Muslims in Europe
Muslims have been present in Europe for over a thousand years. As early as in the 8th century Arab and Berber Muslims conquered parts of Spain and established the caliphate of Cordoba. While they have been expelled several centuries later, their presence is still visible through the architecture and cultural influences. A couple of centuries later, in the 14th century, Muslims came to Europe from the East and the Tatar communities in the countries of Eastern Europe (e.g. Lithuania, Ukraine) remind of that events. The following centuries have witnessed more clashes between Muslims and Europeans with a peak during the battle of Vienna in 1683 against the Ottoman army. While the Ottomans had to retreat from Central Europe, the Muslim communities in South Eastern Europe were firmly established. Nowadays countries with the largest proportion of Muslim citizens are not those located in Western Europe, but those in the South East – Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina – inhabited by autochthonous Muslim population (i.e. Muslims who have been living on the European soil for centuries).
Regardless of the long historical presence of Muslims in Europe and their significant numbers in the Eastern part of the continent, it is the Muslim communities in the West that spark attention the most. These are the communities who have started to emerge in Europe after the II world war due to political and economic reasons. Often the links had been established through colonialism – former metropoles were a natural destination for migrants from their former colonies (e.g France for Algerians or Moroccans; UK for Pakistanis and Indians, the Netherlands for Indonesians). This was the case of France which attracted Francophone part of Africa, the Netherlands – which used to dominate South East Asia, or the UK – with significant colonial possessions in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Other countries – such as Germany – invited cheap labour force (Gastarbeiters) from countries such as Turkey, or Yugoslavia.
Muslims who immigrated to Europe after WW2, often as young adults, had their children born in European countries, and then those children also became parents. Therefore, most of the Europe’s Muslim population are people who were born and spent most of their lifetimes here.
It is hard to estimate the total number of Muslims in Europe. Some countries do not have proper data (e.g. the French census does not contain questions about religion). The number of Muslims can be estimated, but unless one asks each person about his religious affiliation, the estimates might be rough. Being born from parents who came from a Muslim majority country does not necessarily mean that one is a Muslim (even if children generally ‘inherit’ their religion from their parents as a part of their upbringing). What is more, coming from a Muslim majority country does not mean that one is Muslim (e.g. there are Copts in Egypt, who are Christian), and coming from a non-Muslim country also does not mean that one is definitely not Muslim (e.g. Muslims in India are a minority, yet they are one of the most numerous Muslim population worldwide). One can also ask religious organisations for their estimations, but their data can also be inaccurate as not every Muslim (or any other believer) is formally registered by an organization. Taking this all into account, one can estimate the total number of Muslims at around 5% of the whole population in Europe (źródło). The countries with largest Muslim populations are France, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
Islam vs. West divide?
Being a relatively small minority in terms of their size, Muslims in Europe are visible and spark a lot of attention. Often the discussion concerning them focuses on the old-fashioned divide between Islam and the West. Having been living in Europe for several decades and being European leaves many Muslims uneasy with such a division. According to it, they can be either Muslim, or Western – but not both (see attachment 1 and 2). The mutual relations and multiple identities developed by European Muslims are definitely much more complex than that. On one side they are all perceived as Muslims, yet they differ in many aspects just as a Slovak Christian will differ from a Christian in Colombia, or in the Philippines. Moreover, it can also be assumed that Slovaks will differ between each other depending on selected criteria. The same is true about Muslims in Europe, who are by no means a solid, monolithic group.
The divide between Islam and the West, which is generally harmful for many European Muslims, brings in a significant question: how different Muslim communities interact with the mainstream societies? A useful theoretical concept can be applied here, which is acculturation.
Integration, assimilation, or what?
Acculturation is a process of balancing between two cultures and negotiating one’s own identity. An individual can choose and navigate between different elements from his own culture and the culture of the host country. According to social psychologist John Berry, there are four strategies of acculturation. They are presented in the table below:
| Host culture | |||
| – | + | ||
| Own culture | – | Marginalization | Assimilation |
| + | Separation | Integrations | |
Acculturation is a process of balancing between two cultures and negotiating one’s own identity. An individual can choose and navigate between different elements from his own culture and the culture of the host country. According to social psychologist John Berry, there are four strategies of acculturation. They are presented in the table below:
- integration – an individual adopts cultural norms and values of the host culture, but still maintains one’s own culture (e.g. a Slovak immigrates to Germany, learns the language, but still maintains his own language, works in a German company, has friends who are Slovak or German, enjoys German and Slovak cuisine, etc.).
- assimilation – an individual adopts the cultural norms and values of the host culture and rejects (or limits to the private sphere only) one’s own culture (e.g. a Syrian in Poland speaks only Polish, has a Polish spouse and they give their child only a Polish name, etc.).
- separation – an individual chooses to reject the host culture and keep to his own culture (e.g. a Chinese in the UK lives in a Chinese district, knows only basic English, does not like anything about English culture, and actually wishes to travel back to China).
- marginalization – an individual rejects both his own culture and the culture of the host country (e.g. a Moroccan who came to Hungary as a child. His parents failed to socialize him into Moroccan culture – he does not know a lot about the culture of his origin. At the same time, he differs from the majority of his classmates at school and is rejected. He does not feel well in neither culture).
Host culture and own culture are very broad terms with many different layers. One can adapt the host culture in the public sphere and assimilate (e.g. by learning the language, paying taxes, voting, participating in national holidays), yet still maintain his own culture in the private sphere (e.g. by choosing a spouse from his culture, preferring his national music, or cuisine, maintaining worldview). Usually integration in the public sphere is easier compared to the private sphere. Assimilation – claimed sometimes to be the best possible scenario – is hard to achieve in the homogenous societies of Central and Eastern Europe. People of different ethnicities will simply not fit in the mainstream society and will be treated as alien, even if they were born in the countries and are their proud citizens. Separation refers predominantly to the private sphere, but not only in terms of what is kept private (e.g. I can keep my religion in private), but also in terms of lifestyle and worldview (e.g. I believe that the host culture is morally corrupt so I reject it and preserve my own culture by the way I dress, look, and behave). In some cases, separation might lead to imposing one’s own culture onto the host society.
The hardest strategy to imagine is marginalization as it means that there is neither host nor own culture, as both are rejected. Marginalization means that a newcomer has been rejected by the society for being different, and at the same time feels not at ease with his own cultural background so he rejects it as well. One can ask – what is there then? Usually, a space that can be easily filled in and misused by criminal or radical groups that offer these individuals a new narrative and identity to follow. Deeyah Khan explains this phenomenon as one of the reasons young Muslims join radical Islamist organizations (see the introductory lecture).
Match the acculturation cards (acculturation strategy + explanation)
It is important to stress that according to this model, integration as well as other modes of acculturation are a two side processes – i.e. they depend on the individual and on the mainstream society. The individual who comes to the new country has certain cultural background – therefore, it is natural that an Ukrainian will have higher chances to integrate smoothly into Czech society than a Syrian, who has a different ethnicity, religion and for whom learning the Czech language will be much harder. He will never be able to fully blend into Czech society, even if he had chosen assimilation. Moreover, there are also individual dispositions of the migrant, e.g. the Syrian migrant can be a skilled professional who works in an international company. This way his integration will be more effective, at least when it comes to the public sphere (privately he can interact with other foreigners and won’t feel the necessity of learning Czech language and customs). A Syrian refugee will have much lower capacities to get integrated due to the possible trauma related to his status (becoming a refugee means that one has to flee his homeland), limited resources to start a new life (the refugees are often poor, even if they used to be well-off, they often had to leave all behind), and legal status (being a refugee means that one undergoes a complicated procedure, and sometimes is kept in a refugee center without much chances to work). The hosting country might (or might not) provide the newcomers with language courses, jobs, education, and temporary shelters to ease the adaptation process and to rise the chances that the newcomers will eventually become integrated. The hosting society can also make this process smoother, or harder for the migrants (see introductory lecture).
Policy responses to migration
European countries have responded to immigration of Muslim population in different manners. On the very beginning Muslims were hardly visible in the societies and identified more as people of different nationality or ethnicity rather than different religion. That was the case of e.g. Germany where after WW2 cheap labour immigrated. The countries of origin included poor countries of Eastern and South Eastern Europe with a significant number of workers immigrating from Turkey. The workers came to Germany for contracts while their families stayed behind. They decided to immigrate to Germany later, and when future contracts were not secured, the whole family had to make a decision whether they should live in Germany or in Turkey. This is when Islam started to emerge as a religion in the public sphere: there were women wearing Islamic veil on the streets, and children who went to schools. When these families decided to settle down in Germany, they have also started to develop Turkish and Islamic infrastructure such as prayer houses and mosques, groceries or restaurants. Germany adopted a strategy of allowing these Gastarbeiters (guest workers) into German labour market, so that they were able to work in low skilled jobs but did give much effort to integrate the migrants with the society in terms of nationality, or providing access to better education.
In France the majority of Muslim citizens of migrant background came from the Francophone countries of Africa, mostly Maghreb countries in the north of the continent. The early Muslim migrants arrived in France after decolonialization of African countries, while others decided to look there for a better future. Some of them – e.g. Algerians – were in fact holding French citizenship, as Algeria has been a part of the French territory. They were also provided with access to education, and – those who weren’t French citizens – to French citizenship. The newcomers had easier access to France because they knew the language and their acculturation could have been smoother and more efficient comparing e.g. to Turks in Germany, who had to learn German. France is a secular country, thus religious matters should be kept in the private sphere. The migrants were offered French citizenship and the ability to become French just like others. However, complete assimilation was limited by two factors: firstly, the migrants could not simply fit as fully fledged native citizens; secondly, some elements of Islamic religion were hard to limit to the private sphere – e.g. wearing veil by some Muslim women, eating halal food, or praying jointly in a mosque (or outside, if the mosque could not encompass all believers).
In the UK most of the Muslim citizens came from the former British colonies, especially British India (later India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh). Many of them had also already spoke the English language as that was the language of their colonizers. The British model fits into endorsing multiculturalism: everyone is free to express and preserve their religious or ethnic identity as long as they also adhere to the British values. This approach has left a lot of space for different ethnic and religious communities in the UK, but in case of the Muslim population it translated into alienation from the mainstream society.
These integration models were developed in a specific national context. At the same time, in order to improve them, they have been revisited and revised many times. These countries have long experience with being multicultural, even if their policies were challenged in many ways. Cohabitation of people who differ ethnically and religiously, but share the same nationality, has become a fact.
Conclusion
This e-material is intended to support the teacher with basic knowledge about Muslim communities in Europe during discussions in a wider framework of an imposed divide between so called ‘Islam’ and ‘the West’. It also helps to situate this discussion in a broader context of identity and its formation. Through introduced social theory combined with group and individual exercises a student will be able to learn from different perspectives about Muslim communities in Europe on individual level (identity, popular culture), state level (policy towards immigrants), and on their intersection (acculturation).
