Paris Demetriades
While antisemitism has reentered public discussion over the past two years, driven by bloody events and the propaganda surrounding them, Islamophobia is the issue that should demand our attention if we truly want to talk objectively about racism, discrimination, and injustice.
First, let’s get the basics straight: no human being should be considered inferior because of race, ethnicity, religion, or any origin. This was the clearest lesson of World War II and the Holocaust, a lesson most of us were supposedly taught in school: no one is inherently superior or inferior to another. By that logic, neither antisemitism nor Islamophobia should have any place in rational thinking.
Yet, looking more closely at how discrimination actually plays out in modern societies, especially in the Western world, the evidence is stark: poor Muslim communities experience the most prejudice, stereotypes, and systemic discrimination. The extreme dehumanization faced by Palestinians in contrast with Israelis in ongoing conflicts is a clear example of how Islamophobia today often outweighs antisemitism in both scale and intensity.
The news coverage over the past two years of the Gaza conflict illustrates this vividly. It became clear that, consciously or unconsciously, media outlets and political figures treated an Israeli life as a hundred times more important than a Palestinian life. Consider the disproportionate attention given to the roughly 1,000 deaths and 200 hostages during the Hamas attacks of October 7, compared with the millions of Palestinians affected.
Islamophobia is the elephant in the room when discussing racism and discrimination in our societies, especially when combined with poverty and economic vulnerability. A recent example came last Sunday, when far-right groups reacted angrily to Syrian celebrations marking one year since Assad’s overthrow. Using the same superficial rhetoric they always adopt, these groups demanded the immediate deportation of Syrians, despite having no objection to exploiting Syrian labor as cheap, unregistered workers. They would never make similar demands regarding wealthier communities, such as Russians or Israelis.
Other clear examples include the pogrom-like attacks on Syrians in Chloraka and Limassol, as well as the broader, everyday suspicion and prejudice faced by anyone who is both poor and Muslim, regardless of their character, religiosity, or willingness to integrate. In Cyprus, perhaps the most glaring form of Islamophobia is the systemic underestimation and devaluation of the Turkish Cypriot community by many Greek Cypriots. Despite lip service to equality, our society daily demonstrates that we do not treat Turkish Cypriots as equals on a social level.
Ultimately, there’s a difference between commenting on cultural behaviors shaped by history, politics, and social conditions and assuming that some people are inherently inferior to others; the latter is the very definition of racism, and Islamophobia remains a persistent, often overlooked example of it in our world today.
*Read the Greek version here.
