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Between anti‐Semitism and Islamophobia: Some thoughts on the new Europe
Author(s) -
Bunzl Matti
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1525/ae.2005.32.4.499
Subject(s) - islamophobia , hostility , state (computer science) , political science , theme (computing) , sociology , racism , impulse (physics) , political economy , criminology , law , politics , psychology , social psychology , physics , algorithm , quantum mechanics , computer science , operating system
The apparent resurgence of hostility against Jews has been a prominent theme in recent discussions of Europe. At the same time, the adversities of the Muslim populations on the continent have received increasing attention as well. In this article, I attempt a historical and cultural clarification of the key terms in this debate. I argue against the common impulse to analogize anti‐Semitism and Islamophobia. Instead, I offer an analytic framework that locates the two phenomena in different projects of exclusion. Anti‐Semitism was invented in the late 19th century to police the ethnically pure nation‐state; Islamophobia, by contrast, is a formation of the present, marshaled to safeguard a supranational Europe. Whereas traditional anti‐Semitism has run its historical course with the supersession of the nation‐state, Islamophobia threatens to become the defining condition of the new Europe.