Muslims in Europe: from Ethnic Identity to Religious Recasting
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Circulation 8,000 J u n e 2 0 0 0 4 8 p a g e s N e w s l e t t e r 5 postal address t e l e p h o n e e - m a i l P.O. Box 11 0 8 9 +31-(0)71-527 79 05 i s i m @ r u l l e t . l e i d e n u n i v . n l 2301 EB Leiden t e l e f a x w w w The Netherlands +31-(0)71-527 79 06 h t t p : / / w w w . i s i m . n l 6 - 7 9 2 2 3 7 Gudrun Krämer Patrick Chabal Sonja Hegasy Leyla Bouzid Discacciati The Use and Abuse Africa: Modernity without Transformation through Monarchy The Image of Women in Algerian of the Study of Islam D e v e l o p m e n t ? in Morocco and Jordan and Tunisian Cinema The presence of a rather important Muslim popula- tion in Western European countries is a consequence of a recent voluntary immigration of workers coming from the Middle East, North Africa or South Asia. Muslims in Europe: Their administrative status and social integration vary considerably from one country to the other (often citizens in France and UK, rarely in Germany). Until recently they kept a low profile. But through upward social mobility or the ‘brain-drain’ from the From Ethnic Identity rest of the Muslim world, a Muslim intelligentsia has slowly emerged in Europe and is now more vocal in calling for a recognition of the Muslim presence, trig- gering heated debates in European public opinion. to Religious Recasting gists or social workers), Islam is embedded What we have here is the fabrication of a ’Born again Muslims’ in such pristine cultures (‘Arab’, ‘Asian’). But neo-ethnicity. It may work, but has little to A second consequence of the immigration OLIVIER ROY these cultures are not transmitted as such do with Islam. is that there is no longer any social evidence from generation to generation: language We have to go back to a very basic idea: of religion. Of course in neighbourhoods might be lost (as is colloquial Arabic in Islam is a religion, not an ethnic identity, where large Muslim populations are concen- What do we call a ‘Muslim’ in Europe? This is France) as well as dress and diet. A process not even a culture as such. But how can this trated, there is some social pressure to adopt a seldom-asked question in response to of acculturation is under way, even if it does religion be expressed as such? It is not a a conservative way of life (especially for which there are two approaches: the ethnic not lead to integration, but to other pat- question of inter-faith dialogue: Europe is women). But there are no social constraints one and the purely religious one. The more terns of differences. The b e u r (slang for no longer a Christian society, it is a secular or even inducements to behave as a good common approach in Europe is to consider Arab) culture of the suburbs in France has one. What we see is that Muslims do adapt, Muslim; praying, fasting, eating halal require Muslims as a quasi-ethnic group, identifying nothing to do with Islam or even with Arab not by changing Islam, but by adjusting personal involvement. One has to re-create, them with people originating from Muslim culture: the slang (v e r l a n) is French, the diet their way of thinking of themselves as be- on an individual basis, the patterns of an countries, as it is the case in Belgium.1 M a n y and the clothing are American (Mc Donald’s l i e v e r s . everyday life for a Muslim. Even if one joins specific communities (with or without a Islamic identity neighbourhood basis), this community is es- Believers who want to maintain a purely tablished on the basis of a volunteer and Islamic identity are also confronted by the personal engagement. In fact, to be a ‘true’ fact that pristine cultures divide the Muslim Muslim is an individual choice, because it community in Europe. Mosques tend to be usually means a double break: with a too tra- attended in Europe according to common ditional familial environment and with the origin, dialect, or by belonging to communi- dominant secular society. Here we meet the ty groups. There are ’Moroccan’, ‘Algerian’, phenomena of the ‘born again Muslim’, who ‘Punjabi’ and even ‘Kurdish’ mosques. For after a very mundane and sometimes dis- many second or third generation Muslims, solute life (e.g. womanizing, alcohol, drugs) or even for ‘born-again Muslims’ identifying goes back to Islam, after a spiritual experi- Islam and culture of origin is a mistake for ence, on patterns very similar to many ‘born two reasons: it is a dividing factor, but it also again Christians’: the emphasis is here on tends to embed Islam in cultural traditions personal conversion, redeeming and expres- which have little to do with ‘true Islam’. The sion of self, not on community and social ‘salafist’ approach, which stresses the return conformism. The terms ‘faith’, ‘salvation’, to an authentic Islam, rid of local traditions that is the quest for identity and psychologi- and superstitions, fits well with the contem- cal balance, are more important than ‘licit’ porary process of acculturation. Its propo- and ‘illicit’. Stories of conversions underline nents strive to build non-ethnic mosques this quest for equilibrium and happiness. and communities. To bypass the cultural di- Fundamentalism, even in its stress on the visions brought by pristine cultures, they communitarian nature of Islam, goes also tend to advocate the use of language of the along the individualization of social life, host country (English, French, etc.), which is, common to the western societies. by the way, the main if not the sole lan- This lack of evidence can also been seen in guage understood by the youth, or to push the problem of authority: Who is entitled to Muslim girls and British Muslims are campaigning to make and baseball caps), the music is western for modern Arabic. In both cases, they go teach Islam? The famous institutions of the boys preparing the ‘Inter Races Relations Act’ (which allows (rap, ‘hip-hop’), they are fond of dogs such along with the process of acculturation and Muslim world, like the University of Al Ahzar, food for 200 to sue for defamation) applicable to Islam. as, for example, pit bulls. In fact, this is a typ- globalization. In this sense, modern funda- in Cairo, retain some prestige but are unable s c h o o l m a t e s In this sense, being Muslim has nothing to ical western urban youth sub-culture: the mentalism is not a leftover of traditional cul- to meet the religious needs of the Muslim in i nD e v e n t e r , do with faith and belief, but rather with ori- terms used to qualify such groups might be tures, but on the contrary, an expression of Europe: training of modern imams, adapta- t h eN e t h e r l a n d s , gin and culture. The stricto sensu r e l i g i o u s taken from the ethnic register, but we have modernization and globalization. Religion is tion of the curriculum of studies, etc. But the at the end of aspect is diluted in a larger form of identity. here the process of ethnicisation of a space voided from its cultural content (there is no problem is not so much a lack of trained t h eR a m a d a n . But the problem is that nowadays pristine of social exclusion along the patterns of a such thing, for a fundamentalist, as ‘Islamic’ ulema: in fact the vacuum is filled by self- ethnic cultures are fading away, either western urban sub-culture, and not through music, or even an Islamic novel). Religion is proclaimed thinkers, who, whatever their in- through assimilation or because they are re- importation of patterns from the primary assimilated to a code of behaviour (‘do’s’ tellectual background, claim that they know cast into new sets of identities. Neverthe- culture. In this sense, any endeavour to de- and ‘do not’s’), and not to a culture. In this and can teach ‘true Islam’. The web is full of less, for the first immigrants as well as the fine a ‘Muslim community’ by retaining the sense, it can adapt to a world where nation- sites emanating from individuals or small European public opinion (comforted by the criteria of origin, does not refer to Islam as al cultures are giving way to codes of com- communities, which share two patterns: a culturalist approach of many anthropolo- such. It also does not refer to ‘real’ cultures. munication and sub-cultures. high level of fragmentation and the stress on Continued on page 29 2 ISIM I S I M NEWSLETTER 5 / 0 0 The ISIM initiated a wide range of activities in 1999-2000, includ- ter, Dutch, French, or German) Islam. Some even argue that this is ing the design of its education and research programmes, the or- the inevitable outcome of the integration of (post-)migrant Mus- ganization of academic meetings and lectures (see pages 3 and lim communities. However, Olivier Roy (page 1) argues that other 5), the construction of a database and a website, and the estab- processes, such as individualization and restructuring of identi- lishment of national and international networks of cooperation.