Abbas Aroua
Article published in issue 20 of the journal Al-Tawasul, devoted to the concept of identity – 2010
[Epigraph: the passage from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince (1943) in which a Turkish astronomer’s discovery of asteroid B 612 is believed only once he presents it again in European dress.]
The Muslim presence in Europe and the challenges it poses
The anxiety raised by Turkey, which has been knocking on Europe’s door for decades without an answer, is the best illustration of the challenges posed by the growing Muslim presence in the so-called Old Continent to the way European identity and its relationship with Islam are approached. It explains the growing negative manifestations towards Islam and Muslims:
1. In contexts and structures, that is, the institutions, mechanisms and conditions that affect the distribution and satisfaction of the basic necessities of Muslims’ lives: exclusion, discrimination, injustice, denial of rights, deprivation of freedoms, inequality and so on;
2. In attitudes, that is, the inner tendencies of perception, thought, emotion and will that drive some Europeans and shape their view of themselves and their image of Muslims: ignorance, hatred, arrogance, racism, resentment, fear and so on;
3. In behaviour, including actions, reactions, activities and operations towards Muslims: disinformation, threats, insults, desecration of symbolic sites such as mosques and cemeteries, repression, killing and so on.
The manifestations of hostility towards Islam and Muslims in Europe can be classified into four phenomena:
1. Anti-Islam-ism, stemming from religious or ideological motives;
2. Anti-Islamism, that is, hostility to so-called Islamism or political Islam, stemming from secularist fundamentalism;
3. Islamophobia, the fear of Islam, stemming either from ignorance of Islam or from psychological and historical factors related to recent and ancient “collective wounds” that were neglected and never healed;
4. Islam-criticism, whether negative and destructive or positive and constructive, usually stemming from awareness or a sense of a conflict (real or imagined) between European values and Islamic values.
Conflicts arising from clashing values
The growing Muslim presence in Europe poses challenges linked to clashing values, which can give rise to open conflicts. Specialists define conflict as a relationship between two or more parties (individuals, groups, states or civilisations) with incompatible or contradictory goals (or who believe they have such goals). These goals may concern positions, interests, needs or values.
Contrary to a widespread view in the Arab and Muslim world, conflict, whatever its form, is not necessarily a bad thing. Disagreement, dispute and competition between individuals, groups and states are a human phenomenon and a divine law that it is pointless to deny; they help balance interests, prevent tyranny and the denial of rights, and stimulate creativity to improve human conditions in general. Specialists in conflict and peace studies define peace not as the absence of conflict but as dealing with it well: what must be avoided is the transformation of conflict into a violent clash that may reach the level of bloody struggle. Violence is defined as any act, word, attitude, structure or system that causes physical, psychological, social or environmental harm to people and/or prevents them from realising their full human potential.
Modern conflict and peace theory holds that resolving a conflict begins with analysing it and identifying and understanding the opposing goals, followed by an assessment of their legitimacy. If the conflict is between a party with legitimate goals and a party with illegitimate goals, its resolution necessarily involves achieving the goals of the first party, especially if they concern basic needs without which life cannot go on, and that party is entitled to use all legitimate means to that end, including resistance: for specialists in conflict and peace studies, “basic needs are not negotiable”. If the opposing goals of all the parties are legitimate, wholly or partly, then comes the stage of transforming the conflict by creating a new reality in which the incompatibility disappears. This process is not easy, because it requires a great deal of creativity. Conflict arising from clashing values is the most intractable, because it is difficult to make concessions on values and because this type requires greater intellectual effort to overcome the contradiction and transform the conflict.
There are many examples of conflicts arising from clashing values, found in various forms in every society. The clash between the value of human development, and economic growth in particular, on the one hand, and the value of environmental protection, on the other, is an issue at international level. So is the clash that can arise between freedoms and rights, such as an individual’s freedom to smoke and smokers’ right to state-funded treatment for smoking-related illness, which is usually costly to the public purse. One might also speak of the clash between some man-made values and some Islamic values, such as the clash between the doctrinal concept of democracy (not its practical concept) based on the sovereignty of the people and the principle of the sovereignty of God in Islam, and so on. In this article, however, we wish to focus on two examples of clashing values concerning Islam in Europe:
1. The clash between the right to freedom of opinion and expression, on the one hand, and the right to respect for the sacred, on the other. This was clearly seen in the crisis over the cartoons insulting the Prophet (peace be upon him) published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on 30 September 2005, and in the crisis over the film Fitna, produced by the Dutch politician Geert Wilders and released online on 27 March 2008.
2. The clash between democratic rights, on the one hand, and human rights, on the other, or between the popular will and the state’s legal obligations at international level. This was clearly seen in the crisis over the minaret ban in Switzerland, in the ban on the headscarf in French schools and in the current debate on banning the niqab in public space in France.
The Muslim presence in Europe, which gives rise to such seemingly thorny problems, can also enrich the debate on them and help put forward ways of addressing them. If we consider the Islamic theory of rights, for example, we find that the Islamic approach to the concept of right (haqq) differs from others in the following ways:
1. For Muslims, haqq is a two-sided term: it encompasses at once the Western notions of right and of duty, which is why it is difficult to translate into other languages. There is no right for you that is not also a right upon you. If you have the right to expression, for example, you have at the same time the duty to guarantee it to others, and the duty to ensure that what you say does not infringe any of their rights.
2. Muslims do not view rights in a fragmented or atomised way but holistically: rights are not regarded as separate but as interconnected, forming a coherent, balanced body in which no right overrides another. Thus the right to freedom of expression and the right to protection of the sacred, for example, may seem contradictory if regarded as separate rights, but the apparent contradiction disappears if they are regarded as interconnected and complementary.
The minaret ban crisis in Switzerland
On 1 May 2007, a popular initiative was launched in Switzerland to add a clause to Article 72 of the Federal Constitution banning the construction of minarets in the country. It was launched by a number of political figures, most of them from the Democratic Union of the Centre (SVP/UDC), regarded as a party of the far right. After a signature campaign lasting a full year, the initiators reached the required quorum (100,000 signatures) and on 8 July 2008 submitted 114,137 signatures to the Federal Chancellery, of which 113,540 were validated. From spring 2009 there was a heated debate in the Federal Parliament on the popular initiative, which was finally declared valid by a large majority. The Federal Parliament and the Federal Council both called on the Swiss people to reject the text of the initiative when it was put to the vote.
Once the Federal Parliament had admitted the popular initiative and a date had been set for the vote, a campaign to raise awareness, rouse and mobilise voters began, lasting several months. During this campaign, as throughout the signature campaign, two positions confronted each other. The first saw minarets as “symbols of political domination” and held that banning them did not affect Muslims’ right to freedom of belief and worship; the second considered that such a measure would violate a fundamental human right, freedom to express one’s belief, and that it could not be applied because it conflicted with conventions to which Switzerland is a party. The initiators poured considerable and varied resources into their campaign: a constant presence in the media, frequent participation in public debates, intensive use of posters and so on. By contrast, the Muslim presence in the campaign was timid, almost non-existent. The debate on minarets was thus unbalanced and asymmetrical, often marked by the absence of credible opponents facing the supporters of the initiative.
On 29 November 2009, the text of the initiative was accepted in a popular vote by 57.5% of voters, with a turnout of 53.4%, and by a majority of cantons: only four of the 26 cantons, Geneva, Vaud, Neuchâtel and Basel-City, rejected it. The result caused astonishment, even shock, everywhere, including in the initiators’ camp, which had not expected it. The surprise was all the greater because opinion polls published on the eve of the vote had predicted that the initiative would be rejected. After the vote, the same question was asked in every Swiss circle, government, elites and political forces, including the initiators: how should “after 29 November” be handled at home, in order to preserve national cohesion, and abroad, where Switzerland’s political reality might appear strange and lacking in legitimacy and credibility?
There is no doubt that the conspicuous absence of Muslim voices in the debate that accompanied the signature and mobilisation campaigns, as well as the “angelic” discourse of those who opposed the initiative, were among the main factors explaining the unexpected result of the vote of 29 November 2009.
The under-representation of Muslims in public debate can be attributed to weak organisation and limited participation in public life. Weak organisation can in turn be explained by several factors, including:
1. The absence in Islam of a religious institution comparable to the Vatican for Catholics;
2. The diversity of Islamic schools of thought and jurisprudence present in Switzerland;
3. The Swiss authorities’ wish not to interfere in Muslims’ internal affairs;
4. Interference by foreign states and organisations.
The limited participation of Muslims in public life, particularly in associations, politics and the media, deprives Swiss citizens of the Muslim faith of audibility, visibility and interaction in society, and condemns them to symbolic isolation. Swiss elites (the media, political forces and associations, trade unions and so on), Muslim and non-Muslim alike, share responsibility for this situation.
As in many European countries, Swiss citizens of the Muslim faith are often seen as a “foreign entity” linked to immigration and asylum, and regarded as “Muslims” living in Switzerland: they are thus Muslims first, by origin or by fundamentalism, and Swiss only second. It is hardly surprising, then, that some extremists call for their expulsion from Switzerland, since in these extremists’ eyes they pose an imminent danger to the country, a kind of “fifth column”. This view ignores Switzerland’s new social reality, namely the Muslim presence in the country’s multi-religious landscape, and must be corrected, because it helps to confuse two separate issues: on the one hand, the Muslim presence in Switzerland, with its contributions and the fears it may arouse; on the other, the phenomenon of immigration and the challenges it poses within society. In public discourse, therefore, one should speak of “Swiss citizens of the Muslim faith” rather than “Swiss Muslims”, “the Muslims of Switzerland” or “Muslims residing in Switzerland”. Even the expression “the Muslim community in Switzerland” should be avoided, for two reasons: it suggests withdrawal into oneself, and it implies that this group of citizens is bound to leave.
European identity in the reality of the twenty-first century
Unlike decades ago, the Muslim presence in Europe is no longer linked exclusively to immigration and asylum; it has become a clear feature of the modern European landscape. This undoubtedly raises a number of issues for Europeans of the Muslim faith and also for their non-Muslim fellow citizens. Among the most important are those related to identity, which has become composite and more complex to deal with than before. On the one hand, Europeans of the Muslim faith of non-European origin must find the best way to connect the notions of citizenship, nationality and religion, which are essential components of identity. While the “suitcase” was always on the minds of earlier generations of immigrants from the South to Europe, because of their constant longing for their countries of origin, the new generations of Europeans of the Muslim faith see their European homelands as their permanent home and the place where they exercise their citizenship, while remaining attached to their Muslim affiliation. On the other hand, non-Muslim Europeans must become aware of their relationship with a new kind of fellow citizen professing a religion traditionally associated in the European collective consciousness with the Orient, with all the imagery that term carries. The time has come to launch an exchange between the two sides to define the nature and features of a European identity suited to the reality of the twenty-first century.
Abbas Aroua
31 March 2010
Article published in issue 20 of the journal Al-Tawasul, devoted to the concept of identity
