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10. Construction of Muslims in Europe: The Politics of Immigration
- University of Pennsylvania Press
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Chapter Construction of Muslims in Europe: The Politics of Immigration Immigration has become one of the most significant political issues facing Europe, and Muslims have become the most important ‘‘other’’ in European public discourse. To better understand why, it is especially important to put in context the processes leading to the postwar reconstruction of Europe. The dynamics of reconstruction and its economic integration in the postwar period have led not to the growth of genuine ‘‘multiculturalism’’ and a ‘‘model of tolerance’’ but to emerging identity clashes between Europeans and their Muslim immigrants. During the postwar period (1945–70), Europe relied heavily on migrant laborers to generate economic growth. The recession of the 1970s triggered rising unemployment and forced European governments to demand that this large pool of laborers go home. These migrant laborers, mainly Turks in Germany and Austria, proved unwilling to leave. By the 1990s, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland had begun to move toward providing citizenship to these minority laborers. Since the 9/11 attacks on the United States, several contradictory trends have emerged in the Western world. On the one hand, we have seen the spread of Islamophobia and the increasing distrust and suspicion of the Muslim presence in the West. European societies have increasingly ‘‘converged in constructing Islam as a domestic threat to cohesive citizenship.’’1 Their key political concern with the immigration issue arises from the perceived connection between international terrorism and Muslim immigrants . The designation ‘‘foreign enemy,’’ previously applicable only to those outside Europe, has been increasingly applied to certain targeted domestic groups such as students or religious leaders. This so-called campaign against terrorism is likely to have significant consequences for Muslims living in Western countries.2 Chapter On the other hand, such a negative perception of Islam in European public opinion has created new opportunities for Muslims to express their own identities, claims, rights, and interests. For many Muslims, racism, discrimination , intolerance, and other kinds of injustice have generated a sense of shared vulnerability, of belonging to a community of suffering and exclusion . Religion has become a significant marker of identity and this sense of shared experience has led to the renewal of the idea of umma (community) in a non-Muslim context.3 Islam is now the second-largest faith in eight of the EU countries and an integral part of Europe. This situation has raised several questions, including whether Muslims can be incorporated as citizens and whether Islam is compatible with European political values.4 Yet Europeans have failed to promote national identities in the immigrant communities. Ethnic and regional identities continue to persist. Additionally, one survey in the United Kingdom revealed that despite the fact that Muslims make up only a fraction of the total British population (less than 3 percent), ‘‘more people attend Friday prayers than go to Sunday church.’’5 Second- and third-generation Muslim immigrants continue to see themselves more as Muslim European and less as Algerian, Moroccan, or Turkish. As countries across Europe grapple with how to assimilate their second- and third-generation Muslims, a wide array of issues has added to worries that the increased presence of immigrants in Europe is destabilizing the continent’s democratic process of integration-but-not-assimilation . These include the ban on headscarves in French schools, the possibility of Turkish membership in the EU, the difficulties of the Dutch model of ‘‘integration but not assimilation,’’ France’s failing integration model, and the cartoon episode in which the Danish newspaper JyllandsPosten published twelve editorial cartoons depicting the Islamic Prophet Mohammad on September 30, 2005, leading to a widespread uproar in the Muslim world. While some view the Muslim presence as a real threat to security (terrorism ), others frame the threat in economic terms (jobs). Still others regard the key issue as an identity clash and the perceived cultural threat that Islam poses to the European way of life.6 In this chapter, we will examine different types of identity formation (separate but equal, different but equal, respect and recognition, and resistance and protest) as well as different European models (assimilation and multiculturalism) to deal with the immigration issue. [3.131.110.169] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 19:24 GMT) Europe Colonialism The rise of political and cultural Islam in Europe can be traced to a form of anti-imperial opposition and identity. An influx of immigrants from European colonies provided cheap labor for European factories. The continued presence of Muslim guest workers in Europe rarely led to their gaining citizenship...