Islamophobia is a global phenomenon that operates across the world in a variety of contexts in the Global North and South. There has been an evolution from the management of the Muslim “other” during former colonial rule to the securitization of Muslims on the pretext of preventing potential terrorism. The positioning of Muslims as a global threat has enabled the expansion of Islamophobia from securitization to emboldening individual acts of Anti-Muslim hate and violence to state-sanctioned brutality guided by the ideologies that continue to facilitate it.
Islamophobia is defined as an irrational fear, prejudice, and hatred of Muslims. It leads to threats, harassment, abuse, violence, incitement to violence, and intimidation of Muslims. Underlying Islamophobic narratives promote “othering” of Muslims and the belief that Islam is an alien and foreign religion that is incompatible with the beliefs of the majority. In essence, the more alien Muslims are perceived as lesser than, the lesser than human they become. Islamophobia is an interconnected global phenomenon rooted in a broader system of white supremacy (even when the perpetrator isn’t white), while bad deeds that Muslims commit are discrete events, disconnected from Islam as a whole. The transnational threat of White supremacist ideology fuels the spread of Islamophobia in a major way.
The UN Genocide Convention, defines genocide as;
“Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
Islamophobia Leads to the Persecution and Genocide of Muslim Minorities
Islamophobic attitudes and anti-Muslim violence has increased dramatically around the world over the past 20 years. This ranges from hate speech on social media to illegal detention, torture, and extrajudicial killings under the pretext of countering violent extremism. Today, Islamophobia is contributing to an unprecedented assault on human rights, religious freedom, and the very existence of Muslims.
To prevent both the persecution and the genocide of Muslim minorities, the world needs to address the source of this violence: Islamophobia, be it in Western democracies or in the Global South, where Muslim minority communities are increasingly more vulnerable. They face rampant discrimination, ghettoization, and persecution. And these Muslim minorities are not a small number. About 500 million Muslims—one-third of the global Muslim population—live as minorities in 149 countries around the globe. Including here on Turtle Island, in the USA and Canada, whose foundation according to an increasing number of historians and analysts is built upon the genocides against both the Indigenous Native peoples and the enslaved Africans, kidnapped and brought to America as part of chattel slave system across the infamous middle passage.
By the close of the Indian Wars in the late 19th century, fewer than 238,000 Indigenous Native American people remained, a sharp decline from the estimated 5 million to 15 million living in North America when Columbus arrived in 1492 as a result of one of the most vast and sustained genocidal campaigns in human history campaign wrought against them.
In the United States, black genocide is the notion that the mistreatment of African-Americans by both the United States government and white Americans, both in the past and the present, amounts to genocide. The decades of lynchings and long-term racial discrimination were first formally described as genocide by a now-defunct organization, the Civil Rights Congress, in a 240-page petition submitted to the United Nations in 1951. The petition, entitled We Charge Genocide: The Crime of Government Against the Negro People, was drafted and signed by some of the most notable figures in the midcentury civil rights movement, including W.E.B Du Bois, William Paterson, and Paul Robeson. It articulated a compelling case for thinking about structural racism as genocide, which demands not only condemnation but also redress and repair. The petition brought to the world’s attention the subjugation of Black Americans, particularly in the South, where 10 million Black people lived in deplorable conditions. It documented hundreds of killings and other abuses, some involving police, which took place from 1945, when the U.N. was established, to 1951. It asserted that more than 10,000 Black people had been lynched or killed, often for something as small as “failure to say ‘sir’ or tip their hats.” Many more, it adds, suffered from “serious bodily and mental harm” from beatings, assaults and the terror caused by the constant threat of such attacks. In the 1960s, Malcolm X accused the US government of engaging in genocide against black people, citing long-term injustice, cruelty, and violence against blacks by whites.
For too many Muslims, Islamophobia is unnamed but experienced. Its effect ranges from everyday slow burning micro-aggressions to eruptions of violence and murder e.g. the recent killing of 6 year old Wadea Al Fahoumy and stabbing of his mother in Chicago; its scope extends from classrooms and workplaces to neighborhoods and state frontiers, from print and social media to the public square. Muslims find themselves framed by Islamophobia in the form of questions around national security, social cohesion, freedom of speech, gender inequality, and cultural belonging.
The manifestations of Islamophobia are many and have had tragic consequences for Muslims globally. From the victims of senseless hate crimes in North America to the securitization and criminalization of outspoken scholars and political activists in Europe, to the ethnic cleansing of Ughur Muslims in China, to the genocide of Muslims in Burma/Myanmar, we see the dire realities wrought by Islamophobia in the War on Terror. Much of the work and literature that aims to challenge Islamophobia has focused on specific country contexts. The focus has overwhelmingly been on the Global North. However, in the context of the War on Terror, several nation-states and populations from the Global South are taking up Islamophobic rhetoric, conceptually mirroring the anti-Muslim racism manifesting in Western nations, while organizing their Islamophobic policies and campaigns through localized politics and relations of power. The growth of Hindutva nationalist policies in India, aiming to make segments of Indian Muslims stateless and annexing the disputed territories of Kashmir; the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Uyghur Muslims in China; and the Rohingya genocide in Rakhine State, Myanmar; all represent extreme manifestations of Islamophobia beyond Western contexts. The War on Terror, a conflict undefined by time and place, with a homogenized Muslim “other” framed as a perpetual enemy, has reinforced Islamophobia on a global scale, creating transnational sites of struggle, while drawing on a colonial legacy.
Now more than ever we need to educate ourselves and others about the dangers and various manifestations of Global Islamophobia and its intersectionality and connections and how it leads to genocide. A good source of detailed information on this is the subject is the Justice For All (www.justiceforall.org) report, “Islamophobia Leads to the Persecution and Genocide of Muslim Minorities”, which was the basis for this article.
Specific recommendations from the report for Civil Society which includes Muslim communities (Masajids and Islamic schools), Institutions and organizations are:
- Share this report with your friends, families, and community members.
- Partner and speak directly with members of the impacted communities.
- Organize events, educational panels, or programs on Islamophobia and how it is leading to genocide across the globe.
- Remain up to date with websites, social media and newsletters from human rights organizations such as Justice for All, Genocide Watch, and Human Rights Watch, and spread this information to expand its reach and raise awareness.
- Advocate for governmental and business actions to counter Islamophobia and genocide. This includes various legislative initiatives across State legislatures to define “Islamophobia”. Support the Combating International Islamophobia Act, legislation in the Congress and Senate.
- Work with human rights organizations to understand the legal architecture of repression and help to dismantle it.
Imam Saffet Catovic is the Director of United Nations Operations for Justice For All, a faith based human rights organization working for over 30 years to protect the rights of religious minorities, prevent discrimination and put an end to genocide around the globe. He also serves as Board Member of Muslim Alliance in North America (MANA)
