T

o see what effects the shift of the world’s centre of gravity from the Europe-Middle East axis towards the People’s Republic of China-South Asia axis has brought about, it is sufficient to note the visits to Beijing by US President Trump and, shortly afterwards, Russian President Putin within the space of a week, and to realize that Europe was not even mentioned during these visits. We can see how Europe’s equilibrium has been disrupted by developments in Beijing through the shifting stance of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen over the course of a month.

In a speech delivered on 20 April 2028 at the 80th anniversary event of the newspaper Die Zeit, she stated: “We must succeed in uniting the European continent as a whole so that it does not fall under Russian, Turkish or Chinese influence. We must think on a larger, geopolitical scale,” Von der Leyen stated. She must have quickly realized that the so-called power she represents does not belong in the league of superpowers, neither in terms of energy, defense nor technology, as she received the necessary lesson regarding the strategic importance of Turkey-EU relations during her telephone conversation with President Erdoğan on 19 May. In fact, this fundamental lesson was the result of a series of Turkey-centered developments throughout May.

The hard mathematics of geopolitics

Looking at the sequence of events, the visit to Turkey on 11 May by Queen Mathilde of Belgium, accompanied by a large delegation of businesspeople, can be considered the first link in this chain of developments. During the visit, Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot, responding to questions from TRT Haber, made the following remarks that explicitly targeted the President of the European Commission, serving as proof of how the EU’s perspective on Turkey has shifted: “Of course, the European Union needs Turkey. Turkey also needs Europe. In my view, it was illogical to use a phrase that places Turkey, China and Russia on the same level, on the same platform, as stated by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. You are a stabilizing force. For this reason, we must take Turkey’s strategic role in Europe’s future security architecture into account more than ever before.”

The developments necessitating a reorientation of von der Leyen’s course did not end there. On Monday 18 May, as part of Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan’s visit to Germany, the third meeting of the Turkey-Germany Strategic Dialogue Mechanism was held after a 12-year hiatus. The fear of Russia and US pressure must have put Berlin in such a state that German Foreign Minister Wadephul felt compelled to make the following remarks regarding this meeting: “After many years, we have re-engaged in strategic dialogue with Turkey. We wish to devote more time to this, as we want to examine the issues in greater depth. I am pleased that we have re-engaged on this path; we have reached a new level of quality in bilateral relations.”

For Wadephul’s quest for quality to achieve its aim, he must first begin with self-criticism. For instance, he could start by addressing the covert embargoes imposed on Turkey’s submarine manufacturing and the Akkuyu nuclear power plant. Or, if he were to explain how the investigation files regarding the NSU (National Socialist Underground) terrorist organization’s murder of eight Turks were deleted on 11 November 2011 – the very day the Federal Prosecutor’s Office took over the case – we might be able to move a little closer to the desired quality in Turkey-Germany relations. To understand Germany’s real concern, it is sufficient to look at the Welt newspaper’s report, also dated 18 May. Following the US’s suspension of Tomahawk missile deliveries to Germany, Berlin is seeking a solution in the Turkish defense industry.

What is interesting is that the Berlin-Paris duo, which has favored Greece since the 1970s under the banner of Hellenic romanticism, still cannot raise its voice against Athens, which is blocking Turkey’s participation in the Security Action for Europe (SAFE) program. On the contrary, the overwhelming majority of member states are now aware that this 150-billion-euro program for joint defense procurement cannot achieve its objectives without Turkey, and have adopted the approach of bypassing the Greek obstacle by entering into independent agreements with Turkey. Indeed, reports have begun to emerge in the press suggesting that France is also making moves to join this initiative. However, it has been made clear to Paris, which is attempting, on the one hand, to stir up trouble in the Caucasus and, on the other, to upset the balance in the Eastern Mediterranean to Turkey’s detriment by aligning with the Greek Cypriot administration, that cooperation with Turkey in this area is impossible.

The Berlin-Paris axis: Coming to terms with Turkey

Although Turkey’s well-intentioned appeals have failed to yield results, the shifting geopolitical balances in the world are ultimately teaching the Berlin-Paris axis that it must come to terms with Turkey. The European Union, led by Germany, has now realized that it will be on the menu in any potential global power-sharing agreement between the United States and the People’s Republic of China. What they must now do is make up for the time and money they have squandered so generously since the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1992. Furthermore, they must admit that the energy they have expended on stalling Turkey has also been in vain.

The current state of the European Union was summarized by Germany’s former Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, on 4 May 2026 during a program he attended at the Harvard Kennedy School, part of Harvard University in the US. “The US and Germany have become a nation of lawyers. Other countries can build a national railway network in 20 years. Why can’t we build an urban rail line in 20 years?” As can be seen, Scholz, unlike von der Leyen, prefers to turn the spotlight on himself rather than targeting Turkey.

I do not believe Scholz chose this phrase, ‘a country of lawyers’, by chance. This phrase reminded me of Zbigniew Brzezinski’s 1993 book *Out of Control: Global Turmoil on the Eve of the 21st Century*, in which he served as National Security Advisor to former US President Carter. In this work, Brzezinski warned the US administration, which was intoxicated by the victory of the First Cold War, that it needed to redirect its resources towards structural reforms as a matter of urgency. Had this warning been heeded, it is certain that we would not be seeing Donald Trump in the White House today.

In his book, Zbigniew presented a 20-point list of measures that needed to be implemented for the structural reforms the US required. The tenth item on this list concerns the issue of becoming a ‘nation of lawyers’, to which Scholz also refers. Brzezinski summarizes his complaint about this situation under the heading ‘The Presence of Parasites in the Legal System’ as follows: ‘One-third of the world’s lawyers work in the US. Legal fees paid in tort cases alone amount to three per cent of the US gross domestic product. This ratio is three times higher than in the countries with which the US competes. This high ratio has a deterrent effect on investors.”

Borrell’s garden has become a jungle

Instead of investing in technology and industry, or establishing a common defence and energy policy, the European Union, which offers those living within its borders a fantasy paradise, is now at a loss as to what to do in the face of developments centred on the People’s Republic of China. Yet on 13 October 2022, Josep Borrell, then the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, addressed students at the European Union Diplomatic Academy and brazenly likened the world beyond the European Union’s borders to a wild forest.

According to Borrell, the European Union represented a well-tended garden, that is, the best political harmony humanity could achieve. However, there was a danger that the forest might invade the garden, and according to Borrell, the European Union’s gardeners should go into the forest and engage with the rest of the world. Fortunately, thanks to the inflation driven by rising energy prices over the past four years, we now have the opportunity to observe a Europe that has turned into a jungle, where the far right is constantly gaining strength, from the island of stability that is Turkey.

(Originally published in Turkish by Kriter)

F

ollowing Viktor Orbán’s defeat, the elections held in Hungary attracted considerable attention in Turkey. Various predictions were made based on election assessments and comparative analyses. Analyses comparing the election winner, Péter Magyar, with Orbán, in particular, interpreted the election results through classic dichotomies, such as democracy versus authoritarianism, liberal democracy versus populism, and the right versus the far right.

However, regrettably, many of these analyses relied on these clichéd distinctions and interpretations. Furthermore, the post-liberal rise in Hungarian and international politics was analyzed from a liberal perspective, resulting in erroneous interpretations. Initial assessments such as the return of liberal democracy, the retreat of authoritarianism, and the defeat of the far right and populism demonstrate an inability to understand the true nature of the sociopolitical transformation occurring in Hungary and around the world.

The true significance of the Hungarian election results

The clearest conclusion to be drawn from the election results is that there is a significant crisis of legitimacy and trust within the political landscape, rather than an ideological shift. Orbán was defeated by another post-liberal figure who uses similar language, draws on the same social base, and shares a similar perception of the crisis. In other words, contrary to what is often assumed, the new prime minister, Magyar, is not so much a liberal democrat as he is another figure who largely represents the post-liberal current due to the rhetoric he employs and the ideological position he occupies. From this perspective, the Hungarian elections should not be viewed as a regime change or political transformation but rather as a renewal and cleansing of actors within post-liberalism itself.

More precisely, Orbán’s defeat and the winner’s profile do not, contrary to many interpretations, signify that the social demands he represented and championed have disappeared. On the contrary, the election results indicate that post-liberal tendencies persist, but the current government has lost its ability to represent these demands.

The most significant indicator of this is that the dynamics underpinning the post-liberal quest remain firmly in place. The inequalities brought about by neoliberalism, the uncertainties arising from technological transformation, and the perceived cultural disintegration caused by liberal democracy continue to generate a strong need for security and meaning across broad sections of society. People still expect a political stance that delivers public services and defends their own values.

For this reason, the election results should be interpreted as a rearticulation of the social demands represented by post-liberalism, despite the fact that these demands are being discredited with labels such as populism, authoritarianism, and far-right extremism. When Orbán’s political platform could no longer meet these expectations, the electorate did not abandon that platform. Instead, they chose a new leader whom they believed could represent it more effectively. Thus, the transformation witnessed in the Hungarian elections is more indicative of a crisis of representation being resolved than an ideological rupture. Society did not change its demands; it simply updated its choice of who would represent them.

Why did Orbán lose?

The real breaking point that led to Orbán losing his 16-year reign was not the depletion of his ideological framework. As the standard-bearer of the post-liberal movement, Orbán began contradicting his own claims. Over time, he formed a new power bloc to replace the “corrupt elites” he had criticized. This network, centered on the distribution of state resources, became the focal point of accusations of corruption and nepotism.

In foreign policy, however, his decision to replace the “corrupt EU,” which he claimed was victimizing the Hungarian people through liberal democratic impositions, opposing moral values, and neoliberal economic policies, with Putin’s Russia and Trump’s U.S. began to backfire. The hegemonic rhetoric of foreign policy suffered as a result of the increasing visibility and influence of Russia and the U.S. Indeed, anti-elitist rhetoric has lost credibility and is now perceived as merely anti-EU.

Furthermore, the deterioration in economic performance has accelerated this crisis of legitimacy. Financial pressures arising from high inflation, interventionist policies, and tensions with the EU have undermined the government’s claims of “stability” and a “protective state.” Consequently, the disconnect between rhetoric and material reality has become more apparent. Orbán, the champion of the post-liberal movement he defines as “illiberal democracy,” was unable to maintain the moral and political framework he had established. This has led to the collapse of his credibility, reliability, consistency, and moral superiority claims. All of this has driven centrist voters, who were already opposed to Orbán and predominantly reside in major cities, as well as peripheral voters, where Orbán traditionally enjoys a high concentration of support, to seek an alternative.

The political significance of Magyar

Péter Magyar’s rise and electoral victory are most significant at this juncture. Magyar is neither a radical alternative nor an outsider to the political discourse established by Orbán. However, it cannot be said that he has abandoned Orbán’s ideology and “found the right path,” as is often assumed. On the contrary, Magyar is a figure who speaks a similar language yet promises to anchor it within a more rational, balanced, and trustworthy framework.

What sets Magyar apart is his promise to rebuild the political ground represented by Orbán and sustain it more honestly and fairly. Consequently, Magyar is not a representative of a classical liberal restoration, and his frequent emphasis on the rule of law should not be interpreted as such. He neither abandons the idea of a strong nation-state within the post-liberal framework nor entirely abandons the space for debate and politics of self-valorization opened up by the Orbán era. Instead, Magyar promises to embed post-liberalism and politics of self-valorization within a more rational, institutionalized, and sustainable framework. In this respect, Magyar does not aim to abandon the “post-liberal” approach t rather to fulfill their requirements honestly and successfully. Thus, the political significance of Peter Magyar should not be assessed as an ideological break in Hungarian politics but rather as a recalibration of the same line.

Taking all this into account, Magyar can essentially be described as the leader of a populist initiative that takes the form of “anti-Orbánism.” His strategy is based on an anti-corruption narrative and the idea of “cleansing the state of a handful of corrupt Orbánist elites.” This is a powerful manifestation of populism. By projecting an ethical stance, Magyar positions himself as a central figure in rebuilding a legitimate and just order. This is precisely the area that was most eroded during Orbán’s tenure, and Magyar has succeeded in winning over peripheral voters with this approach.

The difference in approach toward relations with the EU is also a significant indicator of anti-Orbánist populism in foreign policy. Unlike Orbán, who sometimes relies on a confrontational rhetorical style, Magyar aligns more closely with the principle of “a strong Hungary, a strong Europe” as a European nation. This approach largely stems from the perspective that Europe’s strategic autonomy is achievable through strong nation-states, which is somewhat anti-Russian and anti-American. Consequently, while Magyar’s ideology is similar to Orbán’s, his practical policies diverge.

The picture that emerges within this framework clearly demonstrates the following: Magyar embraces post-liberalism and promises to rescue it from Orbán’s grasp, purify it, and rebuild it through discipline. While preserving the mobilization generated by populism, Magyar aims to rebuild the institutional and economic foundations eroded by Orbán. In this respect, Magyar represents a more refined, accountable, and enduring version of post-liberalism. He seeks to reinforce this by upholding the same social sensitivities through the rule of law, institutional balance, and economic rationality.

U

.S. Vice President JD Vance has described Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s electoral defeat as “very bad” for the United States, while pledging that Washington would maintain strong relations with Hungary’s incoming government.

Speaking in an interview with Fox News on Monday, Vance acknowledged that the loss had been anticipated but expressed disappointment at the outcome. “We certainly knew there was a very good chance that Viktor would lose that election,” he said, referring to the U.S. administration’s backing of Orbán ahead of the vote. “He’s one of the few European leaders willing to stand up to the bureaucracy in Brussels.”

Vance praised Orbán’s 16-year tenure as “transformational,” portraying him as a key ally who challenged European Union policies that Washington has also criticized in recent years. Despite his concerns, Vance struck a pragmatic tone, emphasizing continuity in bilateral ties. “I’m sad that he lost. We’ll work very well, I’m sure, with the next prime minister of Hungary,” he said.

Hungary’s opposition leader Péter Magyar and his Tisza party secured a decisive victory in Sunday’s election, according to official results. Orbán conceded defeat shortly after, stating that his party would “serve our nation from the opposition,” marking a dramatic shift in Hungarian politics after more than a decade and a half of his leadership.

A blow to Netanyahu

Orbán’s defeat is also being closely watched in Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long counted the Hungarian leader among his closest European allies.

The relationship between the two leaders has been both ideological and strategic. Netanyahu publicly endorsed Orbán during the campaign, describing him in a pre-recorded message as a guarantor of “safety, security, and stability.” His son, Yair Netanyahu, has also cultivated ties with Orbán’s Fidesz party and attended campaign-related events in Budapest.

Following the election, Netanyahu referred to Orbán as a “true friend of Israel” in a social media statement, while also congratulating Magyar on his victory — signaling a careful diplomatic balancing act as Israel adjusts to the new political reality in Hungary.

The partnership between Netanyahu and Orbán has extended beyond rhetoric. In 2025, Hungary announced its withdrawal from the International Criminal Court after the court issued arrest warrants against Netanyahu related to the Gaza war. The move made Hungary one of the few countries where Netanyahu could travel without legal risk.

Orbán also played a key role within the European Union by blocking joint statements critical of Israel, leveraging the bloc’s requirement for unanimity in foreign policy decisions. His departure from power could therefore alter EU dynamics regarding Israel.

Inspiration for Israeli opposition

In Israel, Orbán’s defeat is being interpreted by opposition figures as a sign that entrenched political systems can be challenged successfully.

Efrat Rayten, a member of the left-leaning Democrat party, described the result as “a message of hope.” She argued that the outcome demonstrated that even leaders with significant control over institutions and media are not immune to electoral defeat.

“The idea that a leader who controls the institutions and the media is immune to defeat has been shattered,” Rayten told CNN. “The lesson for Israel is unity, perseverance, and faith in civil society.”

Since Netanyahu returned to power in 2023, critics have frequently pointed to Hungary under Orbán as a model of democratic backsliding. Protests against judicial reforms in Israel have often included the slogan “Israel will not become Hungary,” reflecting concerns about institutional weakening.

A March 2026 report by the Zulat think tank characterized Israel as moving toward a “partially authoritarian” system, drawing parallels with Orbán’s governance. While noting differences between the two leaders, the report argued that recent policies in Israel risk undermining democratic checks and balances.

Israel’s political landscape remains deeply fragmented

Despite the optimism among Netanyahu’s opponents, analysts caution that Orbán’s defeat does not guarantee similar outcomes elsewhere. Israel’s political landscape remains deeply fragmented, and opposition unity — cited as a key factor in Hungary’s election — has historically been difficult to achieve.

Rayten emphasized that electoral change requires sustained public engagement beyond formal political institutions. “Change does not happen only in the corridors of Parliament,” she said. “It begins in the streets, with people who refuse to give up.”

As Hungary prepares for a new government under Magyar, both Washington and Jerusalem are recalibrating their strategies. For the United States, the transition represents a test of its ability to maintain alliances despite political shifts. For Israel, it marks the loss of a reliable ally within Europe — and potentially, a symbolic moment in its own ongoing political debates.

(Source: CNN and Anadolu)

I

ndian Prime Minister Narendra Modi received a standing ovation at Israel’s parliament on Wednesday, marking the start of a two-day visit aimed at deepening security, economic and technological cooperation between the two countries.

Modi addressed lawmakers at the Knesset, pledging “friendship, respect and partnership” at a time when Israel faces mounting international criticism over the genocide in Gaza. “Let us ensure that the friendship between India and Israel remains a source of strength in an uncertain world,” he said during a 30-minute speech that was warmly received by members of the governing coalition.

Modi was greeted at Ben Gurion Airport with a personal embrace from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who later introduced him to parliament as “Narendra, my dear friend.” The Knesset building in Jerusalem was illuminated in the colors of India’s flag on the eve of his arrival.

Following his address, Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana awarded Modi a medal in recognition of his role in strengthening bilateral relations.

The visit underscores how much ties have grown under Modi, who in 2017 became the first Indian prime minister to visit Israel. Netanyahu reciprocated with a trip to India in 2018, cementing a partnership that has expanded significantly in recent years.

Expanding strategic cooperation between India and Israel

India and Israel established full diplomatic relations in 1992. Since then, defense and technology cooperation have become central pillars of the relationship. India is now Israel’s second-largest trading partner in Asia, with bilateral trade valued at $3.6 billion in the 2025 fiscal year, according to India’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

During his speech, Modi emphasized collaboration in security, artificial intelligence, quantum technology and infrastructure development.

“We’re committed to expanding trade, strengthening investment flows and promoting joint infrastructure development,” he said.

Netanyahu praised Modi’s early and unequivocal support for Israel “You didn’t flinch. You didn’t waver. You stood by Israel,” Netanyahu said.

Modi reaffirmed India’s support for a U.S.-backed ceasefire framework for Gaza endorsed by the U.N. Security Council, describing it as a pathway to “a just and durable peace for all the people of the region, including the Palestine issue.”

However, he did not directly address Israel’s newly approved measures to deepen control over parts of the occupied West Bank — steps that India had joined more than 100 countries in condemning earlier this month.

India historically supported the Palestinian cause, but under Modi’s leadership, New Delhi has recalibrated its Middle East policy, strengthening ties with Israel while maintaining diplomatic engagement with Palestinian authorities.

A boost for Israel’s international standing

The visit also unfolded against the backdrop of domestic political tensions in Israel. Opposition lawmakers briefly walked out of the chamber during speeches by Netanyahu and Speaker Ohana, protesting the exclusion of Supreme Court Chief Justice Yitzhak Amit from the event. They returned for Modi’s address, with opposition leader Yair Lapid assuring the Indian leader that the protest was unrelated to his visit.

Netanyahu, currently on trial for corruption charges, has faced ongoing disputes over judicial reforms that have deeply divided Israeli society.

The high-profile visit is widely seen as a diplomatic boost for Israel as it navigates strained relations with some traditional allies over the Gaza genocide. Modi is scheduled to meet President Isaac Herzog and visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial before concluding his trip.

As Israel seeks to broaden its global partnerships, the public display of solidarity from India — one of the world’s largest economies and most populous nations — signals a deepening strategic alignment between the two governments.

(Source: The Associated Press)

I

n conflict zones, some of the most enduring damage is unseen.

Although Kashmir is widely discussed in terms of territorial contestation in conventional political analysis, there is surprisingly little focus on how sustained exposure to conflict, violence, and systemic uncertainty influences everyday experiences, social behavior, and expression. Even after the headlines fade, these effects continue to shape how people live, think, and relate to their surroundings.

Restricted access to data and the risks associated with open communication in a tightly controlled environment severely limit research. The conditions necessary for systematic study are difficult to secure; therefore, empirical research on vital issues in Kashmir remains scarce.

However, it is critical to understand Kashmiris as subjects with agency whose responses reflect adaptive and strategic navigation within a highly constrained and closely monitored environment.

In regions marked by sustained instability, the essential foundations of childhood development are destabilized. Children are deprived of emotional security, access to stable social networks, physical protection, and a sustained sense of safety. Political instability frequently results in prolonged school closures, sometimes lasting entire semesters. Consequently, students have sometimes been promoted en masse despite prolonged interruptions to classroom instruction. During these periods, online education has not consistently served as a viable alternative, largely due to recurring internet shutdowns.

Setbacks and long-term effects

Children who are socialized in contexts of chronic insecurity and surveillance experience learning setbacks and are at risk of enduring behavioral, emotional regulatory, social trust, and political consciousness effects as adults. Hypervigilance and hypersensitivity often develop from an early age. In such conditions, children may remain in a persistent state of alertness or “fight mode,” where anger, irritability, and aggression mask underlying feelings of sadness and social isolation.

For many, silence is internalized early on, leading to self-censorship. Children observe and learn which questions lead to tension, which topics are avoided in gatherings, and which words are never spoken aloud.

This internalization of restraint develops into a broader psychological condition resembling learned helplessness with features of duality. Repeated exposure to uncontrollable loss, surveillance, or instability teaches individuals that their actions rarely alter outcomes. Taking action becomes risky, even futile. In such contexts, avoiding harm, adapting, not drawing attention, and survival become ways of life.

A scarcity mindset

Over the course of many decades of uncertainty and disruption, many Kashmiri households developed what psychologists describe as a scarcity mindset: A survival-oriented approach to resources shaped by prolonged instability. This mindset often manifests in everyday practices, such as stocking essential items for extended periods. In many Kashmiri households, for example, staple foods like rice are purchased in large quantities and stored for years as a rational adaptation to chronic uncertainty.

This mindset also extends into other areas of personal and social life. For example, communal solidarity in Kashmir is most visibly activated during moments of loss. Entire neighborhoods come together in times of grief. However, the same intensity of togetherness is largely absent during moments of joy or personal success. Successes tend to be shared quietly and are often prefaced with accounts of hardship, health concerns, or struggles that bear little direct relation to the joy being expressed.

Overt expression of joy seems discordant in contexts where loss is common. Thus, restraint and self-regulation become adaptive mechanisms of collective survival. This is one of the many unspoken social understandings: Visibility is risky.

Constant negotiation has produced a form of social “conflict correctness,” in which maintaining harmony and avoiding discomfort take precedence over direct expression.

The paradox of hospitality and hunger

Duality is deeply ingrained in Kashmiri social life. People often communicate guardedly, carefully calibrating what they say, to whom, and in what setting. Consequently, it can be challenging to discern sincerity from strategic restraint. However, it is important to understand that this is not due to an absence of honesty; caution is ingrained in Kashmiri society as a survival mechanism. This pattern can be seen extending into intimate spaces, such as the dinner table, if studied.

Kashmiri culture places immense value on hospitality. Yet, accepting food, expressing hunger, or stating personal preferences is often deferred or declined unless repeatedly insisted upon and often accompanied by emotional appeals or promises. If not confronted or engaged, this adaptive caution runs the risk of becoming a permanent psychological trait over the years.

Parents who are raising children while experiencing chronic stress often do so from a place of unresolved fear and grief. In households where loss or disappearance has altered family structures, caregiving roles are often reorganized. Widows and half-widows, in particular, take on a disproportionate amount of emotional and social responsibilities. This places them at the center of the intergenerational transmission of fear, resilience, and restraint.

For young people already living in a state of learned helplessness, the growing infiltration of drugs into Kashmiri society now fills the void left by the absence of meaningful work. Substance use often functions as a form of escapism. Interestingly, this coincides with agendas of weakening collective resistance and social cohesion.

Z

ohran Mamdani was inaugurated on Thursday as the 112th mayor of New York City during a large public ceremony at City Hall, becoming the first Muslim and first South Asian to lead the largest city in the United States.

Mamdani, 34, took the oath of office on the Quran, marking another historic first. He is also the youngest mayor in generations, and the first New York City mayor born in Africa.

The oath was administered by U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a prominent democratic socialist who endorsed Mamdani during his campaign. Sanders later praised Mamdani’s victory as a major political upset against entrenched political and economic interests.

In his inaugural address, Mamdani pledged to govern for all New Yorkers, regardless of political differences.

“If you are a New Yorker, I am your mayor. Regardless of whether we agree, I will protect you, celebrate with you, mourn alongside you, and never, not for a second, hide from you,” he told the crowd.

He reaffirmed his identity as a democratic socialist, saying he would not abandon his principles, and reiterated key campaign pledges including universal childcare, rent freezes and policies aimed at lowering the cost of living.

Focus on affordability and inclusion

Mamdani said his administration would work to ensure that no New Yorker is priced out of basic necessities, rejecting what he described as governance favoring only the wealthiest residents.

“This will not be a tale of one city governed only by the 1%, nor will it be a tale of two cities, the rich versus the poor,” he said.

He emphasized New York City’s diversity, noting that its residents speak many languages and practice a wide range of faiths — or none at all — and said this diversity would be reflected in his leadership.

He also referenced Palestinian New Yorkers, saying they should not be excluded from politics that claim to be universal.

Sanders said Mamdani’s campaign had defeated political establishments across party lines, calling it “the biggest political upset in modern American history.” He rejected criticism that Mamdani’s proposals were radical, arguing that affordable housing, childcare and public transit are essential policies.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who introduced Mamdani at the ceremony, described his election as the start of “a new era for New York City,” saying he represents a mayoralty centered on the working class.

“Zohran will be a mayor for all of us,” she said.

Interfaith presence and city officials sworn in

The ceremony included remarks from Imam Khalid Latif of the Islamic Center of New York City, alongside priests and rabbis, highlighting the city’s interfaith character.

During the event, Mark Levine was sworn in as New York City’s 52nd comptroller and Jumaane Williams was sworn in as public advocate.

Mamdani was born in Kampala, Uganda, to Indian immigrant parents and moved to New York City at age seven. He is the son of filmmaker Mira Nair and academic Mahmood Mamdani and became a U.S. citizen in 2018.

He rose to prominence after winning a seat in the New York State Assembly in 2020, representing parts of Queens. In the Nov. 4 mayoral election, he defeated former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa.

His campaign focused on affordability and expanded social services, including pledges for free public buses, universal childcare, city-run grocery stores, expanded rent-stabilized housing and raising the minimum wage to $30 an hour by 2030.

A symbolic private swearing-in took place shortly after midnight at Manhattan’s Old City Hall subway station, ahead of Thursday’s public ceremony.

(Source: Anadolu Agency)

N

ot only did Republican candidate Donald Trump win the US presidential election on 5 November 2024 by a landslide, but the Republican Party also captured majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, painting the US map almost entirely red. The fact that the colour blue, representing the Democrats, was confined to certain states sparked intense debate about the political future of the Democrats in the US. Joe Biden’s weak leadership and Kamala Harris’ failure to make an impact as Trump’s opponent have brought arguments about a leadership problem within the Democratic Party to the forefront.

With Trump in the White House and the Republicans holding both houses of Congress, Democratic elites in Washington were contemplating the party’s future when an unexpected name emerged: Zohran Mamdani. Mamdani won the mayoral election in New York, the country’s financial heart, leaving his rivals, who had the support of almost all the elites, behind. The question now being asked in the US media and among the public is: What could Mamdani represent for the future of the Democratic Party?

The Mamdani phenomenon: From zero to mayor in one year

The New York mayoral election, held on 4 November, essentially became a political contest that concerned not just one city, but the entire American political landscape. Mamdani, who won the Democratic Party primaries against former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, has become such an extraordinary figure in American society that, just a year ago, it would have been unimaginable that he would become mayor of New York. Mamdani, who is only 34 years old and was born in Uganda, has defined himself as a ‘democratic socialist’ from the outset.

He has also clearly emphasised his Muslim identity on every issue, including Gaza and opposition to Israel. Furthermore, he has promised many socialist-style reforms for the city if elected. He was therefore elected as ‘New York’s first Muslim mayor’. Not only did Mamdani defeat the establishment elites and the traditional Democrat-Republican voter perception in these elections, he also defeated his rivals, who had the strong support of the Israel lobby and Jewish groups. In this respect, Mamdani’s election victory will be remembered as a success story worthy of many books on American political history.

What does ‘democratic socialist’ Mamdani represent for Democrats?

Mamdani won over 50 per cent of the vote in New York, a city that is already democratic and liberal, leaving Cuomo behind. He received the most votes from young people. According to exit polls, he won 78 per cent of the vote among 18- to 29-year-olds, while 56 per cent of voters over 65 voted for Cuomo. This reveals how Generation Z currently views politics in the US.

It is clear that young people are forming their own political views and voting based on them, rather than being influenced by big corporations, the Israel/Jewish lobby, the established elite or the mainstream media. This relatively ‘independent’ approach among young people is quite fitting for the political spectrum represented by the ‘progressive’ wing within the Democratic Party. However, Mamdani occupies a slightly different position due to his Muslim identity. Nevertheless, given his ‘democratic socialist’ rhetoric and his closeness to Bernie Sanders, the ‘most socialist’ senator in the US Senate, Mamdani exemplifies the growth of the progressive wing within American society, particularly among young people under the age of 30.

Undoubtedly, the founding members and moderate elements of the Democratic Party are not particularly pleased with the growth of this progressive wing that is shifting towards socialism. These core elements of the party believe that progressive politics will never win presidential elections in the ‘cradle of capitalism’, and are closely monitoring the potential influence of figures like Mamdani within the party.

While Democratic Party leaders and 40-year-old Democrats in Congress may have their reservations, one thing is certain: young Democrats in the US may well prefer a 34-year-old figure like Mamdani, who promises to tackle economic inequality, to more traditional political figures. While Mamdani’s economic promises were a key factor in his election victory, his identity as a ‘democratic socialist and Muslim immigrant’ also enabled most New Yorkers to see part of themselves in him.

Where could Mamdani go in US politics?

The impact of Mamdani’s highly successful social media campaigns on the public is undeniable. However, the events during and after the election suggest that he could play an even more significant role within the Democratic Party in the future. Although Mamdani was not born in the United States and is therefore ineligible to become president under the US Constitution, he is widely seen as a strong contender in the near future of Democratic politics.

However, his performance as mayor of New York will, of course, largely determine this potential. If he continues his sympathetic leadership and rhetoric during the election process, as he is doing now, he will maintain his popularity, particularly among young people. This could open new doors for the still very young Mamdani in US politics. His calm and composed demeanour during his meeting with US President Trump at the White House was also seen as an example of his ability to survive in the long and dark corridors of politics.

Ultimately, Mamdani won the New York election with his performance and political rhetoric in just one year. His true strengths and weaknesses will become apparent as he serves as president, but if he can maintain his current momentum, he could become a key figure for the Democrats in the short to medium term. The 2028 presidential elections and the political landscape that emerges afterwards will reveal more about how far he can go in US politics.

(Originally published in Turkish by Kriter)

T

urkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Thursday welcomed Pope Leo XIV to Türkiye, calling the visit “a very important step that strengthens our common ground” at a time of rising regional instability and global tensions. The pope, on his first foreign trip since taking office, will spend four days in Türkiye before heading to Lebanon.

Pope Leo XIV arrived in Ankara earlier in the day and began his visit by paying respects at Anitkabir, the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of the Republic of Türkiye. He is scheduled to visit several major cities, including Istanbul and Iznik, historically known as Nicaea, a central location in the early Christian Church.

The visit comes at Erdoğan’s official invitation and underscores Türkiye’s stated commitment to fostering dialogue between the Muslim and Christian worlds.

Erdoğan: Visit offers hope for regional and global peace

Speaking alongside the pope at the Presidential Complex in Ankara, Erdoğan emphasized the symbolic importance of the visit.

“I believe the messages to be delivered from Türkiye with Pope Leo XIV will reach both the Turkish-Islamic world and the Christian world, and will strengthen hope for peace around the globe,” he said.

Erdoğan noted that the timing is critical, pointing to ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, the Russia-Ukraine war, and rising global polarization. He said the pope’s voice could make a meaningful contribution to diplomatic efforts, especially regarding peace initiatives between Moscow and Kyiv.

Erdoğan reaffirmed Türkiye’s identity as a country where multiple faiths have coexisted for centuries.

“Mosques, churches, and synagogues stand side by side in Türkiye,” he said, listing landmark sites such as Istanbul’s Hagia Irene Museum and Neve Shalom Synagogue, Trabzon’s Sumela Monastery, and Van’s Akdamar Museum.

He stressed Türkiye’s record in protecting religious heritage, saying nearly 100 churches, monasteries, and places of worship have been restored since his party came to power in 2002, with five more to reopen by year’s end.

Erdoğan repeated Türkiye’s commitment to equality, stating: “Every one of our citizens, regardless of language, religion, sect, or ethnic background, is a first-class citizen of the Republic of Türkiye. We will not allow even a single person to face discrimination.”

The pope’s planned visit to the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) and Istanbul’s Sultan Ahmed Mosque was highlighted by Erdoğan as a continuation of efforts to build constructive relations between Muslims and Christians.

Meetings with Turkish officials and religious leaders

Following private and delegation-level talks with Erdoğan, Pope Leo XIV met Safi Arpagus, head of the Diyanet, in a closed-door meeting. He also visited the Vatican Embassy in Ankara.

Erdoğan praised the pope’s strong emphasis on safeguarding the family institution amid social and cultural challenges.
“Regardless of our faith,” he said, “we are all members of one great human family.”

The Turkish president used the occasion to address global intolerance, saying that “intolerance feeds conflict, and conflict feeds division and hatred.” He pointed to rising Islamophobia and xenophobia in the West, describing them as manifestations of a broader cycle of discrimination.

Erdoğan said Türkiye will continue to shoulder regional responsibilities despite “surrounding conflicts, crises, and injustices,” positioning the country as a mediator seeking peace and stability.

‘Our greatest debt to the Palestinian people is justice’

On the ongoing Gaza genocide, Erdoğan delivered one of the strongest messages of the day, saying that humanity’s greatest obligation is “justice” for Palestinians.

He reiterated Türkiye’s support for a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders and expressed appreciation for Pope Leo XIV’s — and previous popes’ — consistent stance on Palestinian rights.

Erdoğan warned that Israeli military actions throughout Gaza, including attacks on churches and mosques, are destroying historical and religious heritage. Among the damaged sites he mentioned was Gaza’s Holy Family Church, administered by the Catholic Church.

He stressed the importance of preserving the historical status quo in East Jerusalem, calling it “critical” to ensuring peace and stability in the region.

Pope Leo XIV’s trip, which will also take him to symbolic sites such as Istanbul and Iznik (Nicaea), is widely seen as an effort to revive interfaith dialogue and reinforce diplomatic bridges at a moment of global uncertainty.

For Türkiye, the visit provides an opportunity to underscore its role as a meeting point of civilizations and a mediator in multiple international crises.

The pope will continue his engagements in Türkiye through Sunday before departing for Lebanon.

(Source: Anadolu Agency)

U

ntil President Macron, the shortest-lived government in French history occurred a century ago during the Third Republic and lasted three days. Two months later, World War I began. Three years after that, Alexandre Ribot formed a new government and became prime minister. However, this government also lasted only six to seven months.

Sébastien Lecornu, the third prime minister that President Macron appointed in a year, broke Ribot’s record and the century-long record for both tenure and reappointment. Lecornu spent 26 days appointing his ministers and, according to calculations by the newspaper Le Monde, remained in office for 836 minutes. Furthermore, the fiasco did not end there. The former prime minister was reappointed on Friday evening before the end of the week.

Macron breaks Mitterrand’s record

In a semi-presidential system, the prime minister’s role is largely ceremonial when the president and parliamentary majority belong to the same party. However, when they belong to different parties, the prime minister gains power, which usually results in crisis and chaos. Since the 2024 Early General Elections, though, neither of these scenarios has been the case. With no party holding an absolute majority, sharp ideological divisions, and large and small parties struggling to form alliances, finding a candidate for prime minister and governing within the country’s economic conditions is challenging.

Over the past year, Macron first appointed Michel Barnier, a former European Commission member and chief Brexit negotiator. Barnier is known for his skill in uniting opposites and for his success in negotiating with the UK without causing a rift in Europe. Even Marine Le Pen approved of this choice. Considering the early general election results were announced on July 7, Barnier was a good choice. Macron selected him after two months of deliberation, and he was widely credited by almost everyone. Macron then appointed François Bayrou, the leader of a small centrist Christian democratic party that has run a presidential candidate in every election, as mayor of Pau.

To give you an idea of how well-informed Bayrou is about the world and its countries, he said the following, which would be very understandable in Turkey: “Before the start of EU accession negotiations, let’s give Ankara 20 million euros in the French National Assembly so they give up their candidacy!” He failed to win a vote of confidence after the parliamentary majority rejected his €44 billion austerity budget, and he left, just like Barnier. As for Lecornu, his government faced backlash from not only the opposition but also the president’s own party. Gabriel Attal, the president of the Renaissance Party group and former prime minister whom Macron brought into the country’s history as the youngest prime minister, lashed out at Lecornu, given his characteristics and scandals.

Conversely, when Bruno Retailleau—leader of the Republicans (LR) and Lecornu’s appointee as Minister of the Interior—also reacted, it became clear that the government would not win a vote of confidence. Thus, Macron surpassed Mitterrand’s record. Mitterrand was the Socialist president who appointed the most prime ministers in the Fifth Republic. Mitterrand appointed seven prime ministers over two 14-year terms (the presidential term was seven years at the time; now it is five), whereas Macron surpassed this number in eight years.

Causes of the economic crisis in France

Of course, there are many causes and aspects to this political and economic crisis. Beginning with the most recent and technical issue, Macron aimed to push the 2026 budget through parliament without making concessions. The most controversial item in the budget is Macron’s plan to gradually raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 for individuals born in 1968 or later. This means that individuals who were planning to retire in five years will now have to work two years longer. According to Le Figaro newspaper, if this budget is not passed, “an additional 14 billion euros will be added to the budget each year.”

Many analysts claim that the country is on the brink of financial collapse. The budget deficit exceeds 5% of GDP and is growing, and public debt has reached 3.3 trillion euros (114% of GDP). In other words, France, a G7 and EU founding member, is far from meeting the Maastricht criteria and could not join the EU today, even if it wanted to. In fact, France, the second-largest economy in the EU and the eurozone, is now considered riskier than Greece or Italy. The British press has already begun writing about worst-case scenarios, albeit somewhat exaggerated ones. According to The Independent, “France’s situation not only harms its neighbors, but also encourages the Kremlin.”

Following Lecornu’s resignation, President Macron stated that he would not engage with representatives of the Unbowed Party (LFİ) and the National Rally Party (RN), which he described as “extremist,” and invited all parliamentary parties to the Élysée Palace for consultation. The LFİ, on the far left, is the strongest left-wing party and the second-largest party in the country in terms of votes. The RN, on the far right, is the largest party in the country. Macron himself is responsible for the rise of these two parties. Although the country had already taken a sharp turn toward its current situation, Macron had one more opportunity when he took office at the Élysée Palace in 2017 as the youngest president of the Fifth Republic. During his election campaign, he had stated, “Colonialism is part of France’s history. Colonialism is a crime against humanity.”

“France must apologize,” he said, defending liberal secularism, which means freedom of belief and worship for all, rather than “secularism,” which, in his words, targets Muslims. In response to France’s century-old rhetoric, “Leave your differences at the door and meet in the Republic,” he was talking about opening the door to meeting in the Republic despite differences. With his promises regarding the economy, Europe, and foreign policy, he was perceived as a “savior” and won 66 percent of the vote against Marine Le Pen. Conversely, France in 2017 was not embarrassed by the 17 percent vote for the far-right Jean-Marie Le Pen against Chirac in 2004. The country was becoming accustomed to the far right.

Cultural racism against Muslims was prevalent on the right and left, perpetuated by the media and influential intellectuals. Incidentally, although this is not the subject of the article, it should be emphasized from the outset that this hostility cannot be explained by ISIS terrorist attacks because it has a much more serious history. As for the economic and social environment, it was bleak and troubled. In a country with alarming macroeconomic data, there was a widespread belief that powerful figures in banks and financial centers had fleeced the masses since the 2008 crisis. Additionally, many complained about certain European Union practices.

Islamophobic and extremist attitudes

Contrary to the promises made during the presidential election campaign, France, which has the highest Muslim and Jewish populations in Europe, has quickly introduced legislation that has opened the door to the most Islamophobic rhetoric in continental Europe. The president introduced the concept of “separatism” for Muslims, citing their refusal to eat pork as an example. According to the Minister of the Interior, Christophe Castaner, “having a beard, breaking the fast in a group, praying regularly, and not kissing are signs of radicalism.” France has conducted surveys with questions such as, “Have you encountered requests for separate toilets for girls and boys or for taps in toilets?” (IFOP, 12/9/2021).

The Interior Minister, Gérald Darmanin, criticized Marine Le Pen for being “too soft on Muslims.” Horrific and vulgar cartoons were displayed in government buildings. Two 10- to 11-year-old students who refused to look at the cartoons in class were taken from their homes in the early morning hours with their families and subjected to investigation. After a French brand began selling a hooded tracksuit for women wearing headscarves in its North African online store, senior politicians attacked the brand, stating, “Such a thing cannot be permitted in our civilization,” and Macron’s party spokesperson, Aurore Bergé, called for a boycott.

According to Minister of State Schiappa, “This sporting product was clearly a promotion of political Islam—proof that religion controls everything.” A unique document was published showing the transfer of anti-Muslim sentiment to the state level during Macron’s first term. Imams would swear to abide by this text, and, in their view, so would Muslims. According to the document, Muslims were considered a separate and dangerous group in relation to the French constitution and laws. For example, they had to swear not to “discriminate against sick and disabled people”! Not to mention the number of mosques and associations that were closed, or the civil society organizations that fought against Islamophobia and were shut down!

On the other hand, Macron, who was quickly described as “the president of the rich, but the richest,” introduced the “Green Tax” initiative in his first term, which imposed an additional burden of over 20 percent on the French. For many people living on the outskirts of metropolitan areas who have no choice but to drive because public transportation is unavailable and who live on 700–800 euros, the green tax initiative meant an additional 100 euros in expenses. Shortly after, the government increased the tax deduction from salaries to 37%, while simultaneously granting tax breaks to large companies, abolishing the wealth tax, and implementing legal changes that made it easier to lay off workers.

I

ndia has recently put into effect a citizenship law that has drawn widespread criticism for its exclusion of Muslims, marking a significant development under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government. The law, announced on Monday, establishes a religious criterion for migrants from major South Asian faiths, effectively excluding Islam. Here’s a breakdown of what this means and why it’s stirring controversy.

The Citizenship Amendment Act provides an expedited path to citizenship for migrants belonging to Hindu, Parsi, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, and Christian communities who fled Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan before December 31, 2014. Notably, it excludes Muslims, who form a majority in these nations. This law, which is the first of its kind in India, sets a religious standard for citizenship in a country known for its religious diversity.

The implementation of this law has been met with widespread backlash and protests, particularly from India’s Muslim community and its supporters. The legislation was passed by Parliament in 2019 but was delayed following deadly protests. Critics argue that the law undermines India’s secular foundation and could be used in conjunction with proposed citizenship registries to marginalize Muslims.

International concern and domestic response

The United States has expressed concern over the law’s implementation and emphasized the importance of religious freedom and equal treatment under the law for all communities. Meanwhile, within India, opposition parties, rights groups, and minority communities have vehemently opposed the law, labeling it exclusionary and unconstitutional.

India’s Muslims, who constitute a significant minority within the country, have voiced concerns over the law’s discriminatory nature and its potential to further marginalize their community. Critics accuse Prime Minister Modi of advancing a Hindu nationalist agenda that threatens India’s secular fabric and fosters intolerance towards religious minorities. Modi’s government has faced criticism for its handling of anti-Muslim violence and its perceived alignment with Hindu nationalist sentiments.

Exclusion of Muslims

The Citizenship Amendment Act offers an expedited pathway to citizenship for Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, and Christians who sought refuge in India, primarily from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, up to December 31, 2014. Notably, this legislation excludes Muslims, who constitute the majority population in all three countries.

Furthermore, the act revises the previous law that prohibited illegal migrants from attaining Indian citizenship. This marks a significant departure for India, which is officially a secular state with a population characterized by religious diversity, as it introduces religious qualifications for citizenship for the first time.

As India grapples with the implications of this controversial citizenship law, tensions between religious communities and political factions are expected to persist. The law’s implementation reflects broader debates over secularism, nationalism, and religious identity in one of the world’s most populous democracies.

The impact of India’s citizenship law will continue to shape discussions on human rights, religious freedom, and the future of democracy in the region.

Source: The Associated Press

I

n a political shift that reflects a broader trend in Europe, Portugal’s centre-right Democratic Alliance (AD) emerged victorious in Sunday’s general election, according to the party’s leader, Luis Montenegro. However, the path to forming a government remains uncertain, as Montenegro ruled out negotiations with the surging far-right Chega party, whose parliamentary representation quadrupled to at least 48 seats.

The rise of Chega has given the combined right a majority in the 230-seat legislature. This outcome signifies an unexpected move towards the far right in Portugal, a country that has historically been considered immune to the rise of right-wing populism in Europe. The election results echo a wider trend expected to manifest in gains for far-right parties across the continent in the upcoming European elections in June.

Pedro Nuno Santos, the leader of the left-leaning Socialist Party (PS), conceded defeat after a closely contested election. The PS, in power since 2015, secured the second position by a narrow margin. Montenegro, addressing supporters, emphasized that the AD had won the election and called for responsible actions by parties in the new parliament to fulfill the wishes of the Portuguese people.

A “negative alliance”

While Santos ruled out supporting the AD’s platform, which includes across-the-board tax cuts, Montenegro expressed hope that the PS and Chega would not form a “negative alliance” to thwart the desired government. President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa is yet to formally invite the AD leader to form a government, a step that Montenegro anticipates.

The AD, along with conservative allies in the Madeira region, won a total of at least 79 seats, surpassing the PS’s 77. Four seats were pending attribution after the final count of ballots from abroad.

The far-right Chega party campaigned on an anti-establishment platform, focusing on eliminating corruption and expressing concerns about what it perceives as “excessive” immigration. Chega’s leader, Andre Ventura, asserted that the election results demonstrated the Portuguese people’s desire for a government comprising the AD and Chega.

A severe housing crisis

Amid concerns of potential political instability, AD supporters voiced their expectations at the election night party. Paula Medeiros stated that there was “no doubt that instability will be constant.” The PS and the Social Democratic Party (PSD), leading the newly formed AD, have alternated in power since the fall of the dictatorship in 1974.

Key issues dominating the campaign included a severe housing crisis, low wages, healthcare challenges, and widespread corruption. Despite these challenges, Portugal, under Socialist leadership, achieved solid economic growth and budget surpluses, earning praise from Brussels and investors. The AD’s approach to fiscal prudence will be closely monitored as it navigates forming a government in this new political landscape.

Source: Reuters

I

n a significant move, far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders, the leader of the Party for Freedom (PVV), announced on January 8, 2024, that he is withdrawing a controversial 2018 proposal that called for the ban on mosques and the Quran. This decision, seen as a crucial concession to potential coalition partners, comes just a day before the resumption of talks to form the next government following the November 2023 elections.

Wilders’ withdrawal of the legislation is considered a key step in gaining the trust and support of three mainstream parties that he aims to include in a coalition government alongside the PVV. One of the party leaders, Pieter Omtzigt of the New Social Contract, had raised concerns about the compatibility of some of Wilders’ policies with the Dutch Constitution, which upholds liberties, including freedom of religion.

The proposed legislation, dating back to 2018, was part of a series of laws presented by Wilders that aimed to restrict what he labeled as “Islamic expressions.” The bill characterized Islam as a “violent, totalitarian ideology” and called for the prohibition of mosques, the Quran, Islamic schools, as well as the wearing of burqas and niqabs. The decision to withdraw this legislation indicates a potential softening of the PVV’s strident anti-Islam stance.

Wilders’ more moderate position

During a parliamentary debate last year, following the PVV’s success in winning 37 seats in the 150-seat lower house of the Dutch parliament in the November 2023 general election, Wilders hinted at a more moderate position regarding his party’s anti-Islam policies. This move is seen as an effort to align the PVV’s proposals with the Dutch Constitution, addressing concerns raised by potential coalition partners.

In response to the withdrawal of the legislation, Wilders stated during the parliamentary debate, “Sometimes I will have to withdraw proposals, and I will do that. I will show the Netherlands, the legislature, Mr. Omtzigt’s party — anybody who wants to hear it — that we will adapt our rules to the constitution and bring our proposals in line with it.”

Wilders is scheduled to resume coalition talks on January 9, 2024, with Pieter Omtzigt and the leaders of two other parties: the center-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy led by outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte and the Farmer Citizen Movement led by Caroline van der Plas.

Laws lack majority vote

Wilders presented the three laws to the parliament in 2017, 2018, and 2019; however, they failed to secure a majority in the lower house.

Regarding the suggested ban on Islamic expressions, the Council of State, an independent legislative watchdog, recommended Wilders discard the proposal. In a 2019 advisory statement, the council stated, “The Advisory Division urges the initiators to reject the bill as it is inconsistent with the fundamental principles of the democratic constitutional state, principles that the initiators aim to safeguard.”

The withdrawal of the controversial legislation marks a significant development in Dutch politics, showcasing a potential shift in the PVV’s approach and creating room for broader cooperation within the political landscape.

Source: The Associated Press

A

new study has brought to light the pervasive nature of racism faced by Muslim men in Germany, with over 40% reporting experiences of racial discrimination in their daily lives. The findings, released on November 7, by the German Center for Integration and Migration Research (Dezim) in Berlin, indicate that 41.2% of Muslim men feel affected by racism.

The report underscores discrimination encounters in public offices and interactions with authorities, including the police. A notable 39% of Muslim men recounted more frequent experiences of discrimination within the police force, while a significant 51% reported adverse experiences when dealing with public offices and authorities.

Muslim women also face substantial discrimination, with 46% reporting similar experiences in offices and authorities. The figure drops to 25% when referring to interactions with the police.

Discrimination in Germany’s healthcare system

The study also highlighted discrimination in Germany’s healthcare system. Frank Kalter, the director of the Dezim Institute, noted that individuals who are racially characterized often receive inferior appointments and their grievances are less acknowledged.

This alarming revelation comes at a time when Germany’s government, led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, is expressing concern over rising anti-Muslim racism in the aftermath of the recent Gaza war that began on October 7. Government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit stated that any attacks on Muslims, whether for religious reasons or otherwise, are “absolutely unacceptable.”

The nearly 5 million Muslims residing in Germany have an inherent right to protection, he asserted at a news conference in Berlin.

Last week, the Berlin-based Alliance Against Islamophobia and Anti-Muslim Hate (CLAIM) warned of escalating anti-Muslim racism amidst the intensifying conflict between Israel and Palestine. Rima Hanano, head of CLAIM, emphasized the urgent need to address the uptick in anti-Muslim racism, which threatens social cohesion.

CLAIM has documented numerous instances of anti-Muslim threats, violence, and discrimination in a short span, including attacks on mosques. The organization highlighted that many incidents likely go unreported, particularly in the realm of online hate speech.

The NGO advocates for comprehensive measures to counter anti-Muslim racism and safeguard those affected. “It is imperative for our democracy and societal cohesion to actively combat anti-Muslim racism, antisemitism, and other misanthropic ideologies,” CLAIM asserts, emphasizing the immediate need for action.

The recent study and calls from advocacy groups serve as a stark reminder of the challenges facing Muslim communities in Germany and the importance of concerted efforts to foster an inclusive and equitable society.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Narendra Modi is roaring to the world that India is a worthy contender on the global scene. India has come to the fore with its massive economy, recent successes at the space front, potential megaproject linking India, the Middle East and Europe via rail and sea, and playing the role of a distanced ally towards to the competing world powers: the U.S. and China.

All eyes were on the G20 summit taking place in New Delhi this year, and Modi surely wanted to make a good impression. Schools and offices were shut, roads were blocked, and street vendors were removed. Even whole slums near the venue were covered in tarpaulin! Ironically, Modi’s speeches repeatedly described India as the world’s largest democracy and the ‘voice of the Global South’.

However, behind this sterilized facade lies discrimination, oppression, and erasure— on brand with the Hindu nationalism fueled by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Numerous attacks on minority communities sweep through the country, including demolitions of Muslim houses, mosque and church attacks, grave desecrations and violent killings. Meanwhile, the government takes every step to define India as a Hindu nation.

In this month’s book bundle, we examine how Modi’s India both oppresses and suppresses its minority citizens. Through books that explain the political dynamics in India, the impact of state-sanctioned violence, and the silencing of critical voices, we observe how the world’s largest democracy goes wrong.

In the book Modi’s India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy, Christophe Jaffrelot delves into the intricate dynamics of Indian politics over the last two decades, with a particular focus on the rise of Hindu nationalism coupled with national-populism, largely attributed to Narendra Modi’s leadership. This confluence of factors has not only secured Modi’s electoral success, starting in Gujarat and extending to the entire country but has also transformed the very nature of democracy in India.

Jaffrelot’s work spotlights Modi’s ability to captivate a significant portion of the Indian populace by offering promises of development while simultaneously exploiting ethno-religious fault lines within the electorate. This national-populism is marked by Modi’s personalized political style, characterized by direct communication with voters through various channels, effectively saturating the public discourse.

To shed light on the consequences of this political shift, Jaffrelot conducts original interviews across India, revealing a troubling evolution toward what he terms an “ethnic democracy.” In this model, the majority community is equated with the nation, while religious minorities, specifically Muslims and Christians, find themselves relegated to the status of second-class citizens, vulnerable to harassment by ‘vigilante’ groups.

Furthermore, Jaffrelot elucidates how the political landscape in India has developed authoritarian tendencies for various reasons. In its quest for power not only at the national level but also in the states, the government has centralized authority at the expense of federalism, eroding the very institutions that once served as checks and balances, including India’s Supreme Court.

In sum, Modi’s India showcases a government, supported by popular mandate, stifles dissent and grows increasingly intolerant of ethnic and religious minorities. The book provides essential insights into politics, nationalism, and populism in contemporary India.

Christophe Jaffrelot, Modi’s India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy (Princeton University Press, 2021) ISBN: 9780691206806, 656 pages

In Composing Violence: The Limits of Exposure and the Making of Minorities, Moyukh Chatterjee examines the haunting memory of the 2002 anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat, India, where armed Hindu mobs unleashed brutal attacks on Muslims in broad daylight, resulting in a staggering death toll that shocked the nation. Chatterjee’s investigation goes beyond the horrific events themselves, aiming to dissect how such highly visible political violence against minority communities serves as a catalyst for profound transformations in the domains of law, public culture, and power dynamics.

Contrary to the expectation that exposing state-sanctioned anti-Muslim violence would lead to its suppression, Chatterjee argues that these incidents actually set the stage for a fundamental shift in India, pushing it toward a Hindu supremacist state. He contends that examining the responses of both the state and civil society to this violence offers crucial insights into the inherent features of modern democracy, where riots and pogroms become tools for molding a society defined by a vulnerable minority and a dominant majority.

Chatterjee’s exploration focuses on multiple facets, including courtroom procedures, police archives, legal activism, and mainstream media coverage. Through this multifaceted approach, he constructs a theory of violence as a form of governance, effectively engineering minority populations.

Composing Violence invites readers to grapple with the profound and unsettling implications of anti-Muslim violence in India. Chatterjee’s meticulous analysis paints a picture of how violence can shape the course of democracy, raising profound questions about the fragility of minority rights and the complex interplay between power and prejudice in contemporary societies.

Moyukh Chatterjee, Composing Violence: The Limits of Exposure and the Making of Minorities (Duke University Press, 2023) ISBN: 978-1-4780-1966-4, 184 pages

What happens to those who dare question the injustices of the Modi regime? The book How Long Can the Moon Be Caged? provides a piercing examination of the authoritarian regime under Narendra Modi in India, where the suppression of critical voices and the silencing of dissent have become central objectives for the ruling BJP party. Their ethno-nationalist aspiration of establishing an exclusively ‘Hindu’ India, involves targeting anyone who dares to voice questions or opposition.

Authors Suchitra Vijayan and Francesca Recchia present a unique perspective highlight the experiences of political prisoners. Their approach combines astute political and legal analysis with firsthand accounts, offering readers an in-depth exploration of the subtle acts of resistance that occur both within and beyond prison walls, involving not only the prisoners themselves but also their families. The narrative unravels a tale of institutional decay and the erosion of fundamental rights.

The book spotlights the stories of those who have been falsely accused of inciting the Bhima Koregaon violence, student leaders who have protested against the discriminatory citizenship law of 2020, and activists associated with the Pinjra Tod movement. By weaving together these voices, How Long Can the Moon Be Caged? celebrates the remarkable bravery, unwavering humanity, and moral integrity of individuals who have been incarcerated for their unwavering solidarity with marginalized and oppressed communities.

In a world where the struggle for dissent and the preservation of civil liberties are ever more vital, this book serves as a powerful testament to the resilience of those who refuse to be silenced, while painting a vivid picture of the ongoing battle for justice and equality in India.

Suchitra Vijayan and Francesca Recchia, How Long Can the Moon Be Caged?: Voices of Indian Political Prisoners (Pluto books, 2023) ISBN 9780745347981, 216 pages

C

ould Brigitte Macron, the wife of President Macron, secretly be a Muslim? According to Gabriel Attal, Minister of National Education and Youth, it is possible.  If Madame Macron were a teenager who tried to enter school in the long white Louis Vuitton dress she wore to the White House reception in December 2022, would she be allowed in? Or, would she be allowed to enter school in the long black dress she wore on her husband’s visit to China?

Last week, a female student wearing a hip-length black jacket and trousers was refused entry on the grounds that her outfit was “too black.”  A female student named Nasima, wearing a cotton, cream-colored tunic and trousers, was also denied entry to her school. Both female students are Muslim. So is Madame Macron secretly Muslim?

Perhaps the answer would be clear if the two moderators on the TV channel BFM TV cross-examined her like they did Nasima: “So your dress is not a religious dress for you, is it? Then, why are you wearing this outfit that is a little bit draped? If it’s fashionable, where did this trend come from? Are you wearing this slightly flowy outfit to hide your curves? Is this outfit related to your religious beliefs? Are there any non-Muslims who dress like this, and if so, can they go inside? Do you wear a headscarf outside school?”

It, thus, transpires that if Madame Macron were a teenage schoolgirl, she would have managed to prove that she was not a Muslim at the very beginning of this interrogation and she could have entered the school without any problems, taking into account her attire on other occasions.

You may be thinking, “What an absurd and stupid fictional discourse!” But I am not the one who started it. What I am trying to do is to explain, in the laconic words of Le Figaro, “the ban on the abaya, the symbol of an education system that fails to transmit the richness of reason, the joy of freedom and the pride of a common heritage.” Otherwise, thank goodness, I am sufficiently intelligent and have common sense.

At the start of the new school year, Minister of National Education and Youth Gabriel Attal announced: “I have banned long dresses for Muslim girls in schools. If you wear pants or a skirt under a short dress or tunic, that is also forbidden.” However, the actual ban would have sounded something like this: “I have banned the wearing of abaya in schools. When you step into the classroom, you should not be able to tell at a glance which religion the students belong to.”

Just like the 2004 ban on the use of large crosses, kippahs, and headscarves in schools, Muslims are the subject of the ban and are facing open discrimination, racism, and persecution. Since students wearing crosses go to private Catholic schools, and Jewish students wearing kippahs from kindergarten onwards go to private Jewish schools, it is no secret that from the very beginning the 2004 ban targeted Muslim girls attending public schools.

Now, the French state is trying to control the body of Muslim girls from head to toe! Like his predecessors, Attal does not openly say “we are practicing cultural racism or Islamophobia,” but instead proclaims “secularism is the freedom to save oneself through education.” “These garments,” he contends, “are a religious expression that tests the resistance of the Republic in schools that are supposed to be the refuge of secularism!” According to the minister, 298 students wearing tunics and long flowing dresses were identified in the first week, more than half of them changed, 67 did not and were not allowed to enter the school. France has launched a mobilization to successfully implement the ban, and starting this year, 14,000 teaching staff will be trained by the end of 2024 and 300,000 by 2025.

President Macron also commented on the ban. “It is not our intention to label,” he began, in an assessment that, because he is the president of the Republic, naturally brought his formidable “French wisdom” to the fore. “We cannot pretend that the terrorist attack or the murder of Samuel Paty did not happen,” he said, emphasizing that the French people live with a minority in French society that “challenges the Republic and secularism” and “abuses religion,” sometimes with “very bad” consequences.

Jérôme Legavre, a deputy from the far-left La France Insoumise (LFI) said, “Are these girls suspects who want to behead their teacher? What is Macron looking for? Does he want to create worse conflicts?” He presumably doesn’t want to, but if one remembers that the gap between him and his far-right rival Marine Le Pen in the 2017 presidential elections narrowed from 32 points to 17 points in the 2022 elections, one gets an idea of where France is heading.

This is how Jews, whose Frenchness is not doubted today, were targeted 80 years ago, denounced by their French neighbors, until France eventually became an accomplice to the Holocaust. Thanks to strong legal protection against anti-Semitism after the Holocaust, no one today talks about the Jews observing a kosher diet, the floor-length skirts of Jewish women, the bonnets or turbans worn by some Jewish women, the robes of Jewish men, the beards that go halfway down their chests, their kippahs, or the academics asking people to help them turn on the light switch at the university on the Sabbath. No one calls it “bondage” when religious Jewish women walk behind their husbands and greet their husbands’ friends only from a distance.

Eighty years later, Muslims are demonized with the help of the media and intellectuals through the “Law of principles strengthening respect for the values of the Republic,” the “Charter of Imams,” and the invention of so-called French Islam. Islam is portrayed as a dangerous religion in need of mass surveillance and repression, and Muslims as an existential threat to the country’s “Civilization,” “Tradition,” and “Values.” Speaking on the occasion of this latest ban, Government Spokesperson Olivier Véran said that these disguises amount to “a political attack,” but also “an act of proselytizing,” and “an act of trying to convert people to Islam.”

According to the national education minister’s formula, it will not be possible to tell what religion a student is when they walk into class—only a few minutes later, perhaps, when asked for their name, “it will be obvious who is a Muslim!” In other words, the names of Muslim students could well be defined as “offenses” as well. Indeed, far-right leader Èric Zemmour has suggested that the names of Muslims should also be frenchized. Considering that Macron’s former interior minister Gérald Darmanin criticized Marine Le Pen for being “soft on Muslims,” why not?

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n August 14, millions of people in Bangladesh watched in shock and disbelief as news broke of the death of Allama Sayeedi. Delwar Hossain Sayeedi, a popular scholar, preacher, and Islamist politician had been imprisoned by Sheikh Hasina’s government since 2010 and died of a heart attack at the age of 83. According to local sources, he suffered a heart attack on August13, but was transferred to a specialist hospital by the authorities a day later. At the hospital, his condition deteriorated rapidly and he was reported to have died at 8:40 p.m. local time.

Experts have pointed to inconsistencies in statements from the medical team, which just hours earlier had said his condition was stable, leading many to suspect that poor medical care was the reason for his death. News of his deteriorating health and subsequent death spread like wildfire on social media, and thousands of his supporters surrounded the BSMMU hospital premises in Shahbag, in the heart of Dhaka, anxiously awaiting news. When news of his death broke, the crowd swelled to thousands, demanding that his funeral prayers be held the next day at Dhaka’s central Baitul Mukarram Mosque.

The Bangladeshi government refused to accept to the request, insisting that the body be buried in his hometown, far from the capital, and that only a limited number of people be allowed to attend his funeral. While Allama Sayeedi’s supporters remained outside the hospital until late into the night, a brutal police force finally dispersed the protesters and his coffin was taken away. The next day, 50,000 people attended his funeral prayers in his home town of Pirojpur.

Allama Sayeedi feared in life and death

Sheikh Hasina’s government had every right to be afraid of the gathering masses in Dhaka on the night of the scholar’s death—the last time people took to the streets in Allama Sayeedi’s name was to protest the 2013 verdict in the case investigating his alleged involvement in war crimes during Bangladesh’s 1971 War of Independence. The same Hasina government ordered security forces to take a hard-line stance and more than 100 innocent protesters were slaughtered when police and army used live ammunition to disperse mass protests in major cities across Bangladesh.

But who was Allama Sayeedi who so terrified the Hasina government both in life and in death? A man of humble scholarly origins, Delwar Hossain Sayeedi was born in 1940 in Pirojpur, Barisal district of Bangladesh, into a family with a madrassa background. He dominated the Islamic lecture circuit in Bangladesh for the past 50 years, clearly delivering the message of Islam and the Koran in vaaz mehfils (open-air/open-air mass meetings) attended by hundreds of thousands of people. His oratorical style, both eloquent and melodious, made him popular with people from all walks of life.

It is very common to hear his lectures still being played loudly in vehicles, restaurants, mobile phones, and people’s homes in Bangladesh, despite a government ban on mentioning his name in public. But that is not all: Allama Sayeedi was also a two-time member of parliament for the Pirojpur-1 constituency in the Barisal Division in southern Bangladesh, representing a Hindu-majority constituency, from July 1996 to October 2006. Fluent in Bangla, Arabic, and Urdu, the author of 75 books, he was also very active in humanitarian causes and was instrumental in raising funds for Muslim communities in the West, such as Europe and the U.S.

A witness in favor of Allama Sayeedi was abducted

At one point in the trial, Sukhranjan Bali, a prosecution witness who was testifying as a defense witness instead, was abducted from the courthouse steps and forcibly disappeared as he was about to testify that Allama Sayeedi had not murdered his brother. Bali was found many months later in an Indian prison, but by then it was too late: Sayeedi had been found guilty by the ICT and sentenced to death. However, Sayeedi’s immense popularity was a factor the government had not taken into account. In the afternoon of the day of the first verdict on February 28, 2013, police and army forces were ordered to crack down on demonstrators, firing on them. An estimated 100 protesters died across the country in the days of political violence that followed.

Following the state-sponsored violence and the exposure of the trial as a farcical, politically motivated witch hunt, the senior judges were forced to resign and Sayeedi’s death sentence was inexplicably commuted to life imprisonment in September 2014, presumably to maintain a veneer of impartiality and, more importantly, to prevent popular protests that could potentially topple the government from getting out of hand.

The trial of Allama Sayeedi at the ICT, along with a number of other trials of well-known opposition and Islamist politicians such as Abdul Quader Mollah, Kamaruzzaman, Golam Azam, Motiur Rahman Nizami, Ali Ahsan Mujahid, Mir Quasem Ali, and Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury, were touted by the Hasina government and its allies as necessary to bring closure and justice to the victims of the 1971 war. Instead, the farcical and biased nature of these political trials exposed deep-rooted plans to decimate the opposition to the Hasina regime through judicially sanctioned killings of key opposition figures and to strengthen the incumbent regime’s grip on power, effectively establishing dynastic rule for decades to come.

An enormous cost of the Hasina government

Hasina and her allies appear to have succeeded so far, ruling Bangladesh with an iron fist since 2009. But the cost has been enormous. Throughout this long period of Hasina’s misrule, the biggest victims have been the Bangladeshi people. Large-scale corruption, security, and governance failures, high inflation, high unemployment, rising poverty and a general lack of basic services are just some of the everyday problems that are getting worse for ordinary Bangladeshi citizens. Public dissatisfaction with the government is high; serious allegations of widespread vote rigging, ballot stuffing, and voter intimidation by the authorities in the last two general elections in 2014 and 2019 have severely undermined public confidence in the current regime and regularly trigger periods of mass unrest and political agitation.

Whatever relief Hasina and her supporters imagined they would get from Sayeedi’s death, it does not seem to have materialized. Far from diminishing his legacy, the circumstances of Sayeedi’s death and the injustice done to him in life have made him a shaheed (martyr) in the eyes of ordinary Bangladeshis. Many members of Hasina’s political party have criticized her on social media, saying “Islam comes first” when they were expelled for supporting Allama Sayeedi as a victim of Hasina’s injustice.

Tens of hundreds of funeral prayers were held for the revered scholar both locally and internationally. Unable to stop the national and international outpouring of support for Allama Sayeedi and his family, the government has resorted to tactics of surveillance, widespread raids, arrests, and imprisonment of opponents.

If anything, Sayeedi’s death is a Pyrrhic victory and has done more to diminish Hasina government’s legitimacy in the eyes of Bangladeshi citizens than to glorify it. His death has exposed a horrible side of the Hasina government and made it clear for all to see how Islamophobic, incompetent, and authoritarian this government really is. The authoritarian government of Sheikh Hasina may still be in power, but it is long dead in terms of political legitimacy and the right to represent the people of Bangladesh. You can kill many people, but you cannot kill an idea.

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Qadir’s observations underscore an important point: Muslims living in the West often find themselves caught up in the complexities of politics and day-to-day life. While this might sound exhausting, it’s not a rarity, but rather a common experience for Muslims in the West.

In stark contrast, Qadir points out that this level of complexity is noticeably absent in Turkey. The challenges Muslims face in the West seem less pronounced in the Turkish context and daily life as a Muslim is significantly less burdensome. The more streamlined and unburdened life gives Turkish Muslims a sense of ease and clarity.

Qadir’s perspective is a testament to the attraction Istanbul holds for Western Muslims and provides insight to the growing trend of Western Muslims moving to Turkey.

Islamic heritage and Western comfort

Adding to Turkey’s allure is the presence of numerous mosques, shrines, and landmarks intimately tied to Islamic history. These structures serve as tangible reminders of Turkey’s rich spiritual heritage and accentuate its appeal to Western Muslims, allowing them to embrace their faith openly while staying connected to their Western lifestyle. 

Lauren Booth, a British Muslim, author, and activist, shares her perspective on Turkey’s appeal: “It’s a great mix of Islamic and Turkish culture—that’s what’s incredible to me as a European.” “I can feel at home here as a Muslim and as a European. For me, it’s like two sides of my life are matched, finally,” she adds.

Booth also notes the growing trend of many Muslims being drawn to Turkey from countries such as the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. She describes this as a significant coming together that promises a hopeful atmosphere of prosperity and unity. Her experiences in Turkey, especially her visits to the grand mosques, led her to reevaluate her ideas about the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish people, and to acknowledge that her earlier understanding had been influenced by Western-centric Orientalism.

The lure of Western comfort and Islamic character make Turkey an ideal destination for Western students of Islam. Students from countries such as the United States find the mix of a developed society and political freedom and Islamic values particularly appealing.

Turkey’s educational institutions offer comprehensive Islamic Studies programs which attract those with a thirst for in-depth knowledge of theology, history, Islamic fine arts, and jurisprudence. Western Muslims who want to learn more about their faith, history, and culture respond to these points of attraction as well. 

Family ties and cultural bridges

Family ties and cultural heritage influence Western Muslims’ decision to make Turkey their new home. These ties provide a familiar touchstone in a foreign land and foster a sense of community and support. The presence of established networks can ease the transition and help newcomers navigate their new lives in Turkey.

Turkey’s social openness, and the warmth and welcome by the local population offer comfort and a sense of acceptance to Western Muslims who face discrimination in their home countries. In addition, the diversity within expatriate communities creates a supportive environment for newcomers seeking companionship and mutual understanding as shared experiences bridge cultural differences.

Muhammad Tahiri, a longtime resident of Turkey who leads a community of Western Muslims, emphasizes the appeal of Istanbul’s Islamic diversity and modernity. Unlike other Muslim countries with polarizing labels, Turkey has a harmonious atmosphere where labels such as “Salafi” or “Sufi” are less important. The ease of hearing the adhan (call to prayer) on the street and then shopping in well-stocked malls adds to this unique experience.

In addition, the freedom to access the Internet and mobile applications without surveillance contrasts with more controlled environments. Complementing this context, the Majlis of Istanbul Muslims has emerged as an initiative dedicated to fostering spiritual, social, intellectual, and professional dialogue within the Istanbul Muslim community, providing avenues for growth, collaboration, and the promotion of Islamic values and thought.

The migration of Western Muslims to Turkey reflects a blend of historical significance, religious freedom, social openness, and educational prospects. Turkey’s rich history, religious tolerance, and promising opportunities continue to attract Western Muslims seeking a fresh start. In their search for an environment that is consistent with their values and conducive to their faith, Turkey is proving to be a destination where these aspirations can be realized.

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ar-right and racist ideology in Europe has a deep-rooted history and has shown the ability to transform itself into a political movement through political parties. Due to the basic functions of political parties in pluralist democracies, namely representation, agenda setting, public relations, awareness raising, and aspirations to power, political party status is a tremendous tool for the social organization of far-right and racist movements.

Especially in recent years, far-right parties have experienced a serious upward trend in European politics and have strengthened their presence in all regions of the European geography. Far-right parties have gradually gained popular support in several European countries, especially in Germany, France, and Italy, and have achieved significant electoral success. They have thus succeeded in becoming integrated actors in European countries’ political institutions.

Political parties are an important instrument for the functioning of democracy. They represent different segments of society, formulate policies, and seek to reflect the will of the people through elections. The inability of left-wing, liberal, and conservative political parties to offer convincing alternative solutions to the electorates’ problems, and the fact that they are too fragmented and divided to form coalitions, is seen by far-right parties as a window of opportunity to gain power in the coming years.

Ideology of European far-right parties

Although the ideologies of far-right parties in different parts of Europe differ to some extent, they are based on common points and references. These can be defined under four headings:

– Nationalism and cultural identity: Far-right and racist parties emphasize nationalism and cultural identity, placing great importance on the superiority and interests of a country or nation. Far-right parties try to attract support by focusing on national pride, national values, and cultural identity. They usually seek to unite society under the guise of a “sense of belonging” by distinguishing between “us” and “them.”

– Authoritarianism and strong leadership: Strong authoritarian leaders influence their followers by advocating discriminatory and authoritarian policies. They try to exploit society’s security concerns by emphasizing issues such as safety, order, and harsh punishment. Authoritarian leadership is used by the far right to achieve its political goals and to govern society.

– Racism and anti-immigrant sentiment: Far-right parties adopt ideological elements such as racism and anti-immigrant sentiments and show discrimination and hostility towards other groups, while defending the superiority of their own ethnic or national group. Anti-immigrant sentiment is central to the policies of these parties and often includes harsh restrictions on immigrants, racial or cultural discrimination, and policies of ethnic cleansing.

– Populism: Far-right and racist parties often use populist rhetoric. Populism aims to mobilize support by exploiting people’s emotional and economic concerns. Far-right parties present simplistic messages and answers to appeal to broad sections of the population.

The ideologies of far-right parties are based on elements such as nationalism, authoritarianism, racism, and anti-immigrant sentiments. These ideologies can spread under the influence of factors such as social discontent, economic crises, cultural conflicts, and security concerns.

Following another devastating war in Europe, destruction and humanitarian disasters were omnipresent across the continent. The suffering caused by the war led to discontent and insecurity in society, and political instability and economic difficulties paved the way for the emergence of far-right parties. Meanwhile the banning of ideologies such as Fascism and Nazism caused some far-right groups to operate underground.

Thus, Europe’s dominant countries, especially Germany, did not accommodate far-right parties into their political systems and ensured that they remained marginalized for a long time. During this period, far-right parties transformed themselves in order to win votes in elections, taking into account local social developments and the cyclical variability of world politics.

Until the 1980s, neofascist political parties generally carried on the mission of the Fascist and Nazi parties of the past. Labor migration in Europe in the 1960s and 1970s led to an increase in the immigrant population. With the periodic economic crises since the 1990s, some segments of society have become concerned about immigrants and different cultures. Economic uncertainties such as rising unemployment, ever-worsening financial difficulties, and income inequality have led to anti-immigrant sentiments among the local populations.

Since the 2000s, there has been a new wave of migration to Europe and an increase in the foreign population on the continent due to terrorist attacks, economic problems, and the Arab Spring. Although far-right parties have not completely changed their neofascist formation so as to turn this dynamic into an opportunity, they have mobilized and expanded their existing support base by resorting to populist politics that rely on social discontent and concerns, anti-immigration sentiments, and xenophobia in order to reach large masses. Now, far-right parties have changed their guise and softened their neofascist and Nazi rhetoric in order to win the support of non-radicalized conservative masses. Islamophobia and anti-immigrant policies against “non-white” immigrants have increased their popularity and begun to win votes.

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, far-right parties have undergone their second evolution. True to their racist and anti-immigrant agenda, they have declared war on the globalizing world. Globalization refers to worldwide economic, political, social, and cultural interaction and integration, including elements such as advances in communication and transport technologies, free trade and investment policies, and the strengthening of international institutions. Globalization also features drawbacks such as income inequality, social and cultural conflicts, environmental degradation, and inequitable distribution of resources. The main reasons why far-right parties oppose globalization are nationalism, concerns about the loss of national sovereignty, economic effects (loss of wealth), and the preservation of cultural identity. While globalization brings about economic and cultural change, some parts of society react to this change.

Far-right parties, which have become the self-proclaimed “protectors” of the masses that find themselves on the losing end of the new globalized world, aim to convince the isolated masses that there are easy solutions to their problems through populist discourses and by mobilizing their thoughts and emotions against a specific enemy. Far-right parties, with their hatred of Islam and immigrants, and their stance against globalization, have gained serious momentum with the economic crisis triggered by the pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine War.

The rise of far-right parties in Europe

The rise of far-right parties in Europe has attracted attention and concern in recent years. Understanding the factors behind this rise will help us to understand the popularity and influence of far-right parties. Factors such as migration, economic uncertainty, cultural concerns, emphasis on national identity, and political crises are important factors influencing the rise of the far right.

Migration is an important factor in the rise of extreme right-wing parties. The large waves of migration and the so-called refugee crises in Europe have raised security concerns and fears of cultural conflict in certain milieus. Far-right parties use the issue of migration to spread fear and anxiety among the population and advocate harsh and restrictive immigration policies.

Economic insecurity and social injustice are other factors that have increased the popularity of far-right parties. Problems such as economic recession, unemployment, and income inequality drive people towards far-right parties. In particular, the loss of people’s welfare due to the global economic devastation caused by the pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine War have led to the far right’s emphasis on economic nationalism and protectionist policies finding a response in society.

Cultural concerns in Europe and the emphasis on national identity can also be linked to the rise of far-right parties. The issues of cultural diversity and the protection of cultural values are an important concern for a significant part of society. By emphasizing national identity, far-right parties exploit cultural concerns and advocate cultural protectionism.

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osnia and Herzegovina is made up of different ethnic and religious communities. The Serbs, as a prominent minority, have their own autonomous entity, the Republika Srpska, which makes up half of the Bosnian state, the other being the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Republika Srpska has its own legal authorities and institutions, but it still has to abide by national laws. However, this system does not appear to work as intended—especially when the largest minority demands secession.

The issue of secession has a legal and political background. Milorad Dodik’s recent legislation, which was passed on June 27, targets property ownership. His desire is to protect Serbian property as he fears that Bosnian authorities will either confiscate it or give it to Europeans seeking to buy property in Bosnia. Meanwhile Bosnian lawmakers are promoting the nationalization of state property since for them, real estate should not be under the jurisdiction of state entities but should belong to the state of Bosnia-Herzegovina as a whole.

The Serbian constituents of Republika Srpska are alarmed by such news: they want to take full control of the properties under their jurisdiction. The attitude signals the desire for independence, and Dodik is threatening Bosnia with an independence referendum which would allow it to secede from the country.

Bosnian Serbs’ strife for an independent foreign policy

Dodik’s motive for secession can be traced back to his vision of foreign policy. He believes that the West is responsible for dragging countries into wars, and follows a pro-Russian stance in most policymaking. For example, he blames the West for causing the war in Ukraine. This attitude stems from his political experience in the Yugoslav Wars, which he believes were instigated by the West. That is why he wants to keep Bosnia away from Western influence.

Dodik found an alternative in the policy goals of Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić. As of 2020, Vučić has been formulating new goals for his country’s foreign policy which he calls “Srpski Svet” (Serbian World). These policy goals include the expansion of Serbian influence in the Balkans. According to “Srpski Svet,” Serbia should have more influence in countries where Serbian minorities live and Serbia should become an independent actor which connects Europe and Eurasia.

Dodik is known as a pro-Russian figure and Putin often vocalizes his support for him. Vučić’s foreign policy agenda bears similarities to Putin’s “Russkiy Mir” (Russian World) wherein Putin promotes ethnonationalism and independence. However, Bosnia is governed by international law and EU regulations—a fact that Dodik interprets as his country being governed by foreign institutions, comparing the situation to that of the Russian minority which lives in the eastern provinces of Ukraine. If Bosnia does not change its pro-Western policy, he suggests Republika Srpska should secede.

Religious and ethnic distinctiveness of Bosnian Serbs

Domestic concerns have also been a powerful reason for promoting secession in the Balkans. Ethnic and religious divisions are in the political rhetoric of populist politicians. On July 30, Dodik denied the genocide of Muslims in Srebrenica and claimed that Bosniaks needed public support, reinforcing the myth of Serbian martyrdom. Dodik believes that Bosniaks are “second-class people” who have exchanged their original Orthodox faith for material gain.

The Republika Srpska holds public ceremonies in which Catholic Croats and Muslim Bosnians (Bosniaks) are cursed. These events glorify Serbian war criminals such as Ratko Mladić. Dodik deliberately keeps alive the nationalistic fervor of the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s fueled by his desire to keep Republika Srpska under his jurisdiction ethnically homogeneous. As a result, other ethnic groups such as Croats and Bosniaks do not settle in Republika Srpska.

Dodik also shuns the Serbs who volunteer to serve in the Bosnian army. Legally, Republika Srpska cannot deploy an independent armed force under international agreements and Bosnia’s multinational army is obliged to protect all citizens, regardless of religion and race. As a matter of principle, the army cannot be composed of a single ethnic group; however, Dodik argues in favor of a Serbian army to protect Serbians. An ethnicity-based regional army would drastically reduce Sarajevo’s control over Republika Srpska.

Dialogue for the future of Bosnian Serbs

Dodik does not limit his diplomatic ties to Russia and Serbia. Last year, he invited Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Croatian President Zoran Milanović to participate in a dialogue for his handling of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s internal problems. He was also invited by Erdoğan to the Turkish Parliament where he celebrated Erdoğan’s statements on reducing foreign influence in Bosnia.

Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orbán tried to persuade Dodik to integrate with the EU instead of becoming an independent foreign state. The two have a close relationship and Dodik pays close attention to Orbán’s proposals.

The mediation efforts by Orbán, Erdoğan, and Milanović, who are all familiar with the political culture of the Balkans, can help Bosnia contain the secession issue. While traditional actors such as Russia and the United States are on opposite sides, new mediators can find a middle ground.

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he young electorate and first-time voters seem to be shying away from voting centrist, socialist, or even green. The year 2023 could be a year of change as voting for a far-right party appears to be the new “cool” in Europe.

Profiling the young European electorate

Young people in Europe used to be very selective when it came to choosing which party to vote for. In 2019, young Europeans prioritized human rights and democracy, climate change, green energy, and sustainable development. These preferences led to the formation of coalitions between centrist and green blocs.

Accordingly, Germany, Austria, Spain, and Italy gained their big-tent governments thanks to young voters. These governments’ policies such as lax border controls, generous public spending on social inclusion, and social security were legitimized, reflecting the characteristics of the young European electorate.

However, recent polls in Germany and Austria have shown the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) in leading positions. Young Austrian and German voters seem to favor such far-right options. At the same time, 23% of young Italians helped the far-right Brotherhood of Italy secure the government in 2022. Nordic voters also had their moment of truth: 22% of young Swedes went to the polls to vote for a right-wing populist party.

Economic concerns leading young voters to the far right

The energy crisis in Europe was the first event to prompt a change in electoral preferences. As a consequence of European sanctions against Russia, gas prices rose drastically. By the last quarter of 2022, gas prices in Western Europe had risen by between 450% and 750%. European households started to struggle to cover the cost of the most crucial utilities. In 2022, the quarterly gas bill of an average Italian household cost up to 52,000 euros.

The economy has been the main drive for the shift to the far right. According to the European Policy Center, transformation processes related to economy, migration, and energy are setting the ground for the decline of mainstream parties. Right-wing populist leaders incorporate price changes in their political discourse. Matteo Salvini, Deputy Prime Minister of Italy, asked his voters at a rally why young Europeans should pay the price of a pointless sanction against Russia when Russian oligarchs are not suffering.

But, it is unwise to think that economic hardship has led the youth directly to the far right. Right-wing parties often have cliques and factions within themselves. Even the most far-right AfD has a moderate faction, the Alternative Mitte (“Alternative Midpoint” in German), which prioritizes economic inequality over cultural issues. This moderate faction became the main attraction for young German voters, especially in the eastern provinces.

Young people in the east voiced their concerns over the lack of social infrastructure as they struggle to find work and are forced to move west. Recent polls confirm this view with 47% of AfD voters supporting their party only to protest against the ruling coalition on economic issues.

Greek youth feel forced to vote for right-wing popularism

Young voters seem to have a vivid memory of past events. In voting for the 2023 parliamentary elections, young Greeks remembered the catastrophic debt crisis: they harshly punished the centrist Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) and the socialist Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) for the crisis, while 33% of young Greeks rewarded the New Democracy party for its successful maneuvers in rescuing the country from the crisis. New Democracy’s promises of tax cuts also swayed young voters.

Did this very same electorate ignore New Democracy’s mistreatment of migrants? Just two weeks before the election, hundreds of migrants died in the Ionian Sea. Despite such tragedies, young voters broke a record by making New Democracy the strongest right-wing populist party in Europe with a solid 40% of national votes. Even those who belong to anarchist youth subgroups decided to vote for the party for financial stability.

The future of young far-right voters in Europe

Bill Clinton’s famous phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid,” managed to find its way into European politics. The economy has indeed played a role in shaping the preferences of Europe’s youth.  This can also be interpreted as good news: young voters are not ideologically attached to right-wing populism.

But poverty and war have put Europe’s youth between Scylla and Charybdis, making them have to choose between two evils: poverty and populism. The result has been that populism has been perceived as the lesser evil.

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n June 27, 17-year-old Nahel M of Algerian descent was killed in France for fleeing such a routine procedure. According to the testimony of the two motorcycle police officers who carried out the identity check, Nahel was shot in the heart in self-defense. In the video footage, described by the interior minister as “shocking” and confirmed by the French news agency AFP, one of the police officers can be seen pointing a gun at Nahel M while the other can be heard saying “You will be shot in the head.”

Nahel did not have a driver’s license and had been out with a friend in a borrowed car. Two weeks earlier, Alhoussein Camara, a 19-year-old French teenager of Guinean origin, was killed by police during an identity check on his way to work in the southwestern town of Angoulême. According to French media reports, he “had a regular job, a driver’s license, and his car was insured.” Since 2022, 13 people have been killed by police during routine identity checks in France.

After Nahel M’s death, a silent protest, attended by his mother, turned into a violent demonstration in a few hours and gripped the whole country. France witnessed a riot of this magnitude for the first time in 18 years. In 2005, in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois, 15-year-old Bouna Traore and 17-year-old Zyed Benna were returning from a soccer match when they ran away from a police identity check, drove into a transformer, and burned to death.

In the last 50 years in France, children and teenagers, on foot, ridding a scooter or in a car, have tried to evade police checks and died: Youssef Khaïf (Mantes-la-Jolie, 1991), Malik Oussekine (Paris, 1986), Lahouari Ben Mohamed (Marseille, 1980), Mohamed Diab (Versailles, 1972). Following the killing of these young men, who were all of Arab or African origin, there were protests and outbreaks of violence.

Since the riots in the suburbs of Lyon in the 1980s, in the last 40 years, there have been no more than ten suburban riots in France; some local, some in big cities, and the largest in 2005. Both in the past and now, people in the suburbs have not been able to organize themselves like other social protest movements in the country, nor have they been able to turn their reactions into permanent political pressure.

Romain Gavras’s movie Athena, which was broadcast on Netflix last year, ended with the message that those who burn and destroy end up burning and destroying themselves and their relatives. Similarly, quoted on a front-page interview in the newspaper Liberation, a father who participated in the weeks-long events of 2005, said to his son, now involved in Nahel’s protests and violence: “I swear to you, this is not helping anything.”

Of course, it is not acceptable or excusable to disrupt public order, no matter how justified the cause. Yet, this is not a method of protest and rioting specific to the suburbs or to young people of Muslim origin or Black youth. This time, suburban youth have led a popular uprising; such uprisings  have taken place in the streets since the French Revolution in 1789, which laid the foundations of the Republic.

Suburban youth were not present in the spiral of violence of burning, destroying, and looting that accompanied the protests that began in November 2018, which lasted for months in response to the rise in energy prices. However, the current suburban youth uprising has been joined by the yellow vests, extreme leftists, and those angry with government policies. According to official data, more than 6,000 vehicles and 12,400 garbage bins were set on fire, 147 attacks on municipal buildings and libraries were recorded, and 3,700 people were detained, a third of them children.

There are millions of silent people like the mother in Gavras’s Athena, whose 13-year-old child is killed just like Nahel and who weeps in silent prayer with her neighbors with an imam at their head.  They too are worried about the youth rebellion, no matter what happens. If these people were to suddenly leave the country, France’s hospitals, the post office, the subway, and the train company RATP would collapse and the whole system would be paralyzed.

The movie mentions them for a few minutes, but it does not focus on them. Instead, it focuses on a small minority among these millions of people and their anger: Karim, who attacks the police station with a Molotov cocktail after the news that his brother was killed by the police and starts a rebellion with his friends; his older brother Abdel, who fought for the French army in Mali; and his older brother Moktar, a drug dealer.

Abdel, who initially tried to suppress Karim and the rebels, was accused of being a “harki,” a traitor, by his sister, and he confronted Karim. The only historical reference in the movie appears indirectly in this scene. During the Algerian National Liberation Front’s war against France on the road to independence in Algeria, Muslims who stayed loyal to the French army under the mistaken impression that they were caught between two fires were called “harki.”

As for the brother, Moktar, the drug dealer, it is no secret that in some neighborhoods in the suburbs it is not easy to manage the tensions between crime and law enforcement. In many suburbs there is drug trafficking, petty crime, and gangs. Many of the young people involved in these incidents have no ties to their homeland, do not recognize the authority of their parents, and even threaten to turn to the police if their parents pressure them, reminding them that they are in France.

They are a small minority, often trying to exist in a state of hatred and resentment. But the aggression and impunity of law enforcement in France is no secret. The trial of two police officers charged in the 2005 riots centered on a police radio statement that “if they enter a transformer, there is little chance of getting out alive.” Both were acquitted in 2015.

Moreover, a new law passed in 2017 authorizes the police to use weapons in five controversial circumstances in case of failure to obey a “stop” warning.  In addition, young people often evade identity checks because they are bored of being subjected to them and want to outsmart the police fueled by the anger they feel towards them.

What remains after the riots in the suburbs end is the image of the police with shields, batons, and tear gas canisters, on one side, and the youth throwing objects at them, burning cars, fireworks, and mortars. Whether reporting favorably or against the riots, they are always reported with the same headlines, analyzed the same way, and after the events are over, they are not talked about until the next one. Not only according to the far right, but also according to society at large, the suburban youth are the most likely group to be scapegoated for such incidents, and they are sidelined until the next incident.

In today’s world where reality and fiction are blurred, the movie Athena is being revisited on social media and in the French press, with some going as far as to claim that the movie is an inspiration for young people. In addition, the murderer in the movie is not a police officer, as initially believed, but a far-right militant wearing a police uniform.

Karim, who never believed he was a police officer and started the rebellion, eventually loses his life in the film, while the film labels Abdel, who has won the admiration of the French state and integrated into the system, a potential criminal: after Karim’s death, Abdel is driven by this pain to organize the continuation of the rebellion.

Even though President Macron introduced some of the most Islamophobic legislation in Europe during his first term and Muslims have become a minority in France that is routinely targeted and discriminated against, Macron has shown restraint on this occasion. During the 2005 events, Sarkozy, who was minister of the interior at the time, called the protesters a “rabble” and talked about purging them.

On the contrary, in his first statement after Nahel’s murder, Macron strongly condemned the incident, calling it “unforgivable.” As for his electoral rivals, on the far left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon refused to “call for calm”; far-right Eric Zemmour likened the suburban riots to the “prodromes of a civil war”; and, on the right, Les Republicains president Éric Ciotti called the rioters “barbarians.” Far-right theorists such as Renaud Camus have long labeled them “invaders” and their smear propaganda goes as far as arguing that “they will colonize us.”

An article in Le Monde stated, “Although many forget and don’t want to see it, what has led to the violence in recent days is indeed a sense of injustice that makes one weep.” The banner on the Paris ring road outside the Parc des Princes stadium simply reads, “God rest Nahel’s soul.”

From the War on Terror to the far-right conspiracies, Islamophobia manifests in various forms. In today’s world, systemic Islamophobia continues to cast a long and dark shadow over the lives of Muslims across continents. Rooted in historical and contemporary contexts, this pervasive form of discrimination and prejudice has significant implications for individuals, communities, and societies at large.

Systemic Islamophobia operates within power structures, institutions, and cultural biases, perpetuating inequality, marginalization, and the violation of human rights. Implicitly and explicitly, Islamophobia is reinforced by various layers of society, including governments around the world.

While its manifestations may differ from one region to another, systemic Islamophobia shares commonalities across countries and societies. It operates as a product of historical legacies, geopolitical dynamics, cultural narratives, and power imbalances. It thrives in contexts where Muslims are viewed as the “Other,” perpetuating stereotypes, prejudices, and negative portrayals that undermine their rights, dignity, and societal inclusion.

The impact of systemic Islamophobia is far-reaching. Muslim individuals and communities face challenges in various domains of life, as the titles included in this Bundle will show. They experience heightened surveillance, racial profiling, and discriminatory legislation, hindering the realization of fundamental human rights and the pursuit of justice and equality. Furthermore, the interconnetedness of discrimination makes the issue even more pressing for all.

Recognizing and understanding systemic Islamophobia is essential for dismantling its deeply entrenched structures. It requires comprehensive analysis, dialogue, and collective action which this collection hopes to envoke.

The Rise of Global Islamophobia in the War on Terror: Coloniality, Race, and Islam delves into the complex and far-reaching consequences of the ‘War on Terror’ on global perceptions of Muslims. The book examines the intersection between Islamophobia, and various social, economic, and political factors that have shaped its prevalence.

The authors convincingly argue that the ‘War on Terror’ has not only intensified anti-Muslim racism but has also provided a framework that perpetuates a global Islamophobic narrative. By framing Muslims a perpetual enemy, this conflict has fostered a climate of fear and suspicion, fueling the growth of nativist and populist movements worldwide.

One of the book’s strengths lies in its comprehensive analysis of the different forms and manifestations of Islamophobia. Through an examination of localized histories, conflicts, and contemporary geopolitical realities, the authors map out the intricate ways in which Islamophobia has taken shape across the global North and South. This approach adds depth to the understanding of the diverse factors contributing to the rise of anti-Muslim sentiment.

The book offers a nuanced and comprehensive analysis of the connections between interpersonal and institutional racism. While highlighting the deeply rooted nature of Islamophobia, the book also sheds light on the activism and resistance that have emerged to confront this issue. By featuring narratives of individuals and groups challenging Islamophobia, the authors provide hope and inspiration for those seeking to combat this pervasive form of discrimination.

Naved Bakali and Farid Hafez, The rise of global Islamophobia in the War on Terror: Coloniality, race, and Islam (Manchester University Press 2022) ISBN: 978-1-5261-6175-8, 264 pages

Islamophobia in France: The Construction of the “Muslim Problem” presents a groundbreaking examination of the multifaceted nature of Islamophobia in the country. Authored by Abdellali Hajjat and Marwan Mohammed, the book challenges the prevailing notion that Islamophobia arises solely from individual bias but rather that Islamophobia in France is deeply entrenched within existing structures of power and control.

The book sheds light on pivotal moments in French history that have contributed to the marginalization of Muslim communities. It highlights the 2004 ban on veils in schools, followed by the 2010 legislation that prohibited face-covering clothing in public spaces, primarily targeting women who wear burqas. President Emmanuel Macron’s public statements regarding the hijab’s compatibility with French ideals further illustrate the pervasive Islamophobia within the country. These cultural biases not only perpetuate discriminatory practices but also position the Muslim population as scapegoats for broader issues surrounding immigration in France.

Hajjat and Mohammed go beyond surface-level analysis to uncover the structural dimensions of Islamophobia in France. They argue that French elites strategically employ Islamophobia as a state technology to exert control and contest the presence of specific groups of postcolonial immigrants and their descendants. By exploring the data on Islamophobia and examining its functioning in contemporary French society, the authors paint a comprehensive portrait of the mechanisms through which Islamophobia operates.

Islamophobia in France is an English translation of Abdellali Hajjat and Marwan Mohammed’s Islamophobie: Comment les e´lites franc¸aises fabriquent le “proble`me musulman.” and an essential contribution to the field, providing a nuanced and insightful examination of the systemic nature of Islamophobia and its consequences on Muslim communities in France.

Abdellali Hajjat and Marwan Mohammed, Islamophobia in France: The Construction of the “Muslim Problem” (University of Georgia Press, 2023) ISBN-10 0820363251, 306 pages

In The New Crusades: Islamophobia and the Global War on Muslims Khaled A. Beydoun presents an essential examination of Islamophobia from a legal and ground-up perspective. Drawing on his intellectual prowess and moral imperative, Beydoun presents a compelling analysis of the network of anti-Muslim campaigns unfolding worldwide and offers a comprehensive analysis of how Islamophobia is utilized by both democratic and authoritarian regimes to persecute Muslim populations.

The New Crusades does not shy away from challenging the established narratives. It delves into the role of the War on Terror in fueling and intensifying anti-Muslim campaigns around the world. Beydoun skillfully illustrates how Islamophobia operates as a unifying thread, perpetuating state and social bigotry and igniting hate-mongering from both liberal and right-wing factions. Through trenchant analysis and firsthand accounts from Muslims on the ground, the author brings to light the various manifestations of Islamophobia in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and beyond.

The book’s global perspective sets it apart, as Beydoun incorporates on-site experiences, interviews, and a diverse range of contexts. This approach enhances the authority of the narrative and makes it accessible and engaging for scholars, students, and the general public.

The New Crusades unravels the distinct systems of demonization and oppression that have emerged across the post-9/11 geopolitical landscape. Whether it is the imposition of hijab bans in France, state-sponsored hate speech and violence in India, or the existence of concentration camps in China, Beydoun examines how Islamophobia operates as a global phenomenon, perpetuating discrimination on multiple fronts.

The book powerfully reveals the unsettling reality that Islamophobia remains one of the few acceptable forms of hate in the world today. By exposing this truth, Beydoun calls attention to the urgent need for collective action against Islamophobia and its far-reaching consequences. By weaving together social science, law, and captivating narratives, the author highlights the pervasive impact of Islamophobia on Muslims across the globe.

Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades: Islamophobia and the Global War on Muslims (University of California Press, 2023) ISBN: 9780520356306, 390 pages

In Fear of a Muslim Planet: Global Islamophobia in the New World Order Arsalan Iftikhar, a renowned American Muslim human rights lawyer, offers a comprehensive exploration of global Islamophobia. The book refers to the chilling reminder of the Christchurch massacre, where a white supremacist perpetrated a horrific act of violence against Muslim worshippers in New Zealand. Iftikhar draws attention to the manifesto left by the attacker, titled “The Great Replacement,” which espoused the belief that Muslims posed a threat and sought to replace white people. This incident serves as a starting point for exploring the dangerous legacy of this theory and its influence on extremist acts.

Iftikhar goes on to emphasize that the victims of the “Great Replacement” theory extend beyond Muslims alone. The tragic attack on the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, which targeted Jewish congregants, exemplifies the broader impact of this ideology including the infamous actions of Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik.. The perpetrator’s anti-Semitic and Islamophobic motivations, fueled by anti-immigration sentiments, underline the interconnected nature of discrimination.

Throughout the book, Iftikhar critiques the presidency of Donald Trump, which he argues has contributed to the exacerbation of Islamophobia in America. He dissects Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric and policies, including his claim that “Islam hates us” and his call for a complete ban on Muslims entering the US. Iftikhar contends that Trump’s leadership has fueled the growth of Islamophobia.

The book goes beyond the United States and the Western world to shed light on global Islamophobia. Iftikhar highlights the genocidal levels of Islamophobia in countries like China and Myanmar, where Muslim communities face severe oppression. Additionally, he addresses the European focus on policing Muslim women’s hijab, exposing discriminatory policies that curtail religious freedom.

Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet: Global Islamophobia in the New World Order (Skyhorse Publishing, 2021) ISBN-13 978-1510761872, 288 pages

The Suspect: Counterterrorism, Islam, and the Security State offers a captivating and deeply personal exploration of the impact that two decades of policing and counterterrorism have had on the state of mind of Muslims in Britain. Drawing from his own experiences, author Rizwaan Sabir takes readers on a compelling journey through British counterterrorism practices and the pervasive policing of Muslims.

Sabir’s narrative describes his wrongful arrest and detention on suspicion of terrorism. He recounts the distressing process of being unjustly made a target in the “war on terror.” With candor and vivid detail, he outlines the events leading up to his arrest, including being found in possession of the Al-Qaeda Training Manual, which he had downloaded for legitimate postgraduate research purposes. Sabir sheds light on the excruciating experience of being subjected to suspicion and surveillance solely based on his Muslim identity.

Throughout the book, Sabir recounts the harrowing aftermath of his arrest. He vividly describes the relentless monitoring and scrutiny he faced upon release from custody. This included frequent stop-and-search encounters, detentions at the border, surveillance by police and government departments, and an attempt by the UK military to recruit him into their psychological warfare unit. The author’s firsthand account provides a chilling insight into the intrusive and discriminatory practices endured by Muslims in the name of national security.

Sabir argues that the profound harm inflicted on individuals like him is not merely the result of government planning errors but rather a deliberate consequence of employing a counterinsurgency warfare approach to combat terrorism and police Muslim communities. Through his writing, Sabir advocates for and building networks of solidarity and support to challenge the injustices perpetuated by these policies and practices.

The Suspect serves as a powerful call to action, urging readers to recognize and resist the profound injustice faced by Muslims. By sharing his story, Sabir empowers readers to challenge the harmful narratives and practices that perpetuate the policing of Muslims.

Rizwaan Sabir, The Suspect: Counterterrorism, Islam, and the Security State (Pluto Press, 2022) ISBN: 9780745338484, 256 pages

T

oday is the anniversary of one of the dark pages in modern history. Twenty-eight years ago today, at least 8,372 men and boys were subjected to genocide by Serbian forces led by Ratko Mladic. Tens of thousands of women, children, and elderly also endured torture, rape, and forced displacement. The white stones of the Srebrenica Genocide Memorial stand tall as a stark reminder of those dark memories.

History is often hailed as a repository of past events, serving as a crucial tool for actively recalling both positive and negative experiences. It allows us to glean valuable lessons that help us navigate the present complexities and aspire towards a better future. However, the case of Srebrenica presents a unique challenge, making it exceedingly arduous to internalize the past and extract meaningful insights due to denialism, historical revisionism, and the constant obfuscation of the facts. Such an environment perpetuates a culture of impunity for perpetrators and fosters collective forgetfulness. 

The work of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has long been targeted by pro-Serbian actors. The latter circulated a narrative that Serbian war criminals were not tried because of their crimes but because of an anti-Serb conspiracy. This narrative has been amplified by various quarters to the extent that many people are now convinced the ICTY and ICJ were biased, which is deplorable since both concluded that the Srebrenica massacre constituted genocide. Accusations of politicization were frequently raised, such as when Russia criticized the verdict against Radovan Karadzic as a “politicized” decision by The Hague.

The Srebrenica Genocide Denial Report 

The 2022 Srebrenica Genocide Denial Report identified 693 new instances of denialism in the previous year, employing tactics such as denial, distortion of historical facts, minimizing the genocide’s significance by drawing on false equivalism, reducing the actual numbers, and even glorifying the perpetrators. While these instances were initially observed in the media and political spheres, they also extended to academe. 

The quest to whitewash Serbian genociders did not emerge in isolation. The origins of denialism, insensitivity, and cover-up of war crimes are intricately linked also to the ineffectiveness of international bodies entrusted with protecting civilians and pursuing justice for victims. One of the most disgraceful episodes was the disgraceful moment when Thom Karremans, the leader of the Dutchbat forces in the UN Peacekeeping Mission, was berated by Mladic and later shared a toast with him before departing without fulfilling his duty, leaving thousands under his protection to be mercilessly killed by Serbian paramilitaries.

The fragmented and dysfunctional political structure inherited from the Dayton Agreement has complicated things for Bosnia. The government is literally prevented by its Serbian political groups from pursuing justice. In 2021, the anti-denialism amendments to the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina by the Office of the High Representative (OHR) Valentin Inzko, using the Bonn powers, stirred controversy.

They aimed to prohibit and penalize denialism and the glorification of war criminals. In response, the Bosnian Serb leadership threatened to withdraw from key aspects of the country’s governance, including the tax system, judiciary, and military. This incident highlights the inherent fragility of the country’s political system. Milorad Dodik and other Serbian politicians criticized the OHR, highlighting concerns regarding sovereignty and democratic legitimacy. When it comes to implementing international court verdicts, Serbian politicians are suddenly transformed into champions of democracy. 

Denialism and revisionism

Denialism and revisionism persistently infiltrate the political landscape, morphing into new guises over time. The rise of far-right sentiments, combining a mixture of Islamophobia and blatant Serbian nationalism, added further vitriol to the mix. 

But collective memory is now more than ever in need of revival. It all begins in the pulsating heart of public spaces: the streets, squares, statues, and buildings, an “organized remembrance”, as Hannah Arendt once termed it. Shockingly, even after three decades, the names of Serbian genociders still enjoy public acclaim. Worse still, the Vilina Vlas Hotel, once one of the vile rape camps during the war, now caters to tourists. 

In the depths of the horrific atrocities that shook Srebrenica, the indescribable suffering endured by women in hotels and detention camps still haunts them today. For nearly three decades, they have been trapped in a cycle of social exclusion and victimization. Ajna Jusić, founder of the organization “Forgotten Children of War,” embodies their ongoing fight for basic human rights.

Living museums

These spaces must transform into living museums, preserving the collective memory and serving as powerful reminders of past pain. Sarajevo Canton’s plan to convert the Kon Tiki Motel into such a museum is a step towards honouring the resilience and struggles of those affected. These examples highlight how collective memory can fade, bringing forward the urgency of fighting public amnesia. 

As we approach the three-decade mark since the Srebrenica genocide, all those who care about humanity must keep the flame of collective memory burning bright. It is a call that echoes from politics to academia, from the streets to the media—a resounding plea for comprehensive remembrance. Delving into the depths of our past sheds light on humanity’s potential pitfalls and unlocks the essence of our existence. Let these words from Arendt’s “Between Past and Future” reverberate in our minds as concluding marks: 

“We are in danger of forgetting, and such an oblivion—quite apart from the contents themselves that could be lost—would mean that, humanly speaking, we would deprive ourselves of one dimension, the dimension of depth in human existence.”

T

he news of Nahel Merzouk’s murder by the police took me back to my primary school days in France. In the early 1990s, as a pupil in a public school in Forbach, Metz, I saw what it meant to be excluded and isolated.

That is why, for me, Nahel’s death was not the first death of a migrant in France, nor would it be the last. In 2005, for example, two young men met a fate similar to Nahel’s. Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré were running from the police after a football match when they hit an electricity transformer in Paris and were electrocuted. There were riots afterwards. It happened again: Nahel Merzouk was killed by the police and riots followed immediately afterwards.

So, what is the basic problem? What is the root cause of the killing of people like Nahel and the events that follow?

The recruitment of labor from the colonial territories: Opening the door to migrants

In order to answer this question properly, it is necessary to look at the process of colonialism or more precisely to review the history of colonialism briefly. In this sense, colonialism,  which started in the 15th century, is the work of Western countries. The slave trade from Africa and the concept of the “attack on Africa” emerged in this context. Today, colonialism has changed its form.

Although it started a little later than Portuguese-Spanish and British colonialism, French colonialism was exceptionally  brutal. After the British Empire, the French colonial empire was the second largest in the world, reaching its peak and expansion between 1919 and 1939. The French colonial territory, including Algeria, amounted to between 8% and 10% of the world’s territory, and continued to exist until the 1960s.

The French treated the peoples of their colonies much more cruelly than other colonizers; those who were not killed, were treated as an underclass. As a result, the French colonies became very poor.  For example, the British colonies of New Zealand and Australia are now very wealthy states, while Algeria, which was subjected to French exploitation, is a poor and troubled country.

The history of French colonialism in Africa is a human tragedy. Starting with the colonization of Algeria in 1830, France began to establish a new colonialism in Africa. The aim was ruthless: to “civilize” African peoples through language and religion. For the French, as for all colonialists, this civilizing goal was, as Jules Ferry, the leading advocate of colonialism, openly declared, “The rights of the superior races over the inferior races.” By the beginning of the 20th century, French colonization gradually extended to most of North, West, and Central Africa, including Mauritania, Senegal, Guinea, Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, Benin, Niger, Chad, and the Central African Republic.

Colonialism, especially French colonialism, gave way to “labor migrations” after World War II. From then onwards, it was a question of providing labor from the colonial territories struggling for independence for the reconstruction of Europe and France, in particular. It should be recalled that, although France withdrew from the countries it had colonized, it imposed two conditions on its withdrawal: first, French should be the official language of the country and the language of education, and second, public education should be compulsory.

By creating the “Community of French-Speaking Countries,” France prevented its former colonies from severing their ties with France. For example, French is the official language of 27 of the 54 countries in Africa. As a result, France had the power to easily carry out many “labor migrations” from its former colonies. Instead of the slaves of the past, especially in Algeria, now, there were the modern-day “workers.”

Slavery underwent a transformation process and took the form of a labor force, but both share a common goal: to exploit the world, and Africa in particular, for the welfare of the West or France in particular. For the continuity of the state’s welfare, migrant labor was brought into the system by extending colonial logic to this new era.

Positioning migrants: Assimilation, integration or segregation?

Despite the importance of migrants as a labor force in the eyes of France and Western countries, the positioning of migrants is somewhat complex. The complexity concerns whether to assimilate, integrate, or segregate migrants.

Assimilation was to be easy in so far as people of migrant origin had to abandon their own culture and become “civilized.” This was already a central step in the colonial experience. If integration were to take place, the situation would be a little more difficult as people with a migrant background would have to be integrated into the existing culture while preserving their own culture.

This means accepting to be on the same level as people with a migrant background—in other words, a step against the colonial logic or the “superior race” mentality. There was also the possibility of segregating those with a migrant background, i.e., making them live in places that were separate and disconnected from society. After all, it was not appropriate for people of migrant origin to breathe the same air as people of the “superior race” and, therefore, migrants belonged in ghettos.

The ghettos, known as “suburbs,” became the address of migrants in France. What was the aim? To assimilate under the guise of integration; if that was not possible, then to exclude migrants, or to ghettoize by segregation.

The suburbs in France have many problems. Their main problem, however, is social isolation or social exclusion. Social exclusion is when a person or group, for one reason or another, is deprived of something; people of migrant origins living in the suburbs in France are deprived of many human rights simply because of their background. For example, the suburbs are areas where even ambulances refuse to go in case of emergency.

Those who live in the suburbs are known to develop their own methods to survive, which they retain even if they later move out of the suburbs. When they face injustice by the police and others, Paris is set on fire.

Being a victim of segregation or a reflection of the colonial spirit: The murder of Nahel Merzouk

The root cause of setting the city ablaze lies in the fact that people of migrant origin, who are not welcome to integrate and cannot assimilate as an extension of the colonial spirit, are segregated from society and subjected to social exclusion.

Τhe political, economic, and social rights that are automatically acquired through citizenship do not apply in practice to people with a migrant background, who are considered “incomplete (second-class) citizens.” Worse still, instead of having rights, having a migrant background is automatically tantamount to being a criminal, making people with a migrant background the usual suspects: in the case of theft, traffic offences, drug dealing, manslaughter, or similar crimes, having a migrant background is tantamount to being guilty without the need for any evidence.

It is precisely because of this humiliating and exclusionary treatment as “incomplete citizens” that in another French city, a young person demanding justice for Nahel stated, “Police violence happens every day, especially if you are Arab or Black.” It is partly because of this “incomplete citizen” status that people of migrant origin, and especially young people, distrust the police and have no faith in justice or law enforcement. As a result, the “resistance” or “escape” of young people, who are in a state of constant stress and, in the long run, resentment, often ends in death.

Nahel’s death is neither the first nor will it be the last. In the West, and especially in France, human rights do not apply to people of migrant origins who have gone from being slaves to migrant laborers.

F

or many Indian Muslims, the Gujarat riots are among some of their darkest memories. However, this year, millions of Indian history textbooks will erase the plight endured by Muslims at the hands of Hindu nationalists in 2002.

India’s state-run National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has prescribed new changes to history textbooks, removing chapters that write about the Gujarat riots.

The removed sections also include the assassination of Mohandas K. Gandhi by Nathuram Godse of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), an Indian right-wing, Hindu nationalist volunteer paramilitary organization. Paragraphs on the ban on the RSS after the assassination of Gandhi have also been removed from textbooks.

The RSS shares ideological links with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The changes will apply to thousands of Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) schools following the NCERT syllabus.

With tens of millions of students, more than 24,000 schools are affiliated with India’s CBSE and use NCERT textbooks. In addition, around 240 CBSE-affiliated schools operate in 26 countries across the world.

Erasing “Muslim history”

Among the deleted sections is an entire chapter on Mughal rulers, whom Hindu nationalists have often addressed as Muslim oppressors.

Mughals and other Muslim dynasties ruled many parts of India for hundreds of years and have made significant contributions to the country’s rich culture.

BJP leader Kapil Mishra applauded the changes calling it “a great decision to remove the false history of Mughals.” He added, “Thieves, pickpockets and two-penny road raiders were called the Mughal Sultanate and the emperor of India. Akbar, Babar, Shahjahan, Aurangzeb are not in the history books, they are in the dustbin.”

In addition, all references to the Gujarat riots that rocked Modi’s state of Gujarat in 2002, leaving 1,000 people dead, mostly Muslims, were omitted from textbooks.

India is home to more than 200 million Muslims, the second-largest religion in the country. In fact, India is the country with the third-largest Muslim population in the world. The Indian government has always been at the center of criticism for pursuing a Hindu nationalist agenda and oppressing the Muslim population.

Since the BJP came to power in 2014, the Indian government has attempted to revise textbooks three times with the previous textbook revisions taking place in 2017 and 2019. Interestingly, in the past, India’s BJP government has also changed Muslim-sounding names of places and cities.

In fact, the BJP has previously expressed its desire to rewrite the country’s history. “It is our responsibility to write our history,” said Indian home affairs minister Amit Shah in a 2019 speech.

Rationalization exercises?

As the chapter deletions got widely criticized, NCERT justified the re-edited books as a “rationalization” project aiming to reduce the curriculum load on students.

“There has been a lot of learning loss due to the COVID pandemic and the students underwent a lot of traumas. To help stressed students, and as a responsibility to society and the nation, it was felt that the content load in textbooks should be reduced,” Dinesh Prasad Saklani, director of the NCERT, told NDTV.

However, many historians and opposition leaders have criticized the NCERT’s deletions and called them an attempt to rewrite history.

A joint statement by more than 250 historians in India read, “The decision of the NCERT is guided by divisive motives. It is a decision which goes against the constitutional ethos and composite culture of the Indian subcontinent. As such, it must be rescinded at the earliest.”

It remains to be seen how omitting key moments in Indian history will distort the understanding of history for younger generations in India and across the world. What is certain, however, is that the weaponization of the past and attempts to change history to build a society that is ideologically compliant with BJP nationalism has become the new reality of Modi’s India.

T

he world watched in shock as the Israeli occupation forces broke into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem, beating worshippers and forcing them out of the third holiest site in Islam during the holy month of Ramadan. Some 400 Palestinians were arrested, a hundred were injured, two of whom are in a critical condition, while the invading forces destroyed a small clinic attached to the mosque to prevent providing medical care to those in need. Ambulances and hundreds of Palestinians, who protested outside the gates of the mosque, were prevented from entering.

Israeli forces broke into al-Aqsa and forced worshippers out to clear the way for right-wing Israeli settlers who planned to storm the holy site during Passover on Wednesday, April 5. These Israeli provocations are the immediate result of an incitation by radical Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who was formerly convicted of criminal charges and who, as a lawyer, defended and celebrated Israeli settlers burning a Palestinian family.

During an interview on Israeli Channel 12 on April 4, Ben-Gvir said, “Jews should storm the Temple Mount (al-Aqsa Mosque), because it is not only for Arabs; I call on Jews to storm the Temple Mount. It is the most important site for the State of Israel. I don’t accept that only Muslims enter the site … Jews, too, have human rights in this country, and they have the right to break into the site; I will, too, storm it, but not on Wednesday.”

His proposal was that Israeli settlers should break into al-Aqsa, but without offering sacrifices, again because “there are human rights for Jews too in this country.” Palestinians know these human rights well—they have been deprived of them for 75 years. Human rights and what remains of democracy in Israel today is only for Jews. It is no coincidence that the so-called democracy protests in Israel almost completely ignore Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestine and concentrate exclusively on the rights of Israeli Jews rather than the rights of Palestinians, who don’t even come second in this narrative.

Protests in Israel as aggression against the Palestinians continue

Some Israelis today feel threatened by the growing influence of right-wring religious parties, which make the majority of Netanyahu’s government. These fears, however, have nothing to do with the Palestinians. Most Israelis, be they on the right or left of the political spectrum, agree on the need to continue the occupation and they have no problem with what the world recently witnessed at al-Aqsa. The world will get used to it—or so they tell themselves. Instead, they are concerned that the Israeli government, which was formed on the premise of making life for the Palestinians who are already second-class citizens even worse, might suppress some of their rights.

Palestinians have no place in this equation and that’s why they are not involved in the ongoing protests in Israel. One of the demands Ben-Gvir was conceded and a quid pro quo for postponing judicial reforms until the summer was forming a new force under his command, which mainly aims to target Palestinians—as if Israeli police and army violence directed against them, especially during Ramadan, was not satisfactory. In other words, Ben-Gvir, who provoked storming al-Aqsa, will have a new force under his command that will further crush the Palestinians, as we have seen on April 5, in return for postponing judicial reforms in Israel, which have nothing to do with Palestinians.

Israel has been implementing a plan to divide al-Aqsa Mosque between Muslims and Jews, both in terms of space and time, as it did with the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron. This is why we see an increasing number of raids into the holy site during Ramadan, which sees increasing Muslim worship and presence there. Israel has been gradually implementing its plans to divide al-Aqsa Mosque.

Until three years ago, it rarely conducted raids into the mosque during the month of Ramadan. Now, not only do Israeli settlers break into al-Aqsa during Ramadan, but they also raise the Israeli flag in it. The next step will be allowing biblical sacrifices inside, and performing the biblical “epic falling”, in which they fall on the ground as part of their prayers, at the sacred site, which is an open call for a religious war in the Middle East.

This will necessarily translate into escalation in the Palestinian Territories, which, as the last two years have shown us all, Palestinians will pay for heavily. Soon after Israel assaulted worshipers at al-Aqsa, homemade projectiles were fired into southern Israel from Gaza, to which Israel responded by targeting several sites in the coastal enclave. Similar to May 2021, such provocations will likely lead to further escalations, leaving more destruction and loss of lives on the Palestinian side.

Are international condemnations enough?

Except for shy condemnations, the world chose not to take action to bring Israel’s right-wing government to account. This silence will encourage the Israeli government to implement more aggressive and expansionist polices in the coming weeks, which will take the region, especially considering the ongoing domestic crisis in Israel, into a new military escalation. The world has to act now to prevent such escalation, which is building up at al-Aqsa and in Gaza as Palestinians will not stand watching as Israel violates their right to worship at the holy mosque. Israel is trying to export its internal crises into Jerusalem and Gaza, and Palestinians will likely pay dearly for their policy as they always have.

The world should boycott the Israeli government, comprised of far-right, radical settlers. Their plans and policies deny the existence of the Palestinian people and view them as aliens on their own land. The Israeli government not only encourages storms into al-Aqsa, but provides the support and cover to make them happen. The world should not accept normalizing beating Palestinians, killing them, and annihilating their villages, as an Israeli minister shamelessly advocated recently.

The Palestinians are here to stay, because they have no other place to go to and all of Israel’s policies will not force them to leave. It is high time for the international community to end the suffering and misery of the Palestinian people under Israel’s prolonged military occupation. While militarily occupying another nation and beating worshippers during their holy month, calls for “democracy protests” in Tel Aviv appear meaningless and shallow.

Israeli minister Ben-Gvir, who incited violence against Palestinians at al-Aqsa without a shame, should be boycotted and not welcomed anywhere in the world. Israel’s Western allies who contribute to the suppression of the Palestinian people through their silence should speak up as they readily do for Ukraine. Their silence will only translate into more violations against Palestinians who seem to be forgotten as the world celebrates the so-called democracy protests in Tel Aviv and allows Israel to control the lives of the Palestinian nation for more than seven decades now.

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umza Yousaf became the first minister of Scotland after narrowly winning the election for leader of the Scottish National Party. The health secretary received 52.1 percent of SNP members’ ballots, defeating finance secretary Kate Forbes, who received 47.9 percent.

Yousaf became Scotland’s first leader from an ethnic group and the first Muslim to head a democratic Western European country after he was sworn in as first minister on Wednesday, March 29, 2023, following a parliamentary decision on March 28.

In his victory speech, he said his “immediate priority will be to continue to protect every Scot as far as we can from the harm inflicted by the cost of living crisis, to recover and reform our NHS and other vital public services, to support our wellbeing economy and to improve the life chances of people across our country”. In addition, he attributes his success to his family, saying, “from the Punjab to our Parliament, this is a journey over generations that reminds us that we should celebrate migrants who contribute so much to our country”.

It is a narrow win over Forbes, an SNP rising star who campaigned as a change candidate, occasionally criticizing Yousaf and the SNP’s performance in government. Yousaf is close to former minister Nicola Sturgeon and campaigned on the promise of continuity — but the outcome underlines the difficult challenge he’ll face in rebuilding a party shaken by a contentious election.

Despite Yousaf winning the SNP leadership race, new polling performed by Ipsos Scotland between 17 and 21 of March suggests that the Scottish public are more favorable towards Kate Forbes than towards Humza Yousaf, while Nicola Sturgeon remains the most popular Scottish and Westminster political leader – ahead of all her potential successors – as well as beating Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who has a favorability rating of 20%, in contrast to Sturgeon’s rating of 46%.

The First Minister’s newly appointed cabinet revealed:

• Shona Robison, the new Deputy First Minister, will take on the Finance portfolio, including responsibility for the Scottish Budget
• Michael Matheson becomes the Cabinet Secretary for NHS Recovery, Health and Social Care
• Jenny Gilruth joins Cabinet for the first time as Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills
• Màiri McAllan joins Cabinet for the first time as Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Just Transition
• Neil Gray joins Cabinet for the first time as Cabinet Secretary for Wellbeing Economy, Fair Work and Energy
• Mairi Gougeon remains Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Land Reform and Islands
• Angus Robertson remains Cabinet Secretary for Constitution, External Affairs and Culture
• Shirley-Anne Somerville becomes Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice
• Angela Constance returns to Cabinet as the new Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs

On Thursday, March 20, Parliament was requested to ratify the new ministerial nominations.

Humza Yousaf commented:

“The Cabinet team I have unveiled reflects the priorities that we will pursue as a government – including tackling child poverty, improving public services and building a fairer, greener economy”.

Controversies

Yousaf was one of 86 MSPs who supported the Scottish Gender Recognition Reform bill in December, which would have made it simpler for trans and non-binary people to acquire a gender-recognition certificate (GRC).

The legislation would have made it easier for trans people in Scotland to formally change their gender identity – without the need for a gender dysphoria diagnosis – and would have reduced the age at which a person can file for a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) from 18 to 16 years old. It would also reduce the time it takes to obtain formal acknowledgment of one’s gender from two years to a few months.

The measure was approved by the Scottish Parliament in December 2022 by a vote of 86 to 39.

The decision has sparked a lot of discussion about devolution and Scottish independence. The decision comes just two months after Scotland lost a supreme court attempt to conduct a secession vote without Westminster’s permission.

The measure was eventually blocked by the UK government under section 35, which Yousaf and others called an “unprecedented attack” on the Scottish parliament.

Concerns about the bill’s potential effect on women’s rights led the UK government to halt its implementation, citing a conflict with the UK Equality Act. Women’s rights activists have said that this strategy would undermine the safety of women-only spaces.

In an interview with Times Radio, Scotland’s former first minister Alex Salmond criticized Yousaf’s battle over Westminster, saying, “concentrate on self-determination, not self-identification.”

Concerns over a potential independent Scotland

Yousaf, reaffirmed his commitment to take an independent Scotland to the EU while maintaining the rights of Scottish voters over their ‘constitutional future’, saying “as we make the case for Scottish independence, we will continue to govern well and demonstrate to the people of Scotland the benefits of decisions about their lives being taken here in Scotland”.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has warned new First Minister Humza Yousaf about plans for a second Scottish independence referendum. Sunak told Westminster’s Liaison Committee: “I think in elections people vote on all sorts of different things and I don’t think it’s appropriate to try and hijack a general election for one issue”.

“People in Scotland will vote on the various issues they think are important to them.” He added that Scottish voters made their votes known in the 2014 referendum.

The British Prime Minister then continued: “As I’ve always said, I think actually what people in Scotland want is to see their two governments working together to deliver for them.”

H

aving fought both the Soviets and the Nazis in World War II and suffered territorial losses, Finland declared neutrality at the end of the war and has not joined any military alliances since then. However, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the fear of Russia in Finland’s collective memory resurfaced. As a matter of fact, in Finland, which shares a 1,340 km land border with Russia, only 20 percent of the Finish people viewed NATO membership positively before the Ukraine war, but this percentage increased almost fourfold afterwards.

In other words, there was a strong expectation among Finns for an expedited NATO accession process that would guarantee the country’s national security. To meet these expectations, the Finnish government applied for NATO membership in May last year together with Sweden. On the other hand, Turkey requested that the two countries end their support for the FETO and PKK terror groups before approving their memberships.

The NATO membership process

Before moving to any detailed assessment of the topic, it should be noted that in accordance with the Washington Treaty (also known as the North Atlantic Treaty) that formed the legal basis of NATO, a country must complete a process consisting of seven stages in order to join the alliance. In the first phase, the parties negotiate a road map for the membership application. In the second phase, the candidate country declares with a letter of intent that it accepts the obligations for NATO membership. In this process, the parties also determine the reform calendar, if necessary. In the third phase, accession protocols are prepared for membership.

In the fourth and most important phase, as a natural consequence of the collective defense principle, every NATO member country must ratify the accession protocols. In other words, for a country to join NATO, it must receive the support of all member countries. In the fifth and sixth phases, the member states that allow the membership of the candidate country declare that they accept the accession protocols and invite the candidate country to the alliance. In the last stage, the candidate country completes the legal process and joins NATO.

Turkey’s approach

After Turkey became a NATO member in 1952, it has always approached the enlargement of the alliance positively and facilitated the membership processes of countries that want to join the alliance. Even today, Turkey, in principle, supports the memberships of Finland and Sweden, which want to join the collective defense umbrella of NATO. However, in accordance with the Madrid Memorandum signed in June last year, Turkey requires these two countries to cooperate with it in the fight against terrorism and to actively support its fight against FETO and the PKK.

Thus, Ankara is right in this regard, because Finland and Sweden have an important role in the European branches of both terrorist organizations. Unlike countries that hinder Turkey’s European Union membership process due to ideological prejudices and political calculations, Ankara does not seek to turn the situation that Finland and Sweden are facing into an opportunity. On the contrary, based on the principle of reciprocity, it desires to protect its own national security in the same way its counterparts protect theirs. In addition, Turkey is trying to strengthen its strategic autonomy on the axis of its own national interests by challenging all kinds of pressures.

Why Finland and not Sweden?

As tension over NATO membership between Turkey and the two Nordic continues, an important development took place last week. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared that Turkey had lifted the veto for Finland’s NATO membership in the meeting with his Finnish counterpart Sauli Niinistö in Ankara. Erdoğan cited Finland’s more sincere attitude towards the fight against terrorism as a reason for Ankara’s policy change.

Taking a closer look at the issue, Stockholm has shown that it is not truly sincere in its fight against terrorism by allowing anti-Islam demonstrations of right-wing extremists and anti-Turkey rallies of PKK militants in recent months. Finland, conversely, showed greater sensitivity by avoiding such incidents on its territories. In other words, Helsinki did not provoke Ankara in this process, and, in return, received Turkey’s support for its NATO membership. In addition, Turkey’s policy of minimizing foreign problems played a positive role in its change of attitude towards Finland’s NATO bid.

Sweden, which applied to NATO together with Finland, made some concrete arrangements on the way to membership in accordance with the Madrid Agreement. For instance, it passed an anti-terror law in November, and the new government has been trying to pass a new counterterrorism bill against the financing, aiding, and propagation of terrorist groups.

Turkey’s expectations

However, none of these meet Ankara’s expectations and to date, Sweden has not taken any serious step to address Turkey’s security concerns. So much so that Sweden still turns a blind eye to the actions of PKK militants on its streets and refuses to comply with extradition requests by Turkey. Moreover, it has allowed anti-Muslim attacks such as the burning of the Qur’an in front of the Turkish embassy in Stockholm.

Ankara is not against NATO enlargement per se. On the contrary, Turkey supports NATO’s open door policy, and this holds true for Finland and Sweden as well. However, since Turkey is determined to protect its national security and interests, it requires from these two countries to take a clear stance against the PKK and FETO, both of which threaten Ankara’s national security.

Turkey removed its veto on Finland’s NATO membership on March 17, 2023, showing that it will reciprocate if its counterparts keep their promises. If Sweden, like Finland, abides by Turkey’s red lines and takes the necessary steps, it also can achieve a tangible gain on the way to NATO membership before the Vilnius summit in July 2023.

F

ollowing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, NATO membership was deemed so essential and urgent for Russia’s neighbouring countries, Sweden and Finland, that an intense diplomacy traffic was initiated immediately after the start of the war. Just two months later, on May 18, 2022, Sweden and Finland simultaneously submitted their official applications to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to join the Alliance. As the Russia-Ukraine war approaches the completion of its first year,  Stoltenberg stated that “in a more dangerous world, it is even more important that Sweden and Finland become NATO members.”

The accession, which requires the approval of all NATO member states, has brought forward the long-lasting policy of disregard by Sweden and Finland of Turkey’s security concerns. Sweden and Finland have close relations with terrorist organizations such as the PKK and the DHKP-C, which pose a great national security threat to Turkey. The policies and practices of these two countries have now become challenges that need to be addressed for Turkey to give them the green light to join NATO.

On June 28, 2022, Sweden and Finland signed a tripartite agreement with Turkey at the NATO Leaders’ Summit held in Madrid, according to which the two Nordic countries would not support the PYD/YPG and FETO as banned terrorist organizations. In particular, Finland and Sweden should prevent the activities of the PKK and all other terrorist organizations, their extensions, and the activities of persons involved in or affiliated with these organizations.

Sweden’s attitude since signing the agreement

Immediately after the agreement, a positive process started. Turkey viewed the significant change in perceptions and discourses towards the PKK and PYD, especially in Sweden, as an important development.

Sweden made efforts to take concrete steps towards the extradition of terrorists sought in Turkey’s fight against the PKK/PYD terrorist organizations. The extradition of Mahmut Tat, who was convicted of PKK membership, to Turkey was another remarkable step taken by Sweden. Turkey expressed its satisfaction with the constitutional amendments that came into force on January 1, 2023 in Sweden, allowing for the adoption of stricter laws in the fight against terrorism.

However, some policies and practices that will overshadow these positive developments have recently come to the fore. On January 13, 2023, supporters of the PKK directly targeted President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at a demonstration where a mannequin resembling Erdoğan was hanged in front in front of the city hall in the capital, Stockholm. Immediately afterwards, prosecutor Lucas Eriksson declared that there was no need to even initiate an investigation into the acts in question, basing his stance on “freedom of expression” and stated that these acts cannot be punished under Swedish law.

The last straw was the permission given to burn the Qur’an on January 21, 2023, near the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm. Rasmus Paludan, the leader of the racist Stram Kurs based in Denmark and a Swedish citizen, burned the Qur’an as the police simply watched. The reaction of the Swedish government was again weak, and Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson was content with stating that what was done was “disrespectful.”

The limits of freedom of expression

The concept of “limitless freedom of expression,” which is drawn in the official statements of Sweden at the government level, is fundamentally incompatible with the real legal situation. When the statements made are examined legally, they show the intention to create a political approach over a “sympathetic” concept such as freedom of expression rather than relying on a legal basis.

The ECHR, to which forty-six European states, including Sweden and Turkey, are parties, defines the right in question, under the title of “Freedom of expression” in Paragraph 1 of Article 10. Can people say or express what they want even if they hurt millions of people, or even just one?

The answer to the question is basically given in Paragraph 2 of Article 10, which clearly puts forward that freedom of expression is not unlimited:

“The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.”

The court stresses that freedom of expression cannot be regarded as the right to humiliate others on the basis of race, language, religion or gender. In this context, the court applies the principles of “proportionality” or “balancing of rights” while drawing the limits of freedom of expression.

While the person who burned the Qur’an in Sweden had many ways to express his views on the Qur’an without insulting Muslim believers, burning the Qur’an should be clearly considered disproportionate. The person in question did so in a way that would harm the rights and honor of others. As a matter of fact, the court has stated that it is of the opinion that it is necessary to determine whether comments regarding religion are insulting and directed at believers, or an abusive attack against sacred symbols.

If the act of burning the Qur’an is accepted as a form of legitimate expression, attacking mosques, which are places of worship for Muslims, and even burning mosques could be presented as a form of acceptable expression too. This is an action that cannot be considered legitimate from any point of view.

Article 9 of ECHR

The Swedish political and judicial organs’ disregard for this disproportionality essentially violates Article 9 of the ECHR, which regulates freedom of religion and conscience, and Article 14, which regulates the prohibition of discrimination. Burning the Qur’an has harmed the fundamental rights of Muslims in particular. Therefore, the statements of the Swedish foreign minister or other officials along the lines of “there is a wide area of freedom of expression” in Sweden, which sound good at first glance, are essentially an effort to cover up attacks on other fundamental rights through freedom of expression.

W

hat distinguishes the attack on the Qur’an in Sweden from other hate crimes? How have Swedish officials approached the most recent attack on the Qur’an? These and similar questions will be addressed below in an effort to understand the story behind the hate crime of burning a copy of the Holy Qur’an in front of the Turkish embassy in Sweden.

What distinguishes the attack against the Qur’an in Sweden from other hate crimes?

First and foremost, this attack must not be treated as a random hate crime by an isolated individual. That is because Rasmus Paludan, a Danish politician who chairs the Stram Kurs (Hard Line) party in Sweden, carried out the attack, and the courts have already established that Paludan, who also has Swedish citizenship, is a racist. In 2020, he received a prison sentence in Denmark and was disbarred. Paludan’s acts of provocation have consistently been placing Muslims in Sweden and Denmark at risk. The Swedish police continues to protect the politician despite the fact that since 2017 he has committed hate crimes against Islam and undermined public order. The situation is only made more severe as these attacks have been perpetrated by a collective/political movement, have become international, and have been defended by government officials.

How do Swedish officials approach the latest attack on the Qur’an?

Last year, citing freedom of expression, the Swedish police and justice minister allowed Paludan to burn the Qur’an during the holy month of Ramadan, despite objections from the country’s Muslim minority, which constitutes approximately 8 percent of the population, and Muslim countries. Something similar occurred within the framework of the most recent attack. Despite Turkey’s warnings, Paludan burned the Qur’an near the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm with the Swedish police’s permission. In a written statement, the Swedish police stressed the importance of freedom of expression and assembly. However, an important point that Swedish and other European officials who share the same view seem to miss is that such racist behavior has hijacked the political mainstream which has been for the most part ignored.

Why do hateful and insulting statements and acts, which target sacred values, not qualify as free speech?

Like many other rights and liberties, neither the freedom of expression nor the freedom of assembly are unlimited in modern democracies. One cannot enjoy such liberties in a way that violates the rights of others or undermines public order. Indeed, Article 19 of the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) stipulates that freedom of expression may be subject to certain restrictions to ensure respect for the rights or reputation of others, or for the protection of national security, public order, public health, or morals. Moreover, Article 20 takes a more authoritative step by stating that “any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law.”

The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) features a similar regulation. Accordingly, Article 10 of the convention stipulates that freedom of expression “may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder and crime [and] for the protection of the reputation or rights of others.” The United Nations International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) also prohibits racist propaganda and activities.

Likewise, the European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission) stresses that hate crimes and the incitement of discrimination must be punished. Accordingly, the commission argues that such punishment would send a strong signal to all social groups that democracy does not condone any action that violates its fundamental values, including tolerance, respect for human rights, pluralism, and non-discrimination.

Freedom of expression is undoubtedly a sine qua non of liberal democracy. However, it is unacceptable for the freedom of expression to jeopardize pluralism, a fundamental goal of democracy, and peaceful co-existence. That is exactly why international norms include reasons for its restriction. It goes without saying that the true purpose of insults and attacks against Islam’s values, such as the burning of the Qur’an and defamation of Prophet Muhammad, is to target European Muslims and, by extension, pluralistic societies.

Is Sweden’s position in line with international human rights laws?

Sweden is a party to the conventions of the United Nations and the Council of Europe that have been mentioned above. Accordingly, Sweden’s decision to allow Paludan, who was convicted of undermining public order in his country last year, to engage in the same act of provocation represents an abuse of freedom of expression, and violates the rights and liberties of others and undermines public order. In this regard, Sweden’s position is not in line with its commitments under international law. At the same time, such attacks, which promote discrimination and target multiculturalism and tolerance, also place Swedish democracy at risk.

Indeed, the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), in its General Policy Recommendations Nos. 5 and 15, asked all member states, including Sweden, to combat and discourage hate speech in light of concerns over racist attacks and hate crimes targeting Islam. It is obvious that hurling insults at the Qur’an lays the groundwork for racist/discriminatory attacks against Muslims and aims to provoke Muslims. Consequently, permitting Paluden’s actions despite the severe and present danger they pose to public order represents a violation of international human rights laws.

What does the European Court of Human Rights’ 2018 ruling mean for attacks against religious values?

On October 25, 2018, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled in E.S. v. Austria that insulting sacred values was not covered by freedom of expression, citing the possibility of inciting religious intolerance. The court also held that imposing a ban on acts like the most recent attack in Sweden, which involved harassment against religious values, was legitimate and necessary for upholding a democratic public order. Moreover, the court agreed with the local courts in Austria that the defendant’s statements regarding Prophet Muhammad amounted to “harassment,” rightfully fueled anger among Muslims, and placed religious peace at risk by promoting prejudice.

All in all, the ECtHR ruling establishes that Sweden’s reference to freedom of expression cannot be considered lawful. In this sense, it is necessary for the Swedish authorities to overhaul their national laws and practives to prevent the abuse of freedom of expression in a way that threatens to eliminate the culture of tolerance and social pluralism and to undermine public order.

The Swedish government’s approach is not in line with the country’s domestic laws either, since the Swedish Constitution requires public institutions to combat religious discrimination. Moreover, individuals who humiliate a social group based on their religious beliefs and incite others against that religious community can be sentenced to up to four years in prison under the Swedish penal code.

According to official data, 3,150 hate crimes took place in Sweden in 2020 alone. The weak response of Sweden’s public institutions to the rise of Islamophobia and hate crimes, together with their failure to enforce international and national laws, is deeply worrying.

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n Friday, December 23, 2022, three people were killed and three others were injured in an armed attack on the Ahmet Kaya Cultural Center on Rue d’Enghien in the 10th arrondissement of Paris. The 69-year-old suspect was first arrested and then rushed to hospital. He was detained a day later. The suspect, named William M., is a retired mechanic with a long criminal record.

According to the statements by the authorities to the French press, the suspect was previously found guilty of an armed attack in the Seine-Saint-Denis region, a suburb of Paris, where heavily populated by Muslims. Later, his conviction was overturned on appeal. William M. was also found guilty of acts such as slashing with a knife and destroying immigrants’ tents in a racist attack against immigrants last year. However, the prosecutor’s office determined that the perpetrator was not motivated by extremist ideology, which is probably why he was released on bail earlier in December 2022.

According to the statement by French Prosecutor Laure Beccuau, the 69-year-old suspect “had a pathological hatred of foreigners, suffered depression, and had suicidal tendencies.” The suspect spent nearly a day in a psychiatric hospital before being brought back into police custody on Sunday evening, AFP reported. His father explained, “My son is mad!” When talking about the attack on television, the emphasis was placed on the suspect’s “madness” in capital letters with titles such as “The Suspect Is at the Psychiatric Unit.”

Did this discourse surprise anyone? Whenever there is a terrorist attack, today, if the perpetrator is European, he is portrayed as “mad,” but if he is Muslim, he is depicted as a “terrorist” who is mentally sound and in full command of his actions. As for the representation of the criminal act, the first is called an “attack” while the second is “terrorism.”

In Norway, for example, Anders Behring Breivik, who was on trial for the murder of 77 people, was also labeled “mad.” In his defense, he said that his actions were “a defense” against Islam, which he claimed was taking over Europe. He explained that this was not a crime, and that he was defending Norway against multiculturalism. Today, the language of politics adopts cultural racism instead of ethnicity-based racism. This is not limited to the far right, but permeates the center-right and center-left parties in Europe.

With French President Emmanuel Macron’s early practices, hostility towards Muslims in France gained legitimacy like nowhere else in Europe. It is enough to take a look at the documents prepared by the Macron government, namely “Reinforcing Republican Principles” and the “Imam Charter.”

The French state stigmatized Muslims as a separate entity based on cultural nationalism and even racism, and defined Islam as a threat to French identity. According to a report published in the French newspaper Libération, there have been 20 attacks, both major and minor, with racist motives in France since September 2022. These, of course, are only the ones recorded. If the suspect had not been involved in this latest attack, despite his criminal record, he would not have made the news.

In his statement, the suspect explained that he originally wanted to carry out an attack in Seine-Saint-Denis, north of Paris, an area with a dense immigrant population, but gave up on the grounds that there were few people around and the way he dressed made it difficult for him to hide his gun. Instead, he went to the Seine Denis neighborhood of Strasbourg, in the heart of Paris, where Kurdish, Turkish, and Arab immigrants have their shops. When he saw the “Ahmet” of the “Ahmet Kaya Kurdish Cultural Center” in the 10th district, he attacked!

According to the news published in the French press, the Ahmet Kaya Kurdish Cultural Center is a place under the control of people close to the PKK today. French police conducted a search there in February 2007 and arrested 13 people for allegedly financing terrorism in an “organized gang” in the Paris area. In 2014, the center was ordered to be closed down by the Supreme Court due to financing terrorist activities. At the time, the center remained open as a result of large demonstrations in support of appealing this decision. Some may know that the PKK collects racket from Kurdish shopkeepers in Paris, and if they do not, their security is imperiled. Since the 1990s, this is such a commonplace occurrence that it often occurs in front of customers.

William M. attacked with apparent anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant motivations, but in this post-truth age, which has been strengthened by social media since the 2000s, the PKK and its media organs as well as French politicians turned the narrative into an “anti-Kurdish” attack. The PKK, which is defined as a terrorist organization by Europe but protected by many European countries including France, was once again presented by French politicians and media as the representative of all Kurds. Sadly, no one emphasized the real anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant motive of the attack.

In his message, Macron said, “The Kurds of France were the target of a heinous attack in the heart of Paris. Our thoughts are with the victims, the people struggling for their lives, their families, and loved ones.” Antony Blinken, U.S. Secretary of State, tweeted “My thoughts are with the Kurdish community and the French on this sad day.” French politician Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who was a member of the National Assembly for the 4th constituency of Bouches-du-Rhône from 2017 to 2022 and who narrowly missed continuing on to the second round in French Presidential Election in 2022, said he “does not believe in coincidence when it comes to the assassination of Kurds in Paris.”

PKK media organs and organizations in Europe called on their sympathizers to protest in Place de la République immediately after the incident. Politicians participating in the protests marched and gave speeches, accompanied by PKK flags and Abdullah Öcalan’s posters. Some of the protesters, who had gathered from all over Europe, engaged in violence, forcing the police to intervene.

The statement by the police unions reacted to the violence by saying, “In the heart of Paris and Marseille, protesters burned cars, smashed stones and threw them here and there, and 53 police officers were injured on Christmas Day.” Indeed, the situation was summarized in Kurdish and French from the social media account of Sezai Temelli, a HDP MP in Turkey and former HDP Co-Chair, as follows: “Paris is on fire, let it burn!” Temelli wrote this comment, which he later deleted, as a reply to a social media post by journalist Clement Lanot, who wrote under a photo of a burning car, “There are very violent events taking place during the assembly of the Kurds. Burnt cars, bullets and tear gas.” It wasn’t just Paris – reality itself was turned upside down!

The anti-Muslim and xenophobic perpetrator openly attacked the “Ahmet” component of the Ahmet Kaya Kurdish Cultural Center. But even this attack, which caused the death of three people and the injury of three others and was apparently motivated by racist and anti-Muslim motives, was exploited and dismissed on the premise of the conflict between Turkey and the YPG, the Syrian branch of the PKK and France’s ally. Reality is turned upside down and hostility towards Muslims is turned into “enemy of Kurds.” Yet, for William M. and his like, it doesn’t matter whether the target is Kurdish, Turkish, or Arab, providing the target is Muslim.

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wo months after the collapse of Mario Draghi’s unity government, Giorgia Meloni, a far-right candidate, is set to become the first woman prime minister in Italy.

The roots of the Brothers of Italy— Giorgia Meloni’s party—in the Italian Social Movement (MSI), known to be the successor of Mussolini’s fascism, sparks debates about the implications of her leadership and policies.

Italy had no comparable de-Nazification process to Germany whereby the fascist parties were enforced to reform. The logo of Meloni’s party maintains the tricolor flame, perceived as the fire burning on Mussolini’s tomb; however, Meloni strongly rejects any fascist label.

As a teenager, she participated in the youth wing of Italy’s neo-fascist movement. In 2008, Meloni served as Italy’s youngest-ever minister. In 2012, she founded Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d’Italia) as a right-wing, populist, and national-conservative political party. In the last election that took place in 2018, she won 4.4% of the votes.

On the Sunday snap elections, Brothers of Italy garnered around 26% of the votes. Her right-wing alliance with Matteo Salvini (Northern League) and Silvio Berlusconi (Forza Italia) gives the right a majority in parliament, claiming both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies with around 44% of the vote.

The lack of an electoral coalition between the center-left Democratic Party and the Five Star Movement in a disproportionate system allows them this majority. Meloni’s government is to form Italy’s most right-wing government since World War II.

Hard-line conservative policies

Meloni’s campaign ran on the preservation of Christian identity and the “traditional” family, and Italian patriotism under the slogan of “God, family and homeland.” In a rally of the Spanish far-right Vox party Meloni stated, “Yes, to the natural family, no to LGBT lobbies!”

Her views on abortion and migrants bring concerns to many. The leader has pledged to impose a naval block on Libya and push back “masses of illegal immigrants.” Her coalition partner Matteo Salvini closed migrant camps and blocked boats carrying migrants rescued from the Mediterranean from entering port when he was interior minister.

At the same rally in Spain, she continued, “No to Islamist violence, yes to secure borders, no to mass migration… no to big international finance… no to the bureaucrats of Brussels!”

Meloni also vows to put Italians’ interests above everything in the EU. Some critics frame her prime ministry as a danger to the EU, often comparing her to Viktor Orbán of Hungary who is often in the headlines due to his quarrels with the EU.

However, it is important to note that Italy is dependent on EU funds which it has little interest in putting at risk, especially at a time of energy and living crises. Italy suffers one of the worst impacts of the pandemic and recession in Europe, and receives the heaviest portion of the EU recovery fund.

Meloni has supported Ukraine during the Russian invasion and stands for the sanctions against Russia in line with Italy’s Western allies. However, Salvini has maintained that sanctions against Russia should be reconsidered. Like many countries in Europe, Italy also is dependent on Russian energy.

Meloni has pledged tax cuts on energy and other essential items to curb economic issues, and has promised to introduce a flat tax for the self-employed and renegotiate Italy’s massive EU COVID19 recovery plan.

She also wants to end Italy’s ban on nuclear power. Meanwhile, her party seeks to up Italy’s birth rate with increased family allowances.

Lastly, the far-right leader wants to bring constitutional change and have Italy’s president elected by popular vote.

Brothers of Italy are mostly experienced in local government. At a particularly challenging time to ascend to government, the party has a lot to prove by tackling large-scale issues like the economy.

Written By Dilara Özer – ISTANBUL.

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here has been an uproar in France after French-Algerian author, Hamid Ait-Taleb, who holds two master’s degrees from the Sorbonne, changed his name to “Xavier Le Clerc” over the lack of job offers due to his North African-sounding name. Le Clerc made the statement during a radio interview on September 7, 2022.

In an interview with Radio France Inter, Le Clerc said soon after he changed his name, he got hundreds of calls offering him jobs, where in the past he never got called back after job applications.

Ait-Taleb is the author of the novel A Man without a Title, which speaks of his father’s journey into integration, identity, and poverty in France.

It is not clear whether Le Clerc’s father was with the Harkis, the Algerians who fought under French command during the country’s War of Independence in 1954-1962.

Upon arrival in France, Le Clerc’s father was employed in Normandy as a laborer by an agricultural company.

Surprising?

The statement made by Le Clerc came as a shock to some French, but France’s history of racism especially against Harkis is known to many and does not surprise people with migrant backgrounds in the country.

Le Clerc came out and spoke about the reason that pushed him to change his name after he was subjected to criticism including accusations against him of “betraying his roots and identity.”

Some 1.1 million people have watched the interview with Le Clerc with politicians and figures jumping on the bandwagon and noting that this comes as no surprise to them given the history of France and the rise of the far-right in the country.

Danièle Obono, member of the French National Assembly, tweeted that the case of Xavier Le Clerc is no exception, noting that discrimination in employment is known: an applicant of North African origin is 31.5% less likely to get a job than a white French applicant.

Farida Amrani, a Moroccan-origin member of the French National Assembly, noted that she was asked once in her electoral district how she became an MP while having a migrant background.

In France, a French Name?

According to a study, the gap between French with Maghribi origins and white French when it comes to employment is 15%.

In another study, the French American Foundation concluded that a French name gives universal access to all facets of French society.

France, due to its colonial history, hosts large migrant communities. Muslims make up 6.6% of the population of France or 8.8 million people—the largest Muslim population in a single European country.

As in the rest of Europe, racism in France is on the rise recently. In the most recent general elections an increasing number of French people voted for right-wing candidates whose discourse was mainly focused on their anti-migrant rhetoric.

Muslims find themselves in an increasingly hostile environment in France, which to date refuses to recognize its colonial past and integrate its Muslim population.

Liz Truss is the Member of Parliament for Southwest Norfolk, Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Affairs, and Minister of Women and Equalities. She is presently one of the leading candidates for the leadership of the Conservative Party, who will likely become the next British Prime Minister.

The alternatives for Boris Johnson’s replacement as party leader and Prime Minister have been reduced to two contenders by Conservative MPs. On September 5, following a runoff vote among Conservative party members, either Foreign Secretary Liz Truss or former Chancellor Rishi Sunak will be crowned the victor.

With three weeks remaining in the contest for the leadership of the British Conservative Party, the foreign secretary is farther ahead of her opponent Rishi Sunak. She has the support of eleven government whips as she strives to extend her advantage against Rishi Sunak among Conservative party members.

In light of the increasing cost of living and the impending recession, the new British prime minister will have to strike the ground running. Therefore, the focus has already shifted to Truss’ first steps at No. 10 should she become Prime Minister as predicted.

According to YouGov, Liz Truss now has a 38-point advantage against Rishi Sunak among Conservative members. Currently, the foreign secretary has 69% of the popular vote versus Sunak’s 31%. Both contenders have set out some of their policies already and will continue to do so in the coming weeks – Here is what we know about Liz Truss so far.

Domestic Affairs

Speaking at the Tory party leadership debate in Eastbourne, Truss said that if she were to become prime minister, her proposals for quick tax cuts may prevent a recession.

She stated: “I know there are difficult forecasts out there, but forecasts are not destiny. And what we shouldn’t be doing is talking ourselves into a recession. We should be keeping taxes low.”

This is in response to the Bank of England’s warning that a recession will hit the UK as interest rates are increased by the greatest in 27 years.

According to the Bank of England’s Governor, Andrew Bailey, “what has happened is there has been a series of big supply side shocks, most of which were outside… I would dare anyone to have been in this position two years ago and predicted a conflict in Ukraine,” he continued. He maintained that, while the bulk of inflationary pressure was caused by rising gas prices in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, boosting interest rates was required to avoid excessive inflation from being ingrained.

Immigration

Truss has nearly always voted for stricter asylum laws and has consistently supported stricter enforcement of immigration laws. She has stated that she “completely agrees” with the Rwandan government’s immigration policy and has gone further than other candidates, reportedly planning to “extend the controversial policy to other countries” if elected prime minister.

She stated, “As prime minister, I am determined to see the Rwanda policy through to full implementation as well as exploring other countries where we can work on similar partnerships.”

She was absent in 2020 from a vote on the Immigration and Social Security Coordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill — New Clause — Leave to Enter: Family Unity and Asylum Claims. She has also voted to remove the ability of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, spouses, vulnerable adults, and dependent adults to join a legally present family member in the United Kingdom.

Education

Truss has virtually always voted in favor of turning primary and secondary schools into academies, and she has repeatedly voted to withdraw financial aid for certain 16- to 19-year-olds in training and higher education. In addition, she voted to increase university tuition fees to £9,000 per year.

Foreign Policy

Truss voted a mixture of for and against strengthening the Military Covenant. Truss has regularly supported the employment of British military personnel in combat operations abroad during her time as a member of parliament, including voting for military action against Daesh in Syria. But she also voted against Iraq War inquiry bills.

In November 2016, Truss voted against an investigation into the disparity between public rhetoric and private conduct before the Iraq war. In November, 2020, she voted in favor of putting limitations on the prosecution of members of the armed forces for their conduct while deployed abroad, including in cases of alleged torture, therefore reiterating her earlier vote.

However, in an interview with the BBC, she said that if she were to become prime minister, she would not deploy British soldiers into Ukraine.

She stated, “We are doing all we can to support Ukraine. We’ve led the international coalition on sending weapons, we’re putting the sanctions in place, but I do not support the direct involvement of UK troops.”

What happens next?

The two candidates must now face off in 5 Tory hustings debates throughout the nation, a procedure that started on July 28 in Leeds and will culminate on August 31 in London. The victor will be declared on Monday, September 5, and will become the next Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister.

In France, a founding member of the European Union, the far-right party has advanced to the threshold of the Élysée Palace, and its voice is now being heard not only at home, but around the world. Marine Le Pen has never been so close to winning the presidential election. What if she crosses the threshold?

Since the night of April 10, French politicians, academics, intellectuals, journalists, and especially President Emmanuel Macron, have been repeating both verbally and in writing: “This is a historical responsibility, it is time to unite against the extreme right!” In the Fifth Republic, when this call was first made 20 years ago, in 2002, Jean Marie Le Pen eliminated the socialist candidate Lionel Jospin, but President Jacques Chirac won the election with 82.21 percent in the second round.

In 2017, when Emmanuel Macron won 24.1 percent and Marine Le Pen 21.30 percent of the votes in the first round, the call was repeated: “This is a historical responsibility, unite your votes against the extreme right!” Although the difference was not as clear as last time, Macron came in at 66.10 percent and Marine Le Pen at 33.90 percent. Here it is, five years later, in the first round, Emmanuel Macron got 27.84 percent, Marine Le Pen got 23.15 percent, and the other two far-right candidates Eric Zemmour got 7.07 percent and Nicolas Dupont-Aignan 2.28 percent.

The far right thus received a total of 32.50 percent of the votes in the first round. This time, according to various polls that see Macron ahead, the gap between the two candidates is closing and is only between 2 and 7 points.

In the last elections, the country’s traditional left and right parties had weakened in favor of Macron’s “neither right nor left, both right and left” party; this time, they were buried. Anne Hidalgo, the candidate of the socialists and the mayor of Paris, received 1.75 percent of the votes. Valérie Pécresse, the candidate of the center-right party of the Gaullist tradition, Les Républicains, is crying foul because her 4.78 percent will not allow her to receive state aid, and has launched a campaign to cover election costs.

Parties that receive less than 5 percent of the votes in France are not eligible for state aid. While that is the scenery, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the ultra-leftist La France Insoumise party, who is a presidential candidate for the third time, scored unpredictably high, receiving 21.95 percent of the votes. In other words, he almost scored high enough to qualify to run against Macron for the second round, the difference with Le Pen being only 1.2 percent.

Why did the far right and the far left get stronger?

So, what happened to make the far right and far left so strong in France? Why is everyone, especially Macron, screaming that “Republican values” are under threat? Why are the leaders of the Rassemblement national (National Rally) party (Le Pen), the Reconquête (Reconquest) (Zemmour), and Debout la France (Dupont-Aignan) called far-right? Who are their enemies, what makes the far right a far right?

The economic measures of Macron’s rival, Marine Le Pen, are similar to those of the far-left and even centrist parties. She wanted to take France out of the military wing of NATO, but De Gaulle also did so in 1966. She does not say, “France should leave the European Union,” but she makes promises that will inevitably create a de facto departure from the EU. “I will recognize the supremacy of constitutional law over European law by holding a referendum,” she says.

While Macron said in his 70-minute speech on “Fighting Separatism” that “in some schools, some students want meals in the canteens based on their religious beliefs” (i.e., they do not eat pork), according to Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, this was communitarianism and unacceptable. In October 2019, Macron’s former interior minister, Christophe Castaner, described having a beard or celebrating Ramadan as “conspicuous” and a sign of radicalism. These and similar absurd statements were well received by France’s elite, whose apparently influential majority is extremely Islamophobic, and became the cover story of weekly magazines.

The Imam Charter, for example, a unique state-level text on anti-Muslim hostility, was the official declaration that Muslims were a separate and dangerous entity under the French Constitution and laws, even in their very existence. Judging by the ideas and actions that the imams, and thus Muslims, were supposed to commit to never think or act, they were a community prone to committing all kinds of evils, including “discrimination against the sick and disabled.”

Indeed, Macron’s government this year even shut down the Collective Against Islamophobia in France, one of the leading anti-discrimination organizations documenting hate crimes against Muslims. Between 2018 and 2022, France rummaged nearly 25,000 mosques, schools, associations, and workplaces, and shut down 718 bodies, including more than 20 mosques. The state demonizes Muslims with its Imam Charter, Anti-separatism Law, its so-called French Islam with its fabrications and rhetoric, and portrays Islam as a dangerous religion that needs mass surveillance and oppression. Muslim French are presented as an existential threat to France’s “civilization,” “tradition,” and “values.”

With a president and government that patented Islamophobia for themselves, naturally, Marine Le Pen had to go from door to door in the election campaign in order not to get euchred out of her voters. What’s more, Zemmour emerged as another candidate in the elections. “Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind,” say the Turks.

In his brief 10-minute speech after the election results were announced, Macron hastily began embracing Muslims. In his refutation, he said excitedly and surreptitiously, “I do not want a France that prevents Muslims or Jews from eating as their religion dictates. No, we will not.” For the first time, Macron mentioned Muslims and Jews in the same sentence, but because of the strict laws and sanctions against anti-Semitism, no one cares about the kosher of the Jews. He could not stop himself and went on to give a message to Muslims before the second round on April 24: “Madame Le Pen says she will ban the headscarf. Then, she will not be president of all French people.”

Before that, however, Macron had said, “The headscarf contradicts our country’s civilizational understanding of the relationship between men and women, and therefore makes us feel insecure.” Each of his ministers made numerous statements on the same subject. Marlène Schiappa, Minister Delegate in charge of Citizenship attached to the Ministry of Interior stated, “The headscarf is a political act,” and Minister of National Education Jean-Michel Blanquer said, “The headscarf is undesirable in our society.”

The Minister of the Interior Darmanin, who opposes Le Pen today, said, “In no democratic country in the world, is there a ban on religious symbols and signs in public spaces,” the women wearing headscarf were taken hostages in accordance with traditions that are not compatible with the Republic.

While hostility to Muslims brought votes from the far right, respect for Muslims also brought votes from the far left to Jean-Luc Mélenchon. French Muslims, who had to choose between deliberate abstention and voting, gave their votes to the far-left candidate Mélenchon by 70 percent, according to polls. Many French Muslims posted the following message verbatim on their social media platforms: “I never look at the world ideologically from the same angle, but Mélenchon does not discriminate, does not point fingers, does not label us and even condemns Islamophobia.”

The legitimization of Islamophobia, which resurged in France after the colonial period, especially since the 2000s, has played a very important role in the growth of the far right. Today, it is no longer just a threat to Muslims, but it indirectly threatens the rule of law, the European Union, and even the country’s strategic choices and alliances.

In the first round of France’s presidential election on April 10, incumbent Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen came out on top, securing their places in the second round of voting, which will be held on April 24.

Macron’s result was the best first-round performance for an incumbent president since 1988. He gained more votes than in the 2017 first round. There is no doubt that his warnings of the need to hold voters back from the far right and his role in the Ukraine-Russia war both played a big part in his success.

However, Le Pen also scored higher than in 2017, especially in the last few weeks of her campaign when, instead of putting Muslims on the agenda, she focused on the high costs of living and inflation, something that concerns most voters.

Now, with all the votes counted, Macron has over 27% and Le Pen has less than 23.1%. Far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon came third, with close to 22% of the votes.

Although this year’s election did not exceed the 2002 record levels of abstentions, which stood at 28%, the percentage of voters who abstained this time remained high at 26% which corresponds to 12.8 million from around 49 million eligible voters. This time the abstention rate was higher than in the first round five years ago.

The abstention among the younger population was higher this year than in the previous elections. According to Ipsos-Sopra Steria estimates, the age group with most abstentions was voters between 25 and 34 (46%).

Yasser Louati, a French political analyst, believes that voters abstain from voting mainly because they don’t have faith in politicians.

“We have millions of people living under the poverty line, COVID19 killed more than 150,000 people. We have institutions that are being discredited, people don’t believe in institutions, politicians are not trusted, journalists are not trusted,” he told Politics Today.

“Instead of addressing these questions and how we can make our institutions more legitimate, how we can address poverty, we have debates over Muslims. Such as, do Muslims belong here? Are Muslims like us?” he noted.

Amal Benkerroum, a Muslim woman entrepreneur, who is thinking of leaving France, told us, “I don’t know if I will vote on Sunday. I don’t know who to vote for.” She added, “If Le Pen becomes the next president of France, I am going to leave France because that means the community that we are living in doesn’t want us and we are not welcome.”

With the second runoff only a week away, France is faced with two choices. However, most young people feel that neither Macron nor Le Pen can represent them. Four days after the first round, several hundred students took to the streets chanting “Neither Macron nor Le Pen!” Most of them voted for the hard-left leader Mélenchon, and they complain about not having a suitable candidate in the second round who represents them.

According to Ifop pollsters, Macron is expected to receive 51% of the votes and Le Pen 49% on April 24. However, abstentions may increase in the second round mostly due to the fact that the 2022 French election has been driven by fear rather than hope. Although Macron is calling on people to vote for him in order to block the far right, the gap is very narrow and it is the first time in French history that the far right is so close to winning.

On March 21, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced a (Rohingya) “genocide determination.” The U.S. decision was largely welcomed by Rohingya survivors.

Myanmar is a signatory to the interstate treaty Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) or Genocide Convention. Since it launched its first genocidal purge against Rohingyas in February 1978, two successive generations of Rohingya rights activists—some, lawyers—have named the crime their group has endured as genocide and campaigned for international recognition.

As evidenced from numerous “welcoming statements” from refugee camps in Bangladesh and diaspora campaign groups, the Rohingya rightly feel vindicated now that one of the world’s most powerful states has officially called the crimes against them a genocide, albeit after years of strategic avoidance. Within their reasoning for avoidance, was not wanting to rock the country’s Washington-brokered, neo-liberal “democratic transition,” with Aung San Suu Kyi eventually taking the helm as Myanmar state counsellor in 2016.

Washington’s strategic calculation, namely that by not calling crimes against the Rohingya a genocide, the United States would in due course steer Myanmar’s most powerful stakeholder, the military, away from Washington’s number one imperial rival, China, also proved patently false.

Moreover, I would venture a guess that the divestment of the California-headquartered Chevron corporation from its three-decades of highly controversial natural gas production in Myanmar removed a significant corporate barrier in declaring that Myanmar has committed the crime of genocide. The construction of the gas pipeline was associated with the use of forced labor and other crimes against humanity.

Predictably, Myanmar’s coup regime dismissed Blinken’s announcement as “politically motivated.”  Likewise, led by Myanmar’s military-patronized Buddhist, Islamic, and Hindu leaders and cronies, the newly formed Interfaith Peace and Harmony Council joined the military regime in dismissing and denouncing Blinken’s “determination” as a fantastical announcement, falsely claiming that there was no corroborating evidence.

The painful truth is that this religious council’s statement and the regime’s dismissal most likely would have been endorsed by Aung San Suu Kyi, had she not been imprisoned after the coup. She was the council’s original patron and the regime’s most significant civilian collaborator.

The Burmese Nobel Peace laureate has lost her moral authority and international stature after years of studied silence and evasions over her country’s well-documented genocide. Her old friends and loyal supporters, including the late Desmond Tutu, have publicly called her out on her culpability.

In December 2019, in her capacity as Myanmar state counsellor, the de facto head of state, Suu Kyi traveled to The Hague where she served as the agent or official state representative in The Gambia v. Myanmar case and denied Gambia’s genocide allegations lodged at the UN’s highest court of states, the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Blinken’s “genocide determination” pinned the genocide label exclusively on the country’s military leaders. In fact, genocides are institutional crimes typically planned, organized, managed, executed, and denied by various organs of a state and those who were in charge.

During the two genocidal purges of 2016 and 2017, which were the sole focus of the U.S. State Department’s forensic investigation completed in 2018 involving interviews with 1,000 survivors in refugee camps in Bangladesh, Aung San Suu Kyi was Myanmar’s state counsellor, foreign minister, and the autocratic chair of the then ruling National League for Democracy.

Her official denial of genocide at the ICJ  and her public acts of denial on numerous occasions removed any doubt as to where she stood and what her official and public roles were in the crime which the United States has now officially called a genocide.

On my part, as a Burmese scholar and activist who blew the genocide whistle, I should also share the joy of vindication with my fellow Myanmar people, namely the Rohingya.

In 2014, following a three-year study, I co-authored The Slow-Burning Genocide of Myanmar’s Rohingya, the first academic study of Rohingya persecution using the genocide framework, jointly conducted with my researcher colleague and wife Natalie Brinham (pseudonym Alice Cowley).

But I do not add my voice to the international chorus of welcomes to Blinken’s genocide determination for several reasons.

First, Blinken’s genocide determination was not accompanied by any indication whatsoever that the United States is determined to mobilize its enormous financial, military, and diplomatic clout in the right direction—that is to help the current post-Aung San Suu Kyi wave of popular resistance, armed and non-violent, that seek to delegitimize, weaken, and eventually force the military to relinquish its monopoly over Myanmar’s state institutions, the very institutions and structures which served as the instruments of genocide.

Washington is capable of such acts as has been amply demonstrated in its response to Russia’s crimes of aggression against Ukraine. Since February 24, when the Russian tanks rolled across the Ukrainian borders, not a day has gone by, without the United States announcing some kind of concrete punitive measures or threats against Russia.

In my FORSEA Dialogue on Democratic Struggles across Asia on March 21, Ei Thinzar Maung, this year’s Burmese recipient of the U.S. Secretary of State’s International Women of Courage Award, and Padoh Saw Taw Nee, head of the Foreign Affairs Department of the Karen National Union, Myanmar’s oldest resistance organization, publicly urged the United States government to release the $1 billion Myanmar sovereign fund frozen by Blinken’s boss, President Biden, following the coup in Myanmar so that the money could be used to fund Myanmar’s rightful resistance against the “terrorist”-like occupying military.

I am painfully aware that Myanmar people’s armed resistance against the genocidal military is not deemed support-worthy, unlike the Ukrainian resistance that is fighting the West’s proxy war against Putin’s Russia.

I have long shared the widespread dismay towards Washington’s foot-dragging regarding the gravest crimes in international law that has occurred irrespective of the political party in the White House. It’s an entirely different matter when groups such as DAESH, the “Islamic State,” or adversarial state actors (such as China)—then, the U.S. springs into action. After all, these battles advance American strategic agendas.

France will choose its new president in April of this year. Current president Emmanuel Macron has not yet announced his candidacy, but he is expected to announce it officially soon. There are around 40 candidates who will run for the election.

The presidency is the strongest organ of the country’s two-headed executive branch. Thus, the French presidential election attracts a global interest as French presidents determine the country’s foreign policy and domestic politics.

While far-right politicians in France have been already mobilized, Macron, who was elected in 2017 with great expectations, wants to be re-elected. No prediction for a future election is easy, and neither is predicting whether Macron will be elected again. To this end, we need to have a brief look at Macron’s four-year term in office.

Macron’s failed tests

Emmanuel Macron faced many challenges in domestic politics after he was elected in 2017. The yellow vests protests and the COVID-19 pandemic were the most important tests. In November 2018, civil protests broke out against the rising fuel prices and living costs. The police response was violent and used disproportionate force against civilians participating in the protests, leading to severe criticism of the Macron administration.

The Macron government did not prevent the excessive violence by the security forces, but on the contrary, made legal arrangements for the use of violence. The General Security Law emerged as a reaction to the protests and was approved in France’s National Assembly, empowering security forces and justifying the use of excessive force to defend and protect themselves.

Macron failed another test in the fight against the COVID19 pandemic. His administration couldn’t efficiently overcome the socio-economic problems that emerged due to the pandemic, reducing confidence in Macron’s leadership. As a result, La République En Marche! (LREM) founded by Macron suffered a great defeat in the municipal and regional elections that took place in 2020 and 2021, respectively. LREM fell short of expectations and lost big cities such as Lyon, Marseille, and Paris to the Greens and Socialists, respectively.

Islamophobic aspects of the candidates

The Islamophobic views of prominent candidates such as Macron, Le Pen, and Zemmour in the lead-up to the election point to a serious threat to Muslims in the country. In fact, the marginalization and securitization of Muslims in France since the September 11 terrorist attacks reveal that the French governments follow an institutionally Islamophobic stance.

The Islamophobic views of prominent candidates such as Macron, Le Pen, and Zemmour in the lead-up to the election point to a serious threat to Muslims in France.

More recently, Macron’s government has closed down 17 mosques with vague claims of violating security laws or not meeting the required safety standards, and has surveyed nearly 90 mosques. Moreover, the government pressured the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) to sign a charter of “Republican values” as a part of its so-called French Islam project.

With elections drawing near, the French government is looking for ways to appeal to far-right voters. For instance, on February 5, 2022, they officially introduced the Forum of Islam in France (FORIF) that took over from the CFCM. What’s controversial about this forum is that all its members will be handpicked by the government, evidently undermining the political representation of Muslims in the country.

As part of their far-right ideology Marine Le Pen and Eric Zemmour are quite notorious for holding both Islamophobic and anti-Semitic stances. Both oppose the presence of Islam and Muslims in France. More extreme than Le Pen, Zemmour calls for the assimilation of Muslims and demands that French Muslims renounce their faith.

Muslims in France are struggling to decide which candidate to vote for in the election. Whatever the outcome of the election is, difficult days lie ahead for French Muslims, which comprise around 10 percent of the population. The worst-case scenario is a far-right candidate coming to power. Then Muslims would face innumerable difficulties including facing more violent acts in the coming years.

How might the election results affect relations with Turkey?

It seems that two political/ideological factions stand out in the French presidential elections. The first is the relatively moderate line represented by Macron, and the other is the far-right line represented by Le Pen and Zemmour. If Macron is re-elected, as seems probable at the moment, the current tense atmosphere in Turkish-French relations may continue. More specifically the tensions in Libya, Syria, and the Eastern Mediterranean, where the concerned parties are in direct confrontation, are likely to remain.

The second scenario would be catastrophic. If the far right comes to power in France, then, there would be a paradigm shift in France’s relations with Turkey. Turkish-French relations cannot remain healthy under a Turkophobic and Islamophobic government. In such a scenario, ideological motives would dominate the relationship and the bilateral relations may come to a breaking point. Therefore, Macron’s victory in the presidential election seems the more preferable option for Turkey.

Four weeks after Amnesty International was forced to halt is operations in India in September 2020, citing the Indian government’s crackdown on civil society, the UK-based human rights organization published a report warning of a coordinated effort to target journalists and activists in India and Kashmir, specifically those critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The Indian government “must immediately halt its intensifying suppression of dissent,” said Amnesty International, following a series of counter-terrorism raids on human rights groups and human rights defenders and journalists in Jammu and Kashmir.

Since then, the situation has deteriorated from bad to worse for journalists in both Kashmir and India, culminating with terrorism charges levelled against me and 101 other journalists, lawyers, academics, and human rights defenders in November of last year – for “promoting enmity between religious groups” across social media, an Orwellian way to describe reporting violent attacks committed by right-wing Hindu groups against Muslims in Tripura state in late October.

These criminal charges were filed under the country’s draconian anti-terror law – the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) – a legacy of British colonial rule, prompting a strong rebuke from Reporters Without Borders, which said our “only crimes were to cover the recent attacks against mosques in the North-eastern state of Tripura,” while the Editors Guild of India described the bogus charges as an attempt by the BJP ruled state government to “deflect attention away from its own failure to control majoritarian violence.”

International silence has created space for New Delhi to carry out “counter-terrorism raids” against journalists and editors.

But whereas human rights and civil society groups have been vocal in their condemnation of the Modi regime’s anti-democratic and unconstitutional crackdown on dissent, India’s international allies, particularly Western governments, have been conspicuously silent, showing a willingness to ignore its attacks on free speech and free press in exchange for New Delhi’s unfettered cooperation in the contestation between Washington DC and Beijing for primacy in Indo-Pacific.

This international silence has created space for New Delhi to carry out an ever-increasing number of cynically named “counter-terrorism raids” against journalists and editors, particularly those in Indian administered Kashmir. Notably these raids go unreported in the intimidated and ever-compliant mainstream media ecosystem, which has helped Modi build the most extraordinary personality cult in modern political history,” as noted by former UN under-secretary-general and Congress MP Shashi Tharoor.

If convicted of sedition under the draconian anti-terrorism legislation, known as the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), both Shah and Gul face life imprisonment. It’s for this reason Sanjay Kapoor, head of the Editors Guild of India, accused the government of “stifling” democracy in Kashmir, and for painting journalists as the “enemy of the state.”

Meanwhile, Hindu nationalist leaders who publicly call for a genocide against Muslims and other religious minorities are ignored by security forces and the Indian government. The double standard and motive of the Modi government could not be more obvious.

It must also be noted here that this anti-democratic campaign to intimidate and silence journalists in Kashmir is taking place alongside continued government-controlled communications blackouts and curfews. The Modi government is desperate to deny the international community evidence of its human rights violations in the disputed territory, which have become measurably worse since 2019, the year India revoked Kashmir’s semi-autonomous status, as illustrated in an upward spike in extrajudicial killings.

“Indian authorities appear determined to prevent journalists from doing their jobs,” says Steven Butler, Asia programme coordinator of the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which partly explains why India has seen its democracy downgraded by 53^rd position on the most recent Democracy Index published by The Economist Intelligence Unit, while falling to 142^nd position out of 180 countries in the 2021 World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders.

The Sweden-based V-Dem Institute went even further in its latest report on global democracy in describing India an “electoral autocracy,” and accusing the Modi government of “diminishing freedom of expression, media and civil society” to a point where it’s “as autocratic as Pakistan and worse than its neighbours Bangladesh and Nepal.”

Any number of Indian news media watchers have observed how the country’s mainstream media has essentially functioned as the public relations arm of Modi and BJP, leading many to mock influential television news channels as the “Godi Media,” a pejorative Hindi term that accuses journalists and editors of performing as lapdogs for the Hindu nationalist agenda.

“Perhaps the best example of how journalists have become accustomed to not challenging the government is the fact that Modi failed to hold a single press conference in his first term in office,” says iconic Indian editor and journalist Vir Sanghvi, who also observes how access to the Modi government has become conditional on the journalist’s ideology.

Clearly, the Indian government’s war on the free press and democracy hasn’t gone unnoticed.

The question is what will New Delhi’s democratic allies do about it?

In a critical time for Boris Johnson, Nusrat Ghani’s allegations have roiled the Conservative Party. The prime minister is awaiting the outcome of a pivotal inquiry into lockdown-flouting parties in Downing Street that took place during a period when government-backed public health restrictions prohibited most social gatherings.

In an interview with the Sunday Times, Nusrat Ghani said that when she was fired as transport minister during a reshuffle in 2020, she was informed that “Muslimness” had been mentioned as a concern at a Downing Street meeting.

“At the post-reshuffle meeting with the whips, I asked what the thinking was behind the decision to fire me…that my ‘Muslim woman minister’ status was making colleagues uncomfortable and that there were concerns ‘that I wasn’t loyal to the party as I didn’t do enough to defend the party against Islamophobia allegations.”

The accusations made by Ghani have been previously echoed by former Tory peer Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, the country’s first female Muslim cabinet minister and a persistent campaigner against Islamophobia. When she learned that Javid had been named chancellor, she stated in a tweet “It’s a shame… that it’s taken four years and a leadership contest to finally drag my colleagues kicking and screaming to address this issue.”

To be an Anti-Muslim bigot is to be rewarded and elevated to a party post but to speak out against it is to be shunned and politically exiled.

There has been criticism from the wider British Muslim community on Ghani’s role as a Conservative MP in normalizing anti-Muslim bigotry through government initiatives such as Prevent. Ghani’s definition of Islamophobia is markedly different from the standard definition, which is as follows: “Intense dislike or fear of Islam, especially as a political force; hostility or prejudice towards Muslims.”

“Thus, if the archetypal radicalizer in the first decade after 9/11 was the almost pantomime figure of Abu Hamza with his eye-patch, hook hands and wild rhetoric; his counterpart in the last ten years was likely to be smartly dressed, soft-spoken and to mouth platitudes about social justice and human rights,” she continued as saying.

Prevent has faced criticism not only from civil organizations but international bodies including the UN.

In a report on anti-Muslim hate and discrimination by UN Special Rapporteur, Ahmed Shaheed, on Freedom of Religion or Belief submitted, it stated the key issues form the Prevent Strategy:

• That the Prevent duty was leaving students fearful of exercising their rights to freedom of expression and belief.
• The Prevent duty risked being counter-productive by driving children to discuss issues related to terrorism, religion, and identity outside the classroom and online, where simplistic narratives are promoted and go unchallenged.

The language used by media outlets and politicians, notably during the “war on terror,” has contributed to the normalization of this bigotry. As with other types of discrimination, it is critical to hear the victims’ voices loudly.

Despite mounting worries from the British Muslim community over escalating Anti-Muslim prejudice, the conservative party has failed to settle on a definition. Islamophobia, as defined by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims, is “rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.”

The Labour Party, Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru, and the Mayor of London have all endorsed this term, but the Conservative Party has rejected it. The Tory government’s refusal to adopt the definition of Islamophobia despite the support of the definition by cross party parliamentarians is a reflection of the party’s stance towards Muslims and Islam.

A YouGov poll conducted on behalf of Hope Not Hate (an non-partisan organization tackling racism and fascism) show Conservative members showing worrying beliefs in Islamophobic myths, don’t want a Muslim to be Prime Minister, and overwhelmingly reject even the very idea that the Conservative Party has a problem with this issue.” 67% believe  “there are areas in Britain that operate under Sharia law,” as opposed to just 18% who oppose this. 39% of members believe that “Islamist terrorists reflect a widespread hostility to Britain amongst the Muslim community”.

Although the Conservatives are in power and have the responsibility of bringing this problem to the forefront, Islamophobia is not only a Conservative issue; the Labour Party is not exempt.

According to a report conducted by the Labour Muslim Network in Nov 2020 on Islamophobia and the Muslim experience, 29% of Muslim members and supporters have directly experienced Islamophobia in the Labour Party, 37% have directly witnessed Islamophobia within the Labour Party and 44 % don’t think the party takes it seriously.

Regardless of how strongly one may disagree with Nusrat Ghani, justice requires that we contextualize this moment within the larger framework of Islamophobia that Muslims suffer. In the end, when we tolerate one person’s persecution, we all lose. While we are not compelled to demonstrate sympathy or solidarity with one person, we must evaluate all angles in the injustice of Anti-Muslim bigotry, Anti- Muslim hatred, Islamophobia (which all mean the same thing).

Changing a word’s spelling, but the intent remains the same, defining the issue is never the problem, genuine change usually is.

France was shocked when Jean Marie Le Pen, who was the leader of the far-right party and never invited to be on any television channel in France, went into the second round against Jacques Chirac with 16.86% of votes in the 2002 presidential elections. Expectedly, Chirac was elected president with 82.21% in the second round; meanwhile Le Pen could only increase his vote to 17.79%.

But, according to the newspaper headlines, this was a shameful event and a great disaster for France! This was because Le Pen, who was prosecuted for inciting xenophobia and for his statement that gas chambers were “a mere detail” in the history of World War II, achieved a great success considering he could only win 0.74% of votes in 1974 when he first ran.

That’s all water under the bridge now. Over the last 20 years, far-right ideas have flourished and bloomed. They have even ceased to be “far-right ideas” as they have become pretty common. An ambiguous xenophobia against Africans, Arabs, and sometimes people coming from countries in the European Union was replaced by an overt hatred of Islam and hostility towards Muslims. This new xenophobia moved to the center of politics and gained serious ground in both left-wing and right-wing politics.

French Minister of Higher Education Frédérique Vidal, who gave an interview to CNews channel after Blanquer, said, “Islamo-leftism causes social collapse and I think universities as a part of the society are not free of its grip.” Not only that, Vidal also called on the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) to conduct a study on the “Islamo-Gauchisme [French term of Islamo-leftism] effect and its impact on studies on the decolonization process” in universities.

There are many examples of the so-called valorous breakthroughs in the name of Islamophobia that started in the 2000s. An influential figure in left-wing politics, feminist intellectual and philosopher Élizabeth Badinter, in an interview to the newspaper Le Monde during socialist President Hollande’s incumbency stated, “Don’t be afraid of being accused of being Islamophobic; I’m not afraid, no one should be afraid.” She had also secured the support of Prime Minister Manuel Valls at the time.

Before that, one of the founders of the highly circulated right-wing magazine Le Point, Claude Imbert said in slightly more timid words, “To be honest, I’m a bit Islamophobic,” while Françoise Laborde, a former Radical Party of the Left senator who later joined Macron’s party, said, “Frankly, I like being called Islamophobic.” These are only a taste of what’s going on.

With his talent as a writer, Zemmour expresses in a vulgar but impactful way what others could only whisper or insinuate. He is a republican after all, albeit being “radical” or “overzealous” for some. In France, the definitions of secularism, republicanism, and “Civilization” – whether used together or separately – are extraordinarily useful euphemisms for anti-Islamic sentiment and hostility towards Muslims. When it comes to Muslims, Zemmour’s far-right ideological position of “Civilization and the Republic,” Marine Le Pen’s emphasis on “Secularism,” and a socialist or a right-wing politician’s discourse of “Republicanism, Secularism” or “Civilization” are not different at all.

As a matter of fact, Macron’s “Anti-Separatism Bill” was renamed “Principles Strengthening Respect for the Laws of the Republic” after receiving backlash across the world for being Islamophobic; however, it retained its content. In other words, the state does not openly say “give up your Islamic identity” like Zemmour, but does its best to make Muslims live their faith in their inner world and make their physical attachment to their religion invisible.

The French public is subject to constant manipulation; the French Institute of Public Opinion (IFOP), one of the leading research institutions in France, for instance, published a survey last month based on students’ responses to the question “Have you observed any behavioral patterns at school that show signs of religious belonging?” Zemmour, then, justified his thesis through this survey.

Horrendous cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed being projected on government buildings or Muslim children being forced to look at these cartoons as a part of their education, and two 10- or 11-year-old students who refused to look at these cartoons being taken from their homes with their families and being subjected to investigation is not dissimilar to what Zemmour promises.

Eric Zemmour announced and propagated this discourse and his racist comments by writing for mainstream media outlets like Le Quotidien de Paris and Le Figaro, along with appearing on prime-time shows on channels such as RTL and France 2. Although he faced trial and was convicted twice, it is not possible to claim that he has faced a hostile response to his person. In the last 20 years, he has become a celebrity in political and economic circles. For two years, he was working at CNews, the news channel controlled by the Catholic businessman Vincent Bolloré, who previously supported Macron.

Eric Zemmour announced and propagated this discourse and his racist comments by writing for mainstream media outlets like Le Quotidien de Paris and Le Figaro, along with appearing on prime-time shows on channels such as RTL and France 2.

Despite all this, there is something about Zemmour that renders him unique. Born in 1958 to an Algerian Jewish family, at his first official political rally on December 5, 2021 he boasted of his minority background, describing himself as a “little Berber Jew from the other side of the Mediterranean.” Zemmour, who was educated at a private Jewish school located in a Parisian suburb, says he practices his faith but does not consider himself Orthodox. However, this is not what makes him unique – he is accused of turning historical events on their head, while some describe him as an “anti-Semitic Jew.”

Indeed, Zemmour claimed that “Dreyfus may not be innocent,” [referring to the political scandal riddled with anti-Semitism known as “Dreyfus affair”] and Philippe Petain, who was president during the Nazi occupation between 1940 and 1944, was actually watching over the French Jews! Shocking at first glance, Zemmour’s connection to anti-Semitic history seems to be his far-right ideology, and the anti-Semitic vein at the base of the far-right may have tactically compelled him to make such comments. Indeed, 93-year-old former far-right party leader Le Pen also declared that he supports Zemmour instead of his daughter. “The only difference between Éric and me is that he is a Jew. It’s hard to call him a Nazi or a fascist. It gives him more freedom,” Le Pen said.

On the other hand, there may be another element to explain his shocking historical “revisionism.” In France, there is a publication called Causeur, which was first established as a website by the Sephardic Jewish journalist and writer Élisabeth Lévy. Causeur has been publishing as a monthly magazine for several years now and is deemed a right-wing and far right-wing publication. Alain Finkielkraut, another one of the magazine’s founders, is one of the country’s most influential and prominent philosophers and of Jewish origin, who is known for being “just like Lévy, but more of an Islamophobe.”

Lévy, in the article titled “Salomon, Will You Vote for Zemmour?” states that Zemmour is the talk after synagogue services. She relays that while part of the congregation says, “aren’t you be ashamed to support him, so you’re going to vote for a Petainist,” others say “Zemmour is our savior.” Due to France’s foreign policy discourse or despite the protection offered by legislation against anti-Semitism, the rise of Islamophobia causes tensions between Arab and Jewish children in the suburbs, especially in Paris. Lévy extracts that while many institutions and organizations of the Jewish community condemn Zemmour for his views and allegations, Jewish families residing in the suburbs see him as a “savior” or even as the “last exit before exile.”

According to polls, with 14-17% of the vote, Zemmour is unlikely to become president. However, in a country where far-right parties and ideas are indisputably on the rise, he will retain a significant voter base and will continue to inflame the debates along with consolidating the anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim rhetoric.

For many years now, Belgium has been struggling with a teaching staff shortage. According to a survey conducted by Teacher Tapp Flanders, students are frequently left with no classes for several hours a day. In Brussels, Belgium’s capital, some schools lack up to 25 percent of teaching staff. The shortage is so severe that a number of schools could have to shut down. While the number of primary, middle, and high school students have steadily been rising since 2000, the number of teachers has steadily been decreasing.

Many teachers are retiring and newcomers tend to quit after a short period of working. Especially during the COVID19 pandemic, this shortage has become ever more pronounced as many teachers are on sick leave or in quarantine. In August 2021, there were roughly 1,500 teaching positions posted on the government-sponsored employment service page VDAB, whereas in August 2020, there were only about 600 – that is almost three times fewer.

While statistically, Belgium has a lower student-teacher ratio compared to its neighboring countries, the picture isn’t nearly as pretty as it seems. In some smaller areas, there are both Catholic and private schools which pull down the average. Whereas in larger cities, the case tends to be the opposite. The student-teacher ratio is much higher.

The steady rise of new students enrolling in schools in Belgium is a result of the presence of migrants, and it is particularly the case in larger cities. Ironically, this increase in diversity is not reflected in the teaching staff, especially the increase in the numbers of Muslims. With the hijab ban, discrimination, and Islamophobia, the number of Muslim teachers is extremely low.

Islamophobia discourages many migrants in Belgium from pursuing higher education.

As has been shown in several surveys and reports (see European Islamophobia Report 2021, people with a migrant background, no matter whether they are first-generation migrants or not, are often discriminated against at work simply because of the color of their skin or their names.

Islamophobia discourages many migrants in Belgium from pursuing higher education as they feel it will not provide them with anything extra as doors are already shut for them and will remain so. On the other hand, those who wish to continue their studies and become teachers are discouraged because they are not allowed to teach with a headscarf with the exception of Islamic religious education. Belgium’s biggest migrant groups are Turkish and Moroccan, and large portions of these groups adhere to Islam and believe that the hijab is part of it.

Ben Weyts, the Flemish Minister of Education, came up with ten measures to increase the number of (active) teachers; however, none of these measures included actions to help/allow citizens with a Muslim-background into the teaching system, including those with wearing hijabs. Ironically, Weyts is more willing to hire people who have not graduated from an educational program providing that they enroll in a short formational program rather than hiring hijabis who have graduated from relevant departments.

Another poll held by Teacher Tapp Flanders suggests that only in very few schools, teachers with hijabs are allowed to teach all classes; in most schools they can teach only specific classes. However, the vast majority of whom stated that either this was not possible, or, perhaps even more painfully, that they had no clue whatsoever on this matter.

Furthermore, Weyts has launched a campaign to make the teaching profession more appealing to potential teachers, and intends to call back retired teachers and install a system of seniority to encourage young teachers to stay longer. Again, no mention of the hundreds and maybe thousands of trained yet unemployed veiled teachers who are eagerly awaiting the chance to do the job they love and have been trained for. The hijab ban stems from the ban on all religious symbols and yet, it is the Muslim community in Belgium that is unevenly targeted by this ban as religious identity becomes clear with veiled women.

As the Jewish and Catholic communities have their own schools, it is only Muslim women who are left in the lurch by the hijab ban. The reasoning behind the ban is that a teacher is obliged to be neutral. However, this reasoning completely ignores the reality of the composition of current Belgian society, in which over 500,000 Belgian citizens identify as Muslim. What is more, this number is continuously growing, along with the number of Muslim children attending schools. Yet, the Belgian government obstinately takes the position that these two identities cannot coexist – you are either Muslim or Belgian.

If the Belgian government were sincere in its wish to grant all citizens their basic rights to work and freedom of religion, it would accept its Muslim citizens as they are and recognize that their religion and hijab are an inherent part of their identity, and that Muslims citizens wish to represent and be represented. Conversely, the government’s constant infringement of the rights of Muslim Belgians makes one wonder about its sincerity when it clamors for “neutrality” and “equal rights.” The only explanation for this is Islamophobia.

Last month, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN) was referred to as a terrorist and “suicide bomber” by Rep. Lauren Boebert, who has made several Islamophobic remarks towards Omar, and other members including Rep. Rashida Tlaib. Yet again, these remarks went unchecked, leading Muslim staff within Congress to send an open letter to House leadership. Signed by a total of 440 House and Senate staffers, 62 being Muslim, the letter urged leaders to act in the face of heightened Islamophobia, especially within the building, by rejecting and condemning anti-Muslim bigotry.

“Witnessing unchecked harassment of one of only three Muslim members of Congress – and the only visibly Muslim member – we feel that our workplace is neither safe nor welcome,” the letter to House Leadership read.

In the last two decades, mainstream U.S. political discourse has dehumanized Muslims and served as a justification for their persecution domestically and abroad.

From the post-9/11 surveillance apparatus structured by the Patriot Act to the gruesome wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that took the lives of millions, the common denominator was the use of Muslims as political collateral. Islamophobia is the manifestation of the dehumanization of Muslims, which was institutionalized through these kinds of policies.

Many Muslims have joined the political sphere to lobby for their full rights and protections under the U.S. constitution.

Muslims in America have mobilized and organized against racist domestic and foreign policy across this time by creating advocacy organizations, mutual aid groups, and community centers. They have worked to counter the discrimination faced by Muslims in America at a grassroots level. Many Muslims have even joined the political sphere to lobby for their full rights and protections under the U.S. constitution.

The number of Muslims running for office and participating in political decision-making has risen worldwide. With the emergence of Muslims being elected into spaces such as Congress, Parliamentaries, and state legislatures, unhinged right-wing attacks on Muslim candidates and elected officials have been on the rise, too.

Given the rise of anti-Muslim rhetoric, bigotry, and violence fueled by political parties, transnational white supremacists, and Islamophobic hate group networks, this bill seems like an obvious step towards humanizing and protecting Muslims in the U.S. and across the world.

But even with the disturbing statistics portraying the need to work against anti-Muslim bigotry and rhetoric, republicans spent their time mocking the Islamophobia bill during the hearing, further demonstrating the dehumanization of Muslims.

The bigotry displayed by politicians such as Boebert’s factors into an extensive history of Islamophobia, and Xenophobia in general, being weaponized against ethnic and religious minorities within positions of power, mainly to provoke fear and cause division. It is also a product of the threat felt when an individual such as Ilhan Omar, a Black Muslim woman who’s also an immigrant, brings a new political perspective that represents more than just White Americans in discourse and policy.