Turning point Pim Fortuyn 3 – How Fortuyn made up Muslims

Fortuyn, ordinary people and not-racism

Before we continue, it is good to take a closer look at how ideas about ‘race’ relate to Islam and culture, in this third part of the Turning Point Pim Fortuyn Series. After all, one of the most frequently heard arguments in the discussions about racialization and racism in relation to Islam is that ‘Islam is not a race’. Where you can choose Islam as a religion, people cannot choose their ‘race’. In addition, the definition of race would be based on observable biological characteristics (such as skin color) of people and be independent of ideas about culture and religion. However, that idea is not historically correct as stated above, but it deserves serious attention. The idea that “Islam is not a race” can first be seen as an anti-racist statement. For many people, racism is a reprehensible evil that evokes memories of slavery and World War II and  is associated with marginal groups like neo-Nazis. Second, we can say that for many people, “race” is not a category by which men subdivides humanity. Fortuyn does not condone racism he continued to claim, on the contrary, but does argue for space in the debate. He concealed and in so doing neutralized racism by taking it out of the historical context of power relations between dominant (white) people and subjugated groups or minorities. He redefined racism as expressions of individuals (ordinary people, the common Dutchman) that should be taken seriously and was not-racism (see Lentin 2018 on ‘not racism’):

‘In all these cases [how to deal with ‘foreigners’ and the expressions of, for example, the far right], we focus on the real problem, the process of integrating foreigners into Dutch culture, economy and society and racism is seen for what it is: an expression of frustration and increased tension that should be taken seriously as an expression.’ (p. 62)

On the one hand we can see this as a plea for deracialization (after all, he is against a racial classification of people to judge them on it), but on the other hand we also see forms of racialization in his book, even though he does not do so on the basis of biological ideas over ‘race’. Racialization is about  giving meaning to the position of minorities in society by the dominant group by using and classifiying particular ascribed features as markers of hierarchie which then (ought to) regulate access to resources, to the moral community and citizenship.

Racialization and Islamophobia

Here we can draw upon Garner and Selod whose ideas about racialization are somewhat comparable to Omi and Winant’s (2015, 105) thesis that “race is a way of making up people”.  They set out to explore the usefulness of the concept racialization by looking at Islamophobia as a member of the racism family following the work of (Klug 2012). The core of racism is comprised of three elements which reinforce each other (Garner and Selod 2015, 11):

 

1. A set of ideas [ideology] in which the human race is divisible into distinct ‘races’, each with specific natural characteristics derived from culture, physical appearance or both.
2. A historical power relationship in which, over time, groups are racialized, that is, treated as if specific characteristics were natural and innate to each member of the group.
3. Forms of discrimination

After giving some arguments as to why religion cannot be ‘raced’ (ethnic and racial diversity, conflation of categories, and so on), they come with five points of why religion is ‘raced’ (Garner and Selod 2015, 12):

1. ‘Race’ has historically been derived from both physical and cultural characteristics;
2. Groups thus racialized are assigned to a hierarchy with white Europeans (later ‘Caucasians’) at its summit, and other groups in their wake.
3. Muslims have historically been one of these groups that experience racism not only by reference to religion but other aspects of culture such as physical appearance (including but not limited to dress)’
4. Muslims can be racialized, and the ways (plural) in which this occurs can be understood as constituting Islamophobia.
5. Islamophobia is therefore a specific form of racism targeting Muslims, and racialization is a concept that helps capture and understand how this works, in different ways at different times, and in different places.

In this list, they explain that racialization then, “entails ascribing sets of characteristics viewed as inherent to members of a group because of their physical or cultural traits. These are not limited to skin tone or pigmentation, but include a myriad of attributes including cultural traits such as language, clothing, and religious practices. The characteristics thus emerge as ‘racial’ as an outcome of the process. Racialization provides the language needed to discuss newer forms of racism that are not only based on skin colour, as well as older forms.” And: “In other words, people (physical bodies) are the ultimate site of racism, even if the path toward those bodies lies through cultural terrain.” (Garner and Selod 2015, 12).

Following this they state (Garner and Selod 2015, 13):

“Deploying the ‘religion can be raced’ logic […] means we can employ Islamophobia as a set of ideas and practices that amalgamate all Muslims into one group and the characteristics associated with Muslims (violence, misogyny, political allegiance/disloyalty, incompatibility with Western values, etc.) are treated as if they are innate. If this is the case, then it is useful to utilize the concept ‘racialization’ to study this phenomenon in practice.”

Garner and Selod circumvent the often-heard critique (to which Hochman responded) that you cannot discuss racial experiences without racial classification based upon phenotypical differences or that the concept and how it is used is too broad because it incorporates a wide range of differences such as class, gender, and culture which are not inherently racial. The question becomes how do some perceived differences regarding Muslims take on racial meanings while others do not and what are the consequences? And turning back to Hochman: racialization is not about what the Other in reality is, it is about what is done to a variety of people, how they are marked in particular ways as the Other.

Fortuyn and the ascription of essential differentness

In explaining the usefulness of the concept of racialization in relation to Islamophobia Garner and Selod regard racialization as an exercise of power which:

“…draws a line around all the members of the group; instigates ‘group-ness’, and ascribes characteristics, sometimes because of work, sometimes because of ideas of where the group comes from, what it believes in, or how it organizes itself socially and culturally.”

Fortuyn mainly drew such a line through essentialist and hierarchical notions of culture and religion. Hardly a unique idea, Fortuyn, like many others politicians and opinion leaders, was convinced that there are indeed incompatible cultures. This idea assumes that the world can be divided into homogeneous, static and recognizable cultural blocks: for example, Western and Islamic. People belong to one of those cultures, are carriers of those cultures and are driven by that culture. This racialization is so much based on crude generalizations about the Other that they no longer have much to do with reality, which is much more complex and nuanced. Ultimately, racialization is often an interplay of ideas about “race,” culture, gender, and religion that depends on the political and social context. Groups that do not or hardly deviate in appearance from the stereotype about white people, such as the Irish in Britain and the US, could also become objects of racialization. Incidentally, appearance, recognisability and the body of people also play a role in racialisation on the basis of culture. For example, women with a headscarf have more to do with aggression and disgust than other Muslim women. Sikhs are also victims of anti-Muslim racism: by the perpetrators they are mistaken for Muslims.

The crucial thing is not that all for example Muslims all sort of look the same but that there is a unifying gaze on Muslimness produces a template of The Muslim which is superimposed upon a diverse set of people, measuring them and holding them accountable in relation to ideas about modernity, who belongs and who does not and who has the correct virtues of a good citizen. For most writers this homogenizing tendency is the basis of the racialization of Muslims as the process and of Islamophobia as a product of the process (Garner and Selod 2015, 14). See also Fassin who defines ascription as the “foundational act” of racialization (Fassin 2011, 422). I don’t think Islamophobia is a necessary outcome and definitely not the only outcome of a process of racialization of Muslims. Racialization may co-emerge with a process of ethnicization (among other things through a process of strategic essentialism) but perhaps we can also see other outcomes.  Racialization may also happen through statistics which are showing the presence of particular societal problems among ‘Muslims’, which may contribute to Islamophobia but can also be used to underpin policies against, for example, violence, discrimination, and so on.

Out of time, out of place out, out of bounds

Racialization, I think, not only occurs through homogenization except maybe in some really crude far right thought. If one looks at what happens in regard to Muslims in Europe  we see that besides homogenization also differentiation occurs between ‘acceptable Muslims’ and ‘unacceptable Muslims’ (good vs bad Muslims). Here differentiation and homogenization occur at simultaneously against the background of the figure of ‘The Muslim’.

For example (and as I will show in the upcoming posts), both Pim Fortuyn and Frits Bolkestein (leader of the conservative liberal VVD party) questioned the compatibility of Islam with the Dutch secular system and nation-state as Islam was inherently and in essence political without a separation of church and state.  In other ways, as terms like ethnic minorities, migrants, Muslims are often used interchangeably in policies and debates, this entangling relates to integration policies through which Muslims are rendered here but out of place based upon ideas about descent, culture and religion (Mepschen, Duyvendak, and Tonkens 2010). This happens for example through policies making a distinction between autochtones and allochtones (from foreign soil) combined with rendering Islam a religion of migrants in need of governmental integration policies even for those born in the Netherlands. Here we often encounter an essentializing, reifying and othering notion of culture. The idea is then that this particular foreign culture is built upon subjection to particular beliefs and practices which are not only at odds with an idealized vision of Dutch identity but which also could prevent individuals from accepting and internalising perceived secular values (De Koning 2016).

Besides this spatial dimension of racialisation a temporal dimension emerges as well as Muslims are regarded as ‘too late to the party’ because of the end of old models of religion and state and less modern because of the religious attitudes compared to the other Dutch people who have freed themselves from the burden of religion (van der Veer 2006).  Another related dimension to this temporal aspect of racialization is ascribing Muslims, and in particular jihadist and Salafi Muslims, not just a pre-modern attitude but an anti-modern attitude determined to attack ‘the West’  through clandestine violence,  also by eroding the rule of law and isolating oneself from society. This anti-modern attitude pertains to a potential risky condition of people that allegedly results from being exposed to teachings of Salafi preachers who focus on disgruntled and alienated youth (often referring to the trope of the ‘angry Muslim’)(De Koning 2020).

Note that in the Netherlands there is a selective dimension of racialisation here which goes back to the 1970s. Then a distinction was made in government policies regarding ‘Mediterranean Muslims’ (labour migrants from Turkey and Morocco) and other Muslims (from Surinam, Moluccan Islands and Indonesia). Although this policy category disappeared, the different policy schemes regarding integration and counter-radicalization as well as the public debates focus mostly on those Muslims coming from Morocco and Turkey and (and in particular) their offspring.

Constructing the racial Muslim as a site of debate and intervention

In the case of Islamophobia what matters I think is the fact that politicians, policy makers, ordinary citizens alike, in recent decades have internalized the idea that it is not social, economic, political and natural circumstances that directed Muslims into, what politicians and policy makers regarded as, unproductive, parasitical and exploitative politico-religious activities and modes of violence, but the teachings of Islam itself, in particular as conveyed by the Quran and the Prophet Muhammad. According to ‘experts’ the Quran and the Prophet preached and exemplified the undying and fanatical enmity of Muslims towards ‘infidels’, encouraged Muslims to harm them in any way, which then programmed the ‘Muslimness’ of Muslims.  Of course, not all Muslims. But you never know for sure, so goes the idea..

Through racialization ‘the Muslim’ in relation to Islamophobia does not only (or perhaps not even) refer to an adherent of a faith or to a process of ethnicization through which Muslim becomes one of the main identity markers, but a figure through which ideas about essential socio-cultural differences, pre-modern or anti-modern attitudes, territory and being a strange body and dangerous fanaticism related to Muslimness are articulated and ascribed onto people’s bodies. In this way Islam as a religion (and one may perhaps claim the entire category of religion) becomes one of many categories for articulating, expressing and managing essentialized differences and to hierarchically govern and organize societies and citizens’ access to institutions, resources and rights by rendering those marked as non-white, non-Christian as out of this time, out of place and out of bounds.

In the two upcoming posts I will elaborate on this socio-political context by looking at three aspects for this. First, I address the idea among politicians and policymakers that migrant cultures are a threat. This is partly a threat to social peace and social cohesion, but slowly but surely also about the idea of national security against the background of possible violence by migrants and/or Muslims. Secondly, I will address the distinction that has been made by politicians, policy makers and the media between so-called native and immigrant Dutch. It is a rather neocolonial and paternalistic distinction to regulate the relationship between the dominant majority and minorities. Where the distinction is intended to help integrate mind-taking, it also creates a gap at the same time. Because Muslims have been treated as outsiders from the beginning (for example in integration policy), this distinction is also important for the discussion about them. It is striking that in the past the distinction also had partly to do with religion and the distinction between Catholics and Protestants. But gradually the role of religion in society has changed and so have the views on what an acceptable religion is. This is the last aspect that I will deal with in this chapter and that I will focus on Islam in the Netherlands in particular. In this changing context of religion and the changing meaning of religion, the discussion about what constitutes a secular society is increasingly taking place in relation to Islam and Muslims. And because the secular is also increasingly being elevated to the norm, discussions about Islam and Muslims also constantly touch the discussions about Dutch identity.

Literature

De Koning, Martijn. 2016. ‘“You Need to Present a Counter-Message” The Racialisation of Dutch Muslims and Anti-Islamophobia Initiatives’, Journal of Muslims in Europe, 5: 170–89.

———. 2020. ‘From Turks and Renegades to Citizens and Radicals : The Historical Trajectories of ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ Muslims in the Netherlands’, Trajecta. Religion, Culture and Society in the Low Countries, 29: 3-26.

Fassin, Didier. 2011. ‘Racialization – How to do Races with Bodies.’ in Frances E. Mascia-Lees (ed.), A Companion to the Anthropology of the Body and Embodiment (Wiley-Blackwell: Oxford).

Garner, Steve, and Saher Selod. 2015. ‘The Racialization of Muslims: Empirical Studies of Islamophobia’, Critical Sociology, 41: 9-19.

Hochman, Adam. 2019. ‘Racialization: a defense of the concept’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 42: 1245-62.

Klug, Brian. 2012. ‘Islamophobia: A concept comes of age’, Ethnicities, 12: 665-81.

Lentin, Alana. 2018. ‘Beyond denial: ‘not racism’ as racist violence’, Continuum, 32: 400-14.

Mepschen, Paul, Jan Willem Duyvendak, and Evelien H. Tonkens. 2010. ‘Sexual Politics, Orientalism and Multicultural Citizenship in the Netherlands’, Sociology, 44: 962-79.

Omi, Michael, and Howard Winant. 2015. “Racial formation in the United States.” In. New York: Routledge.