Turkey Muslims European Union – discrimination on websites

viewed by random google users

Use of Internet in research

Three first articles with images, and comments (max three comments for each article) from two

weeks after and before 16 December 2013 (date of Turkey and EU immigrant deal)

First article

http://www.barenakedislam.com/2013/12/06/what-better-time-to-leave-the-eunow-that-turkish-muslims-will-be-allowed-to-enter-any-eu-country-without-a-visa/

Full of discrimination:

Time to leave EU” and „Turkish Muslims will be allowed to enter any EU country

Muslim plague will be infecting European's neighborhood

The article is composed of two parts, one is discriminating opinion like above and the second one is information copied from other website.

The opinion is almost entirely discriminating in terms of religion. It uses word “Muslim” two times, first one connected with Turkish and stating that people should leave EU because : ”Turkish Muslims” will be allowed to enter UE without Visa. It shows Turkish as treat, danger for European because of religion. It also stating that this danger is almost present, even though this is only liberalization, not free enter. The second part, which to show danger even more, was written in red color, also has Muslim word, and it is also related to discrimination, but not only danger but the hate speech, where Muslims are considered as a “plague”

Red map of Europe with name EURABIA, red background, Below the map there are people with weapons and scarfs, a fire behind them.

The red map of Europe indicates danger (red like a safe light) has a connection to history and Soviet danger for Western World. Red is also color of blood which together with weapon below shows a danger as something more serious.Fire is also connected to danger. But fire here, together with people below them shows the danger of terrorism. Those people don't show they faces, they look like terrorists groups shown in CNN and have a weapons. Red color spread as a background – this shows that danger is spreading, will spread, which indicates another treat. Name “Eurabia” shows that danger is connected to Arabia, event though Turkey are not Arabs, but bothare connected in people's mind to Islam and terrorism. The Arab is used instead of Islam as a danger for Europe. The people on the image are shown in large number. The first four are shown in the front and rest more as a background. Those 4 mark danger as something realistic, very close and the rest indicates the greatness of danger. The picture shows that if all of them comes, Europe cease to exist, the muslims/terrorists will rule there and continent will be on fire. What is also important is the map itself, it shows Europe but without Turkish part of Europe, this states that Turkey has no cultural connection to Europe.

The image is full of significations, where in the end image become a treat, a deadly treat or, after summing all together becomes the end of Europe as we know it today.

Eurabia; take over the Europe; bringing fire; Muslim/Arab terrorists; Muslims/Tureky try to

overthrow EU; islamization;becoming bigger part of European population

All the pictures all full of signifcation, especially the first one and mostly shows Muslims as a

danger to Europe, like in analysis of first image.

Second article

The second article is not directly connected to discrimination and is mostly about Turkey's domestic problems and corruption.

Even though the impression towards Muslims is rather negative. “Islamic cleric’s followers infiltrated police, judiciary” - shows that Tureky is not a stable country. The next sentence with some kind of negative image could be opposition of Islam-based government and the secular military”. The last sentence with can be related to both Turkey and Muslim (the rest of the rest of the words were are not analyzed here, since they are not directly connected to Turkey Muslims and European Union). In the end, the only part that could be considered discriminating would be title, where possible treat (in government opinion) from one of the religious movement was stretched for are Muslims, since Islami'c cleric followers, at least in knowledge of Europeans, are not different from any Muslims.

Third article

is rather positive towards Turkey

on the other hand it could be discriminating since it highlights religion, Islam as the main characteristics of Turkey. In the title “Turkey stays ahead” but “in the Islamic world”. Turkey was considered as part of Europe but also as “Muslim nation”. Nation was related to religion and what's more the country is “ruled by Islamist leaders” - this sentence that could also be used for country like Iran.

Other word shows that author is critical towards Europe and discriminate rather Israel than Turkey, but his words shows that he strongly connect country with religion (to think that this article from Canada, famous mulitucurtural country!), and in Europe religion identifying country as religious has rather negative meaning.

Comments

Comment made by reason1984 on December 6, 2013 at 4:41 PM is a famous quote from Oriana Fallaci. The words „Eurabia”, „colony of Islam” and “Islamic Invasion” - all of them indicates treat, and two first shows that the treat already had been fulfilled.

Comment made 12 minutes later by Mary Crum considers decision about visas as “huge mistake” and “giving your countries to Islam” and “betraying you own citizens”.

The third one, made by Larry Usoff, US Navy Retired 5 minutes after the second one, calls “To Arms” and considers Muslims as “barbaric savages” that should be “oust”. Muslims are also, like in comment two and three, considered as a treat, a danger towards Europe, but this comment is additionally more offensive and Europocentirc,

There is only one comment to second article that shows religious discrimination (one from three), but two people like this comment. Author uses “Watch the Muslim World implode”, “fanatic belief”, “Religious overbreeding” “fanatical beliefs” and “agonizing destruction”. Here Muslims are seen as fantatics, who are once again a treat, danger that could end in destruction.

Questionnaire

Three man in their early twenties from three different countries (Poland, France and Germany), which belongs to EU gave response to some quest related to the topic of this work. All of them has higher education and two are still studying while one is working.

2 are against Turkey joining EU, 1 do not have opinion.

Common things: associating Turkey with Muslim and kebab; opnion of big importance of Islam in Turkey

For 2 of them strong postion of Islam in Turkey is major point against letting Tureky join EU

First responder

For the first responder the issues against Turkey joining EU are mostly cultural and religious.

The issues include fear of change that they can bring, possibility of losing power to rule in democracy (because of

birthrate and immigration of Muslims) by people of his culture and religion. Like in Huntington's book the responder

identifies himself in opposition to others, here Christian vs Islam, Europe vs Asia. This is in agreement with response to the last question, when

the responder shows other parts important to his identity. He mixed history, stereotypes and facts, and saw possibility of changes because of Islam as some kind of treat to his way of life.

Second responder

His identity and “lifestyle” is also important like for the first responder.

He also has some economics fears. Responder probably thinks about himself as a very tolerant

and open person (first part of the sentence), although he is more closed for other than want he thinks.

Third responder

for joining Turkey in EU but not in the near future (it can also be a way to push aside decision that is hard to make, like in psychology, a person knows that rational way would be to do something, but because of personal emotions, thoughts, he, partly unconsciously, do not want to do it, and the best way to avoid dissonance would be to push decision for latter).

He brings EU problems as the most important part and also problems with democracy in Turkey.

In the last question he says that Muslims people are like everyone, although he states some, to certain degree, unique characteristics of the religion “strong believes” and “fanatic groups”.

Interivew Zuzanna – person interviewed

did not use the world discrimination, from what she said, it can be considered as such.

Alienation, feeling bad, constant jokes related to her, lack of acceptation toward her partner, and advices together with warnings about him are some kind of discrimination.

The person who was truly discriminated, although it was not when he was around, was her husband.

The discrimination was strongly connected to religion, but in minds of people who discriminated him, there was almost not such a thing as differences between Islam as religion and a culture in Turkey.

In the end, because of something like political correctness, but only in front of victim, Zuzanna's husband was not feeling directly discriminated, although to some degree Zuzanna was.

1.Islam is seen as a monolithic bloc, static and

unresponsive to change.

2.Islam is seen as separate and “other”. It does not have

values in common with other cultures, is not affected by

them and does not influence them.

3.Islam is seen as inferior to the West. It is seen as

barbaric, irrational, primitive, and sexist.

4.Islam is seen as violent, aggressive, threatening,

supportive of terrorism, and engaged in a clash of

civilizations

Points of Islamophobia stated in 1997 Runnymede Trust “Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All” (present in data in this research – simmilar to articles, comments...):

Source: http://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra_uploads/448-EU-MIDIS_MUSLIMS_EN.pdf ,

Turkish alone are often discriminated in EU.

In 2008 42% of them felt discriminated in Denmark and 31% in Germany.

There are not many cases where Muslims report a discrimination but that does not mean that it is on small scale, because almost 80% simply does not report acts of discrimination.

They do not do it, because they do not believe that it would change anything, they consider it as to trivial (like Zuzanna from interview, who did not even think about it as discrimination) or do not know where.

Source: http://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra_uploads/448-EU-MIDIS_MUSLIMS_EN.pdf ,

The data from Table 4 for Poland differ much more thant that from Table 3 compared to France and Germany.

Polish people do not sees Islamic extremism as concerns to Poland, since the are small number of Muslims in the country, but probably because of media, which shows Muslims as extremists, a lot of Polish people sees them in unfavorable way, like people from Germany or France.

Source:http://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra_uploads/448-EU-MIDIS_MUSLIMS_EN.pdf ,

Discrimination towards Muslims in media can be mostly be identified as connecting them to some kind of danger (in almost all of the examples in this work), danger to identity, danger for lifestyle or even as danger for live itself. Mostly it is kind of prejudice that comes from lack of knowledge and use of stereotypes. In some examples there are stronger emotions, hate, or thinking about them as inferior, but mostly fear of Muslim is common. People think that Muslims only want to conquer Europe, that they are terrorists, but they mostly do not know which percent of Muslims emigrate to European countries or how many terrorists are Muslims. They often do not remember that Europeans also emigrate and they are also terrorists among them, especially if one would look at European history.

The language used in the articles is not only discriminating but also creates stereotypes, that are naturalizing discriminating ideas.

It is quite interesting that opinion in questionnaire about Turkey and Muslims is quite similar for French and Polish person, although the last one probably did no have any live contact with Muslims.

The way of thinking about Turkey and Muslims is in most European countries quite similar and to some degree is connected to the influence of media.

It is frightening that article with such level of discrimination or even hate speech was eleven on the list showed by google after entering the searched words.

Other websites are also strongly connecting Turkey with Muslims, which in a way could be considered discriminating, and this by manipulating people's language (mostly unconsciousl) forms the way people are thinking and creates stereotypes.

And You, would You like to be reffered as ... (here put your religion or deism, atheism, pantheism ) when someone is using your

nationality?

Are that words and identities the same for You?

References (including all used images):

Background in slides, http://www.euroislam.pl/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/turkey-eu.jpgBareNakedIslam, What better time to leave the EU…, http://www.barenakedislam.com/2013/12/06/what-better-time-to-leave-the-eunow-that-turkish-muslims-will-be-allowed-to-enter-any-eu-country-without-a-visa/ , access 3.01.2014.Barthes R., Mythologies, The Noonday Press – New York 1991.Colachal A. R., Turkey stays ahead in Islamic world, http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/news/editorial/2013/12/05/7257.html , access 3.01.2014.D'Appollonia A. Ch., Frontiers of Fear: Immigration and Insecurity in the United States and Europe, Cornell University Press 2012.EU-MIDIS Data in Focus Report 2: Muslims, European Agency for fundamental Rigths 2009, http://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra_uploads/448-EU-MIDIS_MUSLIMS_EN.pdf , access 3.01.2014.Huntington S., The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World O, Simon and Schuster 2007.Muslims in the European Union: Discrimination and Islamophobia, EUMC 2006, http://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra_uploads/156-Manifestations_EN.pdf , access 3.01.2013.Stam R.,"Multiculturalism, Race and Representation", Film theory: An Introduction, Ed. R. Stam, Malden:Blackwell, 2000.Turkey and EU agree to sign historic visa deal, http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkey-and-eu-agree-to-sign-historic-visa-deal.aspx?pageID=238&nID=59042&NewsCatID=351, access 3.01.2014.Turkey and EU sign immigrant deal, http://www.dw.de/turkey-and-eu-sign-immigrant-deal/a-17300282 , access 3.01.2014.turkey muslim European Union, https://www.google.pl/#q=turkey+muslim+european+union , access 3.01.2014.Turkish PM says Islamic cleric’s followers infiltrated police, judiciary, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/eu-urges-transparency-over-turkish-corruption-scandal/article16119402/ , access 3.01.2014.