Once when she ordered dinner at a restaurant, a waitress threw down a plate on her table.

Those incidents are now a thing of the past for Messoudri, who just finished a degree in Arabic culture and language studies, and in English and French, at a college in the city.

When the news about the recent bomb attack and shooting rampage in Norway was published, she was devastated to see that the media quickly claimed that the terror attack was probably carried out by a Muslim fundamentalist.

When it became clear that an extreme right Norwegian man was the perpetrator, headlines called him “a lunatic who created a national tragedy”, rather than a terrorist.

The political climate in Europe has changed, with immigrants, especially Muslims, now fearful of the emergence of xenophobia, if not Islamophobia, analysts and officials have said.

The terror attacks carried out by Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik have prompted discussion about political right-wing extremism in Europe.

European Commissioner for Internal Affairs Cecilia Malmström stated that too few European politicians had opposed xenophobic rhetoric in Europe.

Breivik was an admirer of the Dutch far right-wing politician Geert Wilders, party leader of the Freedom Party (PVV) in the Netherlands. He cited Wilders at least 30 times in a 1,500-page report, in which he announced the attacks were to save Europe from Islamism and multiculturalism. The European debate raised the question of whether the right-wing rhetoric was partly to blame for encouraging the attacks in Norway.

Wilders stated in a press release on July 26 that, “[Neither] the PVV nor I are responsible for a solitary lunatic who violently abused the ideals of the freedom loving anti-islamization movement worldwide.

“We fight in a democratic and nonviolent way against the Islamization of our society and we will continue to do so. The preservation of our freedom and security is our only goal,” he said.

Politicians opposing Wilders, however, have pointed out that it was very odd that Wilders, who has Indonesian roots, has never said a word about Indonesia, the largest Muslim society and a democracy.

Many Islam critics agree that the acts of Breivik “are really horrible, and the act of a madman. Nevertheless, his ideas and vision of Islam are absolutely correct”.

The Islam critic, Bruce Bawer, born in the US and now living in Oslo wrote in the Volkskrant newspaper that he, “was very shocked that Breivik used his book [While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within] and used it in his manifest.”

However, he added, “Nevertheless the man is also highly intelligent and very familiar with European history and literature”. One of the main arguments of the extreme right politicians is their claim that Islam is not compatible with democracy.

There are many far right political parties in Europe who fight against multiculturalism and Islamism. Since 2009, Switzerland has imposed an official ban on building minarets on top of mosques.

In the dutch-speaking part of Belgium and also in France it is prohibited to wear a head scarf in public schools. Last year, President Sarkozy of France deported a group of gypsies called Roma.

Popular

Great Barrier Reef hit by record bleaching

Govt to undo latest curbs on personal imports

Middle East on edge as Israel and Iran trade threats