5 research outputs found
The resistible rise of Islamophobia: anti-Muslim racism in the UK and Australia before 11 September 2001
This article compares the rise of anti-Muslim racism in Britain and Australia,
from 1989 to 2001, as a foundation for assessing the extent to which the
upsurge of Islamophobia after 11 September was a development of existing
patterns of racism in these two countries. The respective histories of immigration
and settlement by Muslim populations are outlined, along with the relevant
immigration and ‘ethnic affairs’ policies and the resulting demographics.
The article traces the ideologies of xenophobia that developed in Britain and
Australia over this period. It records a transition from anti-Asian and anti-Arab
racism to anti-Muslim racism, reflected in and responding to changes in the
identities and cultural politics of the minority communities. It outlines
instances of the racial and ethnic targeting by the state of the ethnic and religious
minorities concerned, and postulates a causal relationship between this
and the shifting patterns of acts of racial hatred, vilification and discrimination