Posted on 11/17/2005 6:34:45 AM PST by .cnI redruM
Europeans have spent the last four years hunting frantically for a model of integration that works. The reason is simple: After September 11, as Americans looked outward for a solution to terrorism, Europeans looked inward. They surveyed their own societies and saw a large number of disaffected Muslims, many of them young and male. This goes a long way toward explaining why some Europeans have poured invective on George W. Bush in recent years. Many of Bush's shrillest critics worry that he will provoke a clash of civilizations that will be played out in their streets. Osama bin Laden has tried to stoke this fear, addressing Europeans as "our neighbors north of the Mediterranean."
And so, for European leaders, the question of how to integrate their Muslim populations has taken on a special urgency. The problem is that every time a country is thought to have devised a workable model, something happens to prove that it hasn't. France is merely the latest European nation to see its approach to integration unmasked as seriously flawed.
he first country to see the luster come off its integration model was Spain. The only western European country to have ever been ruled by Muslims, and a place where many Islamists believe the humiliation of the Muslim world began in 1492, Spain was thought to have created a cross-Mediterranean ethic that emphasized the cultural ties of Muslims and Christians. In 2003 The Economist observed approvingly that "Spain and Italy, parts of which centuries ago were actually ruled by Muslims from North Africa, are by northern standards surprisingly relaxed about their immigrants descendants. Spaniards are proud of the Christian Reconquista, but also of their Muslim heritage." EU surveys found that only Swedes were more accepting of Muslim immigrants than the Spanish. And an EU study concluded that Spain was one of the two European countries where September 11 had the fewest adverse effects. When a state-funded Catholic school sparked debate in 2003 by telling a Muslim pupil she could not wear a hijab, the pupil was sent to another state-funded school--where she was greeted by an applauding group of students and faculty. The spirit of this Mediterranean culture was embodied by the music of the band Radio Tarifa, which fused medieval Spanish music, flamenco, and Arabic chanting.
But the Madrid bombings of March 2004 revealed that a warm culture of inclusion was not necessarily sufficient to defend against violence. (According to The New Yorker, "The Al Qaeda cell in Spain is old and well established. ... After September 11th, Spanish police estimated that there were three hundred Islamic radicals in the country who might be affiliated with Al Qaeda.") Spain could no longer be considered a perfect model.
Europeans also looked to Holland, long regarded as the most liberal and tolerant society on the continent. The Dutch were proudly multicultural. They allowed--and publicly funded--Muslim run schools. "Children will be able to integrate and participate in Dutch society with greater self-awareness by learning about their own background," boasted the Dutch education ministry. The approach seemed to be working: As of 2001, the Dutch had seven Muslim legislators in their parliament's lower house, far more than the British, French, or Germans had in theirs; and the number of businesses owned by foreigners in Holland tripled between 1986 and 2000. Interest in the Dutch model was increased by Rotterdam's successful campaign, based on its multiculturalism, to be named European City of Culture in 2001.
The aftermath of September 11 placed huge strains on this model. The Dutch were shocked when Osama bin Laden declared in a December 2001 video that "Some of them said that in Holland, at one of the centers, the number of people who accepted Islam during the days that followed the operations were more than the people who accepted Islam in the last eleven years." Dutch faith in multiculturalism began to be replaced by a conviction that the one thing the Netherlands could not tolerate was Muslim intolerance. In 2002, gay sociology professor Pim Fortuyn burst onto the Dutch political scene bearing this message. Just three months later, his party commanded almost 30 percent support in the polls. Then Fortuyn was murdered before polling day. It was another murder, that of filmmaker Theo van Gogh in November 2004, that returned the issue of Islam's compatibility with Dutch liberalism to the top of the national agenda. The filmmaker's murder was followed by a series of tit-for-tat attacks on mosques and churches. Holland, where the government is currently proposing a ban on wearing the burqa in public, is now studied more as an example of the tensions between liberalism and Islam than of their successful reconciliation.
Britain offered another possible solution. The British believed that the combination of economic opportunity and official respect and recognition would help Muslims become full members of society. This approach had worked for Indians, Ugandan Asians (who, three decades after being kicked out of their country by dictator Idi Amin, are widely considered the most successful immigrant group in the United Kingdom), and myriad other ethnic groups. Many believed that Britain's mongrel culture--in addition to hosting waves of immigrants, Britain had been founded on a union between Anglo-Saxon English culture and Scotland's Celtic influences--would make it easier for Muslims to fit in. As The Economist noted, "Britain has been quicker than, say, France or Germany to come to terms with the idea of integration, whereby immigrants may keep the culture and religion of their homeland, rather than assimilation, whereby they are indistinguishable, except perhaps by colour, from the natives." Monarch and Prime Minister alike gushed about Britain's "multicultural" society. Muslim advocacy groups regularly met with government officials, and the leader of the largest group was knighted. The dynamic British economy helped create more than 5,000 Muslim millionaires. In Britain, a country that has rarely been happy with the idea of state-imposed identity, the concept of letting the economy and time do the work seemed the best approach--especially as it had worked before. But this past summer's bombings in London--carried out by British citizens--demonstrated the model's shortcomings. Radical Islam had apparently been flourishing in Britain, and its adherents had proven immune to liberal multiculturalism's charms.
And so fearful Europeans turned to France, with its unyielding emphasis on universal, enlightenment values. The liberal British magazine Prospect argued that the London bombings had demonstrated the "limits of the laissez-faire multiculturalism." The magazine placed great stock in Britain's ability to develop "a liberal-integrationist language--the beginnings of a French-style ideology of common citizenship--with which to address the problem of ethnic enclaves." Of course, French lessons on creating a tolerant and prosperous multicultural society now seem far less attractive.
hat, then, is Europe to do? On the one hand, the varying models of multiculturalism favored by Spain, Holland, and Britain created room for extremists to do their work. On the other hand, France's emphasis on a universal culture has proven alienating to large swaths of the immigrant population.
But there are plenty of constructive steps Europe could take. First, it could demonstrate that it believes Islam and democracy are compatible by speeding up Turkish accession talks with the European Union. Then, Europe should consider why Muslims are so much more integrated and successful in the United States. Arab families in America (though not all Muslim) are on average better off than the rest of the U.S. population: Their median family income is $52,300, 4.6 percent higher than average; the opposite is generally true in Europe. One reason is that Muslims who migrated to the United States were usually better educated and better off than those who went to Europe. But another is that the United States is far more welcoming to people of faith than a Europe where the dominant religion is, to use Timothy Garton-Ash's phrase, "evangelical secularism." Europeans should also follow the American lead on citizenship tests, which a growing number of countries are introducing. Unfortunately, unlike the U.S. version, they are geared more toward imparting the kind of knowledge you find at the beginning of a Lonely Planet guide than inculcating future citizens with the values on which the state is founded. While the U.S. test asks about the American Revolution, the British one wants you to know what P.G. stands for. (Parental Guidance, a cinema classification, since you ask.)
Ironically the politician being denounced for inflaming the French rioters, interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy, has some of the best ideas about how Europe could better integrate its Muslim citizens. Sarkozy argues that affirmative action is needed for Muslims, heresy in egalitarian France. He also proposes that the state fund mosques. This is imperative: Otherwise large numbers of mosques will continue to preach the divisive, extremist doctrine of Wahabism. There is no reason that Muslim populations hailing from moderate societies should be led by Wahabi imams.
Of course, these steps towards integration cannot come only from one side. Muslim leaders will have to play a constructive role rather than acting as grievance mongers. For instance, as the Prospect's editor David Goodhart points out, the supposedly mainstream Muslim Council of Britain could stop referring to the war in Afghanistan as a "misguided" effort that sparked an "increase in prejudice" against Muslims.
We can be fairly confident that the Paris riots will not convince immigrants in other countries to begin a European intifada. They should, however, convince European leaders to stop casting around their own continent for an effective model of integration. That model, unfortunately, doesn't yet exist. Sarkozy and Europe's other visionaries are going to have to create it on their own.
1) You can't assimilate a group that does not want to join your society. It's like eating nails for breakfast and expecting a smooth BM later in the day.
2) You can't assimilate a group your society doesn't want there in the first place. French Muslims don't have to be educated readers of Camus to know what the French really think of them as human beings.
No it wasn't just you. When I read the following I figured the author doesn't get it. - Tom
But there are plenty of constructive steps Europe could take. First, it could demonstrate that it believes Islam and democracy are compatible .............
This is a fact. This is another facet of the elephant in the living room. This unbending quality of islam is why its strict adherents believe it will ultimately rule the world. Regarding islam, there are only two options, it will dominate the planet or it will have to be eliminated. That isn't an opinion...that is the nature of islam.
Big mistake unless they are already on the slippery slope of funding synagogues and churches. Buddhist temples next?
"It is hard to understand why non-muslims anywhere in the world can't see that Islam is offended by ALL things non-muslim."
That's because they are too busy hating the United States.
-1) You can't assimilate a group that does not want to join your society.-
I love their restuarants, but honestly, what do they offer as a group unless we all covert to their cult? I never see muSlums - even here in tolerance-is-our-religion MN - unless it's in the company of other muSlums. We have little in common.
the people who have allowed this collision of cultures to occur have it in for all of us.
One culture must bend of obviously there is going to be conflict.
Could be a plan like the VHE, leader? Voluntary Human Extinction?
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