EDITORIAL: Racism goes hand in hand with Islamophobia in Western countries. A recently published report by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), based on a survey of 9,600 Muslims across 13 member states, found that nearly one in two Muslims faced racism and discrimination in their daily life - a “sharp rise” since 2016.

Anti-Muslim racism is most notable in the job market, with a “knock-on effect on other areas of life, such as housing, education or healthcare.” A third of Muslim respondents’ households struggle to make ends meet compared to 19 percent of households generally, and they are twice as likely to live in overcrowded housing, says the FRA report.

Young Muslims born in the EU and women wearing religious clothing are especially affected, it adds. Not surprisingly, the highest rates of anti-Muslim discrimination were recorded in Austria, Germany, and Finland, where far-right anti-immigration parties have made significant electoral gains.

Although the survey data was collected between October 2021 and October 2022, as FRA Director, Sirpa Rautio, noted now a “worrying surge” in racism and discrimination against Muslims in Europe “is fuelled by conflicts in the Middle East”. The roots and realties of these conflicts originate from Israeli occupation – modern history’s longest – of Palestinian lands.

Although there have been widespread public protests in the US and Europe against Israel for its genocide in Gaza, Western leaders continue to justify Israel’s horrific crimes against humanity as a “right to self-defence.”

Similarly, the language the ‘free and impartial’ Western media use in their coverage of what is going on in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and Lebanon is intended to soften the effect of the uncomfortable truth.

The conflict in Gaza is characterised as a war, implying a conflict between two equals, attacks on Palestinians become “clashes”, Hezbollah in Lebanon is a “proxy of Iran”, Hamas and Hezbollah resistance fighters are “militants”. Reports of journalists killed in Gaza never mention who killed them.

All this is part of a deliberate attempt to mislead public opinion about what Israel is doing to people in the Middle East. No wonder the FRA survey found an appalling surge of racism directed at Muslims across EU countries.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024