The unfounded fear of refugees and immigrants - Book Review - Liz Fekete's 'A Suitable Enemy : racism, migration and Islamophobia in Europe'

We have just taken delivery of 'A Suitable Enemy : racism, migration and Islamophobia in Europe' by Liz Fekete. It seems to be high on many a library and organizations acquisition list. I recommend it as others do that I speak with.



Fekete demonstrates in this book how right wing extremism has bred a hysteria amongst a vast majority of European citizens that immingrants and seekers of asylum pose enormous security risks to the population of many European countries.
This book resonates well with me and those that have read for example 'HUMAN RIGHTS OVERBOARD: SEEKING ASYLUM IN AUSTRALIA by Linda Briskman, Susie Latham and Chris Goddard, with a foreword by Julian Burnside, Scribe Press, 2008.' will recognise this theme and see that worlwide, the phenomnea of the breeding fear existed and still exists to this day of people and cultures that are unlike our own is not isolated geographically. It is used as a political and social manipulation tool to condtion the many, quite often falsely, for various reasons.
Fekete's 'A Suitable Enemy' finely analyses the past few years of the racist undertone attached to foreigners, applyinng her many years of experience and research on racial discrimination and Islamophobia. It becomes blatantly obvious that many perceive immigrants and asylum seekers as potential risks to security and human rights, yet the out of proportion hysteria of that unfounded fear exposes a far greater infringement of freedoms, democracy and human rights that we all hold so dear. As the years have progressed over the past deaced or two, Fekete shows us that the right wing policies of many governments and political movements have moved into the mainstream, often appearing more and more centroid, co-existing and partnering with policies of perceived tolerance, which often masks an enormous duplicitous contradiction. This work serves to demonstrate how exactly it detrimentally acts to shake the foundations of fundamental human rights and those that suffer from it's withering. Fekete concentrates mainly on how the Muslim communities have suffered as a consequence but important lessons can be drawn and extrapolated to all parts of multi-faceted, multicultural societies.
A must own for you collection.

See the publishers website for more information on this fabulous new release.

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