Anti-Muslim sentiment now spans the political spectrum from left to right

Evidence

With similar sentiments, the apparently centre-left former Home Secretary, David Blunkett, verbally attacked those young British Muslims in Bradford peacefully campaigning against the harsh sentencing of their friends and family convicted of involvement in the 2001 disturbances, by openly calling them ‘whining maniacs’. In addition, Mr Blunkett also ensured widespread media coverage when he aired his endorsement of the more ‘rational’ claims of the assassinated Pim Fortuyn, suggesting that Muslims should accept and assimilate into ‘our culture’ and ‘our ways’; and that immigrants and asylum seekers – a group that are becoming increasingly interchangeable and indistinguishable from Muslims in the contemporary setting – were ‘swamping our’ schools’. echoing similar suggestions made by the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher some twenty or so years beforehand, this particular statement by Thatcher was deemed to be a formative moment in the development and transition of the ‘new racist’ ideologies of the early 1980s. Could Blunkett’s equivalent therefore be the precursor confirming the phenomenon of anti-Muslimism as the ‘new’ racist ideology emergent in the early twenty first century? — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 476

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to Halliday’s ‘anti-Muslimism’ terminological critique which the reader is tracking against Runnymede and Bleich. — connects to: The clash-of-civilizations lens drives even liberals toward illiberal anti-Muslim policies — Runnymede Trust (ed. Farah Elahi & Omar Khan), Islamophobia: Still a Challenge for Us…, 684; Anti-Muslim animus unites groups that were themselves former racist targets — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 464; Anti-Muslim sentiment spans opposing political groups, not just white conservatives (+8 more)

Related

• The clash-of-civilizations lens drives even liberals toward illiberal anti-Muslim policies (similarity 0.82)
• Islamophobia flourishes on both the nativist right and among self-proclaimed liberals (similarity 0.81)
• Anti-Muslim sentiment terminology mirrors the older, unresolved antisemitism debates about racism vs. religious prejudice. (similarity 0.81)
• Anti-Muslim rhetoric has been mainstreamed across right-left ideological divides in the US (similarity 0.81)
• Separating Islamophobia as ideology from racism undermines anti-racist struggle (similarity 0.80)
• Anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim attitudes are distinct but overlapping targets of prejudice (similarity 0.80)
• Miles and Brown argue anti-Muslim phenomena fit existing racism and xenophobia theories (similarity 0.79)
• Anti-Muslim sentiment spans opposing political groups, not just white conservatives (similarity 0.79)
• Anti-Muslim animus unites groups that were themselves former racist targets (similarity 0.79)
• Islamophobia must be treated as a neutral social-scientific concept, not a political term. (similarity 0.79)
• European Islamophobia has moved from the far right into the political mainstream. (similarity 0.78)
• Muslims were told anti-Muslim racism cannot exist because Muslims are not a race (similarity 0.78)
• Anti-Muslim racism in politics spans both parties in liberal and conservative forms (similarity 0.78)
• Islamophobia is best understood as an ideology akin to racism (similarity 0.78)
• Halliday argues modern hostility targets Muslims as a people, not Islam as a faith. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Anti-Muslim sentiment spans opposing political groups, not just white conservatives #corroborates (0.95)
• Islamophobia flourishes on both the nativist right and among self-proclaimed liberals #corroborates (0.95) — A. Hussain, N. Meer, Framing Muslim Integration, 689
• Free speech concerns about the Islamophobia concept are shared across the political spectrum #corroborates (0.80) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 78
• Anti-Muslim sentiment operates independently of local political ideology #expands (0.75)
• Right-wing Islamophobes are structurally embedded rather than marginal figures #expands (0.75) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 34