Religion, Animals, and Racialization: Articulating Islamophobia through Animal Ethics in The Netherlands

Abstract

In 2008, the Dutch Party for the Animals submitted a proposal to ban religious slaughter without prior stunning. The proposal was widely supported in the Lower House but finally rejected in the Upper House in 2012, mainly on the grounds of religious freedom. Academia was keen to study the polemic, but no research has attempted to study the controversy through a lens of racialization. This is remarkable, given the well-documented increase in Islamophobia and the political use of racism since (at least) the turn of the millennium in The Netherlands (and the geopolitical “West” at large). In this article, I demonstrate that a racializing dynamic is actually part and parcel of the Dutch controversy. I apply a reflexive thematic analysis to study archival material from the Dutch Parliamentarian debate and show that the dispute foremost references Islamic slaughter. Appeals to civilization, accusations of barbarism, dystopian warnings against Islamization, and invocations of Judeo-Christianity are discursive elements that feature in the debate and have racializing ramifications for Muslims. By unmasking this racializing dynamic, I offer a means to empirically explore the ways in which taxonomies of religion and race intersect with and through the politicization of animal ethics. When considering religious slaughter it is essential, I ultimately maintain, to observe the violence caused by socially constructed racial and species differences. Only if we hold both in serious regard do we have a chance to begin to imagine ourselves in relation to others differently and move towards more just futures—for humans and non-humans alike.

Animal Politics or Animal Police? Islamophobia and Animal Advocacy Politics

“…In this discursive context, a social hierarchy has been established that renders suspect and polices anyone and anything related to Islam (Sayyid 2014). Illustrative is the ever-growing list of policy interventions regarding Islamic practices-for example, veiling, the construction of mosques, halal slaughter, and (de)radicalization (Jung 2022;De Koning 2020;Fadil, Ragazzi, and De Koning 2019;Anna Korteweg and Yurdakul 2009;Lettinga and Saharso 2014;Maussen 2004). Instead, it produces an image of Muslims through which they are monolithically addressed and considered to be an alien and a threat to the nation (Bracke and Aguilar 2022).…”

“…8 Whereas in the Dutch context religious slaughter is performed by both Jewish and Islamic communities, during the parliamentarian deliberations in the 2006-2012 period, halal slaughter is repeatedly and gratuitously mentioned. This emphasis on halal slaughter stands in stark contrast to kosher slaughter, which is rarely named explicitly (Jung 2022). This changed only marginally when Jewish representatives publicly criticized the proposal, and MPs of several parties rushed to confirm their rejection of anti-Semitism.…”

“…This changed only marginally when Jewish representatives publicly criticized the proposal, and MPs of several parties rushed to confirm their rejection of anti-Semitism. In the Dutch political imagery, therefore, the question whether or not to curtail religious slaughter was strongly tied to Islamic slaughter (Jung 2022).…”

“…Two years earlier, the PvdD initiated a law proposal to ban slaughter without prior stunning which would, according to certain religious interpretations, make Islamic and Jewish slaughter impossible. Although the initiative made the PvdD an "issue owner" of the topic religious slaughter, the momentum for this proposal was generated by numerous parliamentarian interventions of both the PvdD and PVV (Jung 2022). In the Lower House, this proposal found overwhelming support from both left-wing and right-wing parties but was ultimately rejected in the Upper House, because a majority found that a ban would disproportionately breach the fundamental right to religious freedom (Kurth and Glasbergen 2017).…”

“…This is quite surprising given the fact that the party regards the proposed ban as one of their biggest successes, which has yielded the PvdD by far the most public attention to date (Thieme 2019). The Dutch debate on religious slaughter has been researched extensively (Janssen 2014;Jung 2022;Kurth and Glasbergen 2017;Lelieveldt 2017;Mansvelt Beck 2015;Valenta 2012;Van der Schyff 2014;Wallet 2013;Zoethout 2013). These studies analyze the content of that debate but do not connect the pursuance of this issue to the overall political project of the PvdD specifically, let alone AAPs more general.…”