Muslim Discrimination or Islamophobia? Concepts for Advancing Efforts Against Exclusion

Essay · Marcel Maussen on Why Both Concepts Are Needed - and What They Each Reveal About Hostility, Inequality, and the Power Structures Behind Anti-Muslim Phenomena
Political scientist Marcel Maussen argues we need both. Islamophobia, anti-Muslim hatred, and anti-Muslim racism capture the historical, cultural, and discursive structures -colonial legacies, Orientalist tropes, “Great Replacement” conspiracies - that make hostility towards Muslims durable and recognisable. Muslim discrimination, by contrast, plugs anti-Muslim phenomena into the established machinery of human rights law and anti-discrimination policy: legal definitions, remedies for victims, and positive duties on employers and public bodies. Used together, the concepts let us address concrete unequal treatment without losing sight of the deeper structures that produce it.