100 - Europe and Islam
Autor: Cássio Marcelo de Melo Tunes | Publicado: 2015-11-16T09:34:00-08:00


EUROPE
AND ISLAM



No European democracy has the perfect way to handle Islam



Nov 15th 2015, 16:02&nbsp;BY
ERASMUS in the economist



EUROPE'S democracies are standing united in the face of the nihilist
terror which&nbsp;struck the heart of the continent on November 13th. With no
fear, this time, of alienating patriotic voters, David Cameron managed a few
words of French as he expressed his solidarity with the French people.

Even before the latest attacks, it was clear that the leading
governments of Europe faced broadly the same dilemma. Within the large and
growing Muslim communities which every European state now hosts, a minority is
attracted by the cause of violent extremism, at home or abroad. The challenge
is to keep that minority small and make sure that the rest of society,
including the rising generation of Muslims, plays its part in this.

But in their approaches to this problem, European states have always had
differences, often robust ones. At least in pre-9/11 days, French security
chiefs used to refer scathingly to "Londonistan" because of the
British capital's willingness to harbour Islamist opponents of secular regimes,
like the one which usurped power in Algeria.&nbsp;

There are differences of ideology as well as practice. Like America,
only a bit more so, the French republic has a specific set of founding
principles and it expects all citizens to accept them, however diverse they may
be in other respects. It is agreed that one of the purposes of universal
education is to inculcate those ideals. That is in sharp contrast with the
British ideal of multiculturalism. To French eyes, it seems that Britain has
been too lax in allowing immigrant sub-cultures, like the Asian Muslim enclaves
of northern England. The existence of British schools (whether private or
within the state system) where the ethos is that of ultra-conservative Islam
can seem astonishing to observers from France, or from other European states where
education is more centralised.

Britain now acknowledges that multiculturalism has gone too far,
especially in education, but in a country that lacks a written constitution,
there is uncertainty over what common denominator citizens and schoolchildren
should be asked to accept. Whatever answer is found, it will not as demanding
as the French approach. In Britain, the decade-old French law that bars
headscarves from schools seems like an infringement of liberty. When Jack
Straw, the former foreign secretary, said he preferred Muslim visitors to his
office not to wear full face-veils, he was denounced as grossly insensitive by
fellow Labour politicians. That
sentiment is still widespread.

Not only is each European country different, each one is changing at a
different pace and in a different direction. In contrast with secular France,
post-war Germany has always had a lot of religious education, Protestant and
Catholic, in its school system. Now there is increasing provision for Islam;
what will happen after the arrival of more than a million refugees, mostly
Muslim, is anybody's guess. The Netherlands used to be generously multicultural
but a sharp reaction set in after the murder of Theo van Gogh, a film-maker, by
a Muslim fanatic in 2004, and the effects are still palpable.

The hard truth is that no European country has found the ideal balance
between accepting diversity (which is the natural impulse of a liberal
democratic state) and demanding adherence to a common set of values. That is
because no perfect balance exists.

France has done its collective best to offer Muslim citizens a hard
secularist bargain: accept the ideals of the republic, which include the
religious neutrality of the state, and you will be as free to practice your
religion as any Catholic, Protestant or Jew. It has more-or-less successfully
imposed that bargain on the organisations which speak for Islam in France. But
inevitably, there are those who reject it. For the great majority of French
citizens of Muslim heritage, the republic's offer is probably acceptable. But if
only 1% of young French Muslims radically reject it that is easily enough to
provide terrorist movements with ample recruits.

Exactly the same applies to the somewhat different bargains that every
other European state is offering. There is no ideal solution, but we still have
to keep looking for one.