Islamophobia in the right-wing Portuguese opinion press (2015-2020)

Résumé En

In the Portuguese opinion press from 2010 to 2020, the question of Islamo­phobia appears in two forms: in discourses containing a discriminatory content against Muslims, and in discourses discussing the political uses of the term. While the first form is present in different degrees in all newspapers under study, the second form is mostly visible in the right-wing newspaper Observador, which criticises the political function, especially the intimidation (self-censorship) that the notion of Islamophobia fulfils. Following these find­ings, this chapter intend to observe how the term ‘Islamophobia’ is mobilised by Observador’s columnists in order to legitimise what they call a ‘rational critic’ of Islam, with no restraints regarding ‘political correctness’. Our main goal is to show how those columnists denounce the European political left and intellectuals of ‘sociologising’ the issue of Islamic fundamentalism and shaping a ‘political correctness’ that would compensate for their colonial guilt. To overcome this discursive impasse and liberate the violent speech on Islam, these journalists demand, on the one hand, the end of the ‘guilt-tripping’ of Europeans and, on the other, the end of Muslims’ ‘victimisation’.