SPEAKING FREELY Muslims in
Europe By Nadia Mushtaq Abbasi
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On July 28, after the
three-month truce with Europe to demand that European
troops leave Iraq and Afghanistan was over, a statement
posted on an Islamic website from an al-Qaeda-linked
group, Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, threatened
"waterfalls of blood" in European cities because the
continent didn't respond to the demands to withdraw
troops. Most of the European countries come under this
category, as a number of them have contributed troops to
Afghanistan under the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization-led International Security Assistance Force
(ISAF); other countries such as Poland, Spain and Italy
have contributed troops to the "coalition of the
willing" in Iraq. This news indicates the threat faced
by Europe in the coming days. This also puts into
question the status of the 20 million Muslims in Europe.
It seems these Muslims are going to be under the
limelight in the present circumstances. Also, the
railway-station attacks in Madrid, Spain, in March (or
the 3/11 attacks as they are commonly called) were
linked to a Moroccan extremist group.
The
tragedy of September 11, 2001, sparked increased
questioning about Islam as a global force. Perhaps more
than any other religion, Islam is often associated with
the violent acts of extremism, terrorism and the
oppression of women. And perhaps more than any other
religion, the combination of the lack of information and
the plethora of distorted information is responsible for
Western ignorance about Islam and Muslims and the
perception of Islam as a threat to Western civilization.
The horrific attacks had the consequence of
pulling the rug out from under the Muslim communities
and individuals in Europe, who now suddenly appear to be
outsiders. There is much news about the harassment of
Muslims as well as physical attacks on individuals,
mosques and Islamic schools. There are concerns about
the growth of the Muslim communities in Germany, France,
Belgium and Britain.
A population of about 20
million Muslims has, over the past decade, made Islam
the second-largest religion in Europe. It is important
to recognize that there are not one but many Muslim
communities in Europe. In Britain, which has about 1.6
million Muslims, Pakistani Muslims are the largest
group, followed by Bangladeshis. In Germany and the
Netherlands, Turkish Muslims predominate. The
Netherlands also has a considerable number of Moroccan
and Surinamese Muslims. In France there are about 4.5
million Muslims and, as in Spain and Belgium, most of
them are from Maghreb (mainly Morocco, Tunisia and
Algeria), with small Turkish and African minorities.
Over the past three decades, Islam has become
increasingly visible in European public space. Mosques,
halal food, Muslim customs and ways of dress are all
increasingly common in European countries. Although it
is very difficult to get accurate estimates of the
actual number of Muslims in Europe, this is simply
because not only do the estimates of legal immigrants
vary, but there is also little information on the number
of illegal immigrants in Europe. There are concerns of
population growth among second and third generation
Muslim migrants and the impact of this on the
demographics of Europe. According to certain estimates,
Muslims are expected to outnumber non-Muslims in Europe
by 2050. This can also be attributed to the low
birthrate within the European population as well as the
issue of an aging population in Europe.
European
national governments have focused on Muslim populations
within their own countries, and there have been fears
propounded by the political elite of mobilization of
these ethnic communities by their countries of origins.
Although this has proved to be untrue, in the past two
decades or so there has been the emergence of a broader
Muslim identity within Europe due to a number of issues
such as the Gulf War, the Salman Rushdie Affair, the
situation in the Middle East, the headscarf issue, race
riots in Britain and, more recently, the "war against
terrorism" and its scope.
Different kinds of
policies were adopted by various European governments in
the past to integrate their respective Muslim
populations. On the whole, there have been three main
models by which EU states have tried to deal with
migrants in general. First, there is the guest-worker
model, where the migrants are seen to have a temporary
presence. This is primarily used in Germany, but also in
Austria and Switzerland in some modified form. Second is
the assimilation model, where migrants are seen to be
permanent, and therefore strategies are employed for
individual integration into the culture of the state,
and the formation of communities of migrants is
discouraged. France is the primary example of such a
country. Third is the ethnic-minorities model, in which
there is room for the preservation of cultural identity
and some degree of pluralism is institutionalized. This
model tends to be followed in the Netherlands, the
Scandinavian countries and the United Kingdom.
The European Muslim world is rapidly changing,
and certainly it will be important to see how the
structuring of Muslim communities in Europe continues.
The advantages of such an approach to multiculturalism
are many. The evolution of the cultural situation in
Europe is important not only for the Muslim populations
in Europe but also for Europe and, for different
reasons, Islam itself. Social networks lead to
interactions between Europe and Muslim immigrants'
countries of origin. Islam in Europe also has an
influence on Islam "there", in those countries of
origin. It is not possible to understand the modern
history and social evolution of Europe without taking
into account its Muslim component, as it is not possible
to understand the history and social evolution of Islam
without taking into account its European component.
The European governments also have to consider
the role the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the
situation in the Middle East is playing in shaping
perceptions in Europe and the Muslim world. Arguably,
the short lapse of time since September 11, 2001, has
not shown a new variant of an old anti-Muslim prejudice
in Europe, but a new turning of attention from cultural
and religious factors to political ones, with a focus on
Islam.
Also, as a reaction to increasing
multiculturalism in Europe in the past couple of years,
there has been a tremendous rise of the far-right
parties at the national level in Europe, and the recent
European parliamentary elections also witnessed
increasing support for anti-European Union and other
far-right parties in Europe. The rise of the far right
in the EU has been attributed to anti-immigration. Their
share of power at the national governments has also
increased in countries with migrant Muslim populations
such as Belgium, Austria, the Netherlands, Britain,
France, Norway and Denmark.
The issue of
headscarves has been a prominent issue in Europe in the
past decade or so, largely because of the way it
developed in France and lately in Germany. Headscarves
have never been an issue in Britain and the Netherlands,
as there is a more liberal approach to accommodate
Muslim women in workplaces, as well as special
circumstances for children in schools. There is a need
to understand the Muslim component of the European
fabric thereby integrating them in a democratic fashion
as deliberated by the Western democracies.
European integration not only means integration
within the European countries, but it also means
integrating Muslim and other populations in the European
fabric. There is a need to integrate their Muslim
population, and the challenge will be to guard against
terrorism while avoiding swelling the ranks of
disgruntled Muslims. This can be done by Muslim
representation at the political level by creating more
space for Muslim representation in the parliaments as
well as at the local levels. In both Britain and the
Netherlands, there are Muslims represented at the
highest levels of national government. The Germans have
not stimulated minorities to be active in politics even
at the local level - until recently, the Turkish
minority was entirely excluded from German citizenship.
The Netherlands, by contrast, gave immigrants without
Dutch citizenship the right to vote and to stand for
elected office as early as 1986, and it has long been
easier to obtain Dutch citizenship than German
citizenship. More dialogue is required to understand the
mindsets of the Muslim migrants in Europe and to make
them feel part of the European society and not as
outsiders always answerable to and defensive of the
clash of civilization. There is a need to discuss the
status of Muslims' human and religious rights in Europe
to make certain that the war on terrorism will not be
used as cover for anti-Muslim abuses anywhere in the
world.
The problem is that the Muslim
communities have been the underclass of the European
societies in which they live. There are, of course,
exceptions and examples of wealthy entrepreneurs and an
emerging middle class. But for the most part, many
Muslims are among those with the lowest incomes and the
largest families in their countries. Although they are
not very well represented in European politics and
social setup, in the recent past, as a realization on
part of these communities, a number of Muslims, mostly
business entrepreneurs in Britain, France, the
Netherlands and Germany, have been participating in
political mobilization in order to be a part of the
European society as well as to convey their concerns and
problems.
The European media can play a very
important role in positive integration of Muslims in
European society. Also, writers on political Islam can
help in creating a better understanding of their Muslim
population toward a more harmonized Europe, as Francois
Burgat and Joceleyn Cesari have done in the case of
France. The extremist notion that is being projected by
directing citizens to imagine that the country is
threatened by hordes of Muslims living within its
borders, determined to subvert European values and
convert its people to Islam, has to be dispelled. But an
effort also has to be made on the part of the Muslims in
Europe for better integration by political
participation, creating a better understanding of the
societies they live in, as well as efforts by Muslim
scholars in Europe to establish some kind of a dialogue
process with their counterparts and to disown the
actions and opinions of extremists. As Europe's
governments step up their efforts to root out Islamic
extremists, the future holds one of two possibilities:
either the continent's 20 million Muslims will integrate
smoothly into their countries' economic and political
life, or they will remain on the margins, disaffected
and potentially dangerous.
Nadia Mushtaq
Abbasi is a research fellow at the Institute of
Strategic Studies, Islamabad, Pakistan.
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online
feature that allows guest writers to have their say.
Pleaseclick
hereif you are interested in
contributing.
