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Islamophobia: Gender and Racialisation of Religion

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Languages of Discrimination and Racism in Twentieth-Century Italy

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Abstract

This chapter will begin by addressing Islamophobia as a kind of cultural racism and will analyse how religion becomes the target of processes of racialisation. It will then move on to discuss Islamophobic discourses in a gender perspective, and will explore how feminist vocabulary and themes may be culturalised and even racialised, so as to become a weapon for right-wing political forces. The chapter will close by addressing the question whether the frequently happening processes of racialisation of religion may be considered as typical of a post-secular condition.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This is the core contribution of Critical Race Theory. For an introduction to CRT, see Delgado and Stefancic 1995.

  2. 2.

    Ironically, Taguyeff is now one of the strongest opponents of the decolonial perspective, which he has stygmatised as “imposture” (Taguyeff 2020).

  3. 3.

    Islamophobia has been defined also as religious racism: see at least Iqbal 2020.

  4. 4.

    For a concise but exhaustive discussion of religious hatred, see Corrigan 2007.

  5. 5.

    Whether European Islam possesses a theological distinctiveness is the subject of a growing debate. See Hashas 2018.

  6. 6.

    These comments should not be read as establishing any sort of direct connection between secularism and cultural racism. The point is to appreciate how the oversimplification of secularisation and secularism fit with the mechanisms of reification and naturalisation of culture at work in the racialisation process, and how secularisation and secularism may be used to affirm the superiority of an enlightened, modern and progressive West as opposed to an obscurantist, superstitious and backward “other” in view of justifying discrimination and hatred.

  7. 7.

    See at least Lilla 2007.

  8. 8.

    Masuwaza points out how mainstream scholarship has preserved, rather than undermined, Western universalism, disguised under plurality of “World religions”, by ignoring all practices, subjectivities and discourses that would not fit into the definition of “religion” (Masuwaza 2005).

  9. 9.

    On the rapport between post- and decolonial scholarship v. Bhambra 2014.

  10. 10.

    See, for example, N. Maldonado-Torres 2008and 2010.

  11. 11.

    With this term, Alessandro Ferrari indicates a condition where the separation between State and Church continues to assign a primary role to one religious denomination, in the specific case of Italy the Roman Catholic Church.

  12. 12.

    For an account of debates on burka ban among French feminists, see Spohn 2013.

  13. 13.

    An example being Susan Moller Okin’s Is Multiculturalism bad for women? (Moller Okin 1999).

  14. 14.

    Cavarero’s powerful analysis of Antigone’s myth shows the association between “human corporeality and the female body” (Cavarero 2002: 16).

  15. 15.

    See at least Ahmed 2011, Scott 2007 and in Italian Pepicelli 2020.

  16. 16.

    The author, Cristina Giudici, is an Italian writer, who published successful réportages on immigration in Italy. Original text: “Per chi si sta ribellando o gradualmente svegliando, il velo è solo il porto di partenza per arrivare in mare aperto e cambiare la rotta al proprio destino. E, a cavallo fra due mondi, uno laico e uno composto solo da rigide prescrizioni e dall’integralismo, decidono di scivolare su un piano inclinato che le porti ad essere cittadine europee e non prigioniere della Ummah. Certo, molte psicologhe e assistenti sociali dicono che è soprattutto alla tradizione che si ribellano […] Ma nella comunità musulmana tradizione e religione coincidono e quindi il loro risveglio le porta anche lontane dalla rigida interpretazione del Corano.” (Giudici 2017, translation mine).

  17. 17.

    The specular image of the “oppressed” Muslim woman is that of the Muslim man. Well-established colonial tropes provide a breeding ground for othering processes that culminate in the depiction of the immigrant man—invariably “Islamic”—as hypersexualised and sexually aggressive: the message is “they come here to rape our women”. His even scarier ghost resonating with fears of aggression and rape is a constant feature of Islamophobic discourses across continents, from Europe to India’s fight against “love jihad”. I have discussed further this point in Spini 2017.

  18. 18.

    Farris has dissected the communication strategies of Salvini’s League in the time range 2005–2013.

  19. 19.

    It should be noted that this appropriation operates also outside of Western contexts; the most well-known example is how the claim of defending Muslim women becomes a weapon in the hands of the Bharatiya Janata Party and of other Hindu nationalist right-wing political actors.

  20. 20.

    “Io critico i benpensanti della sinistra e le femministe che non difendono le donne dalla subcultura islamica” https://www.lastampa.it/topnews/primo-piano/2020/01/02/news/salvini-rispetto-francesco-ma-un-certo-islam-e-incompatibile-con-i-diritti-delle-donne-1.38278046

  21. 21.

    A colloquial term indicating Berlusconi’s tv show girls; the veline are a typical example of commodification of women’s bodies.

  22. 22.

    https://www.agi.it/politica/seflie_salvini_discoteca_miss_musulmana_marocchina_ahlam_el_brinis-1848081/news/2017-06-05/, accessed on March 20, 2021.

  23. 23.

    https://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/2016/08/17/news/piscine_donne_musulmane_in_italia-146139409/, accessed on March 20, 2021 for a brilliant analysis of the contradictions surrounding women’s bodies see D’Elia and Serughetti 2017.

  24. 24.

    For an exhaustive overview of contemporary Islamic Feminism see Sirri 2020; in Italian Pepicelli 2010.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. NYU, Florence, Florence, Italy

    Debora Spini

  2. Syracuse University, Florence, Italy

    Debora Spini

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  1. Debora Spini
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  1. Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Venezia, Italy

    Marcella Simoni

  2. New York University Florence, Firenze, Italy

    Davide Lombardo

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Spini, D. (2022). Islamophobia: Gender and Racialisation of Religion. In: Simoni, M., Lombardo, D. (eds) Languages of Discrimination and Racism in Twentieth-Century Italy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98657-5_8

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