Comparing and Contrasting Attitudes and Local Contexts: Muslims and Islamophobia in Italy

Last week I had the opportunity to present a paper at the ESA (European Sociological Association) RN34 conference “Religions and Identities in the European Migration Crisis”. The paper showed the results of years of research we did about Islamophobia in Italy and how this impacts young Muslims from reaching their full potential at every stage of their lives, from school to university and at work.

I am glad and surprise at the same time that many friends and colleagues asked me to share my presentation and results. Glad and surprise at the same time because I remember less than 5 years ago my boss at that time telling me “oh you and your obsession with religion! Nobody cares about religion anymore…”. On the contrary, I have always believed that religion is an important issue to be considered while dealing with integration, diversity and intercultural relations in education, healthcare, security and especially in the workplace and in the job market.

I am happy that now more people have started to consider this as an important topic to know, study and be trained more in depth. So here few considerations from our research and the slides presented! Hoping this to be a starting point for future discussion about discrimination in the job market, religious issues and needs in the workplace, and the importance of promoting more awareness and providing training to attract and retain diverse talents and value and transform religious diverse workforce in a add value and a real competitive advantage.

In recent years, partly as a result of the economic crisis, general racism has grown against the vast category of “immigrants” without any distinction between new arrivals and those already settled, some even holding Italian citizenship. The situation has deteriorated in the last years, findings a new target in refugees and asylum-seekers. In this context, the proclamation of the Islamic State and the attacks carried out by its adherents have shone the racism spotlight again on the “Muslims” issue, re-activating the barely-forgotten Muslim-terrorism and immigrant-terrorism associations. Indeed, hostility towards immigrants overlaps with animosity shown towards Islamic extremism, justified by accusations of disloyalty towards the countries where numerous, variegated Islamic communities reside, constituting an internal enemy threatening to perpetrate violent attacks against their host countries.

Incidents of violent fundamentalism, along with the sensationalist approach of the media to the issue, are a likely risk of fuelling exploitation, populist tendencies and of giving support to forms of anti-Islam political propaganda, and anti-immigration feeling in general, at the local level, which may, in turn, hinder the process of integration and the commitment of the associations on the ground to the recognition of their rights.

If it is true that radicalization (and all Italian foreign fighters who have left for Syria and Iraq confirm this) has multiple causes, not only discrimination and the perception of refusal, and can embed in weaknesses, sometimes even personal ones, of individuals who end up embracing religious practices far from their family experiences, radical and irreconcilable visions with the context of life until joining international jihadism, because in search of “meaning” for their own life and belonging to a community, it is also, however, important not to create “people under surveillance” or second-class citizens, who must prove to be good citizens.

Exclusion and difficulty in becoming citizens for the Muslim second generations in Italy, in being recognized with the same rights and opportunities can worsen this perception and lead to the risk of forms of radicalization and violent extremism. The fact that the reform of the citizenship law in Italy has still not been approved risks to cause (as the best among the possible scenarios - and that is already taking place significantly) a new migration (often right after the acquisition of citizenship, years after the first submission of the application) to other European countries, perceived as more welcomed and able to better deal with cultural and religious diversity. The worst scenario is the intensify of feelings of frustration and anger and even the sense of revenge that can lead to the development of forms of reactive identity and radicalization up to the decision to join terrorist groups, finding a community where to belong while the country where they were born still seems to exclude them.