Football racism highlights Europe's struggle with transition and entrenched racism

Recent football-related racism highlights European nations? tortured transition from ethnically relatively homogeneous to multicultural immigration societies amid a resurgence of entrenched racial, including anti-Semitic, attitudes that flourish in times of economic crisis and are not limited to Muslim communities.

Fans across Europe have lined up on both sides of the racism divide in a debate that involves, despite recent attacks on freedom of speech and Jewish symbols in Copenhagen and Paris, Jews, blacks and Europeans of immigrant extraction in general as much as it does Muslims. The debate is being waged against the backdrop of the rise of the extreme right in a Europe that struggles with high unemployment, low economic growth and thousands of refugees washing up against its shores who are seeking refuge from conflict in the Middle East and Africa.

The targeting by racist fans of Muslims and non-Muslims alike is evident in a survey of numerous racist expressions on and off the pitch. It has sparked opposition from football enthusiasts to whom racism is abhorrent.

Right-wing fans often have links to racist political organizations whose legitimacy is being enhanced by European leaders like British Prime Minister David Cameron, who recently refused to rule out a future coalition with the UK Independence Party (UKIP) that has no issue with associating itself with Holocaust deniers and denounces not only Muslims but also economic immigrants from Eastern Europe.

Europe?s transition to multiculturalism was first dealt a body blow by Al Qaeda?s 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, subsequent bombings of public transport in Madrid and London, the murder in Amsterdam of a Dutch filmmaker, the flow of Europeans fighters joining the...