Economics: New chapter of capitalist narrative — Farish A Noor

New chapter of capitalist narrative — Farish A Noor


Dr Farish A Noor is a Malaysian political scientist and human rights activist, based at the Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO), Berlin


The issue is not Islam or being Muslim; but rather racial and class discrimination which is not exclusive to Muslims. As long as the poor working class Muslims of Europe do not realise this, and do not try to bridge the gap with other poor working class communities, they will remain a culturally-defined minority that will remain perpetually on the margins


Across Europe today Islam and Muslims are being put to question. In early May the British National Party (BNP) contested local elections across the country calling the elections a “referendum on Islam”. In France similar questions were posed by the Front National on May 1. Likewise in Denmark and the Netherlands. All across Western Europe, citizens are being asked if they are willing to “put up” with the presence of Islam and Muslims in their midst.


Europe’s universalist pretensions have been laid bare and rendered hollow by the parochialism that now masks itself as nationalism. These countries look, sound and feel more like villages in the outback, where villagers are scared of the first black or brown face they see.


To make things worse, thanks to the vociferous campaigning by the extreme right, the political mainstream has also shifted to the right. In Britain, France, the Netherlands, Germany and Italy not a day passes without yet another flaccid editorial piece about “European identity being under threat” and the “failure of multiculturalism”. Western Europe bemoans the end of cosmopolitan pluralism and yet cannot grapple with the structural-economic reasons for the failure of nation building.


Rather than deal with concrete issues of class, power relations and power differentials between the majority and migrant communities, we have passed onto the more ambiguous and abstract register of cultural difference. If Europe cannot deal with Islam and Muslims, so we are told, it is because Muslims are “culturally different”. (Little is said about the “Others” who reside in Europe, including the millions of Jews, Hindus and Buddhists...)


The starting point of this spurious non-debate is the question of violence and instability. The right-wing Islamophobes point to the recent instances of riots by young Muslims in the ghettos and suburbs of London, Paris and other major cities of Western Europe. These instances of civil disobedience and conflict are, for many right-wingers, “proof” that Muslims are generally a burden and troublemakers who ought to be pacified, integrated or repatriated to their home countries. Muslims are presented as a “problem” that needs to be pathologised, analysed and solved. But was this not part of the programme in the first place?


The “programme” here refers to the Liberal-Capitalist project of Western Europe itself. Let us remember that the countries facing the “problem” of failed integration and failed multiculturalism happen to be developed capitalist states. As good political scientist or historian will remind us, capitalist states have always thrived on civil dispute, precariousness, instability and the politics of divide-and-rule.


Capitalism requires a surplus working class that can be played against itself and exploited at will. It requires a surplus of workers who can be domesticated, disciplined and co-opted when the needs of the market arises. Throughout the history of capitalism, the ruling commercial and political elites have sought to keep the workers divided along racial or communal lines so that they do not unite and stir up a revolution.


In the late 19th century the poor workers of England were pitted against the poor migrants from Ireland. The Irishman was cast as the poor white parasite who had descended upon the shores of England to steal jobs from honest English workingmen. Irishmen were contemptuously referred to as the “white niggers” of Europe who were savage drunkards and hooligans best kept at bay by the police baton (later rubber bullets and teargas).


The history of migration to countries like America, the United Kingdom, Netherlands, France and Germany is a record of successive waves of poor migrants being abused, demonised, exploited and turned against other equally poor communities.


Today the debate about “violent Muslims” strikes a resonant chord with this older narrative of mistrust and alienation. Europe’s Muslims are cast in culturalist terms as backward, violent, anti-social and untrustworthy; the way earlier migrants from Ireland and Greece etc and the Jews were portrayed. In all these cases the discussion of cultural difference is a convenient way to avoid a discussion on class, power differentials, institutionalised discrimination and exploitation by capital.


The net effect is also the same. Like the anti-Irish campaigns of the 19th and early 20th century, what is happening today is the division of the poor working classes of Europe along racial, ethnic and religious lines. Yet we often forget that the plight of poor Muslims in Europe is similar to the plight of poor Europeans as well. All these minority communities suffer from unequal mediatic and political representation, less access to education and the tools of governance, less legal protection (and too much policing).


How can the problem be solved? One way out would be for Muslims in Europe to emphasise their class and political identities more and their religio-cultural identity less. The issue is not Islam or being Muslim; but rather racial and class discrimination which is not exclusive to Muslims. As long as the poor working class Muslims of Europe do not realise this, and do not try to bridge the gap with other poor working class communities, they will remain a culturally-defined minority that will remain perpetually on the margins and treated like outsiders.
For too long Europe’s Muslims have blindly walked into the right-wingers’ trap of sectarian communal-religious identification and allowed themselves to be cast and seen exclusively as members of a religious community. Now they need to emphasise the universality of their class condition and see themselves for what they are: the poor and exploited of Europe, no different to the poor Irish of the past.