ABSTRACT
In Islamism and xenophobia, Sverre Varvin discusses attitudes towards foreigners or strangers-immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees in Europe-from the perspective of inter-group relations. The author argues that group processes are responsible for the creation of fundamentalism on both sides and also that the fundamentalism of the other party provokes latent, historically conditioned fundamentalist functioning. The growth of fundamentalist Islam provides an important justification for xenophobia in present-day Europe. International collaboration on reducing the number of refugees and the increasingly harsh conditions in asylum centres points to a dehumanising trend concerning foreigners from third-world countries. Islamism and xenophobia share a hostile attitude towards people who are outside, to strangers, and a fear of being negatively influenced. Ideologies based on xenophobia and Islamism, Varvin argues, appeal to collective fantasies deeply rooted in how groups function, potentially present in every individual’s development. Like the myth of the battle of Kosovo Polje according to which the Ottomans allegedly killed King Lazar and conquered Balkan territories, used by Miloševi as a justification for attacks on Bosnian Muslims (Volkan, 1997), the relational scenarios embedded in these fantasies tend to relate to the group’s historical experiences, especially
traumas, and give meaning to current problematic experiences. Interpersonal forces and pressures as well as unconscious motivations contribute to conflicts with high tension. Opponents are cast in roles that remain a part of the other’s view of the world and agenda, thus being highly dependent on each other to have their worldviews confirmed. An example is President Bush’s response to the September 11th attacks; his definition of the situation as a struggle between good and evil forces was a near replica of the worldview put forward by Osama bin Laden. In such closed scenarios the roles are interchangeable. The party who engages in projections exerts pressure on the other to act in accordance with a fantasised scenario, wherein often roles as the good or the bad figure (Klein, 1946), the victim or the perpetrator are distributed. According to Abdelwahab Meddeb (2003), Islamic fundamentalism uses the Quran for political purposes to do with the cohesion of the group. The tensions involved are those between modernism and traditionalism rather than between Islam and the West. The same theme has been important in the West, especially in National Socialism and, earlier, in anti-enlightenment and anti-modernist trends justified by German romanticist themes. Europe’s scepticism and fear of Islam, marked by projections of aggression and mysticism, reaches back to the medieval era. To the traditional theological consideration of Jihad vs. Crusaders and a need to protect and unify the Christian identity, a more recent type of Islamophobia emerged in Europe as the number of Muslim communities increased in the twentieth century, characterised by increased physical violence, anxiety, and hostility, along with right-wing parties’ use of the fear of Islam for populist purposes. Common themes within anti-modernism (Bohleber, 2002) are myths of an ideal past, utopian dreams of the perfect society, defence against threats from without, and a death cult. There is a preoccupation with purity and blood, a sense of entitlement along with glorification of victimhood and martyrdom. The author adds the distaste for women’s liberation and the total rejection of homosexuality (Varvin, 2003a). It is argued that the European image of Islam is coloured by Europe’s “repressed” anti-modernism, which is then adapted by fundamentalist Islam and finds its representation there. “Islamic anti-modernism”, inspired by and rooted in ideologies of European origin, may, from a European perspective, be seen as the uncanny return of repressed collective fantasies. These ideologies concord with mental processes in late adolescence (Bohleber, 2002); identity-seeking, identity problems, and a tendency to regressively adhere
to group norms. The high unemployment rate in Muslim countries and among Muslims in Europe makes the transition to adulthood difficult, resulting in a prolonged adolescence filled with frustrations. Islamophobia and xenophobia are highly prevalent among the younger generations in Europe and in groups marginal to the labour market. Beneath the attempts to preserve a sober and rational view of the problems of multicultural societies, the author argues, primitive large group dynamics are present on both sides, resulting in the appearance of reciprocal interdependent fundamentalisms.
