Muslims vulnerable to racism

Tackling racism is an extremely complex issue.

It is not always simply a case of whether the crime was racist ‘yes’ or ‘no’ but can include multifarious reasons why one was targeted, including skin colour, religion, gender and migrant status. These operate at times in isolation but are sometimes intersect. Religion is one area where discrimination and racist crime can meet, making those most clearly associated with a given faith a higher likelihood of being targeted. This is true of Sikhs, Jews and Muslims to name just three.

The approximately 23m Muslims in Europe are particularly vulnerable to racism aka Islamophobia: a form of racism that operates on negative stereotypical imagery of Muslims and Islam. This is the result of historical prejudices, the so-called ‘war on terror’ and State policies that single out Muslims as a security threat. Ireland is no different as on-going research on Islamophobia in Ireland is revealing.

There are currently at least 35 nationalities in Muslim communities in Ireland. These nationalities include people of different skin colours, nationalities. What seems to be common to Irish Muslims who have experienced Islamophobia at this stage of the research is that it is those who are most identifiably Muslim: women who veil, men who wear the full beard and/or clothes associated with predominantly Muslim countries that are experiencing the phenomena most.

The Irish State needs to recognise that Islamophobia is a specific form of racism that requires urgent attention. Institutional racism can be an unintentional ‘hangover’ from the days before Ireland had such a diverse society. Indeed, the Gardaí Racial Intercultural and Diversity Office has made great efforts to address and accommodate multi-cultural Ireland. At local level, particular Garda initiatives in Cork and Kilkenny come to mind. However, some problematic areas of policy and practice remain: including how racism is recorded by the gardaí encountering a report of a racist crime.

Islamophobia as a specific form of racism is not systematically recorded. This needs to change if Ireland is to ensure that those of all faiths and none can feel safe practicing their religion.

Anyone with an interest in my ongoing study on Islamophobia in Ireland study can email me at [e-mail]. The study is based in the Department of Sociology in the University of Limerick and funded by a scholarship from the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences.

James Carr

Department of Sociology

University of Limerick