This last week has been a tumultuous one for Europe. The United Kingdom has voted to leave the European Union (EU) — a decision that was the culmination of a months-long campaign that used exaggerated claims about Turkey’s EU membership bid and images of Syrian refugees on campaign posters to evoke fears of the “other” and of an impending demographic take-over of Europe. In the wake of that vote, there has already been a dossier compiled of more than 100 Islamophobic and xenophobic hate incidents. Hate crime has surged by 57 per cent since the vote, according to Britain’s National Police Chiefs’ Council.
On the other hand, in just one week’s time, the EU presidency will go to a Slovak government whose party leader openly admires the 1939-1945 Nazi-sponsored Slovak state that sent 75,000 Jews to concentration camps, and a prime minister who said Muslim refugees are unwelcome in Slovakia.
It is within this increasingly politicised climate of divisiveness and bigotry that the first-ever European Islamophobia Summit took place last week in Sarajevo, Bosnia, a country that has been riven by its own history of anti-religious hatred.
Thankfully, there is still notable support in the fight against the Islamophobic bigotry. The summit was supported and attended by political and civil society figures like former Spanish prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Former British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, founder of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), Bernard Kouchner, international media anchor, Mehdi Hassan and UK Member of Parliament, Naz Shah, amongst others, as well as representatives from 18 anti-discrimination NGOs, 17 European nations and representatives from different faith communities.
Islamophobia, after all, is a very real phenomenon; anti-Muslim hate crime tripled in London during December 2015. According to Dilcra, a French government body, the number of Islamophobic hate crimes increased three-fold in 2015. According to Spain’s largest Islamic organisation, the Spanish Federation of Islamic Religious Entities, 2015, saw an 11-fold increase in reports of anti-Muslim hate crime. And calls by United States presidential candidate Donald Trump to ban all Muslims from entering the US represents a dangerous mainstreaming of religious bigotry in political discourse.
So how, within such a volatile environment, can Islamophobic hate crime be best combatted by European policy-makers? The summit’s numerous panels and discussions collated a Final Declaration of policy recommendations addressed to European policy-makers on just how to go about this.
As a fundamental step, it was held that the documentation of Islamophobia as a category of hate crime across Europe was the key. In addition, anti-Muslim hate crime should be recorded as a separate hate-crime category in those countries in which it is not already done so.
The Final Declaration also stated that more must also be done by western politicians to stand against and actively oppose policies that discriminate on the basis of religious identity. One would think that such a commitment would be quite straight forward. But let’s not forget the next president of the US could be a man who openly advocated for all Muslims receiving a blanket ban against entering America. And the presidency of the EU will next go to the Slovak prime minister, someone who believes Islam and Muslim migrants have no place within its borders.
Most Islamophobia also goes unreported and many non-Muslim communities can fail to appreciate its scale and the harm it causes. After all, some commentators will have you believe Islamophobia is either exaggerated or not real at all. As such, it is vital European governments launch and support public awareness campaigns that help inform wider society about the huge toll Islamophobia takes on communities.
This ties-in with the need to increase public funding for projects and initiatives that challenge Islamophobia, particularly in proportion to the increase in Islamophobic hate crime across Europe.
Summit delegates also felt it is was imperative that EU adopts the proposed Equal Treatment Directive in order to better protect against discrimination, especially on the basis of religious identity outside of employment. Unfortunately, the UK vote to leave the EU raises a question-mark over the applicability of this adoption within the UK, though the positive role EU Human Rights regulation plays in combatting discrimination should nonetheless be embraced and supported as far as possible.
The summit’s 18 anti-discrimination NGOs also felt that for too long, civil rights violations experienced by women wearing headscarves have not been adequately addressed by European lawmakers and politicians — a deficit the summit delegates felt needed to be addressed.
Islamophobia in the workplace and within the context of employment discrimination also has the dual effect of not just discriminating on the basis of religion, but in further marginalising and disempowering victims of bigotry. That is why governments must draft a policy that ensures the rights of religious minorities to manifest their faith are respected in education and the workplace. This must not be left to the preferences of individual boards of management or principals.
Finally, the Final Declaration stated that at times of economic and political uncertainty it seems that bigotry and prejudice rise across the board — against all minorities. And all forms of bigotry and prejudice share the same pernicious structure and ideological toxicity.
That’s why the first European Islamophobia Summit also focused on fostering cross-community unity against all forms of discrimination and prejudice — something central to any comprehensive response. After all, the results of leaving bigotry, discrimination and the dehumanisation of the minorities unchallenged are well documented. Sarajevo and Bosnia’s history itself is testament to this. Today, we stand just two weeks away from the 21st anniversary of the genocide of Srebrenica, where 8,000 Muslims were systematically murdered in a poisonous, racist climate where the “other” lost all human values.
Looking ahead at what appears to be a new chapter in European history, I hope we hold onto the values of pluralism, diversity and tolerance that have come to define Europe — and do not repeat past mistakes.
Muddassar Ahmed is spokesperson for the European Islamophobia Summit. He is also a patron of the Faiths Forum for London and president of the John Adams Society — the official UK-US Government Exchanges programme Association. He is on the board of Duke University’s Centre for Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, a member of the US Atlantic Council and a Nato fellow. He recently completed a term as an independent adviser to the UK Government on UK Muslim communities and was also recently listed among the 500 most influential Muslims globally by Royal Institute of Strategic Studies and Georgetown University.
