Preface Katarzyna Górak-Sosnowska, Marta Pachocka, Jan Misiuna The recent refugee crisis induced in part by the ongoing war in Syria caught Europeans by surprise (no to mention those who were affected directly). The migrants arriving to the European Union posed a huge logistic, social and political challenge both for individual member states and the EU. While protecting those in need is among the core of European values, translating these values into practical political response was proven to be very hard. The situation was further exacerbated by the longevity of the conflict: hardly anyone expected Bashar al-Asad, or the selfproclaimed caliphate of ISIS to last so long. The Visegrad Group (V4) states and some other New Member States (NMS) have made the process of finding political response to the refugee crisis even harder by showing very limited willingness (if any) to accept asylum seekers. A variety of narratives have been employed to support this stance, including the absence of colonial past, the relatively low level of economic development, and resistance to the so-called ‘EU dictate’. Strong emotions have been aroused, such as fear of Muslims (and ethnic or religious Others in general), and used in local political conflicts. Fear and hostility towards Muslims are strong in NMS, even though the number of third country nationals in most NMS from outside of Europe has been marginal, as has been the size of local Muslim population (except for Bulgaria), and it has not significantly changed as a result of the refugee crisis. This poses something of a paradox, as the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have hardly been touched by the refugee crisis, terrorism motivated by radical Islam, or challenges related to integration of Muslims. The opposite is the case: local Muslim communities are either autochthonous (like the Tatars or the Pomacs) or well-integrated, as many Muslims came to this part of Europe back in the socialist era to study, and so managed to learn the language, get education and in the process, settle down. The reaction of the broadly considered CEE to the refugee crisis and its rising fear of Islam deserves discussion and reflection. 10 Katarzyna Górak-Sosnowska, Marta Pachocka, Jan Misiuna The V4’s reluctance to accept the so-called “refugee quotas” can also be analysed in terms of power sharing within the EU and as an attempt to shift the relations between the core (the old EU, especially Germany) and peripheries (the NMS). In other words, the refugee crisis in Europe provides not only an interesting issue to reflect upon the CEE states themselves, but also some answers to questions about the regional relations under the EU superpower umbrella (social/cultural and political integration of the EU member states). The aforementioned contexts, problems and challenges are presented and discussed on the following pages of this monograph by experienced professors and young researchers, PhD students, independent experts and practitioners, who attended the international scientific conference titled “Muslim minorities and the refugee crisis in Europe. Narratives and policy responses” organized on 8 and 9 November 2018 by the Middle East and Central Asia Unit and the Department of Political Studies of the Collegium of Socio-Economics of SGH Warsaw School of Economics in Poland. This conference was one of key activities implemented within the framework of the project ref:EU – “Muslim minorities and the refugee crisis in Europe”, coordinated by Professor Katarzyna Górak-Sosnowska and her project team (Dr Marta Pachocka, Dr Jan Misiuna and Ms Irena Senator) in Warsaw in the years 2017–2019 and co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union. The ref:EU project, combining both research and educational perspectives, is an answer to the growing intolerance against Muslim minorities (and those perceived as Muslims) in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), fueled by the refugee crisis in Europe. The EU member states from this region showed (to a varying degree) political reluctance to accept any asylum seekers and refugees, despite often belonging to the top EU enthusiasts. Moreover, negative sentiments towards Muslims, as well as ethic and religious Others grew significantly stronger, leading to acts of violence. This is particularly disturbing as there are few third country nationals, not to mention Muslims, in those states in comparison to Western Europe. In other words, intolerance is widespread against people who are hardly even there. In this context, the goals of the project itself and thus, the conference, were twofold: 1. to provide teaching tools for counteracting and counterbalancing Islamophobia and any other “phobias” related to migrants/refugees/asylum seekers, and “distant Others” in the EU member states, and 2. to understand and explain the reasons for the current wave of Islamophobia and its relations with the European refugee crisis. According to the title itself, the conference “Muslim minorities and the refugee crisis in Europe. Narratives and policy responses” and its main product – this monograph – aimed to discuss a wide range of topics concerning the refugee crisis in Europe and Muslim communities living there or in the neighborhood, Preface 11 considered jointly or separately. Consequently, both Polish and foreign scholars and practitioners have been encouraged to reflect on such topics and issues as: the approach of European countries to the refugee crises and to migrants and refugees in general; the scope and tools of immigration, asylum and integration policies implemented by the EU and European countries towards the crisis; differences between European countries regarding the crisis and the perception of Muslims in Europe; Islamophobia in today’s Europe and counteracting this phenomenon. This book consists of three main parts, which include the total of 22 articles prepared individually or co-authored by 25 researchers and experts. The first part of the monograph is devoted to the broadly understood migration and refugee crisis, along with its determinants, course and consequences for Europe as well as for the EU and its member states. The authors refer to this topic both considering global conditions and focusing on selected issues or specific case studies. Alfredo Rizzo discusses external and internal dimensions of EU migration and asylum policies in the context of UN Global Compact on safe, orderly and regular migration, which makes it possible to place the EU developments in the global framework. Danilo García Cáceres takes into consideration the wider Mediterranean context of the crisis, focusing on the issue of human rights and new EUs humanitarian challenges in this region while Veronica Kostenko explores the problem of gender attitudes of Muslim migrants compared to Europeans and public in sending societies. Agata B. Domachowska in her article presents another aspect of the refugee crisis, concentrating on the Macedonian case study on the Wester Balkan route which was one of the main migratory corridors to Europe in 20152016. A very innovative and original text in the subject of the refugee crisis is the one by Katarzyna Górak-Sosnowska and Monika Krukowska exploring the issue of Muslim civic engagement in helping refugees in five European countries: Austria, France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom. Immigration and integration practices, policies and challenges in different European countries are of the Authors interest in the second part of the book. It is also the place where the Muslims situation is presented in the local context. Attention should be paid to the diversity of countries that are studied here, such as: Norway (by Anisa Abeytia), Romania (by Adriana Cupcea), Russia (Irina Molodikova), Serbia (by Nataša Simić and Jelena Vranješević), the United Kingdom (by Imranali Panjwani), and the Ukraine (by Oleg Yarosh). In addition, the description of Islamic financial tools and Muslim communities in Europe on the example of housing patterns is provided by Giacomo Mennuni. The third and last part of the book contains articles dealing with different narratives concerning migration, refugees and Islam in recent years as well as 12 Katarzyna Górak-Sosnowska, Marta Pachocka, Jan Misiuna with “European” Islamophobia. Ernst Fürlinger pays attention to the topics of Islam and refugees in the election campaign of the Freedom Party Austria in 2017, while the issue of politicizing Muslim immigration in Poland through the prism of discursive and regulatory dimensions is highlighted by Katarzyna Andrejuk. Her article is followed by another paper on the specificity of Poland in this field: Katarzyna Górak-Sosnowska and Marta Pachocka raise the issue of creation of the Muslim Other in this country in comparison to some Western European examples. This case study is juxtaposed with similar one on another CEE country in which Edina Mészáros describes the politicization, mediatisation and the visual framing of the refugee crisis in Hungary. Bolaji Balogun deals with the question of race examining how the long tradition of racialisation of Africa is projected onto the people of colour in Poland and is followed by Ima Sri Rahmani who focuses on the pattern of discourse presented by two non-government organisations to counter Islamophobia on Facebook in Belgium. Mutual social recognition between Muslims and non-Muslims in small groups on the example of students in Russia is the main area of interest in the paper prepared by Maria Krasilnikova. Elodie Thevenin offers an overview of discursive representations of migrants and refugees in Polish parliamentary debates and Mustafa Switat tries to deconstruct Polands Muslimophobic narratives, its reasons, consequences and perspectives. This part ends with Melek Aylin Özoflu take on the broader research problem of perception towards Others of Europe in times of crisis in the light of social identity theory. The structure of the proposed monograph and the approaches applied to the discussed problems were presented in such a way as to give the Readers an overview of important and up-to-date research and analysis concerning the recent refugee crisis in Europe and its influence on the situation of Muslim communities living there and their perception. We would like to express our gratitude to all those institutions and individuals who contributed to this book in different ways, including co-financing of its publication and sharing own – professional and private knowledge and experience. In particular, we thank the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union that co-funded our conference and this book within Jean Monnet Projects. We also address special words of gratitude to all the Authors who have decided to share their expertise within the chapters of this publication, which will be available free of charge to anyone interested in migration and refugee studies, EU studies, religious studies and Muslim studies. We believe that the content of this book will inspire the Authors to continue their valuable research and encourage the Readers to explore the aforementioned issues in the future.