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would form cohesive communities, and would thereafter be able to enter into dialogue with state and society.38
Lastly, how much multiculturalism is good for democracy? The more the better, would be the normative answer. Too much multiculturalism, however, has its own deficiencies. Increasing cultural pluralism is an opportunity for a "more vibrant civil society and political culture", yet too strong minority bonds, that accompany multicultural societies, may undermine social cohesion, stability and governance.39 The conflict-potential of strong intra-social bonds increases substantially if the boundaries between religion and ethnicity overlap.40 The latter is exemplified by the ethno-religious wars that followed the disintegration of Communist Yugoslavia.
Before presenting the contemporary political solutions to these theoretical dilemmas, the main historical examples of cultural 'others', and their function in the construction of European identity will be briefly presented.
2. Civilizational, Cultural and Religious Boundaries of Europe
Europe has never been a state, nation, language or religion.41 At best, Europe can be identified as a civilization or as a culture. The geographical, religious and political boundaries of Europe can be defined only by some general ideas about European culture or civilization. Concomitantly, the transformation of the ideas of Europe has resulted in the constant flux of geographical and religious borders of Europe during last two millenniums.
Western Christianity has been related to European identity more than any other religion, yet at no point of time has a common version of Christianity unified the whole continent. On the other hand, Europeans traditionally have defined themselves in opposition to Judaism and Islam as the main religious 'others'.42
38 Shireen T. Hunter. Conclusions and Outlook for European Islam. - Islam, Europe's Second Religion: The New Social, Cultural, and Political Landscape. Shireen T. Hunter (ed.) Westport: Praeger, 2002, p. 273.
39 Banchoff2007,p.4.
40 Baumann 1999, p. 55.
41 Europe has never been a single political unit with a distinct political identity, although European societies and states are today perhaps closer to this ideal than ever before.
42 Also Persians (for Alexandre the Great), Barbarians, Heathens, Mongols, to name a few, have functioned as the 'others' in opposition to whom Europeans have defined themselves.
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Besides heretics, and at varying times also Protestants and Catholics, Jews have most constantly been the internal 'others' in European societies. Jews did not possess a mighty empire that could potentially enslave and subordinate European communities, although at times they could be perceived to be also the agents of some external enemy. At present, Jews comprise a tiny community in Europe (about 0.25 percent of the European population).43 Yet Judaism has surely been one of the European religions. In 1900, about 80 percent of world's Jews lived in Europe (including czarist Russia).44 Today this number has decreased to about 10%.
The paradigmatic external 'others' of European societies have been Ottoman Turks - who represented Islam - and Orthodox Russia as a representative of Eastern Christianity. Accordingly, Samuel P. Huntington placed the cultural boundaries of Europe at a location, "where Western Christianity ends and Islam and Orthodoxy begin."45
At present, among the 27 member-states of the EU, the highest percentage of Muslims is in Cyprus (slightly below 20%). The historical presence of Muslims in European territories, however, has been almost continuous since 8th century. Spanish territories were conquered by Muslim Moors in the 8th century and re-conquered in the 15* century. The expansion of the Ottoman Empire into the territories of Eastern and Central Europe brought along permanent Muslim populations in European territories.
During the Crusades, but especially, when the Turks were under Vienna in 1529, the confrontation with Muslims strengthened the connection between Europe and Christianity. In practice, from 16th century until the First World War internally divided European states could often enter into strategic collaboration with the Ottoman Turks. For the European identity, however, the image of the 'other' has mattered more than the many-sided relationship in practice.
Especially during social or political crises, Jews, Muslims Turks and Orthodox Russians have been represented as evil, related to tyranny, the agents of the Devil, inferior creatures, and the enemies of European civilization and Christendom.46 Until the Crusades, the Jews were considered as pariah people, aliens without human status or human rights within Chris-
1,1 Jenkins 2007, pp. 37-38.
44 Jenkins 2007, p. 37.
45 Samuel P. Huntington. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996a, p. 158.
46 Vilho Harle. The Enemy with a Thousand Faces: The Tradition of the Other in Western Political Thought and History. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2000, pp. 63, 65.
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tian society.47 During the Crusades and the early Reformation, the Jews were considered either as enemies or the agents of the external enemies (Turks, Catholics or Protestants).4
The Jews were far more misrepresented than the Ottoman Turks. The images of the latter, of course, could also involve some erroneous stereotypes, yet also included some realistic fears. After all, Turks did not march on Vienna in 1683 under the banners of love, peace, friendship and multicultural dialogue. At that time, the practice of converting European Christian boys into fanatical Muslim warriors and the use of those Janissaries in the conquest of Hungary did incite realistic fears.49
Similar negative representation of Russia started to spread in the 15th century, when Russia started to expand its dominion into the Baltic territories governed by the Livonian Knights, and in the 16th century, when Russia attacked Finland, until then governed by Sweden. The Livonian Knights depicted Russians "as uncivilized, like apes in their nature and intelligence," and followers of heretic religion.50 Also Swedish king Gustav Vasa (1496-1560) declared Russians to be a danger to humankind and the whole of Christendom and compared them with Turks and "other pagans".51
Such examples of the struggle between good and evil, 'us' and 'them', can be found throughout European history until the Cold War, where the dangerous 'other' was related to Communism. Genocides in post-communist Bosnia and Kosovo serve as recent warning examples, because they were legitimized among others by the ideas of liberation from (Communist) tyranny, the atheistic religious heresy, and also from the yoke of Islam.52
The actual relationship of Turkey and Russia with Europe has other facets, besides the function of the definitive 'other', several of them positively related to Europe. Without being a European colony, Turkey has transformed itself from a 'core state' of the Islamic world into a westernized secular state. If France has served as the historical example of a secular state for Western European countries, Turkey fulfills the same function for Muslim countries. As the secularism in Turkey has been modeled according to the French patterns, secularism in both countries has a strong resemblance.53
49
50
James E. Wood Jr. Christianity and the State. - Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 3/1967, p. 265.
Harle 2000, pp. 65, 67; Wood 1967, p. 265. Jenkins 2007, p. 106 Harle 2000, p. 69.
51 Harle 2000, p. 70.
52 Harle 2000, p. 5.
53 Ahmet T. Kuru. Passive and Assertive Secularism: Historical Conditions, Ideological Struggles, and State Policies toward Religion. - World Politics 4/2007, p. 575. To name just come similarities - in both countries there are heated 'headscarf
Turkey has pursued integration into European Union since 1959. During the last decade, Turkey has been led by moderate Islamists, who are strongly in favor of accession to the European Union.54 At present there is a real possibility, that "a Turkish democratic state, truly representative of its ordinary Muslim population," will one day join the European Union.55
Turkish membership of NATO (since 1952) has been explained away as being caused by the political necessities of the Cold War era. Accordingly, Samuel P. Huntington has suggested that at least in the post-Cold War world, further memberships of NATO should be reserved only for traditionally Western Christian countries:
"It also means recognizing that in the post-Cold War world, NATO is the security organization of Western civilization and that its primary purpose is to defend and preserve that civilization. Hence states that are Western in their history, religion, and culture should, if they desire, be able to join NATO. Practically speaking, NATO membership would be open to the Visegrad states, the Baltic states, Slovenia, and Croatia, but not countries that have been historically been primarily
i56
Muslim or Orthodox."
Taking into account the inclusion of Muslim-majority Albania (since 2009), and predominantly Orthodox Bulgaria and Romania (since 2004) into NATO, the representation of essentialist confrontation between West, Islam and Orthodoxy seems to have a stronger impact on the way in which the global world is perceived (in the form of cultural images and stereotypes) than followed in practical political behavior.
The simplest cursory look at the history of Russia should distinguish several periods, each with its own peculiar relationship to Europe and the West. In the mid-20th century, Nicolas Berdyayev distinguished 'five different Russias' in history - the Russia under the dominion of Kiev, the Russia of the Tartar period, the Russia of Muscovy, the imperial Russia of
debates, although in Turkey there are significantly more women wearing some sorts of headscarf.
According to surveys, most in favor of the accession to European Union in Turkish politics are moderate Islamists and Kurdish nationalists, among the least are secularists. Dirk Rohtus. Turkey and the European Union. - How to Conquer the Barriers to Intercultural Dialogue: Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Christiane Tim-merman, Barbara Segaert (eds.) Berlin: P.I.E. Peter Lang, 2005, pp. 145-146. p 92°SC CaSanova' Its A11 About Identity> Stupid. - Index on Censorship, 4/2004,
'6 Samuel P. Huntington. The West Unique, Not Universal. - Foreign Affairs, o/l 996b, p. 45.
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Peter the Great, and the new Soviet Russia. The Russia of Muscovy and Communist Russia were characterized by an opposition to the West and a strong profession of true faith (Orthodoxy or Communism respectively).57 Russia of Peter the Great, in contrast, pursued westernization.5 Concomitantly, Russia can draw from her history both ideas and examples that will position Russia in Europe, will bring her closer to Europe, or provide a unique and superior identity with a mission in Europe.
3. Patterns of Religion, Culture and Politics 3.1. Integration of Post-communist Countries
The process of Western European integration has been driven by economical needs and political causes, not by religion and culture. The immigration of non-European origin minorities to this region started about half a century ago. Since then there has been an increasing debate about the preservation of their cultural identity of the core societies. Recently, between 2002 and 2004, when several post-communist countries of East-Central Europe were to be included to the European Union, the public debates also concentrated on the civilizational foundations of Europe. Subsequently, however, the debates over the common European identity have been on the decrease.
In 2004 eight former Socialist East-Central-European countries, plus Cyprus and Malta were accepted into the European Union. Among those, only Cyprus (predominantly Orthodox) was not traditionally Western Christian. Consequently, the European Union has integrated nearly all traditionally Western Christian post-communist territories, except Catholic Croatia, which still remains on the waiting-list. As a whole, this round of European integration was a Catholic wave headed by Poland as the largest and pivotal accession state.59 This round of enlargement can also be interpreted as a further reconciliation of the historical Protestant/Catholic
Nicolas Berdyaev. The Origin of Russian Communism. London: G. Bles, 1948, pp. 7, 10.
58 For example, in reforming the church-state relations Peter the Great imitated the traditional Lutheran model. He abolished the Byzantine tradition of patriachs and replaced it with a Holy Synod, directly subordinated to himself. Duncan, Peter J. S. Russian Messianism: Third Rome, Holy Revolution, Communism and after. London: Routledge, 2000, p. 13.
59 Peter J. Katzenstein. Multiple modernities as limits to secular Europeani-zation? - Religion in an Expanding Europe. Timothy A. Byrnes, Peter J. Katzenstein (eds.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 11.
divide, although the European Union still does not encompass countries such as Norway, Switzerland and Iceland.
The inclusion of Romania and Bulgaria in 2007 added about 30 million Orthodox believers to the population of the European Union, where Orthodoxy was previously represented by Greece and Cyprus. Taking into account significant Orthodox minorities that also exist in Estonia and Latvia, Orthodoxy is no more an outsider to the European Union.
Likewise, any further enlargement will most probably increase the proportion of Orthodox and Muslims in the EU. Turkey, Kosovo and Albania are predominantly Muslim, and Macedonia, Serbia, Ukraine and Moldova are mostly Orthodox. And lastly, the neighborhood initiative of the European Union has also developed relationships with countries such as Algeria, Egypt, Belarus, and Russia, which indicates that the Western Christian civilizational boundaries have been transcended even if there will be no further enlargement of EU in the near future.60
3.2. East-West Comparison
3.2.1. Secular Culture vs National Religion
The public culture and national identity of West-European nations are less related to religion than in post-communist societies. Irrespective of the policy option regarding religious minorities, the societies follow liberal and secular norms. If integrationalist policy is used, like in France, where it is expected that all social groups accommodate to normative laicist republicanism, the Muslim minorities have a hard time in accommodation to the dominant secular culture. If multicultarist policy is followed, as in Great Britain, cultural pluralism is socially valued, and it is not expected that "one norm to rule absolute"61, the state faces difficulties in integration of religious minorities. In the latter case there is room left for non-secular minority culture, but the end result is usually the same. The religious minority has troubles with secular society, and society has troubles with the religious minority.
Although the culturally 'other' religious minorities are outnumbered by formal membership in traditional Christian confessions, they take religion more seriously both in practice and belief. For example, in England more people every week attend services in mosques than in Anglican churches.62
Timothy M. Savage. Europe and Islam: Crescent Waxing, Cultures Clashing. -The Washington Quarterly, 3/2004, p. 25. | Baumann 1999, p. 46.
Berger 2007, p. 20.
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The cultural integration of such minorities would require them to also accommodate the more liberal and loose attitude toward religion that characterizes the host society. In French society, some segments of Islamic minorities tend to take the religious part of identity more seriously than the host society devoted to liberal republicanism. The French republican school system is even "committed to the values of gender equality and to the critique of oppressive religious, familial and traditional norms."63 Consequently, there is a tension, where the values and commitments of the minorities contradict with those of the social majority. Thus, the 2004 ban on "ostentatious" religious symbols in public institutions was directed at not all religious traditions, but mostly at the practice of headscarves worn by Muslim women. Traditional Christian groups had already accommodated to the secular society. While the headscarves issue would not cause similar social tensions in Great Britain, in France the ban, which was perceived to be against the symbols of the subordination of Muslim women, enjoyed an overwhelming support among the French citizenry.64
Denmark resembles England in also having a state church. The normative understanding of Danish society, however, is alike to France. Dominant public discourse in Denmark emphasizes equal rights over multiculturalism, and universal, liberal values and citizenship as a means towards the inclusion of immigrants.65 As in other Scandinavian Lutheran societies the secularized and liberalized understanding of religion restricts religion to the private realm of the individual, and leaves the realm of external conduct to be regulated by state authority66. Thus, minority religions in Denmark are expected to accommodate to this pattern. Muslims can attain full rights of a citizen as individuals, but are not considered to constitute a separate community under ethnic, cultural, or religious paradigm.67
Unlike post-communist societies, the recent waves of immigration to Western European societies have resulted in a growing economic underclass, where "the immigrant, the religious, the racial, and the socio-economic
63 Cecile Laborde. Secular Philosophy and Muslim Headscarves. Political Philosophy, 3/2005, p. 306.
The Journal of
64
Casanova 2004, p. 100.
65 Per Mouritsen. The Particular Universalism of a Nordic Civic Nation: Common Values, State Religion and Islam in Danish Political Culture. - Multiculturalism, Muslims and Citizenship: A European Approach. Tariq Modood, Anna Triandafyl-lidou, Ricard Zapata-Barrero (eds.) London: Taylor & Francis, 2005, p. 72.
66 Mouritsen 2005, p. 79.
67 Olivier Roy. Europe's Response to Radical Islam. - Current History, 104/2005, p. 363.
unprivileged 'other' all tend to coincide"68. Concomitantly, the increasing public presence of Muslim communities is felt mostly in larger industrial cities and regions - such as London, Paris, Rotterdam, the Ruhr industrial area in Germany -, where the Muslim communities are mainly concentrated69.
In Eastern Europe, the problems with ethno-religious minorities concentrate less on the economy or cultural differences (over homosexuality, free speech and the like). Instead, the main religio-political issues concentrate on the relationship between national religion with national minorities or New Religious Movements. Despite not having any state church, the national culture of post-communist societies is usually based on some form of ethno-religion. This pattern describes well not only Slovakia, Poland, Lithuania and Romania, where the majority of the population belong to national churches, but also to the Russian Federation, where the levels of religious practice and belief are lower than the numbers of those Russians who consider themselves as culturally Orthodox.70 In some post-communist countries - like the Czech Republic or Estonia - the national identity is predominantly secular, yet the basis of national identity remains still ethnic, not civic.
In Estonia, the political identity is vaguely related to Lutheranism. The inter-ethnic tensions have appeared due to the Estonian citizenship law of 1993, which excluded from citizenship a good part of the predominantly Orthodox Russian-speaking residents. The public debates in Estonia, however, concentrate more on the political rights than on cultural differences or cultural autonomy of the Russophone minorities.
In Western Europe, Islamic communities are the most culturally suspect religious minorities. In Eastern Europe, like in the Russian Federation, the same position is occupied by religious groups such as Charismatic Christians and Jehovah's Witnesses.71 Concomitantly, Russian Islamic minorities cause less cultural worries than in Western Europe. Instead, Western Protestant religious minorities are often considered to be "foreign religions"72,
James Kurth. Religion and National Identity in America and Europe. - Society 6/2007, pp. 123-124.
69
7q Jenkins 2007, p. 111. Savage 2004, p. 29.
Marsh, Christopher. Russian Orthodox Christians and Their Orientation toward Church and State. - Journal of Church and State, 2/2005, p. 560. J   Hanson 2006, p. 153.
The 1997 Russian Federal Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations distinguishes "foreign religions" from the ones which are"traditional to Russia". Marat Shterin, James T. Richardson. Effects of the Western Anti-Cult Movement on Development of Laws Concerning Religion in Post-Communist Russia. - Journal of Church and State, 2/2000, p. 249.
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portrayed as "anti-social," "criminal," and "dangerous,"73 or considered to be a threat to the Russian national identity and the prevailingly Orthodox national culture.74
One of the reasons, why Islam does not constitute a cultural problem in Russia, has to do with the historical presence of Muslim minorities within the Russian society. The Russian Federation includes about the same number of Muslims as are living in the European Union (around 15 million).
The general pattern in both Eastern and Western Europe, however, is that the cultural problems have increased with the more recent religious minorities. Concomitantly, in Russia, this means the increasing influx of Western Protestants, in Western Europe it concentrates on Muslims, whose number has tripled just during the last 30 years.75 The influx of "culturally others" raises fears of brainwashing and of undermining the core culture of the society. In France and Germany it may have been in addition to Islamic groups that there are also certain 'sects', 'cults' and other new religious groups. In Russia, similar fears are related to the influx of Western Protestants.
Nevertheless, the Russian Federation may have one of the sharpest "Islamic challenges" in Eastern Europe, but the challenge is essentially political - related mostly to the self-determination of the peripheral areas of Tatarstan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, and Dagestan -, not cultural. Although similarly to Western Europe, some larger Russian cities have witnessed also an economically driven influx of Muslim populations, including Muslims of Central Asian origin.76
Religion and Politics in Multicultural Europe 35
intolerance against tolerance, authoritarianism against liberalism".78 The ways of life of Western Muslims - perceived as collectivism intolerant, authoritarian, illiberal and theocratic - are considered to be fundamentally incompatible with those of Europe.79 Traditional Western Christian communities also have troubles with the secularized, individualistic, and liberal secular public culture, although they fight less against the secularized condition. Concomitantly, the French headscarf ban in public schools was considered discriminative also by French Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant church leaders.80 Also Pope Benedict XVI would prefer some version of traditional - i.e. not secular and liberal - common foundation for the social culture. Additionally, the pope is critical regarding multiculturalism, which "can sometimes amount to an abandonment and denial, a flight from one's own heritage".81
The post-communist societies of Europe meet the challenge of the Western European kind of more advanced cultural secularization during the integration into Europe82. While most of the post-communist countries do not have strict laws limiting the rights to abortion (unlike Poland), the regional difference is more manifest regarding the legal treatment of same-sex unions. The European Parliament has recently resolved that all EU members-states should treat same-sex unions on the same terms as traditional families.83 Such recommendations do not recieve a warm welcome among post-communist societies, which tend to hold on to more traditional understanding of marriage and gender roles.
3.2.2. Different Levels of Cultural Secularisation
Western European post-industrial societies follow more secularized and liberal social values that emphasize individualism over collective and gender equality over traditional values. In postmaterialist Western societies, Islam has become the "the un-liberal other"77, the religion that "pits patriachalism against gender equality, ideals of collectivity against individual autonomy,
73 Shterin and Richardson 2000, p. 249.
74 Marsh 2005, p. 546.
75 J. Christopher Soper, Joel S. Fetzer. Religious Institutions, Church-State History and Muslim Mobilisation in Britain, France and Germany. - Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 6/2007, p. 933.
76 James W. Warhola. Religion and Politics Under the Putin Administration: Accommodation and Confrontation within "Managed Pluralism" - Journal of Church and State, 1/2007, p. 77.
77 Mouritsen 2005, p. 88.
8 Werner Schiffauer. Enemies within the Gates: The Debate about the Citizenship of Muslims in Germany. - Multiculturalism, Muslims and Citizenship: A European Approach. Tariq Modood, Anna Triandafyllidou, Ricard Zapata-Barrero (eds.) London and New York: Taylor & Francis, 2005, p. 111.
Bhikhu Parekh. Europe, Liberalism and the 'Muslim question'. - Multiculturalism, Muslims and Citizenship: A European Approach. Tariq Modood, Anna Triandafyllidou, Ricard Zapata-Barrero (eds.) London and New York: Taylor & Francis, 2005, p. 180.
Eric O. Hanson. Religion and Politics in the International System Today. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 146.
Joseph Ratzinger. The Spiritual Roots of Europe: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. - Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam. Joseph Rat-zinger, Marcello Pera. New York: Basic Books, 2006, p. 79. H3Peter Berger Religion and the West. - The National Interest, Summer/2005, p. 83 Jenkins 2007, p. 67.
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Also Bulgarian 2002 law on religions lists national security among the limitations of religious freedom. Silvio Ferrari. Individual Religious Freedom and National Security in Europe After September 11. - Brigham Young University Law Review, 2/2004, pp. 370,371.
85 Ferrari 2004, p. 364.
86 Anna Triandafyllidou, Tariq Modood, Ricard Zapata-Barrero. European Challenges to Multicultural Citizenship: Muslims, Secularism and Beyond. - Multi-culturalism, Muslims and Citizenship: A European Approach. Tariq Modood, Anna Triandafyllidou, Ricard Zapata-Barrero (eds.) London and New York: Taylor & Francis, 2005, p. 1.
87
Frederic Volpi. Constructing the 'Ummah' in European Security: Between Exit, Voice and Loyalty. - Government and Opposition, 3/2007, p. 454.
88 Krassimir Kanev. Muslim Religious Freedom in the OSCE Area after September 11. - Helsinki Monitor 4/2004, p. 233.
3.2.3. Securitization of Minority Religion
Minorities that adhere to a religion connected to a political group or state that is considered to be a threat to national security have traditionally faced some form of intolerance by the state. In the time of John Locke, the Catholics were suspect in England due to the close relation of Catholicism and the French state. The Kulturkampf of Otto von Bismarck against the Catholic Church had the same undertone. At present, similar worries have been caused by the potential connection of Muslim minorities to international terrorism.
Poland is perhaps the only EU country, which articulates in the constitution (article 53) the limitations to freedom of religious expression if it is "necessary for the defence of State security, public order...".84 Yet, national security is commonly an important cause for limiting the rights of religious minorities. Since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, most of the European states have put a stronger emphasis on the religious motivation of terrorism in antiterrorism legal provisions.85 The terrorist attacks in Madrid (14/3, 2004) and in London (7/7 and 21/7, 2005) also linked Islam increasingly with violence and anti-Western values86.
The public understanding of the war against terror often concentrates on the images of "us versus them", and the coalition forces against the Taliban87. These perceptions tend to be also applied to European Muslims. Consequently, Islamic communities are considered to be monolithic, related to fanaticism and terrorism. As a result, many rank and file Muslims, who have no connection with international terrorism, have become targets of arbitrary detentions, expulsions, hate crimes and human rights violations.88
To imagine Islam as a violent religion is unfair for two main reasons. First, violence in the past and present is common among the followers of any world religion. Secondly like most Christians, so also most Muslims do not
support violence.89 Paradoxically, the image of violent Islam is often built on individual cases of religion-related terrorism performed outside of Western Europe - be it the civil war in Lebanon in 1980s, 9/11 or 2003 hostage crises in Beslan. These singular events have contributed to the general image of Islam not only as different, but also as dangerous.90 In the time of mass media, such stereotypes and images have a life of their own, largely autonomous from the actual number of radicals harbored within a local religious community. Consequently, it may go unnoticed, that the same radical Muslims have also been fighting with Islamic communities.
In real life, the Muslim communities are characterized by vast diversity. European Muslims are not uniformly pious, primitive, and fundamentalist91. Most of them are law-abiding and have never participated in riots inside European societies, which have been relatively minor and have lasted only for a short periods92. Therefore as Olivier Roy suggested, the policies of European states should distinguish terrorists from the mainstream Muslims in Europe, even "meet the aspirations of mainstream Muslims [...] - Islam recognized as a Western religion, Muslims as full citizens" and avoid the creation of closed communities, ghettos, and minority status.93
Conclusion
The policy of a narrow and forced assimilation is no more considered as a viable option in Europe94. In Germany it was hoped that Muslims would accept the high German culture (Leitkultur), the cultural and political ethos of the German society, and while remaining Muslim, their religion remains a private matter95. Since the 1970s such an assimilationist option has been increasingly recognized as: unrealistic, because immigrants do not lose their identities and practices; unnecessary, because the immigrants can be both loyal citizens with a strong sense of their own identity; and unfair, because "it denies equal respect for immigrants, and turns integration into an oppressive process."96 In 2000, Germany changed its citizenship laws from
9 Ferrari 2004, p. 360.
90
g   Schiffauer2005,p. 111. ^ Jenkins 2007, p. 17.
Bhikhu Parekh. European Liberalism and the Muslim Question. - ISIM paper 9. Leiden: Amsterdam University Press, 2008, p. 15.
Roy 2005, p. 365.
93
94
9j Hellyer2006,p.345. % Hunter 2002, p. 273. Kymlicka 2000, p. 191.
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ius sanguinis to ius solis, and made citizenship available to those born in the country.
Those states, however, which practised multicultural policies, now tend to emphasise more assimilation and naturalization97. Both old (the Netherlands, Britain and France) and new immigration hosts (such as Spain and Italy), find it increasingly hard to adopt the multicultural approach and are inclined towards the assimilationist approach98. The Netherlands was earlier among the most willing to accommodate cultural differences99, but has recently adopted more restrictive legislation, "setting clear limits to the kinds of un-European, unmodern norms and habits it is ready to tolerate."100
Concomitantly, some form of multiculturalism is the option for the future. What sort of multiculturalist political framework a society should follow, this still remains under debate.101 The European states need to find a working balance between the respect of cultural diversity and the protection of "the cohesiveness of the community" and national security102.
What particular lessons can be learned from the historical treatment of religio-cultural minorities in Western societies?
First, in the long run, religious traditions tend to accommodate to the social context and secular state. In France, the social polarization between the Catholic Church and a secular state culminated in 1905 with law of church-state separation. The hostile attitudes from both sides lasted for about half a century, but after 1958, both sides accommodated. The church is reserved in her criticism of the secular state, and the French government has provided financial support to Catholic elementary schools.103 The values of the Catholic Church still differ markedly from the secular liberal values, but the Church has accommodated to the society, which legislates on divorce, the use of contraception and the legal right to abortion.
Secondly, the cultural accommodation of religious minorities may take several generations, if not a century. In the United States, the pre-World War I immigrant Jews were related to threats of revolution and subversion,
immigrant Catholics were perceived as non-Christians with outdated gender attitudes, authoritarian religious structures, dangerously high levels of reproduction, and were considered to be a uniform group of people despite differences in ethnic origins and their attitudes regarding religion (indifferent, anticlerical or religious).104 By the end of 20th century, the social values, demographic trends and political differences of Catholics and Jews have harmonized with the ones characteristic to U.S. society105. The cultural inclusion of European Muslims may follow the same pattern.
Lastly, any religious tradition should be evaluated according to its existing internal diversity. Gilles Kepel has pointedly noticed, that "there are a thousand ways of being Muslim in everyday life, just as there are a thousand ways of being Christian, Jewish, Buddhist or atheist".106 Few Europeans know that among German Muslims, there are about 400,000 of Turkish Alevis, whose faith does not forbid them to eat pork or drink alcohol107. In order to know, which segments of Muslims communities actually are the cultural 'others', one should recognize internal division between "Turkish", "Arab", or "Bosnian" mosques,108 and acknowledge the different versions of Islam of North Africans in France, Pakistanis of Great Britain and Turks in Germany, which tend to have very little in common109.
The road to mutual acceptance and accommodation between Muslim communities and European societies is neither free of tensions nor is it uniform and linear110. However, in order to efficiently integrate Muslims into European society the policies of integration should be applied on those needing integration, not on anyone adhering to Islam.
99
Turner 2007, p. 129.
Triandafyllidou, Modood, Zapata-Barrero 2005, p. 1.
Oussama Cherribi. The Growing Islamization of Europe. - Modernizing Islam: Religion in the Public Sphere in Europe and the Middle East. John Esposito, Francois Burgat (eds.) London: Hurst & Co, 2003, p. 196.
100 Jose Casanova. Immigration and the New Religious Pluralism. - Democracy and the New Religious Pluralism. Thomas Banchoff (ed.) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, p. 61.
101 Hellyer 2006, p. 345.
102 Hellyer 2006, p. 346.
103 Alfred Stepan. Religion, Democracy, and the "Twin Tolerations". - Journal of Democracy, 4/2000, p. 41.
105
Jenkins 2007, pp. 22-23.
Jenkins 2007, p. 23.
Gilles Kepel. Allah in the West. Islamic Movements in America and Europe. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997, p. 3. Jenkins 2007, p. 125.
Mathias Rohe. Application of Shari'a Rules in Europe - Scope and Limits. -Welt des Islams, 3/ 2004, p. 324.
Daniele Hervieu-Léger. Secularization and Religious Modernity in Western Europe. - Religion, Mobilization and Social Action. Bronislaw Misztal, Anson Shupe (eds.) Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 1998, p. 15.
Hunter 2002, p. 276.
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