Antisemitism and Islamophobia as Forms of Dehumanisation: The European Problem

Race and religion are entangled concepts. Their entanglement has deep roots in the past which continues to strongly affect the present. It is essential to expose and investigate the race-religion constellation which complements and extends DuBois’ colour line [anti-Black racism] in order to understand racism today, especially those manifestations which are often contested such as against Jews (antisemitism), Muslims (Islamophobia) and ‘Roma’ (antigypsyism or antizyganism). Acknowledging the logic and workings of the race-religion constellation also calls for a re-evaluation of the view that ‘race’ is biological, modern, secular or limited to phenotype. While it is impossible to define racism, which is time and space dependant and thus continuously transforming itself, it is possible to study its ‘logic’. Its logic is one of dehumanisation – which is a matter of degrees (e.g. othering, lesser human, sub-human, non-human etc.). Moreover, as the category of ‘the human’ changed (or man, persons etc.), so did the language and practice of dehumanisation. This is the core of racial logic which when combined with institutionalised power has the potential to exclude and eliminate difference. One way to study this logic is by means of its effects which include, among others, epistemicide, slavery, colonialism, and genocide. To identify these effects, we look to history for an observable pattern, without forgetting that this racial logic operates both explicitly and implicitly. In this paper, I highlight three representative moments in the conceptual history of the race-religion constellation. These are selected not only to challenge the commonly held presumption that racism is modern and secular, but also to demonstrate that its different manifestations share both continuities and discontinuities. The first, where dehumanisation is directed at non-Christians, is the period around the 11-12th century when the Western Christian political community is being demarcated. The second, where dehumanisation lies at the intersection of religion and phenotype, is the period around 15-16th century. It includes the Inquisition, colonialism and the formation of the racial state in Europe and is the first masking of the race-religion constellation. The third, where dehumanisation is defined in biological terms, is in the 18-19th century with the second masking of the race-religion constellation by means of the sciences and the discourse of secularism. What the race-religion constellation makes visible is that even prior to the modern term ‘race’, this logic was present and institutionalized in hierarchical structures of power. I conclude with a contemporary manifestation of the race-religion constellation: the highly problematic term ‘Judeo-Christian’ which has been used to define an exclusionary European identity. This term exemplifies a form of masked institutional racism, in particular Islamophobia, disguised in ‘religious’ categories. This example shows how the race-religion constellation is both an analytic tool and a historical reality.