Western Europe and Its Muslim Minority: An Unbreakable Cycle of Alienation and Mistrust?
DEVELOPMENTS
The majority of Western Europe today is a secular, nominally Christian society. In recent years, however, the growth of Islam as a minority religion has introduced significant changes to Western European culture and society. As a result of immigration and demographics, Europe’s Muslim population has tripled over the last thirty years and is predicted to continue growing at a similar rate over the coming decades. It is estimated that there are currently between fifteen and twenty million Muslims living in the European Union, representing 4-5% of its total population.
Until recently, many European countries viewed this as a temporary phenomenon, and governments did little to smooth the new immigrants' path into society. The resulting tension has led to vibrant debate over Islam’s compatibility with European values, particularly democracy, freedom of speech, and women’s rights. Yet the question of tolerance – and ultimately, integration – reaches far beyond religion. Many European nations are dealing with the cultural, ethnic, religious, and linguistic diversity that comes with immigration for the first time. For both sides, learning to accommodate differing beliefs and practices is exacerbated by discrimination, social exclusion, and concerns over terrorism.
BACKGROUND
The presence of Islam in Western Europe is mainly a result of immigration from Southeastern Europe, Turkey, Northern Africa, and the Indian subcontinent. Western European nations actively recruited cheap labor from these countries to fill gaps in the workforce in the years of economic growth that followed World War II. So-called “guest workers” were intended to provide temporary labor during the post-war recovery and then return home. Instead, the guest workers stayed on. Family reunification policies then brought dependents to join them in Europe, and this process continues today. Most of today’s European Muslims are third- or fourth-generation descendants of the initial wave of laborers.
Muslims in Europe come from diverse ethnic and national backgrounds. It is impossible to speak of them as a cohesive group, and they do not identify as such. For example, due to patterns of worker recruitment and colonization, the U.K.’s Muslims (3% of the total population) tend to be of Pakistani or Bangladeshi origin, France’s (8-10%) come primarily from former colonies Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, Germany’s (4%) from Turkey, and the Netherlands’ (6%) from Morocco and Turkey.
After the economic slowdown of the 1970s, low-skilled Muslim immigrants remained a socioeconomically disadvantaged group, discriminated against in housing, education, and the labor market. Today, poverty and unemployment rates among Muslims remain significantly higher than national averages; Muslims also are frequently physically segregated in areas with higher crime rates and lower-performing schools. In addition, large proportions of Muslims are unable to vote, due to restrictive citizenship laws in some countries. However, this is beginning to change: In Germany, for example, the 2000 Immigration Law introduced for the first time the jus solis principle of nationality, or citizenship based on being born on the territory of a state. Previously, immigrants’ children and grandchildren – born in Germany – were not citizens and therefore did not have the right to vote. As changes to citizenship laws expand voting rights, European Muslims may also develop a stronger political voice.
In accordance with the social, economic, and political challenges that Muslims face, opinion polls consistently report the concerns voiced by Muslims to be more social than religious in nature. For example, the 2005 riots in France’s banlieues, or suburbs, which were sparked by the accidental deaths of two teenagers while under chase by police, was a rebellion against social conditions and the failure of France’s official policy of equality (“one-law-for-all”) to live up to that ideal. Islam was not the force behind the uprising.
However, religion has been the source of tension in other cases. On the whole, anti-Muslim sentiment in Europe is high, as evidenced by the growth of far-right wing parties, particularly in Austria and the Netherlands. In addition to associating Muslims with a host of social problems that derive from their lower income status, Europeans are also deeply wary of Muslims’ willingness to accept core values such as democratic pluralism, equal rights for women, or freedom of speech. For example, the controversy over the Muslim headscarf led France to ban its display (along with Christian crosses and Jewish kippahs) in public schools. The infamous “cartoon crisis” in Denmark, meanwhile, reflected an ongoing debate within Europe over various models of integration and how accommodating European societies should be. Such actions, in turn, risk further alienating moderate Muslims.
ANALYSIS
These social pressures have been exacerbated by global events and the specter of terrorism, particularly after the 9/11 attacks on the United States, the 2004 bombings in Madrid, and the 2005 attacks in London. The link between terrorism and radical Islam is cause for vigilance. The challenge will be to take firm action against extremists in ways that do not further disaffect a larger segment of the population.
Though the majority of European Muslims consider themselves Europeans and have no sympathy for radical views, Muslim youth are increasingly among the small percentage that do. Younger European Muslims are frequently more radical than their parents, partly a result of their search for identity between two cultures to which they do not feel they completely belong, but also a product of weak socioeconomic prospects and social exclusion. Whereas historically, imams from immigrants’ home countries have been allowed to fund and teach Islam in European countries, France and the Netherlands have recently taken the step of forming domestic Islamic Councils to educate foreign imams in European culture. Some scholars already identify a European brand of Islam emerging.
After years of failed policies ad hoc campaigns, or simple neglect, Western European countries are currently searching for new models and more effective ways of integrating their Muslim minorities into the mainstream of society. Each country’s approach to date has been different, though scholars and public seem to agree that none has been particularly successful. The UK’s “multiculturalism” has been criticized for promoting diversity at the expense of a common “Britishness.” As a model for integration, multiculturalism was pronounced dead after the 2005 London attacks revealed how isolated and dangerous some elements of the UK’s Muslim population had become. On the other hand, non-official discrimination persists under France’s assimilationist approach, which discourages any form of ethnic or religious identification. French Muslims are poorer, less educated, and more segregated than their counterparts in the UK.
Most recently, there have been calls for various new forms of activity, from Germany’s newly required integration courses to France’s interest in training French imams to the European Union’s implementation of an anti-discrimination law. New initiatives can be expected to continue over the next few years. Policymakers will have to balance social integration with the risk of a right-wing backlash, just as they must balance counter-terrorism activity with respect for religious difference. Western Europe’s Muslim population is too large – and too important – not to get it right.
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Annie Verderosa is Regional Editor for Europe/Russia.