Conclusion: Understanding European Anti-Racisms

Abstract

As the case studies in this book have shown, anti-racist movements in Europe operate in a difficult climate in which public attitudes towards immigrants and ethnic minorities appear to have hardened. This has been particularly the case since the 11 September attacks in 2001, leading to a bolstering of the ‘fortress Europe’ mentality, which has seen certain actors in politics and the media seeking to encourage perceptions of nations besieged by potentially threatening waves of immigrants, entrance for whom must be blocked by ever tightening frontier controls. In a number of countries – as highlighted in our case studies of France, Italy and the United Kingdom – the extreme-right and/or populist parties (and notably in the United Kingdom, a populist media) have scapegoated immigrants for the country’s ills, contributing to a deterioration in public discourse on matters related to immigration, race and ethnicity. Such parties have also increasingly resorted to combining negative public portrayal of immigrants and certain minority groups with an Islamophobic discourse in which Muslims – settled communities, migrants and their descendents – are depicted as a threat to established Western Christian or liberal culture, and a security threat. At its most extreme Muslims are presented as potential terrorists, the enemy within, a tendency which has been exacerbated by terrorist attacks such as those in Madrid in 2003 and London in 2005.