Religious Multiculturalism Denounced by Greek and UK Media, Anti-Muslim Narratives Spread in Belgium and Hungary and Antisemitic conspiracies Published in Polish and Austrian Media
In September’s Media Monitoring, we saw anti-Muslim narratives in Belgian media, religious inclusivity denounced by Greek media, Polish media spreading antisemitic conspiracy narratives, French media using the war in Ukraine to spread racist tropes, UK media publishing sensationalist articles about religious communities, German language media spreading antisemitic videos and Hungarian media spreading Islamophobic TikTok video.
Belgium – Dutch politician tries to gather support for a nationalist cause, using anti-Muslim narratives
Tom Vandendriessche, a member of the European Parliament from the right-wing, nationalist party ‘Vlaams Belang’ published a column in Doorbraak responding to the outrage about their ‘Our People First’ campaign.
The politician claims that migration from non-Western countries inevitably erodes social capital and increases criminality, justifying his interpretation of nationalism as highly exclusive and prioritizing ‘natives’ and a hostile attitude towards immigration. He presents nationalism as a positive trend, an action in the interest of one’s nation, which is disturbed by the arrival of others.
To support his claim, he calls the US – ‘a migrant nation’ – and discusses how the ‘[t]he Indians, original inhabitants’ live in reservations. He cites Robert Putnam’s speech on the ‘pros and cons of immigration’ and his work on trust and social capital. Based on Vandendriessche’s interpretation of Putnam’s work, he claims that ‘[t]he more heterogeneous, the more trust declines. In other words, the more migration, the more diversity, the more crime and mutual mistrust.’
Vandendriessche eventually engages in fearmongering, claiming that ‘[t]hird and even fourth generation non-European foreigners marry brides from their country of origin, identify with a caricature of Islam that serves as a replacement identity and even turn against our way of life with weapons and bombings’.
What is clear from these arguments is that populist parties are quite comfortable with a disregard for the equality of people and state neutrality. According to Vlaams Belang, the state should be partisan towards one identity, preferably their interpretation. Attempts to build social capital on a less exclusive identity are ignored.
Belgium – Statement by the Justice Minister sparks controversy for its anti-Muslim elements
A statement issued by Belgian Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne sparked a controversy for its explicit anti-Muslim elements. It was issued following the Belgian State’s dismissal of the president of the Muslim Executive in Belgium.
The Muslim Executive represents the interests of the Belgian Muslim community. The organisation faces setbacks after a State Security report showed foreign interference, and its management was questioned for a lack of transparency.
In the statement, Van Quickenborne made an appeal to the Muslim community to ‘organise itself in a transparent, independent and pluralistic manner, on the basis of religious freedom and the democratic and free character of our society’. This statement paints Muslims as underdeveloped and unable to govern themselves according to democratic standards.
The issue was picked up by right-wing media outlets, such as the francophone Nation, which claimed that Belgium is the ‘country where no one can touch suspected Islamists’. Nation uses a recent court case in which the Muslim Executive was found not guilty of the charges against him in order to spread several anti-Muslim narratives and paint Muslims in a negative light.
Greece – Article in the country’s largest newspaper denounces religious inclusivity by using protests in Iran
An article in Kathimerini, one of Greece’s largest newspapers, is using the protests in Iran to justify anti-Muslim and fear-mongering narratives. The author is denouncing religious inclusivity by claiming that the hijab is a ‘confession of loyalty and submission to a regime’.
He looks at the protests in Iran outside of their political context and represents them as outrage of people who admire the ‘Western way of life’. The author criticises multiculturalism in Western societies and claims that those who protest ‘want to tells us that what we consider as a cultural ‘difference’ and we include it within the limits of our tolerance, for these [women] it is an inhumane oppressive system’.
The author writes with a tone that indicates superiority when he talks about the protests in Iran and he uses the protests in order to denounce Muslim clothing. He also touches upon multiculturalism and hints that inclusive ‘trends’ may be a threat to our [Western] societies. He then wonders what the protests would mean ‘for us’ ‘[f]or the self-awareness of a society that is faced with the Islamic threat and must activate its reflexes’.
Poland – A local media outlet in Poland spreads antisemitic conspiracy narratives
An article in Bilgorajska, a local newspaper, is reporting on the public visit of Marcin Rola, owner of recently banned YouTube channel, wRealu24.pl, and Wojciech Sumliński, an author known for his antisemitic books.
The event was organised by the far-right Konfederacja party in the local town of Bilgoraj on 23 September. Both speakers used antisemitic conspiracy theories such as the Great Reset Narrative. They stated that COVID-19 was a plot by Jewish globalists to take over the world, that the war in Ukraine is a repercussion of the pandemic, and that high-profile politicians are involved.
Sumlinski said: ‘I haven’t made it up, the Rockefellers, the Gates and others have a specific origin, I am not obsessed about Jews. I have no problems with Jews, I have a problem with the Jewish liars and those who destroy the world as we know it’. The newspaper reported this and other statements without any additional comment.
Reporting antisemitic conspiracy narratives without any critical commentary misinforms the readers as such statements are unrepresentative of facts, they are emotive and aggravate the public. They also spread hate speech as certain narratives and characterisations are used verbatim.
France – Far-right magazine uses the war in Ukraine to spread racist tropes about immigration
On 18 September Valeurs Actuelles, a French weekly far-right magazine, published an article titled ‘For Louis Aliot, there is a big difference between ‘settling and colonising immigration’ and the reception of Ukrainian refugees’. The use of the word ‘difference’ in the title could be considered as having racial connotations.
The article highlights the anti-migrant and racist views of Louis Aliot, the mayor of Perpignan, which were expressed during a conversation about the proposal for a new French immigration law which is planned to be implemented in 2023 at RMC. He criticised Emmanuel Macron's migration initiative for the resettlement of migrants around France, including the rural areas.
The politician used the war in Ukraine in order to demonise non-white and non-Christian migrants. The journalistic framing of this piece is dangerous as it spreads the Great Replacement conspiracy narrative which refers to people from Muslim background taking over the country.
Aliot claimed that migrants ‘take advantage of the French social system, when their country is not at war.
UK – British tabloid publishes sensationalistic article about religious communities in Leicester
On 22 September, the far-right newspaper Politicalite published an article titled: MOB RULE: Inside Leicester’s violent week of Muslim vs Hindu street Clashes whose content could be described as stereotypical and sensationalistic.
The article reported the violence between Hindu and Muslim religious communities in Leicester. According to the writer these disturbances started since the 28th of August, following the Asia Cup cricket match between Pakistan and India. The writer used the disputes between Muslim and Hindu communities to spread disinformation about the origin of the conflict.
The journalistic angle fails to address the background of Hindutva extremism, a form of Hindu extremism that believes in the concept of cultural hegemony. Spreading sensationalist tropes, the story sends a clear message that the Muslim community is targeting Hindu temples and putting in danger the lives of Leicester’s diverse communities.
This article is full of stereotypical language against the Muslim community, using words such as ‘violent’, ‘gangs’, ‘thugs’, and ‘armed with knives’. According to the Politicalite: ‘Compared to whites, per 100,000 people, Hindus are half as likely to be in jail, while the Muslim population is by a factor of over four times.’
The publication writes in a biased tone, failing to name unreliable sources to back up its statistics. The journalistic angle of the report is unbalanced, and the language used might incite fear and hate speech between diverse groups in the UK.
Germany – Austrian TV channel spreads antisemitic conspiracy videos
AUF1, an Austrian right wing populist broadcaster, published three videos spreading the New World Order conspiracy narrative.
On 22nd September, it published a video, which could be described as propagandist, accusing China of being a globalist country and a pioneer role model for rigid COVID-19 restrictions in the West. The video shows the example of Chinese citizens from Shenzhen and the consequences of not following the state-imposed COVID-19 rules. It shows that citizens failing to have a valid PCR are automatically forbidden to access their own homes.
The TV channel also published a video advertising the campaign: ‘Education and resistance against the Great Reset!’. In this video, the host criticises the ‘coercive’ COVID-19 measures and informs the German population about the historical background of the Great Reset, an economic plan of financial recovery created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The moderator used misinformation and anti-vax narratives such as ‘Corona is a lie' and people are ‘awakened’ to cause fear and to influence the audience into believing that COVID-19 was a hoax.
In the third video, the moderator calls the author Yuval Noah Harari a ‘transhumanist’. This video spreads the antisemitic New World Order conspiracy narrative claiming that David Rockefeller, George Soros, and Bill Gates, among others, held secret meetings with the purpose of reducing the world’s population.
Hungary – Pro-government media outlet spreads Islamisation propaganda in TikTok video
On 31st August, Origo, a pro-government Hungarian news site, published an anti-Muslim article titled: ‘We Muslims will occupy the whole of Sweden’. The article highlights a speech given by the right-wing member of the Sweden Democrats (SD) party Dana Alikabi, on TikTok live about Sweden's freedom of expression and immigration.
The broadcast was interrupted by an anonymous ‘Muslim’ participant from Malmö known on TikTok by the username ‘Yas’. He said: ‘You trashy Islam haters. Islam must grow. Islam will grow and take over all of Sweden. We Muslims will occupy all of Sweden’. The politician used his comments to spread anti-Muslim narratives about Islamisation and responded: ‘It is good that Swedes can see what kind of people live in Sweden’.
This report uses content from V4NA, a sensationalistic news agency as the primary source to back up what they published. V4NA supported the candidacy of Dana Alikabi for the upcoming elections and spread anti-religious narrative that Sweden must not be allowed to become an "Islamic caliphate".
A recent investigation by Atlatszo revealed that the editorial office of the “international news agency” V4NA, owned by KESMA, unofficial chief advisor to Prime Minister Árpád Habony and Defence Minister Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky, was not based in London as it claims, but in Budapest.
Further, Atlatszo discovered that ‘the content republished in several pro-government media outlets is not actually produced by V4NA as a news agency, but mostly copied from the Internet.’
