Does being exposed to a labeling like ‘Muslim in Europe’ obstruct being a ‘European Muslim’? If a sense of being marginalized is caused by the exclusion results in abstraction from society, together with being marginalized one way or another like a vicious circle, the answer is “yes”.
It would be helpful to look over the key findings in a report titled “Muslims in Europe – A Report on 11 EU Cities” published by Open Society Institute, to follow up on the aforementioned answer, i.e. ‘yes’. The report includes a “myth versus realities” part, which will facilitate in seeing the ‘realities in mind’ and ‘realities in reality’. Here are some findings used to illustrate a good case in point:
“Myth [General Belief]: Muslims do not want to integrate; they want to live separately from the rest of population.
Reality [Findings of the Report]: The OSI [Institute] research challenges the myth of segregation and alienation and reveals a much more positive picture of integration at the local level. The majority of Muslims and non-Muslims identify strongly with the city and the country where they live. 61 percent of Muslims have a strong sense of belonging to the country and 72 per cent have a strong sense of belonging to the city. In Antwerp, for example, over 90 per cent of respondents expressed a “very strong” or “fairly strong” sense of local belonging.
However, 50 per cent of all Muslim respondents who identify themselves with the country where they live believe that they are not seen as belonging to that country by the wider society.”
Referring to the abovementioned myth, it is possible to deduce that Muslims prefer to have a separate life space/place apart from the local residents consciously. In fact, this is far beyond the perception of European people in most cases. It is a fact that many politicians and European elites share the same view as well. Particularly, far-right rhetoric, populist propagandas of local or general elections and even statements embedded in Turkey’s EU membership debates are obvious enough not to need additional scientific ground. This perception emphasizes, in a sense, a conscious choice for Muslims in Europe to keep away from European values. Accordingly, this logic goes along with the acceptance of a Muslim entity that prefers to be “Muslims in Europe” and marginalizes itself from the local society. This acceptance is under criticism in nature. However, on the contrary, there is a well-known fact that such labels do not result from a conscious choice by Muslims living in Europe – at least at the majority level. Anyhow, it appears among the findings of the aforementioned report, equivalent to reality. Thus it is possible to mention a ‘vicious circle of (two-sided) perception’ about those who are not able to acquaint themselves with a European Muslim image and then marginalize themselves from the society called European. This is basically because Muslim communities living in Europe are excluded from society due to the negative perception and labeling of Muslims in Europe. Subsequently, the excluded communities, albeit not just unilateral, inevitably marginalize themselves. The vicious circle begins at this point actually. The excluded or othering groups are apt to come together and form their own life space which leads to the echoed sentiment of the marginalized groups on purpose in the eyes of Europeans. The separate life spaces of the excluded, and then inevitably marginalized groups, are appropriate grounds for the extreme far-right groups to vouch for stereotypes and prejudices of the European people.
Gettos are the inevitable output of the clash between the above mentioned myth and realities. Some other findings from the Open Society Institute report are also worth pointing out in order to illustrate how exclusion or othering in housing can cause an unavoidable unification of societies in similarities. Here are some of the findings:
“Muslims want to live in mixed communities, challenging claims that the geographical concentration of Muslims reflects their desire to live among their own kind.
Discrimination in housing restricts choices of where many Muslims across Europe can live.”
It is easy to find similar findings in education and employment fields. It then becomes just a simple preference of not being (able to) be a European Muslim for Muslims in Europe?
Europeans, as Göle says, still take the European public space for granted and exclude the others from even the debates in this space as well. Eventually, they put main European values aside for the Muslims living in Europe by their own hands and so limit the life space and choices of these people. This is why Muslim communities are drawn in a vicious circle of the perception that Muslims do not have an integration capacity. This results in an othering process through which the differences are read over just one religion.
The recent referendum in Switzerland about minarets is also an unfortunate example that illustrates how Muslim societies are marginalized from normal life space in Europe. Namely, it is most likely that the marginalized people build a defensive wall based on identities. It is a common case that even those who principally do not identify themselves with their Muslim identity could resort to protests by emphasizing their religious identity in case of an exclusion or injustice. Likewise, it seems that the impact of the referendum in Switzerland will go beyond the Muslims in Switzerland. There is news that Pro-NRW, a far-right group in Germany, is in preparation for a campaign based on the newly-born Lisbon Treaty. Accordingly, the Pro-NRW group is trying to form legal grounds for a minaret ban by means of the Lisbon Treaty which let one million EU citizens to put forward a proposal for legislation. Actually, this news is not just a rumor since the front page of the Pro-NRW web-site includes both the poster used in the Swish referendum and an on-line petition form in order to collect 1 million petitions.
In this sense, common civility based on liberal pluralism or inclusion(!) of European values starts to be questioned. Also, it is worth questioning whether those who do not have integration capacity are only the Muslims and ‘others’ of Europe in general. Consequently, marginalization, as an inevitable output of exclusion, transforms Muslim societies into a society which lives in Europe but is not European.
Fatma Yilmaz-Elmas
Center for EU Studies
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