Recent years have seen a small surge in academic interest in Islamophobia in Austria. The “illiberal” variations of Islamophobia, especially the far-right “Austrian Freedom Party” (FPÖ).
At the same time, my interest is in the articulation and reproduction of Islamophobia by agents considered and considering themselves as liberal, non- or anti-racist. This is necessary for understanding the broad appeal of contemporary Islamophobia across political fault lines and well beyond the far-right, and it’s becoming part of a wider “common sense”.
Conservative Chancellor Sebastian Kurz won the elections in Austria at the age of 31 and become the youngest chancellor in the country’s history. He had good relations with Turks and Muslims in the country during the first years of his political career when he took office as Austria and Europe’s youngest foreign minister at the age of 27.
He later discovered, however, that he could gain the sympathy of the far-right by adopting an “anti-Turkey” discourse after the coup attempt in Turkey on July 15, 2016.
As prime minister of Austria, he decided to change the country’s 1912 Islam Law, which is an official recognition of Islam as a religious denomination. The controversial changes included a ban on foreign funding for Islamic organizations and the employment of imams from abroad.
In December 2017, Kurz formed a coalition government with the far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) and proposed laws that targeted Muslims and immigrants in the country.
Mr Kurz changed the legislation to stipulate criteria for the appointment of imams, restrict foreign funding for religious institutions and designate representative bodies.
In June 2018, as chancellor governing in a coalition with the populist right, he used the law to expel 60 of the 260 Turkish imams preaching in Austria and to close seven mosques. In 2017, he pushed through a ban on face coverings.
The Austrian Academy of Sciences estimates the number of Muslims in the country of 9m has doubled to 700,000 since 2001, a small minority of whom are linked to foreign Islamist groups. Among such groups are the Muslim Brotherhood, Palestinian groups such as Hamas and clusters of Salafists with ties to the Gulf.
Kurz is now in government with the left-wing Greens, but their coalition agreement includes many policies introduced during his alliance with the FPO, including the headscarf ban up to the age of 14.
After Mr Kurz’s declarations on political Islam, Umit Vural, the president of the Islamic Religious Community in Austria, cautioned against conflating violent extremism with religious orthodoxy.
“There is no definition of political Islam,” Mr Vural told Die Presse newspaper. “I would like to invite all people of prudence and reason, (to consider) that we as a society must distinguish between the peaceful religion of Islam and these extremists.”
Trying to define political Islam is a complicated task, said Raffaello Pantucci, senior associate fellow at the security think-tank RUSI whose research focuses on terrorism and counter-terrorism.
Islamism is a “spectrum from moderate stuff, donation and worship, all the way through to hard political Islam . . . and then jihadis and terrorists”, he said. “There is a point on that spectrum where, as a society, you draw the line. And where you draw that line depends on your political orientation.” After the November 2 attacks in Vienna, 30 Muslim activists and academics have been detained in the name of “fighting terrorism.”
The government agreed on a wide range of “anti-terrorism” measures, including the ability to keep individuals convicted of “terror” offences behind bars for life, electronically surveilling people convicted of “terror”-related crimes upon release, and criminalising religiously motivated and politically “extreme” acts.
With these centers, the government, which plans to observe all Muslim associations, mosques and cultural activities, will decide which institutions to cooperate with. The first and only documentation center was established in Austria in 1963 to combat Nazism and conduct research on Neo-nazi formations. The move has been denounced by various circles, which said it placed Nazism and Islam on the same scale.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency, political scientist from Georgetown University, Farid Hafez said Austrian Prime Minister Sebastian Kurz was known to cite supposedly academic research in a bid to bolster his political goals. Hafez said the center would conduct “scientific” studies to serve his government.
Warning that the government intentionally avoided sufficiently grounding its concept of “political Islam” to make it a more useful tool against Muslims, he noted that previous mosque closures and headscarf bans had also been associated with political Islam.
With this logic, any institution, person or religious activity could be associated with political Islam and subjected to various restrictions and obstacles, added Hafez.
He pointed out that Lorenzo Vidino, one of the experts leading the documentation center, defined supposed “political Islamists” as non-violent groups, acting under the law but in a way that was harmful to society.
The fact that Muslims have any independent or self-managed institution or organization in their field is considered dangerous by Sebastian Kurz and his team, said Hafez, adding that the government wanted Muslims to be dependent on elements controlled by the state and should not create anything new themselves.
According to the Civil Courage and Anti-Racism Work (ZARA), which conducts anti-racist work in Austria, the racist incidents against Muslims increased during the past two weeks after the deadly attack in early November.
ZARA association official Caroline Kerschbaumer told Austrian public broadcaster ORF that after the terrorist attack in Vienna, more than 80 racist incidents against Islam were recorded in approximately 15 days.
Stating that the racist attacks against Muslims are directly related to the terrorist attack in Vienna, Kerschbaumer said that women wearing headscarves are targeted by attackers both on the street and on digital platforms.
The dissemination of anti-Muslim sentiments as it has had a strong tradition of populist, right-wing politics, which was closely associated with the name of Jörg Haider until his death in 2008. However, publicly voiced prejudices against Muslims have remained comparatively rare. For some time, Austria’s policy towards its Muslim population was even regarded as a model to be adopted by other countries.
Austria: Court Lifts Hijab Ban Imposed On Muslim Girls In Schools
Anti-Muslim rhetoric in Austria with entrenched Judeophobic prejudices in the society at large. In this sense, some kinds of Islamophobia may serve as a cover for anti-Semitism. This view is very much in accordance with Austria’s collective memory, which for a long time has demonstrated an amiable attitude towards Muslims, whereas Jews have always been seen as the utmost enemy. At a time when anti-Semitism has become socially disrespected, Islamophobia, a widely held attitude throughout Europe, is being used to appeal to Judeophobic sentiments.
However, publicly voiced prejudices against Muslims have remained comparatively rare. For some time, Austria’s policy towards its Muslim population was even regarded as a model to be adopted by other countries. Even though this situation has started to change in the last three or four years, Islamophobia in Austria still seems to be more modest than, for example, in The Netherlands, where populist politics and anti-Muslim diatribes are closely connected.
Austrian police came under fire for recent raids targeting Muslims, in which they asked a series of offensive questions and subjected children to poor treatment, according to a nongovernmental organization (NGO).
Some 60 homes, including those of activists and academics, were raided by Austrian police as part of a counterterrorism operation on Nov. 9.
The individuals detained as part of the operation were treated like terrorists, according to the Palestine Solidarity Platform Austria (Palästina Solidarität Österreich).
Police raided the homes of Muslims at 5 a.m., forced residents, including young children, out of their homes and did not even let them take coats or jackets even though the weather was extremely cold, the platform said in a statement.
The security forces also asked a series of irrelevant questions to occupants of the same homes as the targeted suspects. For instance, they asked children where their fathers “hide the money,” if the residents go to mosques, and how frequently they perform religious rituals at home, claiming that they were trying to determine if the suspects were radical or not.
Austria’s intelligence chief has resigned over the Vienna shootings after it emerged his agency had forewarning of the danger posed by the attacker, who had attempted to join Isis in Syria last year. The justice system was also criticised after having released the attacker early from prison.
Bishop Bernhard Heitz believes only justice could prevent terrorism, and that anti-Islam sentiments would be counter-productive.
“Muslim representatives, just like representatives of other religions, have distanced themselves from recent attacks in Paris, Nice, Dresden and Vienna… far-right rhetoric and tolerating anti-Islam sentiments would be counterproductive,” he told Anadolu Agency.
“The idea of monitoring a specific population group, in this case the Muslim population of Austria, would undermine mutual trust among the people, social cohesion and peace, and therefore would be unacceptable for all.”
Imam Ramazan Demir, who has been working with imprisoned Muslims across Austria for many years, said terrorism and violence cannot be associated with any religion or ethnic group, emphasizing that “acts of violence committed in the name of Islam” mostly harm Muslims.
“There was a Muslim among the victims of the terrorist attack in Vienna. Terrorists don’t make a distinction when it comes to killings,” he said.
He added that a lack of defining the concept of “political Islam,” is a cause of concern among the over 500,000-strong Muslim community in Austria.
“They are worried if their rights and freedoms will be restricted,” Demir said.
Chief Rabbi Schlomo Hofmeister said the terrorist attack was an attempt to harm values such as tolerance, trust and togetherness, warning that confusion over what constitutes “political Islam” could lead to discrimination against the believers.
“Everybody understands something different from the expression “political Islam” because it has not been defined,” he said. “First of all, the term needs to be explained…’political Islam’ and Islam as a religion must be clearly distinguished.”
The factors driving individuals to commit violence are multifarious, and hard to reduce to the religious milieu in which individuals grew up, according to Mr Pantucci. Other factors such as broken homes, criminal activities and mental disorders also play a role.
In times like this, the most important message is to highlight the dangers of extremist ideology, and to condemn it unconditionally. On top of this, it is additionally important to draw attention to the work being done by progressive and reformist Muslims, and the challenges they face in gaining greater representation in their societies.
Countering extremism goes hand in hand with respecting and empowering minority Muslim populations. This is not to say that the former should be conditional on the latter, but rather that improving economic opportunities and representation of reformist and progressive Muslims in society will help create stronger partners in the fight against extremism.
Muslims living in Austria and Europe realise the importance of their expected role in presenting the true image of Islam to their societies and governments. Muslim firmly reject any terrorist attacks, declare our full solidarity with the victims, and support the prosecution of the perpetrators in accordance with the law. In return, the authorities are required to exonerate those who have been arrested and guarantee the freedom to practice belief and embrace political opinions of all kinds, including solidarity with the Palestinian cause.
