Download France, Italy and Germany. Framing racism and intolerance: public

France, Italy and Germany. Framing racism and intolerance: public issues
and denunciations in the news
Frank Peter, Hakan Tosuner, Pauline Vermeren, Simona Pagano
European University Viadrina Frankfurt
March 2012
Part I – France. The case of “quotas of discrimination” in French football
Summary
On April 30th 2011, the online magazine Médiapart published a discussion recorded on November
8th 2010 by the French Federation of Football (FFF), in which the creation of quotas for young
binational players was mentioned. An ever rising number of analyses name these quotas
discriminatory and the discourse itself racist. This Working Paper attempts to give an account of the
converging logics between the legal notion (nationality) and the racial appreciation (the fact of being
―Black‖) as well as the mechanisms of racism (imaginary, individual practices and the
institutionalization of these practices). The analysis draws on two axes of research: firstly, a
postcolonial reading based on the triptych ―race‖/nation/sport, which attempts to explain the
importance of the presence of players with a foreign origin or a dual nationality through French
history (colonization, decolonization, immigration) as well as the racialisation of the French National
team. Secondly, it questions the capacity of the logic of economy to legitimise and at the same time
hide the racial logic at play. This report has been written on the basis of empirical data collected in
the media.
1. Databases
This report was written on the basis of data gathered in two databases. The majority of data
is from the media and concerned with the case of discriminatory quotas in football. To
constitute the first database, I collected 64 items: press articles (60), TV (3) and radio (1)
documents between April and May 2011. The great majority of media covering the case
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was leftwing – Médiapart (31), Le Monde (9), Libération (10), Marianne (11), Arte (1) i-Télé
(1), France Culture (1) – and tried to concentrate the discussion on its social context and to
denounce the various forms of racism – individual and institutional. The case of the quotas
concerned itself with a reprehensible example of discriminatory practices in French society,
and the media insisted on the scandalous character of the original discussion. In the more
rightwing media – Le Figaro (2), Le Point (2), L‟Express (2), Causeur (1), France 2 (1) – the
racist aspect of the case was usually diminished, whilst emphasis was put on how antiracist leftwing use racism to justify their positions.
48 items take into account the racist and/or discriminatory dimension of the case, 11 of
them remain neutral. 4 items do not take into account the racist and/or discriminatory
character of the case. In this case, the press coverage representing binational players,
Arabs or Blacks, is largely antiracist although the voice of this minority remains marginal.
Thus, the discourse reveals a consensus on the denunciation of racism which also reflects
the fear to be defined as racist and the will to shed light on institutional practices of
selections in French football.It was not only the journalists who participated in the public
debate: indeed, apart from the journalists (22), the case was also commented on by
academics (13), activists and militant associations for the fight against racism and
discrimination (6), people working in the sector of football (6) and politicians (6). Most
participants are considered experts on the immigration debate and therefore accustomed to
the sensitive and polemic character of the vocabulary regarding racism and discrimination
(essentialisation/naturalisation, racialisation of identities, reproduction of prejudices, etc.).
To a great extend the media is supporting a rather anti-racist discourse, but their position
still requires more nuance and is not always very clearly stated. Although the majority of the
media promotes in most cases the idea of integration, there is nevertheless a fear of
appearing as an advocate of communitarianism. Besides, some of the items we examine in
this report denounce the way the case was treated by the media, the ―inquisitional‖ strategy
of Mediapart (the magazine that revealed the case) and sometimes support Lauren Blanc
(whose statements have been called racist). 13 items are written (press) or presented (TV
and radio) by a person who can be seen as a representative of the minority concerned or
as being part of this minority itself; 6 items mention the voice of the minority and 44 do not
refer at all to the minority‘s position. We note that a great majority of the media was in
favour of the racist and/or discriminatory ―accusation‖ of the discussion that took place in
the French Federation of Football, whilst hardly interested in the position of the minority and
not opening much space for it to express itself.
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For the second database, I collected 35 items: press articles (29), TV (2) and radio (4)
documents concerned with racism, discrimination and immigration, which chronicles the
racist and/or discriminatory facts and policies commented on between December 5th and
19th 2011 in France. To build this report, I have mostly used articles on discriminatory
quotas in French football. However, some documents from December 2011 refer to more
general political and social problems as well as historic and sociologic testimonies
(archives, analysis) that shed light on the French context31. Most of the articles examine the
―problems‖ regarding immigration and xenophobia with the impact of the financial crisis on
migration and its perception in Europe (being negative and reductive, statements from
media and politicians produce xenophobic reactions and prejudices) (8), stricter immigration
laws and policies for foreign students (according to Claude Guéant‘s circular of the 31st of
May 2011 concerning the foreign non-European students) (2) and the debate on the vote of
foreigners (10). The remaining items divide into: safety in the suburbs (2), the headscarf
and Muslims (1), the 60th death anniversary of Franz Fanon (1), the absence of minorities in
politics (1), the exhibition on human zoos at the Museum of the Quai Branly (1), diversity
and racism (2) and the history of black movements in France (4). We note that these
documents were issued during the presidential campaign in April/May 2012.
Most of the media covering racism and discrimination are leftwing – Le Monde (12),
Libération (7), Médiapart (9), the French international news channel France 24 (2), the radio
France Culture (4) – only one is rightwing – Le Figaro (1).
26 items take into account the racist and/or discriminatory character of the event analysed
in the media thus arguing for antirascism and inclusion, amongst which 8 remain
neutral. Indeed, the great majority of leftwing media appear as a space where the
established rightwing Government can be contested.
Two of the items do not take into account the racist/discriminatory aspect of the case. 8
items are written (press) or presented (TV and radio) by a person who can be seen as a
representative of the minority concerned or as being part of this minority itself. 2 items refer
to the voice of the minority and 25 of them do not mention it.
31
For instance, the documentary on « The history of black movements in France », broadcasted on
radio France Culture.
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2. Overview of Case Study
On April 28th 2011, the online magazine Mediapart published an article entitled: ―French
football: executives want less Black and Arabic players‖. At the centre of the article stood a
meeting of the Direction Technique Nationale (DTN) from November 8th 2010, during which
the creation of quotas to restrict the number of young binational players in training centres
was mentioned. On April 30th 2011, Mediapart published the verbatim transcript of the
meeting, in which the French Football Federation (FFF) and the DTN participated. The
protagonists of the discussion were Laurent Blanc (former important player and now
manager of the national team), François Blaquart (national technical director of the FFF –
whose work consists of training players and managers, talent scouting and administering
the national team), Erick Mombaerts (member of the DTN and selector for the team French
under-21 national team) and Francis Smerecki (manager of the French under-19 national
team). The day after the public release of the discriminatory ideas discussed at the
meeting, François Blaquart was relieved of his duties. Furthermore, two boards of inquiry
were created in order to shed light on the comments described as discriminatory towards
the binational players: one by the Minister of Sports, Chantal Jouanno, and the other one
internally within the FFF.
According to the football executives, the case of the young binational players in the training
centres is problematic and relates to a broader aspect of competition between football
countries. To train young players in France and see them then go play abroad (for the team
of their other nationality), is in fact a loss of investment which becomes beneficial to
opposing teams. As Erick Mombaerts puts it: ―we work for French football, we do not work
for foreign national teams‖. What the analyses later showed is that if some players turned to
their second country, it may be due either to not having been selected for the national team,
or for the sake of promoting the country of origin of their parents. The latter – the ―choice of
the heart‖ as Stéphane Beaud likes to put it – is nevertheless detrimental to the career of
the players.
Two different logics converge in the debate: First, a will to diminish the number of players
holding a dual nationality (legal concept); second, a 'benevolent' will of helping them to
identify (to come to terms with their identity). According to Laurent Blanc, their national
affiliation is uncertain.
Implicitly, the entire discussion refers to the question of ―national identity‖ (legal notion), a
problem extensively discussed in France and specific to these French people with a foreign
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origin or ―appearance‖. Despite the legal aspect of it, it is still too often implicated that
Blacks32 are foreigners. From the criterion or feeling of national belonging, words drift
towards a logic of ―race‖ that has more to do with culture and skin colour. As a matter of
fact, it is less a drifting and rather an implicitly accepted versatility of the linguistic register,
which justifies the legality of the quota debate. For anyone, including for the reader, Laurent
Blanc does not need to clarify his expressions: the transition from nationality, to culture and
to skin colour goes without saying as links already exist in the imaginary as well as in
practice. The sociologist Eric Fassin maintains that the intertwinement of the national and
racial linguistic registers is in fact simply borrowed from ordinary political discourse under
Nicolas Sarkozy: ―It is not so much that the racist discourse is ‗freed‘; it is rather that some
executives of the sports sector, as well as from other sectors, are simply using the
language available in the public sphere‖ (Fassin, 2011). The sociologist Saïd Bouamama
denounces a ―collective blindness‖. The participants of the debate maintain that the
comments have nothing to do with racism and yet, the players ought to identify (to find their
identity): the cultural and physical differences have to be taken into account and the FFF
must account for these differences in its quotas. To partake in racism does not necessarily
imply being a racist, but rather to remain blind to the effects and consequences of the racist
discourse.
Bouamama maintains that biologic ―races‖ do not exist, whilst racism exists socially, making
―races‖ the social products of racism. The comments on the case brought to light a tension
between the accusation of ―racial discrimination‖ and that of ―racism‖. While the media
massively opposed the racist character of the discussion, very few are actually able to
analyse the mechanisms of racism and the systematisation of the racialisation of identities
as social authority and discriminatory power.
The case came out in a socio-political context where the question of the ―race‖ stirred up
many debates in France, most notably since the ―riots of the suburbs‖ in Paris in 2005.
Sociologists are constantly recalling what the context of the Sarkozian era consists of (from
his accession to the Ministry of Internal Affairs in 2002 to the presidency of the Republic in
2007): the creation of a Ministry for Immigration and National Identity (2007), the fight
against illegal immigration, the speech of Dakar (2007), the debate on ―national identity‖
(2009), the expulsion of Romas, etc. These events ―are consistently promoting an implicitly
―white‖ identity, one not corrupted by postcolonial immigration‖ (Beaud, 2010:87).
32
We use the term « Black » in its socially determined meaning.
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Moreover, in October 2010, the parliamentary collective Droite Populaire proposed two
amendments, together with the UMP deputy Lionel Luca: the one would have put an end to
dual nationality, the other was concerned with the acquisition of citizenship by foreign
children between the age of 16 and 21 years old – provided that they have shown a will to
acquire it.
The Knysna case contributed further to the creation of such a context: the strike of ―les
Bleus” in South Africa on June 20th 2010 and the ―trauma‖ it caused within the FFF.
Analyses of the event showed that the players were predominantly presented as traitors of
the Nation in the media, focusing on the supposedly irremediable children of postcolonial
immigration (Beaud, 2011). According to Beaud, the media and the politicians provided a
very radicalising reading of the case when claiming that the ―leaders‖ of the strike were
mostly Blacks. The implicit meaning conveyed was thus that the ―leaders of the strike come
from the suburbs‖ and for most people: suburb = Blacks and Arabs.
The publication of the transcripts revealing the quota idea, poduced an immense media
response. A large group of journalists, academics, as well as associations and public
figures (Eric Fassin, Stéphane Beaud, Pascal Blanchard, Pap Ndiaye and Gérard Noiriel,
The CRAN, The Indivisibles and Lilian Thuram – today actively engaged in the fight against
racism and discriminations) were seized by the matter, which they considered a mirror of
French society. ―Football lies at the symbolic heart of the issues on national identities, not
only in terms of belonging to a country, but also in its most explicit racial dimension […].
Therefore, those in charge of French football today find themselves, whether willingly or
not, occupying a function of national identity entrepreneur. […] During secret meetings, the
leaders of French football are merely stating what is publicly very present everyday in the
national political debates.‖ (Fassin, 2011)
Lilian Thuram, professional football player from 1991 to 2008, played with the national team
that won the World Cup 1998 and the European Football Championship in 2000. He was
member of the federal council of the FFF in 2008, before resigning in 2010. Politically
involved, he was also member of the High Council for Integration and created the Lilian
Thuram Foundation, education against racism33 in 2008. Having been confronted to racism
as a football player, Thuram today grounds his fight against racism upon lived experience
33
http://www.thuram.org/. He aslo wrote Mes étoiles noires. De Lucy à Barack Obama (My black
stars. From Lucy to Barack Obama), Editions Philippe Rey, Paris, 2010.
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and puts the emphasis on education. His position within this debate is clear: it consists of
unconfessed racism, which leads to raise the wrong questions and to fake problems,
notably that of binationalism. This case reaches a national dimension, one which goes well
beyond football itself and reminds of the severely criticised speeches of Jean-Marie Le Pen,
Georges Frêche or even Alain Finkelkraut. In 1996, the leader of the Front National party
Jean-Marie Le Pen judged it ―artificial to engage foreign players and to baptize them the
‗French team‘. […] Other teams sing their national anthem… the French do not because
they seemingly do not know it.‖34 On November 16th 2006, the socialist George Frêche
declared in the newspaper Midi Libre: ―In this team, nine players out of eleven are black.
Normality would require that there were three or four. It would then reflect adequately
society. In this case, if they are so many, it is because the Whites are worthless. I am
ashamed of this country; soon, there will be eleven Blacks. When I see some football
teams, it makes me sad." The same year, in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the philosopher
Alain Finkelkraut said the French team is ―Black, black, black‖, distorting the well-known
formula used during the 1998 World Cup, ―Black, Blanc, Beur‖ (Black, White, Arab) and
commented on the success of French integration policies: ―People say the French National
Team is admired by everyone because it is ―black, blanc, beur‖. In fact, today, the national
team is ―black, black, black‖, which makes it the laughing stock of all Europe.‖
In the media, two possible positions have emerged: One that holds the statements
undoubtedly racist and discriminatory, and one holding that the accusations have gotten out
of proportions, denouncing the instrumentalisation of racism and the impossibility to refer to
the origin of the players without being called a racist. Can sport ethics confront the
amalgam – which is however not one of common sense – of nationality and ―race‖ logic that
converges into a racialisation of the French nation and its institutions, a logic that actually
lies at the basis of the construction of the French Nation and the republican ideas? The
discussion around binational players and potential quotas to limit their number within the
training centres, carries imbedded in it the necessity for national identity clarification and
shows the shift of the discourse towards a racialisation of culture and bodies. ―This is
precisely how ―race‖ functions‖, states Fassin, commenting the case, ―within the semantic
and lexical indecisiveness‖. To be even more precise, the convergence of the linguistic
registers is inevitable today. Logics and lexicons are intertwined, they make sense together
and their links are no longer questioned.
34
(My Italics, P.V.)
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3. Analysis of media framing and agenda setting
Two main arguments will be developed here: Firstly, there is a link between ―race‖, nation
and sport and there is, secondly, a link between an economic logic and logic of ―races‖.
3.1. “Race”/Nation/Sport
The current composition of the French team is explained by a 80 years history of
immigration and (de)colonization. And yet, the FFF executives and the football fans seem to
put aside the reasons and consequences of such a process. However, the stereotypes
present in the leaders‘ discourses come from the colonial epoch: idea of the power of the
―black‖ and stigmatisation of the body. FFF executives speak of the ―black‘s‖ game as a
more physical and therefore more spectacular game. According to them – and since they
do not consider this stigma as producing an essential feature – the black players should be
kept aside; while they are selected for their physical performances, the executives favour a
more technical game that is de facto incompatible with the black body (as it is presented in
the FFF discourse). In so doing, they insinuate that skin colour can define the technique of
a game. The so-called ―over-representation‖ of Blacks in football teams is, ―to a large
extent, due to the recruiters‘ and trainers‘ belief in the innate athletic superiority of Blacks in
comparison to Whites. These prejudices, which often remain vague as to their formulation,
are jointed with presumed 'genetic differences'. These racialising beliefs would for instance
explain the explosive growth or precocious puberty of young Blacks.
[…] During my interviews with the players, the great majority of them were convinced that
Blacks are by nature stronger and faster. The black players shared this opinion and were thus
consciously trying to adopt a style of game based on these qualities.‖
35
Indeed, according to the internal FFF board of inquiry:
―The physical characteristics of the players are at the heart of this reflection. […] More than the
skin colour, the morphology of the players is central to the debates. […] Alongside the attempt
to find a concrete solution to the problem, the repercussions of these statements could be
such that twelve years old French children could be denied entrance to the national training
centres because of this doubled discriminatory criterion (origin and physical appearance)‖.
35
Quentin Girard, « Entretien avec Sébastien Chavigner », Libération, 6 mai 2011.
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The identification with the national team is important and sports should not divert from its
property to produce a discourse on nation: the individual body represents the national body
(Ndiaye, 2008: 224-225). While the executives reduce the presence of black players to their
body as essence, the reason should rather be looked for in the migration and social class
factors. As a popular sport, football is closely tight to waves of migration of the 20th century:
Polish, Italian, Spanish and from the old colonial empire. ―Les Bleus are a mirror of our
national past, which is also a colonial past‖, asserts the historian Pap Ndiaye (Ndiaye,
2008: 229) and also Eric Fassin emphasises: ―We see here how the debate on football
meets the ―problem of immigration‖ as it is posited today― (Fassin, 2011) 36.
Football and immigration are undoubtedly linked: many analyses show the contribution of
immigration has made to French football, the players who put their mark on it (Michel
Platini, Zinedine Zidane, Raymond Kopa) as well as the role football plays for ―integration‖ –
a point firmly underlined in the media and through relating exceptional personal histories.
From the 20‘s to the 70‘s, this immigration was mainly an economic one. Whilst the
immigration of Africans was postcolonial, the arrival of people from the French Caribbean‘s
consisted mostly in a response to the Office for the Development of Migrations in the
Overseas Territories (BUMIDOM), created in 1963. French football, and more precisely the
professional one, is also very much linked to the history of changes in rural and workingclass France between 1945 and 1970. To a large extent, the players had their origins in the
mining North, the industrial and trading East, harbour and industrial cities or working-class
cities. In the 1980s, a cleavage opened between the players from popular origins and the
leader-entrepreneurs, attentive to the developments of this new business that favours one
special training ―à la française‖.‖ (Beaud, 2011: 22).
Nowadays, the ethno-racial or social origin is indistinctly translated into a territorial stigma
by expressions such as: ―from the suburbs‖, ―from the cités‖. ―The term ―Black‖ has
gradually imposed itself on football as a general term for all players coming from the last
wave of immigration. It refers less to a racial category than to a social one. Indeed, most of
the players of African origin who have reached the higher level of football grew up in the
suburbs of Paris (60% of the students in the training centres have the same origin) and in
working-class families […]. They know the ―culture of the suburbs‖ that imposed itself in the
36
See also the exhibition that took place at the Cité Nationale de l‘Histoire de l‘Immigration, in 2010
in Paris : http://www.histoire-immigration.fr/2010/6/allez-la-france-football-et-immigration-histoirescroisees
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pauperized and politically poorly structured suburbs in 1990s and 2000s‖ 37. According to
Laurent Blanc, these players are ―deviant‖ not because of their skin colour, but because of
their social origin that induces specific behaviours. This discussion shows clearly why there
is confusion or rather an (unfortunate) agreement between the racial and the social
vocabularies, which illustrates the ethnicisation/racialisation of the social discourse in
France since the 1980s. On this matter, at least, all the intellectuals agree.
If many famous athletes in France come from the suburbs, they all also agree on that sport
is one of the rare opportunities given to them: sports, and more particularly football,
appears as a unique possibility to climb the social ladder, because ―sport is a vector of
social integration‖38, a symbol of social harmony or is at least perceived to be. In the 1990s,
sport became one of the missions of public service, contributing to social cohesion and the
fight against social inequalities. It falls under the category of public necessities and its
development became legally codified into the state‘s functions on July 6th 2000: ―Physical
activities and sports constitute an important element of education, culture, integration and
social life. They contribute to the health improvement. Their promotion and development fall
under general interest of the nation.‖ The state and local councils saw in it the possibility to
daily confront social problems of the youth in the suburbs (Dubois, 2010: 91). However, in
the discussion, the educational mission determined by the state seems defied.
A postcolonial reading of the discussion, highlights two main aspects: on the one hand, the
question of viewpoint, and on the other, the difficulty to speak about racism. Many articles
recall the discrepancy between the socio-racial situation of the executives (White and
bourgeois, ―of French origins‖, ―as French as you and me‖ 39) and that of the players (―from
migrant origins‖ and lower classes). Without wishing to crystallise the duality of these
situations, one still has to note the feeling of distance that exists between players and those
in power of deciding and judging which category of players can – and should – be
represented in the game – this done for the sake of strategy as much as for the national
image of the football team.
In the discussion, Laurent Blanc anticipates accusations of racism and defends it: ―It has no
racist connotation whatsoever.‖ In general, nowadays, it is uneasy to speak about racism.
37
Beaud, Stéphane et Noiriel, Gérard, « Race, classe, football: ne pas hurler avec la meute »,
Libération, 6 mai 2011.
38
Loret, Alain, « Quand le foot s‘exclut du pacte républicain », Le monde, 11.05.2011.
39
Discussion of November the 8th 2010.
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The fear of being characterised as racist and hence of being the victim of such accusations,
favours the silence or the refusal to analyse the mechanisms at work. On many occasions,
the authors of articles warn against any accusation of racism for it would consist in
allocating bad intentions to those characterised as racist (upon what can we judge them?),
and it would turn them into the victims.
―We never spoke about 'racism', contrary to what those assert, who distort this information of
public interest into an obnoxious and useless debate on the racism of football and of its
executives. To describe a person or a discourse as racist is a value judgment that entails
higher bid into stigmatisation, the one who is designated posits himself immediately as the
victim‖ (Plenel, 2011).
―There are things that should not be said, and especially not as such. I do not wish to enter the
debate of 'racist or not racist', I attack no one, I just say that having held such a discourse is a
40
capital mistake‖ .
Even amongst the intellectual‘s analysis, the name ―racist‖ divides. On the one hand, Eric
Fassin, Pap Ndiaye and Lilian Thuram denunciate irrevocably the racist and discriminatory
aspect of the discussion. On the other, Gérard Noiriel and Stéphane Beaud ―refuse to call
'racist' the speeches of the FFF leaders‖, whilst characterising the quotas in the training
centres as ―clearly discriminatory‖
41
. According to the latter, the problem also lies in the
simplified media coverage that ended up trivializing racism, whilst sparing the efforts of a
rigorous journalistic investigation: ―if one wishes to understand what is truly at stake in this
case, one ought to set it back to its original sports and social context and to highlight the
constraints that weigh on an institution such as the DTN today, within the French
Federation of Football‖. The analysis should take into account the fact that the DTN is
caught up between diverging national and economic-political major interests.
3.2. Logic of economy vs. logic of racism
Almost none of the articles tackle the question of what this racism and its relationship to
discrimination consists of: the difference between imaginary, individual practices and
institutionalization of these practices. Is the logic of economy part of the logic of racism? Or
does the importance of what is economically at stake push executives and trainers into a
40
nd
« Interview de Luc Sonor », Mediapart, 2 of May 2011.
Beaud, Stéphane et Noiriel, Gérard, « Race, classe, football: ne pas hurler avec la meute »,
Libération, May 6th 2011.
85
41
pragmatism that makes them select the best players, independently of their social or racial
characteristics? The logic of economy is here linked to efficiency in football strategies: the
choice of players, their position in the team, the cost of a player, etc. When the case came
out, Laurent Blanc justified himself by saying: ―Personally, I do not speak of ethnic criteria; I
only speak of technical criteria. I am only a football trainer‖ (Fassin, 2011). Does the FFF
contribute to the institutionalization of racism? How can the individual discourse (the
executives and trainers denying all racism) and the practices of a system (however created
by individuals) be distinguished from one another? Can the economic market, of which
football is part, be distinguished from the institutionalization of racism and the creation of
discriminatory quotas for the young French but binational players? Dual nationality is a legal
status, the executives are, however, not shocked by the possibility of implementing quotas
– the only exception being Françis Smerecki: ―I say: in the first place, it is discriminatory.‖
In 2003 and again in 2009, the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA)
modified the nationality criteria in order to simplify the ―possibility for players with a migrant
origin to chose the national team of their parents‘ country‖ (Beaud, 2010: 241). However,
the interests of a such strategic decision turned against the executives' appreciation: ―For a
team such as the French one, the main characteristic of which is that it for generations
draws from the always renewed source of descendants from immigration, the easing of this
rule on sports nationality can deprive it of some of its best elements‖ (Beaud, 2010: 242). If
they seem to concern solely a football-strategy, these discourses nevertheless serve an
economical logic touching upon the freedom of players. It also breaks down to a highly
political question regarding the relationship North/South: on the one hand, we have the
profits made by European countries resulting from the work-related immigration of the
1960s and 1980s together with the pool of talents constituted by the young players of
African origins (mostly from North and Sub-Saharan Africa); on the other hand, the
countries of the South for which dual nationality makes it possible to benefit from the results
of sport-related emigration (Beaud, 2010: 254). From 2003 to 2009, the choice of
binationals to play for team A (if selected) of one or the other country of their citizenships
set at 21 years ―usually threw them back to a conflict of identity they had for most long
overcome‖ (Ibid.: 257). In 2009, this age limit was erased. If the trainers of the North rather
see it as a loss of investment, the countries of the South, on the contrary, perceive it more
as ―a redistribution/compensation for the loss in human resources of the country of
emigration‖ (Ibid.: 258). However, what the leaders do not usually mention is that, most of
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the time, if the players go back to their country of origin, it is because they did not make it to
the French National team.
Fassin recalls that ―it is not necessary to be racist in order to partake in systemic logics of
discrimination. This is what one can call – in opposition to the racist intention – the effective
racism inscribed in implicit practices rather than in explicit ideologies‖ (Fassin, 2011).
Racism is here described more as a prejudice about certain groups; and yet, when
individualized, this racism still acquires a moral dimension. Nevertheless, the articles never
mention the risk of institutionalizing racism and integrating discrimination into structures.
Indeed, as Fassin says: ―it is not as much daily racism as it is the institutionalization of
discrimination. It is not only about discourses and practices, but also about politics – and
hence it constitutes one more step towards a logic of discrimination‖ (Ibid.). How can we
think racism beyond all intentions, i.e. systemically, from the viewpoint of the functioning of
structures and not from ideas? Do the executives and managers, while pursuing their task
of player selection, whilst making use of unconscious criteria of selection, by necessity
produce some sort of racism? Racism is a way to structure society and it matches the
necessities of the FFF as much as those of the Nation. Therefore, what is needed is a
rethinking of football in terms of systems and identifying the actual effects of economic
rationality.
The analysis of this case requires giving an account of the multiple expressions of racism
and discrimination: systemic racism, institutional racism, racial discrimination, racist
discrimination, direct and indirect discrimination, systemic discrimination, structural
discrimination.
In the articles covering the case, racism is associated to racial discrimination and to the
superficial care the leaders of the football sector have for it – just as if sports in general, and
football in particular, was exempt of racism by virtue of its unifying nature. Football is no
longer associated to its integrative role (strongpoint of the fight against racism). The people
in power, refuse to be called racist, and yet their discourses have largely been described as
discriminatory. Who does this denunciation come from? And where is the border that
determines whether this case is of a racist nature or whether these discourses are
discriminatory? The article published in Mediapart on May 6th 2001 by Alain Piriou, an
expert in the fight against discriminations, answers the question by confronting the
discourse of the FFF executives with the Penal Code. He notes that the discourses are illicit
for four main reasons: direct discrimination related to nationality, indirect discrimination
87
regarding ―race‖ and nationality, injunction of discrimination and use of personal data. The
racism at play here is not only associated to discriminatory practices (quotas), but also to a
xenophobic logic concerned with the proof of belonging to a nation (problem of dual
nationality, skin colour linked to nationality).
Saïd Bouamama underlines that the disagreement regarding the interpretation of ―racist
discriminations‖, is constantly denied in France. On the one hand, there are those who think
racist discriminations are the result of individual behaviours imbued with racist prejudices
and constitute an expression of xenophobia regarding migration (ideology). On the other
hand, we find those who consider these discriminations as systemic, structured by a
colonial imaginary, ―that is, inscribed as one of the contemporary regulating modes of
capitalist production‖. The imaginary, structures visions and reproduces colonial
representations (paternalism, cultural explanations, etc.). To analyse racism and
discriminations through the lens of colonial inheritance is to consider the ―colonial
contribution‖ as persistent in the imaginary as well as in the practices in terms of an
economic logic. To speak about contemporary racism is to speak of its genealogy (of the
consequences of the enslaving and colonial systems) and to know whether this colonial
way of reading the case can exhaust itself through changing the mentalities by educative
means or if it represents a social way of relating inherent in the management of the
economic system. At stake in the former, is racism imposed by a dominant category, while
in the ladder, ―racist discriminations are perceived as a means to the reproduction of a
social system‖ (Bouamama, 2007).
Hence, the question raised by the discussion of the FFF and the DTN allows developing
further the problem of racism and discrimination in terms of lack of knowledge of the Other,
incriminating the Other for his failed integration and his cultural backwardness. The
discussion encourages to tackle the ―social processes of production of discrimination,
completely legally‖. Post-colonial racism is ―a constant and systemic production of our
society, the representations inherited from the past are reformulated and newly empowered
to serve contemporary interests. It is indeed our society that, today, keeps on producing
indigenous populations in the political meaning of the expression: ―sub-citizens‖, ―subjects‖
who are not foreign legally speaking but who are nevertheless not treated as full French
citizens‖ (Tevanian & Bouamama, 2011).
Conclusion
88
Following the case of the quotas concerning the young binational players in French football,
the proliferation of reactions in the media – mostly leftwing and anti-racist ones – raises the
question of what racist and discriminatory discourses mean individually and institutionally.
At stake is what the sociologist Eric Fassin calls a ―shift‖ in the linguistic registers (from
nationality to skin colour) together with what we suggest to call a convergence of logics,
implicitly acknowledged and known by everyone. The analysis of the mechanisms of racism
(imaginary, individual practices and institutionalization of these practices) raise the question
of a ―collective blindness‖ (Saïd Bouamama), i.e. of the blinding effect and consequences of
these discourses.
We have chosen to consider the case along two different axes found in the media:
-
A postcolonial reading based on the triptych ―race‖/nation/sport
The logic of racism confronted to the logic of economy
The first axis was chosen in order to explain the importance of the presence of players with
a foreign origin or dual nationality through French history (colonization, decolonization,
migrations), together with the racialisation of the French National team. The second aspect
questioned the capacity of the logic of economy to legitimize and at the same time hide the
logic of racism at play.
What we shall remember from this analysis of the mechanisms of racism is that: on the one
hand, stereotypes and stigmas are maintained in the mentalities and representations (origin
and physical belonging keep on being associated to technical and strategical capabilities);
on the other hand, the constant questioning of institutionalizing racism – i.e. to what extent
individual discourses can be distinguished from the practices within a particular system.
References
Bouamama, Saïd (2010) Les discriminations racistes : une arme de division massive.
Préface de Christine Delphy. Paris: L'Harmattan.
Bouamama, Saïd (3/2007) « La coloration tendancielle des classes sociales et sa
traduction politique », Empan, n° 67, pp.36-40. www.cairn.info/revue-empan-2007-3page-36.htm
Bouamama, Saïd et Tevanian, Pierre (février 2011) « Un racisme post-colonial »,
Rencontre-débat. http://lmsi.net/Un-racisme-post-colonial#nb1
Beaud, Stéphane (2011) Traîtres à la nation. Paris: La Découverte.
89
Beaud, Stéphane (15 juillet 2011) « Football français : l‘« affaire des quotas » remise dans
son contexte, historique et institutionnel », in Délinquance, justice et autres questions de
société. www.laurent-mucchielli.org (a).
Dubois, Laurent (2010) Football Empire. University of California Press.
Fassin, Eric, « Les mots dont souffrent le football », Mediapart, 1er mai 2011.
Guérin, Jean-Yves et Jaoui, Laurent (2008) Noirs en bleu : le football est-il raciste ?.
Préface de Lilian Thuram. Paris: Editions Anne Carrière.
Ndiaye, Pap (2008) La condition noire. Essai sur une minorité visible. Paris: Calmann-Lévy.
Poiret Christian (2011) Les processus d‘ethnicisation et de raci(ali)sation dans la France
contemporaine : Africains, Ultramarins et « Noirs », Revue Européenne des Migrations
Internationales, vol. 27, n° 1, pp.107-127.
Poiret, Christian, Hoffmann, Odile et Audebert, Cédric (2011/1) « Editorial. Contextualiser
pour mieux conceptualiser la racialisation », in Revue Européenne des migrations
internationales, vol.27, pp.7-16.
90
Part II - Italy: Chasing the Gypsy, immolating the Gypsy, securing the city
Summary
This report is concerned with an analysis of how Roma living in so-called nomad camps are
represented and constructed in the Italian media. For this purpose we created a database in which
we collected 86 newspaper reports, trying to cover the ideological spectrum from right to left wing
newspapers, both national and regional. ―Il Tempo‖, ―Il Messagero‖, ―La Stampa‖, ―Nuovo Paese
Sera‖ and ―La Repubblica‖ and a few local (online) newspapers and websites were our sources. The
database contains news items collected in the period from September 2011 until December 2011,
divided into sections around the two cases we researched. Our first case concerned media coverage
about the ―Nomad Plan‖ established by Rome City Council in 2009, after former Prime Minister Silvio
Berlusconi issued the ―Emergency Decree‖ on Roma and Sinti populations in Italy by 2008. The
kernel of the Nomad Plan consisted in dismantling so-called illegal camps, transferring the Roma into
authorized camps (container villages), their surveillance by private security services and
identification procedures during censuses. In November 2011 the emergency decree was declared
to be unlawful by the Council of State following a judicial complaint by a Roma family and the ERRC
(European Roma Rights Center). We wanted to know if the policy change had any impact on media
coverage. The second case concerned the setting on fire of a Roma camp in Turin after a girl
claimed to have been raped by two Roma, which, as she later admitted, was a lie to cover up her
first intercourse with her boyfriend.
To what extent did the newspapers report racism, and was racism a key feature in the representation
of the Roma? How did newspapers contribute to shaping hostility towards the Roma and perpetuate
racist discourses and practices?
Using discourse analysis we tried to answer these and other questions. The method of media
framing allowed us to depict three recurring major frames in the debates around the Roma, defined
as ―Roma as a problem‖, ―Roma as victims‖ and ―Roma as agents‖. All three frames appeared in
each newspaper, with a slight misbalance in favour of left and centre-left newspapers, who framed
Roma more as victims than as a problem, while the reverse applied to right and centre-right wing
media. Racism was hardly mentioned, and as our previous analysis within the TOLERACE project
revealed, was depicted as an individual and exceptional phenomenon. We concluded that even
though racism is ‗banned‘, all the media shape hostility towards the Roma, and perpetuate and
practise racist discourse, contributing to the maintenance of a racist epistemology.
Introduction
In the course of the TOLERACE Project various work packages have been devoted to
discourses on (anti-)racism and tolerance. Within these work packages42 we have looked at
forms of institutional racism through interviews and in-depth analysis of key documents, as
well as at forms of (anti-)racism, both institutional and societal, in the fields of occupation
42
WP1 „The historicity of tolerance and (anti-)racism. Analysis of Integration and Anti-discrimination
Policies of Public State-Endorsed Institutions in Italy‖; WP2 ―The Geography of (anti‐)Racism and
Tolerance: Local Policy Responses, Discrimination and Employment. Roma in Italy‖; WP3 ―The
analysis of education policies, discourses and practices: opportunities for education within difference.
Roma in Italy‖.
91
and education, key life spheres that can be seen as criteria for successful integration into
mainstream society. The Italian team has worked on an analysis of (anti-)racism against the
Roma population in the city of Rome, and has concluded that on an institutional level little
success has been achieved towards including Roma living in so-called nomad camps in the
occupational and educational sectors and hence laying foundations for their inclusion into
the mainstream.
This work package consists of an analysis of the role of the media in shaping racism
towards the Roma minority or, instead, in signalling racism (of every form: institutional and
individual) towards this marginalized community.
The marginalization of Roma in Rome is particularly blatant. As already accurately
described in the previous reports on occupation and education, the Roma our team has
focused on live in ―nomad camps‖, heavily degraded areas that resemble shantytowns and
that are also called ―favelas‖, ―ghettos‖ or in particular denigrating terms ―sewers under
open sky‖ (if ―illegal‖), or lager-like structures if ―legal‖/‖authorized‖ structures. This
population is regularly targeted in election campaigns as a ―problem‖ or ―emergency‖, a
danger to ―public security‖ and urban order and decorum, or as unstoppable invasion
characterized by misery and deterioration (Daniele 2011: 30).
In 2008 a decree concerning the Roma and Sinti population of the Italian Regions of
Lombardy, Latium and Campania was issued by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. It
referred to the ―emergency status in relation to the presence of camps inhabited by
nomads‖43 and was said to exist because of the imminent threat to public order and security
caused by the presence of the ―nomad camps‖. The decree was extended every year until
in November 2011 it was declared to be unlawful by the Council of State. The emergency
status was declared within a greater legislative initiative, the so-called security package.
While it is not uncommon to declare emergencies in relation to various phenomena, this
was the first attempt to tackle the ―Roma problem‖ with such extraordinary measures44, as a
consequence ‗normalizing‘ a social phenomenon.
The emergency decree designated special commissioners to overcome the emergency
status who were given extraordinary powers to derogate from the current administrative,
43
―Stato di emergenza in relazione alla presenza di campi abitati da nomadi‖.
The Emergency Decree is founded on the law on civil protection that is proclaimed in cases of
natural disasters and other exceptional events.
92
44
urban and environmental legislation that had hitherto governed the Roma settlements. The
decree acquired concrete form in the city of Rome with the ―Nomad Plan‖45, which mainly
consisted in forced evictions and dismantlement of the Roma settlements and the relocation
of Rome‘s Roma population to controlled and managed areas of the city, establishing upon
them a ―regime of exception‖, while placing them ―in a zone on the margins of the
institutional and political architecture, a zone constructed on ethnically motivated
separation‖, and ―experimenting with unprecedented arrangements and practices of control‖
(Daniele 2011: 31)
Even though the emergency decree was considered to be unlawful, the ―Nomad Plan‖ is
still being implemented, at least in the city of Rome. This means that the violent 46 evictions
continue, that the camps are still watched by private police services and that therefore the
Roma are still marginalized. An artistic event promoted by Associazione 21 Luglio47 and
Popica Onlus48 in March 2012 entitled ―Porrajmos. Extermination and resistance of the
Roma‖49 ended with the petition ―The right to housing must not be evicted‖ to stop the
forced evictions50 and was signed by various Italian intellectuals. The petition was
questioned by the alderman for security, who stated that:
[T]he city council has been legitimated by the people‘s vote to continue with the evictions and
the removal from the territory of nomads who camp illegally in the city. We invite those who
question this aim to concede the luxuries of their own homes and their noble neighbourhoods,
their untouched landscapes and celestial silence, to share with thousands of Romans what
remains of their neighbourhoods that have fallen prey to the raids of the Roma and the way
most of them typically live in degradation, dirt and illegality (Fabrizio Santori)51.
45
For a detailed account of the ―Nomad Plan‖ please consult the report on work package 2 of the
Italian team.
46
The evictions are carried out by an excessive presence of police forces, who arbitrarily destroy the
shacks of the Roma and all their belongings. Cases of physical and verbal abuses have been
reported. Furthermore the evictions prevent children from continuing to attend school, also due to the
fact that no alternative, secure accommodation is guaranteed after their evictions.
http://www.unita.it/sociale/stop-agli-sgomberi-dei-rom-br-appello-dalla-cultura-ad-alemanno1.388201 [accessed: 7.3.2012]
47
Associazione 21 Luglio is a small advocacy association constituted in April 2010 that works
especially for respect of the international convention on children‘s rights, signed in New York in 1989.
48
Popica Onlus is a Roman antiracist organisation working for and with (Roma) children originating
from the Balcans and Romania.
49
―Il diritto all‘allogio non si sgombera‖, see: http://www.21luglio.com/ [accessed: 6.3.2012]
50
425 evictions in the last two years at a cost amounting to € 6.5 million according to ―Associazione
21 Luglio‖
51
Fabrizio Santori on:
93
As we can see, in this derogatory statement, Roma are associated with dirt, disgust,
pollution and crime. This imagery of the Roma as a sort of ‗plague‘ that pollutes the territory
is a frequent topos of anti-gypsyist52 discourse and is perpetuated by such statements of
influential political exponents. In sum, in recent years the Roma in Italy have witnessed a
process of racialization and ―ethnogenesis‖ within securitization discourses (D‘Orsi, Torani
2009: 12), In other words, this is a process of doing nomad/gypsy, and as D‘Orsi and Torani
underline, a construction of a homogenous group characterized by its diversity and
delinquency – in order to serve a certain electoral rhetoric (ibid.). These security discourses
have not only set their stamp on the electoral period but have operated and still operate on
a deeper level, influencing ―our everyday way of perceiving and interpreting reality‖ (ibid.).
Roma in Italy are mostly referred to as ―nomads‖ or as ―zingari‖ (―Gypsies‖), seldom as
―Rom‖/‖Roma‖ which is their own denomination. Furthermore, as this report will show,
media reports are to a great extent concerned, as already mentioned, with crime
perpetrated or allegedly perpetrated by Roma and the destruction of their shacks in the
camps, under the (new) policy plan ―Piano Nomadi‖. Media reports influence our perception
of reality and may enhance racism.
Media discourse is the main source of people‘s knowledge, attitudes and ideologies, both of
other elites and of ordinary citizens. Of course, the media do this in joint production with the
other elites, primarily politicians, professionals and academics. (Van Dijk 2000: 36)
The media opinion makers contribute on a large scale to perpetuating this imagery of the
Roma, framing the Roma either as ―a problem‖, ―criminals‖ or also as ―victims‖.
1. Overview case study
This part of the report provides an overview of our case study and addresses the
significance of the media in shaping racism or opposing it through their coverage. As
outlined above, the Roma are vigorously discussed in national and especially policy-making
discourse due to the so-called Nomad Plan and the declaration of the state of emergency in
http://www.fabriziosantori.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=13169
[accessed: 6.3.2012]
52
The term anti-gypsyism is largely discussed among scholars. See the report by our team on the
occupational situation of the Roma for a detailed description of anti-gypsyism as a specific form of
racism.
94
2008. The first case study, therefore, is concerned with the media debate around the
―Nomad Plan‖ in the period from September 2011 to December 2011. This case study was
chosen because, due to the ‗normalization‘ of the Roma emergency, it had a great impact
on the Roma population in the city of Rome and on the perception of the Roma as a
―problem‖. However, the emergency status and therefore the local ―Nomad Plan‖ were
declared to be unlawful by the Council of State on 16 November 2011, when it upheld the
appeal in the regional administrative court of law by the ERRC and two former Roman
inhabitants of Casilino 900 against the emergency decree and the ―Nomad Plan‖. We chose
the case to analyse the media coverage before and after the ruling by the Council of State.
The overarching aspect of the ―Nomad Plan‖ in Rome is the debate about the ―emergency‖
the Roma population ‗causes‘ and the ways the city administration tries to resolve it (the
methods have been briefly listed above). Within this debate, aspects of security and
danger, deviance and criminality are illustrated, especially in the conservative and rightwing newspapers, while issues about discrimination and ―xenophobia‖ are illustrated
foremost by left-wing national newspapers.
The second analysis concerns the alleged rape of a 16-year-old girl in a working-class
quarter in Turin by two Roma in December 2011. After the girl reported the sexual abuse, a
spontaneous demonstration tried to show solidarity with the girl. The demonstration
degenerated into a pogrom in which the Roma camp where the two alleged rapists lived
was burned down and completely destroyed, which in turn made the girl confess that she
had invented the story of the rape, as she was not allowed to see her boyfriend and her
parents made her take a ―virginity test‖ once a month. This case study is interesting since it
shows overt racism, hate crimes and hate speech towards the Roma, but also suggests
discourses around security and deviance as well as the gender dimension of racism and
violence. Furthermore, the debate then turns to whether the decision of the Council of State
to declare the Emergency Decree unlawful was justified.
We have collected in total 86 news items, both from right-wing, centre-right/left and leftwing newspapers that we have analysed with the discourse analytical approach. The media
items analysed within the first case study consist of one nationwide centre-left newspaper
(―La Repubblica‖), two local centre-right/ right-wing newspapers in Rome (―Il Messagero‖
and ―Il Tempo‖) and one local online left-wing daily magazine53 (―Nuovo Paese Sera‖). The
53
Published periodically as monthly magazine.
95
media items analysed in the second case study consist of three online news sites, the
centre-left national newspaper ―La Repubblica‖, the centre-right national newspapers ―La
Stampa‖ and ―Il Messagero‖, and finally the national newspaper specialising in economic
affairs, ―Il Sole 24 Ore‖.
2. Approaching racism
Even though the report is concerned with specific logics of racism – the anti-gypsyism that
specifically targets Roma – we shall consider a general approach to racism and later
specific forms of framing the Roma in media coverage and performances of racism towards
this minority group in the media. First of all it has to be said that to provide a clear and
concise definition of racism is a task hard to accomplish. The term racism is used today to
describe a variety of discriminatory and marginalizing practices towards members of groups
that are perceived to be different culturally and/or biologically (Kerner 2009: 44). Scholars of
racism theories are divided on how to demarcate racism, how racism works, and who is the
target of racism and why. Furthermore, various proposals compete to differentiate different
forms of racism (ibid.).
Teun Van Dijk who has specialized in the analysis of racism in the media proposes defining
racism as a
[…] social system of ethnic or racial inequality, just like sexism, or inequality based on class.
That system has two main components, namely a social and a cognitive one. The social
component of racism consists of everyday discriminatory practices, on the micro-level of
analysis, and organizations, institutions, legal arrangements and other societal structures at
the macro-level. Since discourses are social practices, racist discourse belongs first of all to
this social dimension of racism. (Van Dijk 2000: 35-36).
In a previous publication he had already defined racism as a ‗property of ethnic group
dominance‘ and identified it as ―the historically rooted dominance of whites (Europeans)
over Others‖ (Van Dijk 1993: 47 in Law 2002: 20) that remains one of the ―most pernicious
problems of white society‖ (Van Dijk 1991). One of the characteristics of racism is to deny
or to play down the prevalence of racism (ibid.) and to assign the responsibility to those
who suffer from racism, or in other words to ―blame the marginalized‖ (Goldberg 1993)/ the
victims of racism for the persistent inequalities of racism (Van Dijk 1991). According to
Philomena Essed racism is inherent in culture and social order, more structure than
96
ideology, and most importantly reinforced through everyday practices (Essed 1991: 2).
Being defined as ideology, structure and process, racism leads to the exclusion of certain
groups (considered as culturally and/or biologically different and inferior) from material and
non-material resources (Essed 1992: 375).
Another important approach to the understanding of racism is provided by Shoat and Stam
(1994) who draw onto psychoanalytical theory and on the work of Frantz Fanon (1967) to
explain their conception of ―colonial-style racism‖ (Law 2002: 23). According to them,
racism has a ―double movement of aggression and narcissism‖, in which the victim is
abused and the abuser complemented, which in turn indicates the pleasure of racist
expression, as Law stresses. Inherent to this form of racism is its ambivalence ―in loathing
and loving the object of racism […] characterized by Stuart Hall (1992) as ‗fantasies of
degradation and desire‘‖ (ibid.). Shoat and Stam describe six key mechanisms of racism
that are neither necessary nor essential for the detection of racist discourse, but do assist in
the elaboration of aspects and dimensions of negative attribution:
Projecting deficiency (in ability, civilization etc.), establishing hierarchies, blaming the victim,
coolness to claims of oppression, seeing the life of those subject to racism of less or no worth,
and the elaboration of a discourse of reverse discrimination (apud Law 2002: 23- 24).
Finally, it has to be underlined that today‘s racism differs from earlier forms of biological/
scientific racism, insofar as it is not explicit, wants ―to be democratic and respectable, and
hence first off denies that it is racism‖ (Van Dijk 2000: 34). The difficulty in tackling racism is
its ―chameleon-like character‖ that makes racism change and vary across time and different
contexts (Law 2002: 16). As already shown in the other reports in our project, today ―real
racism‖ (ibid.) is considered foremost a problem of the extreme right, or a problem of ‗ill‘
people, but never a problem of society as whole.
For our analysis we want to sum up racism as a system of unequal power relations that
permeates society in every aspect, and that has devastating effects on its targets. In this
report we will focus on racism in the media, that is, we will look at the perpetuation of
racism through media coverage and therefore concentrate on racism as everyday
performance.
3. Analysis of media framing and agenda setting
97
3.1. Methodology: Media framing and discourse analysis
The analysis of how racism against Roma is perpetuated through mass media should follow
the scientific assumptions of reliability and validity (cf. Law 2002). For this purpose the
method of media framing and discourse analysis is suitable (ibid.). The assumption is that
discourse is a social practice, and as such also a social practice of racism and at the same
time the main source for people‘s racist beliefs (Van Dijk: 36). In other words, (anti-) racism
is ‗taught‘ through text or talk (cf. ibid.).
The analysis of news reports involves the detection of racism as speaking of/referring to a
collectivity/ or a ‗race‘ with negative attributes. It is important to stress that the presumed
existence of ‗races‘ has to be considered as the fundament of racism, but that they are
―entirely mythical and imagined creations‖ (Law 2002: 24). The construction of human races
(on the basis of phenotypical differences or other imagined differences) and the subsequent
negative attribution of certain characteristics to those is a social process.
The detection of racism in media coverage involves, to begin with, a detailed ‗look‘ at the
article and the pictorial representation.
Media discourse is the main source of people‘s knowledge, attitudes and ideologies, both of
other elites and of ordinary citizens. Of course, the media do this in joint production with the
other elites, primarily politicians, professionals and academics. (Van Djik 2000: 36)
For example do headline and photo already shape hostility, by showing as in the case of
Roma a photo of some shacks surrounded by piles of rubbish? Or does the headline speak
of ‗nomads‘ and ‗gypsies‘ instead of Roma? If the headline refers to the Roma as Roma,
the content of the media item may nonetheless shape hostility and perpetuate racism. In
this case the task is then first to detect the signifier of the sign (cf. Law: 24) which would be
the ‗race‘ of the Roma.
Signifiers of race may include words (e.g. black, white, Caucasian, Negroid, ethnic, immigrant,
Gypsy) or pictures (persons of common skin colour) and are open to complexity and variation
in meaning and interpretation (ibid.).
This part includes what in a stricter sense may be called discourse analysis. The discourse
analysis may focus on overall topics in a ―semantic‖ analysis, while on the ―syntactic‖ level
the overall organization of the news report may be examined in detail (Van Dijk 2000: 35).
Furthermore, the analysis should focus on ―style‖, ―rhetorical devices‖ (e.g. metaphors) and
98
―speech acts‖ (e.g. promises or threats). Later the strategy of the news report has to be
analysed in order to detect how it contributes to the promotion of racism. Van Dijk stresses
that news about ―immigrants‖ often focuses on a restricted set of topics, such as the arrival
of new ―illegal‖ immigrants, political responses to immigration, reception problems, social
problems, response of the population, cultural characterization of the ‗others‘ and negative
characterization as well as a focus on perceived threats like prostitution, crime, violence
(Van Dijk 2000: 38). He underlines that
[S]ince topics express the most important information of a text, and in news are further
signaled by prominent headlines and leads, they are also best understood and memorized by
the readers‖, that means that ―negative topics have negative consequences on the minds of
the ‗recipients‘(ibid.).
The discourse analysis, then, includes not only the content but relates to the social,
economic and political context, as Van Dijk underlines.
Secondly, the negative attribution of race has to be measured. Negative attribution can
include minorities acting against a white norm,
the assessment of racial and cultural representation in comparison to real life, the evaluation
of the privileging and silencing of different cultural voices in relation to Eurocentric norms and
the perception of negative attribution of racialized groups by themselves (Law 2002: 25).
The questions are then, for example, does the item shape hostility or is it neutral? Does the
minority group have a voice in the item and how is this voice interpreted?
Thirdly, the task of analysing racism in the media also involves analysing how Roma are
framed in general. A frame can be considered as a concept or cognitive structure that is
needed for the perception of reality (Tannen 1993). Gitlin defines a frame as a ―principle of
selection, emphasis and presentation‖ that is composed of ―little tacit theories about what
exists, what happens, and what matters‖ (Gitlin 1980: 6). A frame in this case provides the
foundation on which an event is interpreted. Eventually a frame may be understood as a
metaphor, which means that it ―can be the organizing idea upon which a story is built‖
(Reese 2008: 98). Ultimately, as Entman points out:
[T]o frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a
communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal
99
interpretation, moral evaluation and/or treatment recommendation for the item described
(Entman, 1993: 2)
That means that framing includes the construction of an agenda ―with a restricted number
of thematically related attributes in order to create a coherent picture of a particular object‖
(McCombs; Ghanem 2008: 70).
In media, the concept of framing is used to describe how events are presented to their
readers. In so doing,
framing adds the possibilities of additional, more complex emotional responses and also adds
a cognitive dimension (beliefs about objects as attitudes). Second, framing recognizes the
ability of a text – or a media presentation – to define a situation, to define the issues, and to
set the terms of a debate. […] Convincing others to accept one‘s framing means to a large
extent winning the debate (Tankard Jr. 2008: 96).
As Tankard continues, it is crucial to understand that news framing may silence certain
voices or weaken certain arguments and that the media can frame an issue favouring a
particular side but without showing explicit bias (ibid.: 95). Framing differs from bias in that it
goes beyond notions of pro and con, positive or negative and so forth, but nonetheless
framing may also include bias, as Tankard underlines. Since mass media is also a way of
shaping public opinion, the analysis of frames may say something about media hegemony,
when a certain ―frame is so dominant that people accept it without notice or question‖ (ibid.:
96). In our research and in accordance with the theory of media framing we want to depict
how the agenda54 is set for the ‗Roma question‘ and how Roma are then framed in Italian
media, both major newspapers and smaller online news portals.
We collected 56 news items in our first case and 30 news items for our second case from
different newspapers. We decided to categorize these newspapers, according to their
general categorizations as right/ centre right and left/ centre left, knowing that these
categorizations are relative. We detected the following frames, understood as ―interpretative
schemata that simplif[y] and condense ‗the world out there‘ by selectively punctuating and
encoding objects and situations‖ (Snow; Bendford 1992: 135): Roma as ‗problem‘, Roma as
54
Agenda setting can be understood as the relation between the salience of a topic in media and the
importance people attribute to that topic. See: http://www.mediatenor.de/smi_AS_approach.php
[accessed 11.3.2012] Agenda setting is not a theory, it rather describes the function mass media
have in people‘s opinion.
100
‗victims‘ and Roma as ‗agents‘. Based on the exemplary description of one to three news
items per frame we will show how the respective construction of the Roma is (re-)produced.
4. Framing the Roma in the newspapers
This section is concerned with the analysis of the empirical data. Due to the limitations on
the extent of our report, we can only provide a restricted overview of the two cases. We will
begin with the news reports concerning the Nomad Plan. We chose to collect our data
during the period from September 2011 to December 2011 (that includes not exclusively
news about the Nomad Plan but also news concerning Roma in Rome in general) because
of the ruling by the Council of State that declared the emergency status and therefore the
Nomad Plan unlawful. We wanted to see if there were any changes in media coverage after
the ruling and if so, how far the Roma had been framed otherwise. Even though the
emergency status and the Nomad Plan have been declared to be unlawful, the provisions
taken within the plan will continue to be carried out, as stated by deputy mayor Sveva
Belviso and also by the new Interior Minister Annamaria Cancellieri. However, due to the
reduced budget, certain provisions within the Nomad Plan will not be carried out or will be
carried out with other means55.
4.1. Roma as problem
Interviews have shown that the number of the Roma living in Italy and in Rome is mostly
overestimated (Vitale 2009; D‘Orsi 2009; see report WP2 of our team). This is also due to
the negative coverage of the Roma in the media. Furthermore media reports tend to
underline the citizenship of offenders whenever they are not ―Italians‖ (D‘Orsi 2009: 24). In
this manner the country of origin and the originating ―culture‖ become one explanation for
deviant behaviour (ibid.). This rhetoric fuels the perception of the delinquent stranger and
includes all migrants, but has focused especially on the Roma.
In this frame we have then included allusions to Roma as criminals, as deviant and dirty,
their ―custom‖ of nomadism, the security ―problem‖ the camps and the Roma create and
55
The private surveillance service has been assigned to the communal operator ―Risorse per Roma‖.
The members of staff are known as ―Gladiators‖. They are basically assumed to be ―doormen‖ who
will not (like the former surveillance services) be able to ask for documents or search the persons
who enter the camps, nor will they carry any weapons. In cases of ―security problems‖ they have to
call the police. This change will reduce the costs by about 500 million euros.
http://www.iltempo.it/roma/2012/03/13/1328366vigilantes_campi_nomadi_comune_manda_gladiatori.shtml?refresh_ce [accessed: 15.3.2012]
101
other similar aspects. A closer look reveals that both right- and left-wing newspapers rely on
that frame. The issues concerning the Roma are presented in various sections. ―La
Repubblica‖ publishes the news both in the local section if explicitly concerning the city of
Rome and in other sections related to the content. ―Nuovo Paese Sera‖ publish their news
about Roma mostly in the society news section, ―Il Tempo‖ mostly in the local Rome
section, while we found two items in ―Il Messagero‖ in the section ―La denuncia‖/ ―The
complaint‖.
As to language, we observed that the ‗problematization‘ of the Roma does not occur directly
by calling the Roma a problem, but by reporting ‗problematic‘ cases or constructing
‗problematic‘ events.
The article in centre-right newspaper ―Il Messagero‖ headed ―At the La Barbuta nomad
camp ‗illegal construction work, but the City Council continues‘‖ (19.12.2011) is concerned
with the illegitimacy of the construction of La Barbuta camp. The construction there
continues despite the State Council's verdict of 16th November that it had been unlawful to
declare the nomad state of emergency in 2008 and all subsequent actions. The complaint
also mentions the financial aspect: the entire ―Nomad Plan‖ has cost the city 34 million
euros, 10 of which went to La Barbuta for archaeological excavations, partial drainage, the
construction of the camp, equipment and maintenance. The article quotes Mario Staderini,
member of the (left) Radical Party, arguing that the money should have been used for
social housing projects. Furthermore, he underlines the need for a public debate about the
Roma in order to work for their ―integration‖ while at the same time recognizing differences
between diverse ―nomad realities‖.
At first sight the article appears to be neutral, but a closer look reveals that the headline
already evokes the connection between Roma and ―illegality‖, even though it actually refers
to the construction of the camp as illegal. Nonetheless, Roma and ―illegality‖ are merged in
the headline. Furthermore, the Roma are referred to as ―nomads‖. The term ―nomad‖ has to
be understood as derogatory, alluding to the presumed nomadism of the Roma and
therefore their difficulties in achieving stability and integration. As Monica Rossi explains,
calling them nomads is in certain ways a justification for the existence of the camps and
includes the secret hope that the nomads may leave one day. The camp becomes a
pretext, producing and maintaining the degraded living conditions which, as Rossi stresses,
are one of the primary causes that generate exclusion and uneasiness (Rossi 2009: 65).
The news report then specifies the high costs of the so-called Nomad Plan. As Staderini
102
declares, millions have been spent on an ―illegal‖ operation. Again the connection is drawn
between the Roma and unlawfulness. The quote and the enumeration of the costs give the
impression that the Roma cause immense costs, that their housing situation is somehow
illegal, and last but not least that no improvement in their living conditions is ever achieved.
The article closes with a call for their integration by distinguishing between different nomad
realities – it is not stated which ―nomad realities‖ have to be distinguished from one another,
but the reader may suppose that a distinction between ‗good‘ and ‗bad‘ Roma should be
made, between the Roma who try to work ‗honestly‘ and the criminal ones, thus implicitly
blaming them for their failed ‗integration‘. Other articles that frame the Roma as problematic
are similar in structure and language. The left-wing online newspaper ―Nuovo Paese Sera‖
is often concerned with the Roma question in Rome. The Roma are mainly framed as
problems and victims, often in the same item. The news reporting from a camp in Viale
degli Schiavonetti in the periphery of Rome is an example of shaping hostility in a subtle
way. The item ―Rom, Viale degli Schiavonetti ‗A model of civilization‘‖ (24.11.2011) offers a
vivid description of the mutual distrust between residents of Viale degli Schiavonetti and the
Roma. Use of the term ―nomads‖ fits with the residents‘ impression that the camp is
(presumably) temporary (also by comparing the camp with a motel by the author),
associated with the hope described by Rossi above of the Roma leaving one day. The
author underlines the ―different lifestyles‖ of Roma and residents, refers first to the
precarious living conditions in the camp and then quotes a resident of Viale degli
Schiavonetti mentioning luxury cars parked in the camp – an idea that in the eyes of the
author fuels the prejudice that Roma are thieves. This statement seems to hang in the air
and is then countered by a quote from a Romni56 residing in the camp, lamenting that their
lifestyle is not accepted by anyone.
Then the author moves on to the planned transfer of the Roma to ―La Barbuta‖ camp,
provided for in the Nomad Plan. However, the author says, apparently there is no space for
the Roma in the new camp. Furthermore the ruling by the Council of State declaring the
Nomad Plan unlawful threatens to finish ―La Barbuta‖ and ―brings to nought‖ the hopes of
the residents of Tor Vergata neighbourhood that the Roma will be transferred. As the author
concludes, the residents have promised a ―battle‖ to achieve the eviction of the Roma. In a
subtle manner, the salience of the topic in headlines and reports also illustrates the
consideration of Roma as a ―problem‖.
56
Romni means ‚Roma woman‘ in romanés.
103
―Il Tempo‖ offers far more explicit language in framing the Roma as problem. The article
about the ruling from the Council of State is very explicit in framing the Roma as a problem
(―The Council of State annuls the Nomad Plan‖, 22.11.2011). It speaks of the ―elimination‖
of certain camps and dismantled camps like Casilino 900 (quoting mayor Alemanno) as
―real fire bombs‖. It refers to the need to guarantee the integrity of the people residing near
the camps and of the nomads themselves, as well as to guarantee ―public decency‖ and
―hygiene‖. Due to the invalidity of the state of emergency, this will now only be possible
through ordinary legislation. The articles about the Roma in ―Il Tempo‖ are mostly in the
local news section about Rome. When reporting crimes (allegedly) committed by Roma, the
language is mostly negative and/or exaggerated and the news is reported in an anecdotal
manner. The Roma are mostly referred to as ―nomads‖. It appears that ―Il Tempo‖ wants a
stricter policy towards the Roma, as it refers to the City Council as ―mollycoddling‖ the
Roma.
The four newspapers differ in their language and style of framing the Roma as a
problematic population. As we have seen, the (centre) left newspapers use a moderate
language and construction of news reports, for example by using disclaimers in a strategy
of positive self-representation and negative other representation (Jiwani 2011: 245). We
saw this in the article analysed in ―Nuovo Paese Sera‖, where the voice given to the Romni
was countered by the author‘s statement. The (centre) right newspapers use a more explicit
language and in the case of ―Il Tempo‖ an explicit anti-Roma attitude. Both ―La Repubblica‖
and ―Nuovo Paese Sera‖ try instead to frame the Roma in different ways.
4.2. Roma as victims
Here the news reports allude foremost to the living conditions of the Roma in the camps,
also due to the effects of the Nomad Plan. Often the strategy of the news report is a
victimization strategy, singling the Roma out for living in the precarious conditions the camp
offers. The Roma are nonetheless often framed as problematic and as victims. In the items
in our collection referring to the living situation of the Roma in Rome during and after the
so-called Nomad Plan, the newspapers frame the Roma as victims especially when
reporting about some camp eviction. However, in the majority of the cases no member of
the Roma community is interviewed, while members of associations (catholic and secular)
find a voice in those reports. The non-possibility of speaking for them is a major problem
that is criticized by various Roma themselves.
104
In this regard we want to take a closer look at the camp raid in Turin in December 2011.
The news reports do refer to the Roma as victims of the camp raid, but they are not
targeted as subjects of the article. The news reports focus more on the perpetrators of the
fire, on the girl that accused the two Roma, on the brother and on the circumstances, rather
than on the victims of the false accusation and of the pogrom. The various newspapers try
to explain and understand how such an outburst could have been possible. Explanations
include the difficult relationship between the Roma and the poor neighbourhood. The
Archbishop of Turin ―feels offended‖ by this un-Christian behaviour, while Mayor Fassino is
outraged by such behaviour in a ―civilized city‖ like Turin, and the online newspaper
Corriere points at the fact that Turin is ―still under shock‖. It seems as if the pogrom has not
primarily hit and offended the Roma, but the city‘s own conception of itself, questioning its
values as a ‗liberal‘, ‗tolerant‘ and ‗civilized‘ city and showing it in a bad light.
Turin‘s Archbishop Nosiglia feels ―humiliated‖ (―Archbishop Nosiglia ‗I feel humiliated and
hurt‘‖, La Repubblica 11.12.2011) by the events and laments that due to the ruling by the
Council of State that the state of emergency is unlawful, EU funding for Roma ―integration‖
programmes have been blocked (―Nosiglia visits the nomad camps ‗Aggression and refusal
have to be overcome‘‖, La Repubblica, 26.12.2011). The president of AIZO (Associazione
Italiana Zingari Oggi/ Italian association Gypsies today), an NGO based in Turin, who
visited with Nosiglia the camps, criticizes the camps, but his alternative remains in the logic
of distinction and difference when he proposes smaller structures for the Roma without
specifying what and how a smaller structure could/would be. In the interview with ―La
Repubblica‖, Archbishop Nosiglia underlined the need for ―commitment‖ and ―solidarity‖,
both from the Roma and from the ―Italians‖. Counterposing such a statement at the end of
an article that was initially about a fire at the camp reiterates the assumption that the Roma
in this case are responsible for what has happened to them.
The loose focus on the Roma as the offended party, the little space given to the Roma to let
them describe the facts, and the focus on the voices of authorities to ‗explain‘ those facts,
reflect a certain narcissistic attitude accompanied by a weak acknowledgement, almost a
denial, of what really happened. In this context it is interesting to have a closer look at the
editorial in the daily centre-right newspaper ―La Stampa‖. In the opinion section of 11
December 2011 we read the headline ―The wrong title‖, where the author goes on to claim
that ―we‖ should be ashamed of ―unconscious, irrational racism‖, even though ―rationality‖
and ―culture‖ should help ―us‖ to avert this racism. Referring to the title of the previous day
(―Scares off the two Roma who rape his sister‖, the opinion writer maintains that this title left
105
no other possibility open as to the ―ethnic origin‖ of the alleged rapists, which would not
have been mentioned if it had been two ―Finns‖ or two ―Romans‖. He continues that as it
concerned two Roma the newspaper slipped into a racist headline, obviously
unintentionally. Eventually he apologizes. He apologizes to the readers and to the
newspaper itself. As we can see, the offended party in this pogrom and in the media
coverage are not the Roma, but the ‗Italians‘, the civilized, the ‗cultured‘ and ‗rational‘
persons that need an apology for having ―slipped‖ into racism – ultimately, the conclusion to
draw is that if the rape had actually happened, then the racism would have been justified.
The Roma are used and manipulated. Their status as victims of the camp raid is not
acknowledged, neither in the denial, nor in their victimization. Both strategies are exclusive
and marginalizing, confining them to an object-status. They appear to be a ‗minor point‘ in
the process of reflecting about ‗ourself‘, ‗our‘ culture, ‗our‘ civilization and especially ‗our‘ not
being racist. Besides, the victim/perpetrator model stabilizes the system of domination.
We should perhaps reflect on the background to the story. The girl who accused two Roma
men of raping her was drawing on the imagery of the hypersexual, violent Gypsy (an image
that is also valid for ‗the black man‘), and she assumed that if she accused a ‗Gypsy‘, no
one would question her – as in fact happened.
The ‗Gypsy‘ is again used as a scapegoat to justify security discourses and practices57. At
the same time, the event illustrates the patriarchal system with its inherent sexism and
control over women‘s bodies, the patriarchal system as a ―complex, differentiated, powercentred framework, that continually produces, marginalizes the Other and in doing so,
creates normality‖ (Castro Varela; Dhawan 2003: 272).
The girl had to submit to a ―virginity test‖ once a month and allow her family to control and
‗protect‘ her body. The media coverage illustrates the ‗subaltern‘ status of the girl. In fact,
while little is said about her in the first media reports, the brother is stylized as a hero who
not only saves his sister from the ‗violent brown/black/… man‘, but – when the mob sets the
Roma camp on fire – tries to save the same ‗brown/black/… man‘ and stop the furious mob.
This case illustrates the efficiency of the patriarchal androcentric and white-centred power
system.
57
The murder and sexual violence against Giovanna Reggiani in 2007 by Romanian rom fuelled the
debate about criminal immigrants and led to the adoption of the so-called security package that
amongst other things led to the law to expel EU citizens from Italian territory if considered a ―threat to
society‖.
106
4.3. Roma as agents
The last frame we defined depicts Roma as agents. Only few articles in our database frame
Roma as such, particularly newspapers of the (centre-) left.
The agency reported by the newspaper in the context of the camp raid refers to a
delegation of ―nomads‖ (from the ―illegal‖ camp Continassa) who met the public prosecutor
after the camp raid and to a small group of ―nomads‖ protesting against xenophobia outside
Turin‘s prefecture. This article was not especially concerned with the camp raid, but
reported various demonstrations against xenophobia and racism.
In the context of the ―Nomad Plan‖ we have few news reports, mostly from ―Nuovo Paese
Sera‖, which depict Roma as agents. In most cases this is connected to the dismantlement
of Casilino 900 and the ―first democratic elections‖ in the authorized camp of Salone, to
which many Roma from Casilino 900 had been transferred. As in the above frame, the
news reports often use disclaimers, in a way minimizing the agency of the Roma by
counterposing positive news with quotes or statements that suggest the contrary. Several
reports of Roma agency are merged with some sort of problematization, or else a politician
or member of an association supports their claims and requests. The agency of the Roma
alone is thereby minimized and only carries weight when supported by ‗Italians‘58.
Conclusion
In this report we have analysed how Roma are framed in media coverage, both from
(centre-) left and (centre-) right national and local newspapers. We have chosen two cases,
one relating to the so-called Nomad Plan established in the city of Rome after the issue of
the Emergency Decree on the Roma and Sinti population in 2008, and another relating to
the camp raid at Continassa, Turin in December 2011.
58
With the term ‚Italians‘ we refer to their construction and draw back on the differentiation made in
the analysed newspapers that set ‚Roma‘ in opposition to ‚Italians‘. This is a (forced) differentiation
based on the ethnic origins of people. Even though many Roma possess Italian citizenship they are
not considered as such. Furthermore, ‚Italians‘ in our cases here are white (mostly male) persons
that speak and act on behalf of the Roma and that are in some (political/economic/...) power position.
107
The findings showed that Roma59 are framed either (mostly) as a problem or as victims,
and only seldom as agents.
The framing of Roma as a problem includes the depiction of Roma as criminals, thieves, as
dirty and infectious, as ―nomads‖ that want ‗to live this way‘. We want to stress that this
frame can be traced back nearly to the beginnings of the long relationship between Roma
and the non-Roma as the image of the ‗Gypsy‘. Visual media and literature have willingly
picked up this image and reproduced it in various forms (cf. Dobreva 2007: 143).
The framing of Roma as victims, found in both (centre-) right and left newspapers, is a ‗new‘
frame that has been added in the last 50 years (ibid.: 142). Our media items have reported
precarious and poor living conditions in the camps, as well as the difficulties the constant
forced evictions cause. At the same time the reports that depict the Roma as suffering slip
into a victimization discourse that marginalizes the Roma and reproduces their ‗otherness‘,
which fits the logic of domination. The victimization discourse is accompanied by a
paternalistic attitude.
Furthermore, the victim frame is often merged with the problem frame, linked then into an
indiscernible logic of ―they are victims, but…‖ that in the end blames the victim for being a
victim, or in other words blames the marginalized for being marginalized (Goldberg 1993:
209).
Sometimes Roma are framed also as agents, which is a positive step. A closer look at our
collected media items, however, revealed that in most cases the connection is made with
their ‗being a problem‘, which then minimizes their agency and once again makes them
victims or a problem.
These rhetorical strategies can be explained by the
assumption […] that the marginalized position of some racial group is tied to a set of damaging
(or damaged) cultural values; to a culture of racially specified poverty; to a poverty of the racial
culture in question; to cultural deprivation; or to an unrealistic, outmoded, and self-defeating
ideology (ibid.).
59
Our team has focused on the Roma that live in the ―nomad camps‖. Little or nothing is said in the
media about Roma or Sinti with Italian citizenship who do not live in camps.
108
Explicit references to racism were made in the case of the Continassa camp raid. However,
the racist outburst was tackled as ―madness‖, as uncivilized and uncultured action by a few
individuals: individuals that live in a former working-class quarter and are now affected by
poverty, individuals identified as hooligans.
The violence was thus externalized onto these people who were hardly identified with the
―civilized‖ and ―tolerant‖ community of Turin. The explanatory model refers to racism as an
exception attributed to a specific group of people, also partly marginalized and living in
precarious conditions. The paradigm of denying and repelling racism, assigning it to ‗some
others‘ was confirmed in the repentance of the opinion maker in ―La Stampa‖, who
apologized to the readers for having ―slipped‖ into racism in the news before the revelation
by the girl that she had invented the story of the two Roma raping her. Meanwhile the
alderman for security in Rome has launched his inflammatory hate speech against ‗Italian‘
intellectuals who supported a cultural initiative by some Roma and non-Roma artists in
remembrance of the Porrajmos, the Holocaust of the Roma.
What is particularly remarkable is the object status of the Roma in every frame. Either as
‗problem‘, or as ‗victim‘, or as ‗agents‘ the Roma are never allowed to speak for themselves,
they are silenced and spoken for. In any case they are considered as an object of
governance intervention and as a social and political problem, a problem of ―public order‖
(Rossi 2009). Acknowledging their subject status would mean to acknowledge their
existence.
Our findings in this report confirm our previous analysis throughout the whole TOLERACE
project that racism is considered as some kind of ‗illness‘, attributed to the extreme right,
but never a constituent part of any European society.
From our analytical work it has emerged that racism is something Europe has elaborated
since the Holocaust. If problems with ‗immigrants‘/‗Roma‘/ ‗Muslims‘/ ‗Blacks‘… emerge, it
is because their integration has failed, because they differ too much from our culture, have
too different ‗values‘, religions and cultures. It is precisely the ‗culture pattern‘ that lies at the
centre of racist discourses nowadays. As Amin has pointed out,
justifications of race rely on cultural, not biological arguments, playing on the claim that the
beliefs, values and practices of different ethnic communities are both distinctive and
irreconcilable (Amin 2010: 2).
109
Racism is thus depoliticized, externalized and as a consequence trivialized. Racism is
considered to be a problem of individual attitudes, a problem of ideology that is a ‗private
matter‘. It is not part of daily practices, as Essed (1991) suggested, but considered an
exception. Racism is fragmented, found here and there. The Eurocentric approach
precludes the acknowledgement of racism as a foundation of the process of modern nationmaking, linked to the imaginary of the preservation and creation of culturally and racially
homogenous entity.
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111
112
Part III – Germany. The Media and Muslims in Germany
Summary
This report analyses the representation of Muslims in the German media. To this end, four national
daily newspapers were monitored. The analysed newspapers comprised the right-conservative Die
Welt, the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the liberal Süddeutsche Zeitung, and the
centre-left Frankfurter Rundschau, thus encompassing both the most influential mainstream
newspapers and a large ideological spectrum. In a first step, the four newspapers were monitored in
a period from September to December 2011, in which approximately 1000 items dealing with Islam
or Muslims were identified. The share of the news items was more or less equally distributed among
the four newspapers, with around 250 articles related to Islam or Muslims from each source. Around
80 percent of the items covered international issues, and about 10 percent national or local issues.
National news items dealt with issues such as terrorism, Islamism, Islamophobia, education,
German-Turkish relations and forced marriages.
Focussing on forced marriage as a case study and by applying methodological tools such as framing
and discourse analyses, the construction, representation, and denunciation of Muslims (vis-à-vis
German majority society) will be examined. The case study of forced marriage shows that German
mainstream media coverage of Muslims is predominantly one-sided, biased, and exclusivist, while
the conservative newspapers use a stronger rhetoric than the liberal and centre-left press. Muslim
women are represented as powerless and silenced victims of forced marriages, who are in urgent
need of empowerment and emancipation. Their predicament fate is reduced to the culture and
religion of their parents‘ country of origin. In contrast, Muslim men are portrayed as the violent and
inhuman aggressors. In short, Muslims are constructed as the ‗other‘, challenging the values and
norms of German majority society by importing cultural and religious practices from abroad, which
are diametrically opposed to a Western life-style.
Introduction
Currently, Islam is one of the most prominent issues in the German media. Although there
has been a significant increase in the news coverage on Islam and Muslims in the post-9/11
era, it should be noted that controversial discourses about Islam and Muslims have a long
tradition in German media, as shown by the coverage of the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and
the affair around Salman Rushdie's novel ―The Satanic Verses‖ in 1988. However, in the
aftermath of 9/11, barely a day passes without news coverage about Islam and Muslims, be
it of local, national or international relevance. Parallel to this development, the image of
Islam, and construction and portrayal of Muslims in German media, has been the subject of
numerous academic studies such as those by Jäger and Halm (2007), Hafez and Richter
(2007) and Schiffer (2005). The general tenor of these studies is that the coverage about
Islam and Muslims is predominantly negative, stereotypical, sensationalist, and hostile.
Islam is mainly covered in relation to conflict issues such as terrorism, fundamentalism,
violence, intolerance, backwardness, suppression of women, honour killings, and forced
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marriages. Muslims, portrayed as a homogenous entity, are often represented as the ‗other‘
and a threat. As most majority society Germans have little or no direct contact at all with
Muslims, their image of Islam is significantly influenced and shaped by the mass media.
The negative portrayal of Muslims may serve to build or provide evidence for existing antiMuslim attitudes and prejudices. Parallel to this, several surveys show an increase in antiMuslim resentment in Germany. This in turn fosters a confrontational social climate where
Islam is perceived as a main source for societal problems and threats (Hafez&Richter
2007).
The German Islam discourse can be contextualised in a broader discourse that has been
taking place in many countries of the Western hemisphere about the internal as well as
external ―other‖, negotiating who belongs to ‗us‘ and who not. Mostly the discourse revolves
around issues such as immigration, integration, and multiculturalism. Therefore, these
public discourses offer a valuable set of data that is invaluable for the in-depth analysis to
―understand the everyday and institutional reproduction of racial difference and
discrimination‖ (Augoustinos & Every 2007:124).
This report intends to analyse the construction and representation of Muslims in the
German media. This report consists of two main sections. In the first section the conceptual
and methodological framework of this report will be outlined. While conceptually we draw
upon ‗new‘ racism in general, in particular anti-Muslim racism, and its special relationship
with the media, methodologically we refer to discourse analysis and framing. Then, in the
second section of the report empirical data on forced marriage generated from media
analysis will be introduced.
1. New(s) Racism and Muslims
For quite some time now, there has been a growing interdisciplinary expertise on
contemporary forms of racism in modern Western European societies. Researchers from
different academic disciplines have been analysing discursive forms of written and oral
items about themes related to race, immigration, integration and refugees. These studies
have comprised ordinary daily conversation on the one hand, and formal institutional talk
found in political speeches, parliamentary debates, and the media on the other
(Augoustinos & Every, 2007:123).
114
In this context scholars draw readers' attention to a paradigmatic shift from ‗old‘ to ‗new‘
racism. While the biological ‗old‘ racism of ―slavery, segregation, apartheid, lynchings, and
systematic discrimination, of course of white superiority feelings, and of explicit derogation
in public discourse and everyday conversation‖ (van Dijk, 2000: 33) is characterized by its
blatant forms of prejudice (Augoustinos & Every, 2007:124), the ‗new‘ racism denies that it
is racism at all and wants to be respected and democratic. According to the logic of ‗new‘
racism, ―minorities are not biologically inferior, but different. They have a different culture,
although in many respects there are ‗deficiencies‘, such as (…) drug abuse, lacking
achievement values, and dependence on welfare (…) – pathologies that need to be
corrected of course‖ (van Dijk, 2000:34.). Since in the wake of the experiences of World
War II overtly articulating racist opinions has been considered a social taboo, a new rhetoric
has been developed that presents hostile sentiments of ―out-groups as reasonable and
justified while at the same time protecting the speaker from charges of racism and
prejudice‖ (Augoustinos & Every, 2007:124).
Academics have been focusing on the forms of racism described above, but have,
however, been labelling the phenomenon differently, e.g. ‗symbolic‗, ‗everyday‘, ‗neo‘,
‗cultural‘ or ‗modern‘ racism (Augoustinos& Every, 2007: 124). What these studies have in
common is that racism is still prevalent, but rather subtle and indirect and, therefore, more
difficult to grasp and recognize. In the particular case of Germany, for instance, in the public
discourse the use of the term ‗racism‘ is avoided and mainly used in the context of National
Socialism and contemporary rightwing extremism. So the phenomenon of ‗racism‘ is not
only historicized but also regarded as problem of the extreme right (Shooman, 2012: 53). In
fact, racism today is not only encountered at the margins of the society, in the type of rightwing extremists as it is mostly proclaimed, but also among ordinary people and elites (van
Dijk 2000:34). Jiwani & Richardson suggest that ―the last few decades have witnessed
increasing racism, in form and frequency, recontextualizing and recycling older forms of
racism to target new(ly) racialized groups‖ (2011: 242).
In this context van Dijk draws attention to the complex interplay between ‗new‘ racism,
discourse, dominance and the media:
The New Racism of western societies is a system of ethnic or ‗racial‘ inequalities consisting of
sets of sometimes subtle everyday discriminatory practices sustained by socially shared
representations, such as stereotypes, prejudices and ideologies. This system is reproduced
not only in the daily participation of (white) group members in various non-verbal forms of
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everyday racism, but also by discourse. Text and talk about the Other, especially by the elites,
thus primarily functions as the source of ethnic beliefs for ingroup members, and as a means
of creating ingroup cohesion and maintaining and legitimizing dominance. This is especially
the case for media discourse in general and the news in particular (van Dijk, 2000: 48).
The mechanisms outlined will be analysed in the second segment of this paper in-depth. At
this point, some remarks on racism and Muslims shall be addressed, as this paper will
focus on the framing and denunciation of Muslims in German media. In the course of the
discussion about ‗new‘ racism, proponents of the critical race theory have put forward the
―racism without race‖ argument as one main feature of this new phenomenon:
―Ideologically, current racism (…) fits into a framework of ‗racism without races‘ (…) It is a
racism whose dominant theme is not biological heredity but the insurmountability of cultural
differences‖ (Balibar 1991:21). In this framework the racialization of the Muslim ‗other‘ is
identifiable: over the course of time in German Islam discourse a synonymous use of the
terms ‗migrant‘, ‗Arab‘, ‗Turk‘, and ‗Muslim‘ is can be observed. This can be read as an
ethnicization of the category ‗Muslim‘, a process in which the identification of ‗the Muslim‘ is
carried out through identifying aspects such as a ‗foreign‘ sounding name or physical
appearance – headscarf, long beard or darker skin or hair colour (Schooman 2012:55).
Schooman describes the racialization of Muslims as follows:
Regardless of their personal self-perception, the majority society constructs them Muslims as
a homogeneous and natural entity and marked with collective ascriptions, in contrast to the
white Christian/atheist German or European. Furthermore, knowledge about them and their
nature as a group is generated and they are considered to be ‗identifiable‘ via different
characteristics (…) An amalgamation of cultural-religious and physical features takes place,
which can be understood as a marker for an ―alien origin‖. Certain ‗ethnically‘ framed groups
are (not only) in the racist discourse religiously marked as Muslims. Therefore, these
categories can neither just be added up nor taken apart. Rather, departing from an
intersectional understanding of anti-Muslim racism, it should be noted that these ascriptions
are closely interwoven with one another, generating specific experiences. (Schooman, 2012:
55).
2. ‘Race’ and the media
It is no great revelation to claim that the media has a tremendous impact on society at
large. Together with various other influential societal actors, such as academics, politicians,
and business people, it directly or indirectly shapes and forms the lives of a significant
116
number of people (van Dijk 2000:36). The work of decision and opinion makers, and thus
journalists, does not take place in a socio-political vacuum but is highly embedded in the
discourses of a nation, therefore, as Kaplan illustratively puts it, the news can be
understood as ―a tale of the nation, which commemorates and commiserates in the nation‘s
tragedies as well as its triumphs‖ (cited in Jiwani & Richardson, 2011: 251). In his study on
‗Race in the News‘, Law underlines that ―news media have been a key site for the
representation of ideas about racialized groups, providing a mass of comment, information
and speculation which repeats, reinvents and shapes wider sets of race-related ideas‖ (Law
2002:1). Furthermore, Law critically points out that ―the prevalence of racism in the media
is often vehemently contested or perversely ignored, and little attempt is often made to
grasp the full nature and extent of racist ideas that have persisted over generations and
across nations‖ (Law, 2002:15).
According to van Dijk the power of the media can mainly be characterized as both
‗discursive‘ and ‗symbolic‘, constituting the primary source of people‘s – be it elite groups or
ordinary citizens – ideologies, knowledge, and attitudes (van Dijk, 2000: 36). Even though
the media do this together with other leading influential societal actors, such as academics
and politicians, considering the freedom of the press, media representatives are
accountable for the ―prevailing discourses of the media they control‖ (Ibid.).
van Dijk identifies two main reasons for the existence of racism in media as being the
predominantly white elite, which is gathering and producing news on the one hand, and the
absence or ignorance of minority journalists and sources on the other (van Dijk, 2007: 107).
Consequently, under these circumstances it
is not surprising that in such a production context, news and opinion about non-westem
immigrants, refugees, and minorities —and in general on ethnic affairs— is hardly unbiased.
As is the case for all outgroups, the overall discursive strategy is to emphasize Our good
things and Their bad things, and to de-emphasize (deny, ignore, mitigate) Our bad things and
Their good things. Such polarization, expressing and reproducing underlying racist prejudices
and ideologies, is implemented at all leveis of media discourse. (Ibid.)
In the context of new racism and media van Dijk critically states:
when power over the most influential form of public discourse, that is, media discourse, is
combined with a lack of alternative sources, when there is a near consensus, and opponents
and dissident groups are weak, then the media are able to abuse such power and establish
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the discursive and cognitive hegemony that is necessary for the reproduction of the ‗new‘
racism (Ibid.: 37).
Therefore, analysing the ways in which journalistic accounts of minority communities are
played out in national newspapers will offer us invaluable insights as to how the news
―reproduces inequality and relations of domination‖ (Jiwani & Richardson, 2011: 251).
3. Muslims and German Media
As was mentioned above the medial representation of Islam has been the subject of
various academic studies (Jäger&Halm 2007; Hafez/Richter 2007; Schiffer 2005). An
example for this is a scientific study which illustrated that coverage of Islam is unidirectional
and negative at the two main German public television channels, ARD and ZDF: in contrast
to other world religions, news about Islam is one-sidedly connected to conflict issues such
as terrorism, extremism, integration problems and international altercations. The authors of
the study critically state:
Instead of practicing a neutral information policy, the very one-sided choice of topics in the
magazine and talk-shows as well as documentaries and reports of the ARD and ZDF
contribute to the increase of the already existing prejudices against Islam among the majority
of German society and the ‗fear of Islam‘ in Germany, which is measurable through by means
of opinion surveys. Infotainment programming that is oriented at popular topics cannot serve
as a proxy for a sophisticated journalism. The few positive counter examples (…) cannot
weaken the argument that the wide-reaching magazine shows of the ARD and ZDF main
programme and with that the thematic basic structure of the national public service
broadcaster is Islamophob. (Hafez&Richter, 2007: 2)
In this context Jäger and Halm draw attention to the ‗binary reductionism‘ of the German
Islam discourse:
A dichotomic black and white thinking is taking place where the presumed negative
characteristics of Muslims are highlighted and in contrast the positive ones are denied, ignored
or understated. In contrast to this the ‗autochthonous‘ majority society‘s positive elements are
highlighted while the negative ones are ignored, downplayed or denied. (Ibid.: 5)
Furthermore, an increasing interwovenness of issues of integration and Islam can be
observed in two respects: on the one hand there is a realization that the four million
Muslims are not leaving Germany and, therefore, it is time ‗to integrate Islam into Germany‘.
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On the other hand, a religious turn took place in the German integration discourse, namely,
as already mentioned before, the ethnicization of the ‗category‘ Muslim which is expressed
in the synonymous use of the terms ‗migrant‘, ‗Arab‘, ‗Turk‘ and ‗Muslim (Schooman
2012:55). Muslims and Islam have increasingly been seen as a security problem since
9/11. This has lead to the discourse about Islam overlapping more and more with the
discourse on integration. Questions of integration are increasingly being negotiated in
respect to the religious affiliation of immigrants. Therefore, the integration of Islam is on the
top agenda of German society and politics (Jäger/Halm, 2007: 6). The integration of
Muslims into Germany is not a political matter of course but rather an act of ‗domestication‘
of a problematic population, where German authorities one-sidedly determine its dialogue
partners as well as the issues to be discussed. Alluding to this problem Halm, Liakova and
Yetik state that in ―the German discourse about Islam the little influence of Muslims
themselves on the discourse is obvious. Muslim actors may have a chance to articulate
their views in the public discourse. However, in this context they are forced to problematize
issues which the receiving society determines‖ (2007: 45).
At the same time in the integration discourse the demands directed at Muslims are
increasing, whereby the level of integration is constantly being raised and absurd obstacles
created (Jäger/Halm, 2007: 5). The involvement of the media in this process of exclusion is
of twofold significance; firstly, they promote racism in the majority society, which leads to
the increase of rejection, stigmatization and discrimination Muslims; and secondly, Muslims
are increasingly withdrawing and isolating themselves (Jäger/Halm, 2007: 5).
4. Methodological Approach
Analysing the phenomenon of racism in the news can be a challenging undertaking. Law
illustrates the challenge as follows:
The complex chameleon-like character of racism, which is subject to variation and change
across contexts and times, poses considerable problems for intellectual analysis. The process
of conceptualization involves constructing an adequate encompassing definition, identifying
key common elements and their articulations, and operationalising these elements to enable
measurement and evaluation. (Law, 2002: 15)
119
In this paper we will critically analyse the way news in the press may contribute what is
sometimes called the ―new racism‖, with a particular focus on anti-Muslim racism. As news
items are a form of text, we will make use of a ‗discourse analytical‘ approach as outlined
by van Dijk (2000). This approach implies that news will not be treated as transparent
‗messages‘ whose ‗contents‘ are superficially and quantitatively examined but rather the
complex strategies and structures of news items and their relations to the social context will
be analysed (van Dijk 2000:33). In the particular case at hand the social context comprises
of the practices of journalists in the production of news and the interpretations of the
readership. This approach will help to unravel the media‘s role in the (re)production of racial
inequalities in contemporary Germany.
In this context van Dijk points out that particularly
because of their often and symbolic nature, many forms of the ‗new‘ racism are ‗discursive‘:
they are expressed, enacted and confirmed by text and talk, such as everyday conversations
(…) TV programmes and news reports in the press, among hundreds of other genres. They
appear ‗mere‘ talk, and far more removed from the open violence and forceful segregation of
the ‗old‘ racism. Yet, they may be just as effective to marginalize and exclude minorities. They
may hurt even more, especially when they seem to be so ‗normal‘, so ‗natural‘, and so
‗commonsensical‘ to those who engage in such discourse and interaction. They are a form of
ethnic hegemony, premised on seemingly legitimate ideologies and attitudes, and often tacitly
accepted by most members of the dominant majority group. This unique control of the majority
over the prevalent forms of public discourse, policies and social conduct makes minority
resistance (or white dissidence) against such racism even more difficult and precarious. It
needs no further argument that the consequences of these forms of discursive racism in the
lives of members of minority groups are hardly discursive: they may not be let into the county,
the city or the neighbourhood, or will not get a job. (van Dijk 2000:pp.34)
In our context a discourse analytical approach seems to be an appropriate tool as the
subjects who are involved in the discourses obtain their knowledge, which ultimately also
constitutes the basis of their thoughts, feelings and actions, from their respective discursive
environments (Jäger, 2007: 52). From this one can derive that discourses are effective:
they are forming individuals‘ knowledge and consciousness, thus (indirectly) resulting in
actions. Jäger describes the long-lasting effects of the discourse as follows:
The effect is not only created through single and short confrontations with individual discursive
fragments or texts. The effects of discourses are the result of longer discursive processes, in
which out of the swarm of opinions, with which the subjects are confronted with, gradually a
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core set of knowledge emanates. This is very important to note as this knowledge is the basis
for the actions and behaviours of the subjects and eventually in shaping social reality at large.
(Jäger 2007:52)
In our age, often referred to as the ―information age‖, individuals are over loaded with
information and news and experiencing to be part of various discourses at different levels,
be it politics, media, everyday life and so on. This process contributes to the generation and
formation of their knowledge and behavioural disposition. From this Jäger concludes ―the
media is significantly contributing to the production of this knowledge and thus also bears
joint responsibility for the civil/social as well as human quality of this knowledge (…) The
media are not only in-forming, they are forming consciousness (…) and wielding power‖
(Ibid.: 53). Furthermore, the discourse analysis can provide insights into how ―news
systematically conveys images (mental representations) of Us, and negative ones of Them‖
(van Dijk, 2000: 48).
The framing concept can largely be ascribed to the influential sociologist Erwin Goffman,
who developed this concept in the mid-1970s. Generally speaking, framing analysis is a
method developed for the analysis of how people grasp and comprehend activities and
situations. Over the years framing has gained wide acceptance and popularity among social
scientists. Nelson, Oxley, and Clawson define framing as ―the process by which a
communication source constructs and defines a social or political issue for its audience"
(1997:221). The concept of framing is commonly used in news analysis / media research
with regard to ethnicity and ‗race‘. Framing is mainly applied in order to ―indicate that
something of importance may be excluded from the media picture‖ or to focus ―on what is
actually in frame, in the photographic sense‖ (Downing&Husband 2005:36). According to
Downing&Husband the concept of framing is invaluable as it



“notes how something unsaid, out of frame, may be as (or more) important in
representing ethnicity or ‘race’ as what is said (…),
encourages (…) they consideration of the motivations (…) of those media
professionals who reproduce these daily(…),
prompts us to explore the long-term impact on audiences’ definitions of social
reality (…), and
directs attention away from interpreting a single news story exclusively from its specifics,
which in and of themselves may be unexceptionable, and towards the ongoing flow of
coverage‖ (2005:36).
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***
Before we continue with the specific case study, the issue of forced marriage shall be
contextualised in the German debate. Amongst others, forced marriage is a popular
recurring theme when discussing Islam and Muslims in German media. Depending on the
political climate, time and again the issue of forced marriage is raised. Most of the time this
issue is discussed in combination with other delicate issues, such as parallel societies and
honour killings.
In dealing with academic research regarding forced marriage Karakasoglu and Subasi
identify several challenges. Firstly, in Europe the issue of forced marriage is not only
discussed in the context of migration and integration but also framed as gender-based
violence in an ethnicizing manner (although it is not ethnically bound). Secondly, due to the
complexity of the issue and the poor data basis researchers come to different conclusions
in terms of the extent and background of the phenomenon. Thirdly, the public debate is
dominated by non-verifiable data and popular literature. Popular literature is very
problematic in this context because it culturalizes the phenomenon by detaching the issue
from its social context of gender-linked violence against women (Karakasoglu&Subasi
2007:120).
In 2009 the German Federal Ministry for Families, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth60
commissioned a study in order to learn more about structures, scope, and forms of forced
marriages in Germany. This study ought to be understood as a supplement to volume on
forced marriage, which the Family Ministry and the German Institute for Human Rights
launched together in 2007. For accompanying counselling with respect to methodological
and substantive issues an advisory council was appointed. The members of the council
came from practical backgrounds, academia and ministries.
In the following segment of this report the representation and construction of Muslims in the
German media will be analysed. For this purpose, from September to December 2011 four
60In the rest of the report referred to as the Family Ministry.
122
national daily newspapers were monitored. The analysed newspapers comprised the
following:




Frankfurter Rundschau (FR) is seen as a centre-left newspaper sympathizing with
the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). The FR has a print run of some
150,000 copies.61
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) is considered to be the national key medium
of the conservative centre comprising radical (‘right’-)conservative as well as more
liberal views. The FAZ has a print out of some 450,000 copies daily.62
Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) can be classified as a liberal newspaper and considered to
be Germany’s newspaper of record, thus the most influential national newspaper in
Germany with a daily circulation of some 535,000 copies.63
Die Welt is a strictly conservative newspaper that can be placed a bit further to the
‘right’ than the FAZ. Die Welt has a daily print out around 333,000 copies. 64
The analysed newspapers can be considered as the most influential mainstream quality
papers encompassing a large ideological spectrum.
In a first step, all four newspapers were monitored for the keywords ―Islam‖ and ―Muslim‖ in
the period from September to December 2011. About one thousand items dealing – directly
or indirectly – with Islam or Muslims were identified. The share of the news items was more
or less equally distributed among the four newspapers, with around 250 articles related to
Islam or Muslims from each source. However, the overwhelming majority (80 percent) of
the collected data covered international news, such as the ‗War on Terror‘ (Iraq and
Afghanistan), issues related to the ‗Arab Spring‘ (elections in Tunisia and Egypt, the
intervention in Libya), the Israel-Palestine conflict, and Iran. Around 10 percent of the
articles covered local news, such as ―Open Mosque Day‖65, Salafis, lectures and readings
about Islam and mosque building projects. News items which were mainly of national
relevance constituted around 10 percent of the total articles on Islam and Muslims. National
news topics covered issues such as terrorism, Islamism, Islamophobia, education, GermanTurkish relation and forced marriages.
61 http://daten.ivw.eu/index.php?menuid=1&u=&p=&detail=true (20.03.2012)
62 http://daten.ivw.eu/index.php?menuid=1&u=&p=&detail=true (20.03.2012)
63 http://daten.ivw.eu/index.php?menuid=1&u=&p=&detail=true (20.03.2012)
64 http://daten.ivw.eu/index.php?menuid=1&u=&p=&detail=true (20.03.2012)
65 On October 3, which is also the German Reunification Day, most Muslim communities take part in
the ―Day of the Open Mosque‖. In 1997 this was initiated by the Council of Muslims in Germany.
123
We have chosen to analyse the news coverage on forced marriages as on the one hand
with 25 news items – which constitute about one quarter of the total national news items
related to Islam or Muslims – it provides sufficient material, on the other hand the issue was
covered by all four newspapers at hand. On the issue of forced marriages the FR covered
seven, the FAZ three, die Welt eleven, and the SZ four news items. From the analysis of
the news articles one can conclude that 19 items were hostile, three were inclusive, and
three neutral.
5. Launch of the study on forced marriages
On November 8, 2011, one day before the study was officially introduced to the public, the
Family Minister Kristina Schröder from the conservative Christian Democratic Party (CDU)
published an exclusive guest article in the daily newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
(FAZ) which can be considered as the mouthpiece of German conservatism. With her guest
article ―An escape route out of forced marriage‖ (8.11.2011, p.10) and the release of the
study on forced marriage Schröder paved the way for a controversial public debate in
Germany on forced marriage in the following weeks.
Minister Schröder praises the study ―Forced marriage in Germany. Numbers and analysis
of counselling cases‖ (BMFSJ 2011)66 as groundbreaking and unique in the field of forced
marriages in Germany, presents some striking numbers, and also shares several political
conclusions she draws from the study. After announcing that in the year 2008, 3443 cases
of forced marriage were registered in the counselling centres in Germany, she draws the
attention to the ―horrible dilemma‖ the persons concerned are confronted with: ―The loss of
self-determination through a forced marriage always goes hand in hand with the danger
that with the call for help family ties will be lost as well‖ (08.11.2011, p.10).
She continues by identifying the deficient German language skills among the victims of
forced marriage as a primary source for their unfortunate situation, thus argues that
German language skills are not only indispensable for daily life and career perspectives but
also for ―a self determined, in a real sense independent life apart from parental restraints.‖
Hereby, she portrays the situation of the victims of forced marriage as self-inflicted, due to
66 http://www.bmfsfj.de/RedaktionBMFSFJ/Broschuerenstelle/Pdf-Anlagen/Zwangsverheiratung-inDeutschland-Anzahl-und-Analyse-vonBeratungsf_C3_A4llen,property=pdf,bereich=bmfsfj,sprache=de,rwb=true.pdf (23.01.2012)
124
their poor command of German. However, in this context she does mention structural as
well as institutional discriminatory practices in Germany, particularly in the spheres of
education and employment, even for those who speak German perfectly and are highly
qualified.67
The Minister then writes the following paragraph, which can be read as the key passage
because it identifies the religion of Islam as the main source for the phenomenon of forced
marriages:
According to the statements of the people affected by forced marriage, 83.4 percent of the
parents are Muslims, 9.5 percent belong to the specific Kurdish Yazidi‘s. 3.4 percent are
Christian and 1.3 percent Hindus. With good reason, many academics are warning against
short and simple causal chains. Nevertheless, the religious aspect should not leave us cold.
The connection between cultural background and human behaviour is a sociological matter of
course. Yet this connection is being ignored or denied with regard to Islam. In view of the
dispute about whether Islam is part of the problem or not, unfortunately it is totally overlooked
that Islam must clearly be part of the solution. We must see that Islamic authorities in
Germany understand the denial, and that they see action against forced marriages more as
their duty. (08.11.2011, p.10)
By listing the different religions with their respective affiliation to forced marriages it
becomes obvious that Islam – almost 85 percent of the persons concerned identified
themselves as Muslims – seems to constitute the major problem in this context, while other
religions are not really noteworthy, as they are not even in the double-digits. It is quite
striking that the Family Minister especially picks up this category and makes it to the central
aspect of her article, especially considering the discussion that took place about the
relevance and inclusion of the category ―religion‖ in the study:
During the preparation of the survey there was a already controversial discussion with the
advisory board about the inclusion of religion as a signifier: The religious affiliation was mainly
described as an ―empty variable‖ which does not allow interpretations without comparative
numbers and additional knowledge about the religion actually practiced. Therefore, common
ground was found with the advisory council that a survey would only serve for descriptive
purposes. (BMFSJ 2011:34)
67 See EUV-WP 1-3 where institutional and structural discriminatory practices in Germany are
discussed.
125
The study includes a rather careful and sceptical approach towards the use of the category
of religion in this context and states that
with the selected method and the available data it was not intended to examine if and which
connection between religiosity/religious affiliation with forced marriage exists. In order to
explore the influence of factors such as education, origin, religiosity etc on the practice of
forced marriage further research would be necessary. (BMFSJ 2011:36).
This cautious approach of the researchers and the advisory board demonstrates the
sensibility and the degree of (possible) politicization of the issue at hand and illustrates that
the discourse is not taking place in a socio-political vacuum. Interestingly, Chantler, Gangoli
and Hester, who analysed the issue of forced marriage in the UK-context, express similar
concerns and describe how this has influenced their research (design): ―There is often an
association of forced marriage with certain communities – South Asian and/or Muslim – and
we were anxious that our research should not feed into further pathologizing of these
communities‖ (2009:595).68
In their study Chantler, Gangoli and Hester draw the following conclusion:
within the forced marriage debate, South Asian and Muslim communities are perceived as
being largely responsible for forced marriages, whilst our research demonstrates that the
range of communities in which forced marriage occurs is much wider (…) Forced marriage is
often seen as a product of a ‗backward‘ culture or religion in a pathologizing manner. The
narratives in our study illustrate the interplay between culture, religion, poverty and state
practices including immigration practices which points to the need for a more sophisticated
and nuanced understanding of forced marriage. (Chantler, Gangoli and Hester, 2009: 587)
68 They further explain: ―There was also the possibility that minoritized participants (stakeholders,
community organizations for the mapping survey, survivors) might perceive the study as instrumental
in further restricting immigration and in potentially interfering with cultural practices around arranged
marriages. This had the potential of creating distrustful and suspicious research relationships right
from the outset, and of creating a sampling bias in favour of organizations and individuals who did
not have a critical or radical perspective on the issues being explored. Whilst this may have been the
case, our inclusion of a wide range of organizations from overtly feminist and antiracist organizations
right through to an imam at a mosque illustrates that we were successful in engaging with
participants from a variety of perspectives‖ (Chantler, Gangoli & Hester 2009:595).
126
They go on to argue that an exclusive focus on ―South Asian communities detracts from the
factors contributing to forced marriage in other communities, thus making those
experiences invisible. The danger of gearing policy and practice towards specific
communities and on age is a far from satisfactory response to tackling forced marriage‖
(Ibid.: 608).
In their international study on forced marriage Karakasoglu and Subasi argue along the
same lines: ―neither immigrant population nor religious communities constitute a
homogeneous group, and thus the reasons cannot simply be limited religion and culture‖
(2007:120).
Drawing on national as well as international research findings the BMFSJ-study explains
that there ―is broad consensus in academia that forced marriages cannot be reduced to
certain religious traditions, they can be found in different social, ethnic, and contexts all over
the globe, also in Europe‖ (BMFSJ 2011:9). In order to prevent misinterpretation and even
misuse of the category ‗religion‘ authors of the study further state that due to the survey
methods the data at hand does not give reliable information according to which criteria
people‘s religious affiliation was identified:
the counsellor as well as the counselled have their own ‗forms of intuition‘ which could not be
identified in the context of this study. Generally it should be assumed that the knowledge
about attributes like origin, religious affiliation, religiosity and alike – and with that the selfassignment – also effect how certain communities are looked at in the public debate. (BMFSJ
2011: 35)
Although the Family Minister is fully aware of this critical issue – she herself warns from
short and simple causal chains – she still prefers to make use of the category religion and
presents this a courageous and long overdue way of dealing with it: ―Nevertheless, the
religious aspect should not leave us cold. The connection between cultural background and
human behaviour is a sociological matter of course. Yet this connection is being ignored or
denied with regard to Islam‖ (FAZ, 08.11.2011, p.10). Not only does she present herself as
someone breaking a taboo and being honest about the problems, but also essentializes
them, and thus puts Islam and Muslims in the spotlight of the issue.
In her piece Minister Schröder does not only emphasize that more than 80 percent of the
victims of forced marriage are Muslims but also stresses that people with a Turkish
background are particularly affected: ―23 percent were born in Turkey (…), and Turkey was
127
the most common country of origin of parents, with 44 percent.‖ By pointing out that almost
all affected persons have a migration background, that 23 percent were born in Turkey, and
that the most frequent country of origin of parents was Turkey (44 percent), the issue is not
only externalised and portrayed as an imported foreign problem from abroad but also
framed as a specific Muslim Turkish one. Hence, the issue of forced marriage is both
religionized (Muslim) and ethicized (Turk).
Furthermore, besides stigmatizing Muslims in this article she uses the issue of forced
marriage for other political purposes as well, namely the question of dual citizenship.
Thirty two percent of the victims of forced marriage were born in Germany, and of those who
were born abroad four out of five have been living in Germany for five or more years. Fortyfour percent are German citizens. Both parameters – long residency in Germany and the
German citizenship – apply for many of the victims of forced marriage. This shows that these
parameters apparently cannot be counted as a reliable measure for the societal integration of
migrants. One should know that it is not possible to support the identification of immigrants
with the German legal and societal norms through dual citizenship. (FAZ, 08.11.2011, p. 10)
This passage shows that the study of forced marriage is being (mis)used as a justification
for additional political purposes, namely for a more restrictive and discriminatory integration
and immigration policy. In this context Subasi claims that this issue is instrumentalized to
enforce entry-regulations and more restrictive visa arrangements. For example, the issue of
forced marriage has been used to legitimize controversial language tests, which spouses
from abroad have to take before being eligible to move to Germany: ―The way the public
discussion about forced marriage is led, makes them Turkish population with an immigrant
background strangers again, which paves the way for politicians to pass more restrictive
laws against them‖ (2011).69
It should be noted that Schröder was already a prominent political figure strongly opposing
dual citizenship. When referring to this study on forced marriages she refers to other
delicate issues concerning Islam, Turks and immigration, which offer populist ways to
69
http://www.migazin.de/2011/11/14/diese-debatte-starkt-die-ausgangsbedingungen-fur-gewalt/
(13.02.2012). Prior to becoming Family Minister Kristina Schröder had already tried to distinguish
herself as an expert on Islamism, extremism and radicalisation. Several years ago she was a
prominent figure opposing dual citizenship. She was known as ‗the hunter of Islamists‘. In 2010
Schröder draw broad attention on herself when she brought up the issue of ―Deutschenfeindlichkeit‖
(hostility against Germans/anti-German racism) among immigrant youths.
128
mobilise the public. In a subtle way these statements give the reader the impression that
regardless of whether these people were born, raised or have been living in Germany for a
long period of time, they are difficult to integrate as their very nature is irreconcilably
different from the German one.
Furthermore, she states:
In Germany one likes to argue about the difference between integration and assimilation.
Whoever extensively deals with forced marriages will have to admit: regardless whether forced
marriages are (…) culturally, religiously socially justified – none is compatible with our basic
law‘s notion of a human being. Some traditional roots must once and for all be severed if one
is serious about it with the ‗arrival‘ in Germany and the acceptance of the basic rights and the
legal norms here. (8.11., p.10)
In the following paragraph she states that people threatened with or affected by forced
marriage have already experienced violence in their education and describes the
connection between violence in families and forced marriage as alarming. By doing this
issue of violence is brought up and the connection between Islam, Turks and violence is
established.
This piece also tells something about the current government's approach to this issue. The
Family Minister was neither criticized by fellow colleagues for her initiative nor rebuked by
Chancellor Merkel, who usually intervenes in important political questions. Also, the
symbolic release of the study by the Family Minister together with the Federal Officer for
Integration, Maria Böhmer, make it seem like an action with broad support from the
government. Therefore, the silence about this issue can also be read as the official
government stance on this issue.
On November 9 Family Minister Kristina Schröder and the Officer for Integration Maria
Böhmer – two leading female representatives of the Federal German government and both
politicians from the conservative party Christian Democratic Union – introduced the
research study to the public, which was covered by all four daily newspapers that are
subject to this report.
129
5.1. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ)
One day after the guest article by Schröder was published in the print edition of the FAZ, it‘s
online version followed up on this issue by publishing a piece entitled ―Schröder: Speak
more about forced marriage in schools― alluding to the main political demands resulting
from the study.
In contrast to the guest article by Schröder, there was no mention of religion or Islam in this
item. However, the hint that ―almost all affected persons were immigrants or the
descendants of the immigrants, 44 percent had Turkish roots‖ (09.11.2012)70 implies that in
the public perception Turks are equated with Muslims. In this item statements such as the
political demand of a closer cooperation with the authorities of the countries of origin, who
―with all their power and strengths must fight against the heavy human rights violation‖
externalise the problem on the one hand, or that in many cases victims of forced marriage
―were abducted to a foreign country‖ portray them as an entity of organised crime.
The end of the article deals with some legal ramifications of the forced marriage debate,
namely the right of residence for spouses. The minimum period of time a couple has to be
married in order for the partner to get a residence permit was recently increased from two to
three years. In light of this Mehmet Kilic, a Member of the German Parliament with a
Turkish background, has been given a voice and expressed his critique of the legal
measures. However, here it is not clear whether this has been done from the perspective of
the minority voice or a voice of the opposition party.
On a superficial level the item seems to be neutral and informing about the political
demands resulting from the study. However, a closer look reveals that the usage of
vocabulary like ‗countries of origin‘, ‗immigrants‘, ‘44 percent had Turkish roots‘, ‗abducted‘,
or ‗high dark rates‘ tend to frame the issue rather negatively.
The very same item appeared in the print version a day later, on November 10, but under a
different title. Interestingly, although the FAZ kicked-off the debate about forced marriages
there was no further coverage of this issue.
70http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/inland/zwangsverheiratung-in-deutschland-schroeder-in-schulenmehr-ueber-zwangsehen-sprechen-11523447.html (09.01.2012)
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5.2. Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ)
On November 9 the issue was placed in the print version of the SZ in a prominent section of
politics, namely ―background‖ and ―op-ed‖. The background item‘s title ―Impelled to the yesword‖ along with it‘s teaser ―Almost half of women who are forced into marriage have a
German passport – most of them come from religious families― already indicate the
(religious) direction of this piece. In the article victim‘s affiliation with Islam and their origin
as Turks is highlighted, thus religiously and ethnically framed. Drawing on the important
function of headlines and highlighted text passages van Dijk ascertains that
since topics express the most important information of a text, and in news are further
signalled by prominent headlines and leads, they are also best understood and memorized by
the readers. In other words, negative topics have negative consequences on the ‗minds‘ of the
recipient. (2000:38)
The following passage is an example showing the religious lens through which the author
approaches the issue of forced marriage: ―The broad majority of the marriage candidates‘
parents (83 percent) belong to Islam, almost 10 percent are Yazidi‘s, a religion common
among Kurds, and nevertheless 3.4 percent are Christians‖ (09.11.2011, p.5). Why is the
author of this piece saying ―nevertheless‖ when speaking about the 3.4 percent Christians
who are affected by forced marriage? Did he not expect that Christians could be forced into
marriage as well? Although the number of 3.4 percent seems to be marginal compared to
the rest, the author‘s usage of the word ‗nevertheless‘ alludes to his astonishment that
Christians are also affected by it.
The two findings of the study related to education and violence must have been of particular
relevance and importance for the SZ as they chose to visually highlight them in the text.
The first highlighted sentence is: ―The phenomenon is not only limited to working-class
families‖. This means that contrary to the general notion that forced marriage is primarily an
issue of the uneducated lower class is not valid for this milieu; hence, in the Muslim
community this phenomenon is widely spread in all milieus, including middle and upper
class. This passage may lead to the conclusion that for those people even education does
not help to overcome this issue. It leaves the impression that even educated Turks /
Muslims are problematic cases, because it is not possible to integrate them so that they are
in accordance with the notion of a human being as outlined in German basic law.
131
Another highlighted statement is ―one quarter of the victims report death threats before
marriage‖ which is integrated in the following paragraph:
In the counselling centres the victims were expected to also give information about the
motives of their families (…) The marriage with an unknown was understood as a means
against an undesired boyfriend or girlfriend or even against homosexuality. About a third of the
spouses were expected to move abroad or were already living there. Thus these families show
how much they are attached to the mindset of their countries of origin. Here for the family
honour it is important that the bride enters the marriage ‗untouched‘ and gay sons are
considered as a ‗shame‘. (09.11.2011, p. 5)
Furthermore it is stated that a quarter of the victims report that they were threatened with
weapons and death, and in the cases of more than half of the victims the kinship used
violence. Approximately 70 percent were blackmailed or threatened into marriage. In
relation to this a study from 2004 is referred to which is considered complementary, thus
making the issue of forced marriage scientifically grounded (and complementary in its
findings).
Neither a critical statement about the study is expressed nor a voice from the minority
community included. In this context the one sentence in the item ―(…) authors of the study
are warning that the problem is primarily seen as an Islamic one and that issues of tradition,
images of masculinity and poverty are neglected‖ (09.11.2011, p.5) sounds rather marginal
and is highly likely to be overlooked.
Taking together the title, teaser and the two visually highlighted sentences the article
conveys a clearly negative picture of the Muslim and immigrant community, and in
particularly concerns the Turkish one, where, even among the more educated sections of
society, a significant segment of the population is forcing their children into marriage, often
using various forms of violence.
The ―background‖-piece on forced marriage by Roland Preuß is complemented with his oped entitled ―With imams against forced marriages‖. As the title implies, the comment is
solely about the religious dimension of the issue.
It is the contrast to the Western romantic notion of marriage, this makes forced marriages
already so disconcerting. While some are searching for their great love of their lives, many
migrant families force their daughters and sons into the misfortune of marriage (…) Surely,
criminal law alone will not suffice, immigrants need to change. They must detach from their
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traditions, which are opposed to basic law in Germany (…) In this context imam‘s play a
crucial role, because they enjoy much prestige among religious families. And according to the
study it is exactly these religious families, which are responsible for forced marriages. The
prayer leaders can certainly argue with the Islamic teachings which is do not prescribe forced
marriage (…) German politics can support this by making clear that there can be no
compromise when it comes to forced marriages. (09.11.2011, p. 4)
The author draws an antagonistic Manichean view of the world: here the ‗us‘ – the idealized
Western romanticized individual searching for the great love of their life – versus ‗them‖ –
the religious immigrants with their imported obsolete archaic traditions suffering under the
pressure of violent and religious male authorities. Without further specification the religious
immigrant is portrayed as opposed to Germany‘s basic law. It is particularly the generalising
statements such as ―many migrant families force their daughters and sons into the
misfortune in marriage (…) immigrants need to change. They must detach from their
traditions, which are opposed to basic law in Germany” that depict the phenomenon of
forced marriage within the Muslim immigrant community as the rule rather than the
exception. Not only is the demand made that the religious immigrant has to change but it is
also suggested how they should to change; namely, through the means of the religious
leaders of the Muslim community. The item concludes with a rather optimistic outlook,
making reference to positive developments in Turkey and Turkish media in terms of dealing
with the issue of forced marriage, but despite this the general tone is rather stigmatizing
and patronizing. Without a critical reflection this item supports Schröder‘s narrative of forced
marriage, especially with its focus on Islam.
Over the course of the day the online version of the SZ also covers this issue under the title
―Schöder announces hotline for victims of forced marriages‖, first repeating the same
findings of the study and the measures demanded by Schröder and Böhmer. This time the
article also encompasses critical voices from the Green Party – criticizing that the measures
are not going far enough and demanding more victim protection, and including comments
from Terre des Femmes71 complaining that the government is not fulfilling its duty of care
for young women. However, it was only Aydan Özoguz, deputy chairperson of the Social
Democrats (SPD), explicitly referring to the problem of the stigmatization of Muslims:
71 Terre des Femmes is a non-profit human rights organisation based in Germany that supports girls
and women through raising public awareness, international networking, campaigning, individual
personal assistance and the promotion of self-help projects abroad.
133
―The integration policy spokesperson of the SPD‘ parliamentary group, Aydan Özoguz,
described the hotline as a measure against forced marriages not as sufficient. Furthermore,
she reproached Schröder of categorically stigmatizing Muslims. When the Minister presented
the study she had indicated that the majority of the affected people were Muslims‖
72
5.3. Die Welt
Also Die Welt covered the issue with an article entitled ―One in three threatened with
death‖73 followed by the teaser ―A study of the Family Ministry explores the phenomenon of
forced marriage on a national level for the first time. Most of those seeking help are women
who have already experienced violence in their upbringing‖ and highlighted ―Nearly 70
percent of the affected persons are younger than 22. Almost all have a migration
background. One third were born in Germany‖ (09.11.2011, p. 5).
What is specific about this article is that it not only lengthily portrays a women with a
Kurdish background who has been the victim of forced marriage but it also underpins the
story with selected findings of the study on the one hand and calls on the assessment of
Aydin Findikci, a sociologist from Munich, on the other. By doing this the issue of forced
marriage is filled with witness testimonies from real victims, backed up by a research study
and an assessment of an expert. All in all this gives the impression of a professional and
thoroughly researched credible and authentic story.
Sonja Fatma Bläser, who provides the witness testimony, is portrayed as a heroic woman,
who succeeded to break ties with her violent family, and after a tiring and suffering journey
has reached independence and freedom. She is now married to a German man (thus,
saved from violence and the problem is solved) and has even assumed a German name –
symbolizing the new identity and the perfect integration. This indirectly implies that she, the
Muslim women, through marriage with the German (probably non-Muslim) man, has been
exempted from violent Muslim men and is now leading a peaceful, fulfilling and
emancipated life. Fatma Bläser‘s life mission is to raise awareness of forced marriage in the
migrant community. She founded an association for victims of forced marriage, which is
exclusively funded through the revenues of her autobiographic book, and is holding
readings and visiting schools. She serves as an eye-opener not only for the issue of forced
72
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/schroeder-kuendigt-hilfstelefon-bei-zwangsheirat-anschroeder-kuendigt-hotline-fuer-zwangsehe-opfer-an-1.1184903 (09.01.2012)
73 The same article also appeared in the online version on the same day. A shorter version was
published in the print version of Welt Kompakt, which is an abridged version of Die Welt.
134
marriage but also for the permissive German politics towards Muslims and integration. For
decision makers and opinion shapers it is strategically of great importance that women like
Bläser complain about Germany‘s legal system, presumed to be liberal.
The ‗wrong tolerance‘ which she encounters in Germany again and again, makes her furious.
‗Many politicians do not put their cards on the table or show a weird understanding towards
traditions which violate human rights.‘ In her experience Islamists sic! can perfectly organize
themselves in Germany (9.11.2011, p. 5).
She is demanding a ‗zero tolerance‘ policy towards the ‗Islamists‘. These authentic insider
voices provide arguments and justification for proponents of a more restrictive and harsh
policy towards immigrants. Furthermore, she embodies the mediator as well as enlightener
giving guidelines for helpless and confused German teachers, who are unable to cope with
the phenomenon of forced marriage: ―She meets confused teachers who do not know how
to deal with this phenomenon. She teaches them to be watchful when students tell before a
holiday to the home country of their parents that they have received many presents from
the relatives living there.‖ (09.11.2011, p.5)
Besides the representation of victims of forced marriage, this item portrays Muslim men as
barbaric and inhuman aggressors. As the article is filled with emotionally loaded negative
ascriptions of Muslim men the relevant passages will be quoted below:
(…) the father tried to beat integration out of her body (…) When she spoke with boys from her
school, when she painted her finger nails, when she wanted to get her drivers license – she
was always beaten up. When Bläser was 19, her father once and for all wanted to force her
back to the world of his traditions: In 1985, during a holiday in Turkey the young women was
married to a relative without warning. She fled, hid in Germany, survived a murder squad (…)
Bläser acknowledges that she is repeatedly threatened. Once the breaks of her car were
manipulated, another time at a reading of hers a young Turkish man with a gun showed up
(…) Almost 300 affected women come to Bläser‘s counselling centre each year. Among them
are young Turkish girls who were to be killed by their fathers with rat poison because they did
not want to marry (09.11.2011, p. 5)
By stating that in her daily work, especially when visiting schools and during her readings,
Bläser ―(…) time and again (…) meets students from the third generation of immigrants who
have the same patriarchic-fundamentalist mentality as their grandfathers‖ (9.11.2011, p.5)
the item frames young male immigrant Muslims as problematic non-integrated potential
threats, who, following the footsteps of their forefathers, will be aggressors of violence and
135
are very likely to force their sisters and daughters into marriages. This statement has a
biologistic element as well, as it implies that this mentality is virtually passed from
generation to generation ‗biologically‘ is not only widely spread but also quasi intrinsic to
this community.
In this context, however, the inclusion of Aydin Findikci‘s assessment is striking, as the
reader does not get any further information about why he is included here and what
qualifies him to offer his assessment. Is it his competence as a sociologist? Is it his
migration background, which is not further explained, but which one can assume from his
Turkish sounding name? Or is it maybe both, the sociologist with a migration background
who knows how the immigrant Muslim community ticks and can explains it to the German
audience? Maybe the author felt it helpful to get an insight from a sociologist in order to
shed light on what Schröder described: ―the connection between cultural background and
human behaviour is a sociological matter of course. Yet this connection is being ignored or
denied with regard to Islam.‖ The reader can only assume that he must be considered as
an expert on this issue by the author of this article. But brief research about Aydin Findikci
reveals that it was not the first time that Die Welt referred to him in the context of Islam and
integration. From the previous articles Findikci has written for Die Welt one can easily
understand that he has an extremely biased and hostile attitude towards Islam.74 However,
the way his assessment is being presented in the article is very critical: ―There are no
reliable figures about forced marriages in Germany. Aydin Findikci, a sociologist from
Munich, believes that 30000 with an Islamist sic! background, take place annually‖
(09.11.2011, p.5). From this passage it is not clear whether it was Findikci or the author of
74 Findikci had already published two articles in Die Welt, one in the section 'guest article‘, and the
other one as an op-ed. The titles, teasers, and the highlighted sections of the articles make clear the
direction the content takes: 29.12.09; Guest article – Title: ―Outdated Quran interpretation curb
integration‖; Teaser: ―Is it as the poet says, that the mosques are the barracks of the Muslims, the
minarets their bayonets, the domes their helmets, and the believers their soldiers? In an urgent
appeal Aydin Findikci, who teaches sociology at the University in Munich, is correcting a false
understanding of Islam in Germany.‖ Highlighted text passages: ―The unchanged word of God?; The
organised faith is Islamist; Mosques politically misused.‖
http://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article5665837/Veraltete-Koran-Auslegung-bremst-dieIntegration.html (12.01.2012)
20.10.10; Opinion - Title: ―Why the headscarf is hindering integration‖; Teaser: ―Aydin Findikci thinks
that headscarves are worn on behalf of the Sharia as a symbol for dividing the society into believers
and non-believers‖; Highlighted passages: ―The headscarf as a symbol against the laicist system;
Wearing a headscarf and honour killings:‖
http://www.welt.de/debatte/kommentare/article10406136/Warum-das-Kopftuch-die-Integrationverhindert.html (12.01.2012)
136
the article who chose to use the misleading term ‗Islamist‘. Interestingly, the term ‗Islamist‘
is used in another passage as well where the author paraphrases Fatma Bläser: ―In her
experience Islamists sic! can perfectly organize themselves in Germany‖ (09.11.2011,
p.5).
What makes this item special in contrast to all others is that it talks about ‗Islamist‘ rather
than an Islamic background or Islamists rather than Muslims. In the entire context of the
item it is being used synonymously even though there are major and crucial differences
between these terms. The reader is given the impression that an Islamist and Muslim and
Islamist and Islamic is synonymous.
By letting a crown witness from the Muslim community speak, an exclusive glimpse into the
otherwise unknown, mysterious, inaccessible, and violent world of the immigrant Muslim
community is given from an authentic insider.
The general style of this item is sensational and the language extremely emotional. The
examples chosen are heavily dramatic and the testifying characters authentic. In particular
Muslim men are portrayed as violent, uncivilized, barbaric, and oppressive. The item has
not only a very supportive undertone for Minister Schröder‘s position but it also provides
information calling for a more restrictive law and order policy, especially towards Muslims.
In this item a victim of forced marriage is portrayed and the results of the study introduced.
The study is presented as a uniquely first time groundbreaking document shedding light
onto a hitherto fairly unknown, new and foreign but still socially pressing phenomenon.
5.4. Frankfurter Rundschau (FR)
On November 9, the FR-online also covered the story with an agency report from AFP
(Agence France Presse) entitled ―Young, from a religious family - and forced into marriage―
with the following teaser: ―The young women that are pushed into a forced marriage go
through many struggles. In this context, one in three victims is threatened with death, a new
study has revealed. Many victims of forced marriages are younger than 17. The majority
come from strongly religious families‖75 (9.11.2011). Although in this AFP item there is only
a general discussion about religious migrant families and neither Islam nor Muslims are
75
http://www.fr-online.de/politik/zwangsehe-jung--aus-religioeser-familie---undzwangsverheiratet,1472596,11122202.html (12.01.2012)
137
explicitly mentioned, the picture that is placed next to the article makes it is obvious that
Muslims and Islam is meant in this context.
Caption: ―According to a study almost half of those who are either forced into or threatened
with marriage are German citizens, about 95 percent are women and girls.‖
The depiction of a person with a purple headscarf from behind, wearing a pink hooded
sweater and a ring on her ring finger, suggests to the reader that this is a young female
Muslim and victim of forced marriage.76 Here, not only the hair of the women is veiled but
also her identity, she remains anonymous and an unknown to the readers.
At this point we would like to refer to the instrumentalization of Muslim women in antiMuslim racism by pointing out the effects of particular forms of pictorial representations.
Muslim women are per se considered to be suppressed and subordinate to men, and their
treatment represents the thinking and actions of Muslims in general (Schiffer 2008). 77
Schiffer argues that the discourse about ‗the Muslim‘ demonstrates the framing and
ordering function of language and pictures.
The headscarf wearing Muslim women is used for illustrative purposes when it comes to
integration problems, naturalization, and German language tests. By this the clearly visible
symbol also becomes a symbol of foreignness and otherness (Schiffer 2008).
This agency report refers to the articles published in Die Welt and SZ (discussed above)
and cites the Commissioner for Integration. However no minority voice is expressed in this
item.
76 Interestingly this particular picture has also been used in several other news articles covering the
issue of forced marriage.
77 http://www.migration-boell.de/web/diversity/48_1231.asp (13.02.2012), published May 2008.
138
On November 10, the print edition of the FR did a special focus on forced marriages in
Germany covering the issue on page two and three of the politics section. The two page
focus included an overview about the key findings of the study, provided an insight into the
legal situation of forced marriage in Germany, presented victims stories, and covered an
interview with a prominent women‘s rights activist and Islam critic Seyran Ates, who has a
Kurdish-Turkish background.
The article, ―Enforced misfortune in marriage‖ by Katja Tichomirowa classifies the study as
important and unique, but not representative. Tichomirowa begins her article by
stigmatizing ―strictly religious Muslim‖ families:
It is a serious human rights violation, (…) the forced marriage. However, it is being practiced
thousands of times in Germany. Young men and women, usually from strictly religious Muslim
families – often under the threat of violence – are being forced to marry. Many of these
marriages happen in the victims‘ countries of origin. (10.11.2011, p. 2)
Here the author stresses the strictly religious identity of the victims and their countries of
origin, highlighting their supposed otherness.
Another important item in this context is the contribution by Maurice Farrouh on page three
of the FR, in which, with the help of the women‘s rights organisation Terre des Femmes, the
fates of two women are documented. Both cases are about Muslim women, the first called
Leila, whose parents are originally from Lebanon, and the other Ayse, who has a Turkish
background.
Leila‘s situation is described as:
From her strictly Muslim parents many things were forbidden that were normal for other girls of
her age: going out, possessing a mobile phone, surfing the internet. For Leila all this is taboo.
She cannot even shut the door of her room. (10.11.2011, p. 3)
Ayse‘s fate is presented as follows:
The parents, who originally come from Turkey, want to marry her with a man from a
befriended clan. Arranged marriages are quite common in the family context, and the children
usually do subordinate themselves under the will of the parents (…). For days her mother and
her siblings want to talk her into the marriage. They tell her that it is normal. They tell her that
she has to save the honour of the family (…). Ayse refuses but the family ignores it. They
139
threaten her and promise her expensive wedding gifts. Eventually, they tell her that she has no
choice in the matter. (10.11.2011, p. 3)
In this desperate situation, it was her attentive German female supervisor who helped the
suppressed and helpless young Muslim women out of her desperate situation.
At least she can graduate from school and pursue an apprenticeship as a saleswomen in a
shoe store. It is the only connection to the world outside the family. The supervisor quickly
realizes that Leila has big problems. After a short hesitation the girl entrusts herself to her. The
owner of the shop establishes a contact to a counselling centre. (10.11.2011, p. 3)
In both cases it is emphasized that the young Muslim women – both then and now
described as girls – manage to escape from the chains of their suppressive families only
with the external help of the ―white‖ German women. While in the case of Leila it is the
attentive German female supervisor at work who helps the desperate Muslim girl, Ayse
receives help from the German women rights organisation Terre des Femmes.
It is striking that in these contexts women from (white) German majority society are either
presented as the helpless and desperate observers of the situation because they are
overwhelmed by the situation or as the saviours of the victim from of the situation.
The general impression the reader gets from these two cases is a very negative and
stereotypical image of ‗strictly religious‘ families with a Syrian and Turkish background –
violent and suppressive family structures, where the individual has to subordinate his or
herself to the collective idea of the family and women are immature, weak, desperate and
not self-confident until they receive help from ―white German‖ women who empower and
liberate them.
6. Reactions of the advisory board
At the end of November 2011, just a few weeks after the publication of Schröder‘s FAZarticle and the launch of the study, when one had assumed that the public debate about the
forced marriage study was over and that all positions had been presented, the discussion
took an unusual turn and a second phase of the discussion began. This was due to the fact
that, after reading Schröder‘s FAZ-article, members of the academic advisory board of the
study on forced marriage felt the urgent need to publicly intervene with a statement. In their
140
statement they express that in light of the Minister's presentation of the results of the study
they feel ―great consternation‖ (sueddeutsche.de, 29.11.2011)78, and hence, would like to
clarify two crucial points. While one critique is directed at the use of the religious affiliation,
the other one targets the supposed number of people concerned by forced marriage.
The advisory board states that during the entire research for the project there was already a
concern
that a survey about religious affiliation could lead to misunderstanding, misinterpretation or
problematic ascriptions. Unfortunately, now this concern is confirmed through the FAZ-article,
in which Minister Schröder claims that ‗according to the statements of the people affected
83,4% of the parents were Muslim‘. This claim is just wrong, because persons affected by
forced marriage at no point were ever directly asked in the context of this study. The number
mentioned is rather a result of people working at counselling centres (…) Therefore, the
correct formulation would be ‗counsellors indicated that they assume that 83,4% of the parents
of the persons concerned are presumably of Muslim origin.‘ Whoever ignores these
differences denies the validity of any empirical study. One can save oneself that trouble
beforehand. (suddeutsche.de 29.11.2011)
The SZ-item in detail refers to the statement of the advisory board pointing out how
Schröder intentionally misinterpreted the findings and, thus, propagated anti-Muslim
resentment.
The article has an inclusive tone towards Muslims criticising how German authorities
intentionally create, construct and shape anti-Muslim prejudices and stereotypes. However,
no minority voice is expressed in the item. Besides the spokesperson of the Ministry, who
speaks in favour of his superior, it is Monika Schröttle, a member of the study‘s advisory
council, who is quoted in the article.
Minister Schröder‘s course of action is strongly condemned. She is presented as a populist
politician – in the past she gave controversial statements about Islam and immigrants and
lead controversial political campaigns such as that on the issue of citizenship – as well as
being an incompetent academic – referring to her dissertation as a ―classic B-type work‖:
It is not the first time that Schröder causes headshaking in the academic world. At the end of
2009 shortly after her swearing in critique emerged about dissertation, which academics would
78
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/familienministerin-in-der-kritik-wissenschaftler-attackierenschroeder-fuer-islamophobe-untertoene-1.1221681 (11.01.2012)
141
call a ‗typical B-type work‘ (…) primarily serving ones own career, from a scientific perspective
rather irrelevant. During the election campaign in Hesse in 2008, Schröder claimed an
increase of ‗anti-German racism‘ among foreigners. Then too she misinterpreted the scientific
findings, in this case those of the respected criminologist Christian Pfeiffer from Hannover (…)
Schröder (…) explained the contradiction in her unconventional way (…) ‗That‘s how it is in
academia. Everyone draws his / her own conclusions. (suddeutsche.de 29.11.2011)
Although the author of the article is trying to make a point by criticizing Schröder‘s approach
to the issue, the positive description of Christian Pfeiffer as ―respected‖ is rather confusing
because Pfeiffer is himself a controversial figure. Although the hint to Pfeiffer‘s study is
correct in the context of anti-German racism it should be noted that in 2010 the very same
study produced the catchphrase ―the more religious, the more violent‖ with regards to
young male Muslims.79 For this he has been accused of doing ‗politically motivated
research‘ and ‗populism‘ at the expense of Muslims.
In the same context, but in a less positive tone, the FR also refers to Pfeiffer:
She Schröder interpreted a study of the sociologist sic! Christian Pfeiffer as a proof for an
increase of ‗anti-German‘ violence – a thesis about which particularly one person was
surprised: the author himself‖ and also reminds the reader about Schröder‘s past where she
tried to distinguish herself with Islam critique. Amongst other things she requested to ‗fight
political Islam like terrorism‘. (FR, 30.11.2011)
Interestingly, only the SZ and FR covered the statements of the advisory board. They also
referred to a previous study in relation to this, that the Minister misused for her own
purposes.
Even though FR and SZ deserve credit for following the issue and reporting about the
statement of the researchers, it should also be noted that apparently it was not important
enough to include it in the print version of their respective papers but to leave it with an
online coverage of the issue. When the study about forced marriage was released both
79 The Federal Ministry for the Interior commissioned the Criminological Institute of Lower Saxony to
carry out a study on causalities between experience of violence, media consumption and integration.
For this purpose several thousand pupils were also asked about their religiosity. Ultimately, the study
found connections between the degree of self-assessed religiosity, macho behaviour, integration and
violence.
142
papers covered this issue in print as well as in their online version as it was considered very
relevant.
When the study was released there was no questioning of the findings of a study which was
commissioned by a minister known for misusing study findings and for being openly critical
of Muslims and immigrants. The question remains why the media does not take a more
critical, sceptical and hesitant approach when studies about Muslims are released and in
particular by this minister.80 It could be that the findings presented were not too much of a
surprise for members of media, they actually anticipated this and their stance on this issue
was been reaffirmed.
Interestingly, Die Welt and FAZ did not cover this statement at all. Actually it would have
been a logical step for the FAZ to also cover this as a continuation of the debate on forced
marriage which was exclusively started in it‘s paper with the guest article by Kristina
Schröder. By withholding this important statement from its readership the FAZ is leaving the
arguments put forward by Schröder in the air and not challenging it. This can also be read
as a way of supporting this position and not revealing the contested and misleading position
of the Minister.
Strikingly, Die Welt, which covered this issue in a sensational way, did not cover this item
either. On the contrary, instead of critically discussing this issue, Die Welt featured more
stories about forced marriages and honour killings supportive of Schröder‘s arguments.
Furthermore, Die Welt also published an essay by Necla Kelek, a controversial public figure
known for her ‗Islam critique‘.
80 In March 2012 the German public witnessed a similar case when the Federal Minister of the
Interior, Hans-Peter Friedrich, released a study on Muslim youth in Germany. One day before the
official release of the study the biggest selling German tabloid ―Die Bild‖ exclusively published the
content of the study. ―Die Bild‖ published an article which it entitled ―Shock study - Minister for the
Interior warns radical Muslims. Young Muslims reject integration‖ and reported about the worrisome
key findings: ―about 20 percent of all Muslims in Germany reject integration. Young Muslims without
a German passport are especially radical.‖ According to the study one in four non-German Muslim
rejects integration, has a tendency towards violence and questions Western values. This item
included a quote by the Federal Interior Minister with the following statement: ―Germany respects the
origin and the cultural identity of its immigrants. But we do not accept the import of authoritarian, antidemocratic and religious-fanatical views. Those who fight freedom and democracy will have no
future here – to make this clear is the task of everyone.‖ After the publication of the study the
researchers publicly intervened into the debate, stating that their report had been hijacked for
political purposes, and expressed their worries and concerns on how the research findings were
misinterpreted.
143
Among the newspaper items analysed the article ―Cutting the throat in the name of honour‖
(Welt online, 27.11.2011) was the most sensational. The combination of the title with its
teaser ―A new study shows that violence against Muslim women has not declined. Hamburg
wants to fight against it‖; the picture of a black niqab-wearing women; the dramatic and
strong language used; the extreme cases chosen; the one-sided experts voices expressed
and the selective choice of research on the subject all give the reader the impression that
forced marriage is intrinsic to Islam, thus diametrically opposed to the conception of a
human being outlined in German basic law.
Caption: A fully veiled women. Still numerous Muslim women are victims of violence in their
families.
A representative of the German section of the international women rights organisation Terre
des Femmes gave the following statement in relation to this issue: ―Patriarchy is not a
phenomenon of the past (…) Even today living according to traditional value patterns does
restrict the free development of many girls and women, and in particular, migrant Muslim
women living in Germany‖ (Welt online, 27.11.2011). Giving a voice to a representative of
an organisation, which is perceived as politically and financially independent and thus has a
positive reputation and credibility in the public eye concerning women‘s rights, strengthens
the credibility of the item. As they have yearlong experience in women‘s rights issues and
are politically independent their assessment of the situation is of particular importance and
provides the item with an expert view. However, it is of note that she is not speaking of
German Muslims but of Muslims living in Germany.
It is not only an expert from a prestigious NGO like Terre des Femmes but also a social
education worker whose voice is heard. This shows that the author has conducted a
thorough research by shedding light on the disastrous situation of Muslim women from
different perspectives of the actors involved in this complex and sensitive issue.
144
While describing the painful fates of the Muslim women, in this item the representation of
men is also striking:
That her little daughter is today still alive and healthy, is a small miracle for Serap Y. In
October 2010 her brother, Ibrahim Y, came into the apartment of the then very pregnant
woman, threw her to the ground, kicked in her stomach and back and finally stamped on her.
Because her unborn child was from an illegitimate relationship with a Kurd, she had injured the
family honour (…). In other cases like the one of the German-Afghan Morsal Obeidi, any help
came too late. In May 2008 her brother killed the 16-year old in a backyard (…) with 23 stabs
with a knife because she had violated the rules of the Afghan family (…) with her Western
lifestyle.
He her brother controlled us at every step, we girls were not allowed to go out during the
day. When my older sister looked out of the window for a longer time, he would beat her (…).
The family her husband believed that a man can discipline his wife, whenever and however
he wants (…). When we ate all family members ate first and I was last. I was the quasi-servant
of my mother in law (…). He did not want me to get an education. He always said ‗that the
more you are educated the earlier you will leave me‘ (…). (Welt online, 27.11.2011).
Until the day when they were at a wedding and a strange man dared advances. ‗My
husband was in rage, and it ended in a mass fight. Because he assumed that I as a women
had provoked the situation he wanted to cut of my throat in front of 200 people‘ says
Yildirim. ‗I only survived because my son defended me. The rest of my family wanted to see
me dead.‘
Since this incident she has been living separated from her husband, and has divorced him.
‗I am still on the run, I moved to another city, because he and his family want to find and kill
me‘, says the 37-year old.‖ (Welt online, 27.11.2011)
Muslim men, be it the brother or the husband, are portrayed as extremely violent and
incalculable aggressors, who, because of their perverted understanding of honour, are able
to kill their sisters or wives. Providing the reader with the information that these cases are
just the tip of the iceberg may invite the reader to conclude that this is not the exception but
rather the norm amongst Muslims in Germany.
These emotional and dramatic statements from victims of forced marriage are embedded
with the results not only with the latest published study on forced marriage but also with a
study by the Lawaetz Foundation from 2005 where it is stated that ―82 percent of those
145
seeking help were of Muslim faith, the majority of them with a Turkish, Afghani, or Kurdish
background.‖ Taking those two studies together, there is an inference that it can empirically
proven that the issue of forced marriage is linked to Islam, and that people from Turkey are
mostly affected by it.
At the end of the debate on forced marriage the prominent ‗Islam critic‘ Necla Kelek
intervenes with an article entitled ―Under the veil‖ (Die Welt, 06.12.2011, p.2). Reading the
title in combination with the teaser ―The Family Ministry's study about forced marriages in
Germany shows blind spots. About the bizarre attempts of migration researchers to declare
Islam as culturally insignificant‖ alludes to the double meaning of the title. In the article
Kelek aims to ‗unveil‘ the ‗veiled‘, explain the phenomenon of forced marriage and describe
how German migration researchers have failed in this context.
This item is a response to the criticism of the study articulated by the advisory board.
Although Die Welt did not report about the critique expressed towards the study, it places
Necla Kelek's article in a very prominent position. Thus the reader does not really have a
chance to get the full picture, or particularly read about the aspect of religion and Islam and
Islamophobic undertones. Instead, Die Welt provides the floor for Kelek who uses this
opportunity to back the Family Minister in her policy direction, balancing accounts with the
migration studies in Germany in a very strong and personal manner, and to explain why the
category of Islam is indispensable in understanding the phenomenon of forced marriage. In
the following we will lengthily cite from this article in order to demonstrate the density and
power of her statements:
It the study sheds light onto an ongoing drama, which for the first time ever was empirically
analysed in a study by the Family Ministry. Herewith, the widespread myth that forced
marriages are just individual cases – an idea defended by Islam, migrant organizations and
migration researchers – has been taken to grave. Victims are mostly young women who go to
school, migrants of the umpteenth generation, and Muslim. They are mostly kidnapped and
deported to the country of their parents to marry. But the 3345 cases are still just the tip of the
iceberg. (Welt online, 27.11.2011).
But in order to name the ―risk group‖ they had put aside their blinders.
81
(…) They deny that
forced marriage has also something to do with cultural disposition. Although they note that
81 Accusing the academics of non-academic research and biased approach to the issue. They do
not know how to deal appropriately with this phenomenon and they are blinkered.
146
almost all persons in search for advice have a migration background and 83 percent indicate
Islam as their religion. This causality ‗may not leave us cold‘ said Family Minister Kristina
Schröder. But the weakness of the study has also something to do with the restricted
perspective, as it does not take into account the culture of Islam in the analysis of this
problem.
According to the advisory council the religious affiliation is an ‗empty variable‘, thus irrelevant.
The researchers deny the proved existence of ―force to marriage‖ in the Islamic culture. As is
widely known, in Islam only in a marriage is sexuality legitimate, and the parents have only
fulfilled their religious duty when their children have married, be it on a voluntary basis or with
pressure. Whoever negates the social dimension of religion makes a methodological mistake,
gets skewed results in the analysis and finds the wrong conclusions.
For years the researchers have been trying very hard to avoid the ‗culturalisation‘ of
integration problems, in particular the practice of marriage. Now they think that they need to
protest against the Minister as they feel deceived because, contrary to their explicit statement,
Islam was mentioned in the assessment of forced marriages. Also, according to the University
researchers there is no causality between Islam and forced marriage, however, those claiming
otherwise will be ‗zwangsrelegiert‘ by the migration officials (…) The monocausal definitions of
the study show how the migration studies lobby is in the position to ideologize academia and
to reduce integration problems to social, economic and educational deficits. And if that does
not help one refers to the habits of the clan as a source of the issue, however, without
questioning where the traditions stem from, who legitimizes them and why the situation of
women and the practice of marriage corresponds in so many Islamic societies on a global
level. Do they all belong to one clan? A naively-romantic notion of social structures and
behaviour is being practiced at German universities.
The study shows that (…) it is not only the economically weak and the uneducated who are
aggressors and victims. And it makes clear that the German citizenship and the German
language are not protecting from forced marriage – and as an integration parameter are
helpful only to a limited extend‖ (06.12.2012, p. 2)
Kelek not only portrays the Muslim community as a homogenous entity but also the
migration studies in Germany. In a very polemic and to a certain extent conspirational
manner she describes the German migration studies as an ideologized lobby group who
147
‗zwangsrelegiert‘ – a German play upon words that can be translated as ‗forced expulsion‘
alluding to the phenomenon of forced marriage. Hence she implies that German migration
researchers are applying the same brutal and inhuman means towards deviationists, i.e. if
they culturalize the issue of forced marriage, as male Muslims.
She speaks of a proven link between forced marriage and Islamic culture by referring to the
supposed religious duty of Muslim parents‘ to marry – if necessary forcefully – their
children. This statement is not presented as her personal interpretation of religious duties in
Islam but as a commonly known and shared understanding and practice in Islam.
The above quoted passage is part of what Karakasoglu refers to as the ‗veil literature‘. Here
one can observe an interwovenness of personal stories with generalising statements about
‗the Islam‘ and ‗the Muslims‘. Repeatedly a dichotomic view is put forward in which the freedemocratic, secular, enlightened, Judeo-Christian, and tolerant Europe is challenged
through the non-integrable, violent, irrational, and backward Islam (Karakasolgu 2011)82.
The image of Islam is represented in diametrically opposed notions of subversive and
oppressed Muslim women as opposed to emancipated European women. In this context
the authentic Islam critics take up a crucial role as they help to see through to the very core
of the issue with their ‗insider view‘. From this starting point otherness and socio-economic
deprivation is only viewed through the influence and power of the religion of Islam. For
example, Necla Kelek states in her bestselling book the following: ―Muslims have always
been of the opinion that everything that happens in their lives happens with the approval of
Allah. A free will and an own opinion do not exist in any way.‖ (Kelek 2005:37, cited in
Karakasoglu 2011). According to Kelek, Muslim women are the victims of Islam, thus
liberation from patriarchic oppression seems to be possible only through detaching from the
religion.
Over recent years Muslim women, who have had direct or indirect personal experience with
forced marriage have served as ‗crown witnesses‘ in the public discourse. They write
books, publish articles in newspapers and magazines, and are welcome guests in TV talk
shows. They receive prestigious awards from official and civil society actors for their
courageous and relentless dedication for women‘s rights. They are presented as the ideal
integrated Muslim woman to the German public, a woman who has a distanced, sceptical
82
http://www.fb12.unibremen.de/fileadmin/Arbeitsgebiete/interkult/Karakasoglu/UEberseemuseum_Geschlechterrollen_m
uslimische_Maedchen_19012011.pdf (12.02.2012)
148
and critical approach to the religion of Islam, who is emancipated and liberated, who does
not wear a headscarf and does not dogmatically practice religious rituals. They are
approached from various state and civil society actors in order to give an authoritative and
authentic expert view on the situation of Muslim women in Germany, and to serve as a
reference point. They have a great influence in shaping German public opinion on Muslims
and in particular Muslim women. The most popular amongst those are figures such as
Necla Kelek and Seyran Ates. Their books have a wide target group in Germany.83
In her article ―Crown witnesses for the prosecution?‖ Schooman analyses the phenomenon
of female Muslim women in the context of the Islam debate in Germany and identifies
following characteristics




socialization in predominantly Muslim milieus
negative experiences in their family context
blaming of ‘Islamic culture’ of their countries of origin for negative experiences
emancipated themselves from their culture of origin
With their fate they ‗witness‘ the widespread perception of the oppressed Muslim woman
and by ―bearing witness on behalf of an imagined collective‖ they (re)produce ―social
knowledge, which confirms existing hegemonic images of Islam‖ (Schooman 2011:332).
Furthermore, the witnesses receive their legitimacy out of their ―status as ‗authentic voices‘
on the basis of their origin from the Muslim minority‖ (Schooman 2011:338). With their
exclusive insider views they help the majority society to comprehend the inaccessible
interior of the unknown other. And in contrast to the second hand experiences through the
media, ―here the reader gets the opportunity to participate in seemingly first-hand
experiences, which to a certain extent are also presented as a form of ‗secret knowledge‘‖
(Schooman 2011:338). The witnesses seem to be giving voice to a collective of
innumerable silenced victims. Readers are introduced into the thoughts, feelings, fears and
83 Necla Kelek‘s books include: ―Chaos of cultures: The debate about Islam and integration (2012,
Chaos der Kulturen: Die Debatte um Islam und Integration)‖, ―About freedom in Islam (2010, Über
die Freiheit im Islam)‖, ―Heavenly journey. My dispute with the guards of Islam (2010, Himmelsreise.
Mein Streit mit den Wächtern des Islam)‖, ―The lost sons. A plea for the liberation/emancipation of
Turkish-Muslim men (2006, Die verlorenen Söhne. Plädoyer für die Befreiung des türkischmuslimischen Mannes.)‖, and ―The alien bride. A report from the inner of Turkish life in Germany
(2006, Die fremde Braut. Ein Bericht aus dem Inneren des türkischen Lebens in Deutschland)‖.
The books of Seyran Ates are amongst others: ―Islam needs a sexual revolution― (2009, Der Islam
braucht eine sexuelle Revolution), "The Multicultural Fallacy― (2007, Der Multikulti-Irrtum), ―Great
journey into the fire. The story of a German Turkish woman‖ (2003, Große Reise ins Feuer. Die
Geschichte einer deutschen Türkin).
149
hopes of the victims (Schooman 2011:343). In the context of anti-Muslim racism crown
witnesses have two main functions: on the one hand the effect of the negative and personal
experiences do morally immunise the victims from accusations of racism and legitimize
(majority society‘s) anti-Muslim resentments (Schooman 2011:344pp).
Conclusion
The aim of this report was to examine the construction and portrayal of Muslims in the
German media. In order to do this four national mainstream newspapers – comprising the
(right) conservative, liberal and left-liberal spectrum – were monitored from September
2011 to December 2011 and the issue of forced marriage was taken as a case study. The
case study demonstrated that the media coverage on Muslims is predominantly framed in a
negative and stereotypical way. In general, Muslims were repeatedly associated with being
‗strictly religious‘, violent, repressive, and backward.
It is of note that when the Family Ministry released its study on forced marriage all the four
analyzed newspapers covered the issue both in their print as well as in their online edition,
thus reaching out to a broad audience, hence shaping opinion about the sensitive issue of
forced marriages in Germany. Strikingly, without exception all newspapers uncritically
referred to the presumed religious correlation between Islam and forced marriages, thus
giving the reader the impression that the issue of forced marriage is intrinsically connected
with Islam.
Bearing in mind how widely the issue was covered in the newspapers after the release of
the study, the coverage of the advisory board‘s statement criticising the interpretation of
their report was rather marginal (only two online articles were published, one in the SZ and
one in the FR). While the FAZ completely ignored the statement, Die Welt launched a
second phase of its sensationalist coverage of the issue at hand.
Strikingly, at no point were representatives of the Muslim community cited. The SZ cited
Aydan Özoguz (a Member of the German Parliament with Turkish background) just once,
who warned of the stigmatizing effects on the Muslim community. However, this does not
automatically imply that the media coverage included no further minority voices. A preferred
strategy was to let female victims of forced marriage, in the manner of a crown witness,
speak in order to support pre-existing racist arguments.
150
Not only the texts but also the pictorial presentations, mostly in the form of portraying
‖veiled‖ women, were stereotypical and stigmatizing. Even when there was no explicit
reference to Islam or Muslims in the texts, but rather talk about ‗immigrants‘, ‗Turks‘ or
‗Arabs‘, the sole pictorial representation of a ―veiled‖ women easily established the
connection between the forced marriage and Islam. By portraying ―veiled‖ women from
behind or with their faces fully covered, an insurmountable distance was established and
‗otherness‘ perpetuated.
The report demonstrated some reoccurring framing patterns of Muslim women in the
discourse on forced marriage, in which they are primarily presented as victims of violent
Muslim men but not as victims of discriminatory practices by the majority society, such as in
employment. These framing patterns seem to support Schooman‘s observations on the
representation of Muslim women in the media:
Anti-Muslim racism is characterized through its reference to emancipative discourses. Often,
anti-Muslim positions are legitimized by defending women's human rights. In the context antiMuslim racism sexism is cited as one of the main cultural features of Islam (…). From a
psychoanalytical perspective the perception of the other can be understood as a foil of the
self-image. Through the projection on the other, ones own negative elements can be
externalised (…). In this pattern of perception the suppressed Muslim women serves as the
other side, the opposite of the emancipated Western European women. This topos is framed
from a discourse, which portrays the European free-democratic culture and tradition of the
enlightenment in opposition to a non-integrable, backward and violent Islam (…). As from a
media-analytical perspective not only the represented but also the not-represented is of
significance, the impression is given that patriarchal structures are unique characteristics of
Islam (Schooman, 2012: 56).
Finally, drawing on van Dijk‘s words, we can state that ―both in the strategies of news
production as well as in their discursive consequence in the news and the opinion articles
themselves, we find a consistent pattern of racist bias, exclusion, and the overall
polarization between Our good things and Their bad things‖ (van Dijk, 2007: 107).
151
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