary to the AKP's recent rhetoric, it needs the EU badly.

And she is less pessimistic than some, pointing out (as I did in my last post) that a lot can still happen:

While the opposition of key member states France and Germany, the economic crisis and the fact that it has almost become socially acceptable to be anti-Muslim are serious problems, they are longer term issues.

Is the Blame Game afoot?

The debate about Turkey's stalled EU-accession negotiations is heating up. I have previously commented on Erdoğan's Newsweek Op. Ed., in which he described the EU in rather harsh terms. Now, in a meeting at Davos Turkey's former top negotiator and current Deputy PM, Ali Babacan (pronounced Baba-Jaan) has warned that the Union is turning into a "Christian club."

Ali Babacan at Davos in 2008. Copyright World Economic Forum (www.weforum.org)

According to the AFP, Babacan remarked that the "open door policy" of the EU is simply "not there" anymore. And that

one of the big themes about why Turkey cannot become a member of the European Union is because it is a Christian club. This is in our view very, very dangerous

There are several ways to interpret these moves, but my best guess is that the Turkish leadership is