The endless summits held by Western leaders to counter “extremism”, such as the February 18 Washington summit, not only target Islamist extremism and ignore its Islamophobic counterpart, they deal with it only as a security issue in an Islamophobic framework.
Understandably, given their own role in fuelling it, the Western media generally ignores Islamophobic violence, such as the epidemic of vandalism and arson attacks on mosques throughout the Western world. When Islamophobic violence is on a scale that cannot be ignored, its ideological content is generally denied.
Even the 2011 killings of 77 people in Norway — the worst terrorist attack in post-war Europe — was treated as the act of a deranged individual despite the perpetrator, Anders Breivik, releasing a long Islamophobic manifesto that referenced several mainstream media commentators and politicians, including then-Australian Prime Minister John Howard.
Of course, the increasingly pervasive Islamophobia in the West legitimises Islamist extremism. The two have a symbiotic relationship. The perpetrators of the January 17 attacks in Paris (who, unlike El-Hussein, were linked to wider terrorist networks) understood this. The Islamophobic response, including several arrests for and criminal investigations of thought crimes (including that of an eight-year-old child), will serve their cause.
Danish PM Thorning-Schmidt has acknowledged that there is “no indication [El-Hussein] was part of a cell,” the December 16 New York Times said.
Islamophobia is part of a broader system of racism against Third World migrants in the West. The NYT reported that before being imprisoned in 2013 for assault, El-Hussein had been involved in urban gang culture and his affiliations were not political or religious. “This was a loser man from the ghetto who is very, very angry at Danish society,” Aydin Soei, a sociologist who knew him told the NYT.
El-Hussein was won to Islamist extremism in jail, as were the perpetrators of the Paris attacks. After the latter, there has been discussion in France about Muslim youth being exposed to extremism in jail. Muslims make up less than 10% of the French population but 70% of prisoners.
The solutions discussed focused on security, such as keeping “known extremists” in isolation. The over-representation of Muslims in French jails (like the over-representation of African-Americans in US jails and Aboriginal people in Australian jails) resulting from discrimination in education, employment and systematic racism by the police and courts, was ignored.
The Western establishment's promotion of Islamaphobia is partly to provide justification for imperial wars. But it also serves domestic agendas. One of these is justifying increasing state powers at the expense of civil liberties.
Another is a way to provide a diversion for governments implementing unpopular policies. This could not have been clearer when Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott released a YouTube video on February 15 drumming up anti-Muslim paranoia and foreshadowing new “tough” measures against Muslims and asylum seekers.
Abbott's attacks on social services and ordinary people's living standards have made his government the most unpopular in Australian history. A week after surviving a leadership spill and promising the beginning of “good government”, his popularity has continued to plummet.
Emphasis Mine
Racism is being manufactured on a daily basis in order to keep the people's anger focussed on anyone but the rich and the governments that serve them.
