Anti-immigration, Islamophobic and extreme-Right parties have long been a feature of European politics. But, increasingly, the views and policies promulgated by such parties are being absorbed into a process of governmental policy and decision-making dictated by the ‘war on terror’. National security agendas overlap with the immigration control programmes of the far Right and integration measures imposed by governments reinforce Islamophobia. ‘Multiculturalism’ is seen as a threat to European values and even some feminists are being recruited to an anti-immigrant politics via aggressively promoted stereotypes of Islam.
A. Sivanandan‘Race, terror and civil society’ , Race & Class (Vol. 47, no. 3, 2006).
2.
Baltic and Nordic Headlines, <www.unhcr.se/se/News/pdf/November_2005.pdf> (7 November 2005).
3.
Copenhagen Post, <www.cphpost.dk> (13 February 2006).
4.
Baltic and Nordic Headlines, <www.unhcr.se/se/News/pdf/January_05.pdf> (7 November 2005).
5.
Migration News Sheet (January 2006), p. 4-4 .
6.
Baltic and Nordic Headlines, <www.unhcr.se/SE/News/pdf/November_2005.pdf> (7 November 2005).
7.
Guardian (15 February 2006).
8.
as cited in European Race Bulletin (No. 52, 2005), p. 20-20 .
9.
New York Times (16 March 2006).
10.
Frankfurter Rundschau (17 January 2006).
11.
Leading Green party politician Volker Beck commented that some sections of the German population, including the interior minister of Baden-Württemberg, would probably fail the question on equal treatment for homosexuals . Frankfurter Rundschau (31 January 2006).
12.
Deutsche Welle (5 January 2006).
13.
OSCE press release (24 January 2006).
14.
Frankfurter Rundschau (2 February 2006).
15.
For an overview on the situation in Denmark, see Anja Bredal , ‘Tackling forced marriages in the Nordic countries: between women’s rights and immigration control’, in Lynn Welchman and Sara Hossain (eds), ‘Honour’: crimes, paradigms, and violence against women ( London, Zed , 2006).
16.
As quoted in ibid.
17.
‘The vast majority of immigrant marriages are arranged marriages... We are fed up with forced marriages and the systematic use of the right of family reunification to get families to Denmark at the expense of the young. For a Nordic mind this is a huge offence to freedom, human dignity and self-determination and something we Danes simply cannot accept.’Migration News (Vol. 9, no. 8, 2002).
18.
The News from Russia (12 January 2006).
19.
In the UK, Labour MP for Keighley Ann Cryer has been the most high-profile proponent of the view that immigration controls should be used to tackle issues such as forced marriage. See Hannana Siddiqui , ‘There is no “honour” in domestic violence, only shame! Women’s struggles against “honour” crimes in the UK’ in Welchman and Hossain (eds), ‘Honour’, op. cit.
20.
Expatica News (16 March 2006).
21.
Olivier Roy , Globalised Islam: the search for a new Ummah ( London, Hurst , 2004), p.6-6.
22.
Verena Stolcke , ‘Talking culture: new boundaries, new rhetorics of exclusion in Europe’, Sidney W. Mintz lecture for 1993 , Current Anthropology (Vol. 36, no. 1, February 1995).
23.
A. Sivanandan, ‘Race, terror and civil society’, op. cit.
24.
In conversation with A. Sivanandan (28 April 2006).
25.
Samuel P.Huntington, ‘The clash of civilizations?’ , Foreign Affairs (Summer 1993).
26.
See Liz Fekete , ‘Racism: the hidden cost of September 11’ , European Race Bulletin (No. 40, 2002).
27.
<www.demos.dk/website/artikler-file>.
28.
Liz Fekete , ‘Europe: “speech crime” and deportation’ , Race & Class (Vol. 47, no. 3), 2006.
29.
Marianne Gullestad , ‘Invisible fences: egalitarianism, nationalism and racism’ , Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (March 2002).
30.
Stolcke , ‘Talking culture’, op. cit, p.4-4.
31.
I am indebted to Gullestad’s arguments which I build on in this section. See also her ‘Blind slaves of our prejudices: debating “culture” and “race” in Norway’ , Ethnos (Vol. 69, no. 2, 2004).
32.
In discussion with Joan Bakewell , ‘Shadow of suspicion’, Heart of the Matter series, BBC 1 (17 March 1991).
33.
Associated Press (28 March 2006).
34.
Ibid.
35.
as quoted in European Race Bulletin (No. 41, 2002).
36.
A. Sivanandan , ‘Britain’s shame’ , Catalyst (July-August 2006).
37.
Address given by the Home Secretary Roy Jenkins in 1966 to a meeting of voluntary liaison committees (London, NCCI, 1966).
38.
In conversation with A. Sivanandan, op. cit.
39.
as cited in European Race Bulletin (No. 41, 2002).
40.
As cited by Tasneen Brogger, <www.bloomberg.com> (27 February 2006).
41.
Hartwig Pautz , ‘The politics of identity in Germany: the Leitkultur debate’ , Race & Class (Vol. 46, no. 4, 2005).
42.
The full text of the speech is available at <www.europa.eu.int>.
43.
Okin’s essay was later reprinted in an anthology of the same name: Joshua Cohen and Matthew Howard (eds), Is Multiculturalism Bad For Women? ( Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press , 1999).
44.
Okin, ibid.
45.
Ibid.
46.
Cohen and Howard (eds), Multiculturalism, op. cit.
47.
Purna Sen , “‘Crimes of honour”, value and meaning’, in Welchman and Hossain (eds), ‘Honour’, op. cit., p. 61-61.
48.
Hege Storhaug and Human Rights Service, Human Visas: report from the front lines of Europe’s integration crisis ( Oslo, HRS , 2003).
49.
See Bredal, op. cit.
50.
One only need look at Storhaug’s list of acknowledgements to question her claims to impartiality. Her research on other European countries cites prominent individuals and organisations linked to the anti-immigration lobby as experts on non-western communities. For instance, Sir Andrew Green of the UK organisation Migration Watch is not an academic but a former diplomat who campaigns against immigration. Likewise, the Liberal MP and sociologist Eyvind Vesselbo, who is cited as an expert on Denmark, has written about the dangers posed to Europe by the increasing Muslim birthrate and is also linked to the anti-immigration lobby. Storhaug’s work is also replete with discredited racial terminology and typology. For instance, she writes about a lack of ‘contact between races’ (p. 87) and classifies Travellers in Northern Ireland as ‘Tinkers’ (p. 137).
51.
Human Visas, op. cit.
52.
Gullestad, ‘Invisible fences’, op. cit.
53.
In conversation with A. Sivanandan , op. cit. See also ‘Freedom of speech is not an absolute’. A. Sivanandan in interview with Yohan Shanmugaratnam , Race & Class (Vol. 48, no.1, 2006).
54.
‘Muslim integration: eyes wide shut. An interview with Alice Schwarzer’ , Der Spiegel Online<www.service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,329261,00.html> (25 November 2004).
55.
Ibid.
56.
<www.print.signandsight.com/features/352.html>.
57.
In 2006, the Human Rights Service awarded Ali its annual prize. According to Storhaug , ‘I think she is doing a great service to democracy and the future, because Islamism is the biggest threat to democracy and to Europe’ As quoted by Deborah Scoggins, ‘The Dutch-Muslim culture war’ , Nation (27 June 2005).
58.
Ibid.
59.
See ‘Notes on the killing of Theo van Gogh in the Netherlands’ , European Race Bulletin (No. 50, 2005).
60.
The most striking thing about the film, argues Annelies Moors in her definitive analysis, is its ‘unimaginative resonance with the visual imagery of Orientalism’. Annelies Moors, ‘Submission’ , ISIM Review (No. 15, spring 2005).
61.
The comments were made by Mak in a pamphlet about the fall-out from the van Gogh murder. As cited by Christopher Caldwell , ‘Daughter of the Enlightenment’ , New York Times (3 April 2005).
62.
In the Netherlands, where there is no official state ban, individual feminists have taken their own action. Cisca Dresselhuys, editor-in-chief of the mainstream feminist monthly magazine Opzij said that, while she might consider hiring a woman wearing a headscarf for an administrative position, she would not hire such a woman as a journalist, for, in her eyes, wearing a headscarf could not but be the expression of women’s subordination and hence clashed with the feminist mission of Opzij. See Annelies Moors, ‘Submission’, op. cit.
63.
<www.englishaljazeera.net> (11 December 2003).
64.
As quoted by Monica Mookherjee , ‘Affirmative citizenship: feminism, postcolonialism and the politics of recognition’ , Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy (Vol. 8, no. 1, March 2005), p. 33-33 .
65.
As cited by Gabriele Dietze in her ‘The political veil - interconnected discourses on burqas and headscarves in the USD and Europe’ in ‘Holy War’ and Gender: violence in religious discourse ( Berlin, Lit Verlag , 2006).
66.
Agence France Presse (6 January 2006).
67.
<www.nextgenderation.com>.
68.
In response, the sociologist and feminist Halina Bendkowski organised a counter-petition calling for the state to rescind the residence permits of foreigners who do not recognise the rights of women. See Heide Oestereich, Der Kopftuchhstreit - das Abedlandund ein Quadratmeter Islam (Frankfurt, Brands and Apsel, 2004), pp. 105-11.
69.
As cited by New York Times (30 June 2006).
70.
In a separate but related move, fifty-eight scientists have signed an open letter by Professor Yasemin Karakasoglu and Mark Terkessidis accusing the female authors of non-fiction books on Islam, currently in vogue, of having written inflammatory pamphlets which make unscientific generalisations on the basis of individual cases and personal experiences. The scientists, whose letter was published in Die Zeit (2 February 2006) considered it alarming that, in contrast, scientific studies merit hardly any attention. The books of Neckla, Hirsi Ali and Seyran Ates were cited as indicative of this trend.
71.
See Southall Black Sisters, From Homebreakers to Jailbreakers (London, Zed Books, 2003).
