When one considers the question of so-called “hate speech” and of so-called xenophobia, one has to keep in mind that there are two distinct dimensions to the matter. On the one hand, one may see “hate speech” and xenophobia as elements of an ideological narrative “manufactured” by the mass media with the aim of warning citizens to stay away from such politically “immoral” thinking – as a dominant ideology, it wants to threaten and manipulate civil society so as to repress whatever popular responses to real material circumstance (such as the mass influx of illegal immigrants – an influx which seems irreversible). On the other hand, both “hate speech” and xenophobia are real popular sentiments among sections of European civil society, and are therefore a spontaneous grassroots response to such real material circumstances. The implication is obvious: popular xenophobia, which may also take the form of “hate speech”, is a set of sentiments completely independent of the ideology churned out by the ideological apparatuses of the EU.