0% found this document useful (0 votes)
5 views16 pages

Cultural and Religious Racism Explained

Uploaded by

mariajosemeram
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
0% found this document useful (0 votes)
5 views16 pages

Cultural and Religious Racism Explained

Uploaded by

mariajosemeram
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

SAGE Books

Islamophobia: History, Context and


Deconstruction
Cultural and Religious Racism

By: Zafar Iqbal


Book Title: Islamophobia: History, Context and Deconstruction
Chapter Title: "Cultural and Religious Racism"
Pub. Date: 2020
Access Date: October 8, 2022
Publishing Company: SAGE Publications Pvt Ltd
City: Mathura Road
Print ISBN: 9789353286958
Online ISBN: 9789353287863
DOI: [Link]
Print pages: 158-186
© 2020 SAGE Publications Pvt Ltd All Rights Reserved.
This PDF has been generated from SAGE Knowledge. Please note that the pagination of the online
version will vary from the pagination of the print book.
SAGE SAGE Books
© Zafar Iqbal, 2020

Cultural and Religious Racism


Cultural and religious racism

Historical Perspective of Racism and Religious Racism


The ‘blood libels’ against Jews that started in the medieval times were established with a conviction that
blood could pass on holy or mysterious properties. The idea, verifiable in these allegations, that Christian
blood contrasted from Jewish was unmistakably attested in the 16th-century Spanish notion of limpieza de
sangre.1 In any case, the way that distinctive assortments of creatures of similar species could interbreed,
as could all people, implied that such pre-current hereditarianism did not debilitate the universal confidence
in the fundamental solidarity of mankind. In the 17th and 18th centuries and the past, the expression ‘race’
or its proportionate was additionally as often as possible used to allude to countries or communities—as in
‘races whether it is French race or white race?’ Whenever and wherever it was utilized, in any case, the term
inferred that ‘races’ had stable and probably unchangeable attributes (Smedley & Smedley, 2012).

The notion that Jews, overall and genetically, were the most conceivable awful human creatures was an
effective motivating force for their persecution. If it was considered true, then the revile fell on Jews in such
a way that they would never be exculpated of it; racism would probably be an appropriate term to define
the partiality against them. Nonetheless, the doctrine, as explained by Saint Augustine and others, that the
change of the Jews was a Christian obligation and basic to the salvation of the world, implied that the
immense hereditary sin was not a permanent and unrealistic wellspring of distinction. Anti-Judaism move,
towards becoming a discrimination against Jews, transformed into a devouring disdain that made disposing
of Jews appear to be desirable; in an attempt to change them, discrimination against Jews progressed
towards becoming prejudice when the conviction grabbed hold that Jews were characteristically and naturally
abhorrent as opposed to only having false convictions and wrong manners (D'Souza, 1995; Fredrickson,
1998).

The concept based on ‘White’ or ‘European race’ was slightly slow to evolve and until the 18th century,
this could not solidify. The previous experiences associated with Africans witness mindful hate, which was
commonly understood as based on religious affiliations and national identity, while it did not rest merely on
national identity but some particularly acquired characteristics. When social disparity on the basis of colour
was simply the general run among Europeans, shading coded bigotry had little extension for self-governing
improvement. In the new world, where European pigmentation could be promptly contrasted with that of dark
slaves or copper-coloured Indians, shading soon ended up completely and got replaced with a single notable
character. In the North American states, dark colour is still contrasted with the terms ‘Christian, free, English,
and white were for a long time utilized indiscriminately as metonyms’ (Peters & Wemheuer-Vogelaar, 2016).

To imagine racism as a characteristic and for all intents and almost inescapable human reaction to experience
with strangers is to take the subject outside of history and into the domain of psychology or sociobiology.
However, if we keep on thinking of it as an authentic development related with the ascent of innovation
and with particular national or global settings, we need to presume that it worked out as expected in the
20th century. Its two most tireless and harmful appearances—the colour-coded or White racial oppressor
assortment and discrimination against Jews in its naturalistic or common shape— achieved their sensible
extremes. Racial domination achieved its fullest ideological and institutional advancement in the Southern
United States between 1890 and 1950, and in South Africa between 1910 and 1980, particularly after 1948
(Fredrickson, 2015). Cell's (1982) origin of American and South African isolation as the ‘most noteworthy
phase of white domination attracts regard for the connection amongst modernization and legitimize racism’
(Kousser, 1983).

It is broadly trusted that racism remains a noteworthy worldwide issue at the beginning of the 21st century.
The term is in use in few countries and in a few circles to depict antagonistic vibe and discrimination against
a group for any reason; at times, utterly inexplicable. The French, for instance, some of the time use the
term to depict biases established on sexual orientation, sex or age. Generally, at times, the demonstration
SAGE Books - Cultural and Religious Racism
Page 2 of 16
SAGE SAGE Books
© Zafar Iqbal, 2020

of racializing the alternate seizes upon differential that are ‘ethnic’ in some sense (Banton, 1983; Horowitz,
1985).

Approaches to present-day racism or prejudice, ostensibly its first genuine expectation, were the treatment
of Jewish believers by the Christianity in the 15th- and 16th-century Spain. Conversos were distinguished
and victimized in view of the conviction held by a few Christians that the debasement of their blood made
them unequipped for encountering a genuine transformation. In the 12th and 13th centuries, Spain was, by
medieval principles, a tolerant plural society in which Christians, Muslims and Jews existed together in relative
congruity under Christian rulers who concurred a considerable level of self-government to every religious
group (Fredrickson, 1987).

In September 2001, the United Nations sponsored a World Conference against Racism, Racial
Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in Durban, South Africa. The use of numerous words
in conference title proposes that uncertainty may have existed in the matter as whether the sole expression
of ‘racism’ without much scholastic input was adequate to mean the dangers and persecutions, and would
concern the conferees. As a prologue to this chapter, efforts are exerted to make refinements among
prejudice, xenophobia, racial and religious narrow-mindedness. Xenophobia (truly the dread of outsiders) is
a primitive and virtually a universal phenomenon, while racism, it has been contended, has roots in mainly
14th- to 20th- century developments. Racism, based on religion, was drawn at individual level with his/her
religious identity and not how an individual presents himself/herself. Unlike racial characteristics, beliefs or
religious identities are viewed as normal and are alterable by a demonstration of will. It is helpful, as reminded
by Horowitz, that for some class outside the West, ‘religion is not a matter of faith but a given faith association/
identity, a necessary piece of their personality and for around an inseparable segment of their feeling of
people-hood’ (Horowitz, 1985). Yet Kundnani (2009) points out another way in which the dissident Muslims,
especially the young, construct somewhat differently presumed community from within of its whole.

Racism and racial bias are rising in the profundities of ultra-present-day Western social orders with various
qualities from the past, however, with an astounding and stressing destructiveness. These rushes of prejudice
and racism vouch for many feelings of trepidation that fill the skylines of cutting-edge social orders,
undermining their inside dependability as well as simply their majority democratic settings. Critically reviewed
audit of Islamophobia construct reveals it is a racial prejudice, demonstrating that two principle definitions are
grinding away: Islamophobia as xenoracism or connected to the supposed conflict of clash of civilizations
(Alietti & Padovan, 2013).

Types of Racism
Racism itself is a loaded and complex construct, which may not simply be used to indicate some kind of
aversion to a group of people; rather, the reasons for aversion or desecration are fundamentally significant to
name the behaviour. Hence, it becomes exceedingly crucial to understand as what different facets or kinds of
racism the available literature highlights and how are they defined. The following text would shed some light
on this.

Aversive Racism
Aversive racism is a type of racism in which a man's oblivious negative assessments of racial or ethnic
minorities are acknowledged by an industrious shirking of cooperation with other racial and ethnic gatherings.
The term was devised by Joel Kovel to portray the unobtrusive racial practices of any ethnic or racial group
that rationalizes its aversion for a specific community by offering standards or stereotypes (Gaertner &
Dovidio, 1986).

Some psychologists suggest that one may suffer from aversive racism even being unaware of it. This is
more often unintentional and unconscious among the people who intentionally avoid becoming racist in their
behaviour. Opposite to aversive racism would amount to blatant racism like being aversive to mixing with
coloured-skinned people. This is not merely the case with people with coloured skin, but this may also occur
within socially homogenous groups on the basis of some kind of clan or creed affiliation or even economic
SAGE Books - Cultural and Religious Racism
Page 3 of 16
SAGE SAGE Books
© Zafar Iqbal, 2020

heterogeneity. Usually, such racist attitude persists at subconscious level of an individual who could hardly
control its prevalence in his/her behaviour. Nonetheless, as it is at subconscious level and mostly people
avoid demonstrating their racial attitudes socially and individually, hence, it is quite challenging to notice such
racist feelings, except with highly structured modern gadgetry that uses better methods.

Racism in Cultural Perspective


Cultural differences are real and, at times, exist in imaginary terms; and in contemporary mediated world,
they are manufactured. In this kind of racism, not biological differences, but the differences in culture between
groups become the basis for divide. Modern and cosmopolitan societies deny cultural perspective of racism,
more specifically in the USA, but it is quite common to observe in many European countries. Recent bans
of women veiling and headscarf in many parts of Europe are indicative of the existence of cultural racism as
Muslims claim women veiling as their cultural and religious trait. Huntington (1993) also counts on it as the
fault line of future world conflicts, which would not be based on biological racism, but cultural differences or
cultural racism. Modern societies are colour blind, but culture sensitive.

Since the Second World War, cultural differences among the groups due to high influx of immigrants crossing
boundaries of the developed world have become visible, which raised serious concerns among the natives.
These concerns of various nature with or without any indignation to immigrants were termed as cultural
racism. It gave the world a fresh form of racism, which can be assumed with characteristic of convictions of
a particular society that progresses in presumption and is a result of given certain culture in which customs
and traditions of that particular society are far more superior than other societies. Cultural racism exists when
there is an across-the-board acknowledgment of stereotypes concerning distinctive ethnic or populace groups
(Blaut, 1992).

Othering Concept of Racism


‘Othering’ is one of the biggest social problems of the 21st century around the world, especially in Western
societies, beset by seemingly intractable and overwhelming challenges; virtually every global, national and
regional conflict is wrapped within or organized around one or more dimension of group-based difference.
Othering undergirds territorial disputes, sectarian violence, military conflict, the spread of disease, hunger and
food insecurity, and even climate change.

‘Othering’ is a term that not only encompasses the many expressions of racism and prejudice on the basis of
group identities but also provides a clarifying frame that reveals a set of common processes and conditions
that propagate group-based inequality and marginality. Although particular expressions of othering, such as
racism or ethno-centrism, are often well recognized and richly studied, this broader phenomenon is, however,
inadequately recognized.

The Haas Institute defines othering as a set of dynamics, processes and structures that engender marginality
and persistent inequality across any of the full range of human differences based on group identities
(Menendian, 2016). The opposite word of othering is ‘belonging’, which means having a meaningful voice
and being afforded the opportunity to participate in the design of political, social and cultural structures
(Menendian, 2016). A significant part of the procedure of othering depends on imagined distinction or the
desire of difference. Spatial difference can be sufficient to reason that ‘we’ are ‘here’ and the ‘others’ are over
‘there’ (Said, 1978).

The concept of othering, as developed by Powell and Menendian, is grounded in in-group position theory,
which comes from sociology. This theory posits that humans have a universal tendency to assign themselves
and others to social categories and to judge members of one's own category or group as superior to others.
This innate bias engenders beliefs and narratives about the inferiority of other groups that are deployed
particularly when there is a conflict over symbolic or real resources. These beliefs and narratives justify
the priority of the claims of one group over another. Conflict of this sort, in turn, reinforces beliefs in group
differences and produces new and narrow narratives. Social scientists have long referred to this process of
stereotyping other groups as ‘othering’. There are wide varieties of contemporary conflicts around the world
SAGE Books - Cultural and Religious Racism
Page 4 of 16
SAGE SAGE Books
© Zafar Iqbal, 2020

in which the dynamics of ‘othering’ appear to be important, including the persecution of the Rohingya people
by the government of Myanmar. Recent US actions by the President Donald Trump also demonstrate that
‘othering’ is also a socio-cultural and political position, which shocked and alarmed millions of Americans who
not only supported his intent to build a wall along the USA–Mexican border to keep out ‘criminals and rapists’
but also demanded a ban on Muslim immigrants, even Syrian refugees, from entering the USA. Mitt Romney,
the 2012 Republican nominee, condemned Donald Trump for ‘creating scapegoats of Muslims and Mexican
immigrants’.2

Environmental Racism
A few definitions hold that exclusive purposeful discrimination against minorities on issues with respect to
the earth constitutes environmental racism, while others concentrate on the nearness of hostile environment
conditions for minorities, deliberate or not. Benjamin Chavis, African American civil rights leader, points out
that (Melosi, 1995):

environmental racism is racial separation in environmental racism policy making and authorization of controls
and laws, the deliberate targeting of groups of shading for harmful waste facility areas, the authority endorsing
of the nearness of perilous toxic substances and contaminations for groups of shading, and the historical
backdrop of barring non-white individuals from initiative of the natural development.

Racial Segregation
Racial segregation is the separation of people into racial or other ethnic communities in everyday life. It
might transform into actions, for example, eating in a hotel, drinking from a water fountain, utilizing public
toilet, going to school, heading off to the cinema, riding on a transport or in the rental or buy of a home.
Racial segregation is mostly prohibited but may exist through social customs, notwithstanding when there
is no solid individual inclination for it, as recommended by Thomas Schelling's models of segregation and
further research (Schill & Wachter, 2001). Till the early 20th century, the world history is fraught with social
categorization on the basis of racial profiling whole across the world. Segregating people with coloured skin
does not need any reference, and during the colonization of the East, ‘dogs and Indians are not allowed’3
kind of instructions in elite clubs on Indian lands are also some of the glaring examples of racial segregation.

State Racism or Institutional Racism


In 1960, Stokely Carmichael coined the term institutional racism. This is a form of discrimination instituted
by either the state, religion, business companies, educational institutes or organizations/associations capable
of influencing the lives of people at large. It may also be regarded as the state racism, structural racism or
systemic racism. In case of inflicted by the state, it affects the social and political fabric of the society deeply.
If taken in a more sensitive manner, minority identification for political or social purposes in various countries
of the world demonstrates state racism. Declaration of minority groups in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and
others for political reasons may amount to state racism, which is constitutionally protected and practised
form of racism. Moving further on its subtleties, even the identification of a group as minority, whether or not
constitutionally declared, refers to state racism. Similarly, educational institutions prohibiting any cultural trait
of a specific group to be practised also constitute institutional racism. Recent banning of wearing veils or
headscarf at schools and colleges in France, Denmark and Switzerland is one of the conspicuous examples
of institutional or state racism towards a group of people, that is, what regarded as sheer demonstration of
Islamophobia in the hands of state or state institutions.

Scientific Racism
One of the most crucial form of racism is scientific racism, which says that racism towards certain groups
of people in the world may be substantiated with scientific reasoning. This form of racism is also regarded
as race realism and race biology. This may appear in the form of racial inferiority or racial superiority. This
form of racism may make one group of people as the special creatures of God or most inferior of the God's
SAGE Books - Cultural and Religious Racism
Page 5 of 16
SAGE SAGE Books
© Zafar Iqbal, 2020

creatures. It has long been an established notion among some races in the world; and finally after the Second
World War, international organizations formally put an end to this frivolous approach. Anti-Semitism may be
considered as one of such examples where Jews were considered as the worst creatures on the planet Earth.
Interestingly, its reverse seems to be in practice where some Jews consider themselves to be the privileged
and divinely ordained race to take over the world affairs. Zionism reflects the same.

Some examples are as follows: During his presidency, Abraham Lincoln in 1858 floated his views while
opposing slavery in the USA; he said that there is no political and social balance between White and Negro
race, nor he supported the Blacks to take part in voting or even as attendants. He was also against marriage
with Blacks and he did not see them to hold the public office. Scottish Philosopher and Financial Analyst
David Hume stated:

I am able to presume the Negroes to be normally second class compared to the Whites. There hardly ever
was a civilized nation of that color, nor even any individual, famous either in real life or in hypothesis. No
ingenious manufacture among them, no science, no arts. (Garrett, 2000)

German logician Immanuel Kant expressed, ‘The yellow Indians do have a small ability. The Negroes are far
underneath them, and at the lowest point are a part of the American people’ (Eze, 1997, p. 118).

In the 19th century, the German Scholar Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel proclaimed that ‘Africa is no recorded
piece of the world’ (Graness, 2016). Hegel furthered with saying that Blacks had no ‘feeling of identity; their
soul dozes, stays sunk in itself, makes no progress, and accordingly parallels the compact, undifferentiated
mass of the African continent’ (Graness, 2016).

Animal Racism or Speciesism


Humans hardly care for respecting animal rights. Any harsh treatment to them takes space in literature and
gets noticed quickly, while animals, as living organisms, do not enjoy any preferential treatment even closer
to what humans enjoy. We murder them for our sustenance, keep them restricted and use them in traumatic
laboratory experiments without any qualm of conscience or any feelings of disrespect to animal rights. The
ethic thinkers need to ask what applicable distinction vindicate this difference in treatment (Steinbock, 1978).
Singer (1987) said that non-human creatures do not have certain abilities that humans have, and this may
legitimize distinctive treatment. However, it does not uphold that giving less attention to their requirements
and interests is justified. A recent exhibition in China, —‘a series of diptychs, each one containing a photo of
an African person paired with the face of an animal’, titled ‘This is Africa’4—was criticized widely on both the
fronts, as racist in general and for animal racism in particular. The exhibit was called off afterwards.

Animal racism is also named as speciesism; however, when targeted as human, it is usually referred to
as human speciesism. Its connotation may well be understood when used in White supremacy over Black
coloured human beings. This faulty ethical assumption of sexist or racist, whether religious, cultural or any
other, does not legitimize this wrong belief that women or Negro/Blacks are way less brilliant, less truthful or
trustworthy than the White race. Although there is no reliable definition whether it were authentic that women
and Blacks are less determined and faithful than White race, nothing would allow anyone giving them less
importance in terms of human rights, their interests and requirements. The term speciesism is somewhat not
like the concepts of racism and sexism. The term itself tells the story about it, that is, the species supremacy
(Singer, 1973).

Animal Holocaust
The resemblance of animal treatment (unabated slaughter/killing) and the Holocaust as of late came to public
notice with PETA's5 ‘Holocaust on Your Plate’ show, with extensive photographs looking at the phenomenon.
How animals are dealt with in modern-day world and how Jews were treated during the Holocaust was
the subject matter of the show. Pretty much point-by-point examinations can be and are made by animal
liberationists between animal abuse and the Holocaust quite recently within the domain of this debate.
Nonetheless, as a matter of fact, this comparison can be delineated not just for particular actions towards
SAGE Books - Cultural and Religious Racism
Page 6 of 16
SAGE SAGE Books
© Zafar Iqbal, 2020

the animals, for example, serious repression, live experimentation, hunting, skinning and many more, but
also broader highlights on the two sides, for example, the incredible quantities of casualties, mercilessness,
exploitation and cruel discrimination, must be brought to surface (Sztybel, 2006). Kymlicka et al. (2014) said
that neither dominant part nor minority is called upon today to legitimize how they practise power over other
creatures. Some more interesting campaigns of PETA included depicting Jews in starved state during the
Holocaust regime and animals in the same state, pictures showing similarity in ghettoization of Jews, etc.,
having shameful titles like ‘To animals, all people are Nazis’ displayed on the chicken cages.

Religious Racism
The appellation ‘racism’ is frequently employed in a loose and unreflective manner to portray the threatening
or ghastly sentiments of one ethnic community or individuals, which is more often a result of negative attitudes
towards them. The conative demonstration of negative racial attitudes transform into hostility towards the
target group, which at times transpires in merciless actions. Such attitudes and hostility have a propensity
to stay long and practising them over time make them appear normal. Usually, cogent reasons are framed
to justify hostility based on racism; sometimes, it is the religion that provides the pretext, and, at some other
times, these are colour, creed and credence that legitimized differential treatment with the racialized groups in
the past. To legitimize the extermination of Jews in Europe, Hitler materialized the theories of racism claiming
that Germans are the supreme race of the world. The USA also did not lag behind following Hitler's scheme
of creating demonized group when Jim Crow law was enacted to hold the White supremacy in the South
America by putting Blacks in isolation and making them unequal to the Whites (Fredrickson, 2015).

The word ‘racism’, in its typical sense, really assigns two different things. From one viewpoint, it involves
behaviour, as a rule or a sign of contempt or hatred for people who have all-round-characterized physical
qualities not quite the same as ours; then again, it involves belief system, a precept concerning human races
(Back & Solomos, 2000). The two are not really connected. The common supremacist is not a theoretician;
he is unequipped for legitimizing his conduct with ‘logical’ contentions. On the other hand, the ideologue of
race is not really a ‘supremacist’, in the standard sense, his hypothetical perspectives may have no impact at
all on his behavioural demonstrations or his hypothesis may not infer that specific races are characteristically
shrewd. With a specific end goal to keep these two implications isolated, it would be apt to have refinement
between occasionally acquired ‘bigotry’, a term assigning conduct, and ‘racialism’, a term saved for tenets.
Moreover, the type of prejudice that is established in racialism creates especially disastrous outcomes; this
is exactly the instance of Nazism. Bigotry is an old type of conduct that is most likely discovered around
the world; racialism is a development of thoughts conceived in Western Europe, bloomed from the mid-18th
century to the mid-20th century (Back & Solomos, 2000).

Galton's Heredity is the classic work that represents a milestone in the history of racialist scholarship (Galton,
1889). Like De Gobineau (1853), whose Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines (Essay on the Inequality
of the Human Races) was published in four volumes from 1853 to 1855, Galton (1889) used ‘racism’ as a
noteworthy system and stated that there are higher and lower races. He reviewed men on a scale of brilliance
or genius from ‘A’ to ‘G’, with ‘G’ being the most astounding evaluation. He found the best share of people
in the ‘mediocre classes’, indicating lump in the ‘bell curve’, and created a connection to intelligence testing,
whereas there were just few men of awesome capacity and a similarly modest number of mental defectives.
In this manner, he established that the rareness of genius and the immense wealth of average quality was
no mishap yet, because of common, genetic powers. Further, those at the ‘genius’ level were not discovered
arbitrarily among all people, but rather gathered in the higher classes of northern Europeans (Moore, 2008).

Essed (1991) debated racism in culture and power perspectives. Prejudice works through culture as well
as articulation of auxiliary clash. Individuals are merely performers in a power structure. Power can create
racism; however, it can likewise be used to battle the racism. Power agents, in normal circumstances, sustain
racial and ethnic articulation. To be and not to be a racist may or may not be an issue, but people are always
the operators of racism.

In this backdrop, discrimination based on religion amounts to religious racism. The discrimination may be
verbal and non-verbal, filled with hostility or without hostility, can or cannot marginalize the people associated
with the particular religion, may or may not cause ghettoization of either of the groups (discriminating or
SAGE Books - Cultural and Religious Racism
Page 7 of 16
SAGE SAGE Books
© Zafar Iqbal, 2020

discriminated); nevertheless, every flavour of religious discrimination eventually leads to religious racism. The
notable point, in this regard, is it starts in one generation or at one point in time but continues and grows with
an amazing speed. Recent history testifies this notion that modernism, cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism
hardly affected it to an extent of extinction.

Islamophobia, whether contemporary or old, is the classical form of religious racism. Biological exclusivism
to racism faded away from the pages of history since the rise of racism based on colour, creed and religion
in the 14th- and 15th-century Spain: truly known to be the home of racism (Iqbal, 2010). Sayyid and Vakil
(2010) also ratify this notion when they say that racialized bodies were never exclusively biological, rather
they were marked as religion, culture, history and territories to fabricate distinctions between Europeanness
and non-Europeanness. Amin (2013) highlights the West's ‘racialization of everything’ by conjecturing bio-
race and bio-political in a form that suits their objectives of controlling conversion to Islam and Muslims as
a racialized group. In fact, ‘the degree of alterity’, what Tyrer (2013) labels, of Muslims from others, most
specifically from Europeans, is one of the major causes of racialization of Muslims. It may not be out of
question to point out Muslims’ way of keeping themselves in isolation with lesser degree of integrity with their
surroundings. Nonetheless, White supremacy, on the other hand, has often been recognized as a source of
‘others’ racialization in main parts of Europe. Islamophobia as a phenomenon seems to emerge from both the
reasons, wherein Muslims are seen as ‘indeterminate people’, ‘purely religious subjects’ and their ‘degree of
alterity’ to White universalism (Saeed, 2016).

The reasons and consequently manifestations of religious racism may include women wearing hijab or
headscarf, mosques with huge tombs and high minarets in the Western societies, call for prayers (Azaan),
bearded men, caps and attires usually worn by Muslims from Middle East and South Asian countries and
other religious rituals. Visibility of them invokes and incites negative feelings among those who suffer from
Islamophobia in religious racism perspective. This may result in hostility, negative posturing towards Muslims
and Islam, and remain there even when some of the symbols are invisible to Islamophobes. It may not amount
to enough validations that those in the West get strongly inclined towards their own religion and develop
feelings towards others (other religions), but this form of racism may exist independent of any other factor(s).
Religious racism is, in fact, a propensity of abhorrence and revulsion to religions of the minority. Nonetheless,
in contemporary mass societies where media play a central role to help its audience develop pictures of
others, Muslims and Islam have overwhelmed, even Jews, the media scene due to an abundance of events of
extremism and terrorism in the name of religion. Every event of terrorism or extremism, if involves Muslim(s),
fortifies the impressions that the global media are constantly generating. For any event of terrorism occurred
anywhere in the world, the first impression of its cause leads people to Muslims’ involvement. In terms of its
intensity, this is the slightest form of religious racism, while its height may include attacks on people seemingly
with the identities associated with Muslims or destruction of properties like Mosques. Recent attacks on
mosques in the USA, Canada, Europe and Australia, and ripping off of headscarf from the Muslim women's
heads are clear manifestations of religious racism and a form of Islamophobia. As compared to other forms
of Islamophobia, religious racism's fatalities are high and curing it would involve long time and drastic steps
such as relevant legislation, strict punitive measures and somewhat resilience on part of Muslims too in terms
of their exposure highlighting their religion.

Conceptualization of Racism and Religious Racism


One of the troubles in expounding on racism is the absence of a solid definition of the construct. Major
portion of writings on racism deals with faulty comprehension of what racism is all about, frequented with
socio-biological meanings of race and culture (Imtoual, 2006). Racism, quite often, is a practice—the act
of discrimination, at all levels, from individual to manhandle colonial abuse. Racism is a type of practice,
which has been immensely critical in European culture for a few hundred years, imperative for the European
capitalist economic system for its survival (Blaut, 1992; Jackson & Penrose, 1994).

Racist ideology may stem from supremacism. We, often, inherit insights and discourses on racism, as
prejudices towards a group, from our parents, folks and companions or from literature and media. Our
parents, peers and emblematic elites (such as instructors, columnists, writers and legislators) provide us
contents to produce and reproduce feelings of prejudice and racism towards a target group. The social
phenomenon that is frequently alluded to, and considerably denied, however, without much information about
SAGE Books - Cultural and Religious Racism
Page 8 of 16
SAGE SAGE Books
© Zafar Iqbal, 2020

what precisely it will be, is racism. If there is an acknowledgement by any stretch of imagination, racism is
regularly credited to others, to different nations, to other lower classes or can be considered as past (van Dijk,
2006). One reason of this unvarying and extensive refutation is that racism is frequently connected with and
restricted to the extreme right, that is, with oblivious discrimination and prejudice.

Hall, Matz, and Wood (2010) described in a meta-analytic audit of past research and assessed the connection
between religiosity and racism in the USA since the Civil Rights Act, 1964. Religious racism partially reflects
inter-group dynamics, that is, a solid religious in-class identification is related with criticism of racial out-
groups. Different races may be dealt with as out-group since religion is honed to a great extent inside race,
preparing in a religious in-amass personality advances general ethnocentrism, and in the light of the fact that
distinctive others have all the earmarks of being in rivalry for assets. What's more, religious racism is attached
to essential life norms of social accordance and regard for custom.

Biological notion of racism does not make Muslims to qualify for becoming victims, as Muslims are those
who follow Islam, while Islam is a religion being practised by almost every race, if taken in biological sense,
in every nook and corner of the world. Hence, biological determinism in race perspective hardly gives
space to hate or prejudice Muslims. Allport's (1954) theorization of prejudice on the basis of one's deep
attachment with in-group develops indifference, prejudice or hatred towards the out-group, depending on
the degree of in-group affiliation within, structure of in-group and out-group, and perceived characteristics
of the out-group. Inter-group relations, arguably, are fairly dependent on many factors, contemporarily
in vogue, including historic patterns. Nonetheless, much research in inter-group relations concerns the
potential for mediations (e.g., inter-group contact) to lessen majority's tendency to victimize the minorities.
Thus, it becomes fundamentally significant as how minority amass individuals understand such mediations,
particularly as they influence their capacities to act as far as their aggregate personality to acknowledge
the social change. To address this issue, the focus should be on minority's convictions and speculations
concerning the inter-group progression lying behind their underestimation in the hands of larger group (which
may be regarded as in-group in West's perspective).

Racism, like Islamophobia, is a complex and an umbrella construct, which brings in its ambit cynicism,
prejudice, discrimination or antagonism towards someone of a different race on the basis of the belief that
one's own race is superior.6 There are competing but scholarly debates on what exactly constitutes racism.
Nevertheless, hardly any explanation of racism dares excluding two important deleterious traits—prejudice
and discrimination. Prejudice is generally agreed as a predisposition of a group towards others, which
may turn into hostility or discrimination, while discrimination is a product or manifestation of any socio-
psychological anomie and, in itself, discrimination is a social action. Hence, we may say that racism
constitutes essentially two elements, that is, cause and effect, wherein prejudice is the cause and
discrimination is an effect. Understandably, racism is a distinct construct from prejudice; however, broader
than the latter. Prejudice may be latent and may not appear to be harmful, if seen in the light of ‘harm principle’
by Stauart Mills (2001), and exists as an independent variable in a given social system. But it may elicit
actions or turn to be action-oriented if it operates under the influence of racism. In that, discrimination as an
action may arise as an effect of prejudice, while both the cause and effect constitute racism.

Fundamentally, racism ideology distinguishes human groups either as superior or inferior due to some innate
sociocultural or biological identities. For instance, the denominations of Sepulveda and Las Casas were in
use in sub-Saharan regions for the people who were made slaves and transferred to the newly discovered
Americas in the early 16th century. Sepulveda referred to enslaving sub-Saharan Africans without any qualm
of conscience or guilt, as if they had no soul and were not humans (but subhumans). On the other hand, Las
Casas labelled them as humans, but savages, hence, culturally inferior to Christians (Grosfoguel & Mielants,
2006; Wallerstein, 2006). From now onwards, racism seems to have multiple facets such as biological
racism, cultural racism, epistemic racism and religious racism. Biological form of racism is the oldest among
them, while other emerged due to emergence of power play in the realm of social sciences. Dominant
groups inextricably intertwine factors that can help them muster power in a social system (van Dijk, 1997);
consequently, racialization or inferiorization of the subject group(s) becomes inevitable. Resultantly, racism is
shaped.

Is there any difference between cultural racism and religious racism? Islamophobia is entitled to both in the

SAGE Books - Cultural and Religious Racism


Page 9 of 16
SAGE SAGE Books
© Zafar Iqbal, 2020

literature. This makes it significant to differentiate between them and characterize both forms of racism for
its better conceptualization. Although contemporary conceptualization of Islamophobia forms around cultural
racist discourses where religion plays a dominant role, especially in case of Islam that is not merely a religion
but also a cultural system, governing individuals’ behaviour in every dos and don'ts. Hence, a culture that
develops around religious lines might suffer from this obliquity, but some cultures are inferiorized beyond
religious domains like the sub-Saharan African cultures. Even in cultural racism, the term racism is seldom
used. Sometimes, region(s) or caste name says it all having cultural inferiority embedded with in it deeply, like
the subaltern classes in parts of India and Africa.

Islamophobia, on the other side, may be an epiphenomenon emanating from racist discourses or innate
hostility towards Islam and Muslims. It blends religious, regional as well as cultural racism to form a menace,
which has badly entrapped the contemporary world. Literature on Islamophobia clearly demonstrates that
Islam is the only identity for Muslims, which makes one entitled to be the victim or potential victim of the
menace. Whether from Middle Eastern countries, Arab world, Asia or even converts from Europe, all may
face racial prejudice on the pretext of being Muslims. That is why, Islamophobia is, but religious, cultural and
regional racism. Association with the religion of Islam, following Islamic culture or being from Muslim world
are some of the characteristics considered essential for Islamophobia to occur.

Racism to take shape of Islamophobia takes two distinct routes— cultural racism and religious racism.
Religious racism, as the name reflects itself, naturally leads to Islamophobic construction, while cultural
racism refers to the culture of Muslim societies only and hostility towards it. The following diagram can help
us to understand as how religious or cultural racism leads to Islamophobia.

Whether religious racism or cultural racism, it essentially takes any specific form of racism—aversive racism,
epistemic racism, etc., before it becomes Islamophobia. To know as what exactly the form of racism would
become is all the way important if we plan to hatch out a strategy to root out Islamophobia from any society
SAGE Books - Cultural and Religious Racism
Page 10 of 16
SAGE SAGE Books
© Zafar Iqbal, 2020

as a form of racism. Set of indicators in this connection are important to be drawn before collecting data on
it. Another important aspect is to understand as what kind of Islamophobia might occur because of racist
feelings towards Muslims and Islam—whether it dwells at cognitive and affective levels of attitudes without
touching conative boundaries, or it has crept into behavioural propensities. Availability of Islamophobic
sentiments at attitudinal level may be termed as latent Islamophobia; while it has become a behavioural
attribute, it may be termed as manifested Islamophobia. Manifested Islamophobia may result in Islamophobic
attacks, verbal abuses of Muslims and Islam, etc. On the other hand, latent Islamophobia may lead the
perpetrators to aversive behaviour towards Muslims and some kind of non-verbal pattern of hostility and
prejudice. Nonetheless, it is important to note that any untoward happening at social level may turn the
attitudinal level Islamophobia into behavioural attributes. The given pattern may help collecting empirical data
on Islamophobia in racism perspective.

Contemporary Religious Racism


Gada (2015) has explained that a social body reliant on colonialist barbarity to manage its lifestyle must find
an ideology that can deny dependency if it is to maintain legitimacy. Different sorts of racism have played
that part in the present period; Islamophobia, now, is the favoured frame. The typical protest of characterizing
it along these lines is that Muslims are not a race. However, since all racisms are socially and politically
developed as opposed to be dependent on the truth of any biological race, it is consummately workable
for cultural markers related with Muslimness (types of dress, customs, language, traditions and so on) to
be transformed into racial signifiers. He pointed out that the West has diverse courses in which Islam and
Muslims experienced Islamophobic racism, for example, violence against Muslims, use of abhorrent language
and assaulting the Muslim faith through legislation (for instance, veiling ban).

The horrific episode of 9/11 in New York led to the rise of radicalized and extremist version of Islam at the
start of the 21st century. The strong provocative discourses, in political and media spheres, on Islam and
Muslims, have recently created fear, which has caused Islamophobia's spread in the West and ambivalence
towards Muslims. The net outcome was unleashed hatred that led the Westerners to attack on Muslims and
Mosques. Not only individuals, the states also behaved oppressively inciting state departments, especially
the police, to profile Muslims in the West. The discriminating and racist evidence against diasporic European
Muslims provide measurable confirmations of Islamophobia; the USA also frequently gave blunt manifests
in this discrimination about Muslims, which stirred normalcy in the Muslim world.7 Islamophobia is said to
draw upon chronicled affiliations identifying with the long-standing antagonistic vibe and military clashes that
happened in wars of Crusades and that sentiment against Muslims, which developed in medieval times, still
prevails in the Western world. The term crusade against radical Islam was used again in the 20th century
by the US President George W. Bush, which spurred a debate in European nations such as France and
Italy. These countries chastised Islam with references about oppressive treatment of women having no liberty
for them and backwardness by comparing Islam with Christianity in orientalist's perspective. This discourse
provokes and propagates Islamophobia in Europe. This bitter depiction of Muslims and Islam has constantly
been considered as religious racism (Rattansi, 2007). The EU showed concerns about the aftershocks of 9/
11 catastrophe and constituted a committee to monitor attacks on Muslims living in Europe. It was reported
by the European Monitoring Centre in 2002 that hate crimes against Muslims increased in which assault on
hijab-wearing women and mosques were prominent (Allen & Nielsen, 2002).

Religious Racism and Islamophobia


Robert Kilroy-Silk, the BBC morning host, had to face a backlash when he branded Arabs as ‘suicide
bombers, limb amputators, women repressors’ and asked what they had given to the world other than oil.8
His opinion piece appeared in Sunday Express on 4 January 2004. His comments were conceived as racist
towards Islam and Arabs, and were considered as Islamophobic. He vehemently denied as being racist in
his talks later and on social media.9 While this illustration may appear to be excessively constrained by its
unique situation, it enables an investigation of issues significant to different occasions, repeating quite often
in political realm of the world. In his opinion piece, the reflection of his writing about the conflation of race and
religious belief, Arabs in Europe and Islam was provocative and aimless. He furthered in his article by saying
that we (European) are not indebted to Arab nations. The article happened to be a blast among the Arabs
SAGE Books - Cultural and Religious Racism
Page 11 of 16
SAGE SAGE Books
© Zafar Iqbal, 2020

living in Europe and were working for genuine reasons and for the advancement of human lives. He wrote that
Islam and Muslims have no true devotion to humanity; Arabs have only oil to sell; they are women oppressors
and are providing suicide bombers to kill us. He portrayed the Arab world as cruel and vicious. Like many
others, his polemics assumed plainly that not all cultures are equal at ethnic level. Because of Kilroy-Silk's
racist comments, his morning show was stopped by the BBC, and the nation ended up noticeably involved in
yet another debate on the significance of racism and the ‘political rightness’ to which he had as far as anyone
knows fallen victim (Halliday, 1998).

Baber (2004) explained about this moot point in India. According to him, the right-wing political party,
Bharatiya Janata Party, which is purely Hindu centric in its politics, is promoting Aryan race in cultural
perspectives through broadcast media to radicalize the masses towards Muslim. Muslims are constructed on
racial grounds as Persian and Turks, who do not belong to Indian continent, and are rendered as such in
media.

The literature on Islamophobia mainly focuses on Eurocentric development of distinction in Said's (1978)
orientalist perspective, which gives a complex but solidified arrangement of negative stereotypes about Islam
and its adherents. This viewpoint may recommend that Islamophobia-driven racism refers to a truly inferred
set of rather hard stereotypes of the extreme out-group. This historical point of view, although, is itself to
some degree ahistorical as it neglects to address the current sociopolitical elements that shape contemporary
hostility towards Islam and Muslims (Mescher, 2008).

Sajid (2005) interestingly explained that hostility towards Muslims as religious racism has been a visible
element in the European culture since crusades to present days with distinctive structures in various
circumstances. For instance, in contemporary Britain, what quite observable are assaults on Muslims wearing
religious dresses and on mosques; across the board hate/racists generalizations in all segments of media
coupled with sensationalist eveningers; bureaucratic bottlenecks due to Muslim solicitations for more
prominent social affectability in training and medicinal services; increased racial or religious judgement
in employments, etc. Further, the racism monitoring associations seem disinterested in the unmistakable
highlights of bigotry against Muslims, particularly Muslims’ worries about social affectability. The Stephen
Lawrence Inquiry report was very shocking on racism against Muslims but could hardly make any noise in
media. The QNews, a Muslim magazine, asked a question ‘where's the Muslims’ in the White and Black
Britain? The report was given enough space in pages of the magazine, but it presented the facts in a
shambles as its major part covered obvious minorities, while less on how to manage racism or racist acts
on grounds. Nevertheless, as casualties of Islamophobia are proliferating, a general realization is that any
endeavours to handle racist attacks without additionally handling Islamophobia will be worthless. Much as
Muslims need to stand up against prejudices and racism, they have turned out to be disappointed with efforts
towards anti-racism developments that decline to battle Islamophobic views and which in many cases, is as
abusive as the foundation itself. A publication in The Muslim News remarked that ‘the genuine litmus trial of
whether the lessons of the Lawrence catastrophe have been learnt will be if, a young Muslim killed on in an
Islamophobia assault and his murder isn't dealt with similarly’. This is another extreme.

The post-9/11 circumstances could not change substantially and there are victors and losers in this procedure.
Lamentably, the Muslim world is one of the principle loser in a way. Rising tide of Islamophobia in the West
would not help in bringing worldwide peace and prosperity; rather it would do more damage than good. It
has arguably been discussed that the worldwide media is a vital participant of educating masses informally.
Yet awfully major worldwide players overwhelm it and they utilize it to impact globally by stigmatizing Islam
and Muslims. Islamophobic industries seem to work day and night to worsen the already stroppy affairs of
the world. The product that they make is anti-Islam and anti-Muslim sentiments, which by way could advance
world peace if Islam continues to be marked as a religion of violence and Muslims are branded as terrorists
(Ahsan, 2005).

Uludag and Molyneux (2014) argued that Islamophobia is clearly racism. This is a baseless argument on
racial perspective that Islam is a religion, and not a race; hence, Islam may not be subject to racism. But what
about Muslims, Islam's followers, whose major proportion of their culture is greatly affected by their religion?
In fact, Islam is unique in many ways as it does not cover the space of being a religion for its followers but also
a complete code of life essentially having enough to overwhelm their culture. Nonetheless, defining racism

SAGE Books - Cultural and Religious Racism


Page 12 of 16
SAGE SAGE Books
© Zafar Iqbal, 2020

has more often been dependent on colour and creed of individual subjects who often consider themselves as
alien race for certain reasons in a set-up where they form a minority. The Asian race, Jewish race, Black race,
Indian race and White race are the labels bestowed on to people from various regions. It might be interesting
to note that regions, colour of skin and religion are forming the basis for racism in these cases. Ideally, entire
humanity belongs to a single species, that is, human. In Britain, quite recently, Irish were subjected to racist
stereotyping and discrimination so severely; while Irish is not a race but a national identity. The question
arises as why Islamophobia, as a form of religious racism, spans over people from various parts of the world
with a little cognizance of their regional, colour or creed identity that had become subject of racism.

Racism (Religious Perspective) in Spain


Shortly after the rise of Islam during the 11th and 12th centuries, systematic demonization of Islam started
posing Islam as an unorthodox variety of Christianity. Different 12th-century polemicists exhibited Prophet
Muhammad (PBUH) as an enemy in the custom of Arius. While a few writers did this through gathering
vivid, outrageous and, to a great extent, innovative polemics of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Spanish writers
kept on building up the conventions of Arab Christian rational theology, giving them a keener, more hostile
representation supported by the Christian success leaving apart what Muslims contributed. This Spanish
historical convention, importation of north by scholars, for example, Petrus Alfonsi and Peter of Cluny, in next
100 years, educated the more learned reactionary scholarly responses to Islam. Eastern Christian hostile
perspectives of Islam were foreign made to Spain, where they were modified and transferred to Northern
Europe. In the meantime, different ways to portray Islam as heretic were introduced by the European writers
and artists. Before the end of the 12th century, European journalists had made the fundamental depictions of
Islam that would be expounded upon, modified and conveyed for various purposes for quite a long time to
come (Tolan, 2002).

Islamophobia or racism against Muslims has been a characteristic of Western human advancement since
the crusades and showed itself in different forms at various intervals of time. Today, it is communicated in
diverse forms of discrimination while recruiting or employing Muslims: expanded assaults on Muslim religious
and Islamic centres and contempt towards those appearing in typical Arab or Asian clothing; objectionable
stereotyping of Muslims in the media; the bureaucratic deterrence to allowing cultural sensitivity in education
as well as health care system; treatment of Muslims as secondary citizen by the law and more specifically
the ongoing assaults on Muslims and Muslim states in the name of War on Terror. Clearly, there is a political
plan behind these outrages and waged war, where the only superpower, the USA, with the assistance of its
Western partners, is attempting to oppress oil-rich Muslim world. Since the present war is coordinated towards
deceiving the Muslims, which constitute more than 1.5 billion of total world population, the careful analysis of
these deceptions and as a result thereof to recommend some remedial measures turn out to be exceptionally
critical.

At a broader level, contemporary discussions on Islam in the West are prejudicial and ill-informed about Islam
in a period of 750 years down to 711 ad conquest of Spain and Constantinople in 1453 ad. As for now,
Muslims try to defend the non-Muslims at social level for believing in and respecting every other religion
(Schwartz, 2010). The Spanish model, employing racism, created strives between Muslim and non-Muslim
worlds. Although Muslims ruled Spain for a few centuries, Christian rulers recaptured it, and, instead of
restoring their system and authority, they were more inclined towards labelling them as ‘other’ culturally and
constructed the idea that Muslims worship wrong God, unlike Christians. To sustain power, their polemicists
justified their criticism by stereotyping that Muslims have wrong way of worship and so have least role in
Christian society than European Christian citizens have (Stephenson, 2017).

One of the most vital social phenomena in the global setting is the stream of migration from developing
nations, propelled by financial and employment-related issues. Discrimination can be drawn closer to being
a health hazard factor inside the migrant population's workplace, particularly for those foreigners who are at
more serious hazard from social avoidance and marginalization. Experiences of discrimination can influence
their emotional and mental health and are unequivocal components with respect to access to medical services
or health care services. There is much need to use mix strategies in both the nations of origin and the host
nation to recognize labour and social rights, and to additionally look into individual and social factors that
influence the health of the migrated populations (Agudelo-Suárez et al., 2009). Gee (2002) reported that on
SAGE Books - Cultural and Religious Racism
Page 13 of 16
SAGE SAGE Books
© Zafar Iqbal, 2020

account of racial discrimination on the grounds of having a place with a particular ethnic group, the so-called
systematic racism would be a structural hazard factor, found at the base of strategies and practices that are
drawn closer without thinking about the need of respecting the fundamental rights of every single ethnic group
and not only of those who make up most of the general public. It would likewise be shown in the operational
mechanisms set up inside political, social and financial organizations themselves.

Aversive racism has been growing remarkably against migrants in Spain: Muslims turn out to be more under
the light since individuals blame them as fundamentalists, terrorists and so on. The illustration is of this state
of mind that a Spanish student singles out Moroccans as the most hated immigrant group. Nevertheless,
Spaniards have more negative sentiments towards Africans than Latino settlers, especially those with Muslim
background. If descent or social affinity is the thing that makes the imagined community, may be a nation,
then the immigration of non-White and Muslim population represents a risk to the every identity of individuals,
particularly when the social and cultural difference run as an inseparable unit with increase in a given
outsider group, just like the case with Moroccans in Spain. Additionally, the historical strains among Spain
and North Africa still persist at subconscious level, and the Spanish media tend to connect North Africans
with criminality, terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, possibly making apprehension or doubt (Wojcieszak,
2014). After the 11 March 2004 terrorist attacks in Madrid, different politicians and analysts estimated about
the likelihood of growing Islamophobia in Spain. Under this execrable vision, it was the last straw that broke
the camel's back for Spaniards and their famous proverbial tolerance. Earlier, Muslim migrants in Spain, its
greater part from Morocco, had shown, in specific circles, a level of worry over the social danger that los
moros (the Moors) would once again pose to Spain (Noya, 2007).

Islamophobic representation of ‘Muslim women’ in Spanish and French media is another form of religious
racism. The veil banning law in France, which is considered as Islamophobic ‘neocolonial sexism’ is the
‘best asset’ accessible to fuel Islamophobia (Ramírez, 2006). Feminism in the colonial period (19th century
and mid-20th century), when the state of colonized women was utilized to make colonized men primitive,
affirms the fundamental thought that Muslim women were compliant and frail, and Muslim men were tyrant
and forceful. Islamophobia today seems to be constructed to a great extent in light of how the women of ‘other
men’ are viewed, and is particularly noticeable in the criticism of the circumstances of Muslim women who
wear headscarves and appear to need salvation (Navarro, 2010).

López (2017) embarks to exhibit that considering Islamophobia as a type of racism stops us from grasping
the complex and multifaceted nature of the phenomenon. He clarified that there are distinctive sorts of
Islamophobia, keeping in mind that some are racist, others are most certainly not. To contend this point,
he draws on a contention that was started inside a Spanish extraordinary right party rotating around two
unique originations of the person and society, one established in the völkisch custom and the other in the
Catholic convention. By analysing a book by a leader of that party, it may be perceived as how these two
originations could cause two distinct sorts of Islamophobia: one völkisch, and the other Catholic. Both offer
an indistinguishable vision of Islam from an imperative ‘risk’ towards the ‘West’, yet they contrast in their
comprehension of the establishments of the Muslim and European personalities—racist versus religious
points of view.

After Barcelona assaults, Muslims in Spain saw disdain spike. Numerous Islamophobic incidents occurred
after attacks; however, before these assaults, Spain looked invulnerable to hostility to Muslimism or anti-Islam
opinions (Jobse, 2017). The level of Islamophobia in 2014 was high; the police data on hate crime in 2015
representing Islamophobia filed at 40 per cent (Spain, 2016). One of the episodes is interesting to be put up
here, wherein Fatima El Himer, 17, and her sister Haffssa, 20, had gone shopping in a mall in Granada, where
they grew up. They were going to get the transport back home when Fatima saw a gathering of Spanish
women discussing them. The sisters heard them saying that it was a disrespect that we were around here
shopping while in Barcelona people were being killed by us (Muslims). It made them stunned as they had
never heard anybody say anything like that recently.

Other incident happened to a store owner, Chafik El Boudali, 35, who owned a fruit and vegetable shop
in the Madrid neighbourhood of Tetuan. He said that some of his standard clients had stopped visiting
his store since the Barcelona assault. All Muslims are not militants, but what had occurred in Barcelona,
where Islam had nothing to do with that, made Spaniards suspicious of every Muslim or those who looked

SAGE Books - Cultural and Religious Racism


Page 14 of 16
SAGE SAGE Books
© Zafar Iqbal, 2020

like Muslims. The Seville Mosque Foundation's inside was targeted with anti-Muslim loathe discourse, for
example, ‘Executioners, you will pay’, and another that used a slur for North Africans. In the meantime, a
mosque in Granada was attacked with flares by a group of individuals in an awful racist assault (Nagesh,
2017).

Holland and Spain are moderate and progressive nations, cracking down the xenophobia and religious racism
or racism at any level. Spanish government made an attempt to take the insight about the integration of
immigration by constituting an advisory in 2006. It was March 2006 when Spain established Observatory to
look into the issues of xenophobia and racism with the responsibility to report in detail about religious hate or
racism and xenophobic elements in the Spanish society. This could lead to the advancement of society and
empowerment of people and improvement of equity standards. In Spanish society, yet no one would deny the
presence of a chronicled Islamophobia that proceeds with today in dissent to Western Saharans and lineage
of Moriscos of the particular treatment granted to all others with colonial associations in Spain. Nonetheless,
insofar as this ontological issue is borne as mindset, there is much to pick up from this creative way to deal
with Spain's association with Islam as of today (Green, 2014).

Notes
1 limpieza de sangre means ‘blood purity’ in English.

2 Retrieved from [Link]

3 Retrieved from [Link]


[Link]. Other examples may include ‘Foreigners Only’,
quite common at places even in contemporary India, which is nothing but hangover of the British colonialism.

4 Retrieved from [Link]


photos-pairing-africans-with-animals.

5 PETA stands for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and it is a movement which intends to show the
people of world as how the victimization of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and others who were characterized
as ‘life unworthy of life’ during the holocaust parallels the way that modern society abuses and justifies
the slaughter of animals. Please see [Link]
plate-exhibit-banned-in-manchester/ for more details about its objectives and activities. Lately, many of its
shows in Europe were restricted.

6 Retrieved from [Link]

7 For instance, when ‘Innocence of Muslims’ trailer was uploaded on YouTube in summer 2012, the US
government and other state institutions considered it a matter that pertains to freedom of expression, and
even courts did not respond to it. That caused huge loss to property and human lives in entire Muslim world
due to enraged protests.

8 [Link]

9 [Link]

• cultural racism
• racism
• aversive racism
• Jews
• Judaism
• prejudice
• race
• religion

SAGE Books - Cultural and Religious Racism


Page 15 of 16
SAGE SAGE Books
© Zafar Iqbal, 2020

[Link]

SAGE Books - Cultural and Religious Racism


Page 16 of 16

You might also like