NYC protest against anti-Muslim bias after North Carolina shootings.Demotix/M.Stan Reaves.All rights reserved.“Is it not worrying in itself that European Christianity is now barely able to keep Europe Christian? There is no alternative, and we have no option but to defend our borders.”
These words, written by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán about Muslims fleeing to Europe from Syria, were published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on 2 September. One would be forgiven for thinking that they are the extreme sentiments of a fringe figure in European politics. Indeed, prior to a meeting with Orbán the following day, the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, gave us a salutary lesson in what European Christians ought to think about the migration crisis: ‘For a Christian it shouldn't matter what race, religion and nationality the person in need represents.’ No right-thinking European policy-maker to the west of Hungary would disagree with Tusk—in public; the image of the EU as an anti-racist zone at the forefront of liberalism and democracy is sacrosanct.
The reality, however, is that in 2015 most European states see their Muslim populations as a potential threat to human security. For this reason, the UK, France and other governments are working to extend the already global architecture of Muslim surveillance. Most of the governments of Europe and the wider west are, like Orbán, frightened of Muslims. This Islamophobia has led to the biggest, globe-spanning surveillance apparatus in human history. Beyond the observation that the west has a phobia, few scholars or analysts have attempted an answer the question - why? - why does this mean that Europe must spy on them? We must start to engage with this urgent issue; it lies at the heart of, among other crises, Europe’s current immigration panic—since 2011 most states have wanted to keep Muslim refugees out, and, now the dam has burst, what will be done about it?
