Author: Andrew Borowiec
Publication: The Washington Times
Date: September 22, 2002
URL: http://www.washtimes.com/world/worldbriefings-20029220264.htm
A year after the devastating attacks
by Islamic fanatics in the United States, Western Europe is trying to come
to grips with what it identifies as "political Islam" in its midst.
Governments are seeking to determine
to what extent the estimated 12 million Muslims, mostly from Arab countries,
serve as a pool for potential terrorists and a destabilizing factor in
Western Europe's open and vulnerable societies.
Accompanying the intelligence and
security process across the Continent is an effort to assimilate the growing
Muslim population that in a number of countries - including France, Germany
and Britain - now constitutes the second largest religious group.
As Muslim populations grow, authorities
are discovering that they tend to group in urban ghettoes, resist assimilation
and frequently become a source of tension and a politically divisive factor.
At the same time, leaders of Muslim
communities in Europe, as well as in their home countries, say that their
immigrants are discriminated against, left at the mercy of unscrupulous
employers and often deprived of legal protection.
A recent conference in Tunis was
told that European governments were refusing or limiting visas for Arab
immigrants from North Africa, and that immigrants already in Western Europe
were experiencing increased discrimination at work and social ostracism.
Noureddine Hached, assistant secretary-general
of the 22- member Arab League, says that xenophobia has been on the rise
in Europe since the September 11 attacks last year, that immigration has
been restricted and that Muslim communities are "losing their Arab identity"
under European pressure.
European and Muslim sociologists
are debating a question to which no one has found a satisfactory answer:
how to harmonize traditional Islam with a surrounding modern European society.
According to Oussama Cheribbi, a
professor at the University of Amsterdam, "Islam should be taken out of
the ghettos" and not be left "in the hands of imams preaching Shariah [Islamic
traditional law]."
There is little doubt that deprived
of freedom of action in their own countries, a number of Islamic fanatics
have found a convenient haven in Western Europe.
It was only after September 11 last
year that the authorities realized that terrorist cells thrived in Muslim
communities in European cities, and that subversive literature was distributed
in mosques where imams often called for an Islamic victory over Christianity
and Judaism.
They found that "political Islam"
was unquestionably on the rise in Europe, including activities of fundamentalist
movements banned in Tunisia and Algeria, whose extent had been ignored
by European governments until the September 11 terrorist attacks in the
United States.
Since May and June this year, U.S.
and European intelligence agencies have increased cooperation with their
North African counterparts to track down recruitment centers for suicide
bombers. It has been established that a number of prospective Arab terrorists
had become "radicalized" while in Europe, rather than in their home countries.
Among suspects with North African
links arrested recently were Mounir Motassadeq, a Moroccan citizen accused
of helping with plans for the September 11 attacks; Djamel Beghal, an Algerian
who acknowledged planning attacks against American targets, and four Moroccans
accused of preparing a bioterror attack on the U.S. Embassy in Rome.
Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands,
noted as havens of tolerance, have begun to look for new formulas to cope
with myriad Islamic organizations on their territories.
According to Roger Van Boxtel, former
minister in charge of integration in the Netherlands, the most effective
formula is to "identify enemies through security services and follow it
up through intensive assimilation. Under no circumstances should the Muslim
communities [as a whole] be blamed for acts committed by a few fanatics."
Although governments, educational
and social institutions are painfully aware of the magnitude of the problem
and are trying to remedy it in a humane manner, they are also faced with
an inevitable popular reaction that blames Muslims for the rising crime
rate and declining educational standards in state schools.
European sociologists note that
over the centuries countries such as France have absorbed millions of immigrants
- but mainly from such Christian countries as Spain, Italy and Poland.
By the end of the 20th century,
these immigrants were part of French society, identified principally by
their family names. They did not make demands for specific forms of dress
or special respect for their national customs. They simply blended in with
the surrounding culture, unlike most immigrants from Islamic countries.
According to most assessments, until
recently Europe had been ceding ground to militant Islam in a number of
ways.
In the Netherlands, where Muslims
represent a million of the country's 16 million inhabitants, imams have
been given the same status as priests and rabbis.
In Austria, where there are 400,000
registered Muslims and Islam is recognized as the second religion after
Catholicism, 40 public schools offer courses on Islam and its history.
In Belgium, the state finances the
construction of mosques and Islamic religion is taught in schools when
requested by students.
In France, which has an Islamic
population of 4 million, there are 1,430 mosques, financed mainly by Saudi
Arabia and Morocco.
There are 230,000 people living
in polygamous marriages in France, and the media recently brought to scrutiny
the case of an unemployed Moroccan immigrant whose social security allowance
for his three wives and 20 children amounted to $6,000 a month.
In Switzerland, the authorities
bowed to Islamic pressure and allowed Muslim women to be photographed for
their identity cards wearing the traditional scarf.
Before last year's carnage in New
York, Washington and rural Pennsylvania, the Islamic message in Europe
was becoming increasingly strident. For example, the imam of Bradford in
England appealed to his congregation to struggle "with the aim of replacing
secular values by Islam."
A booklet printed in Saudi Arabia
and distributed throughout Europe describes the aim of Muslim societies
as "trying to become one day a majority through reciprocal assimilation
with the non- Islamic majority which will gradually accept the morals and
religion of Islam."
