Islam

Islam
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Thesis statement
The paper generally focuses on the growth of Islamophobia in Europe since the 1970`s and also explores Xenophobia and Islamophobia in France and Germany and the existing arguments on the two concepts by various critics.
Introduction
The word Europe alone brings out a variety of negative and positive connotations. It has not only been seen as geographic but also as a normative power. It is the foundation of diverse philosophies and political views, concepts and ideas which in the current centuries have helped change and shape the world. It is the continent in which the revolution of French arose, demanding for equality, liberty and fraternity and also was the source of the modern day democracy yet it was the starting point for two world wars. It is in Europe where fascism and Nazism were born and also it`s in this continent where communism and capitalism emerged from. The end of cold war and the emerging victory of the capitalism system in the west brought to an end the frightening enemy -communism. Now the European Nation desperately needed a new enemy and was easily found. The rising up of the Islamic Revolution in Iran from 1979 and the regime of Islamist Taliban in Afghanistan posed as a new opponent to the European Union. Then came the September11 attacks, though this was not the first terrorist attack on planet earth, it was indeed the biggest sudden attack against the United States of America which made President Bush to establish a fight against terrorism and the target group was the Muslims. This led to the rise of Islamophobia which basically means the fear of Muslims and Islam and Xenophobia which highlights the fear of foreigners, immigrants and strangers among the European Citizens. For over the past five years, majority of the European governments have enacted prohibition or any laws regulating the putting on of veils by Muslim women in public places and schools.Not only did the European marginalize Islam`s, but they also extended their discrimination against those races that were different from them such as indigenous Native Americans, to Jews, to Blacks, to Asians, to Hispanics among others.[ZuhaL Yesilyurt gu¨ NDU¨ Z, "The European Union at 50-Xenophobia, Islamophobia and the rise of the Radica Right, "Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs30 (March 2010):35.] [Rachel.B.Jones,"Intolerable Intolerance: Toxic Xenophobia and Pedagogy of Resistance", The High School Journal(2011): 34-45]
Exploring xenophobia and Islam phobia in France
France became among the first European countries to introduce a ban on covering faces with veils in all the public places in spring of 2011 and the commencing of April 2011 and those who did not adhere to the regulations were detained by police. This led to the expression of outrage by majority of the people in France and other international communities as they viewed this law as discriminatory towards the Muslim women. The French ban was perceived as a form of gender Islamophobia that focused its hatred and fright of difference onto the clothing and bodies of the Muslim women. In addition to the burning of veils as a symbol of in difference, France went a head and prohibited the construction of mosques as a physical manifestation of the Muslim community. In addition to that, French xenophobia arose as a result of post-colonial bitterness and the contempt on the immigrants who were lazy thus not contributing to the welfare of the nation. The people in the French nation viewed immigrants as intruders whose main aim was to take advantage of their countries welfare services that were very generous. It was evident that those who suffered from Xenophobia and Islamophobia came chiefly from the Islamic traditions. However, there are some debates going on about anti-Semitic violence in France which has been triggered by high profile cases like the conviction and condemnation of comedian Dieudonne M-Bala due to the inciting of racial hatred and comparing the Jews community to slaves traders and also other incidents such as the Rue des Rosier that touched on anti-terrorist measures, National Security and Civil rights. This movement was also supported by the France Interior minister Nicholas Sarkozy by supporting victims of the anti-Semitic violence in Sarcelles through the invitation of their families to go see him in solidarity televised display.According to the statics carried out on racial violence in France, it was found out that the racist and anti-Semitic crimes convictions had risen up by 43 percent in March 2005 as declared by the Justice Minister. However, in 2006 January, the statistics carried out by the police revealed that the incidences of anti-Semitic and racist had gone down by one-third in 2005 in relation to2004.["Xenophobia, Islamophobia, and why I care", Home page on-line; available from http://reflectionsofabadcatholic.blogspot.com/2010/08/xenophobia-islamophobia-and-why-i-care.html;Internet; accessed 18 November 2011.] [Darphne, Caruana, Galizia,"Islamophobia, Xenophobia and the Climate of Hatred."European Race Bulletin, Autumn 2006, 4.]
Exploring xenophobia and Islam phobia in Germany
Muslim population in Germany is the largest after France in Western Europe. In approximate 3.0-3.5 million Muslims stay in Germany and out this population only 20 percent have German citizenship the reason being that, some of them are Germans who have been converted to Islamic religion.Almost 70 percent of the above population is of Turkish origin. Their immigration to Germany started in 1960s due to labor shortage in Germany. Even though these laborers were supposed to vacate Germany after completion of their work, half of them remained in the country. Though the immigration was composed of men, they were later joined by their wives and families and concentrated around the industrials areas of Dortmund, Darmstadt, Hamburg, Nurnberg just to mention a few. A few of them settled on the former German Democratic Republic territory. These labor migrants together with other laborers from the former Yugoslavia and North America represented the first wave of Muslims to station themselves in Germany. From the early 1980s, there resulted an increase in the number of asylum seekers who were majorly Muslim from the former Yugoslavia and Turkey. In addition to that, there were also secular Muslim immigrants from Iran especially students in 1960 and some migrated to Germany from Bosnian and Kosovor since they were fleeing wars that had resulted from the breakup of the former Yugoslavia thus creating an enormous move across Europe to Germany.["Islam in Germany", Home Page-online; available from -islam.info/country-profiles/germany/#identifier_1_463; Internet; accessed on 18November 2011.]
Evidence of xenophobia and Islamophobia in Germany
Unlike France, there is no general prohibition concerning wearing of the veil or head scarf by Muslim though there is an existing debate about the issue of teachers wearing headscarf. However in the year 2003, the effort to forbid a Muslim teacher from wearing the headscarf by Land Baden-Wurttemberg was ruled out by the Federal Constitutional Court. Various states in Germany such as Hessen have passed laws banning teachers and all public officials from wearing Hijab though the conflict still continues. In the labor market, the religion backgrounds of employees` are not always registered in the German employment statistics since estimations are always based on national origins.The rates of unemployment are very high among the non-Germans and the worst hit by the situation are the Turkish nationals. Compared to foreigners, the Germans who do not posses any qualifications are employed in large numbers compared to foreigners especially among the young Muslim population. The immigrants who are young are often concentrated in the semi-skilled or unskilled labor and always receives training in professions that are narrow such as the textile, car and mining industries and also in handicraft or commerce and various categories of self-employed jobs hence being underrepresented in the public service field. For young Muslim women, there main areas of specialization are in hairdressing, acting as dentist assistants or medical secretaries. As a matter of fact Muslims face the same limitations as other immigrants do in the labor markets .These limitations are such as the formal and informal discrimination triggered by their lack of German identification and insecure residence status. Individuals who do not posses the German citizenship are only allowed to work if there is no member of a European Union or unemployed Germany identified to fill the job gap thus making it extremely difficult for Muslim immigrants to get a descent job. In the German public sector, recruitment of Muslims is restricted as they do not have German citizenship hence the presence of few police officers in Germany with a background in Muslim. On the other hand, the asylum seekers always have to hold on for a long period of time before they are permitted to do any job since they do not have work permits. For example before 2004, all foreigners had to wait for about five to six years before they joined the Germ...