Abstract
This chapter demonstrates how Islamophobic narratives have become commonplace across Europe and used to define national identity in ways that implicitly and explicitly exclude Muslims from the national community. In Switzerland, Denmark, the Netherlands and France, discourses which identified Muslims as dangerous and threatening to the nation led to high-profile debates about national identity and values. The Swiss minaret ban, Dutch homonationalism, the Danish cartoons controversy and the French veil and burka bans all relied on the instrumentalisation of ‘Western’ values to police the boundaries of the nation. In both national debates about the integration of Muslim minorities and civilisational discourses that sought to define European belonging, Muslims were excluded according to Eurocentric understandings which viewed Islam as fundamentally incompatible with European societies.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Belien, Paul. 2005. Europe Criticises Copenhagen Over Cartoons. The Brussels Journal. http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/589 Retrieved 25 Oct 2012.
Bracke, S. 2012. From ‘Saving Women’ to ‘Saving Gays’: Rescue Narratives and Their Dis/continuities. European Journal of Women’s Studies 19 (2): 237–252.
Brun, Ellen, and Jacques Hersh. 2008. The Danish Disease: A Political Culture of Islamophobia. Monthly Review.
Bunzl, Matti. 2005. Between Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia: Some Thoughts on the New Europe. American Ethnologist 32 (4): 499–508.
Butler, Judith. 2008. Sexual Politics, Torture, and Secular Time. The British Journal of Sociology 59 (1): 1–23.
Carland, Susan. 2011. Islamophobia, Fear of Loss of Freedom, and the Muslim Woman. Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 22 (4): 469–473.
Davies, Lizzy. 2010. Election Candidate in Headscarf Causes Uproar in France. The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/10/french-election-headscarf-candidate. Retrieved 5 Oct 2012.
De Cillia, R., M. Reisigl, and R. Wodak. 1999. The Discursive Construction of National Identities. Discourse & Society 10 (2): 149–173.
Dolezal, Martin, Marc Helbling, and Swen Hutter. 2010. Debating Islam in Austria, Germany and Switzerland: Ethnic Citizenship, Church-State Relations and Right-Wing Populism. West European Politics 33 (2): 171–190.
Engelbreth Larson, Rune. 2006. The Cartoon Crisis and Danish Islamophobia. Panhumanism. http://www.panhumanism.com/articles/2006-02.php. Retrieved 25 Oct 2012.
Ettinger, Patrik. 2008. Problematisation of Muslims in Public Communication in Switzerland. In Conference: Representing Islam, Comparative Perspectives. University of Zurich. Zurich. www.foeg.uzh.ch/analyse/publikationen/Problematisierung_Muslime.pdf. Retrieved 2 Sep 2012.
Fekete, L. 2006. Enlightened Fundamentalism? Immigration, Feminism and the Right. Race & Class 48 (2): 1–22.
Geisser, Vincent. 2010. Islamophobia: A ‘French Specificity’ in Europe? Human Architecture VIII (2): 39–46.
Ghorashi, Halleh. 2003. Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Daring or Dogmatic? Debates on Multiculturalism and Emancipation in the Netherlands. In Multiple Identifications and the Self, ed. Toon an Meijl and Henk Driessen, 163–172. Utrecht: Stinchting Focasl.
Goldberg, David Theo. 2006. Racial Europeanization. Ethnic and Racial Studies 29 (2): 331–364.
Gudrun Jensen, Tina. 2008. To Be ‘Danish’, Becoming ‘Muslim’: Contestations of National Identity? Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 34 (3): 389–409.
Guha, Keshava. 2010. Gauche Politics: Radical Leftism Resurges in France. Harvard International Review. Spring: 9–10.
Hylarides, Peter C. 2005. Multiculturalism in the Netherlands and the Murder of Theo van Gogh. Contemporary Review 286 (1669): 73–78.
Institute of Race Relations. 2010. The Swiss Referendum on Minarets: Background and Aftermath. Briefing Paper No. 1 February 2010. http://www.irr.org.uk/pdf2/ERA_BriefingPaper1.pdf Retrieved 29 March 2013.
Kilde, Jeanne Halgren. 2011. The Park 51/Ground Zero Controversy and Sacred Sites as Contested Space. Religions 2 (3): 297–311.
Kublitz, Anja. 2010. The Cartoon Controversy: Creating Muslims in a Danish Setting. Social Analysis 54 (3): 107–125.
Laborde, Cécile. 2008. Critical Republicanism: The Hijab Controversy and Political Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Malek, Alia. 2007. Beyond the Cartoon Controversy. Columbia Journalism Review 45 (6): 18–19.
Mancini, Susanna. 2012. Patriarchy as the Exclusive Domain of the Other: The Veil Controversy, False Projection and Cultural Racism. International Journal of Constitutional Law 10 (2): 411–428.
Mason, Simon J A, Abbas Aroua, and Annika Åberg. 2010. Mediating Tensions over Islam in Denmark, Holland, and Switzerland. Center for Security Studies, ETH Zurich and Cordoba Foundation, Geneva Center for Security Studies (CSS) Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. http://129.132.199.42/var/ssn/storage/original/application/f4900bb611904ea6ef86caf1a507da38.pdf Retrieved 2 Sept 2012.
Matyassy, Johannes, and Seraina Flury. 2011. Challenges for Switzerland’s Public Diplomacy: Referendum on Banning Minarets. Los Angeles: Figueroa Press. http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/sites/uscpublicdiplomacy.org/files/legacy/publications/perspectives/CPDPerspectives_P4_2011.pdf. Retrieved 2 Sep 2012.
Mepschen, P., J.W. Duyvendak, and E.H. Tonkens. 2010. Sexual Politics, Orientalism and Multicultural Citizenship in the Netherlands. Sociology 44 (5): 962–979.
Mepschen, Paul. 2009. Against Tolerance: Islam, Sexuality, and the Politics of Belonging in the Netherlands. Monthly Review. http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2009/mepschen130709.htm. Retrieved 9 Jan 2012.
Ministry of Education Culture and Science. 2007. Simply Gay: Dutch Government’s LGBT Policy Document 2008–2011. The Council for Global Equality. http://www.globalequality.org/storage/documents/pdf/simplygay_dutchlgbtpolicy.pdf. Retrieved 16 Oct 2012.
Orlanskaya, Olga, and Gunther G Schulze. 2010. The Determinants of Islamophobia—An Empirical Analysis of the Swiss Minaret Referndum, 1–31. http://crem.univ-rennes1.fr/EPCS11/submissions/epcs2011_submission_256.pdf. Retrieved 18 June 2011.
Puar, Jasbir K., and Terrorist Assemblages. 2007. Homonationalism in Queer Times. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.
Skandrani, S.M., O. Taieb, and Marie Rose Moro. 2012. Transnational Practices, Intergenerational Relations and Identity Construction in a Migratory Context: The Case of Young Women of Maghrebine Origin in France. Culture & Psychology 18 (1): 76–98.
Traynor, Ian. 2009. Swiss to Vote on Mosque Minarets Ban. The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/26/swiss-mosques-minarets-ban-vote. Retrieved 24 Oct 2012.
Triandafyllidou, Anna. 1998. National Identity and the ‘Other’. Ethnic and Racial Studies 21 (4): 593–612.
Werbner, Pnina. 2007. Veiled Interventions in Pure Space: Honour, Shame and Embodied Struggles among Muslims in Britain and France. Theory, Culture & Society 24 (2): 161–186.
Wright, Susan. 1998. The Politicization of ‘Culture’. Anthropology Today 14 (1): 7–15.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Jackson, L.B. (2018). Islamophobia and National Identity in Europe. In: Islamophobia in Britain. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58350-1_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58350-1_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-58349-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-58350-1
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)