Public lecture
Roots of Islamophobia in Central Europe
Dr. Zora Hesová
Fakultet političkih nauka Sarajevo
Četvrtak, 23.5.2019. u 14 sati, Infosala
The year 2015 was the moment in which the question of Islam has dominated public discourse in Central Europe: media reports, political discourses but also everyday communication was dominated by fear of Islam and migration, prejudice, stereotypes and often hostility. For a moment, “an anti-Islam consensus” took hold of public space of the Visegrad countries.
Anti-Islam politics need to be analysed in its context: the anti-Muslim consensus of 2015 was a product of constellation of factors rather of some permanent cultural racism. Anti-Muslim prejudice was openly politically instrumentalized by populist state officials; was part of the reaction to the EU’s handling of migration crisis and anti-Muslim sentiments also played a in national identity debates. But the question remains how permanent this constellation has been.
After defining and contextualising, the lecture will attempt to assess the current state of the above factors, the responses to Islamophobia, and what is the consequences four years after 2015.
Dr. Zora Hesová, assistant professor at Faculty of Art, Charles University, Prague;
Dr. Hesová leads a research project “Contemporary cultural wars in Central and Eastern Europe” within a research group Identities/ideologies at the Institute for political science at Charles University
