The world has been changed by the securitisation of everyday life and the Islamisation of security. The accompanying threat-complex has shifted American sensibilities, says Cas Mudde.
In the case of the seventeenth century Dutch Republic, there was no single, dominant religion. There was also no absolute majority religion. Instead, each province and each town had its own religious cultural groups.
A court in the Netherlands has found the influential politician Geert Wilders innocent of charges of fomenting hatred and discrimination against Muslims. The decision is a challenge both to the rule of law and to Dutch politicians, says Cas Mudde.
The ritual slaughter of animals has become the last of many areas of contention that are changing the shape of our public domains. The way in which Islamophobia is becoming a part of our public ‘common sense’ has complex knock-on effects, not least for our Jewish minorities.
Centre-right parties across Europe are announcing the failure of multiculturalism. We are witnessing a co-ordinated revival of Enoch Powell's idea of the aggressive outsider out to dominate the rest; only now race and immigration are being played out on the terrain of culture and religion
Right-wing populist parties tend to be anti-multinational and anti-intellectual: they endorse nationalistic, nativist, and chauvinistic beliefs, embedded - explicitly or coded - in common sense appeals to a presupposed shared knowledge of ‘the people’.
Why is widespread social anxiety fuelling xenophobia rather than criticism of neoliberal capitalism? What role has the state played? Have we arrived at the paradoxical situation where the best we can do is to call on the state to do its job?
The emergence of a fresh current on Europe's political right, typified by figures such as Geert Wilders, is being widely discussed. But historically informed scrutiny suggests a different view, says Cas Mudde.
Does America want Europe to fail in its accommodation of Muslims? Passing remarks by politicians are often amplified by the international media, but sometimes we should ask why
An annual holiday in the Netherlands that mixes Christmas cheer with racial stereotyping is provoking debate - even if most Dutch people can’t see what the fuss is about, says Philip Ebels.
While packed full of humour and touchy subjects, the Dutch celebration of Saint Nicholas is at once an enduring testimony to the country´s racial imagination and one of the most promising sites of its disruption.
Judgmental journalism directed at members of parliament is an orchestrated form of ‘mob-justice’ in the Netherlands today. Self-appointed media watchdogs present a bigger danger to society than the persons they pursue
