Abstract
This paper focuses on a chronology of events presented by the Romanian media, especially newspapers with national coverage and impact like Gândul and Adevărul, between the first week of June to the first week of September 2015, when the issue of having a mosque erected in Bucharest, the capital city of Romania, was intensely debated by intellectuals, politicians, and religious professionals. The debates were intensely heated from the onset of these events and most of them revealed that most of the participants were driven by anti-Muslim attitudes, xenophobia, and assertive nationalism, a complex of feelings that I called “negative ecodomy”. The concept of “negative ecodomy” presupposes an attempt to built a safe environment, in this case for Romanians in their own country, but the adjective “negative” was added to the the positive idea of “ecodomy” because these efforts to offer a safe context for Romanians were accompanied by the negativity of anti-Muslim, xenophobic, and nationalistic activities. This array of negative ecodomic attitudes were displayed by Romanians not only in online media but also in the street through protests and other similar actions in a country which has been a member of the European Union for almost a decade and was supposed to adhere to the European Union’s basic principles of multiculturalism and the free circulation of persons. The totality of these events show that Romanians are still rather far from accepting the European Union’s fundamental philosophy or perhaps these principles themselves should be reconsidered and reinterpreted in the context of the massive Middle Eastern and African immigration and the constant, if not increasing threat of Islamic terrorism.
Highlights
Contextualizing the Scandal: the Role of Negative Ecodomy10 June 2015 was not an ordinary day, at least not for Romanian politics. The day before, on 9 June
This paper focuses on a chronology of events presented by the Romanian media, especially newspapers with national coverage and impact like Gândul and Adevărul, between the first week of June to the first week of September 2015, when the issue of having a mosque erected in Bucharest, the capital city of Romania, was intensely debated by intellectuals, politicians, and religious professionals
To a simple question: “Do you agree with the project of building the largest European mosque in Bucharest?” While the question was a bit misleading from the start since only a couple of days ago mufti Murat had clarified that the mosque was not to be the largest in Europe, the Romanians’ anti-Muslim feeling seems to have already kicked in, irrespective of the actual dimensions of the future mosque; to be sure, a staggering 91.72% of the readers (11,631 respondents) slammed a decisively and categorically clear “no” against the mosque project [24], confirming their indebtedness to the philosophy of negative ecodomy with its xenophobic and anti-Muslim feelings which seems to have become part of Romania’s national cultural heritage
Summary
10 June 2015 was not an ordinary day, at least not for Romanian politics. The day before, on 9 June. The building project includes a center for the social assistance of economically vulnerable Muslims who are believed to be much more prone to radicalization and terrorism, these social activities are meant to serve all those in need regardless of their religious convictions and affiliations This is why mufti Murat appears convinced that this venue is most assuredly going to be a “realm of peace” offered as gift by the Romanian government to the Muslim community in Romania, which indicates “how much we mean to Romania”. Coupled with the “Syrian migrants crisis”, Romanians started to feel threatened by Muslims in general, so the summer media storm turned into an anti-Muslim campaign
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