ABSTRACT
Since the 1990s, we have seen three forms of negativity towards immigra tion in Western societies: xenophobia, a strong rejection of asylum seekers and illegal migrants, and Islamophobia (Cole 2009), a term coined in 1997 in Britain by Runnymede Trust to describe extreme hostility towards Mus lims. In this chapter, three ideological foundations of the hostility towards Islam by significant segments of the Canadian population will be described (i.e. the belief in the forward socioeconomic and political progress of West ern societies and in the backwardness of Muslim cultures and societies; a narrow, ethnocentric definition of gender roles; the opposition to any politi cal influence by faithbased organizations; and a fundamentalist view of the separation between State and Church). These ideological foundations help to understand the negative discourses on ‘Islam’ in Canada, notably in Quebec, where cultural nationalism, ultralaicism, and defiance of judicial power are strong.3
