Muslim Networks and Transnational Communities in and Across Europe (Muslim Minorities, 1) (Muslim Minorities, 1)

MuMi-1-allievi.qxd

14/11/2002

14:24

Page i

MUSLIM NETWORKS AND TRANSNATIONAL COMMUNITIES

IN AND ACROSS EUROPE

MuMi-1-allievi.qxd

14/11/2002

14:24

Page ii

MUSLIM MINORITIES

EDITORS

Jørgen S. Nielsen (University of Birmingham) Stefano Allievi (University of Padua)

VOLUME 1

MuMi-1-allievi.qxd

14/11/2002

14:24

Page iii

MUSLIM NETWORKS AND

TRANSNATIONAL

COMMUNITIES IN AND

ACROSS EUROPE

EDITED BY

STEFANO ALLIEVI and JØRGEN NIELSEN

BRILL LEIDEN • BOSTON 2003

MuMi-1-allievi.qxd

14/11/2002

14:24

Page iv

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufnahme Muslim networks and transnational communities in and across Europe / edited by Stefano Allievi and Jørgen Nielsen -- Leiden, Boston : Brill, 2003 (Muslim minorities ; Vol. 1) ISBN 90-04-12858-1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is also available

ISSN 1570-7571 ISBN 90 04 12858 1 © Copyright 2003 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910 Danvers MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

ALLIEVI_F1_v-xi

11/4/02

10:25 AM

Page v

v

CONTENTS Preface ........................................................................................

vii

List of Contributors ..................................................................

xi

C O Islam in the public space: social networks, media and neo-communities ................................................ S A

1

C T Transnational Islam and the integration of Islam in Europe .................................................................... J S. N

28

C T Gender, generation, and the reform of tradition: from Muslim majority societies to Western Europe ...................................................................... S A-M  A S C F ‘Human nationalisms’ versus ‘inhuman globalisms’: cultural economies of globalisation and the re-imagining of Muslim identities in Europe and the Middle East ............................................................................ M LV C F Towards a critical Islam: European Muslims and the changing boundaries of transnational religious discourse .................................................................................. P M

52

78

127

C S Turkish political Islam and Europe: story of an opportunistic intimacy ........................................ V A

146

C S Islamic TV programmes as a forum of a religious discourse .................................................................. A B

170

ALLIEVI_F1_v-xi

vi

10/21/02

12:04 PM

Page vi



C E Transnational or interethnic marriages of Turkish migrants: the (in)significance of religious or ethnic affiliations ................................................................................ G Sß

194

C N Communication strategies and public commitments: the example of a Sufi order in Europe ...... L L P

225

C T Transnational Islam versus ethnic Islam in eastern Europe: The role of the mass media ...................... G M. Y

243

C E Virtual transnationalism: Uygur communities in Europe and the quest for Eastern Turkestan independence ........................................................ Y S

281

C T Diaspora, transnationalism and Islam: Sites of change and modes of research .............................. S V

312

I ..........................................................................................

327

ALLIEVI_F1_v-xi

10/21/02

12:04 PM

Page vii

vii

PREFACE

When serious academic study of Islam in western Europe started about a quarter of a century ago, it was from a variety of disciplinary starting points. From the social sciences there were local community studies based in ethnography and social anthropology, and sociolog­ ical and geographical studies providing snapshots of larger dimen­ sions and specific themes, in particular race relations and discrimination. Political science and occasionally legal studies looked at the impact of national and local structures and the participation, or absence of participation, of Muslim groups. International comparative accounts, dealing with the situation in several European countries, were primar­ ily descriptive before they attempted to identify areas of common developments and characteristics. Religious studies, broadly defined, concerned itself with religious ideas and forms of expression in the context of migration and settlement and often overlapped with the more traditional disciplines of oriental studies and comparative reli­ gion or the history of religions. More recently, research has started to analyse links between the Muslim presence in western Europe and the countries of origin, recording and analysing the processes involved in chains of migra­ tion and their impact at both ends of the chain. Many such stud­ ies have an emphasis of interest at one end of the chain rather than the other. It is in this area that the papers in this volume have a common interest. Different aspects of the contemporary situation of Muslims in western Europe are dealt with, all under the general per­ spective of transnational dimensions. What distinguishes the papers in this volume from much of the literature until recently is the extent to which the ‘transnational’ forms of Islam with which we are con­ fronted are partly or wholly independent of the chains of migration or shared ethnic identity. What the papers show is that there is cur­ rently a very active process of constructing Muslim/Islamic networks held together by shared ideas and responses to the European envi­ ronment, rather than common ethnic or national identity, and using various forms of media as the tool for such networking. It was precisely this dimension we wished to explore when we proposed a workshop with the title of the present volume as part of

ALLIEVI_F1_v-xi

10/21/02

viii

12:04 PM

Page viii



the Second Mediterranean Social and Political Research Meeting, organised in Florence in March 2001 by the Robert Schuman Centre of Advanced Studies at the European University Institute.1 In our preparations we had thought primarily in terms of western Europe, since Islam in eastern Europe is a field which has until recently been treated quite distinctly. There are, of course, good reasons in the past and the present why this should have been so. But the two papers by Yemelianova and Shichor show that many of the issues which we are dealing with increasingly apply also to eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The papers presented here highlight particularly the roles played by media networks and other means of communication, traditional and modern, from physical travelling to the Internet, from visits by shaykhs and regular meetings of transnational Sufi orders to private e-mail and ‘fatwas on line’. What is also notable is the ‘identity net­ works’ which, through these various media, find their place in the religious and cultural market place. These aspects are a neglected area of research, thus underestimating their significance and lacking persuasive theoretical interpretation.2 The importance of media and communications in the construc­ tion by Muslim communities of their self-understanding and contexts is only starting to be understood and continues to be linked to stud­ ies on questions of perception, construction of prejudice, concerns about ‘islamophobia’, etc. These are aspects of the problem but not necessarily the most important, even though their profile has been enhanced due to the political attention to militancy. The papers in this volume pay more attention to how media and communications contribute to the construction and maintenance of various common Muslim identities across European state borders. But the Muslim communities in Europe are part of a global Muslim umma which plays an active role in local Muslim self-perceptions to an extent which is possibly unprecedented in Muslim history. So the frontiers

1 Not all the papers presented in the workshop have been published here, and the papers by Amiraux, Salvatore and Amir-Moazami, and Vertovec have been commissioned especially for this volume. 2 Peter Mandaville’s Transnational Muslim politics: Reimagining the Umma (London: Routledge, 2001) was published after the papers were completed. This is one of the first to offer a well thought through modelling of many of the issues dealt with in this volume. A full overview of the current state of research on Muslims in Europe is currently in press. This includes a chapter on the media by Stefano Allievi.

ALLIEVI_F1_v-xi

10/21/02

12:04 PM

Page ix



ix

between European Islam (understood solely as a geographical con­ cept) and the wider world are both demarcating and mediating, as we see across the Mediterranean and also in the less studied con­ text of eastern Europe and the former USSR. Thence the ‘in and across’ of the title. These discussions raise questions about the nature of the public space in Europe and the modifications to it introduced by the inte­ gration of communities which were formerly perceived as being ‘alien’. What kinds of communities are Muslims in Europe trying to build? How do media and communications impact on the meaning of com­ munity as such and the ‘contents’ which communities produce and exchange? What are the feedback effects to be observed at both ends of the lines of communications? How are the self-definitions of com­ munities, groups and networks changing through the passage of gen­ erations? What is the function of religion as a reference point for such communities? What is the ‘Islam’ which is in question when we are talking about ‘Muslims’, and how do they and we perceive both terms? These are but a few of the questions which arise from the present collection of papers and towards answering which they are a contribution. As workshop convenors we are grateful for the support, facilities and the opportunity provided by the European University Institute to bring a group of researchers of very varying backgrounds and experience together to explore this topic. The practical advice and support (and, of course, regular reminders about deadlines) offered by the staff of Brill Academic Publishers in Leiden, Netherlands, is much appreciated. Our thanks are obviously due to the contributors for their cooperation in revising their papers in the light of discus­ sions in the Florence workshop—we can only hope that they feel that our editing of their papers has improved them. Finally, a spe­ cial record of appreciation has to be noted for Dr Steve Vertovec, who did not participate in the workshop and whose final chapter was written to particularly sharp deadlines. His years of research on Muslim communities in Europe and his experience leading the Transnational Communities Programme of the UK Economic and Social Research Council are a particularly appropriate foundation for his concluding chapter. Stefano Allievi, University of Padova Jørgen S. Nielsen, University of Birmingham June 2002

This page intentionally left blank

ALLIEVI_F1_v-xi

10/21/02

12:04 PM

Page xi

xi

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Stefano Allievi, Professor of Sociology, Faculty of Sciences of Commu­ nication, University of Padua, Italy. Schirin Amir-Moazami, research student, European University Institute, Florence, Italy; associate member of the Centre Marc Bloch, Berlin, Germany. Valérie Amiraux, Chargée de recherche, CNRS/CURAPP, Amiens, France. Anke Bentzin, Research Assistant, Institute of Asian and African Studies, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany. Loïc Le Pape, doctorant, SHADYC/EHESS, Marseille, France. Marc LeVine, Assistant Professor, Dept. of History, University of Cali­ fornia, Irvine CA, USA. Peter Mandaville, Assistant Professor of Government and Politics, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA. Jørgen S. Nielsen, Professor of Islamic Studies, Centre for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations (CSIC), Department of Theology, University of Birmingham, UK. Armando Salvatore, European University Institute, Florence, Italy. Yitzhak Shichor, Professor in Asian Studies and Political Science, University of Haifa, and Senior Research Fellow, Harry S Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. Gaby Strassburger, Research Assistant, Dept of Educational Science, University of Essen, Germany. Steven Vertovec, Institute of Advanced Study, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, Germany. Galina M. Yemelianova, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Russian and East European Studies, European Research Institute, University of Birmingham, UK.

ALLIEVI_F2_1-27

10/22/02

1:36 PM

Page 1

1

CHAPTER ONE

ISLAM IN THE PUBLIC SPACE:

SOCIAL NETWORKS, MEDIA AND NEO-COMMUNITIES

S A 1. Introduction The presence of Muslim populations in Europe has been studied from many points of view using, for example, the instruments of the sociology of migration or of the sociology of religion, not to men­ tion through other disciplinary approaches such as anthropology, the­ ology and comparative religious studies, political studies and social policies. The sociological analysis of Islam in Europe often tends to compare the situation in the different countries of Europe, i.e. to compare the different national cases (France, Great Britain, Germany, sometimes Holland and Belgium and less frequently the Mediterranean countries of Southern Europe and the Scandinavian countries). Often this comparison is not the product of the work of a single researcher or team of researchers, but it is done through juxtaposing occasional papers or essays by different authors.1 Another frequently used method­ ology consists of the development of community studies, such as the effects of the presence of Muslim populations in a particular local environment, or in a specific country.2 A third level of research

1 Some examples, normally the outcome of a conference or a seminar, are Gerholm and Lithman (1988), Shadid and van Koningsveld (1991, 1996a and 1996b), Lewis and Schnapper (1992), Waardenburg and others (1994), Nonneman, Niblock and Szajkowski (1996), Vertovec and Peach (1997). 2 This type of literature is too vast, and it is not possible to indicate any refer­ ence studies (see, at least for the first decade of interest in the subject, Dassetto and Conrad, 1996; a significant bibliography will also be available in the European research mentioned in note 4): their importance depends on the subject, on the author and, often, on the importance of the country in which the studies are con­ ducted. Some countries are in fact more ‘read’ than others, due to their intrinsic importance, but also, more often, to the fact that some languages are better known than others by researchers and the scientific community. This factor, among others, explains the diffusion of some theoretical models and interpretations, in particular, of British and French origin, and the common ignorance of German, Latin and

ALLIEVI_F2_1-27

2

10/22/02

1:36 PM

Page 2

 

includes the study of a specific ethnic or national group (e.g. the Senegalese in Italy or the Turks in Germany),3 in some cases with a reference to the dynamics at play in the countries of origin: an option that, at least, starts to observe some ‘back-and-forward dynamics’, the importance of which we will stress with a certain emphasis in the present study. Only on a few occasions has a synthesis of the ongoing processes been attempted from a broader point of view, by specialists who have shown the different implications of the presence of Islam in Europe.4 Most research, however, has studied the Muslim populations/groups/ communities, we could say, in themselves, taking for granted the existence of these communities, and focusing mainly on their basic elements and on the consequences of their presence. What I intend to analyse in this contribution is how the Muslim presence ‘happens’, in other words, how these populations, groups, or communities ‘pro­ duce’ themselves, through which means and logics. I will then focus on some of the effects of this ‘production of community’. In partic­ ular I would like to pay some attention to the process of construc­ tion of transnational and non-ethnic Muslim communities through Islamic networks and through the use of (mass) media. As a conse­ quence of this approach, the emphasis will not be on the sociological and cultural data often underlined in the analysis of Muslim popu­ lations, but precisely on what is not at the core of these populations/ groups/communities. I will not examine what can be considered their ‘centre’, or their ‘heart’, in other words what is commonly identified Northern European production. This is both a theoretical and a policy-making prob­ lem, because the better known models are also very specific in many different ways, and are not necessarily the appropriate interpretations (the theoretical frames) and the proposed solutions to social problems (resulting from different socio-cultural con­ ditions) compatible with the situation of other countries on which they tend to be superimposed. Some examples of references on national situations, which from different point of views have opened the debate on the Islamic presence in their respective countries, has been, among others, Dassetto and Bastenier (1984) for Belgium, Kepel (1987) for France, Landmann (1992) for Holland, Allievi and Dassetto (1993) for Italy and Lewis (1994) for Britain. 3 To quote only two good examples, Schmidt di Friedberg (1994) and Amiraux (2001). 4 Dassetto and Bastenier (1988), Nielsen (1992), Shadid and van Koningsveld (1995), Dassetto (1996). A more recent and extended attempt has been made in a research report of a certain ‘weight’ (around 500 pages), commissioned by the For­ ward Studies Unit of the European Commission, under the direction of F. Dassetto and J. Nielsen, with contributions of S. Allievi, F. Dassetto, S. Ferrari, M.-C. Foblets, B. Maréchal, J. Nielsen (forthcoming in English and Italian).

ALLIEVI_F2_1-27

10/22/02

1:36 PM

Page 3

    

3

as their ‘identity’ (with a term given as self-evident but which needs closer and more careful attention). On the contrary, I will pay here more attention to their ‘borders’ (the borders of the communities and the borders of the society in which they live), and to what hap­ pens when these borders are crossed: how the individuals and groups ‘use’ them, the function they play, and finally the effect of this pas­ sage on the ‘centre’, i.e. on the identities at play. What I will try to analyse is not a sort of Islamic non-lieu (Augé, 1992). On the contrary, I will try to show how these borders, and what passes across and through them, are part of the social land­ scape in which the Muslims in Europe live, and contribute to define them in a very significant way. They are, in fact, part of the definition of the lieu, even when they are taken into consideration only in order to cross them, impoverishing them of their symbolic and practical significance, or eventually taking advantage of their existence to con­ struct some form of transborder situation (such as in the case of transnational business or communication flows). The idea of ‘crossing the borders’ seems promising, although it is not often used in this field. One also has to keep in mind that the concept of border (in Italian confine, the same etymology as the English confined and confinement) is intrinsically polysemic: it signifies what marks the difference, or the frontier, but at the same time what the two (subjects, states, groups . . .) have in common: the Latin cum-finis (the end—finis—one has in common, ‘with’—cum—someone or something else) contains both meanings, even if in the daily language the lat­ ter one has been lost (Cassano, 1995). As a metaphor, then, it is promising, because it opens up previously unobserved horizons (that is the meaning of metà-phérein: to project beyond): a universe comes into being when a space is divided into two, as Maturana and Varela (1980) have written, in a completely different field. I will try to show that this observation is not only a cultural metaphor, but can also have important sociological consequences. As I said above, I will focus my attention precisely on what crosses the borders. I will do that, in Part One, by defining the concept of network and giving some examples of Islamic networks that play a role in building up what we could provisionally call the Muslim neo­ communities of Europe.5 It is interesting for our purposes to see that

5

I call them ‘neo-communities’, and not simply communities, because in many

ALLIEVI_F2_1-27

4

10/22/02

1:36 PM

Page 4

 

these networks, although in most cases ‘private’ (in the sense that, even if being social and collective, they are originated—and, in the last analysis, they are used—for personal goals), play their role and are perceived in the public sphere as collective or communitarian in a broad sense, as is particularly clear in the case of politics and the media. This also means that one of the major consequences of the Islamic presence is in fact that these populations (groups, associations, ethnic communities) enter the European public sphere as a new social actor, with cultural/religious references which did not previously exist in this same public sphere. In Part Two I will emphasise the role of the (mass) media in building up these new kinds of communities. In the conclusion I will put forward some considerations as to how these major changes now taking place will (or could) change our image not only of the Muslim communities in Europe, but of European societies. These changes are possibly also going to affect, through a different comprehension of Islam, the relations of European societies with the ‘countries of origin’ of the Muslim populations, and in some ways, their idea of Islam; but they will particularly affect some aspects of European Islam, including, in the long (and perhaps not so long) term, its reli­ gious self-definition, not to mention that they are going to change, in a slow and silent but nonetheless spectacular way, the image and self-image of Europe itself.

ways they differ from the usual concept of community. Even if the ethnic and reli­ gious communities, as well as the nation-state, are often and even always ‘imag­ ined communities’ (Anderson, 1991), they are perceived, even by professional observers, as being real: and in fact, sociologically, they do have a reality—or, put in other words, they are real—as much as they are real in their consequences, as Thomas teaches. But the Islamic neo-communities of Europe differ from the com­ munities of origin in many ways. Trying to resume a complex process of change in one concept, these neo-communities, particularly from the moment in which the second generation appears and starts to be active at the social level, are religious (Islamic) precisely because they are no longer ethnic or national (for instance, they start to be open to different ethnic-national origins). On the other hand, as we will see, they are open to the influence of these same ethnic and national origins, and also have an influence over them in a process of reciprocal interaction.

ALLIEVI_F2_1-27

10/22/02

1:36 PM

Page 5

    

5

2. Muslim Networks in Europe 2.1. Islam and Europe, Islam in Europe As we have learned through the modern/post-modern debate, moder­ nity is in itself globalising (Giddens, 1990). The mechanisms, sys­ tems, modes and nodes of connection have multiplied, in a process of intensification of the connections and opportunities of encounter which, at least by and large, is moving towards covering all inter­ relations on a global scale, including those between different cultural and religious worlds which in the past were very far apart. The process of globalisation has important consequences on the subject we are dealing with. Most of the time, globalisation is con­ ceived in ‘structural’ (economical, technological, etc.) terms, but its cultural consequences, on individuals and societies, including reli­ gious beliefs, are at least as equally important.6 They change our idea of the centre-periphery relations; and prior to our ideas on it, they change its reality—not only because, in the Internet era, there is no longer a centre: this is much truer in the virtual world than in the real one. But because, in any case, these relations are much less unidirectional: they become more and more inter-relations. In particular, cultural flows, more visibly than others, are multidirec­ tional, and they are also able to connect peripheries between them, without the mediation of a centre. The cultural flows, more frequently than the economic, political or technological ones, take the periphery-centre direction rather than vice versa, and in some ways can be interpreted as the cultural response of the peripheries to the political and the economical dom­ inance of the centre (Hannerz, 1996). One of the reasons is the process of progressive pluriculturisation of societies, and particularly of those societies which used to define themselves as ‘central’. As a consequence of this process, cultures and systems of belief are involved in a process that we could define as de-territorialisation, as a re­ definition of what is local and what is global (Robertson, 1992).7

6

If not more. See at least Tomlinson (1999). The number of texts produced on these concepts and changes form a library in themselves. To this seminal essay we could add all the literature produced by Robertson, Featherstone, Lash and others, particularly around the journal Theory, Culture & Society, and the collective books published by these authors by Sage. The 7

ALLIEVI_F2_1-27

6

10/22/02

1:36 PM

Page 6

 

Particularly in the case of Islam, and between the two actors that are commonly identified as ‘Islam’ and ‘the West’, these flows can be interpreted as a “multi-lane super highway with two-way traffic” (Esposito, 2002); but this is true also inside the so-called Islamic diaspora,8 and inside the Islamic umma. European Islam is a good demonstration of this. On the one hand it can be interpreted in the relationship between former colonial powers and former colonised countries, where the flows often come from, as a centre-periphery relationship. On the other, in the Islamic world in general, and in the European part of the umma in particular, it produces inter-connections between peripheries. It is no coinci­ dence, moreover, that its borders, if it has them, do not correspond with those of the European Union or even present-day western Europe; they too start off from the Atlantic, but not only do they extend beyond the Urals: they also include the countries bordering the Mediterranean to the South and the East. They also include the countries of origin of the Muslim communities which reside in Europe, which can be very far from Europe, as the British case shows. Having said this, the processes mentioned are not based on a ‘static’ basis: they presuppose, imply and produce mobility—of information, money and goods but also of men and women. There is therefore a mobil­ ity of cultures, which ‘export’ their products (including symbolic and intangible ones) but there is also the concrete mobility of individu­ als who carry them and which obviously increases the effectiveness and the stability of the effects. The diffusion of a fashion or cultural or even religious trend is one thing, another thing is when consistent groups of individuals sharing a certain belief move to another place, taking with them this same culture and/or religion, transplanting it, as it were, elsewhere. Another element of the complication of the relations between Islam and the West, linked to the above, comes from the fact that Islam was external: outside and facing (confronting) the West. For fourteen centuries Islam was perceived as such, even more than it actually was; but nowadays Islam is an internal social actor of the West. From the

names of Giddens, Bauman, Touraine and Beck are some of the common refer­ ences in this debate. 8 I will discuss below the concept of diaspora which, when applied to the Islamic presence in Europe, leaves us deeply unsatisfied.

ALLIEVI_F2_1-27

10/22/02

1:36 PM

Page 7

    

7

alternative ‘Islam or Europe’, drawn by a long historical (and of course theological) tradition, to the juxtaposition ‘Islam and Europe’, we are now at the factual situation of ‘Islam in Europe’.9 The problem is that we do not have the cultural categories to interpret it as such. European Islam is in effect the two things: it is an internal social actor, but it is also externalised, for two different reasons. The first one is that it is effectively in a relationship with the countries of origin and the different kind of ‘centres’ (centres of production of knowl­ edge, symbolic centres of the prayer and the ˙ajj, organisational cen­ tres of movements and †uruq) which are situated outside Europe and outside the West. The second one is that, even when it is European Islam which is under discussion, we often think of it, culturally, in terms of externality and extraneousness: as something which should be ‘naturally’ outside, which for some reason—but as an accident, by chance; this is the implicit and the unsaid—has got in. 2.2. The role of networks Does a transnational Muslim space exist? And how does it affect Europe?10 Muslims that came to Europe, as other immigrants, are used to crossing borders. We also have to note that the role of bor­ ders was de-dramatised in different ways in the second half of the last century, even if in recent years we have observed a recrudes­ cence of their effectiveness, or a (vain?) attempt in this direction, at least as far as migration is concerned. However, national borders are far more permeable than the majority of states and public opin­ ion would like, even for those we are used to calling ‘irregular’ immi­ grants. And if this is true for the external borders of the ‘fortress Europe’, it is evident for its internal frontiers, which are becoming practically and symbolically meaningless, due to the process launched by the treaties of Schengen, Maastricht and Amsterdam. In a world

9 There are some classic references on the historical relations between Islam and the West, such as Daniel (1960) and more recently, Cardini (1999). For an inter­ disciplinary analysis from scholars with different disciplinary backgrounds, see also Allievi (1996). 10 Many of the considerations on the role of networks, as well as on the role of media, are the result of observations by the author on the occasion of a recent report on Islam in Europe (see note 4), where this question has been raised and extensively treated.

ALLIEVI_F2_1-27

8

10/22/02

1:36 PM

Page 8

 

of mobility, the immigrants are in many ways the vanguard of glob­ alisation: for them ‘being globalised’ is not only their job—it is their way of life. Crossing borders has become (relatively) possible, and this simple fact allows the creation of transnational spaces and circuits, normally but not always starting from a bi-national relationship, typically the country of origin and the country of settlement. In this process, of which in particular the economic implications have been analysed (Portes, 1995), other variables also play a decisive role, such as social networks, politics and religion. The relationship with the country of origin, the engagement for instance in ethnic movements with bipo­ lar roots, is often a process where the cause and the effect, the start­ ing point and the consequence are not that clear, in a relatively new process of ‘transnational integration’. These processes have already been studied in classical sociology (Simmel, Sombart, Park for exam­ ple), particularly with ethnic entrepreneurship in mind. But their importance is not only and not even primarily economic. The Islamic umma can be considered one of these social trans­ national spaces. In it we can find all the elements that define these spaces (Faist, 1998): a combination of social and symbolic links, the existence of positions between them in a network, the presence of organisations and networks of organisations that can be found in at least two distinct geographical and international places. More in detail, we find the simultaneous presence of capital of an economic type (i.e. financial resources), but also of human capital (skills and know-how), and lastly, of that fundamental resource which is social capital, made up of social links (a continuous series of interpersonal transactions involving shared interests, obligations, expectations and rules) and symbolic links (a continuous series of transactions, both face to face and indirect, to which the participants contribute and in which they find shared meanings, memories, future expectations and symbols). Consequently, it is not difficult to apply a theory conceived with the importance of social capital in economic exchanges in particu­ lar in mind, to that transnational space that we could call the ‘migra­ tory umma’. This is not the umma in its traditional and static sense (the Muslims as a whole, a mere juxtaposition), but in a dynamic sense: all the Muslims ‘moving’ and which, because of this move­ ment, come into contact with one another, and, on the other hand, also bring the countries and communities they come into contact

ALLIEVI_F2_1-27

10/22/02

1:36 PM

Page 9

    

9

with into relationship with one another. This is the qualitative differ­ ence which has to be underlined, and which makes these transnational spaces a self-fuelling process, a process that, once it has been launched, ‘produces itself ’ through its own dynamics. An interesting example of transnational economy which has been well studied is that of the Turks in Germany. Grounded on solid ethnic bases, it can count on a ‘community market’ large enough to be transformed, from a domestic ethnic business, to business with­ out a connotation. But alongside the Turkish entrepreneurs, the Turkish Islamists also follow the same path. In particular different forms of ‘bi-national careers’ are already visible, developed through the engagement in the Milli Görüs in Germany and the Refah Partisi in Turkey (Amiraux, 2001). Some examples are the financial flow of ‘Islamodollars’ in both directions,11 or the political careers which have started in social engagement in Berlin or Frankfurt and which have ended in a parliamentary seat in Ankara. With reference to another case, Lewis (1998) quotes Islamic sources complaining that 90% of the funds collected in the United Kingdom for charity goes to the countries of origin, seriously under-estimating local needs and, in short, doing harm to the Muslim presence in the country. The same can be said of the money collected by the Senegalese Murid which goes to enrich Touba, the spiritual—but also political—capital of this confraternity (Schmidt di Friedberg, 1994). Other exam­ ples of these flows, not only at the economic level, can be found even more clearly observing the internal dynamics of some political movements, †uruq, or missionary movements such as the Tablighi Jamà'àt, in which the passage from a bi-national paradigm to a transnational one clearly emerges (it is sufficient to think that the movement, born in India, has experienced some of its more inter­ esting developments in Europe, recruiting particularly amongst the North Africans in the urban peripheries). The social networks that have developed in Muslim immigration have the important characteristic of being, following a classical definition of the network analysis, multi-stratum (Mitchell, 1969). They have multiple contents, crossing over the national, physical and political boundaries (much less the linguistic ones, which are more 11 But particularly from Germany. It is estimated that some 6 million DM were collected in Germany and sent to Turkey during the 1991 elections. This is of note as normally we think of these flows going in the inverse direction.

ALLIEVI_F2_1-27

10

10/22/02

1:36 PM

Page 10

 

difficult to cross), and including different elements, amongst which must be mentioned parental links, friendship, marriage, and other kinds of interdependence, including what we could call symbolic and ‘imaginary relations’ (Cesari, 1997). The networks are also an impor­ tant social innovation in European Islam, and they help to ‘produce community’ in many ways, at the same time helping to maintain contacts with the countries of origin. Their effects grow with the numerical weight of the immigrant communities, the progressive easi­ ness and lower cost of communications and mobility (of informa­ tion, goods and people), which allow a growing presence of the media of the countries of origin (satellite TV, radio, videos), more frequent and less costly contacts with the same countries (e-mail and the Internet), easier relations on a personal basis (telephone and mobile, for instance), and easier and cheaper travel to the country of origin (for different purposes and occasions: family and religious celebra­ tions and holidays, rites of passage such as circumcision and mar­ riage, the search for a bride or economic reasons). All these relations contribute to building up forms of identity and of loyalty which are at the same time internal and transnational: one less studied aspect of what contemporary sociology calls reflexivity, which concerns the individuals but also the groups and communities to which they belong or they refer. Through these links, a sort of ‘median space’ is created, which does not correspond to a specific territory (Cesari, 1999), and which in the case of religions is a sort of ‘reference space of the soul’. This space can also be brought into relation with what Park used to call ‘moral regions’, even if in his terms they were related to specific urban areas. This is measurable in social practices and channels of communication, through which—in the case of Islam, with reference to and in the name of religion—men and women, goods, ways of thinking, eating and praying, ideas, political and cultural values and religious symbols pass. It is no longer the classical ‘migratory chain’ (Reyneri, 1979) which is at play, characterised by uni-directionality and the pre-eminent role of the economy, but a ‘third’ space, char­ acterised by bi-directional and multi-directional flows, in which cul­ tural values play a decisive role. In the hope of giving a familiar explanation of this situation, some observers have tried to use different concepts, including the concept of diaspora. Taken from the paradigmatic example of the Jews, it would appear to be functional only for some ethno-religious groups,

ALLIEVI_F2_1-27

10/22/02

1:36 PM

Page 11

    

11

in which the linguistic factor also plays a distinctive role. In other words, it is probably possible to speak of a Murid diaspora (from the name of the Senegalese brotherhood), of a Turkish diaspora, perhaps of an Iranian or a Shiite diaspora, and possibly of some other national diasporas. But it is not possible to talk of a Muslim diaspora, which lacks many of the basic components of a diaspora, including one common origin and a common point of reference (both of a symbolic type, linked to the ‘memory’, as in historical Israel, and of the national type, linked to a state, as in contemporary Israel), with which it has specific relationships, possibly also imaginary; but also the consciousness of a shared ethnic-cultural identity (there are many ethnicities and many cultures within the religious framework of Islam), and the existence of religious and communitarian organ­ isations for the totality of Muslims. Not to mention that the historic example of the diaspora was a forced event that cannot be com­ pared to present-day ‘dispersions’. Lastly, as others have noted (Soysal, 2000), the diaspora category is today an extension of the concept of nation-state which assumes, instead of demonstrating, a congruency between territorial state and national community and, as a conse­ quence (with a consecutio which should not be considered automatic) a congruency between territory, culture and identity. In short, it pre­ sumptively accepts the existence of close and united community links on the basis of common ethnic and cultural references, between the place of origin and the country of arrival. In a word, the diaspora would be nothing other than the extension of the place that has been left behind, of “home” [ibid.]. The concept of network, less characterised, allows a ‘broader’ per­ ception of the ongoing dynamics, and it is possibly more useful to use terms related to the concept of transnationalism (even if they also place excessive importance on the ‘nation’ factor), or to trans­ versal solidarities (Soysal, 2000). In any case, what is important is to underline the creation of new landscapes, new “global sacred geo­ graphies” (Werbner, 1996), which oblige us to think in terms of a new “georeligion” (Allievi, 1998). We have to note, specifically, that these transnational spaces, through which the networks act, also have important effects on the countries of origin: there are many feedback effects which are not sufficiently observed by the majority of research. These feedback effects also have important consequences on the selfperception and self-interpretation of Islam, both as an orthopraxis and, at a second stage, as an orthodoxy. All this happens as a ‘simple’

ALLIEVI_F2_1-27

10/22/02

12

1:36 PM

Page 12

 

consequence of movement and of a personal continuous interaction, which is enormously facilitated by the modern ‘liquid’ and easily permeable transnational space. In simpler terms, a person who comes and goes brings opinions, behaviour, personal choices, family mod­ els, relations with the ‘other’, etc. in his or her ‘cultural suitcase’; and when he or she ‘goes back’, or when some relatives, for exam­ ple, visit, implicitly there is at least a confrontation and a compar­ ison with those of the people he or she meets. Starting from the same system of religious references and values (beliefs), the different actors can share their differences in the way of deducing acts and behaviour (practices), which are nonetheless interpreted within the same religious context. Sometimes this gives birth to new forms of belief itself, even when it is not openly acknowledged as such, a fact that is easily observable, even if not at all easily measurable, in European Islam, which, inter alia, is obliged to understand itself as a minority, without a theology to refer to, given the fact that the implicit theological Muslim self-comprehension is that of a majority, possibly hosting some religious minorities.12 3. The role of the media It is possible to observe the different ways through which new (and old) media, in creating communication and links between popula­ tions which have settled in different places but with common refer­ ences (i.e. countries of origin and countries of immigration, but also transnational networks), play an important role in the construction and in the self-perception of the Muslim neo-communities. This process is both of vertical integration, within specific societies or, in the terms of Habermas (1962), national public spheres, and of hor­ izontal integration, at inter- and trans-national levels. These processes cannot be understood in the media-centric logic on which analysis of the role of media is often based, limited to their social and cul­ tural effects, but needs to be interpreted in the context of a wider social process, of which what we have already said on globalisation and networks is an important part. These new processes of com­ munication not only produce new passive audiences, but also new active groups, new collective actors and new (neo-)communities, which are in interaction with the other social actors. 12

I have extensively treated this problem in Allievi (2002).

ALLIEVI_F2_1-27

10/22/02

1:36 PM

Page 13

    

13

3.1. Media and Islamic presence in Europe The rapidity and density of communications is an important part of the process of globalisation, and mobility is one of its pre-conditions. Mobility of money, of goods, of men and women; but first of all mobility of information. It is not by chance that the first theorisa­ tions of what we now call globalisation can be found in the concept of the ‘global village’ introduced by McLuhan. Here I would merely like to introduce some considerations on the relations between the mobility of individuals and the mobility of information, using Islam in Europe as a case study. When we refer to European Islam we are not talking of a new public space inside the European nation-states, in the Habermasian sense. And we are not only talking of the links between different public spaces (for instance those of the country of origin and of the country of settle­ ment), via the immigrant communities. What we are talking about is a process, still at its initial phase, in which we can observe different kind of links and interrelations, which connect countries of origin, European countries, Muslim communities, different cultural actors, and new means of communication. This process can be observed in different ways: a) the image of Islam and of European Muslims in the media; b) the media produced by Muslims and the production of Islamic discourses; c) the interrelations and feedback internal to the Muslim ‘mediasphere’. I will refer briefly to these processes. 3.1.1. Islam and Muslims in the media The world of information and communication produces one of the important realities involving European Islam, namely ‘mediated real­ ity’, which plays a decisive role in the perception of the phenome­ non. Mediated visibility is the world in which and through which Islam is perceived. I will not go into detail here on the process of the con­ struction of the image of Islam in the media in general (Said, 1981). I would merely like to introduce some considerations on the media­ tisation of Islam in Europe. One of the ways through which Islam is mediatised is what we could call exceptional cases. This is a well known and ordinary mech­ anism of making news, and of the definition itself of what is ‘news’.

ALLIEVI_F2_1-27

14

10/22/02

1:36 PM

Page 14

 

But in the case of Islam it displays some interesting consequences. These exceptional cases can be interpreted as ‘hermeneutical inci­ dents’, as incidents in the interpretative codes, and in the represen­ tation of these codes. It is enough to think of the Rushdie affair in Great Britain (and elsewhere), or to the ‘headscarves affair’ in France (and elsewhere), to understand what I mean. But we have to note that these incidents do not have consequences only in themselves, as examples of ‘clashes of civilisation’. They also have durable con­ sequences on all the subsequent interpretations of related phenom­ ena, and in general on the presence of Islam in Europe. The fact is even more ironic when these ‘incidents’ happen outside Europe (Islamic fundamentalism,13 sexual mutilations), or concern specific national cases (Afghanistan, Sudan, Libya, Algeria, etc.), but become the lenses through which we interpret the possible behaviour of Muslims in Europe, even when they come from non-concerned coun­ tries. The success of the word jihàd, probably the best known Muslim word outside Muslim circles, even before 11 September 2001, is in itself a useful explication of this process: the word has now entered the Western collective imagination and vocabulary, and is a com­ mon tool for understanding Islam, then Muslims and then also Muslims in Europe. These examples of Kulturkampf have often become ‘media events’, which play an important role in the production of the social imag­ ination; and as some authors have pointed out (Dayan and Katz, 1992), they become, in the collective memory, the equivalent of the historical monuments of the past, a sort of rhetorical instrument through which the social memory remembers itself. The fact that this memory is often represented by conflict and clashes, and in gen­ eral extraordinary events, is not without effects also on the percep­ tion of the ordinary presence of Muslims in European towns and countries. It is significant, in this sense, that many European countries dis­ covered that they have an internal Muslim public opinion in the case of an external conflict involving both Western and Muslim countries—a fact that in itself created a cognitive dissonance. It has hap­ pened in the occasion of the Gulf War (Allievi, Bastenier, Battegay

13 On this, with reference to the European situation and the cultural perception of the phenomenon, see Allievi, Bidussa and Naso (2000).

ALLIEVI_F2_1-27

10/22/02

1:36 PM

Page 15

    

15

and Boubeker, 1992). And the mechanism has become even clearer since the events of 11 September and afterwards in many European countries and in the United States.14 3.1.2. Islamic media and discourses Islamic production in Europe is rather significant, and it has not yet been the object of systematic research. It ranges from newspapers to radio and television, from the Internet to videos, from music and theatre to books and Islamic bookshops. I would just like to draw attention to some mechanisms.15 One of these, and not the least important, is the prevailing presence of ‘written Islam’ in its per­ ception by non-Muslims. We often read Islam through the literature it produces, magazines in particular, and from this we deduce Muslims from it; using a procedure that appears ‘natural’ to us or which is at any rate habitual for us, whilst it is only ‘cultural’, that is, the result of a certain way of understanding cultural transmission and its methods. This is quite an interesting mechanism, if we think that the opposite is probably true for the Muslim themselves: non-written media are more pervasive and more consumed than others. This is also true for the native populations but even more so for the neo­ immigrant Muslims, in the absence, at this stage, of places of cul­ tural, including written, production in the communities that have settled in Europe. This procedure is also a consequence of a Western cultural her­ itage, and does not cause any surprise in the academic milieu, where some habits die hard: something written is something that can be quoted in a footnote or put in a bibliography—in a word, it can be included in the academic rituals. This is a more general problem with Muslims, whose current discourse in Europe belongs far more to ‘oral culture’ than to written production, and can be found more easily in a khutba or on a cassette than in a book or in a magazine. As far as the production of culture in the strict meaning of the term

14

For an interpretation from this point of view of the ‘post-September 11th debate’, on the cultural and media level, see Allievi (2001). 15 An extensive documentation can be found in the chapter I wrote on media in the European research mentioned in note 4 (Allievi, Dassetto, Ferrari, Foblets, Maréchal and Nielsen, forthcoming), where the different aspects are treated in detail, with paragraphs on the written production (Muslim press and books), audio and videocassettes, radio and television, the Internet and the ‘cyber Muslims’, etc. See also Siggillino (2001).

ALLIEVI_F2_1-27

16

10/22/02

1:36 PM

Page 16

 

is concerned, this is equally true. To give but one example, scholars read and quote the books by Tariq Ramadan, but the cassettes with his lectures sell far more. Luckily, he also writes books—but others (many) do not.16 Another question concerns the written production of Muslims, the problem of language, when this production is written in the lan­ guages of the groups of origin. But even when the language of the host country is used, some problems of interpretation arise: the most important is that we risk deducing too much from it, due to the fact that it is mainly the product of specific elites (political, for instance) and, often, of converts, which in some countries have a quasi-monopolistic presence in the Muslim media (as is the case in Italy and Spain), and in many cases an important part of it (Allievi, 1998). Having touched on this point, it may be interesting to note that many Islamic newspapers have an important number of readers who are not Muslims at all:17 we can often presume that for many of these observers (representatives of the Churches, social workers, re­ searchers, journalists, security and intelligence services, etc.) these are an important and sometimes even the main or the only source of information on Islam they have. As well as journals and books, all the other media are concerned. The importance of cassettes and videos is well known to all those who do any kind of fieldwork in Muslim communities. Radio and television play an important role in the reproduction of culture. And the Internet is starting to have a certain importance (Bunt, 2000), both as a means of communication and as an ‘arena’ in which differ­ ent images of Islam are represented. All this effervescence shows a new reality, which does not con­ cern the means of communication, but their contents. A new European Islamic discourse is in fieri, and it should be observed more carefully (Dassetto, 2000): among other reasons, because it shows the inter­ relations between the public sphere produced by media and other systems, and the effects they have (Eickelmann and Anderson, 1999).

16 On this problem, more details in my foreword to the Italian edition of Ramadan’s To be a European Muslim (Ramadan, 2002). 17 This is the case of many religious journals, but even a fortnightly (now monthly)— more a ‘paper for Muslims’ than a ‘Muslim paper’, in the words of its director— like the English Q-News, which sells half of its fifteen thousand copies outside religious circles (F. Nahdi, personal interview, March 2000).

ALLIEVI_F2_1-27

10/22/02

1:36 PM

Page 17

    

17

3.1.3. Feedback in the Islamic mediasphere We have mentioned the role played by interrelations. It is now time to turn to the feedback effects which pass through the media. What we could call, in a problematisation and complication of the concept of “infosphere” introduced by Toffler, the Islamic mediasphere, is extremely articulated. Old and new forms of communica­ tion play roles, such as traditional channels (letters, telephone, today the mobile phone), and new media; periodical journeys (as for sea­ sonal workers, but also Muslims who usually return to their home country for the month of Ramadan or for their holidays, and of course for business trips), or for special occasions (holidays, religious festivals and family meetings, rites of passage such as circumcisions, weddings or funerals); and many others, such as international reli­ gious meetings, networks of associations, etc. This set of traditional and non-traditional communications, rep­ resents a communicative world, a mediasphere, which is also qualified or can be qualified religiously as almost a sort of de-territorialised umma. The concept of umma is moreover often understood, in Muslim language, both as a localised community and as a meta-community of a symbolic order. The most differentiated contents can transit through its channels, including all those linked to the cultural con­ struction: even those with a religious content. In a common perception, religion and culture come from the country of origin, and arrive in Europe, through the Muslim com­ munities and to them. There is a ‘from’, which is ‘there’; and there is a ‘to’, which is ‘here’. In reality things are far more complicated than this, and the movement of news and information resembles far more the trajectory of the balls on a billiard table. Just to give few examples of this feedback, it has been the case on French television, seen via the satellite, that Algerians have been able to listen to the opinions of other Algerians (the members of FIS, who were banned from appearing on national television) on the peace process in their country. At the other extreme, an influential Islamic leader such as the Tunisian Rachid al-Ghannouchi has chosen a European coun­ try, Great Britain, for his exile.18 From there, and maybe also because

18 Specifically declaring that he, as a Muslim, felt himself freer in a Western nonMuslim country than in many Muslim countries of the world (R. Ghannouchi, per­ sonal interview, March 2000).

ALLIEVI_F2_1-27

18

10/22/02

1:36 PM

Page 18

 

there he has encountered a different Muslim world and the way of being a Muslim in a non-Islamic country, he writes books in Arabic which are read in Arab countries, in which he explains the evolu­ tion of his thought and discusses his ideas of the West with other Muslim intellectuals in the countries of origin. But the examples can be multiplied: from the diffusion of cassettes with the sermons of famous Moroccan or Egyptian preachers in the Islamic centres and bookshops of Belgium or Italy, to the videos of Deedat filmed in Britain and sold in Saudi Arabia; from the 350,000 copies of Turkish newspapers sold daily in Germany, to the Internet website of the Muslim Students’ Association of America, used every day by Muslims all over the world to access Islamic websites. Probably the most impressive example of this billiard game is what is happening in the world of television, and to which it would be interesting to pay a little more attention. First of all, we have means of communication that start from Europe in the direction of the Muslim (particularly Arab) world. This is a tendency which was inaugurated in the 1930s by Radio Bari in Italy and by the Arabic service of the BBC in Britain, both created essentially for political purposes. Now, more than through their successors (the public TV and radio channels of different coun­ tries), we can see this sphere of influence in the pure and simple reception of Western programmes (both public and commercial) in the Muslim world, often preferred at least from the point of view of the credibility of information, but also in terms of entertainment. European and American channels are quite important for example in the Maghreb, followed in particular by the younger generations and they also represent the main vehicle (together with tourism) for learning Western languages, an important pre-requisite of migration. It is also interesting to note that the information on the Muslim world, and often on the countries of which the listeners are citizens, passes largely through these channels. Even the knowledge and the information on the Bosnian question, for example, which led to the development of a wide campaign of intra-Islamic solidarity, owed a great deal to the role of Western information, and incidentally to Western reporters, who paid a great tribute to their engagement (Ahmed and Donnan, 1994). As part of this question we can consider the attempts to create common flows of information, that should involve countries bordering the Mediterranean, such as Euromed TV, which is a direct follow­

ALLIEVI_F2_1-27

10/22/02

1:36 PM

Page 19

    

19

up of the conference of Barcelona (and which involves televisions from France, Italy, Spain, Malta, Egypt, Tunisia and Jordan). A sec­ ond group is that of television stations that broadcast from Europe to the Muslim countries, on a transnational basis, but in a com­ pletely intra-Islamic logic: these networks are made by Muslims for Muslim audiences. The satellite revolution is the pre-requisite of this innovation. At least two million satellite dishes in Algeria, 1.2 million in Morocco and a far smaller number in Tunisia but the ban on them has only recently been lifted. The first Arab satellite, Arabsat, called ‘the high­ est muezzin in the world’ when it was launched in 1985, now has many ‘colleagues’. And even if the suspicions of these ‘evil’ media have not completely disappeared (the satellite dishes have been called, in some Islamist milieux, paradiaboliques—instead of paraboliques, the French word for satellite dish—because Western evil penetrates Muslim families through them), there can be no doubt about their diffusion. In particular, Arab broadcasting is in a very modern, but in some way paradoxical, situation. One of these paradoxes is, for example, that Saudi Arabia introduced a prohibition of satellite dishes with a law in 1994, but it is the most powerful Arab producer of satellite programs, through three networks all depending on different branches of the Saudi royal family, and all based in Europe: MBC from London, ART from Avezzano, near Rome, and Orbit TV, again in Rome (Della Ratta, 2000). They are all commercial channels, but have some interesting cultural-religious aspects which can be inter­ esting from our point of view. For example, we can mention the successful programme ‘Dialogue with the West’, on MBC from 1996. But we can also consider ‘religious’, in a way, the operations of ‘ecol­ ogy of the image’ done by Orbit: this channel, like the others, does not have the objective of the diffusion of some kind of Wahhabi propaganda, but on the contrary imports Western programmes, ‘cleans them up’ of the scenes of sex and violence, or of unwanted criti­ cism, and broadcasts them to an audience of 170 million Arabs in 23 countries through 28 satellite channels. Another example of these flows are the Turkish channels that broadcast from Germany to Turkey. But we have also interesting examples which, from Europe, connect different specific diasporas, and which play an even more important role among the dispersed minorities than in direction of the places of origin of these minorities, as is the case for the Muslim TV of the Ahmadiyya movement, which broadcasts from Great

ALLIEVI_F2_1-27

20

10/22/02

1:36 PM

Page 20

 

Britain, and the Kurdish Med-TV, which broadcasts from Belgium. The third aspect is the most interesting from our point of view: the communication channels and the informative flows which go from Muslim countries to the Muslim communities in Europe, Arabs in particular. Arabic is the most widely broadcast language in the world, after English. And it has a great presence in the satellites. To quote some specific examples, national televisions as the Moroccan RTM or the Tunisian TV7, thanks to the satellite, have a larger public outside the national borders than inside them. Besides the national TVs, there are many inter-Arab transnational networks, such as the Lebanese LBC, the Egyptian ESC, EDTV from Dubai, or the important Al-Jazeera, after the ‘Bin Laden effect’ a network with a worldwide reputation. All these televisions also have some religious programmes, that become more frequent at weekends and during the month of Ramadan, and on these occasions presents a ‘main­ stream Islam’, acceptable in the different national milieux. Al-Jazeera, often called the Arab CNN, places greater emphasis on politically sensitive subjects. For this reason it has received criticism and political interference of the governments of Tunisia, Libya, Iraq, Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority; and, after having broadcast the Bin Laden videos, also of the US and some other Western countries. It is interesting to note that several televisions host religious pro­ grammes, like the live responses to questions received through phone calls, that also involve well-known religious authorities such as Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, in which many of the questions come from Europe. Here the feedback effects are more evident than elsewhere: Muslims in Europe, using an Arab network, ask some religious author­ ities in the countries of origin for answers to questions concerning their situation and religious life in Europe. 4. Conclusions I have focused my attention on the role of Muslim networks and the role of the media in shaping a new form of what I have called Muslim neo-communities. These communities are less rooted in a specific territory, or at least they cannot be understood only through an interpretation in terms of urban ecology. The new situation pro­ duced by innovation in technology (the Internet, satellite, mobile tele­ phones, etc.) and the decreasing costs of traditional means of

ALLIEVI_F2_1-27

10/22/02

1:36 PM

Page 21

    

21

communication (travel, but also the press, etc.) on the one hand, and the process of integration in the new context of the Muslim minorities on the other (which means, among other things, their wealth, in comparison with their previous situation but also with their countries of origin), has significantly changed the landscape in which these minorities live. In particular, it seems to be increasingly possible, and even use­ ful and convenient, to maintain significant links with one’s own cul­ ture, language, religion and country of origin, while a process of insertion and integration is simultaneously at work. This is equally true, in different forms, for the second and third generations, who do not have, in a proper sense, a country (and culture, etc.) of ori­ gin which lies somewhere in an unknown ‘outside’, but at the same time do not belong exclusively to the country (and culture, etc.) in which they have been born—and particularly do not belong to its majority tradition, also in religious terms. It is also true for the younger generations that “without identity, there is no memory, no relation to the past, no platform for a future, no differentiation between self and others and no possible relation to the world” (Mirdal, 2000). But it is also true that identity, in contemporary societies, is articulated and subject to a process of pluralisation and even of cre­ ation, through syncretism, inclusion, cognitive contamination and even invention.19 The question is also complicated by the fact that Muslims in Europe constitute a minority identity; but it is also true that the majority of groups, in our secularised and pluralised societies, are de facto minorities, even those who believe they are majorities, particu­ larly in the religious field.20 More than this, most of the reflections

19 The debate on the concept of identity in contemporary sociology clearly shows these evolutions, from Berger to many others. For a reflection on this process related to the presence of Muslims in Europe and to the identity of converts to Islam, see Allievi (2000). 20 Being a minority has also ‘positive’ effects, in the sense that this situation can help to find roots in one’s identity. As Mirdal points out, from a psychological point of view: Freud was not a practising believer, and his opinions on religion in gen­ eral are well known; but he used the term identity only once, and it was with a religious connotation, speaking of his own Jewish identity. But “it is doubtful that Freud would have considered his Jewish identity particularly important had he lived in a country with a Jewish majority. Likewise, Turkish immigrants in Europe . . .” (Mirdal, 2000).

ALLIEVI_F2_1-27

22

10/22/02

1:36 PM

Page 22

 

on the religious identities of the second generations are put forward with the implicit and sometimes explicit paradigm in mind that the younger generations lose their culture and identity. Less research is conducted with the idea of what they gain or how they re-build their identities, even through processes of mélanges and ‘cultural bricolage’, as defined by Lévi-Strauss. A new and rapidly evolving situation is taking place. And it seems to be important not only for Muslim minorities, but also for Europe and, for different reasons, for Islam in itself. This is the very reason why I have stressed the importance of networks and all kinds of feedback effects. As it has been stated, the European case is peripheral towards the Muslim world, but it is innovative towards the historical situation of the Muslim world (Dassetto, 2000). As far as Muslim (neo-)communities are concerned, it is clear that their reproduction, from the cultural point of view, also from one generation to another, seems easier thanks to the links that they can maintain with their culture and countries of origin. At the same time, these relations are not only bi-national, but transnational, and the influences can touch many other different countries and cultural sit­ uations. One interesting example can be given by Muslims from nonArab countries, or even converts from Europe who, and in different ways thanks to their experience in Europe, decide to go and follow Quranic studies in an Arab institution such as al-Azhar or Zaytouna or another school, anywhere from Morocco to Medina. Another example may be the members of some movements who go for their training to the centres of these movements, unrelated to their eth­ nic origin (so, an Arab can go to India for a Tablighi course, etc.). The same can be said of the members of several brotherhoods, who go to the country where they have their centre for a certain period; and again what is new is that in Europe it is not unusual for an Asian (or a European) to become a member of a brotherhood that did not even exist in his country of origin. But we also have to men­ tion those Arabs (and others) that come to Europe for a period of training in Islamic studies: and not only in Muslim institutions like the Islamic Foundation in Leicester or the Islamic Institute at Château­ Chinon, but also in academic and even Christian institutions, in Birmingham or in Rome. In many ways, the umma is much more visible in Europe than in the countries of origin, where a believer can practically only find other persons like himself, of the same country, language, belief and

ALLIEVI_F2_1-27

10/22/02

1:36 PM

Page 23

    

23

interpretation of these beliefs (within a specific juridical school). Only on the occasion of the ˙ajj (in this case, of course, to a larger extent) can a Muslim experience the umma as a concrete and visible reality and not only as a symbolic one, with the same vivid evidence that the common believer can ordinarily find in many mosques and Islamic organizations in Europe. The internal diversity among Muslims, in Europe (as well as in the USA and in other countries of migration), is clear, more than elsewhere, and certainly more than in the coun­ tries of origin of these same immigrants. And this internal diversity produces important consequences. To quote a particularly relevant example, we can refer to what happens from the juridical point of view, and particularly to juridical schools, so crucial for the self-interpretation of Islam. All the madhhabs are ‘living’ in Europe, but the major difference from the situation in the countries of origin is that they mix much more easily, and the individuals can find their way through them even more than in one of them. To use the words of one of my interviewees, born in Africa but of Yemeni origin and living in London: “I am Shafi'i, but I have to follow the most diffused madhhab here, which is the Hanafi one. Personally, as far as the ˙ajj is concerned, I am Hanafi, for jihàd I am Maliki, for the concep­ tion of minority I am Hanbali . . .”. The umma is in many ways an imagined community, but it exists in the facts. To give just one example: some Turkish mosques in Germany, Switzerland and France have helped the poorer Turks in Italy to buy an apartment for their prayers, which has become the first Turkish mosque of Italy. Examples like this one can be multi­ plied, and applied to different ethnic groups or religious ‘families’ (the Shiites, the Murid of Senegal, and many others). Internal soli­ darity in the event of conflicts, like Bosnia or Chechnya, not to men­ tion Palestine, is another example. The mobilisation of resources, men, discourses and rhetoric clearly shows the depth of these links. They are shown even more clearly in cases like the Rushdie affair, that we can summarise, from this perspective (by the way, an excel­ lent demonstration of the reality of globalisation), as follows: an Anglo-Indian writer, a book published in Great Britain, demonstra­ tions (and deaths) against the same book in Pakistan and elsewhere, a fatwà in Iran, demonstrations and book-burnings in Britain and in other countries, especially where there were Muslim minorities facing non-Muslim majorities, global threats to publishers, millions of copies of the book sold all over the world—often for identity reasons specific

ALLIEVI_F2_1-27

24

10/22/02

1:36 PM

Page 24

 

to the protest—among non-Muslims, and finally a writer who can­ not enter any Muslim country and is obliged to live under police protection. In this globalised situation it is not difficult to foresee, in the long (and perhaps not so long) term, some important conse­ quences in the self-definition of Islam, the emergence of a distinct European Muslim identity (or, more probably, of a set of European Muslim identities), and a simultaneous continuous feedback effect, in all directions.21 As far as European societies and their relations with Islam are concerned, the changes will not be any the less important. As a symbol of them I would just like to mention the first presence in history, in 2000, of an official European delegation to the ˙ajj, led by a Muslim member of the House of Lords, Lord Ahmed of Roehampton. It was an innovation that was not welcomed by every­ body and which had to overcome some obstacles, but it had a symbolical importance and in some ways shows a new trend: Islam is no longer supposed to come only from ‘traditional’ Muslim coun­ tries. And even for Muslims this has been, and still is, a surprise. More generally, we suspect that the question of Islam is going to contribute, and in many ways to challenge, the actual theoretical debate, which is also a social and political issue, on multiculturalism and also some more specific but related debates like the liberal vs. communitarian debate. In the same way, an Islamic debate, which concerns Europe, has been opened concerning the significance of the traditional dàr al-islàm/dàr al-˙arb dichotomy, in which Europe theoretically is or was supposed to be the latter. This debate seems now to be meaningless for the majority of Muslims in Europe. New concepts need to be elaborated, and indeed they are being elaborated. So Europe, supposed dàr al-˙arb, has become, according to different Muslim interpretations, dàr al-ahd, then dàr al-hijra, then dàr al-da'wa, then dàr al-shahàda,22 and for many, simply, dàr al-islàm, for the sim­ ple reason that Muslims can and do freely practise their faith.23

21 Not only in the direction of ‘modernisation’, from Europe to Muslim coun­ tries, which risks being overemphasised in an over-enthusiastic Western and proWestern ideological discourse. 22 The idea of Europe as dàr as-shahàda is proposed by T. Ramadan (1999). 23 For a detailed analysis of different positions in this field, and references to the Muslim authors that propose them, see my chapter titled Europa: dàr al-islàm?, in Allievi (2002).

ALLIEVI_F2_1-27

10/22/02

1:36 PM

Page 25

    

25

This observation leads us to the last point: the changes regarding Islam as a concept, as a theory, as a system of values, as a theology and as an orthodoxy. This is a debate which has to left to the col­ lective responsibility of Muslim communities. It is sufficient for our purpose here to underline that, from now on, it will not be possible to understand the history and the social evolution of Europe without taking into account its Muslim component. In the same way it will not be possible to understand the history and the social (and even theological) evolution of Islam without taking its European compo­ nent into account. The history of Europe has become, at least partly, Islamic history, and the history of Islam, European history. REFERENCES Allievi, S. (ed.) (1996), L’occidente di fronte all’islam, Milan: Franco Angeli. ———. (1998), Les convertis à l’islam. Les nouveaux musulmans d’Europe, Paris: L’Harmattan. ———. (2000), ‘Les conversions à l’islam. Rédefinition des frontières identitaires, entre individu et communauté’, in F. Dassetto (ed.), Paroles d’islam/Islamic Words. Individuals, Societies and Discourses in Contemporary European Islam, Paris: Maisonneuve & Larose, 2000, pp. 157–182. ———. (2001), La tentazione della guerra. Dopo l’attacco al World Trade Center: a propo­ sito di occidente, islam ed altri frammenti di conflitto tra culture, Milan: Zelig. ———. (2002), Musulmani d’occidente. Tendenze dell’islam europeo, Roma: Carocci. Allievi, S., Bastenier, A., Battegay, A., and Boubeker, A. (1992), Médias et minorités ethniques. Le cas de la guerre du Golfe, Louvain-la-Neuve: Academia-Sybidi papers, 13. Allievi, S., Bidussa, D. and Naso, P. (2000), Il Libro e la spada. La sfida dei fonda­ mentalismi, Torino: Claudiana. Allievi, S. and Dassetto, F. (1993), Il ritorno dell’islam. I musulmani in Italia, Roma: Edizioni Lavoro. Amiraux, V. (2001), Acteurs de L’islam entre Allemagne et Turquie. Parcours militants et expériences religieuses, Paris: L’Harmattan. ———. (1999), Les limites du transnational comme espace de mobilisation, in “Cultures & Conflits”, nn. 33–34, pp. 25–50. Anderson, B. (1991), Imagined communities. Reflections on the origins and spread of nation­ alism, London: Verso. Augé, M. (1992), Non-lieux. Introduction à une anthropologie de la surmodernité, Paris: Seuil. Bunt, G. (2000), Virtually Islamic. Computer-mediated Communication and Cyber Islamic Environments, Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Cardini, F. (1999), Europe and Islam, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Cassano, F. (1995), ‘Pensare la frontiera’, in Rassegna italiana di sociologia, n. 1, pp. 27–39. Cesari, J. (1997), ‘Les réseaux transnationaux entre l’Europe et le Maghreb: l’international sans territoire’, in Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales, n. 2 (13), pp. 81–94. ———. (1999), ‘Le multiculturalisme mondialisé: le défi de l’hétérogénéité’, in Cultures & Conflits, nn. 33–34, pp. 5–24. Daniel, N. (1960), Islam and the West. The Making of an Image, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press (new ed. Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 1975).

ALLIEVI_F2_1-27

26

10/22/02

1:36 PM

Page 26

 

Dassetto, F. (1996), La construction de l’islam européen. Approche socio-anthropologique, Paris: L’Harmattan. ———. (ed.) (2000), Paroles d’islam / Islamic Words. Individus, sociétés et discours dans l’islam européen contemporain / Individuals, Societies and Discourse in Contemporary European Islam, Paris: Maisonneuve & Larose. Dassetto, F. and Bastenier, A. (1984), L’Islam transplanté. Vie et organisation des minorités musulmanes de Belgique, Antwerp-Bruxelles: EPO. ———. (1988), Europa: nuova frontiera dell’Islam, Roma: Edizioni Lavoro (new ed. 1991). Dassetto, F. and Conrad, Y. (eds.) (1996), Musulmans en Europe Occidentale. Bibliographie commentée, Paris: L’Harmattan. Dayan, D. and Katz, E. (1992), Media Events. The Live Broadcasting of History, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Della Ratta, D. (2000), Media Oriente. Modelli, strategie, tecnologie nelle nuove televisioni arabe, Roma: Seam. Eickelmann, D.F. and Anderson, J.W. (eds.) (1999), New Media in the Muslim World. The Emergence Public Sphere, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Esposito, J. (2002), ‘The dynamics of Interaction Between the Muslim Diaspora and the Islamic World: Europe and America’, in S. Hunter (ed.), Islam in Europe (forthcoming). Faist, T. (1998), ‘Transnational social spaces out of international migration: evolu­ tion, significance and future prospects’, in Archives Européens de Sociologie, n. 2, pp. 213–247. Gerholm, T. and Lithman, Y.G. (eds.) (1988), The New Islamic Presence in Western Europe, London-New York: Mansell. Giddens, A. (1990) The Consequences of Modernity, Cambridge: Polity Press. Habermas, J. (1962), Strukturwandel der Oeffentlichkeit, Neuwied: Hermann Luchterhand Verlag (Italian ed. Storia e critica dell’opinione pubblica, Bari: Laterza, 1971). Hannerz, U. (1996), Transnational Connections. Culture, People, Places, London-New York: Routledge. Kepel, G. (1987), Les banlieues de l’Islam, Paris: Seuil. Landman, N. (1992), Van mat tot minaret. De institutionalisering van de islam in Nederland, Amsterdam: VU Uitgeverij. Lewis, B. and Schnapper, D. (1992), Musulmans en Europe, Poitiers: Actes Sud. Lewis, P. (1994), Islamic Britain. Religion, Politics and Identity among British Muslims, London: I.B. Tauris. ———. (1998), “Muslim communities in Britain: towards an ‘Arab’ contribution to religious and cultural understanding”, in J.S. Nielsen and S.A. Khasawnih (eds.), Arabs and the West: Mutual Images, Amman: University of Jordan, pp. 43–58. Maturana, H.R. and Varela, F.J. (1980), Autopoiesis and Cognition. The Realization of the Living, Dordrecht: Reidel. Mirdal, G. (2000), ‘The Construction of Muslim Identities in Contemporary Europe’, in F. Dassetto (ed.), Paroles d’islam / Islamic Words. Individuals, Societies and Discourse in Contemporary European Islam, Paris: Maisonneuve & Larose. Nielsen, J. (1992), Muslims in Western Europe, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Nonneman, G., Niblock, T. and Szajkowski, B. (eds.) (1996), Muslim Communities in the New Europe, Reading: Ithaca Press. Portes, A. (ed.) (1995), The Economic Sociology of Immigration: Essays on Networks, Ethnicity and Entrepreneurship, New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Ramadan, T. (1999), To be a European Muslim, Leicester: Islamic Foundation, (Italian edition (2002), Essere un musulmano europeo, Enna: Città Aperta). Reyneri, E. (1979), La catena migratoria, Bologna: Il Mulino. Robertson, R. (1992), Globalisation: Social theory and global culture, London-Newbury: Sage.

ALLIEVI_F2_1-27

10/22/02

1:36 PM

Page 27

    

27

Said, E. (1981), Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World, London: Routledge and Kegan. Schmidt di Friedberg, O. (1994), Islam, solidarietà e lavoro. I muridi senegalesi in Italia, Turin: Edizioni della Fondazione Agnelli. Shadid, W.A.R. and Van Koningsveld, P.S., (eds.) (1991), The Integration of Islam and Hinduism in Western Europe, Kampen: Kok Pharos. ———. (1995), Religious Freedom and the position of Islam in Western Europe, Kampen: Kok Pharos. ———. (eds.) (1996a), Muslims in the Margin. Political Responses to the Presence of Islam in Western Europe, Kampen: Kok Pharos. ———. (eds.) (1996b), Political Participation and Identities of Muslims in Non-Muslim States, Kampen: Kok Pharos. Siggillino, I. (ed.) (2001), I media e l’islam, Bologna: EMI. Soysal, Y.N. (2000), ‘Citizenship and identity: living in diasporas in post-war Europe?’, in Ethnic and Racial Studies, n. 1 (23), pp. 1–15. Tomlinson, J. (1999), Globalisation and Culture, Cambridge: Polity Press. Vertovec, S. and Peach, C. (eds.) (1997), Islam in Europe: The Politics of Religion and Community, London: Macmillan. Waardenburg, J. et al. (1994), I musulmani nelle società europee, Torino: Edizioni della Fondazione Agnelli. Werbner, P. (1996), ‘Stamping the Earth with the Name of Allah: Zikr and the Sacralizing of Space among British Muslims’, in Metcalf, B.D. (ed.), Making Muslim Space in North America and Europe, Berkeley: University of California Press.

ALLIEVI_F3_28-51

11/4/02

10:12 AM

Page 28

28

CHAPTER TWO

TRANSNATIONAL ISLAM AND THE INTEGRATION OF ISLAM IN EUROPE J S. N 1. Introduction It has become a truism to state that the Muslim community in west­ ern Europe is now increasingly a European community. Population statistics, to the extent that they can be used for this purpose, show that a growing proportion of the Muslim populations have been born in Europe or at least came so young that all their education has taken place in Europe. This image has to be tempered with refer­ ence to the still significant numbers arriving, although now mostly as refugees and asylum seekers. Of course, when one looks at east­ ern Europe one is dealing with native communities of many cen­ turies’ standing. Today, ten years after the Soviet collapse, the east-west divide, also in our subject, is no longer as absolute as it was. It is possible to suggest a number of points at which east and west are converging, and observations about Muslims in Europe can no longer be confined to one or the other. At the same time the growth of a self-consciously Muslim sector among the younger people has encour­ aged an interest in the broader Muslim world, an interest which is not confining itself to distant observation or exclusively to the coun­ tries of their parents’ origin or the immediately local environment. Networks are being created, and it is these networks this paper is interested in. 2. Networks There are a variety of different kinds of networks which have grad­ ually been developing in Europe increasingly based among this younger generation. But first it is important to consider what we actually mean by a network. It was never satisfactory to think of networks in terms of formal structures only, although they doubtless

ALLIEVI_F3_28-51

11/4/02

10:12 AM

Page 29

      

29

are one type of network. Anthropologists have since the 1960s worked on social networks and their impacts on society and individuals.1 If individual identity is formed primarily under the impact of relational networks, then Gerd Bauman’s more recent work (1996) on the dis­ course of multiple social identities provides some valuable depth to more mechanical analyses of networks. Such networks are much more flexible and essentially informal. But discussions about networks have had to adapt very quickly in recent years to new technologies, because central to any under­ standing of a network, whatever its nature, is how its various parts interact and communicate with each other. This is partly a question of the existence of lines of authority—this is central to what distin­ guishes a formal from an informal network—but more significantly it is a question of the modalities of the communications within the network. Viewed with historical depth the question of technology becomes qualitative, not just mechanical and quantitative.2 Few would chal­ lenge the assertion that an imperial naval department working out of London or Paris in the 18th century was a formal network. The lines of information, command and authority were, at least on paper, as clear as one would expect in a military structure. However, the time it took to communicate information and orders over vast dis­ tances meant that the Sea Lords in London could only give very general orders. It was left to the officer on the spot to interpret such orders into operational instructions within tactics and even into local and regional strategic terms, effectively giving him an autonomy of the kind which we today might very well associate with our under­ standings of what characterises informal networks.3 Essentially, the speed of communications was a major factor deter­ mining the quality of what was communicated and, thence, the oper­ ational cohesion of the network. The Romans had realised this when

1 An example of this approach with relevance to this paper and reference to some of the earlier theoretical literature can be found in Lithman 1988. 2 We have not yet begun to see the full impact on this discussion of the semi­ nal work of Castells 1996–98. 3 This was the context which, legend tells us, allowed Horatio Nelson to put the telescope to his blind eye and proceed to batter the Danish sea defences at the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801—and the orders he ignored had come by flag sema­ phore from only a few miles away.

ALLIEVI_F3_28-51

30

11/4/02

10:12 AM

Page 30

 . 

they built their roads, as had the Middle Eastern caliphs and sul­ tans when they established their, for the time, high speed postal systems,4 although the gains in speed were, by later standards, marginal. But the new technology of the telegraph and then radiotelephony from the late 19th into the 20th centuries radically consigned such times to the nostalgic memories of imperial adventurers. The now effectively instantaneous nature of communications meant that the cohesion of formal networks became much closer and tighter. The centre could receive detailed information about events at the periph­ ery and respond with detailed instructions in real time, before events had progressed far enough to invalidate the instructions. For the first time, an almost real-time feed-back loop became possible by which the effectiveness of instructions were testable, and instructions became adjustable in the light of the feed-back. However, two factors continued to constrain: cost and capacity. Most significant was the cost. The construction of the new technology— submarine cable, overland wire or radio ground station networks— was so capital intensive that it was the subject of major international competition and, not infrequently, crisis. At the same time the car­ rying capacity was strictly limited, so cost levels were exacerbated by the monopolies which arose. Often state-controlled, such monop­ olies also tended to censor the possible content of communications using the new technology. The revolutionary change which the electronic communications of the last two decades have encouraged is founded on breaching these two constraints. Essentially, the gain in speed has been marginal— that gain was achieved in the previous technological revolution— and the capital mobilised by the new electronic technology is way beyond the wildest dreams (even in inflation-adjusted terms) of the telegraph and radio entrepreneurs of a century ago. It is the quan­ titative carrying capacity of the new technology which this time con­ stitutes the core of the revolution by reducing the unit cost of carriage to the infinitesimally minute. As a result, the local military com­ mander or diplomatic representative is expected to provide much more information, in response to which the centre can provide much

4 I provide an account of such a postal system between Cairo and Palestine in the Mamluk period, with both its routine horse-born as well as its urgent pigeonborn element in Nielsen 1988.

ALLIEVI_F3_28-51

11/4/02

10:12 AM

Page 31

      

31

more detailed instruction—and woe betide the local person if the report attempts to be selective, because the centre now has other sources of information from business, the media and NGOs who can also afford to use the new technology. The diplomatic plenipoten­ tiary or naval freebooter from the metropolitan capital who used to be his own master and then became a powerful and authoritative representative of the distant capital has become a glorified office messenger. This collapse in the cost of communication has opened the pos­ sibility of broad access to its resources with as yet only vaguely dis­ cernible consequences. Perhaps too much is made in the contemporary literature of the potentially ‘democratising’ impact—a healthy dose of skepticism never comes amiss—but there is little doubt that the ease of access means that older forms of maintaining networks, for­ mal or informal, are profoundly changing. The older forms of main­ tenance continue: constitutions and regulations find physical reality in paper files and are backed up by legislation and the actuality or potentiality of resort to the law; or feed-back loops of information and instructions are reinforced and tightened by the deployment of favours of career advancement, material reward and sanctions, and ultimately the possibility of dismissal or redundancy.5 However, the low cost of access means that any active and motivated participant within a network, however defined, can directly and freely (at least initially, until the feedback strikes) take the initiative to enter the communications processes which in various ways constitute the essence of the network. So even those traditionally most centralised and most secretive of networks, namely government security and intelligence, are having to adapt themselves to a more ‘open’ environment. 3. Traditional networks persevere However, one should not make the mistake of centering all the analy­ sis on the electronic revolution in communications, despite the pres­ sures of fashion. Other forms of maintaining networks continue to

5 While these descriptions may appear most satisfactorily to fit political or com­ mercial structures, it takes little imagination to transpose them to, for example, cer­ tain ecclesiastical structures in the Christian tradition or to aspects of Islamic institutional history.

ALLIEVI_F3_28-51

11/4/02

10:12 AM

32

Page 32

 . 

be important, and the form of communication is only a factor in influencing the authority of the content of the communication. There is no doubt that among the Muslim communities in west­ ern Europe, formal networks continue to play a significant role. This is not only a function of the organised structures of the immigrant generation, which I shall come back to, but also of the institutional frameworks of the European environment. To achieve an impact, both broadly and within the community, in terms of public status and of delivering services expected by the community, the politicallegal environment requires structural formats which can be linked together and can ‘speak’ to each other within a mutually compre­ hensible discourse. So organisational forms have to be found which can operate within the parameters set by the ‘host’ society. It is probably no coincidence that, at least in the public space, the immi­ grant generation have had some success in establishing such formal networks, networks with some success in imprinting themselves on the political and other agendas of the public space. After all, many of them arose in the countries of origin as a response to the impact of the European imperial nation states. At the same time, governments were concerned to minimise the risk arising out of migration. So most countries of emigration have actively sought to sponsor the process of Muslim organisation among their emigrés. Between Germany and Turkey this is exemplified by the complex of inter-governmental conventions and agreements regard­ ing the management of Turkish ‘guest workers’, in which the Turkish government has adopted an ever more interventionist approach in relation to Muslim dimensions since the September 1980 military coup (Karakasoglu and Nonneman, 1996). The Moroccan govern­ ment has actively attempted to maintain political control of its emi­ grés through its workers’ association, the Amicales (Dassetto and Bastenier 1984, 187–189). In France the situation has regularly been complicated by the impact of Algerian politics and political organi­ sations, not made any simpler by the anomalous status of the Paris Mosque (Boyer, 1992). 3.1. Example UK Let me before proceeding further give an example of how these ‘first-generation’ networks were developed in the United Kingdom as part of the first phase of immigration and settlement into the 1980s.

ALLIEVI_F3_28-51

11/4/02

10:12 AM

Page 33

      

33

Coming particularly from the Indian subcontinent, Muslim com­ munities brought with them also a heritage of Islam which had organised (or, rather, to a certain extent reorganised) itself in response to the formal imposition of British rule in 1858. Much of this organ­ isation had been centred in the major cities and can be roughly identified in two categories, which at the same time are also phases.6 Firstly was a group of movements which had concentrated on renewing Islam through education and the encouragement of reli­ gious learning. First off the mark was the movement which came to be know as Deobandi after the town in which its first college was founded in 1868. Using Urdu as a lingua franca the Deobandi sys­ tem quickly expanded into a network of hundreds of colleges in which the curriculum concentrated around the study of the Qur"ànic sciences and Hadith, the anecdotes of the sayings and doings of the Prophet Muhammad which are an essential foundation for Islamic law and piety. The emphasis of the movement was on the correct understanding of the foundation texts and their implementation in daily life. As this tended to pit them against those tendencies in Indian Islam which were rooted in popular culture, the Deobandi movement has often been labeled ‘puritanical’. The commonality of teaching was ensured through a common curriculum and the cen­ tralised process of authorisation of teachers for the network of col­ leges, including those which have been set up in Britain. The centrality of the Hadith was taken to a greater extreme by the Ahl-i-Hadith movement which cut behind the centuries of accu­ mulated scholarly tradition and, especially disdaining the Sufi tradi­ tions, insisted on working directly with the texts of the Hadith. They saw their precedents not in the classical madhàhib, or schools of law, but in the work of key individual Hadith scholars. Their enemies tended to label them ‘Wahhabi’ thus linking them in with the puri­ tanical movement of that name based in the eastern part of the Arabian peninsular at the time. Both of these movements tended to emphasise an intellectual approach7 to religion and an individual approach to faith. This had

6 For a more detailed discussion of the Muslim movements in the Indian sub­ continent see Metcalfe 1982. 7 This is far from necessarily suggesting a ‘rational’ approach. While many of the scholars of these movements stress that ‘Islam is a rational religion’, they reject

ALLIEVI_F3_28-51

34

11/4/02

10:12 AM

Page 34

 . 

its attractions among the educated young, especially in the cities, but much less so among the broad mass of Indian Muslims, especially those living in the rural areas. Here the much more diverse Brelwi movement took hold, especially in the Punjab and neighbouring regions. However, the term ‘movement’ implies a cohesion which hardly exists among the Brelwis. Their name comes from the col­ lege which they founded in 1872 in Bareilly, but that was soon taken over by the Deobandis. They represent a trend or tendency which links closely with the Sufi traditions of the northern Indian subcon­ tinent. In legitimising both the centrality of the Prophet Muhammad and the various accumulated traditions of piety and worship, the Brelwis connected closely with the traditions of popular piety cen­ tred around charismatic spiritual leaders, pìrs or ‘saints’, and their shrines. They tended to see the Deobandis and their associates as their main opponents rather than the British authorities. Out of the Deobandi movement grew the Tabligh-i-jama'at, a loosely organised movement centred around the belief that individ­ ual piety and good action was the only way in which Muslims could revive their Islam. Fundamental to their activity was the obligation to preach, and so its adherents will often take some months out of their normal daily life to dedicate themselves to itinerant preaching. Tabligh has been among the most successful contemporary Islamic movements in crossing the boundaries of ethnic and religious divi­ sions, spreading out of its north Indian origins to almost all parts of the Muslim world (Masud, 2000). The second category arises during the 20th century in the con­ text of movements towards independence from imperial rule. This was a time when something akin to ‘modern’ political parties was taking shape, above all in the form of the Indian National Congress. But as the independence project began to get caught up in religious differences, Muslim parties also came into being. The most significant in the longer term was the Jama'at-i-Islami founded in 1941 by one of the leading Muslim thinkers of his age, Abu al-A'la Mawdudi (d. 1979). Initially opposed to the concept of a Muslim state, when Pakistan was formed in 1947 Mawdudi and the Jama'at set as their

the ‘reason’ of the philosophical tradition with its hellenic origins. In this instance, ‘intellectual’ is opposed to the emotional and spiritual, especially as these dimen­ sions are perceived as being central to the Sufi mystical tradition.

ALLIEVI_F3_28-51

11/4/02

10:12 AM

Page 35

      

35

target the translation of the stated Islamicness of the new state from being a slogan into a political reality. Although often influential in key debates and controversies in Pakistan, the party never gained a significant representation at parliamentary elections. Its influence was strongest among the urban educated classes and in the universities. It was out of these various movements that most early outside ini­ tiatives to organise the newly settled Muslim communities in Britain originated. The fragmentation of the traditional social networks pro­ vided the space for such movements to gain influence, space which had only been found with difficulty before. By providing a service, initially in the form of establishing mosques and religious instruction for children, such movements were able to gain access to commu­ nities which would often not have permitted them access back home. In the early phase of settlement, this process must not be exagger­ ated, but with the passage of time it gained momentum. And as the movements established their own infrastructures in Britain, they were increasingly able also to forge connections with mosques which had been founded at local initiative. There was a time during the late 1970s and the 1980s when signi­ ficant competition was taking place among the different movements in recruitment of local mosques and Muslim organisations into their own networks. It became almost a cliché that a contest for control over a mosque was between Deobandis and Brelwis. While in some cases the initiative for such contests had come from the movements themselves, it was as often the case that the contest had originated in family or clan rivalries within the community, with each party seeking external support by identifying themselves with one or the other movement.8 Of the various movements identified above, it was the Jama'at-iIslami and the Deobandis which first established themselves in Britain. The Jama'at does not formally exist in Britain, in the way it does as a political party in Pakistan or India. It is rather a question of a group of organisations which have been established at various times at the initiative of individuals coming out of the Jama'at tradition, particularly in its Pakistani form. Key members of the Pakistani Jama'at have played central roles in establishing such organisations, but at least in some of them active participation is not restricted to

8

Shaw (1988) reports such an incident as it took place in Oxford.

ALLIEVI_F3_28-51

36

11/4/02

10:12 AM

Page 36

 . 

people with Jama'at background or sympathies (Nasr, 2000). Some key personnel are active in several of these related organisations. It should be noted that for the Jama'at and similar Islamic tendencies, the organisation is a means to an end and does not have any sacral or religious significance in itself, as distinct from the pattern in the Brelwi tradition. The first organisation of Jama'at inspiration was the UK Islamic Mission (UKIM) founded in 1962 (OEMIW, 1995, 4:273f.). It betrays its Jama'at heritage in the three-tier membership system. Core mem­ bers commit themselves to living fully by Islamic principles includ­ ing, for example, avoiding any form of interest in borrowing or lending. Core membership ranges in the region of a few hundreds. Associate members, which reached about 500 by the end of the 1980s, are those which are fully committed to the principles of the UKIM but for one or other reason are unable fully to abide by the rules. Finally come the sympathisers who in the mid-1980s numbered some 12000. The UKIM has set itself the task of providing a range of activities around them, especially religious instruction. The intellectual core of the tendency is to be found in the Islamic Foundation, founded in Leicester in 1973 and now housed in a con­ ference centre at Markfield north of the city (OEMIW, 1995, 2:309f.) The Foundation cooperated with the UKIM in founding mosques and centres in various cities and towns. Around conferences and publications, the Foundation has particularly worked in Islamic edu­ cation and Islamic economics (it has probably the best library on the latter subject in Britain), in youth work and established docu­ mentation resources on Central Asia and on Christian-Muslim rela­ tions. The Foundation is identified by most of the Muslim community as being Jama'at in identity and has therefore been shunned by those who refuse to have contact with the Jama'at, especially after the period of the Zia al-Haq regime when the Pakistani Jama'at took part in government. It has, however, had some success in its youth work providing hospitality for a number of newer Muslim youth movements. Because of its open attitude to British institutions it has also had some success in establishing itself as a dialogue partner with local government. The Deobandi movement has established itself in Britain as a net­ work around graduates of the Deobandi madrasas in India. Several schools based on this model have been set up in Britain, the most prominent being those in Bury and Dewsbury where the traditional

ALLIEVI_F3_28-51

11/4/02

10:12 AM

Page 37

      

37

Deoband curriculum is taught together with National Curriculum subjects. Graduates of these British madrasas are now beginning to appear as imams in mosques around the country and are thus estab­ lishing a British-trained Deobandi network. It is rather more difficult to describe the Brelwi movement in sim­ ple terms. Given its background it is particularly prominent in Punjabi and Mirpuri communities and has very close associations with Sufi orders and more locally and regionally based pìr-led networks. ‘Brelwi’ is more realistically a description of a type of organised Islam than of a specific organisation. Often in Britain such groups represent an alliance between a charismatic spiritual leader and a group of fam­ ilies or clans led by a business or professional elite. Such a more informal type of grouping has in the past been more ‘invisible’ to outside observers and has been slower to establish a recognisable form of organisation. This delay has had the consequence that just when funding from external sources, often related to oil wealth, has withered and thus affected the more ‘orthodox’ groupings, we begin to see Brelwi groups taking their place as sponsors of major mosque construction projects funded overwhelmingly by the community itself. Across the rest of western Europe, it is possible to offer similar accounts of the import of organisations which already existed in the countries of origin (Dassetto and Bastenier, 1991, and Nielsen, 1995). 3.2. New networks Picking up on some of the elements identified in the ‘first genera­ tion’ of Islamic networks established in the UK, a number of inter­ esting points arise as the next generation has moved into active participation. This applies to the Deobandi network which has increas­ ingly found itself torn between, on the one hand, UK and Pakistan priorities and, on the other, between those of the two generations, especially where the latter overlap with the Tablighi-jama'at. The Deoband movement which migrated to Britain was, in many ways, the traditional manifestation. It concentrated on piety and education of the young. It was politically quietist.9 Within the UK context it 9 In Birmingham the Saddam Hussein Mosque (it was constructed with Iraqi financial support) is essentially a South Asian Deobandi mosque. It has stayed out of both national and international politics, even during the 2nd Gulf War, when its leaders insisted to me as they did to others that they did not involve themselves in politics.

ALLIEVI_F3_28-51

38

11/4/02

10:12 AM

Page 38

 . 

has formally kept itself separate from the extensive Pakistani Deobandi involvement during the 1990s with the Taliban in Aghanistan and Kashmir-related militancy. However, the younger generation appear to be looking for a more public profile on international Islamic issues, and some of them have been, it seems, prepared to take this to the point of active militancy. As has already been suggested above in the reference to the Islamic Foundation, this was one of the first formal organisations to adapt to changes in the environment. One may speculate as to why this might be. While the impression continues to be given that because its founder was a leading member of the Pakistani Jama'at (and a Jama'at minister in the first Zia ul-Haq cabinet) (Vali, 2000, 47, repeats this) it remains a Jama'at organisation, I have taken the view that the link is looser (OEMIW, 1995, 2:309f.). Certainly, the Foun­ dation has from its establishment inherited participation in a net­ work of like-minded organisations across the continents and within Europe. This included some with a history from the Muslim Brother­ hood (Al-Ikhwàn al-Muslimùn), such as the Islamic centre in Munich and the Association of German Muslims, with whom there has been a regular interchange both of publications and of the occasional per­ sonnel and projects, usually conferences. It has also included a con­ tinuous close relationship (not restricted to funding) with the major Muslim organisations sponsored by Saudi Arabia, especially the Muslim World League. However, for anyone who is familiar with the politics of the Middle East, it is clear that the only way of bal­ ancing such relationships is to make sure that they remain loose. Since the Islamic Foundation moved to a new site outside Leicester about ten years ago, it has had at its disposal much more space to experiment with broader networks. While it retains its own specific projects, it has also been able to host a number of newer indepen­ dent projects, usually linked to the concerns of the developing younger European Muslim trends, whether involving converts (as in activities with ‘new Muslims’) or the descendants of the immigrant genera­ tion. Here we have seen the Islamic Foundation during the 1990s increasingly working together with like-minded trends across the con­ temporary Islamic spectrum. At a low level this had started in the 1980s, but the campaign against Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses raised the profile and commitment. The significance of the Foundation’s part in raising international Muslim concern is still subject to debate: was it central, as suggested by Nasr (2000, 38f.), or was it comple­

ALLIEVI_F3_28-51

11/4/02

10:12 AM

Page 39

      

39

mentary to the broader UK-based campaign, as Philip Lewis pre­ sents it?10 But whatever the facts of that event were, it helped the Foundation connect to these other groups. If one looks at this process as it has affected the Islamic Foundation from a broader perspective, it is arguably part of a re-assessment of how Muslim trends and interests function most effectively within the European environment to the benefit of the European generation of Muslims. Centrally significant, in my view, is the way priorities have broadened. Two decades ago, the priorities of Muslim organisations in Europe were overwhelmingly determined by the priorities of the countries of origin, when they were not very narrowly local. Turkish politics dominated the German-Turkish discourse (see, for example, the papers in Hoffman, 1981, and Blaschke, 1985), as did Pakistani the British one, and the North African the French one, although in both the latter cases possibly less so than in the German case, at least until the Algerian civil war of the 1990s intervened. In Birmingham two incidents took place in the early to mid-1980s which illustrate this. A major international incident was caused when a Deputy High Commissioner (deputy ambassador) of India was mur­ dered, apparently by Kashmiri militants, an incident which also cre­ ated a major stir across the Muslim community not only in Birmingham but also in the whole country. On another occasion I happened to be present at the jum'a prayer at the Birmingham Central Mosque on the Friday after the Sabra-Chatilla massacre in September 1982. Money was collected to support the survivors, but otherwise there was no action or publicity. Twenty years later the issue of Kashmir continues to exercise the community and be a major concern of Muslims of Pakistani origin, regardless of age. But the growth of the younger generation has led to a situation where broader Islamic issues now also exercise major interest: Bosnia and then Kosovo, Palestine, Chechnya. Indeed, groups of young Muslims whose ethnic origin is not in the Indian subcontinent (e.g. Arabs or Turks) have in recent years started, in their turn, to show solidarity with the Kashmir issue as a Muslim issue (BMMS, passim). Such a broadening of interest, spurred on by a younger, more Europe-based, generation has strengthened a tendency towards closer, 10 In fact, Lewis (1994, 160–164) makes no mention of the Foundation’s role in the campaign or in the formation of the UK Action Committee for Islamic Affairs (UKACIA) with the aim of coordinating the campaign.

ALLIEVI_F3_28-51

11/4/02

40

10:12 AM

Page 40

 . 

informal cooperation among organisations and movements which, having arisen out of a specific local-national heritage in the country of origin, now begin to identify significant areas of common interests and perspective. One might risk calling this a process of incultura­ tion. In the 19th century, movements which arose out of a broadly common Islamic theological heritage in response to the expansion of European empire and, more generally, cultural, economic and political influence of necessity functioned within the particular local circumstances and therefore became local in character ( Jama'at was Indian subcontinent, Brotherhood was Egyptian-Arab, etc.). But they are now, in the European environment, showing signs of the adap­ tations of having to work within this new environment. The particular ‘family’ of movements, which I am highlighting in this particular example, is what might be broadly termed salafì. The term covers a wide spectrum of views but has in common the under­ standing that the Islamic theological and jurisprudential foundations laid by the learned and pious salaf (‘ancestors’) have a pivotal role to play in Islamic conceptions and ideas. The disagreements within this broad trend have tended to be over who these salaf are, the hermeneutical approaches to their texts, and the methodologies of making them relevant to the contemporary world. Some observers have gone so far as to talk of this as the ‘Islamic Movement’ (with capitals) implying a cohesion which I personally do not think exists.11 While the arguments among the various trends remain of significance in the Muslim world, in Europe (and in North America) there is a blurring of the boundaries. The alliances which have been forming within European countries— like those which I have indicated above regarding the UK—have also been taking shape across borders. So one sees regular and often intensive contacts between the individuals at the Islamic Foundation and such people (and their associates) as Dr Mustafa Ceric, Chief Mufti of Sarajevo, the exiled leader of the Tunisian Islamist move­ ment Dr Rashid al-Ghannouchi, and leaders of the Francophone Muslim youth and student organisations, including Dr Tariq Ramadan, as well as the international network around the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT). Out of this network has arisen the Fed­ eration of Islamic Organisations in Europe (www.fioe.org), which has

11

A balanced and realistic view of this is offered by Ira Lapidus (2001).

ALLIEVI_F3_28-51

11/4/02

10:12 AM

Page 41

      

41

its office on the Islamic Foundation’s site outside Leicester. But this is also a network which is increasingly openly and actively interact­ ing with other institutions and structures of the wider European soci­ ety. Individuals in this network have, for example, had a residential conference at Leicester entitled ‘Islam in Europe: a joint [ChristianMuslim] consultation’, a conference funded by the European Com­ mission and jointly organised with my own centre.12 However, while such networks are active, they remain informal— of necessity, as they do not share anything like full agreement. Events can force the various constituents apart, just as other events can bring them together. So while there was, during 1989–90, a degree of cooperation with networks linked to Iran over the Rushdie ques­ tion, in Britain signified in particular by the role of Dr Kalim Siddiqui and his UK Muslim Parliament (Nielsen, 1991), this was not an alliance which lasted long as other issues came to the fore. In the same manner, there have clearly been circumstances in which local groupings of very different orientations and backgrounds have established forms of interaction which would have been difficult to imagine in the Muslim world itself. One example could be a period of cooperation in the late 1980s and early 1990s which linked the Shi’ite mosque in Hamburg (sponsored by Iran both before and since the revolution) in a cooperation with the Turkish Milli Görüs mosque in the same city and a small Naqshabandi Sufi group in Birmingham where the sheikh was of Pakistani origin but most of the followers were Afro-Caribbean converts. This is a network which has remained fluid but with a high degree of internal communica­ tion through travel, telephone and, more recently, e-mail. Interestingly, one of the places this informal network has met physically has been the annual Jewish-Christian-Muslim students conference at Bendorf near Koblenz in Germany, thus linking into a multi-faith dimension. Perhaps more resistant to change is the strength of ethnic, as dis­ tinct from strictly national or ideological networks. Of course, the ethnic factor is reinforced by relations of clan and kinship, particularly strong among communities of Indian subcontinent origin. This is a dimension which I shall not discuss, since it is probably the one which has been most extensively covered by the social sciences literature.

12 Some of the papers were published by the Islamic Foundation in their Encounters: Journal of inter-cultural perspectives, 4:2 (Sept. 1998).

ALLIEVI_F3_28-51

42

11/4/02

10:12 AM

Page 42

 . 

But even given the strength of ethnic ties, it seems possible that as parts of the younger generation increasingly see themselves as Muslims first, the boundaries of ethnicity and national origin are beginning to become more porous. As this shifting of identity takes place, the importance of the media of communication rises. Above all, the language associated with ethnic and national identity loses an absolute role and is complemented by those languages which enable Muslims to communicate across the particularities. This has, of course, meant an increasing attention being paid to Arabic among those communities where Arabic is not the mother tongue. As young Muslims are seeking to discover for themselves what it means to be Muslim in Europe, they have nat­ urally had to turn to Arabic to be able to read the source texts of Qur"àn and Óadìth. The major part of the rising demand for Arabic language teaching in Britain, as an example, can be attributed to young Muslims thus motivated, even to the extent of taking univer­ sity degrees in Arabic language. However, equally remarkable has been the extent to which English is becoming an Islamic lingua franca. The reasons for this are to be found partly in the way in which many significant Islamic scholars have turned to working in English, not infrequently because they have found themselves in Britain or the US as political exiles. But of course the predominance of English in international communica­ tions, especially with the rise of electronic communications and the Internet, has more than confirmed this trend. One recent example will serve to illustrate this process. A doctoral thesis presented at the end of 2000 at Lund University in Sweden studied the Swedish Muslim journal Salaam (Otterbeck, 2000) during the years 1992–8. The themes which were taken up by the editors, and the material reproduced, depended overwhelmingly on English and Arabic sources. The author made the point to me in conversation that after his research was completed Tariq Ramadan’s first significant work in English, To be a European Muslim (1999), had been published. Now Salaam was including references to Ramadan’s discourse for the first time—the editors had not previously had access to French-language material. A similar development has taken place in Denmark since the autumn of 2000 when Dr Ramadan was, for the first time, invited to speak there by a Christian-Muslim dialogue project—in English. Some of the more general points I have made up to this point, arising out of the discussion of what I have termed the broadly salafì

ALLIEVI_F3_28-51

11/4/02

10:12 AM

Page 43

      

43

networks, can be applied also to Sufi networks. But this is an area which has only recently been attracting the attention of researchers working with Muslim communities in Europe. In the following I shall present some preliminary impressions of one particular Sufi network which I have recently been involved in researching,13 before draw­ ing some overall conclusions on the theme of the paper. 4. Sufism Sufism (taßawwuf ) is the mystical dimension of Islam. Appearing already in the first Islamic century in the form of individual mystics and ascetics, the impact Sufism was to have on Sunni Islamic soci­ ety and culture was due to its organisation into †arìqas (‘orders’) with specific traditions of teaching and spiritual practices, usually traced back to an eponymous founder, whose leadership was inherited by a spiritual chain (silsila) of initiated shaykhs, often closely linked to the social structures (Shorter EI, 1961, 573–578). Always in a very tense relationship with the Sunni scholar class (the 'ulamà"), the links between the †arìqas and the social structures, at their closest in the 13th to 18th centuries, guaranteed the position of Sufism in society. At their height, individual †arìqas were identified with particular craft guilds or, as in the case of the Bektashis and the Ottoman Janissaries, with particular military units. The changes in society and economy of the 19th and 20th cen­ turies were such as to undermine the social basis of Sufism. It declined in the face of modernisation14 and in the face of the attacks of new, more puritanical Islamic movements, on the one hand, and of the secularisation of the intellectual and professional classes (Hanna, 1990, 327–338). However, the decline was uneven across the Muslim world. In the Soviet Union so-called tariqatism was a major obstacle to the imposition of Soviet power and continued to retain significant force behind the scenes, so much so that observers during the 1970s and 80s often suggested that it was the continuing strength of these unofficial networks which constituted the main Islamic threat to Soviet 13 This is a 30-month research project funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council and involving field work in Dagestan, Lebanon, the UK and the Internet; see http://artsweb.bham.ac.uk/mdraper/transnatsufi. 14 Thus, of twenty Madyani and Shadhili groups in Egypt in 1920, only half sur­ vived in 1940 (Trimingham, 1971, 278f.).

ALLIEVI_F3_28-51

11/4/02

10:12 AM

44

Page 44

 . 

power. In the Indian subcontinent Sufism in a wide variety of forms continued to thrive. The secularist suppression of all forms of organ­ ised Islam in Turkey after 1924 broke the institutional continuity of the traditional †arìqas, and in the case of the Bektashis destroyed its organisational leadership (Birge, 1937, 83ff.). But as the Kemalist state pulled back from its earlier radicalism, new movements started to appear out of the embers of the Sufi tradition, movements which have gradually reconstituted continuity with their pasts, real or imagined. The most marked growth in Sufi †arìqas has been among newly settled Muslim communities in the West and, especially, among con­ verts to Islam. Of course, where Sufism existed in the countries of origin it tended to migrate with the migrants, but it tended not to be visible in the public space.15 I have argued elsewhere that pub­ lic visibility has come to Muslim organisations with increasing inte­ gration, especially at the political and community level (Nielsen, 1999, 42f.). Sufi based groups have shared in this process, and there is some evidence that links between particular †arìqas and social struc­ tures are developing, for example in sectors of French organised labour and among taxi drivers in some cities. 4.1. The Nazimis One of the most publicly noticeable of these Sufi groups has been that led by Sheikh Nazim al-Qubrusi al-Haqqani, a branch of the Naqshabandi tradition (Küçükcan 1999, 215–219).16 A Turkish Cypriot, Sheikh Nazim studied Islam in Syria (after first having trained as an engineer in Turkey) where he became a disciple of the Dagestani Sheikh Abdullah al-Dagestani. In the early 1970s he moved to London to start a mission to Europeans and quickly built up a following with an extended network across Europe and then into North America, where his deputy is Sheikh Hisham Qabbani. What makes this Sufi group so interesting from the point of view of my topic is the very loose nature of the network. The immediately most noticeable dimen­ sion is the common substance of the attitudes to events and the sur­ rounding world. 15 This invisibility of Sufism in Europe has remained pronounced until quite recently: the index of the collection of papers from three conferences on Islam in Europe, edited by Nonneman et al. (1996), contains only two references to Sufism. 16 An extended account by the leader of the group in the US can be found in Kabbani, 1995.

ALLIEVI_F3_28-51

11/4/02

10:12 AM

Page 45

      

45

4.1.1. Content It is characteristic of the Nazimis that they usually work with the political status quo, regardless of the whether that is republic or monar­ chy. This is reflected in a number of ways. In Malaysia and Brunei prominent members of the royal families are followers of Sheikh Nazim, and some of them are said to have provided significant financial support. Generally, local groups of the †arìqa tend to express their support for the existing political system and occasionally are politically active within it. In Dagestan during 1998 Sheikh Nazim’s help was solicited by the ultimately unsuccessful presidential cam­ paign of Magomed Khachilaev, to the extent that the two men were seen together in Moscow in search of support from that quarter. Sometimes such support becomes controversial in broader Muslim circles. Over the years Sheikh Nazim has praised Queen Elizabeth II in sometimes exuberant terms. This praise has been listed as one of the fourteen points by which Sheikh Nazim is accused of negat­ ing Islam by the Ahbash17 of Lebanon (www.aicp.org, 5 Nov. 1997). In several published statements, Sheikh Nazim expressed his support for Prince Charles in the breakup of his marriage to Princess Diana, and when she died he was reported to have stated that this was God’s punishment for her adultery. In both instances, arguments out of Islamic law were mobilised, although one has to say that those used to legitimise the adultery of Prince Charles, in his turn, were rather convoluted. Equally controversial, but attracting much more opprobrium at the time, was a statement made on 7 January 1999 by Sheikh Nazim’s khalìfa (deputy) and son-in-law, Sheikh Muhammad Hisham Qabbani. The statement was made at an open forum on Islamic extremism held at the US State Department (www.islamicsupremecouncil.org/ Statements/islamic_extremism.htm, 9 June 1999). In it Sheikh Hisham made a broad attack on every form of ‘extremist’ Islam, covering the whole spectrum from Usama bin Ladin to the Muslim Brotherhood. In the process he accused most Muslim organisations in the US of being, or potentially being, covers or fronts for extremist and terrorist

17 The Ahbash, officially known as the Association of Islamic Charitable Projects, was founded in 1930 in Beirut. According to Hamzeh and Dekmejian (1996) the movement arises out of a multiple Sufi tradition including particularly Qadiri, Rifa’i and Naqshabandi ones. It is strongly opposed to Ikhwan and Wahhabi tendencies and while engaging in aggressive proselytism opposes political destabilisation.

ALLIEVI_F3_28-51

46

11/4/02

10:12 AM

Page 46

 . 

networks. He supported US policy in the Muslim world and asked for closer surveillance of Muslim NGOs. While some parts of the political spectrum welcomed the statement as confirming all their suspicions, it effectively isolated Sheikh Nazim and his ‘Islamic Supreme Council of America’ from the vast majority of Muslim ten­ dencies in the US. In his statement, Sheikh Hisham had made the point that also Russia and the other post-Soviet states were threatened by Islamic extremism. In the face of actual and perceived threats by Islamic movements, governments in the region have wavered between repres­ sion and negotiation.18 An interesting case in point has been Uzbekistan, where the initial reaction of the regime had effectively been to crim­ inalise all expressions of Islam so, for example, men with beards and women with headscarves were harrassed and imprisoned. At the same time, however, growing emphasis was being placed on the historical role of Uzbekistan as one of the great cradles of Islamic learning. Millions of dollars were spent on building a massive new mausoleum compound outside Samarkand for Imam al-Bukhari, the great com­ piler of ˙adìth. President Islam Karimov was portrayed as a staunch supporter of the true Uzbek Islamic tradition, and an official Islamic university was founded. Measures were taken to encourage regimefriendly tendencies, and here great hope has been placed in the strong Sufi traditions of the region. The eponymous founder of the Naqshabandi order was born in a village outside the city of Bukhara, where his tomb is also located. With the disappearance of formal Sufi institutional structures during the Soviet era, the field was open for Sheikh Nazim to offer him­ self and his †arìqa as the rightful heir to the Central Asian Naqshabandi tradition. A meeting was arranged between Sheikh Nazim and President Karimov at the UN Millenium Peace Summit in New York on 8 September 2000. According to Nazimi network accounts, the two parties “shared their aspirations for preserving traditional schol­ arship and values of Islam, in the face of rising tide of radical move­ ments throughout Central Asia.” (Naqshbandi network, 20 Sept. 2000: Uzbek President Islam Karimov . . .) The same day, the net­ work reproduced an analysis by Paul Goble carried by Radio Free

18 Aspects of this are discussed extensively in the paper by Galina Yemelianova in this volume.

ALLIEVI_F3_28-51

11/4/02

10:12 AM

Page 47

      

47

Europe/Radio Liberty headed “Fighting fundamentalism with Sufism”. A week later, Sheikh Hisham was in Tashkent as the official guest of President Karimov, taking part in a conference on interreligious dialogue in Central Asia organised jointly by the Uzbek government and UNESCO, a conference among whose main objectives, at last on the part of the Uzbek hosts, seems to have been to gather inter­ national religious support for the struggle against “extremism and ter­ rorism”. Sheikh Hisham and his entourage received VIP treatment and were extensively interviewed by the Uzbek media. Afterwards, the Naqshbandi network of Sheikh Nazim attributed major significance to the visit as the precursor of significant cooperation between the Nazimi †arìqa and the Uzbek government. Among the topics which have recently contributed to embodying the network of the followers of Sheikh Nazim was a widespread expectation that the year 2000 would see the coming of the mahdì. This builds on a very strong popular tradition within Sunni Islam which has traces back to the earliest centuries and which has regu­ larly been condemned by the majority of Sunni scholars. (Shorter EI, 1961, 310ff.).19 There are many variants of the tradition but a com­ mon thread is that a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad will return to earth as the ‘guided one’ (al-mahdì) to restore the faith and justice. In some accounts he will be accompanied by Jesus (‘Isa) who, according to some traditions, will reappear in Damascus. When Sheikh Nazim first started his activities in Europe in the early 1970s there were several occasions on which he is said to have foretold the coming of the mahdì and the end of the world. The expected events did not happen. The Sheikh’s utterances were rein­ terpreted with much less definite meanings, while a number of his earlier followers left him disillusioned. He is not recorded to have made eschatological statements which could be open to such specific interpretation since the 1970s, but it seems that the approach of the year 2000 was too strong a temptation, if not to Sheikh Nazim him­ self then to a number of his prominent associates. During the win­ ter and spring of 1998–99 the approach of a catastrophe for, especially, urban civilisation was being predicted with rising urgency. A number

19 This should not be confused with the main Shi’ite understanding of the mahdì, the twelfth Imam who is believed to have gone into hiding, occultation, and will return at the end of time to restore faith, justice and harmony.

ALLIEVI_F3_28-51

48

11/4/02

10:12 AM

Page 48

 . 

of events were written into the agenda, above all the widely expected computer chaos to be caused by the Y2K problem. During 1999, the Turkish and then the Greek earthquakes were interpreted as a foretaste of what was to come. Nazimi websites carried extensive dis­ cussion, interpretation and advice to help and guide followers and others. The borderlines between a Muslim Nazimi discourse and the wider disaster predictions prevalent on the Internet were at times very unclear. On at least one occasion a Nazimi website carried extensive verbatim advice, without attribution of source, copied from a fundamentalist Christian survivalist source based on the US west coast. In the spring of 1999 messages circulated to the effect that fol­ lowers were advised by the sheikh to gather in the village of Sir Dennyé in the mountains of Lebanon in anticipation of the disas­ ters of the end-time. Much to the confusion of the villagers a num­ ber of young Europeans and Americans, dressed in the exotic garb and coloured turbans of the disciples, started to appear in the area. Of course, this also attracted wider public attention in a region which is, for good reason, highly sensitive to strange events, not least if they have security implications. In the event, it seems that they were deemed to be reasonably harmless, although the landlords of the vil­ lage had to threaten court action in defence against the threatened ‘invasion’. But the event had sparked a fair amount of public dis­ cussion in which the Nazimis’ claims to represent the Naqshabandi tradition were often accepted uncritically (e.g. L’orient-Le Jour, 19 Oct. 1999, 5). Again, however, it was possible for more intellectual apol­ ogists to interpret Sheikh Nazim’s predictions in more general terms as referring to catastrophes brought about by human materialism, climate change and the like, which would have much more devas­ tating effects on urban than on rural civilisation. This was certainly the explanation of Prof. Mohammed Dernaika, dean of the faculty of philosophy on the Tripoli campus of the Lebanese University and reputedly a follower of Sheikh Nazim (ibid.). 4.1.2. Form But the substance of the discourse of the Nazimi network is not sufficient to explain the extent to which it can be described as a net­ work. It is noticeable that most of the time, at least in the UK, the local groups are effectively a law unto themselves. Each group behaves very differently, does different things within its own walls and in

ALLIEVI_F3_28-51

11/4/02

10:12 AM

Page 49

      

49

relation to the broader community, and even conducts its rites in different ways although maintaining the core of the Naqshabandi tradition of a silent dhikr. This has consequences for the processes of the network which is very open and easily penetrated. Twice during the two years 1999–2000, preachers appeared claiming to represent Sheikh Nazim, giving directions and trying to collect funds. While both were sooner or later publicly declared false, the response was slow and some local groups were attracted away or were so disrupted by the experience that they effectively collapsed. In both cases it took some time for the network to identify and exclude the interloper. In this network there is very little in the way of regular instruc­ tion passed along a ‘chain of command’ or management hierarchy. At the western end of the network—Europe and above all the US— communications are extensive and intensive, mostly by electronic means. But these communications are multi-centred in the form of a variety of websites and various e-mail discussion groups and notice boards, most of which do not function under any kind of control by the sheikh or his deputy. In such circumstances local autonomy is significant. This provides an opportunity for ethnic networks to assert themselves, something which Sheikh Nazim himself has implic­ itly encouraged in the practice of different nationalities normally using different colours for their turbans. Over the last few years we have thus seen an expansion of the Turkish part of the network in Britain and its assumption of control of the London premises of the †arìqa. Notable parts of the white convert part of the London commu­ nity have subsequently moved many of their activities to Glastonbury. At the East Mediterranean end of the network, on the other hand, the groups are less closely linked into these processes. The small group in Tripoli, Lebanon, maintains closer direct personal links with Sheikh Nazim with regular visits between Tripoli and Turkish Cyprus where the sheikh has his main home. The Dagestani fol­ lowers are, in effect, completely isolated from the broader network because of the absence of anything but the most elementary forms of communications.20

20 In fact, the member of the research team working with Dagestan, when it became know that he had recently visit the sheikh in Cyprus, found himself adopted as the interlocutor with the sheikh who had not visited for several years.

ALLIEVI_F3_28-51

50

11/4/02

10:12 AM

Page 50

 . 

5. A formless network?

So is it in any way justified to consider all of these distinct experi­ ences and manifestations of the following of Sheikh Nazim as a net­ work? While there is a degree of common discourse, and events in one place have an effect in most of the rest of the network, and while large parts of the †arìqa share in common communications, at every point when one attempts to state that here is something shared which justifies the appellation of ‘network’ one has to accept that there are exceptions. As one Nazimi I spoke to in Milan in the spring of 2000 said: “You cannot study the †arìqa fully where you are. You must go to Cyprus—that is where the full story is.” The full story he was referring to was the person of the sheikh. The †arìqa is the sheikh and the sheikh is the †arìqa. The network therefore coheres in the presence of the sheikh and only exists fully where he is and in him. When he is not physically present there is an aware­ ness of him and of his potential physical presence. The esotericism of the Sufi tradition talks of ‘bilocation’ and ‘translocation’ of the sheikh.21 From a less esoteric perspective there is no doubt that the actual or potential presence is the major, if not the defining, force of cohesion and identity. Here consideration of networks has to incor­ porate concepts of charismatic leadership, and the media of com­ munication become secondary. REFERENCES Baumann, G. (1996), Contesting culture: discourses of identity in multi-ethnic London, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Blaschke, J. (1985), “Islam und Politik unter türkischen Arbeitsmigranten”, in J. Blaschke (ed.), Jahrbuch zur Geschichte und Gesellschaft des Vorderen und Mittleren Orients 1984, Berlin: Express. BMMS, British Muslims Monthly Survey, Birmingham: CSIC, 1993–2002. Boyer, A. (1992), L’Institut Musulman de la Mosquée de Paris, Paris: CHEAM. Castells, M. (1996–8), The information age: economy, society and culture, 3 vols, Oxford: Blackwell. Dassetto, F. and Bastenier, A. (1991), Europa: nuova frontiera dell’Islam, Rome: Lavoro. ———. (1984), L’Islam transplanté: Vie et organisation des minorités musulmanes de Belgique, Antwerp: EPO.

21 Several papers describe such beliefs and stories in contemporary Bulgarian sufism in Zheliaskova and Nielsen (2001).

ALLIEVI_F3_28-51

11/4/02

10:12 AM

Page 51

      

51

Hamzeh, A.N. and Dekmejian, R.H. (1996), “A Sufi response to political Islamism: al-Ahbash of Lebanon”, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 28, 217–229. Hanna, A. (1990), “Mizàn al-qiwà al-ijtima'iyya bayna ’l-turuq al-ßùfiyya wa-˙arakàt al-tajdìd al-islamì fì 'aßr al-nah∂a”, in Markaz Dirasàt al-Wi˙da al-'Arabiyya, Al-Dìn fì al-mujtama' al-'arabì, Beirut, 327–338. Hoffman, B. ed. (1981), Graue Wölfe, Koranschulen, Idealistenvereine, Cologne: PahlRugenstein. Kabbani, M.H. (1995), The Naqshbandi Way, Chicago: Kazi Publications. Karakasoglu, Y. and Nonneman, G. (1996), “Muslims in Germany, with special reference to the Turkish-Islamic community”, in Nonneman et al. 1996, 241–267. Küçükcan, T. (1999), Politics of ethnicity, identity and religion, Aldershot: Ashgate. Lapidus, I. (2001), “Between universalism and particularism: the historical bases of Muslim communal, national and global identities”, Global Networks, 1, 37–55. Lewis, P. (1994), Islamic Britain: religion, politics and identity among British Muslims, London: I.B. Tauris. Lithman, Y.G. (1988), “Social relations and cultural continuities: Muslim immigrants and their social networks”, in T. Gerholm and Y.G. Lithman (eds.), The new Islamic presence in Western Europe, London: Mansell, 239–262. Masud, M.K. (2000), Travellers in faith: studies of the Tablighi Jama’at as a transnational Islamic movement for faith renewal, Leiden: E.J. Brill. Metcalfe, B. (1982), Islamic revival in British India, 1860–1900, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Nasr, V. (2000), International relations of an Islamist movement: the case of the Jama’at-i Islami of Pakistan, New York: Council of Foreign Relations. Nielsen, J. (1988), “The political geography and administration of Bahri Mamluk Palestine: the evidence of al-Qalqashandi”, in H. Nashabe (ed.), Studia Palaestina: studies in honour of Constantine K. Zurayk, Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies, 114–136. ———. (1991), “A Muslim agenda for Britain: some reflections”, New Community, 17, 467–476. ———. (1995), Muslims in Western Europe, 2nd ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ———. (1999), Towards a European Islam, London: Macmillan. Nonneman, G. et al. (eds.) (1996), Muslim communities in the new Europe, Reading: Ithaca. OEMIW (1995), Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, 4 vols. New York: Oxford University Press. Otterbeck, J. (2000), Islam paa svenska; Tidskriften Salaam och islams globalisering, Lund: Lund University. Ramadan, T. (1999), To be a European Muslim, Leicester: Islamic Foundation. Shaw, A. (1988), A Pakistani community in Britain, Oxford: Blackwell. Shorter EI (1961), Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam, Leiden: E.J. Brill. Trimingham, J.S. (1971), The Sufi orders in Islam, London: Oxford University Press. Zheliaskova, A. and Nielsen, J. (eds) (2001), The ethnology of Sufism, Sofia: IMIR.

ALLIEVI_F4_52-77

10/21/02

12:06 PM

Page 52

52

CHAPTER THREE

GENDER, GENERATION, AND THE REFORM OF TRADITION: FROM MUSLIM MAJORITY SOCIETIES TO WESTERN EUROPE S A-M  A S Introduction: Muslim ‘diasporas’ in European societies The acknowledgement of the durable settlement of Muslims in several European societies has led to a variety of scholarly studies, among which a trend has emerged that points out the inherently ‘European’ character of Islam. Its basic argument is that the emergence and set­ tling of Muslim communities in Europe contributes to massive trans­ formations of Islamic forms of organisation of social life, which escape the traps of traditional authority in which Islam is supposedly still mired in Muslim majority societies, and favour forms of individual­ isation. The first type of argument stresses, from a normative point of view, that the inherently liberal and democratic public spheres of Western European societies provide grounds for drastic changes in Muslim thought and social practice and favour a version of Islam with a specific European normative base, labelled ‘Euro-Islam’ (Tibi, 1998; 2000). This category ultimately de-legitimises any model of Islam that deviates from an ‘enlightened European system of values’, in harmony with ‘secular constitutions’, as Bassam Tibi puts it (Tibi, 2000, 36). The second variant of scholarly approaches to European­ ised Islam (e.g. Babès, 1997; Saint-Blancat, 1997; Roy, 1998; Tietze, 2001) emphasises the plural and changing character of Muslim forms of organisation and social life and identifies privatised components of Islam through its encounter with secularised Western societies. The key concept emphasised here is ‘individualisation of religion’, which has so far been mainly used with regard to Protestant or Catholic milieus in Western societies (Luckmann, 1991; Bellah, 1991; Hervieu-Léger, 1993). We agree that this second approach innovates substantially on pre­ vious ones and shows us a sociologically promising direction, since

ALLIEVI_F4_52-77

10/21/02

12:06 PM

Page 53

, ,     

53

it stresses how the outcomes in Muslims’ social action is open to a variety of influences related to social context. At the same time we notice that this perspective tends to overestimate the fluidity of the relationship between tradition and social action. The presupposition of fluidity is often based on the presumption of an ineluctable erosion—via fragmentation—of Muslim tradition. This view mostly sub­ stitutes or opposes notions of tradition to concepts of modernity, and tends to emphasise ‘how modern’ Muslims in Europe have indeed become. Furthermore, the overestimation of the pluralistic potential within Western European societies can lead to an underestimation of the de facto and also de jure restrictive conditions for spaces of social action and claims of public representation for Muslims in Europe (ranging from restrictive citizenship laws, through authorities’ tactics of postponing their recognition of institutionalised forms of Islam, to stigmatising discourses vis-à-vis Muslims in the public sphere). Finally, if one ultimately assumes a full individualisation of religion and a continuous erosion of traditions, one implicitly de-legitimises any claims for public representation that go beyond the view of indi­ vidual citizens entering the public sphere as atomised units. Both scholarly trends risk preventing us from taking into the focus of the sociological analysis the potential of transformation and reform that originates from within Muslim traditions, and their capacity to chal­ lenge and unsettle dominant notions of citizenship and the public sphere, as well as the very notion of (modern) politics. Our perspective throughout this article offers an alternative inter­ pretation, in that we assume that tradition-rooted categories of social and religious authority do not impair by default autonomous social agency, but are often their necessary condition. They are part and parcel of the process—also located at the delicate juncture of inter­ generational change and conflict—through which forms of authority are transformed through the impact of social powers (like those related to education, social disciplining and social distinction), without this implying a pre-fabricated and normative notion of ‘secularisation’. The article will start with an introductory section on the role of Islamic reform movements in the process of nation-state formation and transformation in Muslim majority societies at the turn of the 19th century. This background analysis is important, since it provides key knowledge about the way in which Muslim tradition has been subject to transformations both through the encounter with other, competing traditions and through internal interventions. We will focus

ALLIEVI_F4_52-77

54

10/21/02

12:06 PM

Page 54

 -   

on the extent to which key figures in the reform movements evoked an axis of women’s education and Islamic modesty to articulate a concern for the polity that cannot be reduced to mainstream modern institutionalised forms of politics, either ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’. In the follow-up sections we will illustrate the challenge, and the related transformative potential of the spontaneous and organised forms of social action of Muslims in Europe towards dominant norms. By focusing on Muslim women who publicly wear the headscarf in France and Germany, we will show how the phenomenon of veil­ ing in Europe goes beyond the interpretation of a recent and swift ‘coming out’ of Muslims, or ‘re-Islamisation’. Instead it points to a much longer and more complex process that has simultaneously to account for the reform of Muslim traditions and the shifting config­ urations of social powers affecting nation-state institutions, gender, intergenerational change, class and migration. The binding element between the background analysis and the case study is our emphasis on the potential challenge to dominant norms and discourses articu­ lated by Muslim actors—either publicly, as in the examples of Muslim reformers at the turn of the century, or on a more informal level of life politics, or rather of the ‘reform of personal life’, as in the case of contemporary young women. These challenges, we will argue, are situated and embedded in a discursive Muslim tradition which has constantly been subject to internal transformations. Muslim traditions, the reform process, and the making of the ‘Muslim woman’ Our starting point is based on the assumption that the notion of tradition is relevant for the sociological analysis of Muslim forms of social life both with regard to Muslim majority societies and as far as Muslim minorities in Europe are concerned. This requires a brief introduction of what we mean by this concept. We conceive of reli­ gious traditions as both institutionally and discursively grounded and as a set of moral and social references, which shape discourses and social practices. A ‘living tradition’, as Alasdair MacIntyre calls it, presupposes a variety of moral and even emotional dispositions on the basis of which traditions are moulded and transmitted, formed and re-formed. Such dispositions depend on institutional forms of authoritative discourse and on the embeddedness of individuals or groups in specific life narratives, which derive from the past.

ALLIEVI_F4_52-77

10/21/02

12:06 PM

Page 55

, ,     

55

As highlighted by both Alasdair MacIntyre (1981 and 1988) and Talal Asad (1998; 1999), who links MacIntyre’s approach with social phenomena related to Islam, this understanding of tradition differs substantially from the ideological usage of this concept by especially conservative political theorists. We by no means contrast tradition with reason and the stability of tradition with conflict or crisis (MacIntyre, 1981, 218–220; Asad, 1993, 200–236). Instead, we assume that tra­ dition is an eminent part of the motivational prism of social agents: ‘Living traditions, just because they continue a not-yet completed narrative, confront the future whose determinate and determinable character, so far as it possesses any, derives from the past.’ (MacIntyre, 1981, 223). Consequently, we tend to consider the ‘reform of tradition’ as a dynamic that cannot be reduced to social-structural fields but has to account for—as in Talal Asad’s words—the inherent ‘search for coherence’ (Asad, 1998) of traditions, a force that produces an impe­ tus to self-reform. We claim that if fragmentation occurs—which indeed is the case—it is also because traditions, i.e. their discourses and their institutions, as well as the practices they authorise, have been exposed to permanent internal interventions, and this for quite a while, not only in the modern (or supposedly post-modern) eras, but since their inceptions. However, these interventions must be authorised in some way, and the procedures of authorisation are subject to ever deeper changes, variously related to social-structural fields and dimensions. A key background for concretising these introductory remarks, and to introduce contemporary life politics among Muslims, is the process of reform that took place especially in the second half of the 19th century in the most important centres of the Ottoman empire.1 Upon the intervention of Muslim reformers engaged as public intellectu­ als, educators, and advisors to government, traditional forms of Islamic reasoning acquired a public dimension: the process of formation of virtuous Muslim selves, originally finalised to salvation, increasingly ingrained into issues of collective welfare, social governance, economic development, and public morality. This is not to say that in the era

1 A first collective effort to connect the reform discourse in the waning Ottoman empire and especially in Egypt to contemporary issues involving Islam and gender in the European metropolis has ushered in a collective work that builds the imme­ diate antecedent to the present article (Salvatore, 2001a).

ALLIEVI_F4_52-77

56

10/21/02

12:06 PM

Page 56

 -   

prior to the advent of modern reform movements Muslim traditions were indifferent to the regulation of political authority and economic activities. Islamic jurisprudence ( fiqh) dealt indeed with a vast array of social issues ranging well beyond ritual obligations, and backed up the jurisprudence through a strong telos, defined by the pros­ perity of the community. However, a comprehensive concern for the ‘common good’, articulated with regard to standards set by the mod­ ern institutions of the state, society, and the economy (as well as the very conceptualisation of these three spheres) has been only devel­ oped by Muslim reformers (and their more secular counterparts who were often the reformers’ pupils). It occurred mainly through their social projects and media, in the historical context of crisis and demise of the Ottoman Empire, de-colonisation, and formation of nationstates. However, we cannot assume that the public intellectuals of the Islamic reform were just playing into the hands of the nation-state. They impacted on state educational and legal policies and initiated autonomous projects within the associational life of the main urban centres, whilst backing up both activities with a public discourse that brought to bear a distinctive view of the Muslim moral being. From that historical moment on, a whole spectrum of differentiated (and often competing) attitudes of personalities, groups and movements inspired by the reform of Islam has developed till today in the definition and collective pursuit of social goods (Salvatore, 1997). The advent of mass education and electronic media since especially the 1960s has further intensified the reform efforts and the compe­ tition among groups and individuals (Eickelman and Piscatori, 1996). What is shared by the public discourse of Muslim reformers and their follow-up movements in the 20th century is a twofold mark of distinction. First, they can hardly be described as ‘modernist’, in the sense that their discourse is not based on the view of atomised social selves engaging a direct relationship to an impartial (originally abso­ lutist) ruler, a view successfully developed in some parts of Europe and ambivalently transported by European powers into their colonial enterprises. The emerging forms of public engagement in the name of Islam (which we can define as ‘public Islam’: Salvatore, 2000) build on a distinctive type of legitimising discourse. Although it might fit the nation-state framework according to circumstances, interests and policies, public Islam is not an emanation of nation-state discourses (Messick, 1993, Asad, 1999, Gasper, 2001). The public engagement

ALLIEVI_F4_52-77

10/21/02

12:06 PM

Page 57

, ,     

57

of Muslim reformers is certainly inspired by a variety of sources of influence, but nonetheless rooted in a genuine sense of belonging to a tradition. It differs most notably from the secularist normative ideal, which builds a key element in nation-state discourse. A second mark of distinction is the reformer’s critique of local customs, situated mostly in the politics of authenticity, and the call for a revivification of the sacred core texts. This points to the process of negotiation and struggle internal to Muslim traditions. Though often oriented towards a glorified mythical past, such a conflicted process lies at the heart of the self-reforming project. The intellectual movement that positioned itself at the hub of the emerging public sphere is often associated with the key-word of Islamic ‘reform’ (ißlà˙). It took root in Egypt in the second half of the 19th century. The dilemmas faced and the solutions devised by the reformers cannot be formulated in terms of an allegedly ‘mod­ ernist’ approach of squeezing Islamic traditions into modern institu­ tions and leaving behind what was considered unsuitable. Although the reformers did in fact dismiss several methods and institutions of Islamic traditions in the educational and legal fields, they wanted to redress and make fit again—which is the meaning of ißlà˙, improp­ erly translated as ‘reform’—and not to discard the theological and conceptual apparatus of these traditions. A leitmotiv in the discourse of ißlà˙ was the emphasis laid on the necessary acquisition, by the faithful, of correct moral dispositions. This step was considered as the condition for being able to address and admonish a fellow Muslim and thereby rebuild a moral community of the faithful and contribute to its prosperity. This was an essential condition of the public reason envisioned by the ißlà˙, and it provided one major entry point of Islamic notions of reason into the structuring of public discourse. A crucial issue in this regard is the upcoming woman’s question, which turned out to be one of the most powerful topics for the Islamic reformers’ goal to publicise a distinctive model of education. The axis of gender and education through the inclusion of several classes, including peasants, builds a momentum in which a distinction from both colonial and nationalist discourses could be publicised. The ‘virtual school’ for girls of the leading Muslim reformer 'Abdallah al-Nadim (1845–1896) in forms of imagined dialogues published in his journal al-Ustàdh (‘the professor’), sets him apart from the later reformer Qasim Amin and even from the first Egyptian feminist Huda al-Sha'rawi, who are considered the pioneers of the discourse

ALLIEVI_F4_52-77

58

10/21/02

12:06 PM

Page 58

 -   

on the emancipation of the Muslim woman in Egypt (Herrera 1999), but who primarily addressed an educated audience. Al-Nadim’s goal was to address girls from both urban and rural backgrounds and from different social classes, and in some of his writings he used a colloquial form of Arabic. His ‘educational’ discourse was geared towards eliciting in the Muslim girls a traditional sense of obligation as future wives and mothers in the context of emerging forms of nuclear family fitting a national project of prosperity and indepen­ dence, within a socio-political arena dominated by colonialism and resistance to it. While being a sort of ‘pre-emancipatory’ discourse targeted to women, al-Nadim’s school prefigures the view of the ‘good Muslim woman’ that was to be later rearticulated under different social and historical circumstances by the movement of the ‘new veiling’ during the first half of the 1970s. Al-Nadim was a champion of a certain type of education, designed to provide tools for household activities and reflecting the image of the mother as the ‘cradle of the nation’. His programme was radical both in its anti-colonial spirit and in targeting the upcoming nation as a whole, and therefore those classes and categories of the population considered at risk of being evicted from the social fabric. He targeted especially the Muslim poor, in the context of extremely low school enrolment rates of Muslim girls, and thereby manifested a crucial concern of distinction from both colonial and nationalist programs of women’s education. This edu­ cational program was from the beginning combined with a specific Muslim dress code, which was designed to externalise women’s mod­ esty and simultaneously distinguish them from an emerging secu­ larised public (Herrera, 1999). The enforcement of a dress code evidencing the modesty and virtuosity of an educated Muslim woman has indeed been from the beginning a sensitive part of the reform discourse, even at a stage where it is expressed in ostentatiously neo­ patriarchal tones and only by male actors. The efforts of thinkers, associations and social movements trying to gain a sense for the idea and the wish to live as good Muslims (to live a ‘Muslim life’) under modern conditions have been partic­ ularly vigorous since the late 1920s, when movements like al-Ikhwàn al-Muslimùn (the Muslim Brethren) tried to make Islam fit the require­ ments of social development under the conditions of anti-colonial nation-state building. Within the Islamist socio-political movements and their discourses, the issue of the woman, i.e. the ‘new’ mother­

ALLIEVI_F4_52-77

10/21/02

12:06 PM

Page 59

, ,     

59

hood and housewifery, is more clearly inscribed in the project laying the seeds for a truly Islamic society to come, a virtuous community fitting and at the same time transcending the imperatives of national liberation. This has been particularly clear in a later period, like in the writings of Zaynab al-Ghazaly, the leader of the Muslim Sisters in Egypt from the 1960s to the 1980s (Zuhur, 1992). In the context of the crisis of the nationalist-developmentalist project, since the late 1960s new favourable conditions have been created for this kind of discourse and mobilisation, simultaneously finalised to self-realisation and reconstructing community, and Muslim ‘good life’. The contemporary publishing scene presents a steady flow of lit­ erature and manuals directed to the ‘Muslim woman’, many of them basically articulating the same combination of modesty and education, and catalogues of duties related not only to family and neighbourhood, but also to participation in the affairs of a wider community (poten­ tially ranging as wide as the whole transnational Islamic umma). It is symptomatic that contemporary Muslim public figures attribute a high value to religious education and guidance, which is considered as the appropriate path to the rediscovery of ‘true Islam’. Parallel to these developments there have been several initiatives, in Egypt (Herrera, 2001), like in India (Winkelmann, 2001) and elsewhere, to establish schools for the proper education of Muslim girls. The affiliation of these initiatives to the broader colonial/post-colonial reform movements is evident. In particular the advocacy of female education by Islamic reform movements gives credit to the argument, mentioned before, stress­ ing the internal logic of interventions within traditions, which induce a reform characterised by a self-disciplining reflection and modula­ tion. At the same time the specific forms of education for women, which are propagated in these discourses—motherhood, wifehood, household skills, etc. on the one hand, and general and/or religious education on the other—point to a tension between women’s entry into public worlds and the limitation of their activities to domestic­ ity. The phenomenon of the ‘new veiling’ somewhat symbolises and incorporates this tension. This complexity can be observed in different times and various contexts, and finds indeed parallels within Muslim ‘diasporas’ in Europe today. Here the potential of intervention on a tradition can be evinced even in a clearer way than in the context of Muslim majority societies.

ALLIEVI_F4_52-77

60

10/21/02

12:06 PM

Page 60

 -   

Revival, invention or redefinition of tradition? The Islamic headscarf in Europe

By moving to a micro-level of the analysis, we want to deepen the argument that a closer scrutiny of Muslim diasporas in Europe reveals a stronger power of living traditions, than the power reflected in the idea of a free floating, deliberately chosen religious identity, as illus­ trated, for example, in the captivating formula of ‘believing without belonging’ (Davie, 1990). What we are going to do is to look closer at the phenomenon of new veiling in two Western European societies—France and Germany.2 Without focusing on the practice of veiling as such, we will analyse the modalities through which Muslim tradition is reinterpreted by the individual Muslim living in a nonMuslim-majority society. The focus group of covered women in Western European societies provides an interesting case. On the one hand, the discourses of headscarf-wearing Muslim women reflect per­ tinently both continuities and transformations within traditions, and the hybrid forms of sociality which result from there. On the other hand, the public visibility of the Islamic headscarf in Western European societies has often been perceived in terms of an either/or logic, which is characteristic for public discourses on Islam in Europe. The headscarf has been either described as a sign of the ‘return’ to a static tradition, incompatible with Western standards of women’s emancipation, secularised publics, concepts of freedom and autonomy, etc. (e.g. Galotti, 1994; Altschull, 1995; Thömmes, 1993; Tibi, 2000). Or it has been interpreted as a religious marker leading per se to the emancipation of Muslim women and thereby indicating the move 2 This section is mainly based on a set of 40 qualitative interviews conducted by Schirin Amir-Moazami with veiled women of the second and third generation of Muslim immigrants in France (Marseille and Paris) and Germany (Berlin). The fieldwork has been carried out between Autumn 2000 and Autumn 2001. The inter­ viewees were aged between 16 and 33. The majority was either studying, or actively involved in a profession. Four women were not working in the period of the inter­ view because they had young children, but they mostly stressed their intention to continue to work or to study at a later stage of their lives. The majority lived in neighbourhoods considered as ‘socially disadvantaged’ (Kreuzberg, Wedding and Neukölln in Berlin; Northern banlieues in France). Coming from migrant families or (as in two cases) from families of migrant families, they all shared a similar socio­ economical background (mainly working class). All women were involved in a Muslim organisation, either as members, and sometimes in leading positions, or in terms of benefiting more or less regularly from their services (prayer rooms, conferences, women’s groups, religious instruction, etc.)

ALLIEVI_F4_52-77

10/21/02

12:06 PM

Page 61

, ,     

61

towards a ‘modernisation’ of Islam in Europe (Nökel, 1997; Venel, 1999; Karakasoglu-Aydin, 2000; Klinkhammer, 2000). The phenomenon of veiling in European societies cannot simply be interpreted as a religious practice transmitted from one genera­ tion to the next. On the one hand it is not mandatory, on the other hand we can observe a constant rise of young covered women, for whom the headscarf mainly externalises a discovery of a different kind of Islam, distinct from the images propagated in the majority society, and also different from the versions transmitted by the for­ mer generation. However, even if we might find elements of ‘invented tradition’ by looking at covered women in Europe, on a closer scrutiny the importance given to the headscarf occurs mainly with the backup of a more solid ground of a living tradition of women’s modesty, which was duly reshaped in the discursive and socio-political con­ text of reform in the colonial era. A crucial aspect in this context can be denoted as the ‘intergen­ erational twist’, which leads to both a rediscovery via redefinition of Muslim traditions and to shifts in terms of religious authority. As we will show later in more detail, the women with headscarves often oppose their own versions of Islam to the ones of the former gen­ eration, and challenge through their education and religious knowl­ edge certain norms and values hitherto taken for granted. They criticise, for example, the practice of forced marriages by pointing to their right to choose their husbands, or at least to accept or to refuse the parents’ suggestions—a right which they support with ref­ erence to the Qur"àn. The practice of forced veiling is also con­ demned with reference to the necessity to discover its importance in a conscious way. It is important to remember in this context that the transmission of religious knowledge and practice, or of religious traditions in a wider sense of the term, is not necessarily a linear process, a onesided transmission from one generation to the next, but can very well work the other way around. This aspect is crucial in the dis­ courses enacted by covered women. The women do not only often claim to have encouraged their mothers to cover themselves or to don the veil in a ‘correct way’, as against supposedly incorrect custom-based fashions. They also commonly underline that they have sometimes encouraged their parents to reflect over the meanings and implications of religious practices. However, the extended family affects the ways in which the ‘new’ forms of the ‘true Islam’ are

ALLIEVI_F4_52-77

62

10/21/02

12:06 PM

Page 62

 -   

moulded and articulated by the women. The question of gender roles and relations shall further on serve as a key example to scrutinise this ambiguity. Contrary to the dominant discourses on gender equality in Western European societies, the covered women interviewed in France and Germany mostly refer to the ‘Islamic’ approach to the ‘complemen­ tarity’ of sexes. Consequently, they associate a distinct set of tasks and duties with a relatively confident conception of gender distinc­ tion. Thus, the women consider men as responsible for feeding the family through work outside of the household, and women as pri­ marily enclosed in the domestic sphere, being in charge of the house and kids. This division is often regarded as sacred and God-given and therefore as a more or less untouchable norm. According to this distinction the Islamic headscarf constitutes an instrument for hiding female sexual attractiveness, since women are considered as particularly seductive. By pointing to such ‘naturally given’ differences between men and women, the women reproduce a common dichotomy that associates the body with femininity and the mind with masculinity (see Butler, 1990). While articulating the attempt to overcome this dichotomy by hiding the female body and thereby getting closer to the mind, which is associated with the other sex, the women in fact reinforce the boundaries by following dress codes that are exclusively attributed to the feminine sphere: the headscarf incorporates the taboo of displaying femininity, while it is itself a strong expression of femininity. On the other hand, the attempt of ‘going back’ to the noblest dimension of the person, the mind, by hiding markers of one’s sexuality, presupposes the existence of a certain essence ‘responsible for the reproduction and naturalisation of the category of sex itself ’ (Butler, 1990, 20). In the distinction between the ‘sacred’ and the ‘aesthetic body’ (see also Göle, 1996), the women sometimes put forward a quite polarising discourse vis-à-vis the majority of non-covered women, whose sinful behaviour puts them opposite the ‘good Muslim women’. Thereby some women construct a scheme which does not leave much space for varieties or in-between components: either a woman wears the headscarf, or she is symbolically naked. To be covered implies thus to be purified, whereas being uncovered symbolises to be ‘open’— a term commonly used by the women—and to be therefore exposed to seduction. It signifies impurity, since the risk itself to seduce is considered as ˙aràm.

ALLIEVI_F4_52-77

10/21/02

12:06 PM

Page 63

, ,     

63

However, the women are by no means unanimous in their way to use the headscarf or to follow Islamic dress codes. Sometimes they diminish by themselves the distinction between the ‘pure’ covered and the ‘impure’ open woman by embracing aesthetic aspects of sexuality—make-up, high heals or tight clothes. This is why some women distinguish different practices of veiling and oppose ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ ways to wear the headscarf. The ‘wrong’ version can be the ‘tradi­ tional’ usage (i.e. leaving some hair visible), as it has often been worn by the first generation of Muslim immigrants (see Gaspard and Khos­ rokhavar, 1995, 34ff.). Here, the headscarf also functions as a marker of belonging to a popular class. We can observe a clear tension between the tradition of veiling as reconstructed by the majority of the women as specifically religious and scripture-based and what could be defined as the ‘migrated traditions’ (also defined as ‘new veiling’ in some literature on Muslim majority societies: cf. MacLeod, 1991; Adelkhah, 1991; Göle, 1996). The ‘wrong’ way of wearing the headscarf can also be the more commodified and aestheticised ver­ sion, as mentioned above. In this sense, a clear distinction between the aesthetic body, usually connected to ‘Western’ sexual standards, and the sacred Islamic body is actually questioned through the com­ bination of ‘sacred’ and ‘aesthetic’ elements practised by the women themselves. Through this interplay of sacred and aesthetic elements the headscarf might even become a vehicle of sexual attraction. More importantly, the denouncement by some women of right and wrong versions of the headscarf marks an internal boundary, according to which the ‘community’ of veiled women is getting much more fragmented than often presented in public discourses, or by the women themselves. It is thus not necessarily always within pre­ supposed dichotomies, such as German/Turkish, Muslim/Christian, Oriental/Western, etc. that distinctions are put forward. The bound­ aries are much more differentiated and can very well also be con­ structed along the lines of different versions and interpretations of Islam, although the women refer to the same sources (cf. also Schiffauer, 2000). The different versions of covering can therefore become an element in a strategy of life politics based on a ‘distinction’ in the Bourdieuian sense, though not in the first instance in terms of belong­ ing to a certain social class, but rather in the sense of belonging to the group of ‘good’ vs. ‘less good’ Muslims.

ALLIEVI_F4_52-77

10/21/02

64

12:06 PM

Page 64

 -   

Between ‘political motherhood’ and the entry into public sphere

The emphasis in the discourses of covered women lies in the first instance on the importance of (Muslim) motherhood which Pnina Werbner (1999) characterises as ‘political motherhood’. This reveals indeed similarities to theological-political discourses of female or male Muslim activists in Muslim majority societies both at the turn of the century (e.g. Shakry, 1998; Kandiyoti, 1998) and today (e.g. AbuLughod, 1998; Riesebrodt, 2000; Adelkhah, 2001). In order to enhance the status of maternity some women refer to the Qur"àn, and/or to a ˙adìth, in which the role of the mother is sacredly validated. In this perspective the nature of the woman as the mother and ‘lady of the house’ is by no means regarded as a limitation, but as a priv­ ilege in a double sense. Firstly, because the woman is relieved of earning money, this duty being exclusively predestined for men. Secondly, since in this conception giving birth implies ‘by nature’ bringing up the children, women are considered as those who trans­ mit norms and values to the next generation and therefore retain a large social and political responsibility. As the ‘first teachers of the children’,3 they are supposed to be in charge of the construction or maintenance of society as much as of the Muslim community. In this sense the domestic sphere is not a merely private domain which is formative for processes of personality-building, but turns out to be a largely societal space. It provides and substitutes a sense of belong­ ing, which the wider public (i.e. public institutions) often fails to pro­ vide to Muslim minorities in Europe, and in the longer run contributes to the rise of a ‘counter-public’, as Leonie Herwartz-Emden puts it for the German context (Herwartz-Emden, 1998, 79). Consequently, the concept of work (outside of the domestic sphere) as a source for women’s self-realisation is, if not absent, connoted differently in the life conceptions of these women. Working outside of the house is not in the first instance associated with the attain­ ment of personal autonomy, but is rather considered as a necessary tool for supporting the family and thus as a means to serve the col­ lective welfare. However, the idea of women’s autonomy is not com­ pletely dismissed in the discourses of these women. It is articulated

3

Interview, Marseille, May 2001.

ALLIEVI_F4_52-77

10/21/02

12:06 PM

Page 65

, ,     

65

in different terms and from a different angle and not without a cer­ tain degree of ambivalence. We face a growing complexity when we deepen the analysis of the women’s understanding of public/private engagements. In fact, at a closer scrutiny one could see that although most women pri­ marily refer to those Islamic norms that confine women to the pri­ vate realm and assign them mostly the roles of mother and spouse, this does not necessarily signify passivity or indifference towards pub­ lic engagements. Most notably when being asked about their per­ sonal life strategies, the women quite often distance themselves from their confident claims for strictly defined gender roles. Those who are working or studying emphasise their ambition to continue either. The role of the housewife and mother therefore does not necessar­ ily prevent the women from occupying or envisaging other roles. Moreover, when asked about their personal life conceptions, the women often put forward their goal to share tasks and duties both inside and outside of the household despite the supposedly Islamic role of women being complementary to men. More adequately, the concept of complementarity itself can become flexible to the extent that some women refer to the model of the Prophet in order to stress the desirability, in Islam, of husbands who help their wives in household duties, since ‘the Prophet also used to play with the kids’.4 Especially their longing for education, but also for a profession, alters the boundaries of what their own version of Islam prescribes in terms of women’s participation in public life. Both general and religious education turn out to be one of the most important fea­ tures in their life politics, while it is not always limited to the goal of achieving better skills for raising children or more effective ways of transmitting Islamic norms and values to the next generation. The tradition of stable gender roles is thus rhetorically preserved, but in practice renegotiated, according to the concrete life situations in which the women find themselves. Or to put it differently, for the majority of the women the reference to a predefined gender rela­ tion often turns out to be more appreciative than normative. It serves as a standard for maintaining an Islamic ideal of ‘complementarity’ as opposed to ‘equality’, but not always as a yardstick for orienting

4

Interview, Marseille, April 2001.

ALLIEVI_F4_52-77

66

10/21/02

12:06 PM

Page 66

 -   

conduct in a once-and-for-all defined manner. On a closer scrutiny, the ideal of clear-cut gender roles might be subordinated to concrete life situations (career ambitions, study goals, or simply the necessity to contribute financially to the family income). It is nonetheless necessary to remember that the women often have to face rather restrictive practices of gender inequality within their own family contexts. This clearly puts limits on their ambitions for autonomous life goals and public participation in society. The weight of the institution of the family (as of a network with rela­ tively closed milieu boundaries) seems often to be neglected in approaches that overestimate the processes of emancipation and indi­ vidualisation among Muslims in Europe (Babès, 1997; Venel, 1999; Klinkhammer, 2000). These women are the ones who often experi­ ence repression, once they go too far in their criticism of certain norms and values, taken for granted by the former generations, or once they gain too much autonomy from their family environment (see Khosrokhavar 1997b; Saint-Blancat, 1997; this has also been confirmed by some of the interviewees in the present study). These young women often experience a strong tension between an inferiority in the family environment and the autonomy they have gained in society (see Saint-Blancat, 1997, 124). Most commonly women of the second generation are those onto whom ‘migrated tra­ ditions’ are projected the most pointedly—customs that are supposed to be in danger of extinction in the ‘host’ societies, such as family honour, women’s sexual abstinence outside of marriage, or (quasi-) arranged marriages. This tension itself reveals the sociological ambi­ guity of unspecified notions of traditions as inherited customs that ignore the inherently dynamic character of living traditions, which cannot just be transplanted from one place to another without under­ going changes and creating or modifying fields of social power.5 The scarce capacity of a tradition to ingrain into the mechanisms of social fields (here mainly the school, peer groups, leisure time, associational life) is what can trigger either an attempt to reject, or to revitalise it. Thus, the increasing involvement of the women in these fields of semi-public and public life, including leading positions in female sections of Muslim organisations, and the constantly rising

5 As Edward Shils puts it: ‘The revival of a tradition almost inevitably involves changing the tradition’ (Shils, 1981, 246).

ALLIEVI_F4_52-77

10/21/02

12:06 PM

Page 67

, ,     

67

levels of education—compared to the former generation—provide them with tools to struggle against male dominance and differential treatments in the family milieu. Here Islam can become a means for reinterpreting certain elements of ‘migrated traditions’ experienced as too strict. The defence of Islam is then situated in a critique of custom. Islam then becomes the religion that prescribes equality before God, regardless of gender. The most relevant aspect in which ‘equality before God’ is transposed into daily life experiences con­ cerns the demand for the (sacred) right to accumulate knowledge through education, which is not limited to the domestic sphere and which therefore requires some involvement in public life. In order to back up this demand, the women frequently refer to the ‘model of the Prophet’, who prescribed to both men and women to search for knowledge, ‘even if it is in China’.6 Or they refer to female Muslim figures like 'À"isha, the wife of the Prophet, and her active involvement in society. Or, more generally, they point to the model of the Prophet himself, through whose life and teaching a large amount of rights was granted to women. In this context we should additionally consider the counterdiscursive potential of such arguments. The women not only oppose their idealised model of women’s rights in Islam to their parents’ understanding of gender relations. They also argue assertively against the dominant images of the oppressive and anti-egalitarian character of Islam towards women. One can often witness an insistence on the privileged position of ‘women in Islam’, which is targeted against images and discourses on Islam in European societies. The experi­ ences of a strong stigmatisation, often channelled through public dis­ courses on the backwardness of women in Islam (see Pinn and Wehler, 1995), obviously affect the way in which Islam is lived, reclaimed, and represented by these women. As in the colonial context, gender roles and relations in Islam pro­ vide a key issue in the struggle for counter-discursive strategies in the lives of these women. They manifest the importance to be pub­ licly involved explicitly as Muslim women, by issuing a distinctive and positive image of Islam. The result is quite often a sort of mir­ ror image of the stereotypes commonly projected within French or German public spheres on the unequal and oppressive character of

6

Interviews, Berlin, November 2000; Marseille, May 2001.

ALLIEVI_F4_52-77

68

10/21/02

12:06 PM

Page 68

 -   

Islam towards women: a ‘duplication’ effect that leads to a sort of ‘hyperdiscourse’ of Islam created by auto- and heterostereotypes largely mediated by mass media (Salvatore, 2001b). Consequently, the women tend to turn these images upside down and present Western conceptions of gender relations as a source of women’s oppression. While claiming purity for ‘women in Islam’, they under­ line the abusive constraint of external beauty ‘in the West’. The re­ definition of Muslim tradition produces a token of distinction towards both the first generation and the dominant discourses in society. By criticising the authoritarian methods of education, with which most of the young women have been confronted throughout their socialisation, they valorise an education based on mutual understand­ ing and equality, again by invoking Islam. The ‘wrong reference’ to Islam, as some women denounce it, used by the former generation as a means to legitimise prohibitions and restrictions, is uncovered and replaced by their own ‘right’ and ‘purified’ versions. These are based on (re)-readings and a (re)-interpretation of the sacred texts, and provide a ground for the struggle for women’s dignity. The ref­ erence to Islam here becomes a means in the battle for more equality in those contexts in which the former generation has expanded the spheres of ˙aràm for women. According to the concrete situation and also the socially situated contexts in which one lives, Islam can thus be a reference for both women’s limitation to domesticity, and for redefining gender roles, and therefore allowing for a distinctive entry of young Muslim women into the public sphere. These two claims can even occur in one and the same discourse. Which of them turns out to be the most powerful is still an open question, exposed to constant shifts. The emerging life conceptions are incommensurable in culturally specific ways with the dominant ones in the host societies, which none­ theless might, at certain points, have informed them. At the same they are quite different from any previous understanding of women’s roles in the household and family, in most of the cases experienced and transmitted by the former generation. The reinterpretations of Muslim tradition developed by these young Muslim women can thus be assessed as an original transition from a social order in which patriarchal structures are increasingly threatened, to another kind of social order. However, this ‘new order’ cannot be assimilated to the one dominant at least in the discourse of the ‘host’ societies. It is

ALLIEVI_F4_52-77

10/21/02

12:06 PM

Page 69

, ,     

69

our contention that the life politics of these young Muslim women impinge upon Muslim traditions in somewhat unprecedented ways. Among the family and community milieus, the women’s conscious and consistent recurrence to Islam in several cases initiates indeed changes in the way in which certain rules are negotiated internally to Muslim traditions and communities or—as in Farhad Khosrokhavar’s (1997b) or Stefano Allievi’s (see his chapter in this volume) words— ‘neo-communities’ in Europe. For example, the reference to equal­ ity in Islam often holds a key position in the process of re-evaluating gender roles. It is invoked by the women for negotiations and com­ promises, especially as far as the demands for female education and marriage strategies are concerned. Traditions are thereby not com­ pletely turned upside down or erased, but redefined from ‘within’ and in a framework available to the women within their family inter­ locutors. They consistently demand—though in different guises—the ‘return’ to a Muslim way of life, and at the same time condemn those interpretations of Islam that may confine them into the domes­ tic space or turn them into subjects of male dominance. This strat­ egy enhances their power by situating their claims at the core of the tradition. More than that, it gives them interpretative authority, according to a claim of moral correctness that is at the core of the classic repertoire of several generations of Muslim reformers. We maintain that these redefinitions of tradition follow in the first instance an internal logic, a reform of tradition from ‘within’, although influenced, of course, by the redefinition of fields of social power. As claimed by Alasdair MacIntyre, it is namely this internal con­ tested component which keeps traditions alive: ‘traditions, when vital, embody continuities of conflict’ (1981, 222). At the same time, being familiar with the legal systems and dom­ inant norms of the societies in which they have been growing up, these women demand active participation as Muslims through their status as citizens to an extent that differs substantially from the socalled ‘quiet Islam’ (Cesari, 1995, 34) of the former generation. This attitude erodes both the image of their passive role in society, and challenges the assumption of their ‘integration’ into the dominant rules and norms of life conceptions. We see in this challenge a poten­ tial most notably for unveiling the contradictions inherent in the dis­ courses of equality and secularity themselves, which represent contested, and still largely unfulfilled norms in Western European societies, and

ALLIEVI_F4_52-77

70

10/21/02

12:06 PM

Page 70

 -   

which often serve as instruments of social control and hegemonic politics towards the claims-raising of minorities. This is also evidenced in the discourses of the young Muslim women interviewed. They are largely aware of the unbalanced effects that ‘abstract universalism’ can engender (see Khosrokhavar, 1997a). They critically point, for example, to the ‘hypocritical’ attitude of the public conception of French or German society as deeply anchored in human rights tra­ ditions, while Muslim women face restrictions and sanctions when being covered in public institutions. Or they protest against the unfair­ ness entailed by the double standards with which dominant concepts like laicité in France, or the status of co-operation between state and religion in Germany are handled, once the question of Muslim rep­ resentation is on the agenda. By uncovering the ‘cultural impregna­ tion’ (Habermas, 1993, 181) of such concepts—contrary to their often proclaimed neutrality—the women request to open them up to the new cultural-religious constellations in society, engendered by processes of immigration. They thus reclaim extended possibilities for public forms of religious expressions, by taking up and reinterpreting dom­ inant tools and norms. This politics of re-description challenges dom­ inant interpretations which, especially in France, often ask Muslims to limit religious expressions to the private domain. At the same time it dislocates dominant notions of the legitimate boundaries of the public sphere, as manifest in the enduring hostility—also reflected in bans and prohibitions—of wide sectors of European societies towards the active presence and participation of veiled women in the public sphere. Conclusion: Muslims’ social activism and the boundaries of the public sphere The example of veiled women in France and Germany is an example of a phenomenon that can be observed on a wider level and is char­ acteristic for an intergenerational struggle for the transformations of Islam(s) thereby engendered in contemporary Europe. Accordingly, a relatively strong family network and related custom-based versions of Islam are confronted with increasingly intellectualised and localised views (in the sense of a recourse to the sacred sources and a per­ manent reflection on the implications of what it means ‘to be Muslim’ in a non-Muslim society) put forward by the younger generation,

ALLIEVI_F4_52-77

10/21/02

12:06 PM

Page 71

, ,     

71

often under the label of an ‘authentic’ Islam. This confrontation also contributes to shifts in Muslim authority towards more flexible and pluralised forms. The ensuing politics of authenticity serves to further fragment traditional sources of authority (as, for example mosquebased imams, or parental authority) to the extent that the locus of the ‘real’ Islam and the identity of those who are allowed to speak on its behalf are becoming elusive. This tendency is obviously reinforced by the comparatively high degree of social power and competence among second and third generation Muslims, as manifest in their networking and interacting with the rest of society, their familiarity with its intellectual avatars and political tools, and, most importantly, their mastery of the dom­ inant language. Traditional sources of authority are thereby not nec­ essarily or always directly attacked, but challenged from ‘within’ and also with the internal tools of argument and confutation that are part of the dominant tradition. This points to a continuity in the way in which a discursive Muslim tradition is shaped and redefined via internal interventions, which is characteristic for our understanding of (religious) traditions in more general terms. Especially the refer­ ences to the ‘true Islam’ and the politics of authenticity, while being inspired by complex sources of influence, find antecedents in the colonial/post-colonial situation of Muslim majority societies. Both contexts—though different in time and space—can be compared inso­ far as the intervention and domination by other traditions seem to increase the degree of reflexivity as much as the efforts for self-reform in Muslim tradition—whatever the concrete outcomes of these efforts might be. In a wider perspective these processes might at the same time ini­ tiate more general shifts from primarily ritual to social forms of Islam in Europe—as Islam is becoming an all encompassing source which structures the daily life conduct and at the same time serves as a source of emancipation from the stereotype of the distinct Other based on non-European ethnic origins. This yet speculative assump­ tion finds bits of evidence, for example, in the transformations of mosques and praying rooms of Muslim organisations from sites pri­ marily devoted to ritual practice to institutions with much wider pro­ grams, ranging from conferences, through religious instruction, to a variety of socio-cultural engagements. These developments do not necessarily erase the power of religious personnel, but diversify it and make it more subject to control and sanction. The extended

ALLIEVI_F4_52-77

72

10/21/02

12:06 PM

Page 72

 -   

role of imams from preachers to socio-political leaders and brokers who increasingly negotiate between the community and local and public institutions points to such changes (see Bistolfi, 1995, 40). However, it would be reductive to explain the increased social engage­ ments of Muslim organisations solely in terms of the ‘new’ context or through the development of a sort of ‘transnational literacy’ of migrants and especially the youth. The confrontation with—and the interaction within—European societies has indeed accelerated a process of reform and the shaping of a social and public Islam that in Muslim majority societies has emerged much earlier. This indicates, once more, a continuity and not a disruption of Muslim tradition, or bet­ ter, a continuity of its reform. This wider background is necessary to understand the more specific and multiple challenges implicated in the life politics of Islamically committed, and covered, young Muslim women in Europe. If our observation is correct, then the roots of transformations in organised forms of Muslim associational and public life cannot be explained through the ‘good’ or ‘bad’ interaction between Muslim ‘communities’ and European authorities alone, but also with refer­ ence to the underlying life politics that are predominantly shaped by the reform of tradition. As often confirmed in the literature, many of the most powerful Muslim organisations have increased their port­ folio of socio-cultural activities in order to adjust to the demands of the younger generation which is interested in finding linkages between the majority society and their search for a conduct as ‘good’ Muslims therein. Hence, coping with these demands also follows an internal dynamic. This phenomenon cannot be easily explained by pointing to the frequent suspicions and accusations put forward by public authorities and media, according to which these forms of Muslim public life are mere tactics of Muslim organisations designed to instru­ mentalise social engagement for the political mobilisation and radi­ calisation of young people, or for displaying a different, more apolitical face to the public. Simultaneously, such extended and mutating strategies of Muslim groups necessitate a capacity to cope with legal procedures and local political actors and public authorities in the ongoing struggles for recognition and representation—a tendency which is indeed observ­ able among large parts of Muslim organisations in Europe (Bistolfi, 1995; Frégosi, 1998; Seufert, 1999; Amiraux, 2001). This can be inter­ preted as a step towards an involvement of socially and politically

ALLIEVI_F4_52-77

10/21/02

12:06 PM

Page 73

, ,     

73

engaged Muslims within European public spheres, instead of their isolation, as often supposed in public discourses. On the other hand, expressing a basic loyalty to the constitutional states in Europe and the acceptance of their basic norms does not necessarily imply an adaptive step towards the privatisation of Islam and Muslims’ ‘inte­ gration’ into pre-established normative frameworks. What emerges can be characterised as a ‘both/and’ logic of social action. It points to a variety and open-endedness of processes of redefinition of Muslim tradition in Europe, not yet once-for-ever definable, and probably remaining conflicted and multi-levelled. Again, the underlying life politics—as in the analysed case of young cov­ ered women—designs a model of potential civil activism that is not strictly homogeneous with the dominant norms, so that while it could fit an expanded view of public life in the host societies, it will most likely continue to stir up the suspicion of public authorities and media discourses for not being securely assimilated. This misrecognition cre­ ates strains in the normative structures themselves of European public spheres, which risk betraying their promise of inclusiveness towards forms of associated and public life furthering citizens’ participation via the autonomous organisation of their own lives. It also relativises the argument according to which pluralistic and liberal structures in European societies have facilitated the emergence of organised forms of Islam (Schiffauer, 2000; Amiraux, 2001). The control of the public sphere by actors such as journalists, politicians, or scholars, who publicly speak on behalf of Muslims, and the systematic limitation for Muslim actors to represent them­ selves collectively, clearly delimits the supposedly open potential of the public sphere and reduces the possibilities for ‘non-conformist’ Muslims to become equal actors in society. It can be interpreted as a hegemonic policy of representation, dominated by the logic of speaking about and not with the Other. The way in which public debates on the Islamic headscarf have so far been dominated by public intellectuals, politicians and journalists and only rarely left spaces for the women to speak for themselves is a key example in this regard (see Amir-Moazami, 1999, and 2001; Lutz, 1999). To conclude, we would like to reiterate that the increasing demands by Muslims to be publicly represented, which lead to questioning certain public norms (ranging from a reconsideration of gender mix­ ity to food consumption in educational institutions), challenges the idea of the ‘friendly’ coexistence with an ‘abstract, antiseptic Other’

ALLIEVI_F4_52-77

74

10/21/02

12:06 PM

Page 74

 -   

(Zizek, 1998) as between members of a pre-established consensus. This situation turns Muslims into very concrete, i.e. ‘agonistic’ citi­ zens, standing up and raising claims that might shake some taken for granted—and symbolically powerful—markers of ‘consensus’ within Western European public spheres. Again, the outcomes of these chal­ lenges are still multiple and open-ended. So far, we suggest to con­ ceive of ‘integration’—to the extent we want to stick to this key-word as a goal to be pursued within Western societies with significant and growing Muslim populations—in a different way, namely as the devel­ opment of distinctive, and often competing forms of Islamically based social agency within a plurality of traditions, which mutually affect each other. REFERENCES Abu-Lughod, Lila (ed.) (1998), Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Adelkhah, Fariba (1991), La Révolution sous le voile, Paris: Karthala. ———. (2001), ‘Sexe, amour, république’, in Jeunesses d’Iran. Les voix du changement, Collections Monde, Autrement, 126, 150–164. Ahmed, Laila (1992), Women and Gender in Islam. Roots of a Modern Debate. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Altschull, Elisabeth (1995), Le voile contre l’école, Paris: Le Seuil. Amiraux, Valérie (2001), Acteurs de l’islam entre l’Allemagne et Turquie. Parcours militants et expériences religieuses, Paris: L’Harmattan. Amir-Moazami, Schirin (1999), ‘Schleierhafte Debatten. Die Konstruktion des Anderen im Diskurs der deutschen und französischen Kopftuchgegner’, in Jahrbuch für Religionswissenschaften und Theologie der Religionen, 7/8. ———. (2001), ‘Hybridity and Anti-Hybridity: The Islamic Headscarf and its Oppo­ nents in the French Public Sphere’, in Armando Salvatore (ed.), Muslim Traditions and Modern Techniques of Power, Yearbook of the Sociology of Islam, 3, Hamburg: Lit Verlag, New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 309–329. Asad, Talal (1993), Genealogies of Religion. Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam, Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press. ———. (1998), ‘On the Notion of Discursive Tradition’, talk given at the 2nd ses­ sion of the Summer Institute on The Islamic World and Modernity, working group on Muslims, Practices, and the Public Sphere, Washington, D.C., 11 August. ———. (1999), ‘Religion, Nation-State, Secularism’, in Peter van der Veer and Hartmut Lehmann (eds.), Nation and Religion. Perspectives on Europe and Asia, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 188–192. Babès, Laïla (1997), L’islam positif. La religion des jeunes musulmans de France, Paris: L’Harmattan. Bellah, Robert N. (1991), Beyond Belief. Essays on Religion in a Post-Traditional Word, Berkeley, Los Angeles and Oxford: University of California Press. Bistolfi, Robert (1995), ‘Approches de l’islam dans l’union européene’, in François Zabbel and Robert Bistolfi (eds.), Islams d’Europe. Intégration ou insertion commu­ nautaire?, Paris: Editions de l’Aube, 13–63.

ALLIEVI_F4_52-77

10/21/02

12:06 PM

Page 75

, ,     

75

Butler, Judith (1990), Gender Trouble. Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, New York and London: Routledge. Césari, Jocelyne (1995), ‘L’islam en France. Naissance d’une religion’, in Hommes & Migrations, 1183, 33–40. Davie, Grace (1990), ‘Believing without belonging: Is this the future of religion in Britain?’, in Social Compass, 37 (4), 455–469. Eickelman, Dale and James Piscatori (1996), Muslim Politics. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Frégosi, Franck (1998), ‘Les problèmes d’organisation de la religion musulmane en France’, in Esprit, 239, 109–136. Galeotti, Anna Elisabetta (1993), ‘Citizenship and equality. The place of toleration’, in Political Theory, 21 (4), 585–605. Gaspard, François and Farhad Khosrokhavar (1995), Le foulard et la République, Paris: La Découverte. Gasper, Michael (2001), ‘Abdallah Nadim, Islamic Reform, and ‘Ignorant’ Peasants: State-Building in Egypt?’ in Armando Salvatore (ed.), Muslim Traditions and Modern Techniques of Power, Yearbook of the Sociology of Islam, 3, Hamburg: Lit Verlag and New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 75–92. Göle, Nilüfer (1996), The Forbidden Modern. Civilisation and Veiling, Michigan: Michigan University Press. Habermas, Jürgen (1993), ‘Anerkennung in einem demokratischen Rechtsstaat’, in Charles Taylor (ed.), Multikulturalismus und die Politik der Anerkennung. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 147–196. Herrera, Linda (1999), A Public Sphere Teacher: 'Abdalla Nadim and his Virtual Schools for Muslim Girls and Boys (1892–93), unpublished manuscript. ———. (2001), ‘Accommodating Disco and Qur"àn: Lay Women Pedagogues and the Education of Metropolitan Muslims’, in Armando Salvatore (ed.), Muslim Traditions and Modern Techniques of Power, Yearbook of the Sociology of Islam, 3, Hamburg: Lit Verlag and New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 225–239. Hervieu-Léger, Danièlle (1993), La religion pour mémoire, Paris: Cerf. Herwartz-Emden, Leonie (1998), ‘Öffentlichkeit, Multikulturalität, Geschlechter­ verhältnis’, in Ingrid Gololin, Marianne Krüger-Portratz and Meinert A. Meyer (eds.), Pluralität und Bildung, Opladen: Leske und Budrich, 63–85. Kandiyoti, Deniz (1998), ‘Some Awkward Questions on Women and Modernity in Turkey’, in Abu-Lughod, Lila (ed.), Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 270–287. Karakasoglu-Aydin, Yasemin (2000), Muslimische Religiosität und Erziehungsvorstellungen: eine Untersuchung bei türkischen Pädagogikstudentinnen in Deutschland, Frankfurt/Main: IKO Verlag für Interkulturelle Kommunikation. Khosrokhavar, Farhad (1997a), ‘L’universel abstrait, le politique et la construction de l’islamisme comme forme d’altérité’, in Michel Wieviorka (ed.), Une société fragmentée? Le multiculturalisme en débat, Paris: La Découverte. ———. (1997b), L’islam des jeunes, Paris: Flammarion. Klinkhammer, Gritt (2000), Moderne Formen islamischer Lebensführung. Eine qualitative empirische Untersuchung zur Religiosität sunnitisch geprägter Türkinnen in Deuschland, Marburg: Diagonal Verlag. Luckmann, Thomas (1991), Die unsichtbare Religion, Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp. Lutz, Helma (1999), ‘Anstößige Köpftücher—Kopftuch-Debatten in den Niederlanden’, in Ruth Klein-Hessling, Sigrid Nökel and Karin Werner (eds.), Der neue Islam der Frauen. Weibliche Lebenspraxis in der globalisierten Moderne. Fallstudien aus Afrika, Asien und Europa, Bielefeld: Transcript. MacIntyre, Alasdair (1981), After Virtue. A Study in Moral Theory, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.

ALLIEVI_F4_52-77

76

10/21/02

12:06 PM

Page 76

 -   

———. (1988), Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, London: Duckworth. MacLeod, Arlene E. (1991), Accommodating Protest. Working Women, the New Veiling, and Change in Cairo, New York: Columbia University Press. Messick, Brinkley (1993), The Calligraphic State. Textual Domination and History in a Muslim Society, Berkley: University of California Press. Nökel, Siegrid (1997), ‘Vielleicht bin ich so was wie eine Emanze.’ Islam und Authentizität in Deutschland’, in Feministische Studien, 2, 6–22. Pinn, Irmgard and Marlies Wehner (1995), EuroPhantasien. Die islamische Frau aus west­ licher Sicht, Duisburg: Diss. Riesebrodt, Martin (2000), Die Rückkehr der Religionen. Fundamentalismus und der ‘Kampf der Kulturen’, München: Beck. Roy, Olivier (1998), ‘Naissance d’un Islam européen’, in Esprit, 239, 10–35. Saint-Blancat, Chantal (1997), L’islam de la diaspora, Bayard: Paris. Salvatore, Armando (1997), Islam and the Political Discourse of Modernity, Reading: Ithaca Press. ———. (2000), ‘Social Differentiation, Moral Authority and Public Islam in Egypt: The Path of Mustafa Mahmud’, Anthropology Today, 6 (2), 12–15. ———. (ed.) (2001a), Muslim Traditions and Modern Techniques of Power, Yearbook of the Sociology of Islam, 3, Hamburg: Lit Verlag and New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers. ———. (2001b), ‘Introduction: The Problem of the Ingraining of Civilizing Traditions into Social Governance’, in Armando Salvatore (ed.), Muslim Traditions and Modern Techniques of Power, Yearbook of the Sociology of Islam, 3, Hamburg: Lit Verlag and New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 9–42. Schiffauer, Werner (2000), Die Gottesmänner. Türkische Islamisten in Deutschland. Frankfurt/ Main: Suhrkamp. Shakry, Omnia (1998), ‘Schooled Mothers and Structured Play: Child Rearing in the Turn-of-the-Century Egypt’, in Abu-Lughod, Lila (ed.), Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 127–169. Shils, Edward (1981), Tradition, London and Boston: Faber and Faber. Seufert, Günter (1999), ‘Die Milli-Görüs-Bewegung (AMGT/IGMG): zwischen Integration und Isolation’, in Günter Seufert (ed.), Turkish Islam and Europe. Türkischer Islam und Europa, Stuttgart: Steiner, 295–322. Thömmes, Jürgen (1993), ‘Islamischer Fundamentalismus in Frankreich. Die ‘affaire des foulards’ 1989, in Jörg Bergmann, Alois Hahn, Thomas Luckmann (eds.), Religion und Kultur. Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, special issue, 33, Köln: Westdeutscher Verlag, 192–308. Tibi, Bassam (1998), Europa ohne Identität? Die Krise der multikulturellen Gesellschaft, München: Bertelsmann. ———. (2000), Der Islam in Deutschland. Muslime in Deutschland, Stuttgart and München: Deutsche Verlagsanstalt. Tietze, Nikola (2001), ‘Managing Borders: Muslim Religiosity Among Young Men in France and Germany’, in Armando Salvatore (ed.), Muslim Traditions and Modern Techniques of Power, Yearbook of the Sociology of Islam, 3, Hamburg: Lit Verlag and New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 293–306. Venel, Nancy (1999), Musulmanes Françaises Des pratiquantes voilées à l’université. Paris and Montréal: L’Harmattan. Werbner, Pnina and Nira Yuval-Davis (eds.) (1999), Women, Citizenship and Difference, London: Zed Books. Winkelmann, Mareike J. (2001), ‘A Historiography of Muslim Girls’ Education in Late 19th Century India’, paper presented to the Conference on The Construction of Female Identity in Muslim Modernity, Constance, 29–30 June.

ALLIEVI_F4_52-77

10/21/02

12:06 PM

Page 77

, ,     

77

Zizek, Slavoj (1998), Ein Plädoyer für die Intoleranz. Wien: Passagen. Zuhur, Sherifa (1992), Revealing Reveiling. Islamist Gender Ideology in Contemporary Egypt, New York: SUNY Press.

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

11/4/02

10:12 AM

Page 78

78

CHAPTER FOUR

‘HUMAN NATIONALISMS’ VERSUS ‘INHUMAN GLOBALISMS’: CULTURAL ECONOMIES OF GLOBALISATION AND THE RE-IMAGINING OF MUSLIM IDENTITIES IN EUROPE AND THE MIDDLE EAST M LV Introduction: globalisation and culture at the cusp of a millennium This paper examines the cultural manifestations of and responses to globalisation in the Middle East and the European Union during the last decade. The Middle East and Europe have witnessed some of the most intense debates over globalisation during this period; despite significant economic and cultural differences there are strik­ ing similarities in perceptions of both its promise and dangers in the two regions. The myriad titles in bookstores from Paris to Cairo deploring globalisation, and the ‘invasion’ of American culture it her­ alds, attest to a ‘postmodern culturalism’1 that is intimately connected to a culturalisation of politics and economies as a defining moment of contemporary globalisation—that is, to the increasing symbolisa­ tion of political and economic exchanges and their flow through var­ ious informational and cultural media. With the dominance of culture ‘symbolic exchanges’ become the dominant mode of communication and transaction, precisely because commodified cultural symbols can be produced and transported any­ where and at any time. ‘Symbolic exchanges globalise,’ and so in the era of globalisation we can expect both the economy and politics to be globalised ‘to the extent that they are culturalized,’ that is, to the extent that the exchanges taking place within them are accomplished primarily symbolically (and thus can be transported anywhere at any time and manipulated in innumerable undetectable ways).2 1 A renewed focus by people on their ‘culture’ as once stable identities are chal­ lenged by globalisation (Terry Eagleton, The Idea of Culture, Oxford: Blackwell, 2000). 2 Malcom Waters, Globalization, NY: Routledge, 1995. For a critique of this argu­ ment, see John Tomlinson, Globalization and Culture, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, pp. 23–4.

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

10/22/02

‘

3:27 PM

Page 79

’  ‘ ’

79

Clearly, then, culture is central to globalisation, constituting a ‘complex connectivity’ in which the myriad small every day actions of millions of people are linked with fates of distant, unknown others and even with the possible fate of planet, even though these individ­ ual actions are undertaken within the context of local mundane life worlds.3 Thus the global consequentiality of ‘cultural actions’ can be understood as a prime sense in which culture matters for globalisa­ tion. Indeed, already in the early 1990s concern surrounding the impact of globalisation led institutions such as the United Nations to commission half a dozen lengthy assessments of the ‘states of dis­ array’ cause by the new relationships between ‘culture, creativity and markets’ in the global era.4 As important, if we turn to the ‘economic’ processes of globalisa­ tion, scholars such as Neil Fligstein and Paul Pierson have demon­ strated that the core processes that are understood as encompassing economic globalisation—the growth in the world economy, chang­ ing relations between first and third world countries resulting from the use of information technologies to reorganise production, and the integration of world financial markets—are not occurring to the extent described in the mainstream literature, if at all. Thus while the majority of scholars and activists believe that ‘globalisation has undoubtedly occurred in the wake of economic processes,’5 and that the ‘globalisation imperative’ demands that Arab countries become better integrated into the world economy if ‘high and sustainable growth rates are to be achieved’ (as a recent book on Arab business

3 Tomlinson, ibid., p. 25. For a problematic, neo-liberal approach to this issue, see Thomas Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree Understanding Globalization, NY: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1999. Viewed thus, globalisation can be understood as an evolutionary expansion of Anderson’s ‘imagined (national) communities’. 4 Division of Studies and Programming, UNESCO, The Futures of Cultures, Paris: UNESCO, 1994; UNESCO, World Culture Report: Culture, Creativity and Markets, Paris: UNESCO, 1998; UNESCO, The Futures of Cultures, Paris, UNESCO, 1996; United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, States of Disarray: The social effects of globalisation, Geneva, UNRISD, 1995; UNESCO, Culture, Trade and Globalisation: Questions and Answers, UNESCO Publishing, 2000; Yves Brunsvick and André Danzin, Naissance d’une civilisation: Le choc de la mondialisation, Paris: UNESCO, Collection DÉFIS, 1998. Also see Roland Axtmann, ed., Globalisation and Europe: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations, London: Pinter, 1998. As the UN Research Institute for Social Development describes it, the ‘ideological approach [of the IMF] has been transmitted to developing countries chiefly through the structural adjustment programmes of the IMF and World Bank’ (UNRISD, States of Disarray, p. 22). 5 UNESCO, The Futures of Cultures, p. 10. A similar view of the ‘accelerated inte­ gration of the world economy’ is found in States of Disarray, p. 26).

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

80

11/4/02

10:13 AM

Page 80

 

in the global era and a recent IMF policy paper caution),6 Fligstein’s and Pierson’s work argues that the economic transformations of the last few decades cannot be held responsible for the many problems globalisation is accused of bringing about—whether deindustrialisa­ tion, increasing inequality, or the dismantling of welfare states—even if there is a temporal coincidence between the two processes.7 While such critiques of economic globalisation are compelling;8 a narrow economistic focus leads to the assertion that ‘there is not clear evidence that globalisation, however defined, has changed qual­ itatively in the past 15 years.’9 As the foregoing discussion on cul­ ture makes clear, however, such a conclusion, based on a generalisation from economic globalisation to globalisation per se, seriously under­ estimates (if not ignores) the salience of globalisation precisely because it ignores its cultural/discursive power.10 6 Patricia Alonso-Gamo, Annalisa Fedelino, Sebastian Paris Horvitz, ‘Globalization and Growth Prospects in Arab Countries,’ IMF Working Paper WP/97/125, 1997, International Monetary Fund, p. 5; Ali Al-Shamali and John Denton, Arab Business: The Globalization Imperative, Kuwait: Arab Research Center, 2000. The authors base their analysis on a view of globalisation as driven by six forces: improvements in communications and information technology; in distribution and transportation, in efficiency of industry, the lowering or elimination of trade barriers; the increasing force of cultural convergence, and the growing global middle class. From this frame­ work they caution that failure to make the transition from inward-looking, statedominated economies to economies which rely more on markets and global integration will ‘lead to unemployment, rising poverty, social polarisation and instability in the region’ (ibid., p. 1), and the chapters discuss how best to adapt Arab management techniques and other aspects of business administration to the best practices of the West and Japan by utilising the inherent similarities between ‘traditional Muslim practices and the latter.’ 7 Cf. Neil Fligstein, ‘Is Globalisation the Cause of the Crises of Welfare States?’, and Paul Pierson, ‘Post-Industrial Pressures on the Mature Welfare State,’ and Richard Breen and Daniel Verdier, ‘Globalisation and Inequality,’ all in the con­ ference proceedings of Globalisation, European Economic Integration and Social Protection, conference held at the European University Institute, March 11–12, 1999. 8 For instance, world trade still involves only 15% of the total world economy; developed countries are trading more with each other and not with the develop­ ing world during the last two decades; while the so-called boom in the information technology and telecommunications industries only account for 10% of world exports and 1.5% of world GDP. 9 Fligstein, ‘Is Globalisation the Cause of the Crisis of the Welfare States?’ pp. 25, 46. He continues, ‘At best, globalisation has been more gradual, less revolution­ ary in its impacts on economies and firms, and more uneven in its economic effects.’ 10 Indeed, Fligstein seems to recognise this, since he declares that the ‘globalisa­ tion story’ is intimately related to the situation in United States, specifically, that globalisation and the neoliberal discourse that supports it, are ‘American projects’ that power the claims of their supporters for the universalisation of the American experience (Fligstein, ibid., pp. 49, 52).

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

10/22/02

‘

3:27 PM

Page 81

’  ‘ ’

81

Indeed, to the extent that economic processes are not driving glob­ alisation, this both supports the argument that globalisation is at base a cultural phenomenon, and suggests that its cultural dynamics are fuelling the economic and institutional/policy-making transformations to the extent they are occurring. And we do not have to travel to the Third World for evidence of this. If we look at the discourse of French politicians against Americanisation and for the protection of some clearly imaginary and essentialised vision of ‘French culture’, and the anti-American sentiment within France they help sustain, we see exactly how globalisation discourses (and their ‘imagined’ effects) are in fact used to justify specific political-economic polices by governments and business elites in the heart of Europe.11 More negatively, international institutions, governments, and business elites around the world use the various globalisation discourses to justify varying levels of structural adjustment according to the Washington Consensus model.12 In the section that follows, I examine how Arab and Muslim schol­ ars and activists understand what I would call the ‘spectre of glob­ alisation,’ which even its most successful critical interrogators have failed to banish. Globalisation, culture and the ‘Clash of Civilisations’ A constant theme in contemporary Arab discourses on globalisation is the ‘clash of civilisations’ discourse of Samuel Huntington, and the globalising American foreign policy system it is believed to represent. The choice is understood to be stark: either a ‘civilisation’ (or culture or country) joins the New World Order (and in doing so, repudiates the essence of that civilisation) or face conflict with and likely exile from it.13

11 In fact, Jameson argues that ‘our problems lie as much in our categories of thought as in the sheer facts of the matter themselves’ (Frederic Jameson and Masao Miyoshi, eds., The Cultures of Globalisation, Durham: Duke University Press, 1998, pp. 54–80, p. 75). 12 For a discussion of European critiques of the United States, see, inter alia, D.W. Ellwood, ‘Anti-Americanism in Western Europe: a Comparative Perspective,’ Johns Hopkins University Bologna Center, Occasional Paper, European Studies Seminar Series, No. 3, April, 1999; Jean-Philippe Mathy, Extrême Occident: French Intellectuals and America, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. 13 George al-Rasi, interview in al-Nahar, 13 December, 1999, p. 14. In fact, the

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

82

11/4/02

10:13 AM

Page 82

 

Such a system is contrasted with ‘true democracy’, the most basic components of which are justice, tolerance, and ‘the right to be different.’14 This focus on the right to cultural difference is crucial, because globalisation is understood to be premised on the develop­ ment of difference. Here, however, it is a forced difference that leads not to mutual respect and cooperation, but to the deepening of poverty and inequalities both inside and between countries.15 As Musa al-Darir argues, ‘end of the twentieth century globalisation, even more so than its counterpart at the end of the 19th century, is about the substitution of a penetration of culture for an ideolog­ ical struggle . . .’ that is, of the type that characterised capitalism and Marxism during the Cold War.16 I will return to the theme of pen­ etration shortly; here it is important to understand how this combi­ nation of enforced difference and a concomitant lack of tolerance promoted by Huntington’s thesis is seen as inevitable in a ‘new global order where all culture diffused into one global village.’17

new world order spreads its hegemony by spreading its ideology (Usamah AbdulRahman, ed., Tanmiyat al-Takhàluf wa-idàrat al-Tanmiyah: Idàrat al-Tanmiyah fì ’l-wa†an al-'Arabì wa al-NiΩàm al-'Alamì al-Jadìd (Development of Backwardness and the Management of Development: Managing Development in the Arab Nation and the New World Order), Beirut: Markaz al-Dirasat al-Wahda al-'Arabiyya, p. 118); Lamchichi, Islam-Occident, Ch. 1. Abbas criticizes Huntington because Islam is the only civilisation that is defined by a religion, as well as because he defines civilisation in terms of ‘cultural identity’ which allows him to claim that there is no shared community between the West and Islam culture. Abbas believes that such a claim is the whole point of Huntington’s definition (Qassem Khadir Abbas, ed., Masdaqiyyah al-NiΩàm al-Dawlì al-Jadìd, Beirut: Dar al-Adwa’, pp. 101–104). 14 Ibid., pp. 30, 73. 15 Also described as ‘disharmony’ (tafàwut) ('Abed al-Jabari, Qa∂àyà fì ’l-fikr almu'àßir, (issues in Contemporary Thought), Beirut: Markaz al-Dirasat al-Wahda al'Arabiyyah, 1997, pp. 139–40. Moreover, an inhuman globalisation that separates and segments humanity ( yafraduhà) is a major reason why Arabs have yet to achieve the potential of national independence (Interview with Farida al-Niqash, al-Nahàr, 4 December, 1999, p. 11). 16 Musa al-Darir, ‘Al-'Awlamah: Mafhùmuha—ba'∂ al-malàmi˙’ (‘Globalisation: Its Meaning [and] Some Features’) Ma'lumàt Dawliyyah (International Information) #58, Autumn 1998, pp. 6–18, p. 6. 17 al-Jabari, Qa∂àyà fì ’l-fikr al-mu'àßir, p. 149. Moreover, such a global village inevitably stunts the drive by the Arab world and the rest of the Third World to achieve any kind of renaissance. In fact, intolerance in turn is seen as a major cause of continuing hostility between the two civilisations; thus the fight against Westernisation is understood not as a ‘clash’, but as the continuation of struggles for independence begun decades earlier. And today more than ever, only democ­ racy and Arab unity are powerful enough to help ‘the weaker peoples’ fight glob­ alisation and achieve a real measure of autonomous development (Abdul-Rahman, Tanmiyat al-Takhàluf wa-idàrat al-Tanmiyah . . ., pp. 114, 156, 170).

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

11/4/02

‘

10:13 AM

Page 83

’  ‘ ’

83

Indeed, the importance of focusing on culture has not been lost on scholars in the region; within this context globalisation has become one of the most salient issues in contemporary Arab discourse.18 From numerous conferences, books and articles in leading Arab publica­ tions debating its various ramifications, three main responses to glob­ alisation are apparent: outright rejection, enthusiastic support, and cautious engagement.19 The consensus of Arab scholars is that globalisation is neither a new phenomenon nor just another stage in the development of cap­ italism. Rather it marks a continuation of the basic dynamic of the relationship between the West and Orient dating back hundreds of years, the hallmark of which is a Western desire for global hegemony which in earlier eras was represented by imperialism and colonialism.20 Thus the most prominent feature of new system—which is essentially a more powerful version of the old system—is the attempt by the United States, the main instigator of globalisation, to over­ throw existing political, economic, and cultural norms.21 Qassem Khadir Abbas argues, ‘Our belief [is] that America is attempting to utilise globalisation to interfere and otherwise realise Viewed thus, from the perspective of the scholars and activists I have examined, a ‘conversation’ of civilisations as a ‘clash of civilisations’ can only serve to ‘vulgarize opinion and . . . pass along sophistries’ (al-Jabari, Qa∂àyà fì ’l-fikr al-mu'àßir, p. 132). Instead what is offered is a dialogue (however strained and contentious) of the type once undertaken between ‘heroic’ unions and corporations and factory owners is called for—a comparison that reveals the perceived balance of power between the Arab/Muslim world and the West. 18 Donald Heisel, ed., The Middle East and Development in a Changing World (Cairo: Cairo Papers in Social Science, Vol. 20, No. 2, May 1999), p. 1; Khalal Amin, al'Awlamah, Beirut: Dar al-Ma'arafa, 1998(?), p. 5; al-Said Yassin, al-'awlamah wa-’l†arìq al-thalàthah (Globalisation and the Third Way), Cairo: Mirit lil-nashar wa-’l-ma'lumàt, 1999, p. 5; Hans-Peter Martin and Harald Schumann, Die Globalisierungsfalle: Der Angriff auf Demokratie und Wohlstand, trans. into Arabic as Fakh al-'awlamah: al-i'tidà" 'alà ’l-dìmùqrà†iyyah wa ’l-rifàhiyyah), Kuwait: Silsilah 'alim al-ma'rifah, 1998). 19 Musa al-Darir, 'al-'Awlamah: Mafhùmuhà . . .’, p. 16. 20 As Bishara points out, it is important to be careful to separate the ‘new-fangled ideology’ from the long-running historical process (’Isrà"ìl wa-’l-'awlama . . .,’ p. 281). Depending on the writer, its origins lay as far back as (what for them is) the foun­ dational event of modernity, the 1492 expulsion of Muslims from Spain, while spe­ cial emphasis is placed on Napoleon and the era of European imperialism/colonialism in the Middle East he inaugurated (Usama Amin al-Khawli, ed. al-'Arab wa-’l-'Awlamah, Beirut: Markaz al-Dirasat al-Wahda al-'Arabiyya, 1998, p. 8; Yassin, al-'Awlamah wa-’l-†arìq al-thalàthah, pp. 23–24). Muhammad al-Jabari, Qa∂àyà fì al-fikr al-mu'àßir (Issues in Contemporary Thought), Beirut: Center for the Study of Arab Unity, 1997, pp. 135, 137, 153. 21 Abdul-Rahman, Tanmiyat al-Takhàluf wa-idàrat al-Tanmiyah, pp. 115, 150.

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

84

10/22/02

3:27 PM

Page 84

 

its interests in many countries around the world and especially in the Middle East . . . The belief that the new world order will be an order of peace, and countries freed from backwardness, stagnation and subjugation, is [pure] fantasy.’22 This is because poorer coun­ tries, in particular in the Arab world, are left on the margins of the supposedly unified world.23 A major reason for this dynamic is that neoliberal economics and the ideology of the market are the driving forces of globalisation,24 while multinational corporations are central actors because of their unique ability to ‘leap over’ existing distinc­ tions between ‘inside/outside’ the territorial and administrative bound­ aries of the state.25 Yet here too it is not just the economic aspects of globalisation that are important, since cultural exchange always follows on the heels of free trade—an exchange which in reality is ‘the negation of culture.’26 In fact, the cultural aspects of globalisation are felt to be harder to confront and defend against than its economic aspects, both because of the difficulty of defining ‘culture’ and its specifically ‘ideological’ nature.27 Globalisation’s cultural/ideological foundations provide it

22

Abbas, Masdaqiyyat al-NiΩàm al-Dawlì al-Jadìd, 1996, p. 26.

al-Jabari, Qa∂àyà fì ’l-fikr al-mu'àßir, pp. 140–146; cf. Abu Za'rur, al-'Awlamah,

p. 14; al-Jabari, Qa∂àyà fì ’l-fikr al-mu'àßir . . ., pp. 139–40; Abdul-Rahman, Tanmiyat al-Takhàluf wa-idàrat al-Tanmiyah . . ., pp. 76, 81. 24 Yassin, al-'Awlamah wa-’l-†arìq al-thalàthah, p. 65, al-Khawli, al-'Arab wal-’l-'Awlama, p. 9. The the ‘global village’ is in fact a ‘new imperialism’ (Muhammad Said Bin Sahu Abu Za'rur, al-'Awlamah: Ma ˙ayàtuhà—nash"atuhà—ahdàfuhà—al-khiyàr al-badìl, Amman, Dar al-Bayaraq, 1998, p. 14. As the martyred leader of the Muslim Brother­ hood Sayyid Qutb argued, ‘There is a natural alliance between colonialism and dictatorship of governance and capital, each of them supports the other, and shares (lit: exchange) interests’ (Sayyid Qutb, Ma'rakat al-Islàm wa-’l-Ra"smàliyyah (The Battle between Islam and Capitalism), Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 1993 (13th printing), p. 102). It should be pointed out that a similar view exists in West Africa, where ‘two antagonistic systems, the market and the nation-state,’ are seen as competing for economic and cultural capital (cf. Manthia Diawara, ‘Toward a Regional Imaginary in Africa,’ in Jameson and Miyoshi, The Cultures of Globalisation, pp. 103–124, p. 117). 25 al-Jabari, Qa∂∂àyà fì ’l-fikr al-mu'àßir, pp. 140–146; cf. Abu Za'rur, al-'Awlamah, p. 14; al-Jabari, Qa∂àyà fì ’l-fikr al-mu'àßir . . ., pp. 139–40; Abdul-Rahman, Tanmiyat al-Takhàluf . . ., pp. 76, 81. 26 Muhammed 'Abed al-Jabari, ‘al-'awlamah wa-al-huwiyyah al-thaqàfiyyah: 'ashara atruhat,’ in al-Khawli, al-'Arab wa-’l-'Awlama, p. 300; 'Abdalila Balqziz, 'al-'Awlamah wa-’l-huwiyyah al-thaqàfiyyah: 'awlama al-thaqàfiyyah am thaqàfa al-'awlamah,’ in al-Khawli, al-'Arab wa-’l-'awlama, p. 317; Amin, al-'Awlamah, pp. 51, 66. Cf. Abu Za‘rur, al-'Awlamah . . ., p. 7. 27 Talal ‘Atrisi, ‘al-Huwiyyah al-thaqàfiyyah fì muwàjahat al-'awlamah’ (Cultural Identity in the Face of Globalisation’) Ma'lùmàt Dawliyyah (International Information), #58, Autumn, 1998, pp. 83–88, p. 85. al-Jabari, Qa∂àyà fì ’l-fikr al-mu'àßir, pp. 143–44. 23

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

11/4/02

‘

10:13 AM

Page 85

’  ‘ ’

85

with the ‘fine power’ to realise its imperialist aims without causing classic revolutionary reactions to it, as did Western imperialism before it.28 These characteristics in turn make it an even more dangerous form of imperialism, one with the uncanny ability to undermine the sovereignty of Arab nations.29 Against such a powerful force, the question arises, ‘How can we become part of this global village with­ out losing the particularity of the place in which we live?’30 Arab/Muslim responses to globalisation in historical perspective Apart from apologists for the neoliberal policies of the Egyptian or Jordanian regimes, most Arab commentators have a negative view of the privatisation/liberalisational policies that are the engine of contemporary globalisation, declaring those who would ‘celebrate’ the new freedoms it heralds (particularly from ‘the noose of the state’) to be gravely deluded.31 Rather, every development and advance of globalisation, and the domestic privatisation programmes that facil­ itate it, are understood to be ‘at expense of the state and people:’32

28

Haider, ‘Mafhùm al-siyàdah ba'da al-˙arb al-bàridah . . .’, pp. 43–60, p. 56. Cf. Haider, ‘Mafhùm al-siyàdah ba'da al-˙arb al-bàridah . . .’ pp. 43–60; Ihsan Hindi, ‘al-'Awlamah wa-Atharuhà al-salbì 'ala siyàsat al-duwal’ (Globalisation and its Negative Influence on the Sovereignty of States), Ma'lùmàt Dawliyyah (International Information), #58, Autumn, 1998, pp. 61–68; Fuwad Nahra, ‘al-Wa†an al-'arabì wata˙addiyàt al-'awlamah: baina waqà"i' al-tajzi"ah wa-∂arùrah al-wi˙dah’ (‘The Arab Nation and the Challenges of Globalisation: Between Fragmentation/Partition and the Necessity of Unity’) Ma'lumàt Dawliyyah (International Information), #58, Autumn, 1998, pp. 69–82. 30 'Atrisi, 'al-Huwiyyah al-thaqàfiyyah fi muwàjahat al-'awlamah.’ 31 ‘For the reality is the opposite of the rhetoric’ (Amin, al-'Awlamah, pp. 31–32). In fact, this critique is shared outside the Muslim majority world. Thus the liberal Moscow newspaper, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, editorialised that no matter how influential the most powerful countries and the MNCs become, nation-states will not die away, but rather will strengthen themselves and seek to democratise the global economic environment (Oleg Bogomolov, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 27/1/200, reprinted in World Press Review, April 2000, p. 8). 32 Thus in line with the historical view of globalisation, some writers use the term ‘new globalisation,’ which is epitomised by the culture and policies of privatisation that bring about the ‘destruction of the customs house walls and the usurpation of the political and economic hegemony of the national state by new global system of exchange’ (Amin, al-'Awlamah, pp. 27–29; Yassin, al-'Awlamah wa-al-†arìq al-thalàthah, p. 21; al-Jabari, Qa∂àyà fì ’l-fikr al-mu'àßir, p. 147). There is thus a perceived con­ nection from the beginning between globalisation and privatisation (because of the weakening of the state) (al-Jabari, Qa∂àyà fì ’l-fikr al-mu'àßir . . ., p. 135). 29

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

86

10/22/02

3:27 PM

Page 86

 

‘Privatisation, free trade and competition are in fact ideologies for separation, marginalisation and demobilising workers under the prin­ cipal of “greater profits, lower wages”.’33 Globalisation is thus understood as global imperialism dressed in the new clothes of privatisation, freedom of initiative and competi­ tion, and a ‘culture of excess or penetration.’34 This focus on pene­ tration, as in the usage I discussed above, links globalisation to earlier processes of imperialism and colonialism. As Timothy Mitchell argues in his seminal Colonising Egypt, the process of colonisation is not just about military and political conquest and control; rather it is essen­ tially a ‘penetration of a new principle of order and technique of power . . .’35 Whether in 1800 or 2000 the spread of capitalist moder­ nity is ‘[not] merely a question of introducing a new physical disci­ pline or a new material order,’ as disciplinary powers then and now work on both the body and the mind to create obedient and indus­ trious subjects.36 For two centuries, then, the penetrating power of capitalism and other discourses of modernity have brought strong reactions from Arab/Muslim intellectuals and activists. The roots of the Arab/Muslim critique of globalisation run similarly deep, going back to nineteenth century critiques of European imperialism. The ambivalence and complexity of the Muslim response is already apparent with the arrival of Napoleon’s army of soldiers and scholars to Egypt in 1798, when the Egyptian chronicler al-Jabarti declared his admiration of the French love of knowledge but criticised both their desire to ‘rob’ and ‘despoil’ Egypt and their being dahrìyùn, that is, materialists.37 As the 19th century progressed there were debates throughout the Middle East over whether Western liberal ideas would bring free­

33

al-Jabari, Qa∂àyà fì ’l-fikr al-mu'àßir, p. 143. Ibid., pp. 140–46. Another author describes it more strongly as ‘galloping pen­ etration’ (Noureddine Afaya, L’Occident dans l’imaginaire Arabo-Musulman, Casablanca: Les Editions Toubka, 1997, pp. 87, 95, 116). 35 Timothy Mitchell, Colonizing Egypt, (Berkely: UC Press, 1991), p. 126; emphasis mine. 36 Ibid. 37 Sheik Al-Jabarti, Napoleon in Egypt: Al-Jabarti’s Chronicle of the French Occupation, 1798, trans. by Shmuel Moreh, Berlin: Markus Wienner, 1993. He also criticized the establishment of French ‘diwans,’ which divided the law into religious and sec­ ular categories. 34

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

10/22/02

‘

3:27 PM

Page 87

’  ‘ ’

87

dom or rather ‘lead men astray to go for wealth’ (as a leading Persian critic of constitutionalism argued at the turn of the century), some­ times within the same person. Thus the father of twentieth century Islamic reformism, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, advocated adopting the political and technological advances of the West, yet at the same time believed that following the West culturally would lead to ‘ret­ rogression’ rather than progress, and that ‘materialists’ (naichiris) within the Muslim world were rending the social order by aping Western ways and encouraging the growth of ‘egoism.’38 Several decades later, Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, also preached against ‘the tyranny of materialism’ on Muslim society and its direct role in Western economic and military hegemony over the Middle East.39 If colonial modernity was renovated and redeployed as economic development in the post/neo-colonial period, the project of Islamic modernism epitomised by al-Afghani and his successors failed at least in part because it attempted to reinterpret Islam via market capital­ ism, mis-reading the link between capitalism, imperialism, colonialism, and modernity in the Islamic world (not to mention Europe).40 As the Arab/Muslim world achieved formal independence from European colonial rule and began the ‘nationalist period’ of the 1950s–1970s, thinkers like Muhammad Iqbal, Mawlana Mawdudi and Sayyid Qutb articulated a critique of nationalism and the nation-state as well as of capitalism, while some, including Mawdudi, already saw the model of the European Community as an example for the Muslim world 38 al-Afghani believed that in the end it was science, and not the French and British imperialists, which was responsible for ‘conquest, usurpation and aggression,’ to which we might that one can not separate the history and use of science from that of capitalism, for as Nietzsche argued in the Will to Power, the ‘drive to knowl­ edge always goes back to desire to conquer and appropriate.’ Such a framework opens up new ways to understand the impact of the ‘knowledge economy’ on the Third World ( Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani, An Islamic Response to Imperialism: Political and Religious Writings of Sayyid Jamal ad-Din ‘al-Afghani ’ trans. by Nikki Keddie, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983, pp. 131–173). See in particular his discussion of the etiology of the contemporary materialist philosophy from Greek philosophy (p. 139, note 6), p. 151 for his discussion of egoism, and p. 169, where he discusses, in almost identical language to contemporary writers, the ‘firm and sure founda­ tion’ of Islam to grapple with the challenges of modernity. 39 Hasan al-Banna, Between Yesterday and Today, trans. by and published on the web by Prelude Company at http://www.prelude.co.uk/mb/banna/today.htm. 40 Gyan Prakash, ed., After Colonialism: Imperial Histories and Postcolonial Displacements, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996, introduction.

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

88

11/4/02

10:13 AM

Page 88

 

to follow.41 What is important for us about their critique is its focus on the middle class and bourgeois lifestyle, with its emphasis on ‘gratification, consumerism and hedonism,’ that are the hallmarks of late industrial capitalism, and especially globalisation.42 In Iran of the 1950s and 1960s a similar critique was evolving, which is not surprising since the progenitor of modern Islamic political thought, al-Afghani, was himself Persian born. Thinkers like Jalal-e Ahmad, Mehdi Barzagan, Morteza Motahhari, and the Ayatollah Khomeini, all deployed—consciously or not—Marxist critiques of capitalism as centrepieces of their analyses. Ahmad’s notion of ‘Westo­ xification’ (or ‘Westruckness’) is a seminal example of this discourse, as it focuses on the infatuation and blind following of the West within Iran that resulted from the alienating effects of the country’s depen­ dent relationship on the United States.43 The most powerful Sunni Islamist voices of the second half of the twentieth century has been Sayyid Qutb, the leader of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood who was executed by the Abd al-Nasir gov­ ernment in 1966. Qutb’s writings span the gamut from Qur"ànic

41 Mawdudi argued simultaneously for the supremacy of Islam over capitalism and socialism (a frequent theme during this period) and the necessity of creating an Islamic State, ‘A purely ideological state . . . [devoid of ] the element of nation­ alism . . . which can be managed and administered by any one who believes in the principles laid down by Islam for running it’ (Maulana Sayyid Abul 'Ala Maudoodi, Islamic State: Political Writings of Maulana Sayyid Abul 'Ala Maudoodi, compiled and trans. by Mazheruddin Siddiqi, Karachi: Islamic Research Academy, 1986, ch. 1). Cf. Syed Abul Ala Maudoodi, Capitalism, Socialism and Islam, Kuwait: Islamic Book Publishers, 1977. 42 Cf. Bryan Turner, Orientalism, Postmodernism and Globalism, New York: Routledge, 1994. 43 Jalal al-e Ahmad, Gharbzadegi, Tehran: Ravaq, 1962. It should be pointed out that the feeling of ‘rootlessness’ this condition produces is one of the defining psy­ chological states of both the colonial and globalizing moments (cf. Mehrzad Boroujerdi, Iranian Intellectuals and the West: The Tormented Triumph of Nativism, Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1996. The Sorbonne-trained ‘Ali Shariati, who has been called the ‘idealogue of the Islamic Revolution,’ emphasized the responsibility of the masses—even more than the Prophet Muhammed—in liberating Islam from this ‘disease.’ Shariati hoped that the development of an ‘Islamic humanism’ would lead to the creation of a new gemeinschaft, or community, free of both unthinking cleri­ cism and Western rationalism, that would have the power to ‘eradicat[e] capital­ ism’ (cf. ‘Ali Shariati, On The Sociology of Islam, trans. by Hamid Algar, Austin: Mizan Press, 1980); Civilisation and Modernization, Houston: Free Islamic Literatures, Inc., 1979. In sum, the alliance of 'ulama, intellectuals and clergy that made the Islamic Revolution would likely have been impossible without the unifying critique of the market that helped mobilise the country against the modernising regime of the Shah and its close alliance with the West.

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

10/22/02

‘

3:27 PM

Page 89

’  ‘ ’

89

commentary to social critique; perhaps the most relevant for our dis­ cussion is his Ma'raka al-Islàm wa-al-ra"smàliyya (The battle between Islam and capitalism), which constitutes a seminal Muslim critique of capi­ talist, materialist, consumerist modernity and its cultures.44 Qutb spent several years in the United States in the 1950s, and his experience of endemic racism, poverty amidst affluence, and non­ segregated gender relations cemented an abhorrence of the West, and the United States in particular, that had predated his sojourn there. But there is no doubt that his time in the United States hard­ ened Qutb’s belief that capitalism and democracy were inseparable from each other—an understanding of this relationship in which both discourses used culture to divide the world.45 Islam, then, was the one system that could bring ‘complete social justice.’ In order to achieve this goal ‘exploitative capitalism’ would have to be divested of its ownership of political and economic power, while the Islam that would replace it would have to be more than ‘merely a veil for inciting the masses’ (this was Qutb’s evaluation of socialism, a system that he felt was unable to resolve the conflict between the individual and society).46 Only an Islamic system, one

44

Qutb, Ma'rakat al-Islàm wa-’l-Ra"smàliyyah. Ibid., p. 25. For a discussion of the effect Qutb’s stay in the United States on his perception of the country and his subsequent thinking, see John Calvert, ‘‘The World is an Undutiful Boy!’: Sayyid Qutb’s American experience,’ in Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, Vol. 11, No. 1, 2000, pp. 87–103. Qutb who was also critical of the Nasserist, state-centered model of development; in his view ‘the state cannot do its job because [it] is sympathetic to needs of capitalists, is in the hands of the capitalists, who are like the state’ (Ibid., pp. 8–9. It should be pointed out that liberal critics of Arab etatism have reached a similar conclusion; believing that ‘economic policies of the patron state increased its dependency on the advanced industrial world,’ although they would argue that it was because of problems inter­ nal to the regimes and its macro-economic policies (import substitution, national­ ization) that was solely responsible, withholding any blame from Western financial and regulatory institutions or the strateigc policies of Western governments (cf. Iliya Harik and Denis Sullivan, eds., Privatization and Liberalization in the Middle East, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992, p. 2). 46 Qutb, ibid. More recently, according to the director of the Ministry of Awqaf in Egypt, the difference between ‘Islamic globalisation’ and the ‘new globalisation’ is exploitation and subjugation of people that the latter is based on, which also preaches the freedom of the individual to the level that the individual is freed from all social and moral constraints. And this very reality obligates Muslims to actively participate in the new globalisation to stop the headlong rush to self-destruction and help shape it along more Islamic—that is, truly ‘human’—principles (cf. Mahmud Hamdi Zaqzuq, Islàm fì 'Aßr al-'Awlamah (Islam in the Age of Globalisation), Cairo: Maktab al-Sharuq, 2001, p. 22). 45

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

90

10/22/02

3:27 PM

Page 90

 

in which sovereignty belonged not to man but to God (˙àkimiyya), would realise the best ideals of both socialism and Christianity, which he felt had become locked inside the church and far removed from daily life.47 It is a measure of how the terms of the debate have changed that few Islamist critics of capitalism today equate the two and conceive of democracy negatively. But for Qutb, rejecting democracy in favour of the ‘sovereignty of God’ (˙àkimiyya) was the only possible way to confront capitalism by moving the focus away from humanity and material needs and towards worship of God. The contemporary political economy of globalisation in the Arab world In examining the literature on economic and cultural globalisation in the Middle East, it is immediately clear that the cultural dimen­ sions of globalisation are generally ignored in mainstream econom­ ics scholarship, few of which utilise Arabic-language sources.48 Yet a review of the Arabic-language literature on globalisation reveals that while most scholars are critical of American-dominated globalisation they nevertheless believe that it is a ‘natural’ process—‘neither Hell nor Heaven’—of which the Arab/Muslim world cannot opt out.49 The main issue is how to profit from it (both economically and in terms of incorporating universal norms such as human rights and educational reform) without losing too much of one’s culture, hurt­ ing the poorest members of society, and allowing it to ‘hollow us out from the inside and domesticate our . . . identity.’50 Indeed, contemporary writers generally view ‘democracy’ more favourably than Sayyid Qutb; their concern is rather that a ‘wave’ is sweeping over the Muslims world that is sabotaging (and will ulti­ 47

Ibid., pp. 57–61. Four examples of an economistic readings are Harik and Sullivan, Privatization and Liberalization in the Middle East; Heisel, The Middle East and Development in a Changing World; and Alonso-Gamo, et al., ‘Globalisation and Growth Prospects in Arab Countries,’ and Ali Al-Shamali and John Denton, eds., Arab Business: The Globalisation Imperative, London: Kogan Page, 2000. 49 'Ali Harb, interview in al-Nahàr 9/xii (December), 1999, p. 20; Interview with Mudaththir Abdulrahim al-Tib, in al-Nahàr, 9/xii (December), 1999, p. 20. A sim­ ilar view is held in Africa (cf. Diawara, ‘Toward a Regional Imaginary in Africa,’ p. 111). 50 Ibid., p. 20; interview with Adnan Abu-"Audih, al-Nahàr, 16 December, 1999, p. 13. 48

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

10/22/02

‘

3:27 PM

Page 91

’  ‘ ’

91

mately destroy) the ‘Islamic Personality.’ If this personality is not rebuilt, the ‘poisoned idols’ of capitalism and now globalisation will continue to ‘infect the people,’ causing a ‘planned exchange’ with true Muslims.’51 The problem is that globalisation is encouraging a seemingly global Kulturkampf, whose attacks on and attempted subjuga­ tion of Arab/Muslim ‘identity’ have helped perpetuate and strengthen Western hegemony over the Middle East.52 As the cover of a recent popular book on the issue depicts it (in the fashion of an old dime-store novel), the American cowboy is las­ soeing the world.53 For at least one religious critic, the central move in this ‘intellectual invasion’ is the ‘conquest by the infidels of Muslims’ capabilities’ through the establishment of an ‘alternative class’—that is, the ‘planned exchange’ discussed earlier in this essay—that would help introduce ‘materialist culture.’54 The question that is raised by this critique is whether globalisation will lead to the building of a world civilisation based on peace between peoples, or merely to an entrenchment of cultural (as well as political, military and economic) Americanisation.55 Another religious critic situates the ‘assault against the deep cul­ tural roots of Arab/Muslim identity’ within the larger struggle between the global North and South over both cultural identity (a global cul­ ture war that is felt to be most pronounced in the Arab world) and

51 Abdul Satar Fath Allah Sa"id, al-Ghazu al-fikrì wa al-tayàràt al-mu'àßara l-il-islàm (The Intellectual Invasion and the Contemporary Streams in Islam), Cairo: Dar al-Wafa", 1989, pp. 10–11; cf. Talal ‘Atrisi, ‘al-Huwiyyah al-thàqafiyyah fì muwàjahat al'awlamah’ (‘Cultural Identity in the Face of Globalisation’), Ma'lumàt Dawliyyah (Inter­ national Information), #58, Autumn, 1998, pp. 83–88. 52 al-Khawli, al-'Arab wa-’l-'Awlama, p. 28; Kemal al-Din 'Abd al-Ghana al-Murasi, al-'Almaniyyah wa-’l-'awlamah wa-’l-Azhar, Dar al-Mu'rifah al-Jama'iyyah, 1999 p. 99; Amin, al-'Awlamah, p. 51, where he points out that Napoleon invaded Egypt in the name of ‘culture.’ Other analyses discussing its long history go back to the expulsion from Spain and/or the 15th century (al-Khawli, al-'Arab wa-’l-'Awlama, p. 8; Yassin, al-'awlamah wa-’l-†arìq al-thalàthah, pp. 23–24). Globalisation is also described as the stage after colonial modernity (Muhammad ‘Abed al-Jabari, Qa∂àyà fì ’l-fikr al-mu'àßir, Beirut: Markaz Dirasat al-wahdah al-'Arabiyyah, 1997, p. 135). 53 Amin, al-'Awlamah, pp. 45–50. cf. Yassin, al-'Awlamah wa-’l-†arìq al-thalàthah, p. 10. 54 Allah Sa’id, al-Ghazu al-fikrì wa ’l-tayàràt al-mu'àßara l-il-islàm, pp. 76, 152. Cf. Note 32. 55 "Amr Muqdad, ‘al-Íirà' baina al-'awlamah wa-’l-huwiyyah’ (‘The Conflict between Globalisation and Identity’) Ma'lùmàt Dawliyyah (International Information), #58, Autumn, 1998, pp. 97–107.

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

92

10/22/02

3:27 PM

Page 92

 

the world’s purse strings.56 Why is culture so important? Because the ‘culture’ of globalisation, as managed by the United States, has the power to lead people to withdraw loyalty from their ‘cultural national identity;’ this in turn will fracture an already unstable state in which the people’s collective identity resides, and ultimately cause the extinc­ tion of independent cultural assertions such as Arab nationalist thought.57 Perhaps this is one reason why the cultural significance of contemporary radical Islamism has been described as ‘greatly outweigh[ing] its political significance.’58 It is clear, then, that except for the most strident opponents of globalisation, most critics are more concerned with surviving in and even profiting from, rather than opting out of, what is viewed ulti­ mately as a ‘natural process.’59 In order for this to occur, issues of human rights, education, and especially democracy, are crucial. Abdulrahim al-Tib evocatively describes the relationship between democracy and development as ‘like the wings of a plane—you can’t fly with one wing.’60 Yet as we have seen in the course of our discussion, equally impor­ tant to the perceived threat to democracy and autonomous develop­ ment posed by American-sponsored globalisation is the fear that the

56 Abdallah 'Abd al-Da"im, al-Qawmiyyah al-'arabiyyah wa-’l-niΩàm al-'alamì al-jadìd, Beirut: Dar al-Adab, 1994, pp. 70–73. The cultural situation facing the Third World ‘is seen to be facing the Arab world even moreso’ ('Abdullah Abd al-Da"im, alQawmiyyah al-'Arabiyyah wa-l-niΩàm al-'alamì al-jadìd (Arab Nationalism and the New World Order), Beirut: Dar al-Abad, 1994, p. 73). This leads to the contradictory assessment that ‘because of our spiritual and psychological bankruptcy and inferiority we must submit to whatever the United States wants,’ yet criticises ‘all the social maladies faced by Western society, which suffers from fragmentation, where individual doubt [is pressed] to the edge of an abyss’ (Abbas, Masdaqiyyat al-NiΩàm al-Dawlì al-Jadìd, pp. 187, 192). 57 al-Khawli, al-'Arab wa-’l-'Awlama, p. 9; 'Abdullah Abd al-Da"im, al-Qawmiyyah al-'Arabiyyah wa-l-niΩàm al-'alamì al-jadìd (Arab Nationalism and the New World Order), Beirut: Dar al-Abad, 1994, p. 5. This issue is given greater salience since the Arab world has yet to produce its own modernity, that is, its own cultural revolution (Yassin, al-'awlamah wa-’l-†arìq al-thalàthah, pp. 83–84). Thus a major concern is how to adopt modern technology when there is such an abyss between ‘intellectuals and the street’ (al-Murasi, al-'Almàniyyah wa-’l-'awlamah wa-al-Azhar, p. 117), and when technology itself is the ‘negation of culture’ (Amin, al-'Awlamah, pp. 51, 66). 58 Nilüfer Göle, ‘Snapshots of Islamic Modernities,’ Daedalus, 120, #1 (Winter 2000), pp. 91–117, p. 94. 59 Abdulrahim al-Tib, interview in al-Nahàr, 13 December, p. 14. In fact, ‘democ­ racy is the only way that the weaker peoples can fight against globalisation’ (AbdulRahman, Tanmiyat al-Takhàluf . . ., p. 114). 60 George al-Rasi, interview in al-Nahar, 13 December, p. 14.

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

11/4/02

‘

10:14 AM

Page 93

’  ‘ ’

93

consumer/materialist culture at its heart will tear down the borders erected and maintained by the nation-state.61 As one writer lamented, the cybercommunities of the internet age are like ‘new nations . . . unconnected to geography or history;’ they do not foster freedom but rather destroy the meaning of citizenship by substituting (once again, the notion of exchange) the ‘right’ merely to shop and com­ municate on the web for the right to participate in the real politics of the body politic.62 In Kansas City or Cairo the global village seems more like a global mall. In the next section I explore similarities in the discourse of Arabs and Muslims living in Europe vis-à-vis globalisation to the sentiments expressed above, to determine the possibilities for cross-cultural dia­ logue both within Europe and between Europe and the Middle East on this issue. From Dàr al-Óarb to Dàr al-'Ahd: the development of Euro-Islam in the global age Europe is unquestionably central to the narrative of globalisation— ‘la laboratoire de la mondialisation,’ as Mireille Delmas-Marty has described it, undergoing profound ideational changes during the global era that in good measure has been stimulated by the implan­ tation of sizeable Muslim communities on the Continent.63 Indeed, its evolution toward internal unity and harmony with the larger EuroMediterrranean region, symbolised by the Euro-Mediterranean Partner­ ship launched in Barcelona in 1995, has also had a profound impact on the development and perception of Islam in Europe.64 61 Instead of the borders of nation and the national state, we have the new, ‘unhealthy’ global borders which facilitate and ultimately enforce a system of global hegemony of economy, tastes and sensibilities and cultures (al-Jabari, Qa∂àyà fì ’l­ fikr al-mu'àßir, pp. 140–146). 62 al-Jabari, Qa∂àyà fì ’l-fikr al-mu'àßir, p. 148. 63 Cf. Nezar AlSayyad and Manuel Castells, eds., Muslim Europe or Euro-Islam: Politics, Culture and Citizenship in the Age of Globalisation, NY: Lexington Books, p. 1. 64 The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership sought to link together the northern, southern and eastern ends of the Mediterranean region through not just better coor­ dinated trade and policies, but equally important, through cultural understanding and linkages as well. As Juan Prat argues, ‘The Euro-Mediterranean partnership will only succeed if accompanied by a cultural dialog between the two sides of the Mediterranean based on the principles of equality and mutual respect’ ( Juan Prat, ‘The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership,’ in Anders Jerichow and Jørgen BaeckSimonsen, Islam in a Changing World: Europe and the Middle East, Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 1997, pp. 157–163.

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

94

10/22/02

3:27 PM

Page 94

 

An exploration of the historical continuities and divergencies of globalisation in Europe reveals it to be a purposeful project to sta­ bilise contemporary capitalism; one administered by a hybrid transna­ tional class of corporate-cum-state managers involved in a complex pas de deux with the great technological and cultural changes defining the global era.65 Yet however powerful the rhetoric and institutional­ ization of ‘unity’ in Western Europe (from the EU to the Euro), it cannot be assumed that the ‘Continent’ is a model of integration in the emerging global era. Globalisation is dividing Europe (both within and between nations) as much as it is uniting it, leaving European scholars and policy-makers wondering ‘what future’ there is for a Europe that ‘had always been the promise of something more; but now is increasingly perceived as the risk of something less.’66 Despite the disjointed the reality of global Europe—indeed, ‘it is not even clear what a European cultural identity stands for67—the Muslim majority world continues to look toward the ‘Continent’ as an example of solidarity and unity against Americanisation; its imag­ ined unity a model for the Muslim majority world’s own unfulfilled dreams of unification in diversity.68 And despite the history of European colonialism, and continued discrimination against Muslims living in Europe, many Muslims see ‘tomorrow’s civilisation’ as depending on unreserved cooperation between the cultures of Europe and Islam.69 There is good reason for this orientation by Muslims despite exag­

65 Cf. Axtmann, Globalisation and Europe. Such an understanding is important because it demonstrates both the intentionality behind (and thus non-teleological nature of ) these processes and the impossibility of understanding Middle Eastern or American experiences without examining Europe. 66 Giuliano Amato, Mireille Delmas-Marty, David Marquand and Sergio Romano, What Future for Europe? Florence, Robert Schuman Center for Advanced Studies, 1999. 67 Lars-Erik Cederman, ‘Nationalism and Bounded Integration: What It Would Take to Construct a European Demos,’ EUI Working Papers, RSC No. 2000/34, p. 10. 68 Cf. Afaya, L’Occident dans l’imaginaire Arabo-Musulman. A. Bouhdiba, ‘L’Islam et l’Europe,’ Annuaire europeen, Vol. 42, 1994, pp. 21–33. Mawdudi also appreciated European integration as a model for the Muslim world to follow (cf. Peter Mandaville, Transnational Muslim Politics: Reimagining the Umma, NY: Routledge, 2001, p. 78). 69 Bouhdiba, ‘L’Islam et l’Europe.’ Bouhdiba explains that while ‘the European idea is a hegemonic idea’ for most Muslims, there is also a very positive image of Europe based on the best ideals of the European/modern project. Other writers, such as the Head of the Egyptian Ministry of Awqaf, focus on the historical influence of Islam on the formation of Western/European thought through the transmission of Greek philosophy and science, using this history as a basis to argue for the con­ tinued importance of Islam and Islamic heritage in the global, internet era (cf.

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

11/4/02

‘

10:14 AM

Page 95

’  ‘ ’

95

gerated hopes and claims and the sometimes deep political, economic and cultural differences between the two regions. As the New York Times recently reported, ‘More vehemently than ever, Europe is scorn­ ing the US,’ in particular because it is a ‘a society ruled by profit— an unchecked force on its way to ruling the world.’70 America is thus seen ‘as a menacing, even dangerous force intent on remaking the world in its image. There is a virulence and vehemence that has never been seen before, as the strength of America’s economy will impose not only economic changes but social changes as well.’ Such sentiments were once the province of ‘radical’ Islamists, but today they reflect the mood of not just the European Left and Right, but increasingly its Center. For their part, many Muslims see the unquestioned hegemony of the United States as making a successful Euro-Mediterranean space all the more important for the benefit of both sides.71 The question this section addresses is whether and how Islamist critiques of the West have been transposed from one side of the Mediterranean to the other, and thus influenced the troubled enculturalisation of Islam in Europe.72 Unfortunately, as Stefano Allievi explains, a review of the exist­ ing literature and writings, interviews and other documentary sources by contemporary Islamist writers and activists working out of Europe, Mahmud Hamdi Zaqzuq, Islàm fi 'Aßr al-'Awlamah (Islam in the Age of Globalisation), Cairo: Maktab al-Shuruq, 2001, p. 62. 70 Cf. John Vinocur, ‘Jospin Envisions an Alternative EU,’ in the International Herald Tribune (IHT ), 29/5/01, web edition, which describes Jospin as offering ‘no place for collaboration of the United States.’ Also see Flora Lewis, ‘Soured Allied Relations Under Bush Need Fixing,’ IHT, 25/9/01, p. 9; William Pfaff, ‘America and Europe: A New World Order Will Have to Wait,’ IHT, 17/5/01, web edi­ tion; Martin Kettle, ‘The New Anti-Americanism,’ Wall Street Journal Online, 10/01/01; and ‘Roger Cohen, Arrogant or Humble? Bush Encounters Europeans’ Hostility,’ IHT, 8/5/01, p. 1. 71 Abderrahim Lamchichi, Islam-Occident, Islam-Europe: Choc des civilisations ou coex­ istence des cultures? Paris: Editions L’Harmattan, 2000, p. 19. 72 Cf. Pedersen, Newer Islamic Movements . . ., p. 123. Another important question is, How prominent are international issues and conflicts (such as globalisation) to European Muslims vis-à-vis more local issues—getting a new mosque built, educa­ tional issues and so forth? (cf. Jorgen Nielsen, Muslims in Western Europe, Edinburgh: Edinburgh Universtiy Press, 1992 p. 51). Indeed, in the UK, for example, while Muslims have been involved in international issues such as the Rushdie affair, Palestine, and the Gulf War, their main concerns are over local and communal issues related to the ability to freely/easily observe their religion, especially re edu­ cation, food, work, and the like, (Steven Vertovec, ‘Muslims, the State and the Public Sphere in Britain,’ in Gerd Nonneman, Tim Niblock and Bogdan Szajkowski, eds. Muslim Communities in the New Europe, Reading, Berkshire, UK: Ithaca Press 1996, pp. 169–186, p. 180).

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

96

10/22/02

3:27 PM

Page 96

 

reveals little textual material on which to examine the specific issue of European Muslim experiences and/or understandings of globalisa­ tion and its effects on their communities.73 This limitation has shaped my examination of the unfolding and institutionalisation of European Islam in four Western European countries: the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy.74 In discussing the four countries under review, it is important to remember the context of the last decade of Islamist politics and cul­ ture in Western Europe: The same year the Berlin wall fell and the centenary of the French Revolution was celebrated, 1989, saw the Rushdie and headscarf affairs envelop the consciousness of Muslim and non-Muslim Europeans alike, permanently changing the self-perceptions of Western Europe’s Muslim communities and creating a void in the local Muslim communal structures which in part has been filled by Islamist politics. Yet already the year before the idea of Europe as ‘the new frontier of Islam’ was beginning to attract scholarly attention, as the sedimentation of several decades of Muslim immigration to Europe had forced both Europeans and Muslims alike to move beyond images of Crusades, colonisation, or despotism and toward a new, common reality—one of a ‘peaceful return of Islam to European space . . . with a dynamic charged with contradictions.’75 These events remind us that despite many political and economic gains there remains among the wider European public a generalised and diffuse anti-Muslim sentiment, which is exacerbated by structural disadvantages that mitigate against fair and positive Muslim incor­ poration into the larger society.76 Such long-term discrimination, and the cultural differences between the host and immigrant societies play a determinative role in the shape and influence of Islamist and other communal politics in these countries.77

73

Personal email communication, November 2000. By ‘institutionalism’ is meant ‘the establishment of organisations which aim at the continuation of the experience and practice of the Islamic religion by immi­ grants and their descendents in their non-Islamic environment’ (N. Landman, ‘Sufi Orders in the Netherlands: Their Role in the Institutionalization of Islam,’ in W.A.R. Shadid and P.S. van Koningsveld (eds.), Islam in Dutch Society: Current Developments and Future Prospects, Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1992, pp. 26–39). 75 Cf. Felice Dassetto and Albert Bastenier, Europa: Nuova Frontiera dell’Islam, Roma: Edizioni Lavoro, 1988. 76 Cf. Vertovec, ‘Muslims, the State and the Public Sphere in Britain,’ p. 180 are the situation in the UK. 77 Indeed, using Islam as their chosen means, Muslim minorities in Western Europe 74

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

10/22/02

‘

3:27 PM

Page 97

’  ‘ ’

97

Yet while there are many obstacles to greater pluralism and accep­ tance of Muslims in Europe, there are also striking similarities in the way many segments of the host and minority communities under­ stand globalisation. This is not surprising. As Zygmunt Bauman argues, we have entered the age of ‘liquid’ modernity, and nothing is as liquid as money, except perhaps the constantly shifting channels of communication between the emerging movements against American justice d’argent, a system viewed as trampling basic guarantees to free­ dom, right livelihood and justice in the name of the free market. Whether in Paris, Rome or Prague, increasing numbers of Europeans are saying ‘Non merci, Oncle Sam!’ 78 At the same time there is an increasing Muslim presence in pub­ lic spheres and spaces in Europe that is creating a Euro-Islamic specificity, one that has the potential to offer new ideas and chal­ lenges to elite attempts (whether state or corporate led) to manage globalisation and the myriad societal responses to it.79 It is this sim­ ilarity between Muslim and European perceptions of a US-dominated globalisation that prompted my investigation into the specificities of European Muslim appreciations of the debate. Islam and Social Networks in Europe The presence of Muslim communities in Europe touches a vast ensemble of questions, among the most important but least observed until now being the phenomenon of transnationalisation, a central experience of globalisation that involves circulations and flows of labor, migration and the like that leads to a ‘transnationalisation of ideas,’ including Islam.80 This experience goes beyond the economic are developing a region of consciousness and culture in which the social norms of the majority society do not count. This development occurs on both individual and collective levels, as new organisations parameters are established which break with established political unions among ethnic minorities but also with forms of religiouspolitical expression such as are represented by national cultural associations and the like (Lars Pedersen, Newer Islamic Movement in Western Europe, Brookfield, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 1999, p. 3). 78 Noel Mamer, Non Merci, Oncle Sam!, Paris: Editions Ramsay, 1999; cf. inter alia, the writings of Engelhard, Warnier, Dettke, Bayart, Heuser, Webster, Strinati. 79 This is further made possible because, with the exception of the United Kingdom, Western European governments have not converged on a full-blown market capi­ talist model even as most have become more market-oriented. 80 Cf. Amiraux, ‘Islam turc d’Allemagne,’ p. 28. As C. Wihtol de Wenden argues,

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

98

10/22/02

3:27 PM

Page 98

 

aspects normally forefronted in traditional analyses of globalisation to cultural issues, such as the creation of a post-migratory ‘neo-umma’ in Europe—a ‘Euro-Islam’ led by a new generation of Muslim intel­ lectuals who are grappling with the changing relationship between normative and vernacular Islamic practices.81 Islam in Europe can be situated within a triangular relation: the Muslim ‘diaspora’ in Europe, the Muslim communities in the coun­ tries of origin, and the host countries.82 Together these vectors produce two opposing tendencies: a Euro-Islam83 that sees itself as a perma­ nent implantation in the space of Europe, and a ‘ghetto’ Islam that mirrors the continued rejection of Islam by the white/Christian major­ ity cultures. It is necessary to discuss both of these possibilities and link them to the larger processes of globalisation. Yet because of this complexity few of the existing research traditions have been equipped to investigate the phenomena of European Islam.84 transnational networks reveal a complexification of allegiances that are in contra­ diction with the logic of the nation-state but which reflect contradictions with the openness and closure of spaces and identities’ (Catherine Wihtol de Wenden, ‘How can one be Muslim? The French Debate on Allegiance, Intrusion and Transnationalism,’ International Review of Sociology, Vol. 8, No. 2, 1998, pp. 275–288, p. 286). 81 Stefano Allievi, Nouveaux protagonistes de l’islam européen: Naissance d’une culture euro­ islamique? Le rôle des convertis, Florence: EUI Working Papers series, RSC No. 2000/18, pp. 9–10; Felice Dassetto, ‘Discours, societés et individus dan l’islam européen,’ in Felice Dassetto, ed., Paroles d’islam: Individus, Societés et discours dan l’islam européen contem­ porain, Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 2000, pp. 13–34; Steven Vertovec and Alisdair Rogers, eds., Muslim European Youth: Reproducing ethnicity, religion, culture, Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998, introduction. Roy points out that the lack of well-known traditional Islamic experts in Europe has created a situation in which there is ‘no one to say what right Islam is,’ which is leading to the creation of new mediators who are not 'ulama but organic intellectuals, producing ‘new forms of religiosity’ (Olivier Roy, ‘L’individualisation dans l’islam européen contemporain,’ in Dassetto, Paroles d’islam . . ., pp. 69–84). This transnationalisation is occurring at the same time that Muslims are becoming increasingly ‘naturalised’ in their host countries (cf. Wasif Shadid and Sjoerd van Koningsveld, ‘Political Participation: The Muslim Perspective,’ in W.A.R. Shadid and P.S. van Koningsveld, eds., Politicial Participation and identities of Muslims in Non-Muslim States, Kampen: the Netherlands, Kok Pharos Publishing, 1996, pp. 2–13, p. 3). 82 Bassam Tibi, ‘Les conditions d’un ‘euro-islam’,’ in Robert Bistolfi and François Zabbal, Islams d’Europe: Intégration ou insertion communautaire, Paris: Editions de l’Aube, 1995, pp. 230–234. 83 One according to Bassam Tibi and Krishan Kumar that sees itself as com­ patable with liberal democracy, individual human rights, and civil society, yet pro­ tects against both ghettoisation and assimilation through the articulation of cosmopolitan Muslim identities (see their contributions to Al-Sayyad and Castells, Muslim Europe or Euro-Islam). 84 Cf. Felice Dassetto, ‘Introduction,’ in Felice Dassetto and Yves Conrad, eds., Musulmans en Europe Occidentale: Bibliographie commentée, Paris: Éditions L’Harmattan, 1996, p. 9.

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

10/22/02

‘

3:27 PM

Page 99

’  ‘ ’

99

One of the most fruitful methodologies for such an investigation is the use of network theory as developed by Manuel Castells and elaborated by numerous sociologists and geographers in the last two decades. These networks, which represent the organisation form of globalisation in the information age, are comprised of people, travel, commodities, and of course, discourses. According to Castells, a basic premise is that in the era of glob­ alisation nation-states suffer legitimation crises stemming from their inability to respond simultaneously to the vast array of demands which increases the power of emergent transnational social networks.85 Deployments of network analyses of Muslim communities in Europe provide new information about connections within them and to their homelands; knowledge which is particularly important as Europe once again goes global and the relationships between places and net­ works are transformed in ways that make it more difficult for new immigrants to take over existing institutionalised ethnic/religious net­ works at the same time it democratises them.86 Indeed, globalisation has provided new networks and multiple iden­ tities to Muslim communities in Europe, in a sense making possible the ‘true globalisation of Islam’ as Muslims use the infrastructure of the new global economy and their multiple identities to construct and mobilise their own networks of resources. Appraising the success of these practices becomes a significant factor for assessing the con­ temporary Muslim presence in Europe and the shape of Euro-Islamic identities.87 What is already clear is that Euro-Muslim communities possess the resources and experience to construct positive, integrated iden­ tities; as Paul Lubeck argues, Muslims more than most immigrant groups in Western Europe possess the institutional and cultural cap­ ital to take maximum advantage of global networks in order to construct a web of transnational communities throughout the EU

85

Cf. Manuel Castells, The Power of Identity, NY: Blackwell, 1997, pp. 271–2. Alisdair Rogers, ‘The spaces of multiculturalism and citizenship,’ in Vertovec, ed., Migration and Social Cohesion, pp. 243–255, pp. 247–248, 252. A defetishisation is achieved by demonstrating the transportation of supposedly ‘rural’ South Asian behaviours and rituals to urban British contexts (cf. Alisdair Rogers and Steven Vertovec, eds., The Urban Context: Ethnicity, Social Networks and Situational Analysis, Oxford: Berg Publishers, 1995, introduction). 87 See Paul Lubeck, ‘the Challenge of Islamic Networks and Citizenship Claims: Europe’s Painful Adjustment to Globalisation,’ in AlSayyad and Castells, Muslim Europe or Euro-Islam, pp. 69–90. 86

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

100

10/22/02

3:27 PM

Page 100

 

countries.88 Given the centrality of networks to the reality of Muslim experience in Europe, an analysis of the transformation of Muslim networks in and through the space of Western Europe should attempt to map and decipher the different (if often overlapping) transnational—and as important, transcultural 89—discourses and dialogues that comprise them. Through these processes Islam is being ‘rene­ gotiated within a translocal public sphere.’90 Yet the increasing diversification and fragmentation of social inter­ ests in globalising network societies also lead to (re)constructed iden­ tities; in the case of ‘developing’ societies of the global south, ‘resistance identities’ that emerge when communities lack the political-economic and cultural power to articulate ‘positive,’ open and self-consciously hybrid identities. Such communities ‘resist, they barely communicate,’ either with each other or outside the smallest circles of caring and concern.91 Perhaps we can best see Euro-Islam as comprised of numerous ‘traveling Islams’ that recognise and are constituted through hybrid­ ity, internal difference and translocalised diaspora identities,92 and whose generally informal organising capabilities both influence and are transformed via the processes of cultural and economic globalisation.93 Thus ever changing intra-Muslim networks of labour, fam­ ily, and religious migration, from the crucial but underappreciated Sufi networks to long-established da'wa/missionary organisations, to the globalising hegemony of ‘Saudi Islam,’ constitute the first level of influence.94 88

Ibid. For the notion of ‘transculturalism’ see Fernando Ortiz, Cuban Counterpoint: Tobacco and Sugar, translated by Harriet de Onis, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1947. 90 Mandaville, Transnational Muslim Politics . . ., p. 81. 91 Castells, The Power of Identity, pp. 356, 359–360. He continues, ‘The new power lies in the images of representation around which societies organize their institu­ tions and people build their lives . . . the sites of this power are people’s minds . . . who­ ever, or whatever, wins the battle of people’s minds will rule. This is why identities are so important and powerful.’ 92 Mandaville, Transnational Muslim Politics . . ., ch. 3. 93 Cf. Chapters by Werbner, Anwar, Bridge and Grieco in Rogers and Vertovec, The Urban Context . . . 94 The power of migration—which has always been a major impetus to change within religions, including Islam—as a dynamic system in the global era, repre­ senting linkages from home and host countries, creates networks or ‘circuits’ whose terminals and mass culture connections compel comparison ( James Fawcett, ‘Networks, Linkages and Migration Systems,’ in Steven Vertovec and Robin Cohen, eds., Migration, Diasporas and Transnationalism, Cheltenham: Elgar Reference Collection, 89

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

10/22/02

‘

3:27 PM

Page 101

’  ‘ ’

101

Existing European political, religious and other institutional struc­ tures also have a determinative impact on the shape and flow of Islam and its networks in Europe.95 Third is the fact that within Europe there are surprisingly few local, seminary-trained religious scholars, to guide the communities (especially younger people), which has forced many European Muslims to approach their religion in a more personal manner, through direct reading of the primary sources (the Qu"ràn and Sunna).96 In the context of globalisation these ‘translo­ cal spaces’ are the site of debates over the nature and future of Islams in Europe.97 In the context of a network analysis, one can broadly—but not inaccurately—state that the phenomenon of Islamism in Western Europe, which concerns us here, has gained a foothold among the so-called second generation immigrants who are comfortable neither adopting the parents’ (and parent culture’s) norms nor recognising themselves in the images of Islam and Muslims in their host countries.98 Indeed, this generation is engaged in a transnationally inspired reformulation of Islam—a process variously termed ‘personalisation,’ ‘secularisation’, ‘privatisation’ and ‘individuation’—that is broaden­ ing the religious, and larger cultural, choices available to Muslim women and men in Europe.99 In sum, there would seem to be a collective aspiration for increas­ ing Islamisation of life coupled with an individual desire to remain living as Muslims in their host countries.100 What is most important about this perspective is that it demonstrates striking similarities to the manner in which Muslims living in the Muslim majority world 1999, pp. 16–25; J.M. van der Lans, M. Rooijackers, ‘Types of Belief and Unbelief Among Second Generation Turkish Migrants,’ in Shadid and Koningsveld, eds., Islam in Dutch Society . . ., pp. 57–65). 95 Cf. Jørgen Nielsen, Towards a European Islam, NY: St. Martin’s Press, p. 9; Manger, Muslim Diversity. 96 Nielsen, Towards a European Islam, p. 23. 97 Mandaville, Transnational Muslim Politics . . ., p. 82. 98 Pedersen, Newer Islamic Movements . . ., p. 17. 99 Jacques Waardenberg, ‘Normative Islam in Europe,’ in Dassetto, Paroles d’islam . . ., pp. 49–68, p. 50; Valérie Amiraux, ‘Jeunes musulmanes turques d’Allemagne: Voix et voies de l’individuation,’ in Dassetto, Paroles d’islam . . ., pp. 101–23, p. 101; Jørgen Baeck-Simonsen, ‘From Defensive Silence to Creative Participation: Muslim Discourses in Denmark,’ in Dassetto, Paroles d’islam . . ., pp. 145–53, p. 152; Valérie Amiraux, ‘Turkish Islam in Germany: Between Political Overdetermination and Cultural Affirmation,’ in Shadid and van Koningsveld, Political Participation and Identities . . ., pp. 36–52, p. 46). 100 Amiraux, ‘Turkish Islam in Germany,’ p. 50.

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

102

10/22/02

3:27 PM

Page 102

 

relate to their marginalised positions vis-à-vis the West as a whole. Thus, the ambivalent and marginalised conceptualisation of European Muslims vis-à-vis Europe is a microcosm of the larger Muslim-West relationship today—the Western discourse of exclusion, with all its power, strengthens the ability of religious actors to ‘(re)Islamise’ Euro­ pean Muslims, thus addressing the need for a defence mechanism against both social exclusion and ‘too much modernity.’101 This focus on modernity-as-a-problem (a mirror, as well shall see, of the Western conception of ‘Islam-as-a-problem’) reflects the larger fault-lines in the relationship between the Muslim majority world and the West. Muslim immigration to Western Europe: an historical overview While there has been a Muslim presence in Western Europe for hundreds of years, especially in port cities, significant migration occurred only after the Second World War, and can be divided into four periods, or cycles.102 The first period, encapsulating the 1950s and 1960s, saw the migration of Arabs and Muslims as guest workers.103 A turning point in the history of European Islam occurred in the 1970s, when families joined the previously male work-force and transformed migrant workers (whom both the government and them­ selves thought would return to the home country at some point) into permanent residents/citizens of these countries.104 Not surprisingly, during this period the family unit quickly sup­ planted work as the most basic level of experience, and thus issues such as raising and education of children in a non-Muslim environ­

101 Kepel and Etienne, quoted in Jim House, ‘Muslim Communities in France,’ in Nonneman, et al., Muslim Communities in the New Europe, pp. 219–235, p. 227. 102 This migration can itself be understood as the fourth wave of Muslim con­ tact with and migration to Europe going back to the earliest days of the spread of Islam (cf. Jorgen Nielsen, Toward a European Islam, NY: St. Martins, 1999. 103 Cf. M. Ali Kettani, ‘Challenges to the Organisation of Muslim Communities in Western Europe: The Political Dimension,’ in Shadid and van Koningsveld, eds., Political Participation and Identities . . ., pp. 14–35. 104 Indeed, Kettani argues that the modern establishment of Muslim communities in Europe was ‘a result of a miscalculation of all parties concerned . . . None of the actors (immigrants, States, etc.) intended to establish a Muslim community in Western Europe’ (Kettani, ‘Challenges to the Organisation . . .’ pp. 15–16). As Wihtol de Wenden points out, in France public opinion began slowly to discover that migrant workers have a religion, Islam, where before they were seen as ‘proletarians’ (‘How Can One Be a Muslim?’ p. 276).

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

10/22/02

‘

3:27 PM

Page 103

’  ‘ ’

103

ment became central concerns.105 It was here that European Muslims became ‘social communities in the full sense,’ demanding both equal rights and special considerations for their unique religious and cul­ tural needs.106 Ultimately, this evolved into larger issues of sociability within the host societies, bringing civil, legal and other questions concerning marriage, divorces, and related issues to the fore. Moreover, the growing importance of socio-political themes in Western European Muslim communities forced governments to begin to grapple with Europe’s burgeoning ‘multiculturality’, as Muslims have become a permanent part of the European landscape and a visible part of the culture.107 About 10 million Muslims reside in Western Europe.108 Roughly 3–3.5 million Muslims live in France, 1.6–2 million in Germany, more than 1 million reside in the UK, and approximately 3–400,000 in Italy.109 If we begin with Great Britain, since the mid-1980s Muslims in Britain have become increasingly conspicuous in the British public sphere (not to mention local council boards), both because of their own organisational efforts and the persistent public discourse of Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism.110 In the process some trends within European Islam have become much more ideo­ logical, as evidenced by the publication in 1990 of The Muslim manifesto—a Strategy for Survival, to help Muslims persevere against ‘the demands of rampant, immoral secularism . . . [within] a post-Christian, largely pagan, society’ that has launched a ‘vicious assault on [Muslims’] identities.’111

105

This lead to a significant increase in the formation of mosques and other asso­ ciations at the initiative of the immigrants themselves (Pedersen, Newer Islamic Movements . . ., p. 24). 106 Nonneman, Muslim Communities in the New Europe, p. 4. 107 Pederson, Newer Islamic Movements . . ., p. 170, using Dassetto’s formulation; Abderrahim Lamchichi, Islam-Occident, Islam-Europe: Choc des civilisations ou coexistence des cultures? Paris: Editions L’Harmattan, 2000, p. 13. 108 Source: Adherents.com website: http://www.adherents.com/adhloc/Wh_98.html #235. 109 Bistolfi and Zabbal, Islams D’Europe . . ., p. 16. 110 Vertovec, ‘Muslims, the State and the Public Sphere in Britain,’ p. 170. 111 Quoted in Philip Lewis, Islamic Britain: Religion, Politics and Identity among British Muslims, London: I.B. Tauris, 1994, p. 126; cf. Daniele Joly, ‘Making a Place for Islam in British Society: Muslims in Birmingham,’ in Tomas Gerholm and Yngve Georg Lithman, The New Islamic Presence in Western Europe, London: Mansell Publishing, 1988, pp. 32–52, p. 40. The manifesto further argued that Europe was ‘beginning

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

104

11/4/02

10:15 AM

Page 104

 

Indeed, the specific problems of Western society have led some Muslim leaders in the UK to express concern for the development of Islam in Britain or any Western environment. For them Western society has ‘lost its signposts’ and has become ‘meaningless, aimless, rootless and characterised by crime, drugs and psychiatric disorders.’112 Islam, on the other hand, can create ‘good citizens’113—but this is impossible when, as one of the more militant Muslim intellectuals in the UK argues, the Rushdie affair and similar events put Britain’s Muslim population in ‘open conflict with a post-Christian secular society.’114 Yet for every radical polemicist there are local and international Muslim leaders who have authorised Muslims in the UK and other host countries to participate fully in their political systems, and indi­ vidual Muslims who have taken advantage of the democratic open­ ings within British society for all citizens by running for office and becoming local councillors, and even Lords.115 Indeed, London has been described as ‘the de facto intellectual capital of the Middle East’ because of its geographical and technological position vis-à-vis to develop disorders of the mind, body and soul as a direct consequence of unmit­ igated secularism,’ which necessitates ‘arresting the ‘integration’ and ‘assimilation’ of Muslims into the corrupt bogland of Western culture.’ For a discussion of the Muslim Parliament, see Nielsen, Towards a European Islam, chs. 4 and 8. 112 Gilles Kepel, Allah in the West: Islamic Movements in America and Europe (Mestizo Spaces) Paris: Broché, 1997, p. 130, emphasis added, as the specter of ‘psychiatric disorders’ brings to mind the work of Deleuze and Guattari in Capitalism and Schizophrenia, a critique which raises many of the same issues. 113 The reason for this being that ‘it possesses moral precepts such as collective responsibility and moderation that liberate man from ‘western-like materialism, ego­ ism and money-grabbing corruption and overriding selfish individualism of the West’ (ibid.) 114 Kalim Siddiqui, quoted in Kepel, Allah in the West . . ., p. 143. He continues, ‘If we refuse, as in my opinion we must, to allow the amoral and largely immoral secular society to destroy our moral values, then we are too, ipso facto, in longterm conflict with our environment, including the British Government.’ Such attitudes can be understood as a response to the anti-Muslim discourse of the Right, which depicted a Britain ‘endangered by too many Muslims,’ as Winston Churchill, MP, warned his constituents (quoted in Steven Vertovec and Ceri Peach, ‘Introduction: Islam in Europe and the Politics of Religion and Community,’ in Vertovec and Peach, eds., Islam in Europe: The Politics of Religion and Community, NY: St. Martins, 1997. 115 Wasif Shadid and Sjoerd van Koningsveld, ‘Loyalty to a Non-Muslim Government: An Analysis of Islamic Normative Discussions and of the Views of some Contemporary Islamists,’ in Shadid and van Koningsveld, eds., Political Participation and Identities . . ., pp. 85–114, p. 106. Indeed, Vertovec considers the participation of Muslims in the political life of the British city of Leicester as a model for social inclusion (cf. Steven Vertovec, ‘Multiculturalism, culturalism and public incorpora­ tion,’ in Steven Vertovec, ed., Migration and Social Cohesion, pp. 222–242.

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

10/22/02

‘

3:27 PM

Page 105

’  ‘ ’

105

the United State, Europe, and the Muslim world.116 More ominously, it is also considered one of Europe’s primary finishing school for ter­ rorists for precisely the same reasons. Turning to France, since the time of Napoleon II French policy has been consistent in its uneasiness to see Islam established in the country.117 Such a sentiment reflects a strong feeling among the French elite that any form of multiculturalism which would involved the recognition of communities could ‘lebanise’ France; such a ‘totali­ tarian French laïcité’ is in turn seen as a destructive force by reli­ gious Muslims.118 Not surprisingly, neither the traditional militant assimilation of Muslims into French culture, nor the more recent trend toward ‘cultural insertion’ (in which minorities maintain their existing culture without ‘cross-pollination’ with the dominant culture) have been able to achieve their goals in a context of continuing eco­ nomic and cultural exclusion.119 With these historic biases the most charitable assessment of con­ temporary French policy vis-à-vis Islam is that the state has sought to corporatise Muslim life in the country. This policy is reflected in the creation of the Conseil consultatif de la communauté musulmane in 1990, whose function was to act as a negotiating body between the state and Muslim population—i.e., ‘to symbolise Islam, if not represent it.’120 Within the analysis of culture outlined in section one, such a political goal must be understood vis-à-vis the culturalisation of political discourses under the conditions of globalisation.

116

Mandaville, Transnational Muslim Politics, p. 146. Kettani, ‘Challenges to the Organisation . . .’ p. 24. 118 Alain Touraine, quoted in House, ‘Muslim Communities in France,’ p. 220; Afaya, L’Occident . . ., p. 121. In fact, the combination of issues related to nationalcum-cultural allegience, ‘security’ and the ‘threat of Islam’ led to the reform of the nationality code in the 1990s (Wihtol de Wenden, ‘How Can One Be Muslim?’ p. 278). However, internal divisions among the various French Muslim communities also contribute to the ‘weakness of Islam in France,’ primarily because of the lack of a single, institutionally recognised authority through which to negotiate its place visa-vis state and civil society (House, ‘Muslim Communities in France,’ p. 219). Cf. Francois Burgat, L’Islamisme au Maghreb, Paris: Karthala, 1982; Bruno Etienne, La France et l’islam, Paris: Hachette, 1989; Bruni Etienne, ed., L’Islam en France: Islam, état et société, Paris, Editions du CNRS, 1991. 119 Patrick Weil and John Crowley, ‘Integration in Theory and practice: A Comparison of France and Britain,’ in Steven Vertovec, ed., Migration and Social Cohesion, Cheltenham, UK: Elgar Reference Collection, 1999, pp. 100–116. 120 Foreign Minister Pierre Joxe, quoted in Kepel, Allah in the West . . ., p. 190. The council was created at the urging of the Interior Minister, who is also the Minister of Clergy. 117

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

106

10/22/02

3:27 PM

Page 106

 

It was during this period that a paradoxical and paradigmic shift occurred in the way in which Muslims conceived of France, and the rest of Western Europe. France—which like the rest of the nonMuslim world had traditionally been conceived of as dàr al-˙arb, or land of war—began to be conceived of as a dàr al-'ahd, the land of truce, or negotiated settlement. That is, Muslims began to feel a bit more at home in France and Europe, as such both have come to signify a space between the lands of war and peace that historically separated Islam and the West.121 Indeed, for some Islamists, such as the Tunisian Rachid alGhannouchi (and following him the Union of Islamic Organisations in France (UOIF)), France even assumed the status of dàr al-Islàm, or abode of peace. That is, France has juridically become a ‘Muslim’ country. Islam in France became Islam of France,122 a transforma­ tion that was crucial to the way in which Muslims in Europe and around the world perceive and relate to Europe. Since Islam—at least for most Muslims in the country—was officially in a state of truce, coexistence and even peace, French Muslims no longer had to be concerned primarily with issues of State interference or basic necessities like building mosques. Instead they could focus on build­ ing schools, on building (or at least contending with) ‘a new kind of Islam which had become a reference for youth born or at least brought up in France.’123

121 This change was brought about in the early 1990s when a group of Muslim scholars met at Chateau Chinon in France to consider the problems facing Muslims in Europe, at which the change in categorisation symbolised a willingness toward greater dialogue (cf. Peter Mandaville, Transnational Muslim Politics . . ., p. 1. Other appellations include ‘Dàr al-Aman,’ the land of Truce, and ‘Dàr al Da'wa’, land of preaching. It should be pointed out that the ‘traditional’ manichaean division of the world has no basis in either the Qur"àn or the Prophetic traditions. Shadid and van Konigsveld provide a good historical assessment of this transformation, and explain that religious scholars such as Ghannouchi or Soheib Bencheikh conceived of France as essentially an ‘Islamic’ country because of the unprecedented oppor­ tunities for work and freedom for Muslims living there (‘Loyalty to a non-Muslim Government . . .’) This understanding must be contextualized vis-à-vis Sayyid Qutb’s argument that in the contemporary world even ostensibly ‘Muslim’ countries can no longer be described as part of the Dàr al-Islàm. Cf. Kepel, Allah in the West . . ., p. 151. 122 Kepel, Allah in the West . . ., p. 152. 123 Kepel, ibid., p. 184. Kepel argues that the state’s efforts to institutionalise Islam came too late to be able to defuse the conflicts and the social problems of the 1990s. It still remains very difficult to get authorisation to build new mosques, especially outside of Paris.

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

10/22/02

‘

3:27 PM

Page 107

’  ‘ ’

107

But the truce or peace was not necessarily honoured within either French political or popular cultures. This continued hostility of the dominant French culture to Islam at the conceptual, structural and practical levels continues to place numerous constraints on the accep­ tance of Muslims in France.124 Given these dynamics, it is not sur­ prising that in times of inter-communal stress, such as the head scarf affair of 1989, Islam has even been portrayed as a ‘serious threat to the continued existence of the Republic.’125 Such sentiments reflect the larger tension between the government and Muslim population over the burgeoning re-Islamisation of the community ‘from below;’126 a trend that is recognisable in the Muslim majority world as well. Similar to France, in debates about Muslims in Germany religion is often viewed as an obstacle to integration, while the proliferation of Islamic organisations and groups who claim to be official repre­ sentatives of Islam in Germany further confuses the interaction between the State and Muslims.127 The German State has also con­ tinually raised obstacles to the ability of Muslim organisations to be recognised as a ‘Body of Public Law’ (the prerequisite for gaining access to various kinds of public support), while favoring those aligned with the Turkish State in its dealings.128 Moreover, important members of the political elite, such as the former West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, have called for rejecting Turkey’s admission to the EU because its Muslim culture was irredeemably non-European.129 The use of Germany as a base 124 This process has helped to ‘re-Islamise’ North Africans in the French politi­ cal imaginary, solidifying the view of Muslims and their ‘Islam-as-a-problem’ as ‘unassimilable’ (House, ‘Muslim Communities in France,’ pp. 219, 223–5). Such discrimination is a conflation of ethnic and religious stereotypes and the continued salience of colonial and ‘religious’ paradigms in French Culture. In response to this situation, assimilation has becomes for many Muslims synonymous with moral dis­ solution associated with French culture (Kepel, Allah in the West . . ., p. 210). 125 House, ‘Muslim Communities in France,’ p. 230. 126 Cf. Roy, ‘L’Islam en France . . .,’ pp. 82–85. Such grass-roots religious senti­ ment, it is feared, could involved an internal separation (or an internal ‘hijra’) in a society perceived as ‘pagan.’ This would help sedementarise Muslim populations in ‘ghetto’-like situations, making them in turn more dangerous for the authorities because of the concentration of people, poverty, anger, and a more uncompromis­ ing form of religious expression. 127 Yasemin Karakasoglu and Gerd Nonneman, ‘Muslims in Germany, With Special Reference to the Turkish-Islamic community,’ in Nonneman, et al., Muslim Communities in the New Europe, pp. 241–265, p. 244. 128 Cf. Amiraux, ‘Turkish Islam in Germany.’ 129 Helmut Schmidt, ‘Wer nicht zu Europa gehört,’ Die Zeit, October 5, 2000, sec. 1, p. 5. For an analysis of his remarks, see ‘Plädoyer für institutionelle Reformen:

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

108

10/22/02

3:27 PM

Page 108

 

by the World Trade Center terrorists has only complicated matters further. Such sentiments are an important reason why the younger gen­ eration of German-born Turks have faced similar problems to their Arab peers in Europe—being singled out as ‘Alemanci’ (i.e., German) in Turkey but as ‘Turks’ by Germans. This forced hybridisation prompted the development of a German Turk identity, that corre­ sponds fully neither with parents’ Turkish culture or German cul­ ture, but fits in with the typology of cultural expression that I have argued is at the core of identity formation and expression in the global era.130 Through both state and opposition-sponsored organisations and institutions, Turkish Islam has played a central role as to the presence and kind of Islam in Germany—and in Europe more generally.131 These transnational dynamics of German-Turkish Islam constantly cross, hybridise and rival each other on the cultural and political levels.132 In fact, the tightly controlled ‘democratic’ process in Turkey, Schmidt und Giscard appellieren an die EU-Mitgliedsstaaten,’ in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, November 4, 2000, p. 8. 130 Karaksoglu and Nonneman, ‘Muslims in Germany,’ p. 247. Yet evidence from the early 1990s suggests that in the Netherlands, at least, second generation Turkish youth were generally able to ‘deal with the integration dilemma at the psycholog­ ical level by taking a bicultural stand’ (M. Rooijackers, ‘Religious Identity, Integration and Subjective Well-Being Among Young Turkish Muslims,’ Shadid and Koningsveld, eds., Islam in Dutch Society . . ., pp. 67–73, p. 73). 131 Chr. Elsass, ‘Turkish Islamic Ideal of Education: Their Possible Function for Islamic Identity and Integration in Europe,’ in W.A.R. Shadid and P.S. van Koningsveld, eds., The Integration of Islam and Hinduism in Western Europe, Kampen, Netherlands: 1991, Kok Pharos Publishing, pp. 174–187, p. 174; Talip Küçükcan, Politics of Ethnicity, Identity and Religion: Turkish Muslims in Britain, Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999, p. 167. Any discussion of Islam in Germany would be incomplete without at least briefly touching on developments in Turkey during the last fifty years. While a discussion of the complexities of Turkish Islam is beyond the scope of this paper, it is necessary to point out that the seemingly militantly secular state has a unique interpretation of the term ‘secular.’ The term is normally taken to mean the sep­ aration of state and religion, but in Turkey the state has placed religion under de facto state authority through the DITIB (the Diyanet Iºleri Türk-Islam Birligi; i.e., the Religious Authority’s Turkish-Islamic Associations), which thus prohibits the for­ mation of any party or organisation which openly seeks to define itself Islamically. This is how opposition groups perceive the situation, which is why they won’t work with the Diyanet (cf. Pedersen, Newer Islamic Movements in Western Europe, p. 58). 132 Valérie Amiraux, ‘Islam turc d’Allemagne: Les dynamiques de l’identité religieuse,’ in Leveau, Islam(s) en Europe, pp. 17–49. In another article, Amiraux explains how different Turkish-German associations engage European level supra­ national, and more localized national and regional identities (‘Turkish Islamic Asso­ ciations in Germany and the Issue of European Citizenship,’ in Vertovec and Peach, Islam in Europe, pp. 245–259).

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

10/22/02

‘

3:27 PM

Page 109

’  ‘ ’

109

has led Germany to become an important transnational free space for political socialisation of Turks, escaping the total control of either government yet constituting a permanent space of residence for Turks.133 Italy has among the smaller yet most rapidly establishing Muslim populations in Western Europe. At around 400,000, Muslim immi­ grants constitute roughly 30% of the total immigrant population.134 Any investigation of Islam in Italy must recognise that until the midseventies Italy was a country of emigrants, and is thus new to immi­ gration. Government institutions have thus been ill prepared for dealing with it, while political activity by Muslim organisations is still in its incipient stage even if the whole typology of institutionalised Islam (mosques, associations, Sufi orders, etc.) are already established.135 Yet however recently implanted, the range of religious expressions in Italy is as diverse as the composition of the communities—from North Africa to the Balkans, from foreign-based organisations with headquarters in Kuwait to more localised centers that have adapted themselves to regional particularities in Italy. As in other Western European countries there is quickly developing an Italian Islam (and not just an Islam in Italy) built on an institutional, religious and cul­ tural bricolage within the Muslim community and the larger Italiancum-European institutions with which they interact.136 As I discuss in the conclusion, these spaces (especially the cultural space) are cru­ cial to a dialogue over the future of Islam in the country.137

133 Amiraux, ‘Islam turc d’Allemagne,’ pp. 20, 24. Amiraux points out that ‘all political organisations that had difficulties in Turkey moved to Germany’ (‘Turkish Islam in Germany,’ p. 40). This dynamic should be understood in a context in which Turkish citizens are ‘led to believe that they are European’ through the var­ ious economic and media links between the two (Ali Murat Yel, ‘Conflictural images of Turkey and Europe,’ in Seufert and Waardenburg, Türkischer Islam und Europa, pp. 191–207). 134 Ottavia Schmidt di Friedberg, ‘Stratégies des migrants et positionnement de l’islam en Italie,’ in Leveau, Islam(s) en Europe, pp. 83–103. 135 Ottavia Schmidt di Friedberg, ‘West-African Islam in Italy: The Senegalese Mouride Brotherhood as an Economic and Cultural Network,’ in Shadid and van Koningsveld, Political Participation and Identities . . ., pp. 71–81, pp. 71, 75, 79; cf. Stefano, Allievi, ‘Muslim Organisations and Islam-State Relations: The Italian Case,’ in Shadid and Koningsveld, eds., Islam in the Margin . . ., pp. 182–201. 136 Stefano Allievi, ‘Données sociales et contexte culturel de l’implantation musul­ mane,’ in Bistolfi and Zabbal, Islams d’Europe . . ., pp. 316–319. 137 Ibid. He further explains that Muslim immigrants in Italy have not waited for a second generation to be Islamically educated, and have built mosques almost immediately after arriving (Allievi, ‘Muslim Organisations and Islam-State Relations’ p. 187).

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

110

10/22/02

3:27 PM

Page 110

 

Unfortunately, Islam’s relatively minor demographic presence in Italy has not prevented a backlash against it by leading academics and high Church officials alike. The periodic revelations of planned attacks by Muslims against Italy’s artistic heritage have not helped the situation. Perhaps this is because the increasing Muslim presence has led to a forced ‘revolution in . . . self-perception’ of the formerly almost exclusively Catholic country.138 Thus the eminent Italian soci­ ologist Giovani Sartori singles out Islam in his new book, Pluralismo, Multiculturalismo e Estranei, as being inherently opposed to tolerance, pluralism and a ‘good society,’139 while Bologna’s Cardinal Biffi has called for a ban on all-non Christian—meaning Muslim—immigration on the grounds that it will destroy the national character of the country.140 The Italian reaction to the burgeoning presence of Islam on the Peninsula reflects the larger problematic of Islam in Europe, as even sympathetic voices within the Italian Left/unions and the Church who work with Muslim immigrant communities generally do not sup­ port greater Muslim settlement.141 In addition, the Italian media— like their counterparts throughout the West—offers an increasingly negative image of Islam and of Muslims as the classic ‘other’ of the Italian, European, Western self-image, with non-Italian figures such as Samuel Huntington having greater influence than Italians work­ ing to better relations.142 The post-‘9/11’ war with terrorism has aggravated this dynamic. Organisational connections between European and Middle Eastern Muslims Recent immigration from the Muslim majority world is a defining narrative within European Islam, and thus European Muslims are 138

Allievi, ‘Muslim Organisations and Islam-State Relations,’ p. 197. Giovanni Sartori, Pluralismo, Multiculturalismo e Estranei: Saggio sulla società mul­ tietnica, Milano: Rizzoli, 2000. 140 Reports of Biffi’s comments received wide attention in the Italian press in September 2000. 141 Friedberg, ‘West-African Islam in Italy,’ p. 92. 142 Ibid., p. 94. For a typology of responses to the Muslim presence by European intellectuals, see Renate Holub, ‘Intellectual and Euro-Islam,’ in Al-Sayyad and Castells, Muslim Europe or Euro-Islam, pp. 167–192. Although this negative portrayal should be contextualized within an often negative portrayal of the Catholic Church as well (cf. Stefano Allievi, ‘Muslim Minorities: Italy and their Image in Italian Media,’ in Vertovec and Peach, Islam in Europe, pp. 211–223). 139

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

10/22/02

‘

3:27 PM

Page 111

’  ‘ ’

111

deeply connected to and ‘profoundly influenced’ by events in the Muslim world.143 Indeed, Western Europe is home to myriad organ­ isations composed of and representing European Muslims on the official, unofficial, and clandestine levels. Even the more activist or radical organisations, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, have veered between ‘participation, social exile and impossible revolution, although they have been eclipsed by the clearly small but extremely violent al-Qa"eda related groups.’144 Most of the more important leaders and larger Muslim organisations are closely connected to foreign organ­ isations or individuals. Perhaps the largest Muslim organisation in Europe (and especially in the UK) is the missionary-inclined Tabligh Jama'at (Association for the Propagation of Islam),145 while theolog­ ically it is not an exaggeration to argue that Islam in the United Kingdom and Europe as a whole is under ‘Saudi hegemony,’ given the massive funding for various activities provided by both the royal family and its opponents.146 In France, Islamist organisations have been operating at least since former President Ben Bella broke with the FLN and sought exile there. Today the Algerian imbroglio is driving the conflicts between the many foreign-based personalities and leaders in France, although the ‘radical feeling of revolt’ among many young Muslims can also be interpreted less as a response to French support for the Algerian government than to the conditions of their life in France.147 Yet when 143 Pnina Werbner, ‘En Débat: quelles valeurs en partage?’ in Bistolfi and Zabbal, Islams d’Europe . . ., pp. 154–171. 144 Dassetto and Bastenier, Europe: Nuova Frontiera dell’Islam, p. 164. 145 The Tabligh Jama'at was formed in 1927 in India with the goal of mission­ ary work in and outside the Muslim community The ‘global scope’ of the Tabligh is considered its essence (cf. John King, ‘Tablighi Jamaat and the Deobandi Mosques in Britain,’ in Vercovec and Peach, Islam in Europe, pp. 129–146, p. 129). 146 Dassetto, La Construction de L’Islam Européen . . ., p. 245. Indeed, Saudi patron­ age has led to the emergence of orthodox Saudi Islam throughout the Muslim majority world as the de facto ‘normative’ Islam for orthodox movements from North Africa to Malaysia (cf. Leif Manger. Muslim Diversity: Local Islam in Global Contexts, Surrey: Curzon Press, 1998). Thus the leaders and organisers of the cam­ paign against Salman Rushdie were heavily supported by Saudi sources, and Indopakistani as well (Kepel, Allah in the West . . ., p. 130). Considering the size of the Pakistani community in the United Kingdom, it is not surprising that Pakistani sectarian movements such as Deobandi and Brelwi movements, as well as the Jama'at Islami, are important sources of communal solidarity—and conflict—for Muslims in Britain (cf. Dassetto, La Construction de L’Islam Européen . . ., p. 229; Nielsen, Muslims in Western Europe; Küçükcan, Politics of Ethnicity, Identity and Religion . . ., p. 205). 147 Catherine Wihtol de Wenden, ‘Muslims in France,’ in Shadid and Koningsveld, eds., Muslims in the Margin . . ., pp. 52–65. Cf. Wasif Shadid and Sjoerd van

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

112

11/4/02

10:15 AM

Page 112

 

Islamist movements mix together republican discourses of human rights, liberty and integration with ideological references inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood, the Algerian Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) and Tunisian Islamic Tendency Movement (MTI), it is in the con­ text of the numerous contradictions at the heart of the on-going civil war in Algeria that they should be understood.148 It is not just the non-governmental, and often clandestine organi­ sations, that operate in France. The Algerian government, like its counterparts in other countries, intervenes directly in the life of French Muslims. This is done chiefly through the Paris Mosque, whose imam they appoint. In fact, right before the civil war, at the end of the 1980s, the future of Islam in France was seen to be linked in great measure to the arbitration of the government in Algeria and the diverse organisations under its sway in France.149 Yet by the early 1990s, many French organisations had become supportive of the FIS.150 Despite its smaller population base, the Tunisian presence in France has played a role comparable to that of its Algerian counterpart, particularly in the person of Rachid Ghannouchi, one of the most important living Islamist scholars and activists. Thus a French arm of his banned political party, the Tunisian Groupement Islamique en France, was set up in 1980. It has been called the most impor­ tant Arabic Islamist movement in the country, and is closely tied to the FIS.151 Ghannouchi has influenced other Islamist thinkers, such as the European born scholar and activist Tariq Ramadan, grand­ son of Hassan al-Banna, who calls for a new vision by Muslims that accepts that Muslims in Europe ‘are here, and here they have to Koningsveld, ‘Politics and Islam in Western Europe: An Introduction,’ in W.A.R. Shadid and P.S. van Koningsveld, eds., Muslims in the Margin: Political Responses to the Presence of Islam in Western Europe, Kampen: Kos Pharos, 1996, pp. 1–14, p. 3. 148 Cf. Kepel, Allah in the West . . ., p. 154. 149 Gilles Kepel, Les banlieues de l’Islam: naissance d’une religion en France, Paris: Sevil, 1991 p. 352. 150 Including Foi et pratique, Fédération nationale des musulmans de France, and al-Nahda of Tunisia (Charles Pellegrini, Le FIS en France: Mythe ou réalité, Paris: Edition 1, 1992, pp. 102–104). And indeed, the MTI as well as the Sudanese Government helped the FIS plan its electoral campaign. The Front, whose utopian programme and promise of social justice found particular support with poor Algerians in France, had two goals vis-à-vis its activities there: to build a structural base for its activities in Algeria and, as important, over the long-term to return the beur gen­ eration to the fold of Islam (Kepel, Allah in the West . . ., p. 153; Pellegrini, Le FIS en France, p. 105). These policies account for the ‘considerable popularity’ enjoyed by the FIS, and its support through a wide network of structures within the Muslim community (Pellegrini, Le FIS en France, p. 94). 151 Cf. Nielsen, Muslims in Western Europe.

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

10/22/02

‘

3:27 PM

Page 113

’  ‘ ’

113

live.’ For Ramadan, it is vital to address two organisational issues simultaneously: first, French Muslims must work to increase their representation within the official and cultural institutions of the larger French society. At the same time, however, French (and presumably all European) Muslims must develop a specifically European Islam that does not lose all connections to its religious roots and doctrines, becoming just an ‘Islam laïque.’152 Within Germany, most religious education for Muslims is provided by Turks. Vis-à-vis both government and anti-government discourses, political developments in Turkey, the relationship between the two states and international events, all result in higher public and pri­ vate levels of Islamic practice among Turks than in other European countries.153 By sending hundreds of approved imams and religious teachers to Germany the Turkish government has, with the coop­ eration with the German authorities, sought to retain control over its nationals’ religious expressions. Until the late 1970s the most active Turkish organisations in Germany were those that were linked to movements banned or at least disapproved of by the Turkish government, such as the Avrupa Islam Kültür Merkezleri Birligi, the Association Islamischer Kultur­ zentren e.V. By the 1970s the Turkish state decided to compete with these independent Islamic associations, and in the 1980s began sys­ tematically to organise the religious life of the migrant Turkish com­ munities, especially through education, although Sufi orders and politically oppositional organisations such as Millî Görü{ (Avrupa Millî Görü{ Teskilatlari) remain powerful forces in the community.154 152 Tariq Ramadan, Les Musulmans dans la laïcité: Responsabilités et droits des musul­ mans dans les sociétés occidentales, Lyon: Tawhid, 1994, pp. 19–20, 157. Also see his To Be a European Muslim and Muslims in France: The Way Toward Coexistence. For Ramadan, in order to fight this, Muslims must abandon their tendency toward com­ munal withdrawal, victimisation and sterile critique of the decadence of the West and confront the larger European society in all its aspects. Moreover, the must realise that, by law, the official secularism of the French state must ‘protect the total independence of the Muslims of France’ (Tariq Ramadan, Muslim in France: The way towards coexistence, Leicester: The Islamic Foundation, 1999, p. 18). 153 Karaksoglu and Nonneman, ‘Muslims in Germany,’ p. 245. 154 Today, the main three movements are the Millî Görü{ (Avrupa Millî Görü{ Teskilatlari), the Süleymancilar Sufi order (which through its Islamische Kulturzentren focuses on a large network of Quranic schools) and the Diyanet, which are engaged in complex competition for allegiance among German Turks and recognition by the German State (cf. Amiraux, ‘Turkish Islam in Germany’). In fact, the idea of the ‘Turkish-Islamic Synthesis’ propagated during the 1980s by the late Prime Minister Turgat Ozal as an alternative to extreme nationalism and socialism found wide support in both Turkey and Germany. Given the centrality of Sufism within

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

10/22/02

114

3:27 PM

Page 114

 

Finally, within Italy the main Muslim organisations are the Islamic Cultural Centre of Italy (Centro islamico culturale d’Italia), whose board is comprised of ambassadors of Muslim countries, the Union of Communities and Islamic Organisations in Italy, Union of Muslim Students, the Saudi-backed Muslim World League, and the Jama'at al-Tabligh, all of whom are engaged in varying degrees of legitima­ tion processes with the Italian government and the Vatican as well. Several Sufi orders are also present; the Senegalese tariqa of the Mourides and several branches of the Tijaniyya, the Burhaniyya and the Naqshbandiyya have various levels of membership.155 Socio-economic processes underlying the worldviews of European Muslims While it can be misleading to analyse European Islam vis-à-vis the Islamism prevalent in the Muslim majority world,156 there has clearly been continual contact between European and Middle Eastern Muslims, and both have also been exposed to similar economic processes Indeed, the transformation in Islamist politics in the Muslim majority world from Arabisation’ to ‘Islamisation’ occurred in the 1970s, just as the world transformation to a global flexible accumulation econ­ omy was becoming prominent. Events in Europe were belated, but became noticeable by the late 1970s. Thus Islamism, whether in Algeria or France, was nourished by the same sources that influenced events in countries like Iran or Egypt: unemployment, juvenile delinquency, the search for identity, material frustration and the absence of communal space.157 In fact, if we examine the history of Muslim immigration to Western Europe, we note that its beginnings, in the 1950s and 1960s, coincided with an upswing in the demand for manpower in the West whose satisTurkish Sunni Islam, two major tariqat, or Sufi orders, have branches in Germany: the Süleymancilar order mentioned above (which is a branch of the Naqshabandiyya order), and the Nurcu movement. The German Arab community is attended to by the Muslim World League from Saudi Arabia, a major sponsor of religiously related activities, and the Muslim Brotherhood as well. The Shi’a community is influenced by Iranian and other Shi’a-related groups. 155 Allievi, ‘Muslim Organisations and Islam-State Relations,’ pp. 189–191. 156 One writer describes such an endeavour as ‘inaccurate and even dangerous’ (Lanchichi, Islam-Occident, p. 122). 157 Pellegrini, Le FIS en France, p. 60. These dynamics also underlie the turn toward Islam by disadvantaged communities in the United States such as African Americans, who have taken the full force of postindustrial economic restructuring from the late 1970s onwards (Kepel, Allah in the West . . ., p. 84).

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

10/22/02

‘

3:27 PM

Page 115

’  ‘ ’

115

faction owed, at least in part, to the ‘development of underdevel­ opment in the so-called peripheral capitalist societies of the Third World.’158 When the economic crises occurred in the 1970s, with the sub­ sequent industrial structural changes following in its wake, it was in precisely those areas where foreign workers were employed that revealed themselves to be affected by the changes in the economy, leading to increasing unemployment among these populations.159 Now in the ‘global era,’ whether in New York, Paris or Cairo—and espe­ cially in these ‘world cities’—employment possibilities are increas­ ingly linked to the development of low paid service sector jobs which offer little hope of social and/or economic advancement, even for immigrants with a good education.160 Thus in 1990, around the time of the Gulf War, an ‘intifada of the cities’ in France broke out, waged by ‘all those who did not take part in the mass workshop of business, the orgies in praise of money;’ that is, by the poor who had no other way of expressing their dis­ gust with the situation.161 As Nielsen reports, the element of anger and desire for restitution for past oppression continues to attract numerous Muslims (in and of Europe) to a kind of ‘resistance Islam’ whose more destructive expressions have become such a source of instability and violence during the last two decades.162 The all-consuming war in Algeria that began two years later fur­ thered the perception of combat between supporters of the FIS—a war of identity as John Esposito has termed it, in which the FIS 158

Pedersen, Newer Islamic Movements . . ., p. 154. Cf. Pedersen, ibid., p. 156. 160 Whether the causes of this situation lie in ‘global’ or domestic factors does not change the reality of this dynamic. Viewed thus the demands of immigrants and disadvantaged groups in Europe for cultural and political rights must be read as demands for inclusion, for full membership in the larger society. ‘People from different national [or other minority] groups will only share an allegiance to the larger polity if they see it as the context within which their . . . identity is nurtured, rather than subordinated’ (Kymlicka, quoted in Nonneman, Muslim Communities in the New Europe, p. 22). The demands for equality and ‘rights’ in the global era by countries and cultures of the non-Western world at large follow a similar logic to these micro-level processes. 161 Cf. Kepel, Allah in the West . . ., p. 206. 162 Nielsen, Towards a European Islam, p. 95; cf. Castell’s notion of ‘resistance iden­ tities’ as developed in The Power of Identity; moreover, ‘the relatively closed charac­ ter of many immigrant communities enhances social control,’ which only reinforces resistance identities (cf. Th. Sunier, ‘Islam and Ethnicity Among Turks: The Changing Role of Islam and Muslim Organisations,’ in Shadid and Koningsveld, eds., Islam in Dutch Society . . ., pp. 144–162). 159

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

116

11/4/02

10:15 AM

Page 116

 

specifically seeks to destroy any ‘illusion of French Algeria’—and the Algerian and French governments.163 Indeed, the open support by the French government for the military in Algeria provokes continued hostility from more radical Islamists in and outside the country.164 It is not surprising, then, that in 1993 the UOIF issued a mani­ festo which, in language that resonates with the critiques hailing from the Muslim majority world, preached the need of ‘freeing [people] from the yoke of ungodly capitalism . . . fac[ing] the colonialist unbe­ liever, the eternal enemy.’165 Yet the question that is raised vis-à-vis these more extreme Islamist imaginations of European Islam is how France can be ‘expelled . . . from the heads of the colonised’ when the [former] colonised are now living in France.166 This is the European problematic generated by the radical political reassertion of Islam in Algeria, and in the large Arab and Muslim worlds more generally. 163 Cf. John Esposito, The Islamic Threat, NY: Oxford University Press, 1999; Pellegrini, Le FIS en France, pp. 109–110. The FIS called specifically for a break with the ‘values of France,’ as French cultural influence was blamed for all the country’s ills (Kepel, Allah in the West . . ., pp. 156–7). Indeed, we can consider the FIS to be the child of the divorce of France and Algeria, and in this view the goal of FIS is to ‘intellectually and ideologically’ banish France from Algeria, to get rid of the pillars of cultural colonialism that are the French cultural institutions in Algeria like schools (Interview with Slimane Zeghidour in Politique Internationale, automn 1990, quote in Kepel, Allah in the West . . ., p. 160; Pellegrini, Le FIS en France, p. 66). 164 House, ‘Muslim Communities in France,’ pp. 233–4. 165 Quoted in Kepel, Allah in the West . . ., p. 202. According to Kepel, this kind of message was not just addressed to issues specific to Muslims in France, but rather links Islam in France with Islam in the world and appeal to a feeling of social revolt. 166 Kepel, Allah in the West . . ., p. 168. The goal of this expulsion is to allow Algerians ‘to recover their lost purity.’ Indeed, as Ashis Nandy has argued with respect to the psychology of colonialism, it ‘colonizes minds in addition to bodies and it releases forces within the colonized societies to alter their cultural priorities once and for all . . . The West is now everywhere, within the West and outside; in structures and in minds’ (Ashis Nandy, The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self Under Colonialism, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1988). He further argues that even after decolonisation, ‘the ideology of colonialism is still triumphant in many sectors of life’ (p. 2). Another reason for this desire is that ‘the postcolonial state is more colonial, inasmuch as its culture is more thoroughly ‘infiltrated by the ideologies and cultural practices of former metropolitan centers’ (cf. Nouar Majid, Unveiling Traditions: Postcolonial Islam in a Polycentric World, Durham: Duke University Press, 2000, p. 24). Indeed, the ‘patriarchal structures’ of European governments toward their Muslim populations can reinforce patriarchal structures within minority com­ munities, ‘combining to replicate colonial systems of representation’ (cf. David Herbert, quoting Yasmin Ali, in his ‘Religious Traditions in the Public Sphere: Habermas, MacIntyre and the Representation of Religious Minorities,’ in Shadid and Koningsveld, eds., Muslims in the Margin . . ., pp. 66–79).

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

10/22/02

‘

3:27 PM

Page 117

’  ‘ ’

117

From the above discussion it is clear that the increasing saliency of Islamist movements in Europe can be directly related to the decline of the traditional working-class subculture, with their network of asso­ ciations, and the loss of the impetus of the anti-racist movement in the 1980s against the combined assault of neo-liberal and conservative visions and policies. It is within this framework that we can under­ stand how Muslim immigrants, who initially were able to create at least a sense of cultural and economic homogeny in their host soci­ eties, became much more obviously heterogeneous and de-homogenised with the economic-cum-social crises beginning in the late 1970s, the same period that foreign workers were began to be transformed into more or less permanent Muslim minorities within countries. In such a situation social communities and networks (that is, Islamic organisations) that focused on ethnicity of Muslim identities were an easy and obvious answer: ‘Islamism’s strategy bec[a]me to produce symbols and institutions for this defense of cultural autonomy’ in an era where all other autonomy and action was restricted if not ren­ dered impossible.’167 Thus we can ‘evaluate the growth of the Islamic movements as a consequence of structural developments in recent years concerning the economy and the expansion of the state,’168 while noting the globalising conditions determining the production of symbols in the defence of these identities. It is clear that once the employment situation became less stable, immigrant communities turned to new sources of moral and eco­ nomic and cultural support that were reflected in a value-shift towards the type of religious expression that is best able to compensate for their more or less permanent economic and political marginalisation.169 The situation described above is undoubtedly as relevant to the Middle East as to Europe. ‘The systemworld’s dramatic colonisation

167 Pedersen, Newer Islamic Movements . . ., p. 166. In such a climate more self-referential and culturally homogenous and exclusivist movements have been better able to express the frustration, hopes and demands (Kepel, Allah in the West . . ., p. 154). 168 Ibid., p. 160. 169 Whether in Europe, the United States, or the Muslim majority world, struc­ tural adjustment and the dynamics of globalisation have meant that social relations which were formerly organised within the world of family and community were now invaded by the world of work and politics, in line with the ‘culturalisation’ of economic and political life that is a hallmark of globalisation (Ibid., p. 158, adopt­ ing Hambermas’s terminology). In the climate of economic hardship the ‘otherness’ based on religion and culture becomes a visible tool against Muslims (Nonneman, ‘Muslim Communities in the New Europe,’ pp. 15–18)).

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

118

11/4/02

10:15 AM

Page 118

 

of the lifeworld during migration’ has produced Islamic movements in Europe that must be viewed as a resistance to this colonization, a pronounced attempt to express a social and cultural resistance to the dissolution of families and communities in the era of global markets/places.170 We can conclude then, with Pedersen, that Islamism in Western Europe is nurtured by many of the same systematic processes which are found at the global level. And while these movements must be understood and defined in their local circumstances and in response to local conditions ( just like women’s, peace, and environmental movements), the convergences in experiences and attitudes between European and Middle Eastern Muslims is incontrovertible.171 Yet more positively, this situation also reveals the power of Islam as a transnational identity (especially in the link between culture and economy) which allows, for example, networks to be formed by small businesses and associations in Germany and Turkey that allow Turkish immigrants to benefit from being political and social actors in both countries. Indeed, globalisation, it is naturally hoped by most Muslims, ‘should herald a new future for Islam-Europe relations.’172 This dynamic further reveals the important role of class and eco­ nomic position in determining religious expression of European Muslims, in fostering and supporting a Muslim elite capable of acquir­ ing a transnational legitimacy in both Europe and their country of origin, and more broadly, in shaping the space of Europe and the Euro-Med region into a terre de mediation between Europe and the Muslim world.173 170

Ibid., p. 162. Ibid., p. 195. Similarly, Amiraux points out that micro-level developments are more important than state (cf. Amiraux, ‘Islam turc d’Allemagne,’ p. 40). 172 Mohamad Abu Bakar, ‘Islam, Malaysia and Europe: Perceiving the Past, Per­ fecting the Future,’ in Ismail Hj. Ibrahim, and Abu Bakar Abdul Majeed, eds., The Islamic World and Europe: Some Issues, Kuala Lumpur, Institute of Islamic Understanding Malaysia, 1998, pp. 41–61, p. 58. 173 Cf. Nadia Hashmi, ‘Immigrant Children in Europe: Constructing a Transnational Identity, in Armando Salvatore and Almut Höfert, eds, Between Europe and Islam: Shaping Modernity in a Transcultural Space. Bruxelles: Peter Lang, 2000, pp. 163– 174. Nonneman, ‘Muslim Communities in the New Europe,’ pp. 15–18; Rémy Leveau, ‘Islam en Europe,’ in Leveau, Islam(s) en Europe, pp. 5–13, pp. 6, 8. Cf. Stéphane Lathion, De Cordoue a Vaulx-en-Velin: Les musulmans en Europe et les defis de la coexistence, p. 1. In this context, among the emerging ‘Europe-Muslims’ is a significant number of converts who are converting in part because of a disgust with individualist, egotistical and depersonalised culture of the West, and that every day life should include more than exclude, a sacred dimension (Allievi, Nouveaux protag­ 171

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

10/22/02

‘

3:27 PM

Page 119

’  ‘ ’

119

Indeed, European Islam, it must be reiterated, is more than just a simple affair of race, class, economy and/or religion. Rather it involves the interpenetration of these diverse factors within an environ­ ment of simultaneous ‘multiculturalism’ in Europe and a mutual recrim­ ination by the two ‘sides.’174 Ghettoisation and political radicalisation are no longer inexorable givens for young Muslims, despite alarmist reports by many European researchers and policy-makers.175 Neverthe­ less, as in the Muslim majority world, the worldview of the Islamic movements in Europe is greatly influenced by the state’s rejection of their legitimacy, which produces a body of experience within these movements that is ‘negative throughout.’176 From a subordinate posi­ tion, ‘we cannot expect an open mind to Western values.’177 Such experiences will have a determinative impact on the extent to which Muslim immigrants and citizens will ultimately develop a ‘Euro’ (i.e., integrated) or ‘ghetto’ Islam in various European countries—and in their home countries as well—and whether this will evolve into concrete relationships with the myriad European pro­ gressive movements that so far largely ignore, if not actively exclude, European Muslims and other minorities.178 To quote Muhammed

onistes de l’islam européen . . ., p. 26; cf. Barbara Metcalf, ‘Sacred Words, Sanctioned Practice, New Communities,’ in Barbara Metcalf, ed., Making Muslim Space in North America and Europe, Berkeley: University of California Press 1996, pp, 1–30). 174 Cf. Werner Menski, ‘Nationalité, citoyenneté et musulmans en Grande-Bretagne,’ in Bistolfi and Zabbal, Islams d’Europe . . ., pp. 133–140, pp. 133–4, and John Rex, ‘L’islam dans les Dynamiques multiracieles et multiculturelles,’ in Bistolfi and Zabbat, Islams D’Europe . . ., pp. 142–146. Cf. roundtable ‘Pour la définition d’un nouveau pluralisme européen,’ in Leveau, Islam(s) en Europe, pp. 139–155, and Pedersen, Newer Islamic Movements . . ., pp. 195, 202. Thus there is a simultaneous ‘grand Europeanisation’ of Islam while discrimination and exclusion continue (Lamchichi, Islam-Occident, p. 1). 175 Valerie Amiraux, ‘Turcs musulmans en Allemange: ‘Established’ ou ‘Outsiders’? et les voies de la participation,’ in Luciano Tosi, ed., Europe, Its Borders and the Others, Napoli: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 2000, pp. 483–512, p. 485. 176 As Pedersen explains, ‘These shared experiences of a rigid European state system constitute affirmation of the mythical dual universe . . .’, the same universe imagined by Western scholars of the Huntington persuasion (Pedersen, Newer Islamic Movements . . ., pp. 159, 202). 177 Cf. L. Brouwer, ‘Binding Religion: Moroccan and Turkish Runaway Girls,’ in Shadid and Koningsveld, eds., Islam in Dutch Society . . ., pp. 75–89, p. 77. 178 Bistolfi and Zabbal, p. 28. Thus Afaya writes approvingly of how Europeans have worked to conserve their identity against the ‘American great danger’ (Afaya, L’Occident . . ., p. 116). For a discussion of the lack of contact between Muslims and European progressive movements, see Mark LeVine, ‘The Meaning of Prague,’ Meaning Matters, #4, January 2001, www.meaning.org.

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

120

10/22/02

3:27 PM

Page 120

 

Arkoun, ‘The circulation of various Islamist discourses will have much to do with how this turns out, as well as the way in which Muslim intellectuals and producers of culture work together to shape the relationship between Islam and states in Europe.’179 Conclusion ‘Our problem lies as much in our categories of thought as in the sheer facts of the matter themselves.’180 There is a danger in attempting to generalise from the commu­ nity of (largely) left-secular or religiously-motivated scholars and com­ mentators writing on globalisation, discussed here, to the feelings of the larger Arab/Muslim communities across the Middle East and Europe. From Beirut to Jerusalem, Paris to Tehran middle and upper class youth culture (and the demographics of the Middle East are heavily skewed towards young people) seem as interested in American or European consumer and pop culture as their counterparts in New York or Milwaukee.181 Yet recent anthropological studies,182 when considering the con­ tinued power and popularity of Islamist (or, as some writers now term it, ‘post-Islamist’) culture-cum-politics, suggests that Arabs and Muslims are developing their own cultural responses to globalisation through the introduction of a politicised Islam into the modern are­ nas of social life. Such cultural politics is generating ‘new Muslim lifestyles and subjectivities’ in the global era.183 Paradoxically, motivating this politics is the belief that in a global

179 Mohamed Arkoun, ‘Islam et laïcité: un dialogue-conflit en évolution?’ in Bistolfi and Zabbal, Islams d’Europe . . ., pp. 72–76, p. 76. 180 Jameson, ‘Notes on Globalisation as a Philosophical Issue,’ p. 75. 181 Indeed, a similar phenomenon is observable vis-à-vis European critiques of the United States. Despite the best efforts of Sartre and the intellectual Left of the pre- and post-war period, ‘the youthful fascination for popular art and music would leave highbrow anti-Americanism in a state of acute schizophrenia: hatred of US hegemony, certainly, but also love of its underground, countercultural forms’ (Mathy, Extrême Occident, p. 103). 182 A seminal work in this vein is Farha Ghannam’s ‘Remaking the Modern: Space, Relocation, and the Politics of Identity in Global Cairo,’ Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Texas at Austin, 1997, and her ‘Re-imagining the Global: Relocation and Local Identities in Cairo,’ in Petra Weyland and Ayse Oncu, eds., Space, Culture and Power: Struggle Over New Identities in Globalizing Cities (London: ZED Books, 1997). 183 Göle, ‘Snapshots of Islamic Modernities,’ pp. 93, 94, 113.

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

10/22/02

‘

3:27 PM

Page 121

’  ‘ ’

121

era there can be no alternative for the Arab world except unity and loyalty to its original culture.184 But how to remain loyal? A cultural revival that can unify, rather than divide, humanity is called for, one built on a ‘firmly rooted infrastructure’—that is, Islam.185 Indeed, scholars and activists around the world consider such ‘revival’ and ‘protection’ to be the foundation for successful ‘cultures of resistance’ against the negative effects of globalisation.186 Yet more broadly, a new ‘universalism’ is advocated, one which would ‘open up to the world,’ enriching rather than diluting or even erasing local identities.187 In this vein, Islamist thinkers and activists are developing specifically Muslim models for a multicultural society which need to be situated vis-à-vis the construction of alternative modernities in other cultures in the global era.188

184 'Abd al-Da"im, al-Qawmiyyah al-'arabiyyah wa-’l-niΩàm al-'alamì al-jadìd, pp. 75, 80. As Abu Za‘rur argues, Islam is the only alternative to globalisation, precisely because it offers the most radical solution—that is, the way of the prophet (al'Awlamah, pp. 60–62). Interview with Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, al-Nahar, 4 December, 1999, p. 11. 185 More precisely, ‘the heart of Islam’ (al-Musari, pp. 103–104, 168, 196; alKhawli, al-'Arab wal-’l-'Awlamah, p. 11). It is elsewhere described as a new ‘global’ culture, one with the ability to pursue the ‘unity of the human race’ (Yassin, Al'Awlamah wa-’l-†arìq al-thalàthah, p. 11). This call to equality does not mean isolation from the world, but rather to free and autonomous Arab development with all classes participating together (Abdul-Rahman, Tanmiyat al-Takhàluf wa-idàrat alTanmiya . . ., p. 32.) to respond to social needs, and to ‘re-organise our classes to own vision, and not how others see us, to build a philosophy that has deep roots in our land’ (Abbas, Masdaqiyyat al-NiΩàm al-Dawlì al-Jadìd, Beirut: Dar al-Adwa’, p. 194). Finally, as Abdallah al-Nafisi argues: ‘We live in a condition/time of cul­ tural, moral, intellectual and spiritual void, and the Islamic movement comes to fill and take control of [it] . . . The Islamic movement is fighting the trend in the Third World to follow the West’ (al-Nafisi, ed., al-Óaraka al-islàmiyya . . ., pp. 16, 36). This is understood as an effort that would have to include military and political leaders as well as intellectuals and religious figures, and from the Islamist perspective, one that would have to include a sharpening of the critical reasoning of the Islamic movement in order to succeed (ibid., pp. 154, 301). 186 Cf. UNESCO, The Futures of Cultures, pp. 13–14. 187 Here globalisation is seen as a desire for hegemony and erasure of particu­ larity, whose goal is to end the ideological struggle concerning interpretation of cul­ ture, the past, and the way toward the future (al-Jabari, in al-Khawli, al-'Arab wa-’l-'Awlama, pp. 301, 303). In fact, at the very time that the Iron Curtain was falling throughout Europe many writers declared the need for the Third World as a whole to create its own system. In this context, ‘what the Islamic movement needs is a legal and modern political logic in light of analys[e]s of the present conditions. [We] need a theory coming from religion, [but] cannot succeed without an organic intellectual effort’ (al-Nafisi, al-Óaraka al-islàmiyya: ru"ya mustaqbiliyyah . . ., p. 18; cf. al-Sharif, ‘al-'Awlama wa-’l-mashrù' al-sharq al-awsa†ì.’ 188 Cf. Amiraux, ‘Turkish Islamic Association in Germany . . .’ pp. 253–54. Kadir

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

122

10/22/02

3:27 PM

Page 122

 

If the world cannot be ‘opened’ by Muslims, many will come to a similar conclusion to Turkish opponents of EU membership, who argue that the ‘religious cultural and social differences’ between Europe and the Muslim world mean that, ‘if Turkey were allowed into the EU, the Turkish people would have to give up Islam, give up their culture and their history.’189 In the context of the debate over Europeanised identities and an expanding EU, the continued discrimination against Muslims in their host countries lead many to question ‘Why should it be different at a European level?’190 But for the thinkers and activists discussed here, a positive out­ come will only occur through the achievement of economic power, which itself is only possible through a three-stage process of unity and cooperation: within the Arab/Muslim world, with the develop­ ing world, and ultimately with humanity as a whole.191 The critique of globalisation that has buttressed such dreams challenges the tri­ umphalism of American policy-makers and commentators, demon­ strating that the American version of globalisation ‘is not the only choice.’192 Tariq Ramadan’s latest questioning of Islam features one of the few European Muslim attempts to address the issue of globalisation, helping us to understand how other choices can be developed and

Canatan, ‘Ein Muslimisches Modell für multikulturelle Gesellschaften,’ in Günter Seufert and Jacques Waardenburg, eds., Türkischer Islam und Europa, Istanbul and Stuttgart: Franz-Steiner-Verlag, 1999, pp. 47–65; and the essays by Goulet, Nandy, and M’Bokolo in The Futures of Cultures. 189 A Millî Görü{ imam, quoted in Pedersen, Newer Islamic Movements . . ., p. 96. 190 Ibid. note 234. 191 Similar sentiments are expressed by various Third World authors in the UN publications on culture and globalisation cited here. As one commentator explained, Arab and/or Muslim unity is the force that ‘can make us an economic power so we can enter globalisation on our terms and not [those of the] capitalist center’ (Interview with Farida al-Niqash, interview, al-Nahar, 4 December, 1999, p. 11; 'Abd al-Da’im, al-Qawmiyya al-'arabiyya wa-’l-niΩàm al-'alamì al-jadìd, pp. 81, 102). In fact, one author looks for inspiration from similar problems and thinkings faced by European Federalists in 1787 in terms of the future of Arab nationalism; that is, whether its better to live in one large Federal state or sovereign states with a num­ ber of leaders, with similar functions—one national or several national governments ('Abdullah Abd al-Da’im, al-Qawmiyya al-'Arabiyya wa-l-niΩàm al-'alamì al-jadìd (Arab Nationalism and the New World Order), Beirut: Dar al-Abad, 1994, pp. 77). 192 Munir al-Hamsh, al-'Awlama . . . laysat al-khiyàr al-wahìd, Damascus, al-Ahali, 1998. The fact is, the struggle over ideology is not over, although we must be care­ ful not to confuse ideological reaction to globalisation with concrete political action (cf. Bishara, ‘Isrà"ìl wa-’l-'awlama . . .’ p. 284; cf. al-Murasi, al-'Almàniyya wa-’l-'awlama wa-al-Azhar, p. 89).

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

10/22/02

‘

3:27 PM

Page 123

’  ‘ ’

123

nurtured. While he shares many of the criticisms of his Middle Eastern Muslim colleagues, Ramadan offers a more nuanced analysis of its effects on the Muslim majority world, of the problems with many critiques of the West emanating from there, and offering poten­ tial areas of solidarity among Muslims and between them and activists in the West. Described briefly, his concern in describing globalisation is to make sure any account clearly delineates who both the dominating and dominated are. Central to such a determination is to understand that globalisation ‘is not the ‘West’ but rather some governments, some institutions and important multinationals.’193 Indeed, he stresses several times that ‘there are very active movements of resistance . . . in the West that are very important for the future. It is absolutely nec­ essary that, in the Muslim world, [we] don’t fall into the too sim­ plistic reading of the Huntington thesis, which is fundamentally misleading. What is this ‘West’ about which he speaks? What is this ‘Islamic civilisation’ that he stigmatises . . .’194 Ramadan is also concerned to understand how the cleavages within postcolonial countries have changed from earlier periods. ‘There exists in the Muslim world an effervescence of thinking and mobil­ isations that make possible a South-North synergy;’ but to build on such forward thinking the Muslim world must ‘realise that there exists cleavages and resistances that traverse national and cultural frontiers and even the larger symbolic frontiers between civilisations.’195 Thus, a ‘critical Islam,’ perhaps even the ‘most radical and innovative Islamic thought’ can emerge, can emerge out of the difficulties and challenges of life in secular Western Europe, and the kinds of transcultural and translocal Islams it produces.196 Yet the power of globalisational discourses leave big and small countries alike with little if any room for manoeuvre. Against these forces Ramadan calls for a realisation of the complexity of the global reality, which is the intellectual foundation for working toward a ‘convergence of fundamental values.’ Ramadan believes that ‘Europe 193

Ibid. Ibid. Lamchichi similarly argues that Europe and Islam have to both realise the need for mutual respect and recognition . . . Europe needs to consider Islam as having a full place in the public space and Muslims as full citizens (Lamchichi, Islam-Occident, p. 13). 195 Ramadan and Gresh, Islam en questions, p. 2. 196 Mandaville, Transnational Muslim Politics . . ., pp. 132–133, quoting Zaki Badawi. 194

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

124

10/22/02

3:27 PM

Page 124

 

can offer a chance, but this is very far from settled. Ramadan’s pre­ scriptions are clearly cultural in their foundations and mechanisms for realisation. They demonstrate that while the emphasis on culture is often utilised to promote exclusivist or chauvinist alternatives to neo-liberal models of globalisation, it still retains great potential as a force for illuminating commonalties, and thus connections, between strategies of resistance in and outside the Middle East and Europe.197 Indeed, as Hassan Hanafi observes, ‘sustainable development requires a reconstruction of the mass culture to reduce the weight of the main stream and to increase the weight of the side streams favour­ ing human initiative, freedom of the will, [and the] substantiality of nature . . .’198 And thus, whether in ‘Western’ or ‘Muslim’ cultures, a culture of dialogue is the only defence against the globalisation juggernaut, and is already underway in conferences and seminars throughout Europe, some of which have official state or European sponsorship and endorsement.199 Yet, the alternative to an ‘inhuman globalism’—what one writer has termed a ‘human nationalism’200—seems incongruous with the

197 For example, to grass roots social movements (particularly the environmental and human rights movements) in the West. Commonalities in both world view and strategy between these diverse movements in different cultures can then be uncov­ ered. Ultimately, these types of questions and analyses will allow scholars better to understand not only whether (and if so, why) electoral processes in the Middle East have not increased the power of local grass roots movements, but also how they might be reformed so that they are better able to enable and empower such move­ ments (Raymond Williams Baker, ‘Invidious Comparisons: Realism, Postmodern Globalism, and Centrist Islamic Movements in Egypt,’ in Esposito, Political Islam . . ., p. 120). 198 Hassan Hanafi, ‘Ideologies of Development,’ in Heisel, The Middle East and Development in a Changing World; p. 156. 199 Thus Anwar Ibrahaim calls for respecting not just the Muslim umma, but also ‘the ummah of other people’ as well (Quoted in Vertovec and Peach, ‘Intro­ duction . . .’ p. 41). On the other hand, the new ‘cultural crusade’ by the West is leading to the Arab/Muslim world to look for scapegoats when it should be rein­ forcing a ‘culture of dialogue’ (Afaya, L’Occident . . ., p. 130). For examples of these ‘dialogues’ see the ‘Dialogue of Cultures: The Future of Relations between Western and Islamic Societies’ Conference, Berlin, April 22–23, 1999 (http://allserv.rug.ac.be/ ~hdeley/bielefeldt9.htm); the ISIM Workshop on Muslim Intellectuals and Modern Challenges, April 26–28, 2000, Leiden, (http://www.isim.nl/). Also see Jacques Waardenburg, ‘Europe and Its Muslim Neighbours: Recent Meetings of Intercultural Dialogue,’ in Seurfert and Waardenburg, Türkischer Islam und Europa, pp. 107–139). Cf. Tariq Ramadan, ‘Europe’s Muslims find a place for themselves,’ Le Monde diplo­ matique, April, 1998, online version. 200 'Abd al-Da"im, al-Qawmiyya al-'arabiyya wa-’l-niΩàm al-'alamì al-jadìd, p. 198. Or as Abdul Satar Fath Allah Sa"id argues, there are ‘two alternative systems: Islamic

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

11/4/02

‘

10:16 AM

Page 125

’  ‘ ’

125

trend in the Middle East Europe and elsewhere toward ‘postmodern nationalisms’ that possess neither the epistemological (or theological) coherence, nor the cultural force, to move beyond resistance iden­ tities to what Manuel Castells has termed a ‘project identity’—a truly transformative social process that can only occur when people build a new identity that moves beyond the narrow interests of their partic­ ular group and seeks to change the entire socio-economic and polit­ ical structure ‘against not only the dominance of the market, but as importantly, against the dominant interests within their community.’201 Even the most human nationalism is ill-equipped to embrace such a radically holistic ethic,202 while religiously defined identity, even when it empowers people to make themselves ‘subjects as well as objects of modernity,’203 will find itself in tension with the kind of universalism, or global unity, that is central to the articulation of an alternative to postmodern globalisation.204 On the other hand, there

and Human’ Allah Sa"id, al-Ghazu al-fikrì wa ’l-tayàràt al-mu'àßara l-il-islàm, p. 12). 201 That is, against the existing hierarchical gender and ethnic relations (Castells, The Power of Identity, pp. 9–10). Castells defines ‘postmodern nationalism’ as a renewed nationalism unsupported by and not relying on the structure and ideology of the nation-state, that has been contemporaneous with the decline of the modern state (ibid., p. 31). There are competing trends which I will investigate in depth in my project. On the one hand, the renewed interest in Arab/Muslim ‘authenticity’ that is premised on a belief that ‘one can take a culture and draw a box around it; that a culture can be defined as a discrete entity, separate from other cultures, with well-defined boundaries’ (Charles Kurzman, ‘Liberal Islam . . .’). At the same time the explosion of new media technologies like satellites and the internet are opening up innumer­ able avenues for free and dissident expressions of culture and politics, with new television talk shows such as ‘The Opposite Direction’ featuring live discussions on such sensitive issues as women’s role in society, Palestinian refugees, sanction on Iraq, democracy and human rights (ibid.). 202 That is, nationalism, like its sister discourses modernity and colonialism, is by definition an exclusivist discourse. 203 Ghannam, ‘Remaking the Modern . . .’ ch. 5; also see her ‘Re-imagining the Global . . .’). This type of analysis of religious attitudes of ordinary people must be contrasted with tendency by scholars such as Turner and Beyer to examine the relationship between globalisation and religion through the myopic lens of a dis­ cussion of the ideology of leaders of some radical Islamic groups and then present these movements as ‘responses’ or ‘reactions’ to the global. 204 In fact, if some writers are calling for a renewed ‘universalism’ to oppose glob­ alisation, others posit an inevitable and fierce competition between globalism and ‘localism,’ with globalism working to diminish the importance of borders while local­ ism emphasizes the lines of division between people. Put another way, globalism expands borders, localism deepens them (al-Said Yasin, ‘Fì mafhùm al-'awlama,’ in al-Khawli, al-'Arab wa-’l-'Awlama, pp. 27–28).

ALLIEVI_F5_78-126

126

10/22/02

3:27 PM

Page 126

 

is a growing tendency, emulating the earliest period of Islam, towards developing a ‘theology of religious pluralism . . . intrinsically wedded to one of liberation.’205 In the context of the flood of new technologies bringing alterna­ tive viewpoints to those of either neo-liberal globalisation or con­ servative Islam a holistic re-imagining of religious identity seems possible. Ultimately however, a much broader dialogue, one which welcomes Western scholars and activists into the conversation within and between the Middle East and global South, is required if human­ ity is to find a viable alternative to the dominant models of global­ isation, and the larger discourse of modernity out of which it has emerged, in the new millennium.206

As Mustapha Kamel al-Sayyid argues, there are four major models of interna­ tional cooperation. Two are from the outside and sponsored by Europe and the United States; two are from the inside and are a renewed Arab nationalism and Islamist politics. After analysing the policies and experiences of all these trends, he concludes that ‘if more effective involvement in the global economy depends on the development of some form of regional intergovernmental organisation; yet no such effective organisation appears likely to emerge in the near future’ (‘The New Regional Architecture in the Arab World,’ in Heisel, The Middle East and Development in a Changing World). 205 Charles Kurzman, ‘Liberal Islam’: A Sourcebook, New York, Oxford University Press, 1998. In this context already in the 1980s converts like Roger/Raja’ Garaudy, the French philosopher were trying to press for solidarity with Christian base com­ munities in Latin America, Palestinians, the Afghan resistance, North and South African movements, in the name of a theology of liberation that ‘unites religion’ against the power of superpowers and multinationals (cf. Kepel, Les banlieues de l’Islam . . ., p. 340). 206 In this sense the project of modernity would do well to dialogue with the ‘Islamic project’ ( projet islamique) at a time when the processes of globalisation are forcing Europe and Islam to maintain new relationships, one that is a ‘foreshad­ owing of the universal civilisation which is currently developing’ (Bouhdiba, ‘L’Islam en l’Europe,’ pp. 26, 33).

ALLIEVI_F6_127-145

10/21/02

12:07 PM

Page 127

127

CHAPTER FIVE

TOWARDS A CRITICAL ISLAM: EUROPEAN MUSLIMS AND THE CHANGING BOUNDARIES OF TRANSNATIONAL RELIGIOUS DISCOURSE1 P M The notion of a ‘European Islam’ has gained considerable currency in recent years, both within academic literature and in popular dis­ course. Although there exists considerable debate as to the features, parameters, and significance of this concept, it can undoubtedly be said that the term expresses the fact that Islam has well and truly found a place for itself within the social fabric of contemporary European society. No longer perceived solely as an ‘immigrant reli­ gion,’ Islam is claiming the right not only to exist but also to flourish within the boundaries of the European Union. Social responsibility, active participation, and civic engagement are the hallmark charac­ teristics of an emerging trend amongst Europe’s younger generation of Muslims. A telling episode occurred in the summer of 1994 when a group of 'ulamà" meeting at Château-Chinon in France issued a fatwà in which they declared that Europe could no longer be con­ sidered dàr al-˙arb (‘the domain of war’), a term from classical Islamic political thought used to designate lands outside the political and moral pale of Islam. While these scholars were not willing to go so far as to label Europe dàr al-islàm (which would have implied the presence of a Muslim sovereign and the pre-eminence of Shari"a law), they nevertheless realised that Islam had, over the past two decades, become exceedingly prevalent in Europe. The continent became in their eyes, and in a subsequent text, dàr al-'ahd, the domain of treaty or unity, implying a form of community based on the co­ existence of multiple faith systems, mutual respect and sociopolitical responsibility.

1 This chapter draws and upon and develops ideas first rehearsed in my Trans­ national Muslim Politics: Reimagining the Umma, London: Routledge, 2001.

ALLIEVI_F6_127-145

128

10/21/02

12:07 PM

Page 128

 

This ‘upgrading’ of Europe serves as a telling metaphor for the changing relationship between Islam and the region right across the board. Just as Muslims are increasingly a part of Europe, so does Europe find its way into Muslim discourse more and more today. The aim of this chapter will be to examine some of the ways in which this relationship is evolving within the realm of Muslim intel­ lectual activity—particularly among those thinkers and activists con­ cerned with the politics of Islamic identity and community in Europe. The picture that emerges from this analysis is one of a rich symbiosis between Islamic and European culture, and one that flies in the face of popular accounts of a ‘clash of civilizations’ or of some inherently adversarial contest (Huntington, 1998). Like other authors in this volume, I note that the true nature of the complex relationship between Islam and the West cannot be understood by working with static, stultified categories in which particular innate features are assigned to each side. Instead, an appreciation of this relationship can only accrue through taking account of the great diversity inher­ ent within both traditions and the fact that in an increasingly glob­ alised and transnational world, no cultural forms—or their concomitant intellectual output—can be understood as a pre-formed given. I will begin by providing some background context that will help throw into relief the changes that Islam in Europe has undergone over the past twenty years. This section will look mainly at inter­ generational issues—in short, the Islam of the parents versus the Islam of their children. I will also identify a shift in the locus of leadership within Muslim communities in Europe, particularly as regards the question of where the current generation is looking to find new ideas and new interpretations of Islam that are compati­ ble with the day-to-day realities of European life. It will be suggested that young Muslims have been turning increasingly to thinkers and writers who stress a more universalist (or, at the very least, a ‘poly­ centric’) interpretation of the religion. This is in contrast to the Islam of their parents which they often see as rather ‘local’ and tainted with sectarian or ethnic overtones. This new breed of Muslim intel­ lectual rejects the dogmatism of centuries old fiqh and seeks instead to engage critically with the traditions and prescriptions of Islam. Furthermore, these figures—highly attuned to the specific issues faced by Muslims in Europe—offer a creative vision that urges their audi­ ence to view life in the West as a condition that allows Islam to flourish. Active participation and engagement with the wider society

ALLIEVI_F6_127-145

10/21/02

12:07 PM

Page 129

   

129

is also encouraged. I will illustrate these trends by highlighting new organisations and practices among European Muslims, by examin­ ing some of the innovative ideas espoused by European-based Muslim intellectuals, and by considering the role played by new media and information technologies in the creation of a Muslim public sphere in Europe. It will be part of my argument that these new discourses do not exist in isolation within particular national contexts, or within some kind of ‘fortress Europe.’ Rather, they are premised upon an engagement with ideas circulating in the wider Muslim world—hence the focus on what I term ‘transnational religious discourse.’ The new formulations produced within Europe, I will argue, also have the potential to travel beyond the confines of that continent, sparking and animating new debates within the transnational umma. Before I begin, however, I should like to make some comments which will help to clarify the parameters of my discussion and also to hope­ fully elucidate my usage of the term ‘critical,’ which appears both in the title of this chapter and throughout the text. Estimates of the number of Muslims in Europe vary considerably, ranging generally between 9 and 15 million. Even with the lower figure, however, Muslims still constitute the largest religious minor­ ity group on the continent. The problem here is only partly one of counting methodology (and the question of whether Muslims in Eastern Europe are included), it is also a problem of definition: who is a Muslim? There are some authors who use the category ‘cultural Muslim,’ meaning anyone of an ethno-national background for which Islam is the majority religion (i.e. Pakistani, Bangladeshi, most Arab countries) (Dassetto, 1993). This is a problematic labeling, however, because a great number of those Muslims in Europe who fall into this category do not see Islam as a large part of their lives. They may self-identify as Muslims, but not necessarily as a primary com­ ponent of their identities. They may observe prescribed religious practices up to a point, but without holding too much to be at stake in so doing. Further scrutiny of this question reveals, however, that it is also far too simple to just posit two distinct categories such as ‘active Muslim’ and ‘passive Muslim.’ To do so is to ignore the ele­ ment of contingency that is so vital to understanding how and under what circumstances particular identities (or components of identity) become activated. For example, I have had numerous Muslims of South Asian background in the UK tell me that until the Rushdie Affair of 1987, they had never thought of Islam as a large part of

ALLIEVI_F6_127-145

130

10/21/02

12:07 PM

Page 130

 

their lives. Then suddenly they found themselves marching in front of a rally, demanding that a book be burned. In short, Islam, for them, became politicised for a time. It is thus, in part, the impossi­ bility of sharply defining and categorising Muslims in Europe that I want to stress here. That said, the analysis I will offer in this chapter, does confine itself to a particular group. When I speak of ‘Muslims in Europe’ or ‘European Muslims’ I am referring not just to anyone who is nominally Muslim by virtue of their ethno-national heritage, but rather to those who consider Islam and its regular practice to be a primary (although, as we will see, not necessarily exclusive) compo­ nent of their self-identity. Suffice it to say that these are Muslims for whom Islam is clearly in the fore- rather than the background. This is a point that may strike some as verging on the tautological, but which I think helps to gesture towards differentiation between various modalities of Islam in Europe. The borders of this group are, however, quite porous and I would never try to make immutable claims about its characteristics. What I am trying to capture is sim­ ply the common sense value of the following analogy: Most Europeans are ‘Christian.’ We would not, however, try to say something about the changing nature of European Christianity by talking about all nominally Christian Europeans. Likewise with Islam. I have there­ fore focused my research on individuals, organisations, and practices with a primary, overt and consistent affiliation to Islam. Something that features heavily in this chapter is the development of what I have termed a ‘critical Islam’ in Europe. By using this concept I am trying to describe a particular orientation towards Islam, one that is marked, above all, by a willingness to historicise the normative import of particular religious interpretations. It recog­ nises that to some extent Islam is, and always has been (at least since the death of the Prophet), a product of its times. In other words, the meaning of Islam and its bearing on various social real­ ities is not fixed once and for all. Even the elaboration of fiqh, accord­ ing to critical Islam, must be viewed as conditioned by the social and political contingencies of the social and cultural settings in which it occurred. The substance of this approach derives from the critical theory of the Frankfurt School—Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, Walter Benjamin et al.—and more recently, Jurgen Habermas. In a seminal essay, Horkheimer made a distinction between ‘traditional and critical theories’ (Horkheimer, 1972). The former

ALLIEVI_F6_127-145

10/21/02

12:07 PM

Page 131

   

131

(uncritical) kind of theory takes the world as it finds it and assumes the presence of certain underlying and eternal structures that deter­ mine all social outcomes. Change is possible only insofar as one learns to work within this given framework. Critical theory, on the other hand, comes to the world with a rather different perspective. It starts by asking questions about how what is accepted as ‘natural’ came to be so. What are the historical conditions—and particularly the relations of power—which gave rise to the present world? Further­ more, it wonders, what deficiencies have accrued from this process, and how might things need to be changed so that people can eman­ cipate themselves from the resulting constraints? How might human agency be brought to bear upon what, in the eyes of traditional the­ ory, seem to be structurally determined circumstances? When we look at Islam in the context of Horkheimer’s distinc­ tion, it becomes a way to describe the difference between those Muslims wedded to the dogma of, for example, jurisprudential frame­ works developed in the medieval period (‘traditional theory’) and those Muslims who believe that Islam can only be made relevant to the present day by understanding these seemingly rigid doctrines as products of history, culture and power. The point is not that these understandings of Islam are necessarily correct (or incorrect), but rather that we recognise the fact that certain people at specific times possessed the capacity to define their particular interpretations of Islam as somehow universal and valid for all time—thereby giving rise to what we might call ‘Islamic hegemonies.’ The way forward, according to critical Islam, would therefore be to reinterpret and reformulate the central precepts of the religion such that they speak directly to the contingencies of today rather than by receiving them through the distorting filters of history. A cognate to Horkheimer (albeit not an exact one) can be found in the work of the late Pakistani intellectual Fazlur Rahman. Rahman made a distinction between ‘normative’ and ‘historical’ variants of Islam. By normative Islam he meant the originary, ‘pure’ essence of the religion as it is found in the Qur"àn, the sunna of the Prophet and the period of the rightly-guided caliphs. Once we move beyond these confines, according to Rahman, we enter the age of historical Islam, in which this initial purity is lost and the religion becomes subject to the sub­ jective and distorting influence of countless middlemen (e.g. 'ulamà", fuqahà", qà∂ìs, etc.) Regardless of how well-intentioned and wise they might have been, Rahman points out, such intercessions inevitably

ALLIEVI_F6_127-145

132

10/21/02

12:07 PM

Page 132

 

produced over time more and more distance between the subject and the object of submission (islàm). His claim is that these sources ‘were misconstrued by Muslim scholars in medieval times, made into rigid and inflexible guides—for all time, as it were—and not recog­ nised as the products of their own times and circumstances’ (Rahman, 1982, 36–39). Other Muslim intellectuals who represent this trend towards a critical Islam include figures such Mohammed Arkoun (1984), Hasan Hanafi (1987), and Fatima Mernissi (1991). Each has, in their particular areas of speciality—philosophy, theology (kalàm), and gender discourse, respectively—demonstrated how it is that pre­ vailing conventional wisdoms in the Muslim world have been estab­ lished throughout history. It should be noted that despite all of its emphasis on the inter­ subjective nature of Islamic meaning and on modes of textual pro­ duction, critical Islam is not to be mistaken for a postmodern orientation towards Islam. A postmodern Islam would embrace what Jean-Francois Lyotard termed a ‘skepticism towards metanarratives’ (Lyotard, 1985). That is, it would mean the rejection of any grounds upon which to found something like a pure and authentic Islam. Rahman’s normative Islam would simply not be possible under such premises. Critical Islam, however, does not go this far. It believes that there is such a thing as an eternal core to the religion, albeit one that Muslims have lost over time. Just as the critical theory of Adorno and Horkheimer ultimately had faith in the emancipatory potential of the Enlightenment—believing only that the project of modernity had gone astray—so does critical Islam yearn for the (re)achievement of the spirit embodied in the early Medinan period. The challenge, in other words, is to triumph over history—or, rather, to achieve Islam despite history. The new terrain of European Islam The 1980s was a period of intense socioeconomic and religious mar­ ginalisation for Muslims in Europe. The South Asian immigrant populations of northern England, for example, bore the brunt of Thatcherism in the form of widespread unemployment and wide­ spread ‘Islamophobia.’ Arabs in France and Turkish Gastarbeiter in Germany found themselves subject to the same exclusionary and dis­ criminatory policies and attitudes as their religious kin in the United

ALLIEVI_F6_127-145

10/21/02

12:07 PM

Page 133

   

133

Kingdom. In other countries on the continent, Islam had yet to even establish a meaningful foothold. Something like the Rushdie affair— and particularly the reaction of Muslims in British cities like Bradford— therefore has to be understood as the culmination of many years of social disenfranchisement rather than as an isolated ‘religious’ incident. By the early 1990s, however, substantial changes in the position of Muslims in Europe were afoot. The worst of Islamophobia was over and there had been some appreciable change in the socioeconomic fortunes of Muslim communities. Also very important was the emer­ gence of a critical mass of young second generation Muslims—born and raised in Europe—ready and eager to enter mainstream society. The numbers certainly boded well for this new generation. Britons of Pakistani and Bangladeshi descent, for example, almost doubled between 1981 and 1991, with nearly half now born in the UK. The age dispersion compared with white Britain is also striking. There are almost twice as many under-16s among the South Asian popula­ tion and only two percent of this community is over the age of 65 compared to 17 percent among the majority population (Lewis, 1994, 15). The rising profile of European Islam in the 1990s is undoubt­ edly linked in part to this population and the Muslims who consti­ tute the subject of this study draw largely from these communities. When we examine these demographic changes in the context of Islam, a number of issues arise, the most important of which, per­ haps, is a clear generational divide between the older and younger generations of Muslims in Europe. Understandings of Islam and the role it should play in one’s life have been subject to considerable change within the current generation of European Muslims. For their parents, growing up in Turkey, Pakistan or another Muslim major­ ity country, Islam was a taken for granted part of the social fabric. But this ‘Islam of the parents’ does not necessarily translate into an idiom that speaks to the problems faced by Muslims in Europe today. Some writers note that when Islam is ‘transplanted’ in this way, ‘the religious symbols and rituals . . . are no longer affirmed by the social environment, and they thus lose [the] character of certainty which underpinned their existence [in the homeland]’ (Thomä-Venske, 1988). It is not only the social environment that fails to affirm them, but also the next generation that fails to find much of use in this Islam—and subsequently rejects it. Often, much of what the older generation regards as Islam is dismissed by the younger generation as somehow tainted, or as a vestige of cultural practices specific to

ALLIEVI_F6_127-145

134

10/21/02

12:07 PM

Page 134

 

their parents’ countries of origin. This leads many young Muslims to complain that the older generation tries to live according to the religious norms of their homeland, as if Europe were a place where Muslims were still in the majority: ‘They would talk about Pakistani politics constantly, but never neighbourhood politics . . . they didn’t want to engage with non-Muslims’ (Siddiqui, 1998b). This question of isolationism features heavily in intergenerational debates. With most (particularly young) European Muslims seeking actively today to establish a place for themselves within mainstream society, the apparent ambivalence of their parents in this regard is an intense source of frustration. When it comes to religion, watching their par­ ents’ generation engage in endless and seemingly petty debates about proper prayer technique did nothing but alienate younger Muslims. They sought an Islam that had something to say, for example, about how properly to live one’s life in a non-Muslim society and the par­ ticular challenges posed by those circumstances. Mosque leaderships tended to be of the older generation and, again, representative of ‘local’ Islam from the villages of South Asia or Morocco. Many reli­ gious organizations would even ‘import’ imams and 'ulamà" from Pakistan and Bangladesh for regular tours of duty—thus preventing the first generation of Muslim immigrants from ever leaving the rel­ ative safety of Islam in the homeland. Young Muslims often found this religious leadership to be particularly dogmatic and narrow minded in its conception of Islam. Questions and challenges in the mosque were not tolerated and the younger generation grew increas­ ingly frustrated at being told, when querying certain aspects of Islam, ‘that’s just the way it is’. It is therefore not surprising to find that the current generation of young Muslims in Europe has turned away from traditional sources of religious leadership and authority in droves. Most of this younger generation is highly educated and looking for a more sophisticated idiom of Islam. Intellectually they have tended towards major figures within the wider Muslim world such as, initially, Abu Ala Mawdudi and Fazlur Rahman, and today writers such as Abdolkarim Soroush in Iran, Malaysia’s Chandra Muzaffar, and the Qatar-based Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Simultaneously, there has emerged within Europe itself a new breed of Muslim leadership, often focused around highlyeducated, relatively young, professionals and intellectuals. Some of the key figures here are Ziauddin Sardar, Yusuf Islam (formerly the

ALLIEVI_F6_127-145

10/21/02

12:07 PM

Page 135

   

135

pop singer Cat Stevens), Shabbir Akhtar, and Tariq Ramadan— whose ideas will be considered further below. Akhtar captures the spirit of this movement (and that of the aforementioned critical Islam) well when he writes: Within the House of Islam, there is today a great need for self-criticism and introspection, both severely jeopardized by the emphasis on a purely external, somewhat legalistic, religious observance. Muslims are religiously obliged to turn inward, to take the full measure of their own failings, and try to effect social and personal criticism . . . (Akhtar, 1990, 213).

Others emphasise the importance of language and the development of a new Muslim public sphere—that is, the emergence of new spaces in which such critical discourse can emerge and flourish. The impor­ tance of European Muslim publications such as Q-News and The Muslim News is therefore difficult to underestimate. Q-News ‘appeals to young, educated Muslims, impatient of sectarianism, and is able through an international language, English, to access innovative and relevant Islamic scholarship’ (Lewis, 1994, 207). This publication has also contributed enormously towards the availability of sound religious advice through a column by the late Dr. Syed Mutawalli ad-Darsh, a prominent religious scholar in the UK. Every fortnight in Q-News he would dispense fatwas on a vast range of issues relevant to Islam in European society. Many of these were answers to questions sent in by readers on marriage, sexuality and contraception—topics which young Muslims often find it difficult to raise with traditional 'ulamà" in local mosques. Several Islamic publishing houses in the UK have also dedicated themselves to producing useful materials for Englishspeaking Muslims. Among them are Ta-Ha in London and the pub­ lishing wing of the Islamic Foundation in Leicester. This latter organisation generates a wide range of literature ranging from children’s books to treatises on Islamic economics and the translated works of Mawdudi. ‘We try to make our coverage general,’ they say, ‘so that any tendency or movement—and especially their children— can use our books’ (Siddiqui, 1998b). The Foundation also produces literature targeted at non-Muslims in public life in order to help them understand the beliefs and circumstances of their Muslim employees, colleagues, constituents and pupils (e.g. McDermott and Ahsan, 1993). There is also, of course, the role of new media such as satellite television and, especially, the Internet to be considered

ALLIEVI_F6_127-145

136

10/21/02

12:07 PM

Page 136

 

(Mandaville, 2000). Innovative websites such as Islam21 emphasize progressive, critical Islamic scholarship (http://www.islam21.net/). Sites focusing on the work of intellectuals popular with young Muslim— such as Yusuf al-Qaradawi and Abdolkarim Soroush—also play a prominent role. In the eyes of young Muslims today, then, the traditional scripturalism (or ‘village Islam’) of their parents holds little hope of provid­ ing resources for the issues and problems they face in their day-to-day lives. What is needed, rather, is a renewal and reinterpretation of Islam—a reorientation towards religion—such that it speaks directly to the circumstances of being Muslim in 21st century Europe. Defining a European Islam for the 21st century Now that we understand some of the forces which have animated recent shifts in Islamic discourse, the characteristics that define these trends can be examined in greater detail. As I have argued already, a new type of Islamic intellectual—often born and educated in the West—is leading the current generation of Muslims to feel com­ fortable taking Islam into their own hands. They emphasise the importance of reading Islamic texts directly and making moral choices based on responsible and rational interpretations of these texts. This is, in essence, a rejection of dogmatism. Shabbir Akhtar, for example, quotes Qur"ànic verses forbidding compulsion in religion and advis­ ing tolerance for other views both within and outside one’s faith. For him these suggest ‘a specifically Islamic manifesto on freedom of con­ science and conviction’ (Akhtar, 1992, 76–77). For such thinkers, one’s life in the West is therefore not to be lamented, but rather embraced, offering as it does the opportunity to reread, reassess and reassert the validity of Qur"ànic teachings in new contexts. Indeed, there are a number of Muslim leaders who firmly believe that it is from Muslim contexts in the Europe and the West that the most radical and inno­ vative Islamic thought will emerge in the years to come. Many contemporary thinkers, as we have seen, urge Muslims to go back to the sources and read for themselves, exercising good judgement and trusting in their own personal opinions as to what the texts mean for Islam today. I have mentioned Fazlur Rahman’s injunction to young Muslims to read the Qur"àn and the Óadìth without relying on bulky, medieval commentaries. Another promi­ nent religious scholar, writing specifically for Muslims in Europe,

ALLIEVI_F6_127-145

10/21/02

12:07 PM

Page 137

   

137

urges them to undertake ‘a fresh study of the Qur"àn . . . not with the aid of commentaries but with the depths of your hearts and minds . . . You should read it as if it were not an old scripture but one sent down for the present age, or, rather, one that is being revealed to you directly (Nadwi, 1983, 190; my emphasis). Young Muslims are hence told to imagine themselves as Muhammad (a controversial proposition in itself ), and to recognise that just as the Qur"àn was revealed to the Prophet in a particular setting in space and time, so must its message be made to speak to the particular circumstances of European life. There are indications that this call is being heeded. Young Muslims in Europe often meet informally to discuss the Qur"àn and other textual sources, attempting to read them anew and, as much as pos­ sible, without the prejudices of the past. There is hence no reluc­ tance to delve into the ußùl al-fiqh, but there has been a shift as to what Muslims are hoping to find there. Gone is the obsession with the minutiae of prayer technique and obscure points of medieval theology. The emphasis now is on wider questions concerning Muslim identity and relations between Muslims and non-Muslims. Also less frequent now are intersectarian debates on points of fiqh. Some organ­ isations, such as Young Muslims UK, have decided that one’s choice of madhhab or school of jurisprudence should be a personal choice. Where the organisation needs to take a public position on some issue, however, this is decided by a process of shùrà (consultation) in which the views of various madhàhib are considered. Again, this ethos reflects the style of education which many young Muslims have received in Europe. Reflection and comparison allows them to develop their own responses to the situations and challenges of life in the West; through this activity they are able to develop an emancipa­ tory theology that ‘allow[s] them to be European without breaking with Islam’ (Nielsen, 1995,115). This amounts to a strong reasser­ tion of the principle and practice of ijtihàd (‘independent judgement’) as a competence possessed by all Muslims and not simply an elite (albeit socially detached) group of 'ulamà". For many young Muslims today, a legitimate promulgator of ijtihàd is anyone who speaks to a particular question or cause with morality, perspicacity and insight. Pnina Werbner notes that: For a younger generation of [Muslims] growing up in Britain the defin­ ition of what is Islam is and means may well come to be increasingly constituted not by the Qur"àn and Óadìth, but by dissenting political

ALLIEVI_F6_127-145

138

10/21/02

12:07 PM

Page 138

 

ideologies . . . [Their] texts increasingly fuse a multicultural rhetoric of antiracism and equal opportunity with the ethical edicts of the Qur"àn and Óadìth (Werbner, 1996, 115).

Young Muslims today are hence seeking to create an Islam that addresses the social predicaments and daily experience of life in the modern West. They have neither the time nor the patience for South Asian idioms of Islam from the last century. ‘The need now,’ as Phillip Lewis notes, ‘is for a critical and constructive exchange both within these traditions and with the majority society’ (Lewis, 1994, 208). It is in the cosmopolitan, transnational spaces of cities such as London and Paris that this kind of exchange is taking place. The myriad range of cultures, ideas and people that flow through these spaces produce rich sites of hybridised intellectual activity. The syn­ cretisms and interminglings which inhabit these cities also constitute the cutting edge of critical Islam. It is also an environment in which such conversations can be openly expressed, assessed and reformu­ lated. In this sense, Western transnational space stands in stark con­ trast to the situation in many Muslim majority states where the capacity to stray publicly from officially-prescribed doctrine is heavily circumscribed. Western settings, on the other hand, offer the aspir­ ing Muslim intellectual the opportunity both to express and encounter alternative readings of Islam. It is no wonder, therefore, that so many exiled and diasporic Muslim activist-intellectuals choose to make their homes in the global city (Lebor, 1997, 101f.). A hallmark dimension of the new Islamic discourse in Europe has been a tendency towards greater activism and community partici­ pation. The refiguring of Europe as dàr al-'ahd, as mentioned in the introduction, is a case in point. If we elaborate this shift in thinking we can see that it has some very serious implications for the ways in which Muslims in Europe orient themselves towards the societies in which they live. Jacques Waardenburg, for example, identifies a new approach to Islam in Europe that emphasises active participa­ tion in community life rather than the political introversion which characterised the early phase of Muslim immigration and settlement. Muslims will no longer hold themselves apart from the majority soci­ ety but will continue to distinguish themselves from it by offering an alternative order, Islam. These claims are to be seen as addressed both to state authorities and to society at large (Waardenburg, 1996). ‘The Muslim community in Europe is searching for a new idiom

ALLIEVI_F6_127-145

10/21/02

12:07 PM

Page 139

   

139

through which to express itself,’ says Ataullah Siddiqui (1998a, 27). This takes the form of seeking a recognised and legitimate place in the public sphere. Muslims are hence constructing new frameworks for the practice of Islamic politics in response to the conditions of life in Europe. But what do these new strategies imply? My claim is that this shift represents a new Muslim disposition towards political engagement and the emergence of an ‘active’ approach to the theory and practice of Muslim politics in the public sphere. This is also therefore a new discourse on Muslim participation in and responsi­ bility towards the wider communities in which they live. Some, such as Jocelyn Cesari, argue that through the new associations formed by young Muslims in France, ‘a new form of citizenship is emerging, [one that refers] to concrete and local action rather than voting or involvement with political parties. In other words, the civil dimension seems to be more relevant than the civic one’ (Cesari, 1997, 8; my emphasis). Many young Muslims would hence like to see Islam as something political, but not necessarily as political Islam or Islamism in the sense of seeking to establish Islamic states. Hence we find a num­ ber of leading European Muslim intellectuals today seeking to reassert aspects of Islamic thought in a contemporary light. The work of Tariq Ramadan, a professor of philosophy in Switzerland and one of the chief architects of the new Islamic discourse in Europe, provides an excellent example. In his To Be A European Muslim, which can be read as a veritable manifesto for the discursive changes highlighted in this chapter, he cites the importance of the concept of maßla˙a (‘public interest’), seeking to reframe it as an important feature of contemporary Muslim life in Europe (Ramadan, 1999, 76–82). The great medieval theologian al-Ghazali, he points out, once claimed that maßla˙a was the end goal of the entire body of Shari"a (holy law); Ramadan believes this to be particularly true today. For him an emphasis on public interest means that the question of whether a particular practice should or should not be permitted needs to be viewed in the context of its effect on the entire community rather than simply deemed ˙alàl (‘permissible’) or ˙aràm (‘forbidden’) by a religious scholar with his nose buried in a collection of fatwàs (reli­ gious edicts) from the tenth century. Dilwar Hussain, a fan of Ramadan whose own research probes the concept of maslaha even further, points out that:

ALLIEVI_F6_127-145

140

10/21/02

12:07 PM

Page 140

 

This is particularly relevant in cases where Muslims are living in cir­ cumstances where the situations of daily life are not covered clearly by the texts. When things are changing so quickly, one cannot rely exclusively on analogical deduction (qiyas) from the sources . . . [so] we need to find a new flexibility when dealing with juridical issues (Hussain, 1998).

Hussain wants to invert the classical conception of maßla˙a, which is seen primarily as a means of ‘closing the gates to evil,’ and to con­ centrate instead on maßla˙a refigured as ‘opening the gates to good.’ ‘For example,’ he says, ‘there’s the idea of opening the gates for women to play a role in public life, and seeing this as a “good,” as something in the public interest: maßla˙a.’ The question arises, how­ ever, as to who holds the keys to these gates—a question to which Hussain, as yet, has no answer. ‘That’s what I’m working on now,’ he says optimistically. We see, then, the importance that Muslims today are laying on rereading and reassessing the textual sources of Islam in new con­ texts. In this regard there would appear to be some degree of dis­ cursive overlap between these new intellectual trends and recent thinking in Western critical theory. The notion of dialogue and some form of ‘communicative action,’ to invoke Habermas, within a pub­ lic sphere seem to be intrinsic to both (Habermas, 1990 and 1992). Figures such as Tariq Ramadan, in his creative readings of the core sources of Islamic law, have begun the crucial process of develop­ ing the contours of what might be termed a ‘minority fiqh’—a jurispru­ dence designed specifically for Muslim living in situations in which they are not a majority. The challenge, as Ramadan sees it, is to find a way for Muslims to protect and uphold the core of their reli­ gion without resorting to isolationism; to participate, in other words, without diluting the essential meanings of Islam. ‘To promote and to advocate such involvement in Western society is not only new, and thus difficult,’ he writes, ‘but also necessitates that some sensi­ tive legal questions and ethical issues receive, as essential prerequi­ sites, clear answers and solutions’ (Ramadan, 1999, 102). Many Muslims in Europe who are part of this new trend see themselves as playing a role within the context of a much wider pic­ ture. ‘Muslims in [Europe] have a more global sense of Islam,’ says one religious scholar, ‘and hence have a role to play in the global­ isation of the religion’ (Barkatullah, 1998). This means articulating Islam in terms that non-Muslims can understand, but it also means re-articulating Islam to Muslims in new ways. Europe offers a unique

ALLIEVI_F6_127-145

10/21/02

12:07 PM

Page 141

   

141

context for the reassessment of theories, beliefs and traditions, while increased transnationalism enables these new reformulations to travel the world. For some Muslims this offers the greatest hope for rethink­ ing Islam: In order to have ijtihàd [independent judgement] you need freedom of thought. This does not exist in most Muslim countries. We Muslims in the West should debate, discuss and disseminate our ideas because this will encourage Muslims living where there is not freedom to do the same, or at least to make use of the materials and ideas we pro­ duce (Siddiqui, 1998b).

We can meaningfully speak today about the existence of something like a global infrastructure for the maintenance, reproduction and dissemination of Islam. This ‘regime’ possesses no central authority and there is very little co-ordination between its various constitutive elements. Nevertheless, through a diverse range of organisations, tech­ nologies and transnational structures the contours of a transnational Islam are beginning to emerge. We have already mentioned several of the institutions which collectively form this infrastructure such as the ‘imported imams’ who travel back and forth between homeland and diaspora, and the myriad regional and transregional Muslim organisations which mediate daily life for believers in a variety of national settings. In addition, we can also point to the role played by various communication and information technologies, from the circulation of a wide range of English-language books on Islam via international publishing networks linking Washington, D.C. with Durban, London and Karachi (Metcalf, 1996, xv), to cyberspace debates between Muslims of various madhàhib in Internet chat rooms. Diaspora television programmes also play a role in the sustenance of long distance communal and religious ties (Naficy, 1993), as does the live broadcast of the hajj in many Muslim countries and its sub­ sequent availability on video (Metcalf, 1996, 11). Migratory spaces and global cities also figure heavily in transna­ tional Islam. With their culturally diverse and highly mobile popula­ tions, cities such as London are important nodal points for networks of discourse and often serve as factories for the production and import/ export of (reformulated) ideology. As Adam Lebor puts it, ‘Positioned halfway between the Middle East and the United States, with easy access to Europe, the hub of a global communications network, and with decade-old ties to Islam’s lands, London has now become the de facto intellectual capital of the Middle East’ (Lebor, 1997, 101f.).

ALLIEVI_F6_127-145

142

10/21/02

12:07 PM

Page 142

 

It is therefore not surprising that a number of transnational move­ ments have chosen to set up shop in Europe. We can think here of the Tabligh-i-Jama'at, an eminently transnational organisation, whose European ‘headquarters’ in Dewsbury co-ordinates and dispatches da'wa tours to destinations all around the world. Travelling Tablighis of many ethno-national backgrounds—although mainly from the Indian subcontinent—pass through the centre on their way to Canada, Malaysia, South Africa and Mecca. As Barbara Metcalf observes, ‘Dewsbury . . . looks more like Pakistan than does Pakistan itself. In Tabligh, participants are part of this contemporary world of move­ ment even as they transcend cultural pluralism by the re-lived Medina their actions create’ (Metcalf, 1994, 721). In the time of transnationalism the Muslims of Europe thus have a vital role to play. It is they who are in the best position to engage in a sustained critical renewal of their religion; and it is also they who can most effectively speak this new Islam to the world. Conclusion The discourses of European Muslims have contributed significantly to the development of a critical Islam. I have argued that Europe provides an environment conducive to the development of alterna­ tive Muslim discourses. As we have seen above, Muslims encounter a diverse range of interpretations and schools of thought in Europe today. As dialogue is enabled between these different tendencies, the differences between them are often attenuated. Most crucially, how­ ever, this is a space in which no particular conception of Islam is negated. Difference is negotiated, rather than eradicated. That is not to say, however, that European Islam is a model of sectarian harmony. There are always forces working to narrow the boundaries of political community and seeking to monopolise the discourse of political legitimacy. There still exist within Europe cer­ tain tendencies seeking to promulgate a conception of Islam that impels radical political activism. What does one do, for example, about more extreme groups, such as Hizb ut-Tahrir and al-Muhajiroun, who demand that Muslims work towards the establishment of Islamic states in Europe and who refuse to engage with pluralistic concep­ tions of Islam? For this group, Europe—and ‘the West’ in general— still serves as an enemy figure which must be subverted. One possible strategy is to turn the tables on the extremists and to construct a

ALLIEVI_F6_127-145

10/21/02

12:07 PM

Page 143

   

143

discourse in which they become the unwitting victims of Western hegemony rather than its great resistors. This is accomplished by observing that a large proportion of their own discourse is devoted to anti-Western rhetoric; so much so, in fact, that they end up neglecting to address the problems which most Muslims in Europe face on a day-to-day basis. That is to say, they are so obsessed with denouncing Western hegemony—and, in fact, have managed by and large to define the political field in relation to this very issue—that they do not engage with the substantive issues facing their con­ stituency. Some Muslims thinkers, more notably in the West, have started to problematise the methodology of the extremists by point­ ing out that in many ways it simply serves to reproduce Western hegemony. ‘As long as Islamic political thinkers are locked in a (onesided) conversation with western political thought,’ writes Bobby Sayyid, ‘they remain locked in a logic in which there is no space for anything other than the West’ (Sayyid, 1997, 114) This senti­ ment is echoed by Akeel Bilgrami, who argues that ‘[a] failure to come out of the neurotic obsession with the Western and colonial determination of their present condition will only prove [to Muslims] that that determination was utterly comprehensive in the destruction it wrought’ (Bilgrami, 1995, 218). That said, we still at this point need to be wary of the claims we make about the prevalence and reach of the tendency towards a critical Islam in Europe. Many Muslims still know that the pressures for greater ‘unity’ are often nothing more than demands for greater ‘uniformity.’ Ever wary of this predicament, independent-thinking Muslims often have difficulty finding like-minded peers, preferring instead to go it alone. For them, safety in individuality is more impor­ tant than safety in numbers. And there are always those schools of thought and mosques which simply refuse to come out of their shells. But many Muslims are reconciling themselves to Islam’s heterogene­ ity and seeking dialogue with other traditions. They realise that this internal diversity can only be a good thing, and that it in no way threatens the integrity of Islam; rather, they see it as an intrinsic aspect of their religion. As the leadership of European Islam passes to the next generation, all signs are that a greater sense of unity will emerge among young Muslims;2 but this will be a unity based on 2 In institutional terms, an important step in this direction was taken with the formation of the Muslim Council of Britain in late 1997.

ALLIEVI_F6_127-145

144

10/21/02

12:07 PM

Page 144

 

difference, an awareness that it is only through recognising plurality within that Islam can adapt to life in the West. Encounters and debates with other (even more narrow-minded) Muslims have hence played a central role in defining Islam’s political agenda. In this sense, being part of European society can actually contribute towards the development of critical thinking in Islam: critiques not only of the West, but also—and more importantly—of Islam itself. As emerg­ ing members of European society, Muslims face new questions, and these require new answers. Critical Islam has thus become an imper­ ative for Muslims in Europe. REFERENCES Akhtar, Shabbir (1990), A Faith for All Seasons: Islam and the Challenge of the Modern World, London: Bellew. Arkoun, Mohamed (1984), Pour une critique de la raison Islamique, Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose. Barkatulla, Abdul Kadir (1998), Director, Islamic Computing Centre, Personal Interview, London, July 21. Bilgrami, Akeel (1995), ‘What Is a Muslim? Fundamental Commitment and Cultural Identity’ in Kwama Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates (eds.), Identities, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Cesari, Jocelyn (1997), ‘Islam in France: Social challenge or challenge of secular­ ism?’ Paper presented at the Middle East Studies Association Annual Conference, San Francisco, November. Dassetto, Felice (1993), ‘Islam and Europe’, Paper presented at the International Conference on Muslim Minorities in Post-Bipolar Europe, Skopje, Macedonia. Habermas, Jürgen (1990), Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990. ——— (1992), The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, Cambridge: Polity Press. Hanafi, Hassan (1987), Min al-'aqìda ilà l-thawra (5 vols.), Cairo: Maktaba Madbuli. Horkheimer, Max (1972), Critical Theory: Selected Essays, New York: Herder and Herder. Huntington, Samuel (1998), The Clash of Civilizations, New York: Touchstone Books. Hussain, Dilwar (1998), Research Fellow, The Islamic Foundation, Personal Interview, Leicester, July 29. Lebor, Adam (1997), A Heart Turned East, London: Little, Brown and Company. Lewis, Phillip (1994), Islamic Britain: Religion, Politics and Identity Among British Muslims, London: I.B. Tauris. Lyotard, Jean-François (1985), The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Mernissi, Fatima (1991), Women and Islam: An Historical and Theological Enquiry, Oxford: Blackwell. McDermott, Mustafa Yusuf and Ahsan, Muhammad Manazir (1993), The Muslim Guide: For Teachers, Employers, Community and Social Administrators in Britain, Leicester: The Islamic Foundation, 2nd Revised Edition. Mandaville, Peter (2000), ‘Information Technology and the Changing Boundaries

ALLIEVI_F6_127-145

10/21/02

12:07 PM

Page 145

   

145

of European Islam’ in Felice Dassetto (ed.), Paroles d’Islam: Individus, Sociétés, et Discours dans l’Islam Européen Contemporain, Paris: Maissonneuve et Larose. Metcalf, Barbara (1994), ‘“Remaking Ourselves”: Islamic Self-Fashioning in a Global Movement of Spiritual Renewal’ in Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby (eds.), Accounting for Fundamentalisms, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Metcalf, Barbara D. (ed.) (1996), Making Muslim Space in North America and Europe, Berkeley: University of California Press. Nadwi, Syed Abul Hasan Ali (1983), Muslims in the West: The Message and Mission, Leicester: The Islamic Foundation. Naficy, Hamid (1993), The Making of Exile Cultures: Iranian Television in Los Angeles, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Nielsen, Jørgen (1995), Muslims in Western Europe, Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 2nd Edition. Rahman, Fazlur (1982), Islam and Modernity: Transformation of an Intellectual Tradition, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ramadan, Tariq (1999), To Be A European Muslim: A Study of Islamic Sources in the European Context, Leicester: The Islamic Foundation. Sayyid, Bobby S. (1997), A Fundamental Fear: Eurocentrism and the Emergence of Islamism, London: Zed Books. Siddiqui, Attaullah (1998a), ‘Muslims in the Contemporary World: Dialogue in Perspective’, World Faiths Encounter, No. 20, July. ——— (1998b), Research Fellow, The Islamic Foundation, Personal Interview, Leicester, 29 July. Hans, Thomä-Venske (1988), ‘The Religious Life of Muslims in Britain’, in Thomas Gerholm and Yngve Georg Lithman (eds.), The New Islamic Presence in Western Europe, London: Mansell. Waardenburg, Jacques (1996), ‘Muslims as Dhimmis: The Emancipation of Muslim Immigrants in Europe: The Case of Switzerland’ in W.A.R. Shadid and P.S. van Koningsveld, Muslims in the Margin: Political Responses to the Presence of Islam in Western Europe, Kampen: Kok Pharos. Werbner, Pnina (1996), ‘The Making of Muslim Dissent: Hybridized Discourses, Lay Preachers and Radical Rhetoric Among British Pakistanis’, American Ethnologist, Vol. 23, No. 1.

ALLIEVI_F7_146-169

10/22/02

1:39 PM

Page 146

146

CHAPTER SIX

TURKISH POLITICAL ISLAM AND EUROPE: STORY OF AN OPPORTUNISTIC INTIMACY V A Introduction The maintenance of the links with the country of origin is a central question in the studies on migration in Europe, the territories of res­ idence as those of origin no longer being conceived separately one of the other. The second and third generations whose parents migrated to Europe during the 1960s do not escape this formal remark, even if, for most of them, the notion of country of origin has not the same significance. For a long time marginal in the studies of Islam in Europe, the transnational dimension of religious belongings and mobilisations among migrants settled in Western European countries has recently started becoming fashionable.1 The label covers, how­ ever, various definitions in a scientific debate in which the term ‘transnational’ often refers to the interference of the countries of ori­ gin in the financing of the places of worship built in Europe. Trans­ national dimensions of immigration are nevertheless multiple, even if considering them as de facto elements of migration—i.e. as flows and movements of people, of ideas and of assets which circulate between home-countries and host-countries—means simply avoid­ ing to set up a clear and useful definition.2 The developments and

1 For a state of the literature, see Valérie Amiraux (1999, a and b). Concerning the fluidity of religions with respect to political borders, see Rudolf & Piscatori, 1997. 2 The transnational dynamics of Islam are not exclusively limited to the migra­ tion waves to Europe. In fact, the membership of the umma, the believing com­ munity, is not structured by a territorial and geographical principle. The assimilation of the Muslims to a community is a recurring cliché of migration studies. The com­ munity concept (umma) is part of the Qur"àn (5: 143/137). It therefore fits more­ over less into one religious specific character than in political continuity with the post-Muhammad period. The umma is not however comparable even less assimil­ able to a state as it is defined as exerting its sovereignty on a territory defined by

ALLIEVI_F7_146-169

10/22/02

1:39 PM

Page 147

    

147

evolutions of some Turkish Islamic associations settled in Germany is a relevant illustration of how two national arenas of socialisation may interact and give birth to what I call transnational space (in a similar approach, see Faist, 2001). In this perspective, political Islam as embodied in Turkey in the experience of the ex-Refah Partisi, today Fazilet Partisi,3 is of central interest: how did the party benefit from the migration, capitalising and mobilising resources at an indi­ vidual as well as collective level? The history of the establishment of Turkish Islam in Germany is relatively well known. The ‘culture of the back-yards’ (Hinterhofkultur) which characterises the way in which Islam develops in Germany, revolves around certain groups which distribute the production of the religious assets and compete in the management of the believers. The three most significant actors of Turkish Islam in Germany—at least from a quantitative perspective—(namely the Süleymancilar, the Diyanet and the Milli Görüs—hereinafter the acronym IGMG for Islami­ sche Gesellschaft Milli Görüs) are the result of transfer from Turkey to Germany.4 This move is partly, as in other European countries, moti­ vated by the needs of the first migrants to reconstitute the basic con­ ditions of practising their faith (basically ˙alàl food circuits and places of worship, being firstly prayer rooms then proper mosques, during the second half of the 60s). But partly, it is also the consequence of

borders (Watt, 1968). In the political context of Western Europe, the term ‘com­ munity’ falls under the dialectical tension between universalism and particularism which structures the modern Nation and postulates the overshooting of the com­ munity links as a condition of citizenship. In the current situation of Islam in Europe, be it only with respect to its ethnic diversity, the Muslims’ community is however more imagined than lived. 3 In the text, we will stay with the former name Refah Partisi rather than the cur­ rent one (Fazilet Partisi ). This decision is based on the fact that the events we are referring to concern a period (1996–1997) during which the party was still called Refah. It has been renamed Fazilet from 1998 onward. 4 A selection never aims at covering the whole spectrum of trends especially when it comes to religious groups. This restriction of the sample to three associations is based on their common features: they are all Sunni, they are quantitatively the most significant Turkish associations in terms of membership, and represent three different ‘ways’ of dealing with Islam and politics in Turkey: a mystical-brotherhood way (the Süleymancilar), a public-official way (the Diyanet), and a political-islamist one (the Milli Görüs). Working on religious membership imposes a clarification of the means of dealing together with a population with multiple practices. In our fieldwork, we have circumscribed the Turkish Muslim sample by selecting them on the basis of their formal membership of the one of these three Sunni associations. For instance, this text does not deal with Alevis.

ALLIEVI_F7_146-169

148

10/22/02

1:39 PM

Page 148

 

the political repression against religious political organisations in Turkey at the time of the coups in 1970 and 1980 for example. This paper aims to show how a particular trend of political Islam in Turkey, namely the ex-Refah Partisi, has drawn benefit from the expatriation of a part of its structure in Germany. Beyond a quan­ titative evaluation of the performance and the effectiveness of transna­ tional space based on fund raising ability and voters’ mobilisation, how far can the Turkish migration to Germany be considered as a resource of a particular significance for such a political organisation? The heuristic value of this case study derives from the idea that net­ works of young Turkish Muslims settled in Germany draw advantage, in particular as regards political representation, of their environment although not being citizens of the Federal Republic of Germany. This refers to the divergences between, on the one hand, the logic produced by the standards and the institutions on either side of the migratory flows—i.e. in Germany the law on nationality, in Turkey the complex articulation between Islamism and secularism—and, on the other hand, the collective and individual strategies of Muslims living in Germany. In between emerges what I mentioned earlier as being a ‘transnational space’ facilitating the capitalisation of a num­ ber of resources, material or symbolic. The Islamic associations—i.e. arguing for recognition and defence of the Muslims’ rights—in which individuals choose to engage being ordinary members, militants or leaders, provide individuals with alternative forms of participation to the classical participative ways a citizen is supposed to deal with. Temporarily disconnected from both German and Turkish national sovereignty, individual and collective actors organise the ways and the means of their participation by other channels than that of cit­ izenship. Moreover, these avenues of participation and mobilisation intervene in a German context giving the religious reference a sta­ bility, a longevity, a radically new and different autonomy and inde­ pendence as compared to what the Turkish environment proposes (Kriesi, 1991).5 The capitalisation of the resources by the group as well as by the individual is therefore facilitated by the context.

5 These analyses concentrate however on fixed interpretation isolating the insti­ tutional appliance of any dynamic relation, of any interaction with the actors in movements. I will refer to it in this article from a point of view of the split into two spaces of action between Turkey and Germany, and without neglecting the tactical choices made by the actors, being associative or individual.

ALLIEVI_F7_146-169

10/22/02

1:39 PM

Page 149

    

149

In this chapter, I shall focus on the ‘conditions of production’ of this transnational space, stressing the relevance of the adequacy be­ tween a context and certain types of claims. For instance, how does the mobilisation of religious belonging work, as far as a greater polit­ ical visibility of Islam in Turkey and a strong movement of privati­ sation of religion in Germany are concerned? The Islamic groups, mainly associations, initially evolving in a context where they act as minority, gradually try to adapt to it by drawing its resources, win­ ning in autonomy and in mobility with a dual prospect. On the one hand, the prospect is highly political and indexed on the country of origin. On the other hand, it remains cultural, being intended for customers who are young believers born and socialised in Germany, radically different from the prime waves of migrants they are the children of. This analysis will be covered in three steps. In a first part, I will come back to what I define as transnational space in which different types of actors, individual or collective, intervene between Turkey and Germany. I shall start with a brief survey of the state of the art and a summary of the way the label ‘transna­ tional’ has been used in the context of migration studies and espe­ cially applied to the example of Muslims settled in Europe. In a second phase, I shall focus on the path dependent on these mobil­ isations, confronting the specificity of both contexts, Turkish and German, as far as the relationship between state and religion is con­ cerned. Lastly, a third part of this paper will elaborate on how transnational space has been used and what can be drawn as lim­ its to the capitalisation of resources in the case of Turkish-Islamic associations in Germany and the conversion of resources to Turkey. 1. From transnational ties to transnational spaces6 Far from being univocal in its use and its significance, the term ‘transnational’ goes beyond the simple official report of the migratory reality, and crosses several prospects. Being conceived either as chal­ lenge to the sovereign right of the nation-state to control and defend its borders, as international agreements and norms producing new forms of constraints, or as indicator of tensions between the de­ nationalisation of economic spheres and re-nationalisation of the polit­ ical discourse, the term is however too often reduced to a security 6

This analysis has been developed in French in V. Amiraux, 1999b.

ALLIEVI_F7_146-169

150

10/22/02

1:39 PM

Page 150

 

prism associating mobility and threat, in particular when it comes to religion. The growing use of transnational as qualifying the emer­ gence of non-official actors competing with nation-states on the inter­ national relations scene (Risse, 1995) goes together with a switch in the perception of the world from a stato-centred towards multicentred perspective (Rosenau, 1980). Networks and secondary groups are key actors of these transnational movements, on a collective scale as much as individual, in particular as they offer an alternative in terms of benefits, or even enjoy certain regulating effectiveness (Colonomos, 1995, 1998). The concept of net­ work deserves a brief clarification. In the way I use it, it designates on the one hand the position of an individual actor mobilising its multiple belongings to diverse community type organisations, being its family, its tribe, the village he is coming from or the association he is member of. On the other hand, I consider networks from a policy perspective and then as the result of a more or less stable co­ operation between organisations (associations) which know each other, can work together in order to negotiate with public authorities, exchange resources and share norms and interests (Le Galès and Thatcher, 1995). Then the contacts, coalitions and interactions cross­ ing the official borders, not mastered by foreign policy central author­ ities and other institutions of the various governments occupy a central place (Keohane and Nye, 1972), making possible in partic­ ular the use of the ‘solidarity’ resource as was the case within the Muslim population in Europe at the time of the Bosnia conflict. This development has been mainly helped by the technical support of new methods of communication, changing scales in time and space, by the increasing power of the media. To put it briefly, transna­ tional dynamics demonstrate that the political practices do not need anymore to be activated from a national territorial basis in order to be effective.7 As far as Turkish Islamic associations in Germany are concerned, the transnational dynamics become for them a working method and provide them with different types of resources. From a constraint inherited from the migratory waves, the de-territorialisation produced a space of action in which the defence of different interest could be 7 In several countries, for instance Israel and Turkey, return trips to countries of origin (and of citizenship) have been organised by parties such as the Likud or the Refah for important elections.

ALLIEVI_F7_146-169

10/22/02

1:39 PM

Page 151

    

151

gathered. In particular, this possibility for the Islamic Turkish asso­ ciation to delocalise their activities from Turkey to Germany helped them maintaining intimate ties with the electorate and militancy in Turkey especially during difficult moments such as the coups d’état (in particular the last two ones). Relatively to the uses of the label ‘trans­ national’ as an alternative circuit to the action of the state, or even a threat to state sovereignty (Sassen, 1996), it seems to me an absolute necessity to keep distance from a reading considering transnational dynamics exclusively in a relational and linear prospect in which nation-state remains the ultimate principal and exclusive framework of reference. In doing this, I intend to give priority to a reading in terms of social spaces conceived by Bourdieu as a combination of social positions and lifestyles, shedding light on the reorganisation of the relationship between geographical space and social space (Bourdieu, 1979). I then conceive the transnational dimension rather in a spa­ tial perspective than in a linear one. Hereby I identity a form, of the structures, a number of functions, i.e. ‘the space of the social practice, that the sensitive phenomena occupy, without excluding the imaginary, projects and projections, symbols, utopias.’ (Lefebvre, 1974, 19). This concept of transnational space avoids an exclusively bilateral perception of cross-national ties and insists on the idea that social practices can be produced in a space which is to a certain extent, as I shall demonstrate in the last part of this chapter, auto­ nomous regarding national determination. It makes it possible then to envisage the social processes in their coexistence and their over­ lap. I would therefore suggest to adopt the definition of transnational social spaces given by T. Faist and which he applies to a broader reality (Turkish migrants in Germany) than the one I am focusing on: ‘Transnational social spaces are combinations of social and sym­ bolic ties, positions in networks and organisations and networks of organisations that can be found in at least two geographically and internationally distinct places’ (Faist, 1999, 40). The social arena that members of the Islamic associations in Germany are evolving in con­ sists therefore in an ‘interplay of their social positions in two different societies and is characterised by a severe deficit in symbolic and identity capital in regard to both societies.’ (Caglar, 1995: 320) The latter point is of considerable interest insofar as these practices result­ ing from transnational space do not deal exclusively with an eco­ nomic entrepreneurship (e.g. ethnic business, see Cassarino, 1997) based on traditional, cultural, religious activities, but can be extended

ALLIEVI_F7_146-169

152

10/22/02

1:39 PM

Page 152

 

within political careers. Moreover, in the post-migratory context of Western Europe, national spaces lose their political obviousness. In fact, one does not reside systematically in the country one is citizen of.8 The involvement of the actor in a plurality of dynamics reflects a certain pluralism at the scale of the individual whose reintegration in a national political system is neither automatic, nor completed without difficulty. The polychrome belongings and the multiplicity of the subsystems, which single persons evolve in, establish the links between Turkey and Germany at various levels (political allegiance, economic investments, matrimonial strategies, and communications) without guaranteeing its political clientelisation in Turkey yet.9 Certain practices, labels, statutes do not cross the ‘border’, in particular in relation to different requirements of invisibility, vis-à-vis social methods of assessment exerted differently from one society to the other. If we look at other examples of political mobilisation claiming to establish an Islamic state through political action, we have to under­ line the double-bind effect they are actually experimenting with. On the one hand, these movements try to settle their action and discourse in a domestic framework. This has been qualified by O. Roy as the ‘nationalisation’ of Islamism by contrast with the neo-fundamentalist anchored in supra-national dynamics (Roy, 1999). On the other hand, the states being socially and politically challenged by those types of developments (let us call it political Islam) entered during the 1980s into a phase of repression in some cases hidden behind the pro­ duction by the public authorities of an ‘official Islam’, mainly through reorganisation of the curriculum and other action in the field of edu­ cation (Anderson, 1997). T. Özal is the incarnation of this attempt to place religion under the control of the state by giving it a new public visibility. The Turkish Diyanet (Office of Religious Affairs) cre­

8 Turks living abroad (4% of the Turkish population) are not allowed to vote from their place of residence (through the consulates) as it is often the case for for­ eign people residing in Europe (cf. the Algerians). 9 While participating in the coalition Refahyol in Turkey, N Erbakan addressed discrete signals to the Turks settled in Europe during the first six months. A first example of measures taken by Prime Minister Erbakan planned to allow the Turkish workers living abroad to bring to Turkey cars younger than five years old in exchange for a deposit of DM 50,000 in the Central Bank for at least one year. As second example, the coalition government envisaged reducing the threshold of the deposits in currencies made by Turks living abroad from 50,000 to 30,000 DM and from 25,000 to 15,000$, also reducing the duration of these placements from two to three years.

ALLIEVI_F7_146-169

10/22/02

1:39 PM

Page 153

    

153

ated by the Atatürk regime in 1924 has always played a central role in this process of facilitating state control over religious affairs, and this specific function has in a way been re-invented on the basis of Turkish migration towards Europe. In the context of Turkey, the meeting of these two tendencies (nationalisation versus control by the state) has originated a radicalisation of secularist positions. The multiplicity of social spaces an individual is confronted with in the post-migratory context correlates in the same time a move­ ment of individualisation among young migrants, in particular young Muslims. At this stage, the relevance of transnational dynamics has to be seen together with the generation change inside the Muslim population living in Europe. While the stay in Europe produces new ways of being Muslim, it also redefines the religious membership, both inherited and conquered, transformed and reinvented. These phenomena of hybridisation, of ‘creolisation’ (Hannerz, 1992), benefit from the transnational dimension, from the possibility of an indi­ vidual to be implicated in several social spaces. These hybridisation processes are at the same time cause and consequence of the trans­ national mechanisms: ‘Les Solidarités religieuses, régionales, culturelles, linguistiques et économiques inscrivent concurremment l’individu dans des espaces multiples dont l’équilibre reste fonction de l’intensité de chacune des allégeances ainsi consenties.’ (Badie, 1995, 240) As a matter of fact, being a Muslim does not anymore and only correspond to a genealogy and the passive inherited registration as member of a ‘lignée de croyants’ as pointed out by D. Hervieu Léger (1986), but also to a position of actor in a specific socialisation network. Moreover, the displacement of Islam from the countries of origin to the hostcountries highly affects the relationship between the believer and the community of membership at various levels. When an institution has been set up, as in the case of Turkey and the Diyanet, its symbolic strength and its authority are directly undermined, individuals becom­ ing more autonomous and, in a way, protagonists of their own faith. Recent work on Islam in Europe refers to this desegregation of the coercive power of the community of believers, the lack of institu­ tions drawing up norms once Islam is settled in Europe, and under­ lines the relevance of individual choice in a context where religious practice is not any longer obvious and does not respond to any social conformism (Roy, 1998; Dassetto, 2000). The change in institutional symbolic authority underlined by O. Roy leads to the next step of our analysis e.g. the path of dependence (North, 1990, 100) of the

ALLIEVI_F7_146-169

154

10/22/02

1:39 PM

Page 154

 

settlement of Islam in Europe, and the intimacy of its evolution with the patterns of political management of religious elements in the public sphere, both in Germany and in Turkey.10 Coming from an inhibited context as regards religion, and facing the series of oppor­ tunities offered by the German context in this matter (Tarrow, 1998, 76–77), the Islamic Turkish associations working for the defence and protection of Muslim rights act and get empowered without this being any longer ‘conditional on their accepting the principles, values and identity of a specific political community; that is, the socialisa­ tion process dictated by the necessity of membership and belonging in a particular nation-state’, as expressed by Favell à propos Y. Soysal’s argument for the opening of a post-national dimension to social and political action in post-war Europe (Favell, 1999; Soysal, 1994). Following up on this statement, the next section elaborates on the historical embeddedness of the religion-politics relationship in both national contexts and the windows of opportunities it may open to Turkish political-Islamic mobilisations. 2. How does political Islam benefit from the specificity of a configuration? Muslim migrants coming from Turkey do not arrive in Germany innocent of any experience of the policy but, on the contrary, bring with them representations, symbols, and cognitive stocks. Located in a radically new and different context, they meet an environment they have to adapt to and which they can eventually use to the benefit of some specific claims. The following section deals precisely with this interaction between two distinct management of the rela­ tionship between religion and state. The religious matrix of Turkish Islam established in Germany confirms the importance of this remark. In Turkey, the Diyanet Isleri Türkiye Islam Birligi (DITIB)—created in March 1924—manages the relationship between Islam and the state safeguarding the secular nature of the Kemalist project, promoting a ‘non-traditional’ Islam conforming to the standards of the west­ ernisation project launched by Atatürk during the 1920s. The inter­ vention of Ankara in the religious life of its nationals installed in Germany is part of this ideological narrative dominating public life 10 The Kurdish case is another extremely heuristic illustration of this as, for exam­ ple, analysed by Bozarslan, 1997 and Van Bruinessen, 2000.

ALLIEVI_F7_146-169

10/22/02

1:39 PM

Page 155

    

155

and policy-making in Turkey. The Turkish state cannot let the reli­ gious life of its co-nationals settled in Germany out of control. Bypass­ ing the Turkish state and its authoritarian management of religion while settling and developing in another territory, the Turkish-Islamic associative networks are nevertheless the reason for its move to Berlin in 1982, which follows the coup of 12 September 1980 and signals the entrance of the Turkish regime in a decade of growing attempts to master the visibility of religion in the public life, from Özal and his tactical use of brotherhoods and public revalorisation of religious education, to Erbakan and his political use of a religious repertoire. In the same time, this decision to set up a representation of the Diyanet attests to the strategy of maintenance by the state of its influence outside the national territory. Compared to the Turkish context they are coming from, Muslim migrants coming from Turkey find in Germany a juridical architec­ ture more favourable to religious engagement and its possible public visibility, collective or individual. Germany is more open to sociali­ sation space than Turkey, in particular because of the autonomy which the Islamic groups have with respect to both states, Turkish and German, for recruitment and for finance.11 As regards the man­ agement of religious business in Germany, the Turkish state is thus forced to take a position in the migratory field, obtaining access to Germany through embassies and consulates and then becoming an actor of the transnational space I have been defining in the first sec­ tion of the chapter. With regard to the practical management of religious life, the oppositions between the Islamic government and the groups thus materialise on very basic items, in particular concern­ ing the imams and the construction of the places of worship. The adaptability of the associative network to the opportunities provided by the German legal system in order to stabilise and realise their claims can be assimilated to an entrepreneurial logic mixing social, cultural and economic activities but thereafter maintaining the polit­ ical project alive, at least on the Turkish side. 11 Thus, the possibility of constituting itself in foreigners’ association (Vereine) allows the various actors of Turkish Islam, sanctioned or even censured at certain moments of the recent history of Turkey, to acquire a legal position and visibility of which they are not inevitably holders in the country of origin. The fragmentation of the decision levels, the corporatist organisation of the institutions, that of the civil soci­ ety, the state-religion, are as many elements of a partnership which enters into the dynamism of transnational space and directs the actors in their choices.

ALLIEVI_F7_146-169

156

10/22/02

1:39 PM

Page 156

 

The legal and political hostility of the frameworks with regard to Islam in Turkey sees itself to some extent compensated by the advan­ tages and opportunities proposed principally by the German legal system. The Islamic associations transplanted to Germany experience autonomy, freedom of organisation and public recognition. Conse­ quently, moving from the perception of constraint inherited from the migratory movement, the transplantation of the main Islamic groups from Turkey to Germany gives birth to alternative socialisation are­ nas where different expressions of religious belongings can be expressed, trying to adapt to a new environment by capitalising all possible resources. The immediate result from this settlement in Germany is increasing competition inside the network. This can be observed at two levels. Firstly, at the associative level, political projects indexed on the country of origin govern the development of the networks in a competitive context from the point of view of the audience. The associative discourse is addressed to young believers born and socialised in Germany. The conquest of this new generation of customers becomes even more difficult in a context where pluralism becomes the social standard (Amiraux, 2001). Religious associations are here engaged in a struggle to establish the continuity of a community not only in terms of concrete durability, sharing traditions, values, behav­ iours, but also at the level of its public and symbolic recognition in the public sphere, this not being the exclusive case of Islam. In the context of migration, the associations remain in the first line as regards to their mediatory function. Delocalised in Germany, TurkishIslamic associations mobilise a number of performances (‘the ability to effectively articulate and achieve organisational goals’, Levitt, 1997, 510) to survive the increasing competition between the various actors of the religious field providing social services, comfort and support, facilitating the daily life, ensuring the production of cultural refer­ ences to a continuously changing population. The sharing of a com­ mon experience, that of migration, and mobilisations for the defence of the interests of those involved, rather develop sector logic than corporatism. The associations fight by investing various sectors of activities (sport, teaching, social aid, ˙alàl business), competing inside a new religious market where material goods but also authority over the believers are at stake. The various forms of mobilised capital, the tools of the construction of the legitimate authority, become then many instruments for gaining a better position in the transnational

ALLIEVI_F7_146-169

10/22/02

1:39 PM

Page 157

    

157

space.12 With Ankara intervening in the management of Islam in Germany after 1982, the cleavages between the various trends have been clarified through immediate competition in cities. The migratory settlement extends, in a way, the political instrumentalisation of reli­ gion from Turkey to Germany. This intimacy and resonance between Turkish domestic policy events and the sensitivity of the Turks in Germany have been more and more place under a security blue­ print, in particular after the Refah arrived at the head of the gov­ ernmental coalition formed with the DYP in June 1996. The financial support by Islamic groups settled in Europe was even explicitly denounced by the National Security Council (Milli Güvenlik Kurulu, MGK) in February 1997.13 At a second level and in a broader perspective, this process has to be contextualised and replaced in the logic of secularisation which both Germany and Turkey are confronted with, however differently. I understand here secularisation in a broad sense as the transfer of the management of functions of general interest from religious insti­ tutions to the administration of a secular state, which obviously does not produce the same institutional configuration in the two countries. Rather than a strict separation ‘à la française’, religion in Turkey has been placed under official control of the state since the early days of Atatürk’s Republic. Throughout history, this has led to the competing promotion of two antagonistic value systems: Islamism versus Kemalism. Strictly deprived of any legitimate expression in pol­ itics and in general in the public life of modern Turkey, by the first Kemalist elite, the use of religion as political tool became a tradition 12 In Germany, public opinion has never felt so intensively touched by the argu­ ment ‘Islam’ as it has been the case in France, in particular because the young Turks born and live in Germany were never perceived as potential electoral sup­ porters, even if the major political parties—SPD, CDU, FDP in particular—organised their think tank on the ‘Turks of Germany’ by the ‘Turks of Germany’. Cem Özdemir and Leyla Onur, two MPs of Turkish origin, were long the models of this. Moreover, the export of political violence and of Turkish-Turkish confronta­ tions on German soil is at the centre of the political problematisation of bilateral relations between Turkey and Germany. 13 Through this list of 20 points, the military dominating the MGK put an end to the Refahyol coalition mixing Islamists of the Refah and conservatives of the DYP. This list was explicitly delimitating the legitimate space of exercise of the policy in Turkey as conceived by the military institution. The ultimate measure points to the transnational activities of some Islamic groups by prohibiting the financing of the Turkish political parties by ‘organisations installed in Europe like Millî Görü{’.

ALLIEVI_F7_146-169

158

10/22/02

1:39 PM

Page 158

 

of Turkish politics after the Second World War with the introduction of multiple parties and especially under Menderes’ influence. Both of these eternal enemies nevertheless structure in Turkey what Eickelman and Piscatori conceptualised as Muslim politics: ‘the competition and contest over both the interpretation of symbols and control of the institutions, formal and informal, that produce and sustain them’ (Eickelman and Piscatori, 1996, 5). It is then an absolute necessity to define Islamism in the Turkish context beyond the simplistic idea that it consists of the political use of Islam, which would have made Atatürk the leader. In Germany, the history of the secularisation process is based on the political regulation of the confessional rivalry between Catholics and Protestants symbolised by the institutional recognition of parity. This political regulation of religious competition gave birth to the current partnership between state and churche. This partnership is of particular significance as regards to the way Islamic associations, Turkish in first line but not exclusively, have adapted their activities to the institutional German framework in religious matter, benefiting for instance from the legal opportunity to get the status of public law corporation (Körperschaft öffentlichen Rechts). In addition to the financial argument concerning taxation, the public law corporation would allow Islamic groups to decide autonomously the contents of the religion courses,14 of the opening of Islamic schools and places of worship. The same status manages also the presence of spiritual advisers (Seelsorger) in various public services (such as army, hospitals, police, prisons, and media), and benefits finally from free publicity on public televisions and radios. The material and symbolic interest of this status explains the stability of this constant claim by all the Islamic associations in Germany.15 Since 1977, various associations, gathered as federations or not, regularly address requests for official recognition by the public authorities at a local and regional level. The reason why there has not been a positive answer to this request until today is the same as elsewhere in Europe: which of the asso­ 14 The on-going debate on religious teaching in Germany and the actual possi­ bility to introduce Islam as part of the compulsory courses will certainly give new incentives and reconsideration of the former alliances. 15 The German context is not the only one to offer such a possibility to Islamic groups in Europe. In Italy, the realisation of an Agreement-Intesa with the State which would protect the rights of Muslim in Italy is still under review. See Allievi, 2000.

ALLIEVI_F7_146-169

10/22/02

1:39 PM

Page 159

    

159

ciations can be legitimately chosen by the German government to represent unanimously the complete ‘Muslim community’?16 More than a rather simple compensation mechanism, I would assess that the interests of both German and Turkish states converge as far as the management of Islam is concerned. On several points, in particular as regards religious education, the German regional and federal authorities from the 1980s chose to collaborate with the Turkish government and the Directorate of Religious Affairs. This first element is of particular importance if we keep in mind that edu­ cation is the first domain in which the state in Islamic countries applies its policy of repression and control over Islam (Roy, 1999). This option chosen by the German state, even if locally some other partners can be identified, corresponds to the general way German governments have managed Islam since the 1960s: it is part of the foreign affairs agenda, in perfect coincidence with the German ter­ minology as regards to migrants.17 The Turkish state through the Diyanet maintains Islam as part of Turkish domestic policy, at least out of the legitimate spheres of intervention of the German state (unless national security is at stake).18 The position of the Diyanet as trying to monopolise the official partnership is not however admitted and recognised by everybody, even if it results also from the conver­ gence of the analyses made by the trade unions, the churches, the teachers who caught very early the attention of the policy-makers on the dangers of ‘laissez-faire’ regarding Islam in Germany. This containment line adopted by the German administration leaves Ankara a wide freedom to use the delegations of the Diyanet as many poles of influence and control over other fields of the social life of its citizens abroad.

16 This is a common feature in Europe. France, Italy, Germany and others face the same question without coming to a solution: who can legitimately be chosen as leader of an institutionalised Islam. Beyond the ideological and historical difficulties of finding out who could be selected as leader, this common question shows the impossible challenge for Western European countries to think of Islam out of the Church-based model. 17 The stay of the Gastarbeiter (host-workers) was conceived as provisional, the denominational claims of the ausländische Mitbürger (foreign fellow-citizens) do not register themselves on the domestic policy agenda. 18 Islamists are defined in the annual report of the Bundesverfassungsschutz as the extremist groups and Islamic associations aspiring to a totalitarian Islamic state, they would represent the largest potential of members placed under the influence of for­ eigners organisations.

ALLIEVI_F7_146-169

160

10/22/02

1:39 PM

Page 160

 

The Turkish state can then be said to be an actor of political Islam present and active on both territories. If, in the Turkish con­ text, this is linked with historical developments of the Kemalist project, in the German context, this almost monopolistic position of Diyanet comes as a consequence of the incapacity of the German system to conceive a national project on Islam, built in collaboration with local partners and strictly connected with the needs of the Muslim popula­ tion settled in its territory.19 This position of the Turkish state obeys a double logic, being controlled on the one hand by the Turkish domestic policy agenda (the state delocalises its policy-making in reli­ gious matter), responding on the other hand to a specific situation logic, connected with a peculiar context, and with the need to react to the development in Germany of a ‘deviant’ from Turkish orthodox Islam as the legitimate legatee of the secular dogma built by the Kemalist elite.20 The Turkish state tries again to take up position in a territory of which it is not the legitimate sovereign, as it does also through conscription and fiscal taxation. The political treatment of Islam in Germany is therefore at the crossroad of various registers, religious, cultural, security and legal, even if as such, Islam remains rather discrete in public debates. Access to nationality, until now closed, and the legal regulation of the links between state and church contribute to maintaining the legitimacy of the transnational as a method of action and resource, as a form of communication, thanks to associations receiving and transmitting information allowing the access, inside a given territory (Germany), to a sense of the com­ munity independent of any official control. Unlike other European countries, and in relation to the existence of a legal status govern­ ing the position of the religious, Islam appears marginally in the public debates on migration. In many ways, the picture I have just given in order to explain the opportunities which in both contexts could help to understand the configuration of the transnational social space, shares a lot of elements with the concept of ‘champ’ given by P. Bourdieu as a market with a dialectics of power positions, offer/demand and producers/con19

This remark would need to be adjusted to the various local situations. This control of ‘Kemalist Islam’ is placed, semi-officially but increasingly explic­ itly, under the authority of the military institution in Turkey. On an evolution of the civil-military relationship as far as Kurdish nationalism and Islamism are con­ cerned; see Cizre, 2000. 20

ALLIEVI_F7_146-169

10/22/02

1:39 PM

Page 161

    

161

sumers of goods, in the case of Islamic Turkish associations, religious goods. Between the different actors, the stake of the competition con­ sists in the accumulation of an amount of symbolic capital, which would allow one of these actors to dominate the champ. It can even be said that the competition between the different associations can be developed with a wider range of manoeuvre as the territory in which it is taking place is far from the control by the main agent of the Turkish state in religious matter: the army. The next step will go back to the benefit or damage this specific configuration may have created. How far does this interaction of two contexts and the transna­ tional social space affect the evolution of political Islam as illustrate the itinerary of one of its main actor, the Refah? 3. The limits of a double-market logic The use of transnational space by the main associations representing Islamic-Turkish militancy in Germany is based on a switch from a cultural mobilisation in the private sphere addressed to Turks living in Germany to a political action in the public life challenging the state in Turkey. The peculiar relevance of transnational spaces can then be summarised by the following statement: transnational space helps Turkish Islamic militancy in converting a cultural discourse (‘a Muslim act’ as D. Eickelman and J. Piscatori would say, defining it as a mix of traditions, ideas, practices shared by a community of believers) into a political action and a challenge to the state (Eickelman and Piscatori, 1996). In a way, the Islamists of the Refah organised the reconquest of their participation in the Turkish politics on behalf of their ‘backstage’ success amongst private claims of Turks living in Germany. If the Refah-IGMG pair appears to be a paragon of such transnational ability, it does not have an exclusive hold on it. Bosnians and Albanians of Kosovo use Germany as a mobilisation space and capitalise on various network resources, in particular material. The SDA of Izetbegovic has for instance shown a real mastering of this technique of using the network of the mosques during the electoral campaigns. On the Albanian side, money was at the core of the mobilisation of the diaspora, between Switzerland and Germany, in particular to support the KLA in Kosovo. Concerning the IGMG and the Refah, the Bosnian cause played a central role in the use of the humanitarian seam as from 1992, drawing on a confident capital

ALLIEVI_F7_146-169

162

10/22/02

1:39 PM

Page 162

 

and financial sector. The Turks primarily between 1992 and 1995, searching for right causes over-invested in the humanitarian aid sec­ tor. In the case of the IGMG, it led to a judicial-political dispute in 1994, connected with the money collected in Germany (and in Europe) for the Muslims of Bosnia to the benefit of the election cam­ paign of the Refah.21 If the financial aspect seems in fact the most obvious of the trans­ national businesses, it is not the only one. The collecting of voices of nationals living abroad passes through a constant and regular pres­ ence of personalities of the Refah in the activities of the IGMG. Necmettin Erbakan’s regular visits to the Turks of Germany since 1975 have been fulfilling an undeniably integrative function, both to the faithful and their leaders. Number of candidates or of leaders of the Refah Partisi thus circulate in migratory space, reactivating the sensitivity of the base in Germany, in particular for the elections: Sevket Kazan, Minister of Justice of the Refahyol government, and Abdullah Gül, Minister of State, Halil Ürün (Konya mayor) went to Munich in December 1990, and Ahmet Tekdal, substitute for the president of the party, visited Bremen in December 1990. In November 1990, Necmettin Erbakan himself started a tournée of the different IGMG sections in Berlin, Hamburg, Bremen, Hanover, Hesse, Stuttgart, and Munich and in other European countries.22 Logically, many positions of the Millî Görü{ hierarchy are drawn from Refah leaders in Turkey. In the same perspective, substantive financial support circulates from one country to the other. In 1991, the amount of money transferred from Germany to Turkey was con­

21

The ‘Mercümek case’ as it was called by the Turkish press, taking up again the main protagonist’s name, is a genuine political-financial scandal, which had many repercussions in Turkey and illustrates the permeability of two national spaces. The business started with a banal call to the generosity of the believers to help the Bosnians via a humanitarian organization, the Internationale Humanistische Hilfe e.V. with its seat in a mosque of the IGMG in Freiburg. See the reproduction of the call for subventions in the annex n. 5, Amiraux, 1997. No legal link attached the two organisations, but persons who work on both sides are the same. On the whole, between February and April 1993, almost DM 3 million have passed from Turkey to Germany, then from Germany to Turkey but have never reached Bosnia and were illegally used for the election campaigns of the Refah. 22 This relates to the campaign before the 1991 general elections in Turkey: 40 members of Parliament for the refah which gathered around 17% of the votes, see Amiraux, 1997. The same processes occurred again during the 1994–5 elections campaign, see Seufert, 1999, 297.

ALLIEVI_F7_146-169

10/22/02

1:39 PM

Page 163

    

163

sidered six million DM, mainly used to support the election cam­ paign of Refah.23 Working from Germany permits them to escape the control of the state without disconnecting from national themes. Since the municipal elections of 1994, and even more since the legislative periods of 1995, the transnational activism has been more directly dedicated to the interests of the Refah, certain elected representatives being nothing less than former leaders of the IGMG which, using migratory space as a political springboard, went back to Turkey to finalise a political career, reaching the mandates of mayors or of MP. The transnational dimension of the Turkish Islamic organisation network finds in fact a number of reflections in individual careers. Being in the framework of the local councils for foreigners (Ausländer­ beiräte), as local representative of the CDU or member of parliament in Turkey, there are many roads in which militant socialisation func­ tions as a ticket for entrance into political participation. Twice, the Refah has made use of the repatriations of the frameworks of the IGMG on electoral grounds. In the first case, during municipal elec­ tions in 1994, Zeki Basaran (Bremen) became mayor of Agri, Salih Gök (The Netherlands), mayor of Batman, and Sevki Yilmaz (Cologne) mayor of Rize. These local candidates are justified for the hierar­ chy of the Refah by the symbolic force of their success in Europe, in addition to that fact that those individuals are all local candidates. In the case of the legislative elections in 1991 and 1995, diverse MP have then been imported from Germany to Refah lists. Abdullah Gencer, ex-public relations responsive for the IGMG in Germany, and Osman Yumakogullari, former president of the IGMG, were elected respectively in Konya and in Istanbul (see interviews with the author in Amiraux, 1997, and Seufert, 1999, 296).24 Their return in Turkey, called back by the Refah, is based on a strong legitimacy of the party structure. In a way, they materialise an imagined com­ munity of which the IGMG and the Refah are not rivals but two faces of the same figure. In parallel, as guarantees of the link between Turkey and Germany, these persons relayed for years the political message of the Refah, capitalising on a legitimacy inside the organi­ sation while acting on a different territory. 23

Informationsdienst, 1/94, p. 6. Seufert mentions about 30 persons from AMGT in Europe who were candi­ dates in Turkey. Seufert, 1999, 296. 24

ALLIEVI_F7_146-169

164

10/22/02

1:39 PM

Page 164

 

Whether this involves being elected in Turkey or working in Germany, the choice of participating into politics is based on capi­ talisation of different kinds of resources mixing social status, political ability and economic positions, but also a certain popularity. In Germany, the foreigners’ councils (Ausländerbeiräte) and the councils of enterprise (Betriebsräte) are the first arenas in which this type of itin­ erary can be observed, even if this is strictly limited to informative and advisory work.25 Leaving the associative structures as an exclusive framework of their militant history, some individuals chose to enter German politics. These initiatives still concern a minority of persons among the Turks from Germany. However, whether this political participation is community-based and remains within a local frame­ work and the German federal spectrum (through the one major polit­ ical party), or whether this political training indicates the ‘return to the country of origin’, the individual actors engaged in this process capitalise on resources in a transnational space, typically as result of an individual post-migratory configuration. The label which seems the most suitable to their trajectory is the one of ‘mediator’ as they are able to articulate a field of knowledge and a field of power, cre­ ating a new pole of identification. Nevertheless, in some cases, those who chose to go back to Turkey did not face success, in particular as they try to validate in Turkey a legitimacy inherited from a specific socialisation process made on a different territory. For instance, when Ali Yüksel tries to get a position on the Refah list for the legislative in Ankara, he then has to withdraw, facing the accusation of being ‘an anti-constitutional candidate’ as his honorific designation as Sheikh ül-Islam title (title given by one of the two important Muslims fed­ erations in Germany) has been officially abolished by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk at the very beginning of the Republic (see in particular for further comments on this peculiar example Calislar, 1995). In the same perspective of failure, during the autumn of 1996, a young 25 The setting up of the foreigners’ councils corresponds, in the middle of the 1970s, to the awareness that a number of needs and of foreign peoples’ demands were not taken into account, at the same time as it enters the German political play consisting in gaining German voices by flattering the foreigners. These coun­ cils are conceived as places of expression for non-German minorities. Primarily attended by Spanish, Portuguese and Italians until the application of the Maastricht treaty, the tendency was long that of the lists by nationality but, in NordrheinWestfalien for example, since the beginning of the 1990s, some Islamic lists gath­ ering various nationalities and associations began to win the elections in the Foreigners’ Councils.

ALLIEVI_F7_146-169

10/22/02

1:39 PM

Page 165

    

165

Turkish member of the IGMG (in charge of the public relations of the Berlin section), elected as representative of the Berlin region to the National Convention of the CDU, had to withdraw from this mandate after an accusation by so-called secular Turks from the same German party of being an Islamist. Being selected as a rep­ resentative of the CDU at a federal level implies renouncing a par­ ticular identity which this individual could not guarantee.26 All these initiatives remain in fact embedded in a specific config­ uration in which its relevance differs, especially according to the ter­ ritories. Resources are not material assets performing out of any situational logic. One can then argue for a narrow definition of the mobilisation stressing mainly an instrumental vision—the use of par­ ticular resources to come to precise ends—the relational character of the resources preventing them from being isolated from the con­ texts and the social configuration. Their value changes from one ter­ ritory to the other according to the sensitivity of the institutions, the continuity of the structures, the political and cultural correspondences, especially as far as religion and the public sphere are concerned. Moreover, the limits of the conversion of the resources from a trans­ national social space to a national framework reveal the distortions between social capital and the legitimacy coefficients of which iden­ tity markers (such as socialisation in an Islamic association, title of Sheikh ül Islam) are affected. This also draws the limits of a strictly instrumental reading of the mobilisations and underlines the social and historical processes connected with the control of certain resources (Etzioni, 1968).27 The value of resources depends upon the context in which it will be capitalised but also used (Dobry, 1986). The ‘de-territorialisation’ concept or rather the idea of new adja­ cency of the territories (Bigo, 1996) consequently becomes the corner­ stone of reflection on the transnational space, on its operating modes and its limits, vis-à-vis a state understood as exerting its sovereignty

26 This argument is further developed in Amiraux, 1997. For press articles, see in particular Der Spiegel, 41/1996, Berliner Zeitung, 8 and 10/10/96, TAZ, 10/10/96, Berliner Morgenpost, 10/10/96, Die Welt, 7/10/96 and the Presseerklärung der CDU, 8/10/96. 27 To a certain extent, this relational dimension of the resource mobilisation can be compared with the economic mobility and the relative similar economic and material situation of Germans and Turks in Germany. This equivalence of eco­ nomic position does not lead to an equal identification of both groups as far as cultural, social and symbolic capitals are concerned.

ALLIEVI_F7_146-169

166

10/22/02

1:39 PM

Page 166

 

on a given territory, and connected in its legitimacy and its identity with this constraint. The transnationalisation of political Islam in the German-Turkish perspective, does not signal the end of a territorial definition of state action, but reformulates the whole process. It pro­ vides for new alternatives for mobilisations, revalidating in particu­ lar the local and cross-border dimensions. These new options are particularly visible, on the one hand in the changing topics invested by the Islamic associations in terms of social work (action against drugs, sport association for men and women) which helps building a local notability, and on the other hand in the quest for perfor­ mance and effectiveness in all kinds of activities, including political careers. The transnational space is in this context a kind of exten­ sion of identity belonging beyond the national borders, independently of the institution of citizenship and relatively to the needs, whether those of the Refah or those of individual members of the associa­ tions. This means that associations compete with the governments’ exclusive powers: more than one territory which would be erased, it is the exercise of state sovereignty on it which is modified and reformulated as a joint effect of the empowerment of collective and individual actors ‘free of sovereignty’ (Bigo, 1996, 336–7). 4. Conclusion In this chapter, I have tried to elaborate on a double-sided argu­ ment. My main hypothesis concerned the way political Islam as mate­ rialised in Turkey by the Refah Partisi has succeeded in using migration as a space for organising some steps of its reconquest of politics in Turkey. The first side of this statement is based on my explanation of how Islamic associations settled in Germany have been using some opportunities provided by the German context as compensation for a Turkish public sphere hostile to religion. The setting up of what I defined a transnational social space has made this capitalisation of resources possible. The other side of the argument is based on the idea that it is because of the cultural nature of the activities developed by the Turkish-Islamic associations in Germany, that the political repositioning is made possible in Turkey. Gaining political positions in Turkey is based on the investment in cultural field in Germany, then creating a certain number of limits especially in terms of symbolic recognition. At a concrete level, while governing Turkey from June

ALLIEVI_F7_146-169

10/22/02

1:39 PM

Page 167

    

167

1996 until June 1997, as member of a coalition government, the Refah Partisi continued maintaining the sensitivity of the ‘de-territorialised’ audience (Turks in Europe) making various proposals I mentioned earlier, until the explicit quotation of these intimate ties in the 20­ point list of measures written by the National Security Council was handed down to the constitutionally elected coalition government. Legal constraints and opportunities defined by German institu­ tional structures certainly affect the organisational methods and the level of the Turkish Muslims’ mobilisation, the associations being obviously the principal vehicle for transnational dynamics, reducing the costs of the engagement for the recruited individuals and represent­ ing a certain guarantee of success (Klandermans and Tarrow, 1988). The transnationalisation of political Islam as embodied in the Refah/ IGMG experience does not, however, signify the complete discon­ nection from Turkish politics at its ground level. Politics—being draw­ ing boundaries, value-ordering matters and making symbols (Eickelman and Piscatori, 1996), transnational empowerment of political Islam, even if mainly a matter of structure and material opportunities rather than intellectual and ideological work—‘thus becomes a part of the interests-based struggle typical of any political arena’ (Favell, 1999, 216). Indeed, transnational social space appears to enable some indi­ viduals to maximise an associative socialisation based on religious identity and to enter German or Turkish politics to a certain extent. The transnational space intervenes for the Refah as long process of reconstruction of a safe ‘backstage’ reservoir of finances, men, votes, which eventually can be called back to Turkey. While not having public recognition in Germany, Islam is organised and worked out in the private sphere with an implicit claim for reconquest of a lost public position in Turkey. The transnational social space appears here as the arena of this switch from cultural goods, produced for the private life of Muslims settled in Germany, to a political project articulated along religious discourses for Turks in Turkey. It could then be of interest to follow the evolution of those specific dimen­ sions while Turkey is becoming a legitimate applicant to the European Union. The specificity of both Turkish and German histories as far as the relationship between religion and politics is concerned reminds us, however, of the heuristic need to place Muslim politics into multi­ ple and shifting contexts, to historicise the national contexts in which this dynamics take place. With some obvious difficulties as far as the European Union is concerned: Cujus regio, ejus religio?

ALLIEVI_F7_146-169

168

10/22/02

1:39 PM

Page 168

 

REFERENCES

Allievi, Stefano, and Castro, Francesco (2000), ‘The Islamic Presence in Italy: Social Rootedness and Legal Questions’, in Silvio Ferrari, Anthony Bradney (eds), Islam and European Legal Systems, Dartmouth: Ashgate, pp. 155–180. Amiraux, Valérie (1997), Itinéraires turcs musulmans d’Allemagne: Appartenances religieuses et mdoes d’intégration, PhD thesis, Paris (Institut d’études politiques), dir. Prof. Rémy Leveau. ——— (1999a), ‘Transnational en puissance, transnational en acte. Le rôle de l’espace migratoire dans la mobilisation politique islamiste’, in Gérard Groc (ed), Formes nouvelles de l’islam en Turquie, Paris: Les Annales de l’Autre Islam, ERISM-INALCO, pp. 97–113. ——— (1999b), ‘Les limites du transnational comme espace de mobilisation’, Cultures & Conflicts, September, no 33–34, pp. 25–50. ——— (2001), Acteurs de l’islam entre Allemagne et Turquie. Parcours militants et expériences religieuses, Paris: L’Harmattan. Anderson, Lisa (1997), ‘Fulfilling Prophecies: State Policy and Islamist Radicalism’, in John Esposito (ed.), Political Islam. Revolution, Radicalism, or Reform?, Boulder: Lynne Rienner, pp. 17–31. Badie Bertrand (1995), La fin des territoires, Paris: Fayard. Bigo, Didier (1996), ‘Guerres, conflits, transnational et territoire’, Cultures & Conflicts, spring-summer 1996, no 21/22, pp. 397–418. ——— (1998), ‘Nouveaux regards sur les conflits?’, in Marie-Claude Smouts (ed), Les nouvelles relations internationales. Pratiques et théories, Paris: Presses de sciencespo, pp. 309–354. Bourdieu, Pierre (1979), La distinction. Critique sociale du jugement, Paris: Editions de Minuit. Bozarslan, Hamit (1997), La question kurde: Etats et minorités au Moyen-Orient, Paris: Presses de la FNSP. Bruinessen, Martin van (2000), Transnational Aspects of the Kurdish Question, Florence: EUI Working Paper, RSC no. 2000/22, Mediterranean Programme Series. Caglar, Ayse (1995), ‘German Turks in Berlin: social exclusion and strategies for social mobility’, New Community, Vol. 21, no. 3, pp. 309–323. Calislar, Oral (1995), Refah Partisi: nereden nereye, Istanbul: Pencere yayinlari. Cassarino, Jean-Pierre (1997), The Theories of Ethnic Entrepreneurship, and the Alternative Arguments of Social Action and Network Analysis, Florence: EUI Working Papers, SPS No.97/1 Cizre, Ümit (2000), Politics and Military in Turkey into the 21st Century, Florence: EUI Working Papers, RSC no. 2000/24, Mediterranean Programme Series. Colonomos, Ariel (ed) (1995), Sociologie des réseaux transnationaux, Paris: L’Harmattan. ——— (1998), ‘L’acteur en réseau à l’épreuve de l’internationale’, in Marie-Claude Smouts (ed.), Les nouvelles relations internationales. Pratiques et théories, Paris: Presses de Sciences-po, pp. 203–226. Dassetto, Felice (ed) (2000), Paroles musulmanes-Muslim Words, Paris: Maisonneuve and Larose. Dobry, Michel (1986), Sociologie des crises politiques: les dynamiques des mobilisations mul­ tisectorielles, Paris: Presses de la FNSP. Etzioni, Amitai (1968), The active society: a theory of societal and political processes, London: Collier-Macmillan. Faist, Thomas (1999), ‘Developing Transnational Social Spaces: The Turkish-German Example’, in Ludger Pries (ed), Migration and Transnational Social Spaces, Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 36–69.

ALLIEVI_F7_146-169

10/22/02

1:39 PM

Page 169

    

169

——— ( 2001), Transstaatliche Räume. Wirtschaft, Politik und Kultur in und zwischen Deutschland und der Türkei, Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag. Favell, Adrian (1999), ‘To belong or not to belong: the postnational question’, in Adrian Favell, Andrew Geddes (ed), The Politics of Belonging: Migrants and Minorities in Contemporary Europe, Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 209–227. Hannerz, Ulf (1992), Cultural Complexity: Studies in the Social Organisation of Meaning, New York: Columbia University Press. Hervieu-Léger, Danièle (1986), La religion pour mémoire, Paris: Le Seuil. ——— (1997), ‘Renouveaux religieux et nationalistes: la double dérégulation’, in Pierre Birnbaum (ed), Sociologie des nationalismes, Paris: P.U.F, pp. 163–185. Keohane Robert O., Nye Joseph S. (1972), Transnational relations and World Politics, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Klandermans, Bert, and Tarrow, Sidney (1988), ‘Mobilization into Social Movements: Synthesizing European and American approaches’, in Bert Klandermans, Hanspeter Kriesi, Sidney Tarrow (ed), From Structure to Action: Comparing Social Movement Research across Cultures. International Social Movement Research, vol. 1, Greenwich, Conn: JAI, pp. 1–38. Kriesi, Hans-Peter (1991), The Political Opportunity Structure of New Social Movements: Its Impact one Their Mobilizisation, Berlin: WZB, FS III 91–103. Lefebvre, Henri (1974), La production de l’espace, Paris: Anthropos. Le Galès, Patrick, and Thatcher, Mark (ed) (1995), Les réseaux de politique publique. Débat autour des policy networks, Paris: L’Harmattan. Levitt, Peggy (1997), ‘Transnationalizing Community Development: The Case of Migration Between Boston and the Dominican Republic’, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, vol. 26, no. 4, December, pp. 509–526. North, Douglas C. (1990), Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Risse, Thomas (ed) (1995), Bringing Transnational Relations Back In, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Roy, Olivier (1998), ‘Naissance d’un Islam européen’, Esprit, January, pp. 10–35. ——— (1999), ‘Changing Patterns among Radical Islamic Movements’, Brown Journal of World Affairs, Vol. VI, no. 1, pp. 109–120. Rudolph, Susanne, and Piscatori, James (ed) (1997), Transnational Religion and Fading States, Boulder: Westview. Sassen, Saskia (1996), The De-Facto Transnationalizing of Immigration Policy, Florence: European University Institute (RSC-Jean Monnet Chair Papers). Seufert, Günter (1999), ‘Die Milli-Görüs-Bewegung zwischen Integration und Isolation’, in Seufert, Günter, and Waardenburg, Jacques, (eds), Turkish Islam and Europe. Türkischer Islam und Europa. Europe and Christianity as reflected in Turkish Muslim Discourse and Turkish Muslim Life in the Diaspora, Istanbul: Franz Steiner Verlag, pp. 295–322. Soysal, Yasemin (1994), Postnational Citizenship: Migrants and Postnational Membership in Europe, Chicago: Chicago University Press. Tarrow, Sidney (1998), Power in Movement. Social Movements and Contentious Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Watt Montgomery (1968), Islamic Political Thought, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

ALLIEVI_F8_170-193

10/21/02

12:07 PM

Page 170

170

CHAPTER SEVEN

ISLAMIC TV PROGRAMMES AS A FORUM OF A RELIGIOUS DISCOURSE1 A B Introduction The immigration of people who adhere to the Islamic faith has led to this religion becoming the second largest denomination in Germany. Owing to the history of immigration Islam in Germany is primarily shaped by Turkish ‘guest workers’ (75% of the Muslim total). Today Muslim immigrants in Germany have started articulating themselves in German public discourse. One possibility to access the public sphere is the use of mass media like television, radio or the Internet. The present paper investigates the impact of Islamic TV on the Muslim community in Berlin. It discusses the example of a local public access TV channel—the so-called Berlin Open Channel (OKB), which has a strong presence of very different Muslim groups and individuals all producing their own programmes. Open Channels were established in Germany in the 1980s with the aim to promote local cultures of communication and help under­ represented groups in gaining access to the public sphere. The idea of Open Channels is that passive consumers of mass media produc­ tions should become active producers. It stresses the local compo­ nent. To enforce it, the Berlin Open Channel accepts only programmes which are produced by the programme makers themselves. This is especially important for immigrants, who are not allowed to show videotapes that have been recorded elsewhere or programmes taken from other television stations. (BOK, 2001; Kamp, 1997; Kosnick, 2001b).

1 The author studied Islamic Studies, Turkish Studies and Sociology and is cur­ rently working at the Humboldt University of Berlin. Her main research fields are the Turkistani community in Turkey and Islam in Germany.

ALLIEVI_F8_170-193

10/21/02

12:07 PM

Page 171

        

171

This paper will show that the Islamic TV has stimulated a reli­ gious discourse among Berlin Muslims of different national back­ grounds and of different religious attitudes. A part of this discourse also displays a transnational dimension. A research project on Islamic television on Berlin’s Open Channel, which was carried out by a group of six scholars and students, of which the author was a part, provides the background for this article (Bentzin, 2002). It took place at the Department for Islamic Studies at the Humboldt University of Berlin between 1999 and 2000. This project investigated different aspects such as the placement of the Islamic programmes within the OKB and their perception by the audience, the Muslim producers and the OKB administration. Further­ more, we addressed the questions of how religiousness is transferred via TV and what strategies are used by the religious experts to legit­ imate their appearance. In an epilogue Gerdien Jonker looked at the Islamic programmes within the context of the Islamic topography in Berlin. She draws the conclusion that the big Islamic organisations like Millì Görü{ which had links to the recently forbidden Fazilet Partisi in Turkey or the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Matters (DITIB) which is controlled by the Turkish state are hardly repre­ sented on the OKB whereas small Muslim groups and individuals prevail. Most Muslims who act as religious experts on TV belong to the younger generation and received their theological knowledge by self-study ( Jonker, 2002). Among the 25 regularly broadcasting Islamic programmes 12 pro­ ductions were selected to be considered here. At the end of the text there is an overview of these 12 programmes giving brief informa­ tion about the broadcasting language and the affiliation of the pro­ gramme makers. Given the lack of data providing answers to the questions my analysis is mainly based on my own material. The material was collected through qualitative interviews with the vari­ ous programme makers, spot checks among the Berlin population and participant observation of several live programmes in the stu­ dio of the OKB. The list of the analysed programmes also includes the names of the interviewees, their role in the programme and the date the interview was conducted. As the Muslim producers act in the public sphere and are responsible for their productions I have not rendered them anonymous but have used their real names. A second source was the reaction of the home viewers in the form of telephone comments during live broadcasts. These reactions tell

ALLIEVI_F8_170-193

10/21/02

12:07 PM

Page 172

 

172

us something about the reception of a programme’s topic or format. While phone calls in a live broadcast take place in public space, I had no access to another kind of audience reaction, namely phone calls and letters to the producers and to the channel. However, according to one staff member of the Open Channel opinions via phone or letter contain only complaints about the Islamic programmes. The main questions that will be discussed in the following are: Who do the Muslim programme makers want to address? Do they reach their target audience and do they know whom they actually reach? What does the audience think about the programmes offered by different Islamic groups and individuals on the Open Channel? How do producers of Islamic programmes on the OKB perceive each other? Finally, is there a transnational tendency within the com­ munication on religious issues? The Islamic landscape on the Open Channel Quantitative Data Our inquiries among people living in Berlin show that the OKB and its Islamic programmes are quite well known. However, figures concerning the number of Berlin inhabitants who watch these reli­ gious TV programmes on the Open Channel do not exist. Since the Open Channel does not compete in the commercial market place of television, it is not included in general surveys. Thus, only some general statements about the audience for Islamic and foreign lan­ guage programmes can be made. According to the management of the OKB in 1996 the channel was known to 43% of the Berlin Turkish population. The Open Channel representatives estimate that about 17% also watch the Turkish programmes on a regular basis. The Open Channel has a large proportion of foreign-language pro­ ductions, 33,5% of its entire programme volume. Among them con­ tributions in Turkish constituted the majority with a proportion of 12,4% (Linke, 1997, 44). Given the lack of information concerning the quantity of Islamic TV within the OKB our project group conducted an own quanti­ tative evaluation, examining Open Channel programmes in February (339 productions) and May of 2000 (407 productions). In both months about every tenth broadcast was in Turkish. Among them, a major­ ity of productions dealt with Islamic topics (77,1% in February and

ALLIEVI_F8_170-193

10/21/02

12:07 PM

Page 173

        

173

84,1% in May). In February as well as in May more than half of the Islamic programmes were produced in Turkish (64,3% in February and 61,6% in May). With a proportion of 12,3% in February and 14,7% in May 2000 Turkish Islamic programmes figured promi­ nently on the Open Channel. The number of Islamic broadcasts in German was also remarkably high (in May 16,6%). Who is broadcasting what? Individual programme makers without any affiliation to a mosque or an organisation produce alongside those who belong to a certain Islamic group or mosque community. Islamic programmes on the OKB reflect not only the spectrum of Muslim groups and organi­ sations in Berlin but also that in the countries of origin of Berlin’s Muslim population. Muslims of Sunnì and Shì'ì belief, orthodox Muslims and members of heterodox groups like Sufi-orders, Turkish Alevis and the Ahmadiyya are active in broadcasting their own pro­ grammes. The following three types of programme formats occur: 1. An Imam is giving a speech or delivering a sermon. 2. A religious authority or an ‘ordinary’ Muslim who may also claim to be a religious expert is reading or reciting a text; mostly the Qur"àn or a text by a religious thinker like Said Nursi2 or Ahmad Hulùsì.3 In some live programmes he is also initiating a discus­ sion with the audience via telephone. 3. A TV host and someone who is acting as a religious authority appear together in front of the camera. The TV host introduces the subject of the programme, directs questions at the expert and also transmits the questions of callers. Frequently he is summarising the words of the religious expert using a more popular language, thus acting as a mediator.

2 Bediüzzaman Said-i Nursì’s (1873–1960) main work Risàle-i Nùr is an explana­ tion and interpretation of the Koran. In it he tried to conciliate between the belief with the results of the natural sciences. His followers, the Nurcular, are organised in the Nurculuk movement which has been forbidden in Turkey since the 1920s like all Sufi orders. (Karpat, 1995). 3 Ahmad Hulùsì is a physicist and mystic of Turkish origin who has been living in the United States for several years. He publishes books and papers on the Internet in order to spread his universal understanding of Islam. On the Berlin Open Channel two different programmes deal with his ideas.

ALLIEVI_F8_170-193

10/21/02

174

12:07 PM

Page 174

 

Most programmes resemble instruction. In this context the question of who is authorised to act as an instructor and a religious expert arises. In contrast to the mosque or the maktab (Qur"àn school) every­ body in the OKB has the possibility to speak and teach. While an Imam of a Berlin mosque is legitimised by this function and has a mosque community to support him TV presenters without any affiliation to a mosque first must develop strategies to gain the atten­ tion of an audience. Regarding the general content the productions are quite similar. They give broad information about Islam and explain main religious terms and events. Frequently they handle the special situation of Muslims in German society, which is marked by secularisation and Christian overtones, and advise on how to live as a Muslim under these conditions. Certain groups go beyond this common theme and propagate their own particular understanding of Islam. The target audience According to the Muslim producers they broadcast their programmes for the ‘general public’ or at least for ‘all Muslims’. The different Islamic groups do not focus on broadcasting only for their adher­ ents. Rather they try to address all Muslims regardless of their ori­ gin and religious attitude. If one looks at the contents and topics that are presented and discussed in the Islamic programmes it turns out that the various producers seem to be more interested in giving general information about Islam than in spreading their own par­ ticular views. An exception is the Berlin group of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Movement4 (Qàdiyànì-group) that executes a very zealous and efficient propaganda via publications, schools and colleges world­ wide. The head of the movement in Berlin explains that the Ahmadiyya

4

The Ahmadiyya Muslim Movement is with about 10 million members (its own figures) the bigger of the two currents within the Ahmadiyya. The Ahmadiyya is an organised religious community which developed in the Punjab/India in the 19th century and has communities especially in India, West and East Africa, Indonesia, Western Europe and the United States. The Ahmadiyya is based on the mystically influenced theories of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian (1839–1908). Since the Ahmadi belief in Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as a prophet is absolutely not in accor­ dance with the Islamic doctrine that Muhammad is the ‘seal of the prophets’, the Ahmadiyya is not acknowledged as belonging to the Muslim community in most regions of the Islamic world. (Smith, 1960, 301–303).

ALLIEVI_F8_170-193

10/21/02

12:07 PM

Page 175

        

175

uses its TV programme Truth of Islam to inform about the Ahmadi belief because many Muslims are not familiar with it and there exists false knowledge about it that should be corrected. ‘We want to trans­ mit our message to all people’, he says, but in particular the German population and Muslims who withdrew from their own faith are addressed. (Basit, Truth of Islam) The claim of the producers of }afak TV to address all Muslims regardless of their origin is especially remarkable because of their Shi‘i background. Of course, Turkish as the broadcasting language of }afak TV limits the audience to people who understand Turkish, and ‘all Muslims’ has to be understood as ‘all Turkish Muslims’ whether they belong to the Sunni, Shi'i or Alevi group. The Imam of the Imam Reza Mosque in Berlin and religious expert on }afak TV assumes that between 60 and 70% of OKB’s audience watches this programme, and 90% of them are assumed to be in agreement with the opinions held in the programme (Tevekkül Hoca, }afak TV ). The notion of the ‘general public’ has to be set into relation to the fact that the broadcasting language always excludes a part of the potential audience. Those broadcasting in German also want to win German non-Muslims as audience. Regarding the foreign lan­ guage programmes, the ‘general public’ must be understood to include all Muslims knowing the broadcasting language, regardless of their specific Islamic affiliation. In keeping with the national background of Berlin’s Muslim pop­ ulation the Islamic programmes are offered mostly in Turkish and Arabic. Thus, only people who understand the language can follow the broadcast. This limitation is not intended by the programme makers. Most interviewees expressed that they are interested in addressing ‘all people’ or ‘all Muslims’ or at least ‘all Muslims speak­ ing the language’. That is why many Islamic producers try to offer programmes in German or bilingual or even multilingual programmes. Indeed, an increasing number of Muslim programme makers are deciding to produce in two languages. Yet at the moment for many of them it is only possible to broadcast in their mother tongue because the translation into German is too difficult. Nevertheless, there is the example of the two individual producers of Halimiz Ahvalimiz and Evrensel Din Islam who, although they consider their knowledge of the German language inadequate, have started in the first quar­ ter of the year 2000 to present their programmes in Turkish as well

ALLIEVI_F8_170-193

176

10/21/02

12:07 PM

Page 176

 

as in German. It is noteworthy that in both cases the German sec­ tion was initiated by the German audience. Ramazan Ekici has been the producer of his programme Halimiz Ahvalimiz for six years. He has only five years of education from his home village in Central Anatolia. He began to broadcast in German due to requests of the audience to give information about the content of his programme for the German speaking audience. Later he moved on to speak half an hour in Turkish and half an hour in German (Ekici, Halimiz Ahvalimiz). According to Hayri Çarabak, Evrensel Din Islam received many phone calls from German and Arab people who wanted to know what this Turkish programme is about and suggested a German translation (Çarabak, Evrensel Din Islam). Others who do not have the resources to broadcast in German but are also interested in a German programme part since they want to address the Germans as well, produce a special programme in German on certain occasions like Christmas. Regarding the programme language, the most interesting exam­ ple is the one hour live programme Truth of Islam of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. The language (German, Arabic, Turkish or Urdu, planned: Indonesian and French) of a respective broadcast is dependent on the topic and the language abilities of the imam or speaker who is presenting it. To give an example: in one broadcast in May 2000 a Pakistani imam who had learnt Turkish during his theological studies at a college in Istanbul used Turkish to address his audience. The programme makers explicitly intended to reach the Turkish speaking population in Berlin. The imam spoke about the necessity to unify the Muslim community. To achieve this, a united umma (the Muslim Community) and one leading religious authority is necessary, he claimed. His speech was aimed at legiti­ mating the Ahmadiyya among the Muslim population and at caus­ ing the Turkish population, the biggest Muslim group in Berlin and in Germany as a whole, to acknowledge the Ahmadiyya. Sure there are hundreds of thousands of Turks [in Berlin]. Of course they understand Turkish better. It doesn’t mean that they don’t under­ stand German but its more pleasant to understand in their own lan­ guage. And then, of course, we have people here from India and Tunisia. They understand French very well. There are also the peo­ ple from Togo, from African countries who only understand French and no other language. Therefore we make our programmes also in French. We want to transmit the truth of Islam, of the Ahmadiyya, to every people in their own language (Imam Tariq Basit).

ALLIEVI_F8_170-193

10/21/02

12:07 PM

Page 177

        

177

Some programmes use only German as a language to discuss Islamic issues to avoid the exclusion of an important number of interested people who probably do not understand Turkish or Arabic. These programmes explicitly want to reach German non-Muslims in order to give first hand information about Islam and to counter prejudices against Islam. I broadcast this programme presenting the main contents of Islamic belief with the hope that you can use it to deepen your knowledge about this religion and enlarge your interest in Islam [. . .] The present programme shall serve to give factual information and thus to explain the understanding of Islam and offer the audience help for an objec­ tive presentation of Islam (Islam TV, broadcast on 19th February, 2000).

The interview statements point out the fact that Islamic programmes are not only produced for one’s own community. By using a certain broadcasting language the circle of the audience can be limited or extended. Even so, the ambition to win a big and—in terms of the religious attitude and background—heterogeneous audience is obvi­ ous. Although the various programmes deal with certain topics in detail they seem to be less intended to propagate special views on Islam. Rather, Muslim presenters of TV programmes make an effort to avoid extreme positions and to appear competent in religious as well as in technical respects. The reception of Islamic programmes Reactions of the audience from the view point of the programme makers The programme makers do not know exactly who belongs to their audience and how numerous it is. But they do have some idea of their audience through different forms of interaction. These contacts come about during or after a broadcast via phone, the Internet or letters. People ask questions, comment on something that was said in the programme, praise, criticise and even insult the Muslims who act in front of the camera. Sometimes a TV viewer also gets directly in touch with the person or the group responsible for the programme. They might agree on a meeting, and occasionally the person joins the group or the production team. In cases where the programme makers are affiliated with a mosque it can be assumed that the mosque community is regularly follow­ ing the TV productions. This assumption is supported by Abdülkader

ALLIEVI_F8_170-193

178

10/21/02

12:07 PM

Page 178

 

Maden who, even though he does not exactly know who watches his programme Islam, says that within the Nurculuk community, of which he is a member, the programme is discussed a lot. Ramazan Ekici is convinced that ‘Turkish leftists and Alevis, but also very mosque-connected Muslims’ further belong to his audience. Ekici believes his to be the ‘number one’ among all Islamic programmes regarding the numbers of viewers. This estimation may be realistic since his programme provides material for discussion to believers adhering to a wide range of Islamic currents (Ekici, Halimiz Ahvalimiz). The production team of Muslim Info assumes that many Turkish inhabitants of Berlin are among their audience and that people watch the programme out of curiosity and sometimes anger (Harun Hoca, Muslim Info). Corresponding to their aims the Islamic programmes differ in structure and presentation. Live programmes—at least theoretically— give the audience the possibility to influence the arrangement of the programme. Do TV producers who do not produce live programmes put less emphasis on a dialogue with the audience but establish pri­ orities in other fields? This question cannot be answered clearly for the reason that not all live programmes offer such a call-in option. Apart from Manàr al-Hudà all programmes analysed in this paper broadcast live from the OKB studio. The programme makers decide to produce live programmes in order to get into contact with the audience. The reactions of the viewers can be found out immedi­ ately and a public discussion can be stimulated. Live produced pro­ grammes offer the advantage of getting in touch with the audience immediately. The case of Saadet TV is unusual because it has been broadcast­ ing live via the Internet since April 2000 and thus it is the first pro­ gramme on the OKB using the Internet. Founded in 1997, this Islamic TV programme, which was shown first as a recording, trans­ mits the speech of a Turkish Sufi-Shaykh who may be in all different parts of the world. Questions of the Berlin audience can be received by the Saadet TV staff and forwarded to the Shaykh via mobile phone.5

5 The theoretical basis of Saadet TV is the work of Shaikh Iskender Ali Mihr (civil name: Dr. Iskender Erol Evreneso