Abstract
Islamophobia and antisemitism are two forms of racism that have much in common. The racialisation targets not just a religion or religious group but what is better understood as an ethnoreligious group. The ways that Jews and Muslims oppose such racism increasingly involves the building up of an identity which, like most contemporary equality movements, does not simply reject the one attributed to them by their enemies but a positive replacement. Such positive conceptions can become oppressor identities, as is the case of certain Islamist identities fostered by the likes of Isis or with a Jewish identity centred on Israel. Moreover, the politics of defining these racisms is tied to competition about prioritisation between anti-racisms. This should be based on an empirical evaluation of the scale of the respective racisms (and not on an essentialised hierarchy). Unfortunately, in the case of Islamophobia and antisemitism today, there is a wilful empirical blindness, and the prioritisation is taking place on the basis of which victim group is more influential and has more influential friends. Finally, we must be able to critically talk about groups like Muslims and Jews, about Islam and Israel, without being dismissed as Islamophobes or antisemites. For this to be the case, ‘talk about’ must become ‘talk with’: the character of the criticism must take a dialogical form. I conclude by including a sketch of five tests for distinguishing racialisation from dialogical criticism.
I am very grateful to the editors and to Michele Grossman, Pier DuPont, Ivan Kalmar, Geoffery Brahm Levey, Narzanin Massoumi, Thomas Sealy and Leon Tikly for their helpful comments on a previous draft.
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Notes
- 1.
In Nasar Meer (ed.), Racialization and Religion: Race, Culture and Difference in the Study of Antisemitism and Islamophobia (London: Routledge: 2015).
- 2.
As Chap. 4 in Tariq Modood, Essays on Secularism and Multiculturalism (London: ECPR Press and Rowman & Littlefield International, 2019).
- 3.
Tariq Modood, Multicultural Politics: Racism, Ethnicity, and Muslims in Britain (Minneapolis and Edinburgh: University of Minnesota Press and University of Edinburgh Press, 2005), Chap. 1.
- 4.
Modood, Multicultural Politics, Introduction.
- 5.
Of course for racialisation to be successfully practised, the dominant group must have the power to make it so; but that is not part of the concept of racialisation. Just as, say, power is not part of a concept of a minimum wage but for it to exist, a government must have the power to enforce it.
- 6.
Robert Miles, Racism (London: Routledge, 2004).
- 7.
An alternative or complementary science to biology is the philology that defined languages by reference to categories such as ‘Indo-European’ or ‘Aryan’ and ‘Semitic’. The latter linguistic group includes Arabic, but Arabs are not usually who ‘antisemities’ are referring to.
- 8.
Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 3rd edition (New York: Routledge, 2014 [1994]); Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar, Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019).
- 9.
I am a member of the Anti-Racist Group at the University of Bristol, which formulates and implements policy recommendations at a University-wide level. Most of our measures are about the creation of opportunities for and the promotion of images and role-models of black people. When I suggested that the group needed a positive title, not just an ‘anti-’, it was said that the title was a perfect fit with our work and I found myself in a minority of one.
- 10.
Tariq Modood, “‘Black’, racial equality and Asian identity,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 14:3 (1988), 397–404; Tariq Modood, ”Political blackness and british Asians”, Sociology, 28(4) (1994), 859–876; Kehinde Andrews, “The Problem of Political Blackness: Lessons from the Black Supplementary School Movement”, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 39(11) (2014), 2060–2078.
- 11.
Tariq Modood, “Ethno-religious Assertiveness Out of Racial Equality”, in Dawn Llewellyn and Sonya Sharma (eds) Religion, Equalities, and Inequalities (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2016), 38–48.
- 12.
Tariq Modood, “Muslims, Incitement to Hatred and the Law”, in John Horton (ed.), Liberalism, Multiculturalism and Toleration (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1993), 141–142, reproduced in Modood, Multicultural Politics, 116–117.
- 13.
House of Commons, Home Affairs Committee, The Law Relating to Public Order, London, 1980, 99–101.
- 14.
Modood, “Muslims, Incitement to Hatred and the Law”; Modood, Multicultural Politics.
- 15.
Cf. advocacy for ‘taking profound offence seriously’: Raphael Cohen-Almagor, “Taking Profound Offence Seriously: Freedom of Speech v. Human Dignity”, Journal of Hate Studies, 16(1) (2020), 1–11.
- 16.
Frank Cranmer, “Is Holocaust Denial a Crime in England and Wales? No—but See R v Chabloz”, Law & Religion UK, 15 February 2019, https://lawandreligionuk.com/2019/02/15/is-holocaust-denial-a-crime-in-england-and-wales-no-but-see-r-v-chabloz/ (last retrieved 1 June 2021).
- 17.
Cf., more than half said religion is ‘not too’ or ‘not at all important’ in their lives, according to Becka A. Alper and Alan Cooperman, “10 Key Findings about Jewish Americans”, Pew Research Center, 11 May 2021, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/05/11/10-key-findings-about-jewish-americans/?utm_source=Pew+Research+Center&utm_campaign=9e8d7775b8-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2021_05_12_01_45&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_3e953b9b70-9e8d7775b8-400404793 (last retrieved 20 May 2021).
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Jamie Stern-Weiner, “The Politics of a Definition: How the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism Is Being Misrepresented”, Free Speech on Israel, April 2021. https://freespeechonisrael.org.uk/ihra-politics/ (last retrieved 17 May 2021).
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Antony Lerman, “Labour Should Ditch the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism Altogether”, openDemocracy, 4 September 2018 (last retrieved 26 May 2021; Rebecca Gould, “The IHRA Definition of Antisemitism: Defining Antisemitism by Erasing Palestinians”, The Political Quarterly, 91(4) (2020), 825–831; Avi Shlaim, “On British Colonialism, Antisemitism, and Palestinian Rights”, Middle East Eye, 1 March 2021, https://www.middleeasteye.net/big-story/uk-palestine-israel-policy-balfour-johnson-anitsemitism-colonialism (last retrieved on 24 May 2021).
- 20.
At the same time, identification with Israel cannot be always reduced to a sense of pride in Israel’s power or in its domination over Palestinians. For instance, many Jews consider this country as a realization of Jews’ right for national self-determination, a place of refuge for Jews who were subject to antisemitic persecution. Others identify with Israel while being vocal critics of its politics and of the occupation in particular.
- 21.
Yasmeen Abu Laban and Abigail B. Bakan, “Anti-Palestinian Racism and Racial Gaslighting”, in Tariq Modood and Thomas Sealy (eds), ‘Racisms and Antiracisms in Asia and the Middle East’, Special Issue, Political Quarterly, Vol. 93, No. 3 (July/September 2022): 508–516.
- 22.
I have been advised that this is resonant of historical antisemitic tropes, so in case the text is not clear let me be explicit that I am not appealing to a trope but propositions susceptible to empirical inquiry, as also in the section on prioritisation below. As I hope is clear from the character of this chapter and my work in general, I do not embrace a crude empiricism or positivism but do work in a way that probablistic generalisations about groups being under- or over-represented or not in various social strata are subject to empirical research. I accept that this can be done insensitively as well as with integrity.
- 23.
Sara Singha, “Caste Out: Christian Dalits in Pakistan” in Tariq Modood and Thomas Sealy (eds), ‘Racisms and Antiracisms in Asia and the Middle East’, Special Issue, Political Quarterly, Vol. 93, No. 3 (July/September 2022), 478–487.
- 24.
“Islamophobia: A Form of Cultural Racism”, A Submission to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims in response to the call for evidence on ‘Working Definition of Islamophobia, 1 June, 2018: https://www.academia. edu/36775691/Islamophobia_A_Form_of_Cultural_Racism
- 25.
Tariq Modood, “Difference, cultural racism and anti-racism”, In Pnina Werbner and Tariq Modood (eds) Debating cultural hybridity: Multicultural identities and the politics of anti-racism (London: Zed Books, 1997), 154–173; Modood, Multicultural Politics.
- 26.
All-Party Group on British Muslims (APPGBMBM), Islamophobia Defined (London: UK Parliament, 2018), p. 50: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/599c3d2febbd1a90cffdd8a9/t/5bfd1ea3352f531a6170ceee/1543315109493/Islamophobia+Defined.pdf (last retrieved 26 May 2021). Earlier, the Runnymede Trust had moved from its 1997 definition to one centred on racism in 2017: Farah Elahi and Omar Khan (eds), Islamophobia: Still a Challenge For Us All Runnymede Trust, London, 2017. Later, in 2021, the Council of Europe did the same in relation to its 2005 definition: “The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) issues a new General Policy Recommendation to Council of Europe member states—News of the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) (coe.int)”. https://www.coe.int/en/web/european-commission-against-racism-and-intolerance/-/the-european-commission-against-racism-and-intolerance-ecri-issues-a-new-general-policy-recommendation-to-the-47-council-of-europe-member-stat-1
- 27.
S. Sayyid and AbdoolKarim Vakil, “Defining Islamophobia”, Critical Muslim Studies, 5 December 2018, https://www.criticalmuslimstudies.co.uk/defining-islamophobia/ (last retrieved 26 May 2021).
- 28.
Brian Klug, “Interrogating ‘New Anti-Semitism’”, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 36(3) (2013), 468–482.
- 29.
As can be gleaned in the useful reviews in Brian Klug, “Islamophobia: A concept Comes of Age”, Ethnicities, 12(5) (2012), 665–681; Nasar Meer, “Islamophobia and Postcolonialism: Continuity, Orientalism and Muslim Consciousness”, Patterns of Prejudice, 48(5) (2014), 500–515; Benjamin Opratko, “Islamophobia: The Bigger Picture”, Historical Materialism, 25(1) (2017), 63–89; Narzanin Massoumi, Tom Mills and David Miller, “Islamophobia, Social Movements and the State: For a Movement-centred Approach”, in Narzanin Massoumi, Tom Mills and David Miller (eds), What Is Islamophobia? Racism, Social Movements and the State (London: Pluto Pres, 2017); and Farid Hafez, “Schools of Thought in Islamophobia Studies: Prejudice, Racism, and Decoloniality”, Islamophobia Studies Journal, 4(2) (2018), 210–225.
- 30.
For example, Fred Halliday, “‘Islamophobia’ Reconsidered”, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 22(5) (1999), 892–902; Kenan Malik, “Islamophobia Myth”, Prospect, 20 February 2005. https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/islamophobiamyth (last retrieved 27 May 2021).
- 31.
For example, John Jenkins, Defining Islamophobia, A Policy Exchange Research Note (London: Policy Exchange, 2018).
- 32.
Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS), “FOSIS’ Position on the APPG Definition of Islamophobia”, 17 November 2020, https://www.fosis.org.uk/news/fosis-position-on-the-appg-definition-of-islamophobia/ (last retrieved 1 June 2021). Similar views are expressed by Jahangit Mohammed, “The New Islamophobia Definition Deals With Symptoms Not Causes”, 4 December 2018, https://5pillarsuk.com/2018/12/04/the-new-islamophobia-definition-deals-with-symptoms-not-causes/ (last retrieved 1 June 2021); Yahya Birt, “Why this New Definition of Islamophobia Is Bittersweet”, 6 December 2018, https://medium.com/@yahyabirt/why-this-new-definition-of-islamophobia-is-bittersweet-99b7f9993d73 (last retrieved 1 June 2021); and Abdal Hakim Murad, Travelling Home: Essays on Islam in Europe (Cambridge: The Quilliam Press, 2020).
- 33.
Thomas Sealy, “Islamophobia: With or Without Islam?”, Religions, 12(6) (2021), 369.
- 34.
Modood, Multicultural Politics.
- 35.
Zack Adesina and Oana Marocico, “Is It Easier to Get a Job if You’re Adam or Mohamed?” BBC Inside Out, 6 February 2017, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-38751307 (last retrieved 11 March 2022).
- 36.
Pooyan Tamimi Arab, “Cracking and Moderating Secularist Assumptions”, Patterns of Prejudice, 55(2) (2021), 133–140.
- 37.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, ed. G. E. M. Anscombe and R. Rhees, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe (Oxford: Blackwell, 1953), p. 43.
- 38.
It’s not confined to British politics and I do not mean to suggest that the phenomenon is new or even rare and nor that it occurs only in relation to antisemitism and Islamophobia.
- 39.
Though Theresa May set up the Race Disparity Unit: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/race-disparity-audit.
- 40.
Jewish News, “Gavin Williamson: Universities Face Cuts if They Don’t Adopt IHRA Definition”, 9 October 2020, https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/gavin-williamson-universities-face-cuts-if-they-dont-adopt-ihra-definition/ (last retrieved 24 May 2021); Rebecca Ruth Gould, “Legal Form and Legal Legitimacy: The IHRA Definition of Antisemitism as a Case Study in Censored Speech”, Law, Culture and the Humanities, 18, no. 1 (2022): 153–186.
- 41.
Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities: The Report (London: UK Government, 2021), https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/974507/20210331_-_CRED_Report_-_FINAL_-_Web_Accessible.pdf (last retrieved 26 May 2021).
- 42.
Arab, “Cracking and Moderating Secularist Assumptions”.
- 43.
Malik, ‘Islamophobia Myth’; he may have changed his mind by now.
- 44.
Swaran Singh Independent Investigation into Alleged Discrimination within the Conservative Party, 2021, https://www.conservatives.com/news/independent-investigation-into-discrimination (last retrieved 27 February 2021). Just before the start of Islamophobia Awareness Month, 2022 the UK government abandoned plans to come up with a definition of Islamophobia:
‘Government drops plan to combat anti-Muslim hatred with official definition of Islamophobia’ The Independent, 30 October, 2022: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/islamophobia-definition-conservative-government-michael-gove-b2213075.html [last retrieved 7/11/2022].
- 45.
Nabil Khattab, “Have British Jews Fully Assimilated in the UK Labour Market?” International and Multidisciplinary Journal of Social Sciences, 4(2) (2015), 121–148.
- 46.
Ben Gidley, Brendan McGeever and David Feldman, ‘Labour and Antisemitism: A Crisis Misunderstood’, The Political Quarterly, 91(2) (2020), 414.
- 47.
For an incisive, short account of why Miller’s work is appreciated in Islamophobia studies but can sometimes be ill-judged and insensitive from the point of view of antisemitism, see Stephen H. Jones, “Academic Freedom, Islamophobia and Antisemitism” 6 March 2021, https://stephenhowardjones.info/2021/03/06/academic-freedom-islamophobia-and-antisemitism/ (last retrieved 26 October 2022).
- 48.
https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/more-than-350-academics-sign-letter-against-bristol-end-zionism-professor/ (last retrieved 26 October 2022).
- 49.
David Herman, “Herman’s Hundredth: Academics and Anti-Semitism Revisited”, The Article, 1 March 2021, https://www.thearticle.com/hermans-hundredth-academics-and-anti-semitism-revisited (last retrieved 27 May 2021).
- 50.
Jack Mendel, “Pressure Mounts on Bristol Uni over Academic Accused of ‘Antisemitic Tropes’”, The Tab, University of Bristol Students Union, 19 February 2021, https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/pressure-mounts-on-bristol-uni-over-academic-accused-of-antisemitic-tropes/ (last retrieved 1 May 2021).
- 51.
Becki Parker and Nicola Howard, “Bristol Law Lecturer under Fire from Bristol Islamic Society over ‘Islamophobic’ Remarks”, The Tab, University of Bristol Students Union, 19 February 2021, https://thetab.com/uk/bristol/2021/02/19/bristol-law-lecturer-under-fire-from-bristol-islamic-society-over-islamophobic-remarks-44304 (last retrieved 28 May 2021).
- 52.
Jake Ryan, “University Clears Don of Being Anti-Islam but then Cancels His Course Anyway after Students Launched ‘Vicious and Militant’ Campaign”, Mail Online, 11 September 2021, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9980927/University-clears-don-anti-Islam-cancels-course-anyway.html (last retrieved 26 October 2022). In contrast, David Miller lost his job and maybe taking the matter to an industrial tribunal: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/oct/01/bristol-university-sacks-professor-accused-of-antisemitic-comments (last retrieved 25 March, 2023).
- 53.
For a fuller discussion of some of the issues raised in this section, see Nasar Meer, “Semantics, Scales and Solidarities in the Study of Antisemitism and Islamophobia”, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 36(3) (2013), 500–515.
- 54.
To be distinguished from ‘identitarian’, which is now commonly used to refer to white majority movements; at least some of which are a protest against minority identity assertiveness.
- 55.
Mark Lilla, The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018); Francis Fukuyama, Identity: Contemporary Identity Politics and the Struggle for Recognition (London: Profile Books, 2018).
- 56.
Lerman, “Labour Should Ditch the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism Altogether”; Gould, “The IHRA Definition of Antisemitism: Defining Antisemitism by Erasing Palestinians”; Shlaim, “On British Colonialism, Antisemitism, and Palestinian Rights”.
- 57.
- 58.
Modood, ‘Muslims, Incitement to Hatred and the Law’; Modood, Essays on Secularism and Multiculturalism, pp. 65–68.
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Modood, T. (2023). Islamophobia, Antisemitism and the Struggle for Recognition: The Politics of Definitions. In: Feldman, D., Volovici, M. (eds) Antisemitism, Islamophobia and the Politics of Definition. Palgrave Critical Studies of Antisemitism and Racism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16266-4_11
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