Saddened by the terror attacks in New Zealand, he thinks they could have been prevented with security measures against far-right extremists and terrorists instead of focusing only -or mainly- on radicals favouring Daesh [ISIS in its Arabic transcription]. At the same time, he warns about hate speech contributing to an atmosphere that encourages more violence from all sides.

Salam Plan has talked to this researcher of the international SETA think tank during his visit to Madrid where he presented the results of the report at Casa Árabe (Arab House), an institution which is part of the Foreign Affairs Ministry of Spain. He gives some hints to prevent Islamophobia from rising more and calls up on everybody to tackle the problem.

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How do you feel some days after the New Zealand attacks happened? Do you think the international community has reacted as expected, as it should have done?

I feel saddened by this very tragic event, of course because of the lives which have been lost, some of them children. But at the same time, I feel saddened that this could have been prevented, if the necessary precautions had been taken before.

Why do I say this? Because this has happened before, with Anders Breivik in Norway, and this should have been a wake-up call for everybody of how far the far-right terrorism advanced, not only in Europe, but internationally. We see the results of this in the United States, the attack against a synagogue carried out by a far-right terrorist. And there were other attacks also against Muslims in Canada[, UK]…

“The security apparatus in Europe has to take this issue seriously, tackle the far-right radicalisation. This way we will prevent not only future attacks by the far-right but also future attacks by Daesh, because they are feeding each other”

If the necessary precautions had been taken against the far-right rise and the far-right radicalization had been taken seriously, I think this could have been prevented. Because, consider: if you are a radical Muslim and you are searching on the internet or watching the videos of Daesh [Arabic name for ISIS], you will be in trouble quite easily: the intelligence services will detect you. But this is not the case with the far-right. They operate more freely, and I think that’s why these attacks are happening. That doesn’t mean that you can prevent everything, because there will be some lone wolves all the time.

I hope the future attacks will be prevented, because the atmosphere is quite ripe for these attacks. Unfortunately, this might happen anywhere in Europe nowadays. I think the security apparatus in Europe has to take this issue seriously, tackle the far-right radicalisation. This way we will prevent not only future attacks by the far-right but also future attacks by Daesh, because they are feeding each other. After this attack [in New Zealand], Daesh called for fresh attacks against the West or the Christians. This is a vicious circle and innocent people are getting killed.

>>> You may also read: Attacks against mosques are more usual than you might think: they are committed by anti-Muslim terrorists and also by groups like ISIS <<<

You talk about security measures, but what about the discourse to help prevent this? You just mentioned Daesh itself called for revenge, but Daesh itself attacks Muslims.

Yes, the majority of the victims of Daesh are Muslims. After these attacks [in New Zealand] there were some calls, especially in Turkey [, where I am based]: some people would say we should call this “Christian terrorism”.

I objected this, and many people objected this, because this doesn’t have anything to do with Christianity. You can justify violence with anything. There are some radical Buddhists, and some radical Orthodox… that doesn’t mean we blame all the Christians. That is why we need to be really careful about the rhetoric, because the rhetoric makes this kind of attacks possible.

People would think ‘Islamophobia is only hate speech, what’s the problem? I don’t like Muslims’. But it’s not just the rhetoric. Rhetoric, with time, turns into action and creates violence. The rhetoric has to change and there is a need for a political acknowledgement of the problem.

“The problems with Islamophobia and the far-right need to be acknowledged. Unfortunately, mainstream politicians are adopting the far-right ideas and their narratives”

First Islamophobia has to be acknowledged as a problem; many of the European countries are refusing the fact that there is a problem with Islamophobia. Even the European Union has now a coordinator on anti-Muslim hatred, but not anti-Muslim racism or Islamophobia.

Also, the problem with the far-right needs to be acknowledged. Unfortunately, mainstream politicians are adopting the far-right ideas and their narratives, and they are reluctant to challenge the far-right directly.

In your report you mention that Islamophobia does not only affect far-right politicians, but the whole range of them. How come?

Mainstream politicians are now under a lot of pressure in Europe. They cannot find a solution to the far-right; the only solution they see is what happened in Austria. The Christian democratic party ÖVP were a mainstream, reasonable party with a long tradition, but when the far-right started rising, they chose a young leader, [Sebastian] Kurz. He has muted his party more to the far-right. That was his solution to the problem, and he has become now a kind of the far-right leader. And that’s replicating itself in other European countries.

Now the three secret services in Austria are in the hands of the far-right [Government ally, Heinz- Christian] Strache.

For a certain amount of time the politicians were silent about the problem and at a certain point, they realized it’s unstoppable. (…) Islamophobia we find it also in the left party, in the Christian democrats… it has become a new form of racism that is acceptable to people.

“Islamophobia has become a new form of racism that is acceptable to people. We have far-right Islamophobia, but we also have Liberalist Islamophobia and Leftist Islamophobia”

May you give some examples?

Some people in the Green Party [in Germany] are calling for the headscarf ban. Or the former candidate of CDU, Friedrich Merz, said “We cannot allow Muslim children to get indoctrinated in Q’ran schools”.

Of course, we have far-right Islamophobia, but we also have Liberalist Islamophobia and Leftist Islamophobia.

Many feminists are in favour of banning the headscarf by saying ‘we are empowering the Muslim women’. Ok, there might be some Muslim women, youngsters, who may be forced by their families, but the overwhelming majority of them are choosing it by their own will. In France they are not allowed to study at the universities. Is this empowering women?

>>> You may read: Muslim European women claim their place in feminism<<<

In Spain now there is much of a debate going on whether the conservative Popular Party and liberal Ciudadanos should establish a cordon-sanitaire against far-right Vox in the next general election.

I think they should [establish a cordon sanitaire]. The cordon sanitaire [in Europe] was there, but it has disappeared. Look at the Austrian example. In the year 2000 [far-right leader] Jörg Haider became part of the [governing] coalition with his party. There was a big outcry in Europe, there was a diplomatic embargo against Austria.

” The ‘cordon sanitaire’ in Europe was there, but it has disappeared. Islamophobia is a threat to the democratic foundations of Europe”

Today, his party is again part of the coalition in a much stronger way. Nobody says a thing. The cordon sanitaire has disappeared. Why? Because of the Islamophobic narrative and discourse. If this is the problem of Muslims, I think everybody needs to rethink about it. If you let the far-right become normalized, it will just ruin the European Union. So, who is going to lose from this? Muslims? Not only. Islamophobia is a threat to the democratic foundations of Europe. We see the results. I hope New Zealand is a wake-up call for measures to be taken (…).

We need courageous leaders and civil society activists to tackle this problem. But many people think Islamophobia is a Muslims problem, it’s not our problem. Well, I don’t think so. If you allow this fire burn here, it will affect others (…).

Common people might have a prejudice against Islam and Muslims and common people in Turkey also have prejudices against Germans or Christians. This has to be tackled, of course, (but) that’s normal. The problem starts when this starts to become a policy and made into law, based on these notions of segregating people. We are talking more of a political problem.

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In your report you call for Islamophobia to be approached in the laws, just like the UN and OSCE ask. But from what you are telling me, it doesn’t seem this could become real any time soon.

No, I don’t think so. There is a strong opposition. Islamophobes say Islamophobia is a combat term developed by Islamists to reject any kind of criticism against Islam. Of course, we can critize Muslims and Islam, but the important thing is how we do this.

Why do you think it is so important that Islamophobia is put on paper, what would it help?

It would mean that the problem is acknowledged, it would help to record Islamophobic hate crime into a separate category. We would have statistics of what is going on the streets in terms of hate speech and attacks against Muslims and then we can talk about the problem. But if you don’t acknowledge the problem politically, then you are not willing to tackle the problem (…) and no actions are taken against this.

“Of course, we can critize Muslims and Islam. Common people might have a prejudice against Islam and in Turkey also against Christians. This has to be tackled, but the problem starts when this becomes a policy and turns into law”

According to a European survey promoted by the European Union and mentioned in your report, 12% of Muslims have reported discrimination to the authorities. Do you think that number is according to reality?

I think that’s only the tip of the iceberg. In Germany, we have 900 cases reported to the police. Many Muslims are not really reporting these cases to the police in Europe. First, many are not aware of the reporting mechanisms. Second, they might be socially isolated or very close to the people who are attacking them: the employer, teacher… Also, they are not really trusting the authorities due to fear that they will not be taken seriously, which happens.

In that survey it also came out 76% of Muslims feel attached to the country they live in. Well, I guess it’s because in many cases -may be most of them- it is because it is their own country, isn’t it? And there is always this idea of talking about Muslims as strangers or foreigners.

This is the main notion you hear: Muslims are living in ghettos, they’re not integrated, they’re not part of the society… well, look at the numbers. We are talking about 3^rd and 4^th generations living in Europe, they’re already European Muslims.

Which country would you say is the more Islamophobic European country?

It is really difficult to assess, we need to establish criteria. We’re just at the beginning of the process of uncovering the problem. I can tell the situation in France is quite bad for Muslims, in terms of political representation, which is quite low compared with the population. They’re not represented.

The rhetoric in Hungary and the Czech Republic is really radical against Muslims and there are almost no Muslims there, it’s like 0.001% of the population. But if you look at the rhetoric of the leaders of those countries it is as if next day the Muslims will take over Hungary or the Czech Republic.

You are presenting the third annual report on European Islamophobia and in June you will present the next one. Have you noticed a rise in these years?

What we’re seeing is that there are more violent attacks against Muslims. There is a case in Czech Republic, where a far-right person has tried to fake a terror attack against Czechs, he cut down trees on train lines twice and then he wrote fake letters in Arabic in order to fake a Daesh attack. He was arrested but was given a really minor sentence in the Court, because he had to take medicines for his high blood-pressure problem and that might affect his ability to think. That does also show the legal aspect of this issue.

“There are worrying signs that the far-right is increasing its activity to carry out attacks. The far-right is organized, there are training camps in Russia and Ukraine. There might be more terror attacks against Muslims in Europe”

There are worrying signs that the far-right is increasing its activity to carry out attacks. And that’s why I say, and I warn that there might be more (terror) attacks against Muslims in Europe and precautions must be taken.

So Muslims cannot feel safe in Europe?

The don’t already after what happened in New Zealand. It might happen everywhere.

It already happened in Europe as well but in a lower scale when it comes to the number of victims. In the UK there were two terror attacks against mosques…

Atmosphere is ripe, the infrastructure is there, far-right is organized, there are training camps in Russia and Ukraine… It’s just a matter of time.

That’s scary.

It is scary, yes.

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La entrada Expert warns about more terror attacks against Muslims in Europe if politicians don’t tackle Islamophobia se publicó primero en Salam Plan.

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Muslims in the United Kingdom have suffered two attacks on mosques in London in recent years. In both cases they were abuses or attempts of abuse at the exit of the sentence. The 48-year-old British terrorist Darren Osborne was sentenced to life imprisonment for his attack on June 19, 2017 outside the Finsbury Park mosque in London. He killed one person and left another 12 injured. He has to serve at least 43 years in jail.

Martin Stokes, 25, also tried to run over citizens with his car when they were outside another London mosque in Cricklewood on September 19 last year. He left three people injured. Barely a week ago, on March 6, he was sentenced to 5 years. Stokes admitted dangerous driving, the BBC reported. He had parked with some friends in a private area and they were bothering him, so they were asked to leave. He responded by ramming the car to the people who were there while he uttered Islamophobic and racist insults against them, witnesses said.

In Quebec (Canada), Alexander Bissonnette was also just recently sentenced for his attack on a mosque, where he shot six people dead in January 2017. The 29-year-old has been sentenced to 40 years without parole.

“The attack in New Zealand is the best example that all extremist ideologies are more similar than you might think,” said OIET director Carlos Igualada, through on his Twitter feed. At the same time, he pointed out that the terrorist groups like Daesh or Al Qaeda will soon use the attacks of this Friday in Christchurch in their own benefit and as an excuse to make propaganda in favor hitting back. They will not remind their followers that they usually kill Muslim people.

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La entrada Attacks against mosques are more usual than you might think: they are committed by anti-Muslim terrorists and also by groups like ISIS se publicó primero en Salam Plan.

La entrada Two terror attacks against mosques in New Zealand leave 49 dead se publicó primero en Salam Plan.

The country went through a long civil war which lasted from 1975 to 1990 and, although it still faces many challenges, it is often mentioned as an example where different religions have been coexisting for decades. In recent years, it has also become the country with the highest concentration per capita of refugees in the world, due to the war in neighbouring Syria.

Fadi Daou is a Maronite Catholic priest in Lebanon, where he chairs the Adyan Foundation, ‘adyan’ meaning ‘religions’. With a team of people from different faiths, the Foundation works to improve the interreligious understanding in the country and worldwide. Daou has contributed to international policymaking speaking at the United Nations, the European Parliament and to the Arab League. Salam Plan talked with him during his recent stay in Madrid this week to take part in a seminar on Lebanon at the cultural centre Casa Árabe.

Lebanon is many times mentioned as an example of coexistence of religions. Is there a real together living or does every community rather stay within the group they belong to?

When we say coexistence it’s about managing the plural identity of the Lebanese society in a positive way: on the cultural, legal level and political levels.

Lebanon has officially 12 Christian communities, 5 Muslim and one Jewish community that are officially recognized by the Constitution. Of course, there is also the freedom of religion and the existence of other religions, but these are the historical ones in Lebanon.

So when we speak about coexistence, definitely we are speaking about an inclusive way of living together without the domination of one party over others. This is a very delicate balance, which Lebanon kept searching throughout its history and it ended up in the civil war. Today Lebanon is looking again to redefine this balance.

“When we speak about coexistence, we are speaking about an inclusive way of living together without the domination of one party over others”

Would you say this balance is currently working?

This balance is never working 100%, no. It’s always somewhere between 50% and 100%. Today we have some major challenges. One of them comes from the consequences of the civil war, where we had direct conflict from people of different communities. Now the communities are more segregated than before , so we are fighting stereotypes, healing wounds and also building knowledge through education to ensure that the Lebanese society is attached to its shared values before the conflict.

Another challenge is the huge number of refugees living in Lebanon. We see today how much the refugee and immigration issue is challenging Europe, although the proportion of refugees is really non-significant in comparison to what is happening in Lebanon. You have less than 1% of refugees compared to the European population, whereas in Lebanon we have more than 30%. It’s challenging, but at least we are avoiding that it generates conflict, although it is being sometimes used in populist political discourse. But, globally, the Lebanese society demonstrated a huge capacity of hospitality and solidarity.

Other type of challenges are more on the legal level, where we are trying to enhance this situation based on real equality and respect of human dignity and human rights for all citizens.

Lebanon hosts around 1.5 million refugees in a country of 4.5 million Lebanese people. The majority of refugees are Syrians and there are also Palestinians. What lessons can Europe learn from Lebanon about hosting refugees?

I would say, first it is to fight and refuse all political manipulation, because the refugee situation is always a humanitarian and humanistic situation and not at all an ideological and political one. Sometimes politicians in Europe are raising the fear among the population, saying for example that “we are being invaded” by people from outside Europe or by Muslims… All these discourses are definitely against the fundamentals of human rights, which make Europe what it is. The richness of Europe is because it is a space where, we believe, it respects human rights and dignity.

“Europe should not be afraid from the changes which are already happening and its new plural identity. Today all societies are diverse and it should be dealt with in a very realistic way”

The second lesson, is our responsibility of solidarity between each other. We don’t know when we will have to leave. Thirdly and finally, Europe should not be afraid from the changes which are already happening and its new plural identity. Many European societies were used to think themselves as one cultural identity, but today all societies are diverse and they will become more and more diverse. It should be dealt with in a very realistic way.

Diversity is a resource of richness. My Foundation uses the slogan “Diversity builds unity”. The challenge is not to try to stop diversity or the fear of otherness, the challenge is how to make of this diversity a resource of richness and unity in society.

The arguments you are giving don’t seem to convince any of the voters of the European politicians you were talking about, so I was hoping you could tell me something really practical which you would apply for diversity to work.

The first example would be to make people need each other and work with each other and collaborate to face their common problems. We are working to avoid segregation.

On an educational level, [you need] to know each other, because ignorance is a source of fear.

There is another aspect related to Islam. It is important to promote the discourse of Muslim thinkers, scholars and public figures who totally endorse human rights standards and an inclusive approach of living together. Give them a voice. It also can help Europeans to see Islam is also diverse. It has its own challenges and problems, but there are many Muslims who are working on this and they deserve support.

“The laicism of France is not at all my model. I advocate for an inclusive model based on a secular political system, respecting diversity as well as the freedom and richness of each community”

You advocate for the separation of religion from politics. Would the laicism of France be your model?

Not at all. In fact, I don’t advocate for a separation, I advocate for an inclusive citizenship, which means that religion should not be the framework of living together. We need to establish a citizenship system that can recognize the diversity of religions but prevent religious authorities from interfering in politics.

It’s not the French model, it’s more an inclusive model based on a secular political system, but a system that is also inclusive to all diversity, respecting the freedom but also respecting the richness of each community and what it brings to societies.

Some people argue Islam cannot be democratic. What do you think?

Those people lack a historic perspective of democracy, because in the 19^th century Christianity and Catholicism were against democracy too. Any stigmatisation saying that Islam is not compatible with democracy is completely unrealistic, it’s not true. There are very good Muslims democrats in Lebanon and there are also Muslims who are against democracy.

“Any stigmatisation saying that Islam is not compatible with democracy is completely untrue. Some populist parties in Europe are against the values of democracy”

But I think some [non-Muslim] extremists here and even Europe, some populist parties are themselves against the values of democracy. It is true in many Muslim societies today that democracy is a challenge, but it is not about Islam, it is about interests and politics. The young generations are striving to build democracy in their countries.

So, I don’t think there is a religion which is more democratic than others; it’s about culture, about people, about the value system.

Do you think the rise of policies against Muslims in Europe and the United States are announcing a new form of Nazism?

I hope not. I think these waves of populism and extreme right parties are too serious not to be taken into consideration. It can one day lead to totalitarianism. We should remember that Hitler arrived to power democratically. The Western countries have to be very careful about this.

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La entrada Fadi Daou, Lebanese priest: “There is no religion which is more democratic than others” se publicó primero en Salam Plan.