“Islamophobia is first and foremost state racism. […] Such racism has no purpose other than to maintain a population in a subaltern state.”

Islamophobia: when the Whites lose their Triple A rating

To understand the rise of Islamophobia, it is necessary to analyze the current context. We are in a situation of global economic crisis and a the decline of the European identity in the face of emerging countries such as China, India, etc.

The white European identity that dominated the world for 500 years is in decline. The voices – often hysterical – raised in the media against Islam fundamentally express a fear of this decline. How to explain this irrational fear? Whites are losing their historical centrality, their Triple A rating so to speak, and they see all these non-Whites, wrongly identified with Islam, as a threat to their identity. After dominating for centuries, they are figuring out that, like them, others want to live, assert themselves and transform the order established by racism and colonialism, which necessarily signifies for them a loss of power and the privileges that come with it. Those who rightly fight this order to claim their rights and their full place, who fight discrimination, are thus seen as invaders.

Indigenous resistance is perceived as terrifying, illegitimate and abusive even though what people are asking for in immigrant communities and popular neighbournoods is, above all, equality of treatment and of rights. While such demands do not seem outrageous to me, they clearly do for those who fight to preserve their status and privilege while exerting pressure to keep “the Muslims” in a subaltern position…