On 21 May, the publication of the report ‘The Muslim Brotherhood and Political Islamism in France’ highlighted the existence of Islamophobia in political life. On 22 May, the murder of two Israeli embassy employees in front of the Jewish Museum in Washington made the headlines. This simultaneity is obviously coincidental, but it highlights how we are constantly called upon to react to Islamophobia and antisemitism, which dominate the media and political debate, more than other forms of racist discrimination.
Constantly compared to each other, these two forms of racism are linked and pitted against each other. Same for the struggles that must be waged against them. Some invoke a so-called ‘new antisemitism’ coming from the left and from Islam. Others invoke a substitution of antisemitism by Islamophobia – Jews are supposedly no longer stigmatised.
This competition IS harmful. More than between the victims, it plays out between their supposed spokespeople. To avoid this trap, we must deconstruct discourses that selectively appropriate pain. We must continue to work on the concepts and the reality they cover: Islamophobia, anti-Muslim/anti-Arab racism, Islamism and political Islam, Judeophobia, antisemitism, anti-Zionism, competing memories, etc.
Intertwined histories
The two words, antisemitism and Islamophobia, are much more recent than the historical phenomena they are used to analyse. The term ‘antisemitism’ is said to have appeared in Germany in 1879 in the sense of hostility towards Jews. It was an immediate success in Europe: political parties claimed it as their own, based on the pseudo-scientific notion of ‘race’, widely accepted at the time. Thus, the old religious anti-Judaism was revived.
After the genocide of the European Jews, no one could claim to be antisemitic, at least not openly. Just as the Holocaust became the crime of crimes, antisemitism became the racism of racisms, to which European guilt became uniquely attached and which demanded specific vigilance. A double illusion took hold, which has only recently been dispelled: that antisemitism belonged only to the far right and that it had virtually disappeared.
‘Islamophobia’ was first attested in English in 1877 and in French in 1910. It reappeared in England in the 1990s to describe a new form of discrimination, associated with traditional anti-Arab and anti-Black racism but not limited to it. This process, which assigns individuals an essentialised religious identity, follows a logic of racialisation. It should not be confused with the legitimate right to criticise a religion.
Between these two forms of racism, there is too often a kind of switch: when one supports Palestine, one risks focusing one’s attention on Islamophobia; when one supports Israel, one risks focusing on antisemitism and on the porosity between antisemitism and the polysemic claim of ‘anti-Zionism’. The link between antisemitism and radical criticism of Israel is certainly evident in the Muslim world: widely tolerated and even encouraged, it is based on pre-modern texts and on a form of ‘racial’ and conspiratorial antisemitism that was imported from Europe early on.
An anti-racism based on common causes
Too often, these two terms are used less to describe the types of racism involved than to accuse opponents of one of the two forms of racism. Two parallel repertoires are emerging, each with its own excesses. On the one hand, we find explanations, even justifications, for hostile acts towards Jews who are ‘confused’ with Israelis, in the logic of defending a poorly defined youth, sometimes ethnicised, sometimes Islamised. Added to this is the condemnation of Israel, which sometimes involves historical analogies with Apartheid (increasingly justified) or, within the radical left and in the Muslim world, with the Holocaust (excessive and counterproductive, even when the intention is simply to sound the alarm).
On the other side, the defence of Israel and Jews appears just as ludicrously politicised, with the flag of the fight against antisemitism now being waved by the right and the far right: this display is new. This tactical, apparent philosemitism is linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but also to the establishment in France of a large Muslim population, which is the subject of conspiratorial fantasies. It also makes it possible to attack a ‘far left’ that is supposedly allied with ‘Islamism’.
More generally, the French state is fuelling growing suspicion towards Islam: the law on ‘Islamist separatism’ is just one example. Suspicion towards Islam is real among part of the population, and the reasons for this are complex. The attacks do not explain everything. The unease towards Islam began before them: the legacy of colonial wars still weighs heavily.
The polarisation inherent in this futile competition leads to the virtual invisibility of other forms of racism and othering, even though the Roma, for example, are considered much more of a ‘separate group’ than Muslims and Jews, according to the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights.
Each form of racism has its own unique characteristics, none is incomparable to the others. We must move away from futile hierarchies, put forward arguments for analysing and combating all forms of racism, and reclaim this scientific and political space. At the same time, let us acknowledge the similarities between different forms of racism. And let us recognise the universalising dynamic driven by the fight for human rights and social emancipation. Anti-racism is made up of common causes rather than individual struggles.
Signatories
Sarah Battegay, activist and artist; Jérôme Bourdon, professor of history, Tel Aviv University, Paris-2 University; Julien Chanet, activist; Natacha Chetcuti-Osorovitz, sociologist, Paris-Cité University; Philippe Corcuff, professor of political science, Sciences-Po Lyon; Philippe Marlière, professor of political science, University College London; Philippe Mesnard, professor of general and comparative literature, University of Clermont-Ferrand; Alain Policar, associate researcher at the Centre for Political Research at Sciences Po (Cevipof); Jean-Yves Pranchère, professor of political theory, Free University of Brussels; Haoues Seniguer, lecturer in political science, Sciences Po Lyon.
◗ The signatories are members of a research-action collective, currently being formed, against antisemitism and all forms of othering.
The French original of this op-ed article was first published in Le Nouvel Obs. This English translation, by Daniel Mang, was first published on the Left Renewal Blog.