Muslim Civil Society Under Attack: The European Foundation for Democracy’s Role in Defaming and Delegitimizing Muslim Civil Society

Abstract

This chapter deals with the impact of one of the main drivers of what has been called the “organized Islamophobia Network” (OIN) in the USA or “Islamophobic elite movements from above”. It is one of the first studies to look at European based think tanks and their role in defining and excluding Muslim civil society organizations. It specifically looks at how the Brussels-based think tank “European Foundation for Democracy” (EFD), which has a transatlantic relationship, systematically produces knowledge to define vocal and representative actors of the Muslim civil society as potentially radical and Islamist, which then should lead to state and civil society exclusion. The strategy of constructing Muslim Brotherhood-affiliations to the aforementioned actors is analyzed as part of a larger strategy of defamation and delegitimization. Two cases, Austria and Sweden, are analyzed in detail.

This article deals with the impact of one of the main drivers of what has been called the “Organized Islamophobia Network” (OIN) in the USA or “Islamophobic elite movements from above”. It is one of the first studies to look at European based think tanks and their role in defining and excluding Muslim civil society organizations. It specifically looks at how the Brussels-based think tank “European Foundation for Democracy” (EFD), which has a transatlantic relationship, systematically produces knowledge to define vocal and representative actors of the Muslim civil society as potentially radical and Islamist, which then should lead to state and civil society exclusion. The strategy of constructing Muslim Brotherhood-affiliations to the aforementioned actors is analyzed as part of a larger strategy of defamation and delegitimization. Two cases, Austria and Sweden, are analyzed in detail.

Islamophobic Social Movements from Above

The analysis of think tanks in the production and dissemination of Islamophobia has for a long time been focused mainly on the USA. The Center for American Progress analyzed what has later become known as the “Islamophobia Network” in 2011 ¹ and 2015. ² These and other analyzes ³ were primarily focusing on the network that fuels Islamophobia and their respective funding structures. Nothing similarly comprehensive has been produced for Europe so far. One of the reasons for this might be that while in the United States with a weak federal government, philanthropy has a long tradition and is crucial also for the political landscape, domestically as much as for international affairs, think tanks play a significant weaker role in Europe, although one might argue that their relevance is increasing.

The first attempt to fill this gap has been the collective work edited by Narzanin Massoumi, Tom Mills and David Miller. ⁴ In their critique of some of the literature of Islamophobia Studies, they propose to shift the focus for understanding Islamophobia to what they call the “five pillars of Islamophobia”, which represent five social actors or five social movements that produce ideas and practices that disadvantage Muslims: the state, neoconservative movements, parts of the Zionist movements, the counterjihad movement ⁵ and the far right, as well as elements of liberal, left, secular and feminist movements. ⁶ Their theoretical contribution lies in making social movement theory fruitful in understanding these five driving factors of Islamophobia. While the US reports were primarily produced for policy making and advocacy, Massoumi et al. offer a much more theory-based work that also mentions European think tanks, but does not offer an in-depth analysis of their work.

Next to the state, which for them makes the “backbone” of Islamophobia, Massoumi et al. see elite social movements or movements from above as groups that try to influence state policies and bring about change in accordance with the ideologies around which they cohere. Their elitism is reflected in their privileged access to political decision-making and financial resources. They remind us that while most of the social movement theory literature focuses on movements from below, the analysis of elite movements is sparse. ⁷

As part of the neoconservative movement, they identify think tanks as “elite elements of social movements from above” ⁸ and argue that it is them, who are playing a key role in the production of Islamophobia in the UK and elsewhere. Massoumi et al. suggest—drawing on scholarship by Cox and Nilsen as well as Boies and Pichardo—turning our attention to four questions to differentiate between “social movements from below” and “from above”: (1) Their emergence, meaning “from what milieu, social and political struggles, crises” ⁹ these movements emerged. (2) Their organizational form and political location, meaning if they are movements on the streets or in the corridors of power, their membership structure. (3) Their strategy and goals and (4) The outcomes, meaning intended as well as unintended outcomes. ¹⁰

In this article I intend to present a first analysis of the Brussels-based think tank EFD and the role of its team in defining the landscape of organized Muslim civil society actors. The next section connects the work at hand to the existing scholarship and is followed by a short description of the EFD. Then, I turn to an analysis of the EFD’s team in their endeavor to defame and delegitimize Muslim civil society actors, before I turn to a more detailed analysis of two cases, Austria and Sweden. The last section gives an overview of the conclusions.

A Transatlantic Network

While the transatlantic exchange, especially in case of the so-called counterjihad movement, a movement that dedicates itself to countering an alleged “Islamization of the West” ¹¹ and the far-right political parties and movements ¹² have been analyzed in many works, there is not much literature dedicated to Islamophobic think tanks. Sarah Marusek has offered a first study in Massoumi et al. on the transatlantic Islamophobic network. ¹³ Marusek searched through the annual tax documents of registered charities and foundations in the United States and UK to understand the funding of these organizations, while putting emphasis on the US funders of these institutions. In her analysis, the Foundation for Defense of Democracy (FDD) ranks among the ten most influential in media and policy debates. According to the Center for American Progress, Anchorage Charitable Foundation and William Rosenwald Family Fund, which gave a total of $2,818,229 from 2001 to 2008, and is thus among the top seven funders of the Islamophobia Network. ¹⁴ Amongst its recipients is the FDD, together with the Hoover Institution, the Hudson Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. The director of the Future Terrorism Project at FDD in D.C. was its senior fellow Walid Phares, who also acts as an “expert” lecturer on “Islamist Jihadism” for the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies. Phares was a spokesman for the mostly Christian Lebanese Front, which was responsible for the Sabra and Shatila massacres of Muslims during the September 1982 Lebanese Civil War. ¹⁵

Amongst the think tanks that are funded by the same persons that fund these neoconservative think tanks outside of the USA, she mentions the EFD in Brussels, the Henry Jackson Society (HJS) in London, NGO Monitor in Jerusalem and UN Watch in Geneva. ¹⁶ While Marusek does not argue that all of these organizations are peddling an Islamophobic agenda, she argues that their shared funders suggest a shared milieu. She states that the Washington D.C.-based FDD has organizational as well as financial ties to the EFD. Marusek quotes Eli Clifton, who called the FDD “Washington’s premiere hawkish think tank”. ¹⁷ There are numerous relations between central persons of the FDD and the Islamophobic network that produce and disseminate Islamophobia such as the HJS, Nina Rosenwald, R. James Woolsey and Matthew Levit, as Marusek reveals in her analysis. ¹⁸

Between 2009 and 2013, Marcus Foundation gave $12,155,000 to different organizations, amongst them the EFD. The EFD was also granted funds by Paul E. Singer Foundation, which gave a total of $1,475,000 to EFD, NGO Monitor as well as the highly Islamophobic MEMRI. ¹⁹ Singer is listed as the second largest conservative donor in the United States and gave a total of $23.5 million to Republican causes in 2016, while Marcus gave a total of $13.5 million. ²⁰ While many donors of Israeli settlement do not donate to Islamophobic networks, Marcus and Singer fund both. ²¹ Bernard Marcus, who funds both occupation and/or settlement, serves as director of the FDD. In 1991 Marcus co-founded the Israel Democracy Institute. ²²

European Foundation for Democracy’s Islamophobes

The EFD was founded by Roberta Bonazzi in 2005. A political scientist, her personal expertise focuses on prevention of radicalization, foreign policy, democratic reforms and extremism. ²³ She is linked to conservative personalities such as of the National Review. ²⁴ The EFD describes itself as a policy institute that works with civil society, academic, government and other stakeholders on the “prevention of radicalization”. ²⁵ Beyond conferences, panel debates, workshops, policy briefings, advocacy work and publications, the EFD has also established a “Network for a New European Generation” to empower leaders who are working with—and within—communities of Muslim heritage in Europe to engage in radicalization prevention initiatives. Affiliates are from France, Italy, Germany, Sweden, the UK and Ireland. ²⁶

Amongst its team, there range numerous so-called “experts” on radicalization of Muslims. Switzerland-based Elham Manea, Italy-based Valentina Colombo, US-based Lorenzo Vidino, Germany-based Ahmad Mansour, Sweden-based Magnus Norell, amongst others. Some of them will be featured in the case studies. A central aim of the experts, who are widely interviewed and featured in international media across Europe, is to warn of not only violent extremism, but what they call “non-violent extremism”. During the panel “Antidotes to Islamist Extremism” at the European Parliament on May 2, 2017, director Bonazzi explained this approach: According to her, the “key challenge” in the work with Muslim civil society is to “identify the right partners”. She argued: “For too long, we have seen the wrong organizations being empowered being funded by national governments and European institutions […] For too long we have seen that ideological groups have become the official representatives […] ignoring the diversity we have within Islam […] Some ideological organizations have taken over the whole debate”. ²⁷ As a consequence, she opts for better screening and vetting of these Muslim organizations. This is part of a larger tendency of the War on Terror and the subsequent introduction of countering extremism programs, where a broadening of the notion of terrorism encapsulates non-violent extremism. ²⁸ With Salman Sayyid’s introduction of a post-positivist, post-orientalist, and decolonial perspective on Islamophobia, ²⁹ the latter is less about the essentialist concepts that are used to describe them than the challenge of being Muslim today is that there is no epistemological or political space for the identity. ³⁰ In this reading, Islamophobia is a form of epistemological racism, as another decolonial thinker, Ramón Grosfoguel, argues. ³¹ For Sayyid, central to Islamophobia is to discipline and regulate the Muslim subject, which is construed as posing a threat to the political order and especially white privilege. Hence, ‚the Muslim question’, which is being construed by Western political actors, is paving the way for cultural, governmental, and epistemological interventions ³² Through these lenses, I argue, the War on Terror or Countering Extremism-programs can all be seen as a means to narrow the space in which it is possible to be Muslim.

Defaming and Delegitimating Active Muslim Citizenship: The “Muslim Brotherhood”-Allegation

In an analysis of two Muslim civil society organizations in the UK, Shenaz Bunglawala shows how the state deployed offensive and defensive strategies to expand and maintain the position of domination and subsequently mark these organizations as illegitimate. Bunglawala argues:

If earlier counter-terrorism strategies were marked by a focus on violent extremism and the conferring by the state of ‘legitimacy’ on Muslim civil society actors through (dis)engagement, the current drive to tackle ‘non-violent extremism’ and the expansion of the state’s repertoire of disciplinary measures has left Muslim civil society actors not merely struggling to assert ‘contested’ practice but to engage in contestation at all. ³³

One possible means to exclude Muslim organizations from the field of civil society is to mark them as supporting non-violent extremism or representing or even being affiliated with some political Islam/radical/Islamist groups or patterns of thought. Using these fuzzy notions that are elastic in their use, it is easy to quickly mark an oppositional organization as being a threat to the society. In the USA, conservative politicians such as Senator Ted Cruz introduced the “Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act of 2017”, although with little success. Most Washington D.C.-based think tanks argued against such a designation amongst others because it is legally difficult to argue for such a designation. ³⁴ One reason is also, because many Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated political parties are participating in many parliaments in Muslim majority countries. According to then spokesman of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Corey Saylor, such an Act would have severe domestic impact: “The designation is more about domestic control of American Muslims than national security. It would open the gate to an anti-Muslim witch-hunt. As in the past, such a campaign would see witch-hunters smearing and defaming their political opposition and scapegoating an entire minority”. ³⁵ According to Arsalan Iftikhar, “Anti-Muslim activists and the Islamophobia industry have long used the ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ label as a very sloppy shorthand to refer to all American Muslim civic organizations, politicians and government officials with whom they disagree”. ³⁶ He reminds us that these labels were not only used against Muslim civil society actors, but indeed against Muslim as well as Non-Muslim opponents to the conservatives. The most descriptive example is the US conservative Islamophobia network’s campaign against Barack Obama in spreading the conspiracy theory that he was not only Muslim, but that he was planning to create a global caliphate together with the Muslim Brotherhood. ³⁷ Similar to the conspiracy of a Jewish world domination, the usefulness of the alleged takeover of the world by the Muslim Brotherhood is that real facts are mixed with sheer imagination. Obviously, the Muslim Brotherhood is real and not an invention. And because it has become a global movement with strong as well as loose affiliations and impacted the Islamic discourse at large, it makes it easy to link any possible Muslim organization to them. While single Jewish families such as Rockefeller and Rothschild were in fact owning banks, this is neither a proof that every Jew takes part in a this wealth, nor is it a proof that these families rule the world as it is claimed by anti-Semitic conspiracists. Similarly, while the Muslim Brotherhood is an influential organization that originated in Egypt has branches all over the world and its impact goes beyond its formal organization, it is neither a very powerful organization beyond few Muslim majority countries (and persecuted in many countries like Egypt), nor has it a strong hold in Europe. But it is real and this makes it easy for conspirators to use it for spreading theories about world domination attempts. These theories are so wide spread that even high government representatives such as the president of the Czech Republic, Milos Zeman, argued the influx of refugees into Europe in 2015 was masterminded by Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. ³⁸

A trait of most of the experts of the EFD team is their focus on the Muslim Brotherhood and claiming its influence in nearly every Muslim Civil Organization that plays a significant role in the respective nation state. During the above mentioned event in the European Parliament with EFD director Roberta Bonazzi, many argued that so-called Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood are “relevant examples, stressing that those share the same goals of ISIS, i.e. the creation of an Islamic state, only differing as to the means of achieving it”. ³⁹ This assertion allows for the widening of the Muslim threat, including not only violent extremists, but putting potentially every Muslim civil society organization under suspicion.

EFD senior fellow Valentina Colombo argues in an article published by the right-wing think tank “The Gatestone Institute” that the Muslim Brotherhood is even connected to terrorist organizations. ⁴⁰ As she said in another piece: “Islamist movements have different tactics… but their goal is always the same: Get in and impose sharia law to establish an Islamic state”. ⁴¹ And senior fellow Lorenzo Vidino already declared in 2005 before joining EFD in other conservative think tanks:

What most European politicians fail to understand is that by meeting with radical organizations, they empower them and grant the Muslim Brotherhood legitimacy. There is an implied endorsement to any meeting, especially when the same politicians ignore moderate voices that do not have access to generous Saudi funding. This creates a self-perpetuating cycle of radicalization because the greater the political legitimacy of the Muslim Brotherhood, the more opportunity it and its proxy groups will have to influence and radicalize various European Muslim communities. ⁴²

Using again vague notions such as “radicalization”, Vidino declares that Europe’s leading Muslim civil society organizations all as connected to the Muslim Brotherhood. In another piece published by one of the conservative think tanks, Hudson Institute, Vidino concludes: “It is not unreasonable to assume, therefore, that should it become convenient for them to do so, the ever-flexible Brotherhood would embrace violent tactics in the West as well”. ⁴³

Also, other EFD fellows regularly warn of a threat by Muslims by expanding the notion of “radical”: In an op-ed in the center-right, liberal-conservative German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), Mansour argues that there are three groups of radicalization: At the top, it is Al Qaida and Daesh, followed by the Muslim Brotherhood including Erdogan, and then by the “Generation Allah”, who might be prone to this radical version of Islam. ⁴⁴ These “experts” regularly overstate f.i. when stating that a child wearing a headscarf is an “abuse” and calls for a general ban of the headscarf for pedagogues and teachers. ⁴⁵ EFD fellow Mansour is also available to call to designate Muslim civil society actors—especially young and vocal ones—as radical and connected to MB ideology. ⁴⁶

A similar strategy can be found with the Italy-based EFD fellow Valentina Colombo. She regularly writes about the MB in Italy. If one believes her, the MB was “silently carrying out its invasion even in Milan’s local election” in 2016, where a young Muslim, Maryan Ismail, ran for elections for the Milanese left. ⁴⁷ She regularly warns of the alleged influence of the MB in Italy. According to her, “the Muslim Brotherhood is ‘infiltrating’ European societies in order to conquer the world ideologically and politically”. ⁴⁸ Hence, only the means, but not the goals would differ from Al Qaida or Daesh.

EFD fellow Colombo also argues in German newspapers that one of the most vocal and known Muslim representatives in media, Ayman Mazyek of the Zentralrat der Muslime would have an ideological affinity to the MB. She explains that the MB’s aim is to seek power and fully integrate in the institutions and become a political reference. ⁴⁹ Also EFD fellow Vidino gives his opinion on the MB in London, ⁵⁰ the “Muslim world”, ⁵¹ and the West in general. ⁵²

In the following section, I will show, what role EFD fellows play in the defamation strategies of Muslim civil societies and what patterns we can conclude from that based on two cases, Austria and Sweden.

Case Studies

Austria

Austria is an interesting case to study, since it is a country with a genuine legal tradition of incorporating Islam as a religion and the respective Islamic Religious Community as an official religious community that serves as an interlocutor for the stare to take care of the affairs of Muslim religious lives. Hence, Austria was for a long time well known for its comparable tolerant church-state relation in regard to Muslims. Islam and the Islamic Religious Community were legally recognized in 1912. In 1979, the constitution of the Islamic Religious Community in Austria (Islamische Glaubensgemeinschaft in Österreich) was approved based on the recognition of Islam in 1912 and is today one of 17 legally recognized churches. As a consequence to this legal recognition, Islamic religious classes are provided in public school for Muslim pupils as is the case with other legally recognized churches. Also, the Islamic Religious Community has pastoral service in the military and prison. All of these services are organized by the Islamic Religious Community and funded by the state. Its representatives are regularly included in policy-making issues pertaining their religious life. ⁵³ Since nearly all different strands of Islamic organizations are part of the Islamic Religious Community, Austria serves as an ideal example for a country with a tradition of great tolerance. Among them are also smaller Muslim Brotherhood-influenced Arab organizations, while the majority of mostly but not only Turkish-origin organizations represent other institutions. ⁵⁴

But with the implementation of the new Islam Act in 2015, this legal framework from 1912 risked to become replaced by a new one that identified Muslims as a security threat and no more as an equal religious voice within the landscape of Austria’s diverse religious communities. When the protest of the Muslim civil society started to form, ⁵⁵ soon the opposition was declared “radical” by certain news media. ⁵⁶ Amongst the most influential Muslim organizations next to the Islamic Religious Community is the Austrian Muslim Youth, an organization created in 1996 by young Muslims of different ethnicities, which shifted its focus on domestic issues of young people. Like with other youth organizations, the Austrian state with its highly institutionalized corporatism system funds its volunteer youth work. Also, the Austrian Muslim Youth is part of the Austrian Federal Youth Council and also elected amongst its leadership. ⁵⁷ It traditionally had a communication channel to all political parties and was widely seen as a moderate voice of Muslims and progressive force fostering education, feminism, and political participation.

But after the government had published its draft for a new Islam Act in late 2014, and the Austrian Muslim Youth started a campaign consisting of several press conferences and a citizenship initiative that mobilized more than 20,000 voters against the new Act, media for the first time turned against them. The first attacks were clear in their message, but not openly definable in terms of the sources. Tabloid press headlined “Radicals Hijack Muslim Youth. Muslim Brotherhood out of Social Democrats. Hate Campaign against Islam Act”. ⁵⁸ The first articles mentioned that their informants would be “parts of the government” that would not want to be mentioned. Another tabloid press headlined “Instead of fighting Radicalisation. Uproar in Muslim youth because of Posting”. Numerous such articles were spread following the protest organized by the youth organization. ⁵⁹ But the most important role was played by a senior fellow of the EFD, Lorenzo Vidino. In an interview with the daily Kurier that argued that “there are hints that suggest that the Austrian Muslim Youth belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood”, Vidino argued that “there are strong relations to people, who are influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood”. ⁶⁰ Therefore, Vidino sees the Austrian Muslim Youth as “ideologically within this milieu”. At the same time he states that it is “difficult to characterize somebody simply as a Muslim Brother”. ⁶¹ Based on this statement, numerous newspapers took the information and argued that the Austrian Muslim Youth had ideological and organizational relations to the Muslim Brotherhood. While in fact Vidino, who with his publication only said that the Austrian Muslim Youth had relations to people who in turn have relations to other people from the Muslim Brotherhood. But since Vidino, who is widely published on the Muslim Brotherhood especially in the West, including publication houses like Cambridge University Press, his statement is taken as one of an “expert”.

While the Austrian Muslim Youth took legal action against most newspapers like weekly Profil, daily Heute, ⁶² and succeeded, ⁶³ this statement of Vidino was hard to sue, since he never really said that the Austrian Muslim Youth was part of the Muslim Brotherhood, which the youth organization had spurned. Also, the proceedings took their time and some of them are still ongoing. Hence, the allegation against the Austrian Muslim Youth to be connected to the Muslim Brotherhood has been perpetuated again and again.

Shortly before the federal elections in October 2017, Lorenzo Vidino published a report entitled “The Muslim Brotherhood in Austria”, ⁶⁴ funded by the ministry of interior, the Austrian Integration Fund (basically an outsourced section of the ministry of integration and foreign affairs), the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the University of Vienna. Looking at these institutions, I argue that it was mainly an initiative supported by the Christian Conservative People’s Party (ÖVP) under the leadership of the current chancellor Sebastian Kurz, who was also the main actor for the amended Islam Act of 2015. Kurz became famous for co-opting the anti-Muslim positions of the right-wing populist FPÖ like for instance claiming the general shut down of Muslim kindergartens. ⁶⁵ In this report, Vidino accuses the most important Muslim voices as having “some ties to the Brotherhood”. And the Brotherhood, according to him, endangers social cohesion, since it aims to create a “parallel society”. Clearly, with Vidino’s flexible definition of who belongs to the Brotherhood, not only are members named, but every potentially relevant Muslim activist in the broadest sense is potentially under attack, from the president of the Islamic Religious Community to the only Muslim member of the Viennese Council with a link to the Muslim community. More importantly, Vidino’s report serves to target potentially every Muslim organization. While Vidino from a distance in Washington D.C. and Brussels is only giving hints, his commentators back in Austria are speaking out more openly to ban the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe and thus support investigation of anyone allegedly associated with this group. ⁶⁶ With this broad definition, they clearly target most Muslim institutions and hence Islam itself. Since the report was published shortly before the elections on October 15 and was overshadowed by a journalist’s investigation story on dirty campaigning, ⁶⁷ there has been little obvious resonance to this report, which might still come, since the new coalition of the People’s Party and the right-wing FPÖ has taken a harsher stance towards fighting “political Islam”. ⁶⁸

Sweden

In Sweden, religious freedom has been guaranteed since 1951 in the Federal constitution. Muslims organize various welfare, religious and cultural activities under the laws of association. The Swedish Commission for Government Support to Religious Communities (SST) under the Ministry of Culture provides religious minorities with state funding in different categories. In 2008, there were five Muslim organisations that were provided by state funds from the federal government; the ISS (Islamiska Shia-Samfundeni Sverige—Islamic Shi’a Community of Sweden), ⁶⁹ the oldest organisation, Förenade Islamiska Församlingari Sverige (Union of Islamic Congregations in Sweden, FIFS, which was set up in 1974, ⁷⁰ a split off founded in 1982, the Swedish Muslim Union (Sveriges Muslimska Förbund, SMF). These two organizations are also cooperating under the roof of Swedish Islamic Religious Community (Sveriges Muslimska Råd, SMR). In the beginning of the 1980s, the Union of Islamic Cultural Centres (Islamiska Kulturcenterunionen, IKUS), which is influenced by the Süleymanci movement, was established. Also, the Swedish Islamic Assemblies (Svenska Islamiska Församlingar, SIF), established in 2002, is funded. ⁷¹ As in most other European countries, there also exist Muslim youth movements such as the most significant in Sweden, the Young Muslims of Sweden (Sveriges Unga Muslimer, SUM). ⁷² It receives funds from MUCF (Swedish Agency for Youth and Civil Society). ⁷³ The SUM was founded in 1990 and is often seen as a promoter of what has been called a “Blue-and-Yellow” Islam (representing the colors of the Swedish national flag) encouraging Muslims to find ways to live their faith as Swedish people, while participating in the society. ⁷⁴

In Sweden, EFD senior fellow Magnus Norell published a similar report entitled “The Muslim Brotherhood in Sweden” together with Aje Carlbom and Pierre Durrani, the latter having a Bachelor degree and claiming to be a former member of the Muslim Brotherhood and thus claiming to possess “considerable inside information”. ⁷⁵ The report was published in February 2017 by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (Myndigheten för samhällsskydd och beredskap, MSB), which is a Swedish administrative authority, organized under the Ministry of Defence and responsible for public safety, risk management and civil defense. ⁷⁶

The report was also published in English by the Clarion Project. ⁷⁷ This is amongst the most Islamophobic think tanks with funding connections to the most Islamophobic actors such as Frank Gaffney and Daniel Pipes. ⁷⁸ Based in New York City, the Clarion Project amongst others produced several anti-Muslim films like “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West” and “The Third Jihad”. The first was distributed to more than 28 million swing-state voters before the 2008 presidential election.

The report is based on a study held from November to December 2016. According to it, on one side the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the Swedish society and its political parties since the 1970’s, while on the other side, the authors argue that the MB strives to become the representatives of the Muslim minorities to the authorities. The authors assert that the MB is creating a “parallel society” to Islamize Sweden. Next to a detailed critique by Torbjörn Jerlerup, ⁷⁹ 22 Swedish academic scholars in religious studies published a reaction to the report, in which they criticized it fundamentally as unserious. ⁸⁰ According to them, the claim to see the MB as a “unified and organized, but secretive, powerful and ‘spiritual brotherhood’ with a clear political agenda” is lacking every empirical evidence. While—in contrast to the vast literature on the MB in general and the MB in Sweden—the organization is even characterized as an anti-democratic, violent and society-destructive organization, the authors also ignore intra-Muslim divisions and struggles. The critics do not argue that there “maybe individuals and maybe also organizations in Sweden who have sympathies with and/or direct links with the Muslim Brotherhood”, ⁸¹ but see no value in the produced report. According to the report, many Muslim civil society organizations such as Studieförbundet Ibn Rushd, SMU, and Islamiska Förbundet i Sverige (IFIS) are Swedish associations of the MB. ⁸² According to the authors, also the SMR ⁸³ and the SMF are ideologically related to the MB. ⁸⁴

In other writings, Norell even goes several steps further in his assessment of the MB: “Segregation is promoted for the reason of maintaining control”. ⁸⁵ According to him, “the end-goal is the same whether you advocate a non-militant strategy (which the Brotherhood usually does in Europe) or a more militant activist strategy”. ⁸⁶ He argues that for the MB, it is important to establish “a parallel ‘Islamic civil society’ with its own schools, kindergartens, hospitals, cultural centers, mosques, and other types of institutions” referring to the notion of “a ‘soft’ apartheid-thinking that Muslims and non-Muslims should live in two different worlds”. The dangerous consequences, which he derives from that is “decreased trust and social disintegration of society at large.” ⁸⁷

While also serious scholars like Göran Larsson, who criticized the report, hold that some organizations like the SMF and the FIFS (both under SMR) are influenced in ideological terms by the Muslim Brotherhood movement, ⁸⁸ the aimed policy impact as reflected in the writings of EFD scholar Norell is to exclude organized efforts of Muslims, the Muslim civil society landscape, in general from the political field. The state agency MSB quietly distanced itself by stating that “it does not back the report”, ⁸⁹ which did not qualify as “research”. ⁹⁰ Nevertheless, the Swedish Youth Agency MUCF rejected the SUM’s application for government grants based on the “findings”. Since grants can only be obtained if an organization respects democracy, MUCF declined SUM’s proposal for 2017 due to its alleged “links with the Muslim Brotherhood”. SUM took MUCF to court and in November, 2017, the Administrative Court of Appeal upheld SUM’s complaint. ⁹¹

Conclusion

Clearly, we can speak of the EFD as an elite social movement from above. As a think tank that is funded by wealthy donors, it emerges, and its followers are embedded, in a politically conservative milieu. EFD fellows are located in the corridors of power. Their experts produce knowledge for highly subsidized state institutions, as both case studies show. Hence, they obviously have a privileged access to political decision-making and financial resources, although one may argue that anti-racist organizations are also funded in different European countries such as Austria and Sweden. They intend to influence policy making on federal government level as well as in the European Union. While think tanks and philanthropy is less spread and developed in Europe compared to the US, it is surely interesting to further investigate if the significant role of think tanks in the production of Islamophobia can also be observed within other political fields or if this is a development sui generis.

In this article, I showed that the EFD as a Brussels-based think tank with transatlantic relations systematically produces knowledge about Muslims that follows a strategy of defamation and delegitimization. It especially draws on the allegation of a connection between visible Muslim civil society actors and the Muslim Brotherhood. The conspiracy lies not only in the construction of a connection, but rather in the accusation of a unified agenda of social destructiveness and world domination, a planned Islamization of Europe. To be clear: Neither is the Muslim Brotherhood a phantom or non-existent and of no impact. The Muslim Brotherhood—in ideological terms—is one of the most powerful Islamist organizations, but one that has also evolved around time and circumstances and is everything but static and homogenous. But I claim that the EFD fellows are not really interested in understanding the Muslim Brotherhood’s impact, but are rather following a strategy of defamation and delegitimization of Muslim civil society organizations. Most of the attacked actors are not affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood but are rather known to be the most vocal Muslim voice in media, important stakeholders, or often represent the younger generation that actively supports political participation and citizenship. It is an attempt by the Islamophobes to narrow down the epistemological and political space for the Muslim subject in European nation states or in the West at large.

As we can see, the discourse on terrorism and extremism/radicalism is used against vocal Muslims and organizations to dismantle, disable and discharge from the civic and political activism, because Islamophobia as a form of epistemological racism does not allow the Muslim subject to even have a voice. The only voices being heard are the “native informants”, ⁹² who confirm and reproduce Islamophobia. When Muslim organizations are defamed and delegitimized, their space of action becomes severely reduced, as both cases reveal. In the Swedish case, the Swedish Agency for Youth and Civil Society stopped funding the Muslim youth organization following the publication of the report. In the Austrian case, media attacks on the Muslim youth organization impacted the way the organization could navigate following these accusations. Having to defend themselves and by that investing financial and human resources to challenge these allegations in court, media and political circles, they were interrupted in their civil society activism. There is a great need to provide more in-depth analyses on the role of think tanks in Europe regarding the role it plays in the production of Islamophobia and specifically in defamation and delegitimization of Muslim civil society actors. Also, the attempt to create an alternative Muslim identity by these think tanks, which I just implied but have not delved deeply in this article, is important to examine more. ⁹³

Notes

• 1. W. Ali, E. Clifton, M. Duss, L. Fang, S. Keyes, and F. Shakir, “Fear, Inc. The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America,” Center for American Progress, August 2011, https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/2011/08/pdf/islamophobia.pdf.

• 2. M. Duss, Y. Taeb, K. Gude, and K. Sofer, “Fear, Inc. 2.0. The Islamophobia Network’s Efforts to Manufacture Hate in America,” Center for American Progress, February 2015, https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/FearInc-report2.11.pdf.

• 3. Confronting Fear: Islamophobia and Its Impact in the U.S. 2013–2015, UC Berkeley, http://www.islamophobia.org/images/ConfrontingFear/Final-Report.pdf.

• 4. N. Massoumi, T. Mills, and D. Miller, What Is Islamophobia? Racism, Social Movements, and the State (London: Pluto Press, 2017).

• 5. The Counter-Jihad Movement is made up of mixed and disparate people and organisation who agree that the Western civilisation is under attack by Islam. Important counter-jihad organisations or anti-Muslim websites, news portals according to HOPE not hate. See N. Lowles and J. Muhall (2015). The Counter Jihad Movement, published by HOPE not HATE; L. Benjamin. “Why We Fight: Understanding the Counter-Jihad Movement.” Religion Compass 10, no. 10 (2016): 257–265.

• 6. N. Massoumi, T. Mills, and D. Miller, “Islamophobia, Social Movements and the State: For a Movement-Centered Approach,” in What Is Islamophobia? Racism, Social Movements, and the State, ed. N. Massoumi, T. Mills, and D. Miller (London: Pluto Press, 2017), 4.

• 7. Ibid., 17–19.

• 8. N. Massoumi, T. Mills, and D. Miller, “The Neoconservative Movement: Think Tanks as Elite Elements of Social Movements from Above,” in What Is Islamophobia? Racism, Social Movements, and the State, ed. N. Massoumi, T. Mills, and D. Miller (London: Pluto Press, 2017), 215.

• 9. Ibid., 216.

• 10. Ibid.

• 11. T. Archer, “Breivik’s Mindset: The Counterjihad and the New Transatlantic Anti-Muslim Right,” in Extreme Right Wing Political Violence and Terrorism, eds. M. Taylor, P. M. Currie, and Donald Holbrook (New York: Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2013), 169–185.

• 12. F. Hafez, “Shifting Borders: Islamophobia as Common Ground for Building Pan-European Right-Wing Unity,” Patterns of Prejudice 48, no. 5 (2014): 479–499.

• 13. S. Marusek, “The Transatlantic Network: Funding Islamophobia and Israeli Settlement,” in What Is Islamophobia?, ed. N. Massoumi, et al. (2017), 186–214.

• 14. Wajahat Ali et al., “Fear, Inc. 1,” 14–15.

• 15. Ibid.

• 16. S. Marusek, “The Transatlantic Network,” in What Is Islamophobia?, ed. N. Massoumi, et al. (2017), 187–190.

• 17. Ibid., 191.

• 18. Ibid., 194–196.

• 19. Ibid., 197.

• 20. Ibid., 198.

• 21. Ibid., 203.

• 22. Ibid., 204.

• 23. “Experts: Roberta Bonazzi,” European Foundation for Democracy, 2018, http://europeandemocracy.eu/expert/roberta/.

• 24. C. D. May, “Muslims Attacked!,” National Review, 12 January 2012, http://www.nationalreview.com/article/287918/muslims-attacked-clifford-d-may.

• 25. “About Us,” European Foundation for Democracy, 2018, http://europeandemocracy.eu/about-us/.

• 26. Ibid.

• 27. Pearl TV Channel, “‘Antidotes to Islamist Extremism’—European Parliament on 2nd May 2017—Panel 3,” YouTube, May 20, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_9dJBzuMGQ.

• 28. S. Bunglawala, “The ‘War on Terror’ and the Attack on Muslim Civil Society,” in What Is Islamophobia?, ed. N. Massoumi, et al., (2017), 101.

• 29. S. Sayyid, Recalling the Caliphate. Decolinization and World Order (London: C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 2014), 8.

• 30. F. Hafez, “Schulen der Islamophobieforschung: Vorurteil, Rassismus und dekoloniales Denken,” Islamophobia Studies Yearbook 8 (2017): 9–29.

• 31. R. Grosfoguel, “Epistemic Islamophobia and Colonial Social Sciences.” Human Architecture 8, no. 2 (2010): 29–38.

• 32. Ibid., 3.

• 33. S. Bunglawala, “The ‘War on Terror’,” in What Is Islamophobia?, ed. N. Massoumi, et al., (2017), 99.

• 34. R. Tanter and E. Stafford, “Designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a Terrorist Organization Is a Bad Idea,” March 3, 2017, http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/03/designating-the-muslim-brotherhood-as-a-terrorist-organization-is-a-bad-idea/.

• 35. A. Iftikhar, Protocols of the Elders of Mecca, The Islamic Monthly, December 18, 2017, https://www.theislamicmonthly.com/protocols-elder.

• 36. Ibid.

• 37. F. Hafez, “Islamophobe Weltverschwörungstheorien,” Journal für Psychologie 21, no. 1 (2013): 1–22.

• 38. AFP, “Integrating Muslims into Europe Is ‘Impossible’, Says Czech President,” The Guardian, January 18, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/18/integrating-muslims-into-europe-is-impossible-says-czech-president.

• 39. EU Reporter Correspondent, “Ideology: The Driving Force Behind #Radicalization?,” Eureporter, March 1, 2017, https://www.eureporter.co/frontpage/2017/03/01/ideology-the-driving-force-behind-radicalization/.

• 40. V. Colombo, “The Muslim Brotherhood and Terrorist Organizations,” Gatestone, May 6, 2014, https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4297/muslim-brotherhood-ansar-bayt-al-maqdis.

• 41. V. Colombo, “The Muslim Brotherhood’s ‘Peaceful Conquest’,” Gatestone, May 28, 2014, https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4299/muslim-brotherhood-peaceful-conquest.

• 42. L. Vidino, “The Muslim Brotherhood’s Conquest of Europe,” Middle East Forum, 2005, http://www.meforum.org/687/the-muslim-brotherhoods-conquest-of-europe.

• 43. L. Vidino, “Aims and Methods of Europe’s Muslim Brotherhood,” Hudson Institute, November 1, 2006, https://www.hudson.org/research/9776-aims-and-methods-of-europe-s-muslim-brotherhood.

• 44. A. Mansour, “Salafisten machen die bessere Sozialarbeit,” FAZ, September 28, 2015, http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/buecher/islamismus-salafisten-machen-die-bessere-sozialarbeit-13826637.html.

• 45. L. Nimmervoll, and Ahmad Mansour: “Ein Kind mit Kopftuch ist Missbrauch,” Der Standard, October 9, 2016, https://derstandard.at/2000045516816/Ahmad-Mansour-Ein-Kind-mit-Kopftuch-ist-Missbrauch.

• 46. B. Stritzel, “Islamismus-Experte kritisiert Radikal-Imam,” Bild, January 4, 2018, http://www.bild.de/politik/inland/islamismus/experte-kritisiert-radikal-imam-54312298.bild.html.

• 47. V. Colombo, “Gli imam ‘global terrorist’ dell ‘Ucoii che fregheranno Alfano,” August 24, 2016, http://www.informazionecorretta.com/main.php?mediaId=115&sez=120&id=62177.

• 48. V. Colombo, “Il terrorismo islamico colpisce in tutto il mondo,” La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana, June 27, 2015, http://www.lanuovabq.it/it/il-terrorismo-islamico-colpisce-in-tutto-il-mondo.

• 49. K. Bauer, “Aiman Mazyek vom Zentralrats der Muslime: Der Islamverteidiger,” Badische Zeitung, July 17, 2015, http://www.badische-zeitung.de/deutschland-1/aiman-mazyek-vom-zentralrats-der-muslime-der-islamverteidiger--107829449.html.

• 50. L. Vidino, “For Too Long, London Has Been a Hub for the Muslim Brotherhood,” The Telegraph, October 19, 2014, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11171454/Lorenzo-Vidino-For-too-long-London-has-been-a-hub-for-the-Muslim-Brotherhood.html.

• 51. K. Calamur, “Muslim Brotherhood: A Force Throughout the Muslim World,” NPR, August 17, 2013, https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2013/08/17/212583097/muslim-brotherhood-a-force-throughout-the-muslim-world.

• 52. L. Vidino, “The West and the Muslim Brotherhood After the Arab Spring,” Foreign Policy Research Institute, March 1, 2013, http://europeandemocracy.eu/2013/03/the-west-and-the-muslim-brotherhood-after-the-arab-spring/.

• 53. H. Kalb, R. Potz, and B. Schinkele, Religionsrecht, Wien 2002 (Wien: WUV, 2007), 25.

• 54. F. Hafez, “One Representing the Many, Institutionalized Austrian Islam,” in Debating Islam. Negotiating Religion, Europe, and the Self, Bielefeld, eds. S. Behloul, S. Leuenberger, and A. Tunger-Zanetti (Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2013), 227–242.

• 55. F. Hafez, “Muslim Protest Against Austria’s Islam Law. An Analysis of Austrian Muslim’s Protest Against the 2015 Islam Law,” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 37, no. 3 (2017), 267–283.

• 56. F. Hafez, “Die MJÖ als Projektionsfläche für Verschwörungen,” in Jung, muslimisch, österreichisch. Einblicke in 20 Jahre Muslimische Jugend Österreich, eds. Farid Hafez, Reinhard Heinisch, Raoul Kneucker, and Regina Polak (Vienna: New Academic Press & Alhamra, 2016).

• 57. F. Hafez, “Whose Austria? Muslim Youth Challenge Nativist and Closed Notions of Austrian Identity,”Anthropology of the Middle East 12, no. 1 (Summer 2017), 38–51.

• 58. E. Nuller, Radikale kapern Muslimische Jugend. Initiative Muslimbrü-der raus aus der SPÖ. Hass-Kampagne gegen Islamgesetz 29 (Oktober 2014), Seite 4.

• 59. F. Hafez, “Die MJÖ als Projektionsfläche für Verschwörungen,” in Jung, muslimisch, österreichisch, ed. F. Hafez, et al., p. 315.

• 60. “Österreich ist eine gute Basis für Muslimbrüder,” Kurier, November 11, 2014, http://kurier.at/politik/inland/oesterreich-ist-eine-gute-basis-fuer-muslimbrueder/96.304.361.

• 61. Ibid.

• 62. MJÖ, “Gegendarstellung der Muslimischen Jugend Österreich,” Heute, August 29, 2017, http://www.heute.at/politik/news/story/Multiethnische-Jugend---begehrt-folgende-Gegendarstellung-46754194.

• 63. Profil, “Richtigstellung: Muslimische Jugend Österreich (MJÖ),” Profil, May 9, 2015, https://www.profil.at/oesterreich/richtigstellung-muslimische-jugend-oesterreich-mjoe-5638610.

• 64. L. Vidino, “The Muslim Brotherhood in Austria,” GW Programm on Extremism, August 2017, https://extremism.gwu.edu/sites/extremism.gwu.edu/files/MB%20in%20Austria-%20Print.pdf.

• 65. “‘We Don’t Need Them’: Austrian FM Wants to End Islamic Kindergartens to Boost Integration,” Russia Today, June 22, 2017, https://www.rt.com/news/393550-austria-closure-islamic-kindergartens/.

• 66. “Studie über Muslimbruderschaft: Beträchtlicher Einfluss,” Religion ORF, September 15, 2017, http://religion.orf.at/stories/2866308/.

• 67. B. Tóth, F. Klenk, J. Redl, and N. Horaczek, “Die Affäre Silberstein,” Falter 40/17, October 3, 2017, https://www.falter.at/archiv/wp/die-affaere-silberstein.

• 68. F. Hafez, “Austria’s New Programme for Government En Route to a Restrictive Policy on Islam?,” qantara.de, December 21, 2017, https://en.qantara.de/content/austrias-new-programme-for-government-en-route-to-a-restrictive-policy-on-islam.

• 69. G. Larsson, “Sweden,” in Yearbook of Muslims in Europe, ed. J. S. Nielsen, S. Akgönül, A. Alibašić, B. Maréchal, and C. Moe (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2010), 498–499.

• 70. Ibid., 500.

• 71. Ibid., 500.

• 72. Ibid., 501.

• 73. “Vi har fått bidrag - Organisationsbidrag, Projektbidrag, EU-bidrag | MUCF,” April 13, 2017, https://www.mucf.se/vi-har-fatt-bidrag?org=Sveriges%20Unga%20Muslimer&projekt=&bidragsnamn=&bidragstyp=All&ort=&beviljatar=All.

• 74. S. Olsson, “Religion in the Public Space: ‘Blue-and-Yellow Islam’ in Sweden,” Religion, State & Society 37 no. 3 (2009) (277–289), 282.

• 75. M. Norell, A. Carlbom, and P. Durrani, The Muslim Brotherhood in Sweden, 2017, https://clarionproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Muslim-Brotherhood-Sweden-Magnus-Norrell.pdf, 4.

• 76. M. Norell, A. Carlbom, and P. Durrani, “Muslimska Brödraskapet i SverigeRed,” 2017, https://www.msb.se/Upload/Kunskapsbank/Studier/Muslimska_Brodraskapet_i_Sverige_DNR_2107-1287.pdf.

• 77. M. Norell, “The Muslim Brotherhood in Sweden,” Zeitung, October 10, 2017, https://clarionproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Muslim-Brotherhood-Sweden-Magnus-Norrell.pdf.

• 78. “Clarion Project,” Islamophobia Network, https://islamophobianetwork.com/organization/clarion-project/.

• 79. T. Jerlerup, “Muslimska Brödraskapet – eller: att anklaga utan bevis!,” Ligator Wordpress, February 26, 2017, https://ligator.wordpress.com/2017/02/26/muslimska-brodraskapet-eller-att-anklaga-utan-bevis/.

• 80. “Undermålig forskning i svensk myndighetsrapport,” Religionsvetenskaplig omvärldsanalys, March 2, 2017, http://religionsvetenskapligakommentarer.blogspot.co.at/2017/03/debatt-undermalig-forskning-i-svensk.html.

• 81. Ibid.

• 82. M. Norell et al., Muslim Brotherhood in Sweden, 9–11.

• 83. Ibid., 17.

• 84. Ibid., 21.

• 85. M. Norell, “The Muslim Brotherhood in Sweden,” Huffington Post, July 9, 2017, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/magnus-norell/the-muslim-brotherhood-in_1_b_10880432.html.

• 86. Ibid.

• 87. Ibid.

• 88. G. Larsson, S. Sorgenfrei, and G. Larsson, “Sweden,” in Yearbook of Muslims in Europe, vol. 9, eds. J. S. Nielsen, O. Scharbrodt, and A. Alibašić (Leiden and Boston: Brill), 657–658.

• 89. MSBs Anneli Bergholm Söder, quoted in Kasurinen, Anton, “Vi vet väldigt lite om Muslimska brödraskapet,” SVT, March 3, 2017. https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/msb-vi-faktagranskar-inte-rapporter.

• 90. MSB om förstudien Muslimska brödraskapet i Sverige, MSB, March 3, 2017. https://www.msb.se/sv/Om-MSB/Nyheter-och-press/Nyheter/Nyheter-fran-MSB/MSB-om-forstudien-Muslimska-brodraskapet-i-Sverige/.

• 91. M. Gardell and M. Muftee, “Islamophobia in Sweden,” in European Islamophobia Report 2017, eds. F. Hafez and E. Bayrakli (Ankara: SETA), 617–646.

• 92. G. C. Spivak, “In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics” (London: Routledge, 1988).

• 93. All online references were accessed on 5th January 2018.