ISLAMOPHOBIA FROM THE CENTRE OF SOCIETY

Abstract

UDK 323.12:28:323.28(100)

According to a recent study by the Dresden University of Technology (TUD) under the leadership of Prof. Dr. Vor-länder, the PEGIDA movement is seen as a protest movement with rightist-populist premises and the average participant of the PEGIDA-demonstrations in the capital city of Saxony belongs to the middle class. The study states that the general “dissatisfaction with politics” is the dominant motive driv-ing the protest’s participants, but that “basic enmity towards immigrants and asylum seekers” is also one of the motives, wherein the “reservations towards Muslims and respectively Islam” are expressed especially (Vorländer 2015). In this text the author deals with the question of why exactly does the image of Islam function as a catalyst for this dissatisfaction and shows that PEGIDA, in terms of its ingrained “image of the enemy Islam” isn’t a new phenomenon, but that it draws upon an already existing enmity towards Muslims.