THE OTHER EUROPE

European Islam: the return of Hagar: The arrival and settlement of significant Muslim populations in Europe’s heartlands is often met with political oppression, security obsession, and religious suspicion from its governments and media. It need not be so, says a British Muslim convert: Muslim migration could reinvigorate Europe, if the continent can learn to think globally, resist irrational reflexes, and rediscover itself in the encounter with its most significant ‘other’. (Abdal-Hakim Murad, 3 - 7 - 2003, Open Democracy)

Today, in Europe, Sarah is again old, and Hagar is again fertile. Islam is, as we would theologically expect, at the forefront of the reinvigoration of the tired demography of a continent which, in living memory, has seen terrible nightmares. Ishmael, the refugee, uncontaminated by Europe’s crimes, is now settling in Europe. He has, in fact, already become Europe’s most significant Other. He thus brings hope that Europe’s appalling history may find an alternative path, a vision of God and society that can heal the continent’s wounds.

There is a universalism implicit in Islam which can help accelerate Europe’s current relaxation of ancient tribalisms, which have been scored so deeply into the political map. As the Koran says, ‘O mankind, we have created you of male and female, and have made you peoples and tribes, that you might come to know one another.’ Europe’s tragic history of racism and genocide can only benefit from exposure to our own, universal, vision of human unity. Mark Mazower, the historian, entitled his recent book on 20th century European history The Dark Continent. As people of faith, we are called upon to help with the process of illumination.

We come, however, at an awkward time. Minoritarian zealot movements in the Islamic world, and their diasporas in Europe, have provided
ammunition to xenophobes who seek to draw a veil over Europe’s record by claiming that Islam is represented by its margins and its extremes. That claim may be dismissed with the same contempt which we deploy when we hear that Judaism is defined by the behaviour of radical rabbis on the West Bank. Our experience of our religion and our communities is that we are here as peaceful citizens; and we reject as alien and frightening the media’s apparent desire to focus only on our outlandish and freakish margins.

At present, asylum seeking, and the often related issue of immigration, are near the top of the political agenda across the European Union. Ishmael is here, and here in significant numbers; and we find ourselves at the centre of Europe’s current debate about itself. We are to integrate ourselves; and all the polls indicate that most of us have no problem with this idea, if it signifies an enhancement and addition to what we already are, rather than an erasure and destruction.

Yet this demand is being made at a time when no-one, except the maniacs on the extreme right, can clearly describe to us the culture into which we are to integrate. Europe, and its member states, form a patchwork of historically different cultures and religious landscapes. Europeanness, as a concept, seems extraordinarily vague.

Mr. Murad, for good reason, understates what is going to happen to Europe in the future. When your immigrants, even though they're from a variety of different countries, have a stronger sense of unified identity that the natives, the nation will in all likelihood eventually take on the identity of the new folk. This is the aspect of the American Right's anti-immigration movement that we quarrel with--we don't need to keep "the other" out; we need to restore American identity to what it has been, so that there is an existing culture that the newcomers get assimilated into.


MORE:
Eigen Volk Eerst!: The far-right Vlaams Blok gained ground in Belgium’s May 2003 elections on an anti-immigrant, nationalist platform. The journalist Nick Ryan spent time there with suits and skinheads. This extract from his book Homeland tells the gripping story of their attempts to “save their identity” from “globalisation and mongrelisation” – a battle fought on the streets, in pubs and in the parliament. ( Nick Ryan, 3 - 7 - 2003, Open Democracy)

Geert steers me towards a stocky figure who looks like a kindly old schoolmaster: dark-haired, bearded, with a friendly grin, glasses, and a tweed jacket. His trousers are tucked into his socks. “What’s your name, again?” I shout over the din, as we shake hands. “Oh, my name will be double-dutch to you!” he jokes, in decent English. “Francis Van den Eynde. Here, have one of my cards. I’m Vice President of the parliamentary party, and what you call an MP for the town of Ghent.” He smiles, but I can’t read his eyes.

“How did you get involved with the party?” I shout over the sound of generators and the helicopter. Something whizzes past my head: a piece of paving stone. “I’m involved since 30 years,” he says. “Since I was 14 years old. At first I was in the old nationalist party – the Volksunie,” a more liberal independence movement, from which the Vlaams Blok split in 1977. I explain I’m an outsider. “Why does the party have such a controversial reputation?” “In my opinion, because we are the only party that asks the independence of Flanders.”

“But they try to catch us about the problem of the foreigners in this city. Well, not only this city, this country. Because we have a big problem with, ah, immigration. In our opinion, enough is enough. We don’t want to take all the multicultural society.” I ask him what this means. “The problem for us is that they never mention what is a multicultural society. Our opinion is that everybody who lives here has to respect our language and our culture. And if they do that, they are welcome. No less, no more.” “Are other parties elsewhere similar?” “A lot of them are similar in different ways. If you ask me which parties I admire, hmmm…then in the East, the Legas (Lega Nord/Northern League) in Italy. And Sinn Fein in Ireland.” These two groups encompass the political spectrum: extreme right and left, I point out. “For us, both very interesting,” says Van den Eynde, adjusting his spectacles with a thick finger.

Although he maintains that independence is their original aim, others claim immigration/foreigners is really their first issue. “In fact, our first aim is to save our own identity. And that’s the reason why we have problems with the immigration. We have no home rule, at all. We have a kind of federalism in this country. We want independence. In this time of globalisation and mongrelisation, we try to save our own identity. Everybody in the world, even when he is black or yellow, who is struggling to save his own identity, is our ally.” He seems fired up. “This is the world of McDonald’s and Coca Cola. It’s very important to be against globalisation. It’s one of the major problems. In the future, that will be more and more the big problem. What is it?” he asks, rhetorically. “It’s the One World philosophy.”

Posted by Orrin Judd at July 15, 2003 10:11 PM