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The term Islamophobia originated in a 1991 Runnymede Trust report

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tagsja-picks, define, question, definitional_content, singleton, xref, category/definitional-content
aliases@kumar_islamophobia_2012, loc. 77

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The term Islamophobia originated in a 1991 Runnymede Trust report

Evidence

My analysis treats Islamophobia as a causal factor in the outcome of anti-Muslim racism. That is, anti-Muslim racism is the operationalization of Islamophobia. Islamophobia first became a term of art in a 1997 report by the Runnymede Trust’s Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia titled “Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All.” Defined in the report as “the dread, hatred, and hostility towards Islam and Muslims perpetrated by a series of closed views that imply and attribute negative and derogatory stereotypes and beliefs to Muslims,” Islamophobia results in practices that discriminated against Muslims through myriad state and private mechanisms, which fall under the rubric “anti-Muslim racism.” Anti- Muslim racism, thus, occurs because Islam is portrayed as “1) monolithic and static; 2) separate and ‘other,’ not sharing the values of other cultures; 3) irrational, primitive and inferior to the West; 4) aggressive, violent and implicated in a clash of civilizations; 5) an ideology used to promote political and military interests; 6) intolerant towards western critiques; 7) deserving of the discriminatory practices towards and exclusion of Muslims; and 8) making anti-Muslim hostility natural and normal.” — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 133 (#contradicts, via linked claim)

Its first acknowledgement of a phenomenon identified as Islamophobia evolved out of its 1994 report entitled, A Very Light Sleeper: The Persistence and Dangers of Anti-Semitism. 2 In noting that, ‘In the Jewish community, as in other minority communities in modern Britain, there is an increasing sense of threat and fear’, the report went on to suggest that anti-Semitism could be sub-divided into four key distinctions: historical developments and paradigmatic manifestations; contemporary British manifestations, including the far-right, extreme left and Christian churches; manifestations in Europe; and finally, its relationship and interaction with forms of racism. The report concluded with a series of recommendations for media, education, legislation, religious bodies, organisations and policy-makers. The report also set out three forms of anti-Semitism – anti-Judaism, anti-Semitic racism and anti-Zionism – before broadly defining anti-Semitism as a term that ‘subsumes a wide spectrum of attitudes from unconscious and implicit prejudice through to open hostility, and to individual and organised acts of violence’. — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 263 (#contradicts, via linked claim)

Categorization

  • XREF: connects to: The Runnymede Trust originated Islamophobia as a concept via its anti-Semitism report — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 263; The Runnymede Trust defines Islamophobia as a form of racism against Muslims — A. Hussain, N. Meer, Framing Muslim Integration, 53; The Runnymede Trust popularized the term Islamophobia in 1997. (+14 more)

Broader Connections

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