Introduction: Debating Islamophobia

Since the end of the Cold War, a series of "social fears" has spread through Western democracies and, among them, the "Muslim fear" appears to be one of the most prominent. "Western" values, such as freedom of expression, gender equality and national identity, have been used for questioning the Muslim presence and settlement in the large metropolitan cities of the West. For some people these "social fears" or "moral panics" are the expression of a growing Islamophobia. For others these are examples of a real problem in the Islamic communities and that speaking about Islamophobia is, at best, just a distraction or, at worst, a sort of cultural censorship that covers and protects Muslim extremists and their intolerance. Those of us who understand Islamophobia not as a kind of controversy but as an analytic category need to face the strengths and weaknesses in our formulation of it. Conceptually, Islamophobia is not defined nor implemented or understood in a coherent and consistent way. The article by Jose Maria Roson in the collection published in the present issue of Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge shows the many ways in which Islamophobia as a concept has been defined and the lack of clarity in the many definitions offered for it. This is what has allowed this term to circulate broadly but to be ineffective and empty of analytic content as a means for social justice: for some people it is a way of complaining, for others an empty rhetoric, and for the public opinion and the political actors it represents a way to turn to ambiguity and cliches. Therefore, the term Islamophobia runs the risk of being transformed into a source of anger rather than a critical source to achieve equality and social justice. Aiming to contribute to an in-depth debate about the concept of "Islamophobia," Casa Arabe-IEAM and the Program of Comparative Ethnic Studies in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of Berkeley (California) organized a conference on this issue to explore the analytical and conceptual values of "Islamophobia" from an interdisciplinary perspective. The papers presented in this volume formed part of the international conference entitled "Debating Islamophobia" held at CASA ARABE in Madrid on May 28-29, 2009. The purpose of the conference was to have an academic discussion of this phenomenon in Western democracies with a particular focus on Western Europe. We wanted to explore the uses and abuses of Islamophobia as a concept. Islamophobia is a form of discrimination that is on the rise in Western Europe affecting the social life and opportunities of millions of European citizens. We are concerned about the fact that the concept is contested and our aim is to open a serious and profound academic discussion for conceptual clarification. The articles included in this volume address the following questions: What defines Islamophobia? Is Islamophobia a form of religious discrimination? Is Islamophobia a form of racism? How can we operationalize the concept as a tool for social research? What are the manifestations of this form of discrimination in Western Europe? How different national identities, cultural traditions and political systems affect the manifestation of Islamophobia in different countries? What are the historical manifestations of the phenomenon? What is the genealogy of the concept? The increase in votes of political parties with Islamophobic discourses is on the rise in Western Europe. However, as Abu-Zayd argues in his article, since there are millions of European Muslims, to defame Islam is to defame Europe itself. The idea that Islam and Europe are two separate entities fails in the face of the growth of European Muslims. There is no doubt that 9/11, and its aftermath with the discourse on the War on Terror, has been part of the atmosphere that explains the recent rise of Islamophobia. As Farish Noor analyses in this volume, the world after the discourse on the War on Terror is split along cultural, religious and civilisational lines. …