Western European Societies

Alexandre Caeiro

Roisín Cronin

Olwen Atanackovic

Peter O'Brien

May 3^rd 1999

Islam in Europe: A Process of Cultural and Social Interaction. Policies and Social Theories. The French and German Models.

The growth of the Muslim population in Europe since the end of the Second World War has been quite phenomenal. Muslims already living in Europe in Greece, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Albania and the former Yugoslavia have been joined by Muslim immigrant workers, mainly from the Maghreb, Turkey and the Indian subcontinent. This immigration is estimated to have brought between 8 and 13 million new Muslims to Europe - many to the subjects of this project, France and Germany. However, there are also significant Muslim communities in the UK, the Netherlands, Italy, Greece, Belgium, Spain, Denmark and Portugal. This project deals with the experiences, both official and cultural, of Muslims in France and Germany. We chose these countries because of the significant size of their respective Islamic populations, and their contrasting approaches for dealing with immigrants.

The issue of dealing with Islamic immigrant groups has become very contentious within West European societies. This is because of the preconceptions that are held of the Islamic religion, and the fact that it is assumed to be incompatible with modernity and European culture (Saffran, 1986). The perceived threat of Islam within Western societies can be attributed to the fact that it 'poses a challenge to the majority's traditional self-definition of its society' (Saffran, 1986: 99).

Hargreaves (1995) has outlined a number of reasons for the perceived threat of Islam within West Europe. The first of these is numerical. Islam outnumbers other minority faiths and Islamic populations are especially concentrated within France and Germany. It has also emerged as a potent force in international politics. The threat of Islam as a political movement has been perpetuated by the media coverage of Islamic fundamentalism, and Islam is equated with fundamentalism in the minds of the European public. Reportage of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Islamic reaction to the Rushdie Affair seem to place Islam in direct opposition to the European ideals of democracy and equality. There is also concern about the subordination of women, symbolised through the wearing of the purdah. For all these reasons there are fears among the majority populations of European societies that Islam represents a serious threat to social stability. We will explore the reality of these perceptions in our examination of the French and German Islamic communities. Particularly we will look at the degree to which Islam has adapted to West European societies and whether integration has been facilitated by French and German policies.

Today's estimates of the Islamic population of Germany range from the official figure of 1.6 million to 2.7 million (Bistolfi, 1995). Islam is now Germany's third largest religion, after Roman Catholicism and Lutheranism. Considering that in 1961 Muslims in Germany numbered only 6,500 (Karakasoglu, 1996), it is clear that Germany has had to contend with a dramatic change in its cultural life and society. In this article we intend to investigate this change, examining the position in which Muslims find themselves, both from an official and cultural perspective.

Due to the closure of the Berlin Wall in 1961 Germany was faced with a severe labour shortage, so additional labour was 'temporarily' drafted in from the Balkans, Mediterranean and Turkey (Hollifield, 1986). Most of the Muslims in Germany arrived directly through, or descended from the 'Gastarbeiter' programme that was negotiated with Turkey. 89% of Germany's Islamic population are of Turkish origin (Karakasoglu, 1996). In 1961 economic interests were predominant and the cultural impact of the Gastarbeiter was ignored, mainly because they were not seen as a permanent addition to German society, the expectancy being that they would return home after a few years work. This 'Heimkehrsillusion' (myth of return) was seen as unrealistic by the end of the 1970s (Saffran, 1986).

The basis of German citizenship is quite unique in a European context. The current German citizenship laws are based on the 1913 Imperial Naturalisation Act, instituted to prevent the granting of citizenship to the many Polish and Jewish immigrants that were pouring into the country. This act is described as providing a legacy of racism based on the idea that citizenship is grounded in ethnicity (Lebor, 1997: 197). The exclusionary basis upon which German citizenship is founded cannot be overemphasised, 'the constitution and legislation of the Federal Republic of Germany are based on a historical tradition and belief that the modern German state is legitimately founded on one culture, one nation...and a biological principle of descent' (Wilpert, 1996: 70). This institutional factor directly impacts on the status of foreigners and perceptions of their acceptability within Germany (Wilpert, 1991). Thus Islamic groups in Germany must contend with religious differences and the fact that they are regarded as 'Ausländer' (foreigners) even if they have lived in Germany for all their lives. Ausländer is a seemingly neutral term, but in reality the legal, socio-economic and cultural status of 'Ausländer' is a form of branding, setting this section of the population apart from German society as a whole. The term is essentially derogatory and rarely applied to whites of North American and North European origin (Ginsburg, 1994). The combined effect of the citizenship laws and the official terminology has been to exclude immigrant populations from German society, thus making integration almost impossible.

The lack of recognition of the Islamic community as a permanent feature of German society has led to a failure to integrate Islam as a legitimate religion in its own right in Germany. In the past, German government policies conveyed the impression that Islam was not particularly relevant to the Turkish immigrant problem (Saffran, 1986). The discrepancy between Turkish and German values has led either to over-assimilation or withdrawal (Karakasoglu, 1996) with Muslims being unable to practise their religion as a part of the mainstream of German society. The Heimkehrsillusion contributed to this, due to the fact that it implicitly meant that all Islamic institutions were temporary and that Islam was not a religion that could be properly fitted into the German culture (Saffran, 1986). Even as recently as the early 1980s the German government provided active monetary incentives to Turks who decided to return to Turkey, believing that permanent settlement could still be discouraged (Ginsburg, 1994).

Barriers to integration and physical segregation within the inner areas of big cities have led to immigrant populations looking for their cultural identity within their own community. Religion has formed an important part of the cultural identity of Turks in Germany, as it is the one feature that most strongly sets them apart from the majority of the host society (Karakasoglu, 1996). Islam did not play a large role in the lives of the first Gastarbeiter generation. Few practised their religion before their arrival in Germany and there were few requests for prayer rooms at work (Kolinsky and Horrocks, 1996). The status of Islam within their lives increased as women and children joined their husbands in the 1970s, and there was a need to establish social control within the family along Turkish-Islamic lines. Now there were two partially conflicting value systems at work - that of the Turkish home, based on Islamic values, and that of the German social environment (Karakasoglu, 1996).

As is the case in France, many of the attitudes of the host population towards Islam have been highlighted through the education system. It is here that a society wishes to shape its future generations and their ideologies. The problems within the German education system have not been related to the wearing of the Kopftuch (headscarf), as in France. The official view is that religious education should help young Muslims to retain their religious identity within German society and not isolated from it: they should understand that theirs is a minority faith in a society where the majority belong to other faiths (Karakasoglu, 1996). The reality is somewhat different. Muslim religious education is not taught parallel to that of the Christian denominations. Instead it is provided through extra classes, with course material devised in Turkey that bears little relevance to the day to day life of German Muslims. This is related to the policy of cultural maintenance that formed part of the Heimkehrsillusion: the teaching of Islam was supported but only as a means of encouraging the eventual repatriation of Gastarbeiter and their families (Castles and Miller, 1994).

There are a number of obstacles to providing Islamic instruction as part of the core curriculum within the German education system. These are outlined by Karakasoglu (1996). The first is that educational issues are developed at regional level, the church concerned usually being consulted regarding the curriculum in areas of religious education. However, Islam has no representative body that speaks for all Muslims, so different regions have undertaken varied approaches, with no integrated concept emerging. Religious education through German has also been hindered by a shortage of Muslim religion teachers who are able to speak German. Within German schools, exclusion is once again a predominant feature, although government policies are not solely to blame. It can be argued that if the wishes of Muslims were viewed seriously, the provision of religious education for all Muslims within the core curriculum of German schools would be ensured. But another problem emerges due to lack of consensus among Muslims regarding the preferred type of religious education. Orthodox Muslims have special preference for special Koran schools, which have gained the reputation of being hostile to integrationist policies. Unfortunately it appears that the preferences of a fundamentalist minority have tainted German views about the teaching of Islam within their schools.

A major misconception about Muslims, as is the case in France, is the degree to which they observe their religious practices. In 1995 only 1% of Muslims in Germany were members of fundamentalist groupings (Karakasoglu, 1996), although there is a tendency to believe otherwise. Groups such as the 'Association of the National View' aim to set up an Islamic state in Germany, but the overwhelming majority of Islamic organisations in Germany have more modest goals. These present the true face of the Islamic community in Germany - one that has adapted to the culture of its host society on the whole, but is also calling for compromises (or a limited degree of 'Islamisation') on the part of the host society.

In the past decade the role of Islamic organisations has increased in importance due to a number of factors (Karakasoglu, 1996). Recession has lead to changes in the social situation, so Islamic organisations have acquired the function of providers of social support and material assistance, highlighting their community role. The first generation Gastarbeiter have now reached old age and as is common at later stages of the life cycle, they are returning to practising their religion. The second and third generations of Gastarbeiter, although still faced with social exclusion and limited opportunities, have higher expectations because of their better education and command of German. Islamic organisations are seen as lobby groups to help secure improved rights and status within Germany (e.g. 'The Central Council of Muslims in Germany'). Post-unification with intensification of xenophobic attacks, Islamic organisations organised protests and consulted with local authorities. From this it is possible to see the organisational diversity of Turkish Islam in Germany, covering not only religious, but also social and cultural needs. All but the most fundamentalist organisations share the basic aims of supporting Islamic migrants in Germany and finding an effective voice for their demands (Karakasoglu, 1996), with a view to improving the lives of Muslims in Germany.

Karakasoglu (1996) mentions Rex's notion of common and equal citizenship for all those contributing to the economy. The demographic make-up of Islamic Germans, with their younger population (36% of the community is under 18 years (Ginsburg, 1994)), means that they are an asset for the German economy (Marshall, 1992). They contribute 9% of the GNP and 7% of total tax revenue (Ginsburg, 1994), and have made significant social insurance contributions since 1963 - yet the denial of citizenship, also means the denial of voting rights. Currently only 160,000 Turks are German citizens, which means that they have an extremely limited political voice. Recent media coverage has centred on proposals by the FDP-Greens coalition headed by Gerhard Schroeder, to change Germany's citizenship laws. The changes planned to make it easier for foreigners living in Germany to become citizens, yet controversy ensued from the plan to grant dual citizenship within the law. The CDU-CSU launched a campaign against this element of the proposal, receiving more than one million signatures in a petition against it. The petition called for foreigners to be integrated into German society before becoming citizens and opposed the principle of dual citizenship. It is unclear how they expect foreigners to integrate in a society that excludes them (and calls them foreigners when they have been born and lived in that country for their entire lives). The government argued that dual citizenship is a necessary bridge to integration. Pressure meant that the government abandoned their plans to overhaul citizenship laws, and watered down proposals will be the eventual result, compromising on the issue of dual citizenship.

The estimated figure for the size of the Islamic population in France is about three million (Hargreaves, 1995). However there are no official statistics, as France as a secular nation has not included religion on a census since 1906. Four-fifths of the Islamic population in France is made up of Maghreb (from North Africa), with Turks, and sub-Saharan Africans making up most of the remainder. France has a long history as a colonial power and this has led to it being traditionally more tolerant of immigration. Islam is now only second to Roman Catholicism in terms of numbers, and since the seventies, tension has been escalating between the ethnic French and the Islamic communities.

According to Springer (1997), France was never founded on a concept of ethnicity. To be French was always based on the concept of nation, the so-called jus soli principle, as she says. According to the Ministry for Social Affairs (Springer, 1997), historically speaking "France (has been) a country of easy assimilation for individuals of different origins." France always had a policy of spreading French ideologies through its colonies. Interestingly, in French the word 'integré' as used as meaning assimilate. France's assimilationist immigration policy has always recognised individuals, but there is no official recognition of religious or ethnic groupings (Bistolfi, 1995). This came out of the very core of the French State; government has always been strictly secular. The Church as it was then and the State are strictly separated, as is the Republican ideal of the French Nation. (Islam has come into focus recently as it has brought into question some of these fundamentals of the French State. We will develop upon this later.)

In the past, French studies into immigration have tended to ignore religion, or any reference to it. There have been no French census figures on religion since 1906. Officially speaking religion has been seen in the long run as "irrelevant" (Saffran, 1986) and as Saffran (1986) says the French thought "that the Arab identity of Maghrebi immigrants can somehow be politically and analytically divorced from their Islamic identity."

(Hollifield, 1995) Prior to the 1973 oil crisis, France was seen worldwide as an immigration friendly country, accepting immigrants and asylum seekers, especially from their former colonies. They were seen as workers and as a way of expanding productive capacity. (Between 1962 and 1973 the number of Muslims went from 67,000 to 200,000.)

After 1973 there was a rapid change in immigration laws and many restrictions were placed on the inflow of migrants. (France however did not go as far as Germany, largely as a consequence of national concepts of responsibility, colonies, etc.)

In the Eighties with the rise of Jean Marie le Pen and his Front Nationals, a new anti-immigration populist agenda swept across France. This coincided with a deep economic recession and a rise of anti-immigrant feeling. The election of Jacques Chirac and his right-wing government in 1985 put Charles Pasqua in charge of the Ministry of the Interior. He introduced a crackdown on immigrants, through bills and legislation, which came to be known as 'la loi Pasqua'. The police could now arrest and deport undocumented migrants and refuse entry to asylum seekers. This represented an even greater change in the French perception of immigrants. 1989 saw the beginning of the infamous headscarf affair which "shook the very bedrock of French society, questioning the nature of the relationship between religion and the state." (Lebor, 1887, pg.184) The case rose out of the decision by a local headmaster to expel three Muslim girls because they insisted on wearing headscarves in a Public School. The expulsion was overturned by the then socialist Minister of Education, Jospin - a decision upheld by the highest administrative court. Subsequently in 1994 the right-wing government (Bayron) issued a now famous circular banning the wearing of "ostentatious signs of religious belief (Hargreaves, 1995), which he equated as proselytism." Even though the circular clearly discriminated against Muslims (Headscarves were "ostentatious", crosses and skullcaps were not), the majority of Muslim people felt indifferent to the issue.

Although the sample was very small (516) it does bring into question the outrage of the Islamic community to the headscarf affair assumed by some authors.

The next significant legislative development took place in 1993, and was called 'al loi Pasqua II'. It represented the most comprehensive crackdown on immigration, described by Hollifield (1997) as "a broadside attack on the civil and social rights of the foreigners, undermining key aspects of the Republican model." namely the principle of jus soli. It was a comprehensive set of proposals ranging from social security to the rights of asylum seekers and refugees (including the Family reunification 1993 law on Immigration and Foreigners). However, the most symbolic point was the reform of the French nationality law (which caused widespread uproar) whereby foreigners born in France had to apply for citizenship between the ages of 16 and 21, rather than receiving it automatically at 18. This caused widespread uproar "from those institutions of the liberal and republican state that were created to protect the rights of individuals." (Hollifield, 1997).

This continuous focus on immigration has ensured that it has remained an issue to the fore of French politics and society.

State education in France is completely secular, which is at odds with the traditional Islamic upbringing. There are no state funded Islamic schools (Hargreaves, 1995) and all Islamic religious education in France depends entirely on private funding and initiatives (Bistolfi, 1995). Wieviorka (1993) argues that education nonetheless is "increasingly becoming a field for both social and ethnic segregation." He cites a common practise among white middle class families of avoiding sending children to schools with high proportions of migrant populations.

In France as elsewhere, employment among immigrants has tended to be in the manual unskilled sector. The jobs the French did not want for themselves, so to speak. Wieviorka (1995) states that racism in the employment and housing sectors is taken as given, and very little research has been carried out as to the extent and consequences of it.

Source: Adapted from INSEE 1992a: Tables 13, 19, as quoted in Hargreaves, 1995. The reason for highlighting gender is because it is often stated that figures of Islamic unemployment are always overstated, because of the role of women in Islamic society.

There appears to be a general attitude of fear in French Society in relation to the so-called 'threat' posed by Islam. Where does it come from? Firstly, the Islamic tradition is at odds with 'western' social, political and cultural beliefs on a number of issues e.g. from secularism and democracy and the status of women. "Polygamist families have become one of the most emotive symbols incarnating French fears over immigration." (Islam) (Hargreaves, 1995). The issue of visibility of Muslim immigrants was propagated by the media as a "fundamental threat to cultural cohesion" (Hargreaves, 1995, pg.85).

The issue of Mosques can be taken as a paradigm for the collision of Islam with French society. Every time a Mosque is proposed in an area it is labelled as an invasion by right-wing parties and it is bitterly opposed (Lebor, 1997). Lebor cites the example of Marseilles where, despite a large Muslim population, the local authority has consistently refused planning permission for a Mosque. Despite such opposition, there has been an exponential growth in places of Islamic worship since the late Seventies, sparking even greater concern among sections of French society.

The media has also played an important role in defining France - Islamic relations with its stereotype of Muslims as "bearded terrorists and crazed fundamentalists" or "eye-ball munching, burping Arabs" (Lebor, pg.162)

Two historical events have shaped Arabs as terrorists in the national consciousness: the first was 1962 and the Algerian independence war, where atrocities - committed by both sides - have had a deep impact on France; and the second was the rise of Fundamental Islam with the Iranian revolution of 1979, which launched Islam as a potentially revolutionary movement on the world stage. A few cases of terrorist activity conducted from within France by Muslim exiles further deepened French fears. (Hargreaves, 1995, pg.125).

French-born Muslims show very small degrees of religiosity, and analysts regard this as the intergenerational erosion of Islam, (Hargreaves, 1995) especially the younger generations, who regard many of the doctrines as restrictive. Yet, most continue to say that they are Muslims, even though this is often only a reflection of their family and cultural background.

Despite this willingness to be assimilated, many Maghrebi feel socially excluded by an increasingly racist French society. As a reaction to this, they not surprisingly turn inwards into their Maghrebian ethnicity, and as Saffran (1986) argues, they then use Islam as a way of upholding their Maghrebian identity (pg.104). Islam is seen as providing the Maghreb with a sense of purpose to a people not fully accepted by the French as well as a form of psychological security.

Roy (quoted in Hargreaves, 1995) gives the example of Maghrebi gang members knowing nothing of Islam nor Arabic, invoking their Muslim background merely as a provocation, knowing that it causes consternation among the majority population (pg.139).

In a more general context, we must also look quickly at EU immigration policies, as a whole, as typified by the Schengen Agreement and the Dublin Convention. The Schengen Agreement set up the notion of a common EU border, so as to protect the borders of Europe from outside immigration. The Dublin Convention was to deal with Refugees and Asylum seekers, and was an attempt to do something about the increasing numbers. The free movement of the citizens of EU member States has led to increasing controls on immigration from outside. We feel that Europe is becoming more racist as a result of its institutional structures, which have become exclusionary towards non-EU citizens.

We have discovered in our analytical review of the available literature that the perceived 'threat' of Islam is not quite so profound as sections of French and German society would have you believe. In the case of France assimilation has only been a minor success, because it has been opposed by certain sections of French society, however it has not been from lack of effort on behalf of the Islamic community. In Germany, the treatment of the Islamic community has been marked by exclusion. The main threat would be the formation of an Islamic underclass, as opposed to any inherent threat to German society, per se.

Despite the view propounded by some quarters that Islam is incapable of adapting to Western European societies, there have been the examples of 2^nd and 3^rd generation Muslims in France and Germany who have become more and more westernised, as well as the long standing example of the Bosnian Muslims. Then there is the example of the Post-modernist Muslims, who take what they want from both cultures. The construction of a European Islamic identity will be crucial for the future integration of Islam in Europe. This will also require a realisation on behalf of Western European societies that a degree of 'Islamization' is necessary for a smooth transition. E.g. planning permission for Mosques; religious symbols, etc.

We shall now focus on structural policies of immigration and their relative success.

The German policy as it stands, based on the principle of jus sanguinis, and an ethnic concept of nation (Volkszugehörigkeit) is no longer tenable, as a result of its exclusionary nature. This clearly provides a very limited foundation upon which integration can be achieved. Current moves to change citizenship laws (Staatsbürgerrecht) towards a more inclusive framework show a recognition on behalf of the German State that existing policies are inadequate. It is important to note that these proposals are not without their opponents. The very fact that these proposals have been put forward represents a positive step.

In France the policy of jus soli has proved to be more adequate, than the German jus sanguinis idea. France's assimilationist appears to be somewhat arrogant and outdated, as it assumes the primacy of French culture. The focus on the individual at the expense of any recognition of group rights or religious identity has led to an obvious tension between Islam and the secular French State.

In conclusion, we propose the pluralistic / multi-culturalist approach (as attempted by the Netherlands and the UK), as offering more potential for future cultural integration and social cohesion.

• Wilpert, Czarina, The foundations of Racism in Europe,