Göle is not alone in her perhaps too exclusive focus on the Islamophobic side of the European far right. Göle refers to Rancière’s analysis of contemporary state racism, in which he talks about the creation of a stereotype of undesirable subjects by ‘the conflation among migrant, immigrant, reactionary, Islamist, male chauvinist and terrorist’. Ironically, he pronounced these words at a meeting called ‘Why the Roma?’ which was organised at the time of the eviction of Romani migrants from France back to Romania in September 2010. (For a view concentrated on the Romaphobic side of Europe, see Europe’s Romaphobia; Problematization, Securitization, Nomadization, Environment and Planning D, 2011, by Huub van Baar.)

It would be good to take a systematic comparative approach of the contemporary racisms against Roma and Muslims. That would help us, on the one hand, to question the focus on religion in thinking about the status of Muslims in Europe that the framing in terms of secularism (both for and against) has made us used to. A comparative approach could lead us to be talking more about state racism as a European tradition taking new forms (as Rancière reminds us), about new media and new processes of stereotyping, fear of poverty, fear of difference, the unforeseen side-effects of European minority governance, and on how to reclaim the history of humanist Europe for a pluralist left. Comparing the transformations and studying the intersections of the new far right in Western and in Central and Eastern Europe might also help us to see how far to the centre the far right movement has already gotten in a united Europe, and it would perhaps bring to light more prominently the inability—or even unwillingness, to think with Rancière—of the European left, conservative and Christian-democratic parties to find answers to these movements.

2. I mostly agree with Rogier van Reekum’s reaction to Göle about Dutch multiculturalism, where he says that the ‘rich Dutch multicultural heritage’ that Göle is talking about never existed. I think van Reekum’s remark could be extended to the larger European context: in several European countries there is talk about a ‘seismic shift’ from multicultural policies in the 80s and 90s to policies of ‘civic integration’ around the turn of the millennium. (For example in France and Germany; and also Britain to a certain extent. See for a detailed account ‘The Multiculturalism Backlash’, eds. Steven Vertovec and Suzanne Wessendorf, Routledge 2010.) In all of these countries, policies were called multicultural, pluralist or respectful of difference in the nineties. Many of these policies were top-down, and bad at supporting the self-organisation of ethnic and religious minorities or their empowerment in the national and European contexts. But, and here I agree with Göle more than with van Reekum, the transformation that has taken place is not just a matter of the degree of the politicization of migration, and we shouldn’t take the risk of bagatellising what is happening today: we only have to take a look at the Europe-wide spread of nationalist integration-tests, the cruel ‘return’ policies for non-documented migrants and their children, the surge of verbal and sometimes even physical violence against minorities all over Europe, to have, perhaps, some nostalgia for the eighties and nineties, and most certainly to feel the need for an egalitarian and critical multiculturalism recovered for a European future.

Some of the people I talked to have their political roots in the Green party and ascribe themselves to the generation of ’68. They also largely subscribe to their principles, however, see exactly these principles threatened by the lack of contestation of Muslim influence in the Green party. They harshly criticize Cem Özdemir, co-chairman of the party and son of Turkish migrants, for his so called lenience vis-à-vis Muslims and the ‘devastating influence’ of Muslim organizations. Geert Wilders and the PVV are their role models. It is an interesting and worrying amalgam in which the ’68 generation and the green movement also play an ambiguous role.

The role of gender and gender relations is fascinating: two men related independently to me how, in their youth, they were in love with a woman from a Muslim family. The response was in both cases negative, which they ascribed to them being Muslims and therefore could date a non-Muslim. Leaving aside the question whether these stories are true or not, I find it quite intriguing that it did not occur to those two men, who support feminism as they say, that maybe the women just did not want to date them for whatever reason of their own. The ‘availability’ of Muslim women to non-Muslims seems to be a major concern and a litmus test for women’s liberation.

1. Göle reiterates the idea that the Netherlands is losing a “rich multicultural heritage”. But to lose such a heritage the Netherlands would have to have had one in the first place. This is not the case. There was some governmental lip-service to “retaining the identity of newcomers” (1979-1989) and of course an embrace of the idea (yet not always the practice) of anti-racism. In terms of policy there were a few, often inconsequential provisions for “minorities” which were always already put in place in order to speed up the integration of cultural others into the national fold. This has been changing already since 1989.

2. Related to the first point I think we should watch out not to fall into a kind of nostalgia for a time before these new movements came up (not that Göle is doing that here!). As my first point suggests: things weren’t much better in the 70s, 80s or 90s. They were just a bit less politicized. Anti-immigrant movements lacked the organizational strength, the media platforms and the right kind of rhetorical mix in order to capitalize on the always already existing anxieties of the electorate and the nativist logic of the nation-state as such. The recent politicization of migration and difference are certainly not an improvement, but they do not represent a retreat from a more felicitous situation either. On the brighter side, the issue of migration is one of the focal point around which—maybe, finally—a European public sphere can amalgamate.