Beyond The Beards and Burqas

Muslim men in London prepare Iftar, the meal which breaks the Ramadan fast. Such images stand in contrast to the way Islam is often portrayed as the religion of "extremists" in mainstream British media [GALLO/GETTY]


As The Iraq Inquiry and The 7/7 Inquest Draw To A Close, Attitudes To Islam In Britain Are Under Scrutiny.

By Stefan Simanowitz
Last Modified: 17 Feb 2011 09:33 GMT
Courtesy Of "Al Jazeera"

The most striking scene in Nick Broomfield's powerful 2007 film Battle for Haditha is not one of violence but love.

A wife calls to her husband from an upstairs window. He comes up to the bedroom. She removes her hijab. Her hair tumbles over her bare shoulders. They shower and then make love. The scene is not especially erotic or intense.

What makes it memorable is the rarity of seeing Muslims depicted in a normal way, doing normal things, like normal people. Muslims of the Western popular imagination are too often angry men waving guns or distraught women wailing beside gravesides. They are terrorists and suicide bombers. They are patriarchal husbands, violent fathers or repressed women forced to cover their faces and murdered in the name of honour.

Over the next few months, two inquiries that go to the heart of Britain's relationship with Islam, both at home and abroad, will publish reports. Although neither the Iraq inquiry, which drew to an end this month, nor the ongoing inquest into the 7/7 bombings, will explore this complex relationship in any concrete way, it is nevertheless this relationship that provides the essential context through which we may come closer to an understanding of these events and of wider societal trends.

Blair's Plea

Towards the end of his testimony at the Iraq inquiry in January, Tony Blair, Britain's former prime minister, veered away from a question put to him by a member of the panel to make an impassioned plea.

"The West has got to get out of this wretched posture of apology for believing we are responsible for what ... these extremists are doing. We are not," he said.

"The fact is that they are doing it because they disagree fundamentally with our way of life and they will carry on doing it unless they are met by the requisite determination and, if necessary, force."

This insight into Blair's worldview shows not only that he harbours no regrets about the Iraq war and believes there is much killing still to be done, but also provides a clear thumbnail exposition of his rationale.

Rather than acknowledging the unsettling existence of a multitude of radicalised groups living in our midst and scattered across the globe, Blair prefers to view the West as facing a single enemy. Indeed, using the words "extremists", "Islamists" and "al-Qaeda" interchangeably, the Middle East peace envoy stopped just short of calling for war on Iran.

They're All Out To Get 'Us'

The former prime minister does not differentiate between extremists - and believes any attempt to try to comprehend the reasons for their murderous rage is futile.

Instead, he takes the much more comforting view that they are "at war with civilisation". We are being targeted, so the reasoning goes, because we are too civilised.

This simplistic view, so often repeated, has gained currency in the British popular imagination. Indeed, for most Britons, July 7, 2005, will be remembered as the day that al-Qaeda terrorists attacked London.

But five-and-a-half years on, no link has been established between the 7/7 bombers and al-Qaeda. While it is possible that two of the bombers, Shehzad Tanweer and Mohammad Sidique Khan, may have visited training camps in Pakistan and met with al-Qaeda operatives, there is no firm evidence of this.

Last year a report from the Centre for Social Cohesion analysing Islamist terrorist offences in Britain over the past decade found that only 14.5 per cent of terrorism offenders had links with al-Qaeda. And yet, despite this, a belief persists that most Islamic jihadist attacks, including the 7/7 bombings, are somehow masterminded by al Qaeda.

Al-Qaeda 'Doesn't Exist'

According to Alain Bauer, professor of criminology and terrorism specialist, al-Qaeda as it is commonly depicted, does not exist. "It is not like a James Bond movie where they are villains based in a volcano," he tells me. "Rather, al-Qaeda is more like a mutual organisation or a franchise."

Bauer believes the "invention" of al-Qaeda results from a very human desire to put a name and a face to an otherwise unknowable enemy. But "knowing thine enemy" should extend beyond knowing his name and what he looks like. It should also involve a genuine attempt to understand why it is he wants to destroy you.

Despite having given a name to our enemy, Western populations do not feel more secure. Al-Qaeda remains an unknown and unquantifiable force.

The resultant pervasive sense of fear has allowed us to accept the incursion of the surveillance state, the loss of many hard won freedoms and a foreign policy which now regards as justified pre-emptive attacks on states - in breach of international law. Indeed, a key failing of the Iraq inquiry has been its failure to ask not just about the existence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) but about the evidence of intent to use them and evidence of imminent attack.

While the taking of innocent life can never be justified or excused, understanding the causes of Islamic extremism is clearly essential if we are to stop its rise. It may be comforting to believe that we in the West are being targeted because we are 'too civilised", but the reality is much more complex. In times of austerity, it is common for people to find convenient scapegoats on whom to vent their frustration and angry. Minority or immigrant populations have traditionally fulfilled this role and if we are not careful, the coincidence of rising unemployment, declining social welfare provision and growing anti-Islamic sentiment create a "perfect storm".

The lessons we must take from the 2003 invasion of Iraq and from the 7/7 bombings must go beyond those of operational effectiveness and good governance. While we should not be apologetic, we should also not be blinkered. We need to challenge lazy simplifications and stereotypes. We must look behind the beards and the burqas and recognise our common humanity.

Stefan Simanowitz is a writer, journalist and human rights campaigner. He campaigned against the 2003 invasion of Iraq and attended the Chilcot Inquiry.

Islamophobia 'Acceptable' In UK

There are around 2.9 million Muslims living in Britain, about five per cent of the population [GALLO/GETTY] 


British Politician Says Prejudice Against Muslims Is Now Socially Acceptable and That Country Is Becoming Less Tolerant.

Last Modified: 20 Jan 2011 14:27 GMT
Courtesy Of "Al-Jazeera"

Prejudice against Muslims has "passed the dinner-table test" and become socially acceptable in Britain, the chairwoman of the country's ruling Conservative party has said.

Sayeeda Warsi, the first British Muslim woman to join the country's cabinet, said in a speech at the University of Leicester on Thursday that Britain is becoming a less tolerant place for believers.

Warsi said that dividing Muslims into "moderate" and "extremist" fuels intolerance as does "the patronising, superficial way faith is discussed in certain quarters, including the media".

The Pakistan-born minister has previously criticised parts of British society for demonizing Muslims in response to the threat from small numbers of extremists.

'Challenge For Britain'

In her latest speech she said that attacks committed by a small number of Muslims should not be used to condemn the entire community.

But she also urgeed Muslim communities to be clearer about their rejection of radical acts.

Britain has around 2.9 million Muslims, around five per cent of the population, according to an estimate in 2010 by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

Anas Altikriti, the director of the Cordoba Foundation, which works toward bridging the gap between the Muslim and Western world, told Al Jazeera that Warsi should be congratulated for her remarks.

"What it achieves is basically to place this particular issue and this challenge for British society and Britain as a whole firmly on the table of debate," he said.

"I think there is a greater recognition that this is something that has to be addressed in a collective manner."

But he added that comments on their own "don't really do much. What we need ... is a set of policies".

Warsi's comments come after David Cameron, the prime minister, said in his New Year message that Britain still faced a serious threat of attack plots.

"We must ask ourselves as a country how we are allowing the radicalisation and poisoning of the minds of some young British Muslims who then contemplate and sometimes carry out acts of sickening barbarity," he said.

His official spokesperson said on Thursday that Warsi was "expressing her view" and that the prime minister "agrees that this is an important debate".

US Pastor Banned

Meanwhile, Britain has banned Terry Jones, the US pastor who sparked global outrage by threatening to burn the Quran, from entering the country.

Jones was invited to speak at an event next month, by an anti-immigrant group called "England Is Ours".

But the UK's interior ministry said his presence is "not conducive to the public good".

France Should Look To Canada Regarding Burqa Debate

By Elsa Rizkallah
Monday, November 01, 2010
Courtesy Of "The Daily Star"

As the burqa controversy continues to make headlines in France, it is worth examining what France could learn from Canada, which has worked to reconcile freedom of religion with national security and women rights.

Bills banning the burqa – a garment that fully covers a woman’s body, head and face – were created in the post-September 11 context of insecurity. The US, UK, France and Canada all developed a heightened concern for national security – which led to heightened concern about the larger religious group from which the September 11 attackers claimed to stem.

Many believe, however, that these bills also attempted to restrict Muslims’ freedom of belief and religion. Yet, the freedom to wear the burqa is protected by the French Constitution in its very preamble. The first article states: “France shall be an indivisible, secular, democratic and social Republic. It shall ensure the equality of all citizens before the law, without distinction of origin, race or religion. It shall respect all beliefs.” Similarly, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in the Canadian constitution reads: “Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms: (a) freedom of conscience and religion; (b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression … ’’

How then does a country reconcile its people’s religious values and its legal bans on certain religious expressions?

What some might not understand is that implementing a law against the burqa does not prevent a woman from wearing it; it just means she is no longer able to wear it outside the home. However, the ban relates to an even bigger issue – the isolation of Muslim women. Denying Muslim women the right to express their freedom of belief and religion the way they wish to will only serve to increase their sense of isolation.

Thus, although the stated purpose of the bill to ban the burqa in France is to promote gender equality, security and the values of the French Republic, in doing so it is in fact limiting diversity.

Canada has a history of using “reasonable accommodation” when it comes to all religious and cultural practices, meaning that accommodations should be made for minorities, within reason. Stemming from a 1985 labor law, “reasonable accommodation” keeps norms in the workplace or in society flexible in order to avoid discriminatory practices. The primary objective of reasonable accommodation is to provide a society with security and peace while respecting and gaining a better understanding of its diversity.

In the Canadian province of Quebec, for example, the provincial government allows women to wear the burqa in public, but requires these women make certain accommodations, such as showing their faces on health insurance cards.

The more we are able to understand these differences, the more we are able to protect immigrants’ main reason for immigration: to live in a democratic society which respects freedom of speech and religion. It is in this same society, then, that Muslim women should be seen as individuals, equal to others.

The solution in France should not have been imposing a law against wearing the burqa, but rather looking for a reasonable accommodation between public-service requirements and the religious freedoms of citizens to create strong social bonds.

Before rushing to meet in the Assembly to pass such bans, lawmakers should first meet with representatives of various cultures and religious traditions to try and understand these traditions’ origins – as well as new manifestations of them. Those representatives might also be consulted and asked to submit their own solutions. Certainly, this approach would better accommodate Muslims in French democratic society.

Ultimately, the aim of such dialogue is to ensure the security and the equality of all and to prevent hatred and conflicts from arising. It’s a kind of a new social contract.

Elsa Rizkallah is a student at the Bar School of Montreal, and has written articles for Lex Hebdo, the review of the Public Law Research Center at the University of Montreal. THE DAILY STAR publishes this commentary in collaboration with Common Ground News Service (www.commongroundnews.org).

The Burqa Ban: Enforced ‘Emancipation’

By Zeynab Ali
24 OCTOBER 2010
Courtesy Of "The NewsLine"

Fear campaign: In Switzerland, the movement to ban minarets used a poster that showed numerous minarets shaped like missiles tearing through the Swiss flag and a burqa-clad woman.

Amidst the growing tide of Islamophobia, the West’s obsession with the Muslim woman’s veil seems to have reached a new height. “Go Burn Your Burqa,” “Kill the Veil,” or so read some of the sign boards at a protest demonstration against the ‘Ground Zero’ mosque here in New York. The French Parliament has just approved a law to ban the veil from public spaces. Earlier, Belgium became the first country to put a ban on the burqa. Similarly, the Swiss minaret ban is also being described as an imminent precursor to a ban on veiling.

Interestingly, these European states now join Iran and Saudi Arabia in an exclusive, but unenviable, rare club of countries which impose a dress code for women in the public domain. All of these states invariably cite the ‘protection of dignity’ and ‘freedom of women’ to justify the unjustifiable – the restriction of individual freedoms.

Discussion on Muslim women’s rights is always welcome. However, it is only meaningful when discussed within a well-grounded framework. The reductive interpretation of veiling as the quintessential sign of the Muslim women’s lack of freedom feels inherently wrong. It is also safe to say that any woman, who is forced to wear a veil against her will, faces issues that will not be solved by simply prohibiting the garment. Denouncing the veil as a ‘medieval imposition’ is a gross violation of the Muslim woman’s own understanding and convictions. Personal freedom, which in many ways is central to self-respect, excercised through veiling is just as valid and important a choice as the freedom to be unveiled.

However, the West has not yet grasped the fact that the freedom to wear whatever outfit they want is not exactly the zenith of personal liberation for every Muslim woman. It is unfortunate that contemporary discussions on Muslim women have become stuck in a vicious cycle, with the western media, feminist lobbies of the West and their sister enterprises in the East consistently berating the position of Muslim women, and the Muslim groups subsequently responding with much anger and emotion. Amidst all this hullabaloo, what is exceedingly unfortunate is that there is usually little said or done to address the actual issues facing Muslim women.

That the Muslim women’s clothes are the subject of such intense interest that they can inspire extensive devotion to the subject may seem ludicrous, but it is an unfortunate reality. Simplistic assumptions and stereotypes have reduced Muslim female identity to a single article of clothing – the veil. And the veiled Muslim woman has come to represent the ultimate visible marker of the ‘differentness’ and ‘inferiority of Islamic societies’ in the discourse on the Muslim world. In the words of Leila Ahmed, a noted scholar at Harvard Divinity School, “Veiling, to western eyes, has become the symbol of both the oppression of women and the backwardness of Islam.”

The Belgian legislators took pride in being “the first country to spring the locks that have made a good number of women slaves,” even as they decided to impose a minimal fine on women caught wearing the veil in public “because these women are often victims.” The ‘Muslim woman as a victim’ litany is hauntingly familiar. And it is rather unfortunate that the West is returning to its old colonial aspirations by using the ‘liberation of Muslim women’ excuse to exert social control and political power. By refusing to acknowledge that some Muslim women may actually be willing to veil, the West is doing Muslim women a big disservice. Ultimately projects that profess to save ‘other women’ also reflect a sense of superiority by the West, a form of arrogance that deserves to be challenged.

In her though-provoking article “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and Its Others,” eminent anthropologist Lila Abu-Lughod describes the “dangers of reifying culture” which is apparent in western tendencies “to plaster neat cultural icons like the Muslim woman over messy historical and political dynamics.” What is most informative about Abu-Lughod’s argument is her discussion on ‘cultural relativism’ which recreates ‘an imaginative geography of West versus East, us versus Muslims, cultures in which First Ladies give speeches versus others where women shuffle around silently in burqas.’ Such ‘cultural relativism’ was manifestly evident in the vigorous assault on the burqa by Laura Bush and Cherie Blair after the 2001 war in Afghanistan.

Even if they consider the veil to be a projection of culture, are western societies deciding that they would much rather support some elements of cultural projection over others? If that is the case, it is far more honest to outrightly say so rather than toy with notions of supposed liberalism, egalitarianism and republicanism. If France, for instance, believes in enforced secularism, it should admit that such secularism is compulsory and possibly disenfranchising to the individual. If it believes in state control and conformity, then differences in ideology, culture and sartorial choices obviously cannot be tolerated. But if one argues for personal freedom, then any choice, sartorial or cultural, must be allowed to stay unless it can be proved inimical.

In this context, it is also interesting to note the arguments of Caroline Sagesser, a religious expert at the Université Libre of Brussels, who compares the Belgian ban on the burqa to “using a hammer to kill a fly.” “In Belgium there are very, very few women wearing a full veil in public. It is a non-problem,” she says. The aggressive amplification and over-statement of this non-issue is perhaps the real issue here. Not only does it place a fringe group at the centre of the debate on Muslim women, this obsessive perception of threat from the scarce Muslim population of Europe also excessively distorts reality.

This can be observed in the symbolic representations of the Swiss minaret ban such as the official government-sponsored banners which projected this ban. The poster shows numerous minarets shaped like missiles tearing through the Swiss flag and a burqa-clad silhouette of a Muslim woman to reinforce the message. Judging from this image one would imagine the country being overrun by burqa-clad Muslim women with a minaret erected at every other corner of the country. In reality however, according to Amnesty International, less than a few dozen women wear the burqa in Switzerland and only half the number of mosques exist in Switzerland than were actually shown in the poster. In reality, most Swiss people are likely to never have seen a woman wearing a burqa. Such exaggerated posturing against an envisioned Muslim threat will only lead to further alienation of the Muslim communities and of the Muslim women who constitute half of these communities.

Needless to say the European discussion on Muslim women is taking a very interesting direction. The Belgian law will create a new offence of incitement to cover the face or hair for “reasons of gender.” Similarly President Sarkozy pointed out that the veils “do not pose a problem in a religious sense, but threatened the dignity of women.” Such statements suggests that the veil is not considered to be a religious symbol but rather a feminist one. However, although such rhetoric is being doled out under the garb of women’s rights, as can be observed from Sarkozy’s statement, it is quite evident that this issue is as much a political one. This emphasis on feminism rather than Islam is obviously hypocritical because the Swiss example clearly shows that the two issues are inextricably interconnected.

The veil has also been described as “a visible statement of separation and of difference.” But what, one may argue, is wrong with a mark of separation? And isn’t fashion (religious or not) a means of self-expression that encourages difference and separation? Many in the anti-burqa camp call it “a weapon of subjugation,” a “flexible mobile prison that cuts the wearer off from the rest of the world” or a “walking prison” for women. Anthropologist Hanna Papaneck, who worked extensively in Pakistan, also describes the burqa as a “portable seclusion” but she saw it as a “liberating invention because it enabled women to move out of segregated living spaces while still observing the basic moral requirements of separating and protecting women from unrelated men.” Papaneck asserted that for many Muslim women such forms of dress have become so conventional that they gave little thought to their meaning and ultimately they became merely a sartorial choice.

The veil, as a sartorial choice, is no more or less relevant than bikinis and mini-skirts. All of these forms of clothing offer clues to the wearer’s worldview and can be enforced implicitly through peer pressure and a collective desire to look and behave a certain way. And just as these can be personal choices, so can the veil. But when judged by the western standard of liberation and women’s freedom, which is actually somewhat measured by how ‘uncovered’ women are and how closely their clothing approximates western notions of dress, many Muslim women obviously fall short of such requirements.

In reality however, misguided actions towards supposed ‘emancipation’ and ‘liberation’ are therefore futile – particularly because they cannot be enforced from above. As scholar John Esposito famously put it, “A modern Muslim woman isn’t necessarily wearing western clothes and a veiled woman isn’t necessarily oppressed.”

Albanian Muslims Saved Jews From Nazis

From CNN affilate KSDK
By Leisa Zigman
October 20, 2010
Courtesy Of "KSDK"


Creve Coeur, MO (KSDK) -- With rising anti-Muslim sentiment across the country, an untold story is raising greater awareness about the Muslim faith and the teachings of the Quran. That awareness comes from an unlikely source: a small Jewish congregation in Creve Coeur.

Temple Emanuel is premiering a groundbreaking exhibit of photos that reveals Albanian Muslims who saved 2,000 Jews during World War II.

It's a story you've likely never heard. It is a story told through the faces of Albanian Muslims who risked their own lives to live by a code of faith and honor called Besa.

Dr. Ghazala Hayat is a neurologist at St. Louis University and serves as spokesperson for the Islamic Foundation of Greater Saint Louis.

Hayat said while Besa is an Albanian word, it is part of Islamic culture and teachings. According to Dr. Hayat, Besa is an ancient code which requires people to endanger their own lives if necessary to save the life of anyone seeking asylum. To this day, Besa is the highest moral law of the region, superseding religious differences, blood feuds, and even tribal traditions.

The exhibit is opening eyes throughout the world.

"You don't have to share the same faith. You have to respect each other's faith," Hayat said.

Pictures of the Albanian Muslims in the exhibit tell a lifetime of stories. As a young mother, one woman did not have enough breast milk to feed her son. A Jewish woman she hid nursed him instead. She was asked if she minded that a Jewish mother had fed her baby.

"Jews are God's people like us," the woman said.

Another man who also hid Jewish families said, "I did nothing special. All Jews are our brothers."

And the head of the Bektashi sect, with more than seven million followers, tells the story of Albania's prime minister, who gave a secret order during the Nazi occupation.

"All Jewish children will sleep with your children, all will eat the same food, and all will live as one family," the order read.

In post-war Europe, it is said Albania was the only Nazi-occupied country to boast a greater number of Jews than before the Holocaust.


"They were among the people who at great personal risk sheltered Jews and protected them in their homes and did so out of a religious obligation," said Rabbi Justin Kerber, Temple Emanuel.

The Islamic Foundation of Greater St. Louis and several local Jewish agencies hope the St. Louis community will experience this rare look at the role Albanian Muslims played in sheltering Jews from the Nazis.

"At this time of tension over Islam in America, there is so much more to understanding Islam," Rabbi Kerber said.

The BESA exhibition at Temple Emanuel is October 21- December 1, 2010
12166 Conway Road
Thursday 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Saturdays and Sundays, 12 p.m. to 4pm and by appointment

For more information, contact Gail at gail@testl.org or call 314-432-5877.

Letter From Islamophobistan

By Pepe Escobar
October 22, 2010
Courtesy Of "Asia Times Online"

Last Saturday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel stunned the world by declaring, in front of young members of her party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), that multiculturalism - or multikulti, as it is known in Germany - was dead.

The day before, I was in the Lufthansa lounge at Frankfurt airport having a parallel discussion with a group of German businessmen; they had practically handed me down a news alert on what Merkel would soon make public. Not accidentally, the best seller at all airport kiosks was the Islamophobia pamphlet published by a former Bundesbank higher-up, Thilo Sarrazin, who paints Muslim immigrants at best as lazy, welfare cheats and fornicating sub-intelligent beings. Sarrazin sees Muslims as an existential threat to Germany on a par to hardcore Zionists seeing Iran as an existential threat to Israel.

By that time, after three weeks roving from northern Italy to southern Sweden via Copenhagen, I had no doubts; I was deep inside Islamophobistan - that Europe-wide arc where Islamophobia is being gleefully practiced as an electoral business of fear.

Arbeit Macht Frei

Among other things, Merkel also said that immigration was prejudicial to the German economy - an assertion which in itself is ridiculous; to fight its severe labor shortages over the past decades the country has successively resorted to gastarbeiter (guestworkers) from Italy, Spain, Greece, Turkey and the former Yugoslavia. But most of all it's those ominous, resurrection shades of a dominatrix German culture which may have sent a chill through many a European spine. What's more ominous, in fact, is that Merkel's words mirror an European-wide response to immigration.

Multikulti was the concept found in the 1980s to accommodate a wave of migrants Germany never wanted to really gobble up - not with all the trouble of assimilating their culture, their languages and their religion. The heart of the multikulti bargain was that an immigrant was allowed to be attached to his native culture, but he had to pledge loyalty to the German state.

The problem is that the ploy basically led to permanent alienation of large swathes of immigrants. And a further problem is that the European definition of a nation is through nationality.

So why is this ballistic "return of the repressed", the ever-so-touchy question of national identity in Germany, exploding now? First of all, because of those masses of Muslim workers, mostly Turkish. In Germany it seems to have coalesced an explosive amalgam of Turkey and Islam - which includes everything from jihadi terror to Turkey's application to join the European Union (EU).

All major polls agree that a majority of Germans is not exactly fond of 4 million resident Muslims (5% of the overall population). 35% believe the nation is "swamped by foreigners" and 10% want the return of a Fuhrer with an "iron hand". In Germany there are scores of neo-Nazi groups with minimal public impact; on the other hand the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NDP) has already reached 5% of the votes in Thuringia.

Then there's the deep crisis of the EU itself. If the German government attacks multikulti, it is at the same time affirming the primacy of German national identity. And that identity is certainly not subordinated to the notion of an overarching European identity. Mein Gott; in a nutshell the EU dream is in deep, deep trouble.

If Germany cannot import qualified workers - Merkel said the country needs at least 400,000 high-tech specialists - it may certainly export everything from its production lines to information technology support. But what if these much-needed new high-tech workers came from Russia? And Russia started to receive even more German investment? Now that is a completely different approach to the EU. And as the whole of Europe is now immersed in a severe cultural clash - real or imagined - within the EU borders, no wonder the proclaimed death of multikulti, beyond Merkel's electoral aims, is bound to have immense geopolitical and geoeconomic repercussions.

The New Inquisition

Austrian-American psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich, in his Mass Psychology of Fascism, stressed that racial theory is not a creation of fascism. On the contrary; fascism is a creation of racial hatred and its politically organized expression.

The New (anti-Islam) Inquisition did not hit Europe immediately after 9/11; it has reached critical mass only today. The popular political sport in Europe today is not to watch Real Madrid and AC Milan playing in the Champions Football League; it is to watch populists invoking Islam - depicted as an "ideology that opposes everything that matters to us" - to crystallize all manner of phobias and fears of European citizens.

Fear of Islamization, fear of the burqa - no distraction could be as convenient for people to forget the dire, unending economic crisis that has produced catastrophic unemployment rates all across Europe. This may be part of a deep cultural and psychological crisis within Europe, with not a shred of a real political alternative; but few progressive minds are alert to the fact that this turbo-charging of racism and xenophobia is also a consequence of the overall crisis of neo-liberalism.

Mad against foreigners? Mad against politicians? That's soooo last century. The new groove is mad against Islam. It does not matter that immigration to Europe has been in decline for years; still "they" have to become like "us". An aging, fearful, reactionary Europe is terrified that The Other, issued from younger or more dynamic regions of the world, is catching up.

Asia - not Europe - is the future. A melancholic weekend in a tourist/trash-infested Venice turned into a replica of its Las Vegas mirror provided me the graphic illustration; I did feel like Dirk Bogarde in Death in Venice - and so must feel countless Europeans.

Anyone Left?

As much as Sweden invented modern social democracy and the best performing welfare state of the latter part of the 20th century, it was hardly surprising that the extreme right, the Sverigedemokraterna (SD, as in Swedish Democrats) first entered parliament last September 19, with 5.7% of the votes.

The SD, considered by many as "racist and neo-Nazi", is led by Jimmie Akesson, 31, the new young darling of the European extreme right alongside his elder Dutch counterpart Geert Wilders. Akesson stresses that Islam/Muslim immigration is the biggest foreign threat to Sweden since Adolf Hitler. (Wilders for his part was recently invited to Berlin by former CDU member Rene Stadtkewitz, who founded a new party, Die Freiheit ("Freedom"), named after Wilders' own Freedom Party; and he was also recently invited to New York to speak against the proposed Islamic Center in Manhattan near Ground Zero).

This video shows how the SD went no holds barred to get their votes (as it was explained to me, the video was banned, and later one private TV station would air it, but only with the video completely blurred out). No one needs to speak Swedish to understand an elderly lady being overrun to get state benefits by a horde of burqa-clad women.

There's hardly a way to evade a direct link between the historically very low score of the Swedish social democrats and the also historic rise of the extreme right. For American, Asian, Middle Eastern observers this may sound utterly suicidal; how could the Swedes possibly reject an old-school welfare state that assures to everyone the Holy Trinity of health, education and a good pension?

So if the ultra-civil Swedes were not rejecting their model, what was it? Maybe the answer is in a book first published in Italy in 2008 by Italian linguist and essayist Raffaele Simone, whose subtitle literally translates as "Why the West is not leaning to the Left".

In the extremely well-argued book, Simone proves that the European Left is intellectually dead; it simply has not understood the drive of hardcore capitalism (which he defines as "arch-capitalism", or "the political and economic manifestation of the New Right"); it has not understood the correlated primacy of individualism and consumerism; and it has refused to discuss the phenomenon of mass immigration.

From France to Denmark, from Italy to Sweden, it's easy to see how savvy populists skillfully deploy those European values of free speech, feminism and secularism - oversimplifying issues to the point that their take seems logical - as ammunition against mosques, minarets, headscarves and, of course, "sub-intelligent beings".

And then there are local realities. The majority of those voting SD were protesting against overwhelmingly Muslim immigrants, a great deal of them jobless, who come to Sweden, get fat government benefits and remain idle. Sweden is nowhere as tough on immigration as Denmark, Norway or Holland.

In Malmo, a mere 20-minute train ride via the stunning Oresund bridge from Copenhagen, about 80,000 (60,000 of them Muslims) of the overall population of 300,000 are immigrants. There are certified losers in Malmo's carefully calibrated transition from old industrial city to a post-mod consumer haven; the old, the poor, and most of all, immigrants. So Sweden seems to have posed the European-wide question of the necessity for the European welfare state to concentrate less on health care and pensions and more on "including" immigrants. But is this really the real question?

Shoot The Minaret

Talk about an European summer of hate - from minarets banned in Switzerland to burqas banned in Belgium.

The populist extreme right has been part of coalition governments in Italy and Switzerland for many years now. And they are represented in the parliaments of Austria, Denmark, Norway and Finland. The National Front in France had 9% of the vote in last spring's French regional elections.

But now everywhere it feels like a Lamborghini let loose. Geert Wilders' Freedom party in Holland has turbo-charged Islamophobia to the point of almost paralyzing Dutch governance. The elegant, eloquent, peroxide-blonde populist Wilders wants to ban the Koran - which he has compared to Hitler's Mein Kampf - and impose a "headscarf tax" (how come no government thought about this in the Middle East or in Pakistan?)

French President Nicolas Sarkozy - now facing his own, self-provoked May '68 remix in the streets over his pension reform - tried to seduce (once again) the National Front by expelling planeloads of Romanian gypsies.

Austrian extreme right stalwart Heinz-Christian Strache, running for mayor of Vienna less than two weeks ago, took no less than 27% of the vote. And Barbara Rosenkranz, who insists anti-Nazi laws should be abolished, came second in Austria's presidential race.

The Islamophobic, anti-immigrant Northern League of Umberto Bossi in Italy is part of the government in Rome and not accidentally the country's fastest-growing party, now controlling the ultra-wealthy provinces of Veneto and Piemonte. During the latest election campaign, La Lega supporters handed out bars of soap to be used "after touching an immigrant".

In Spain, the movement Preventive Reconquista is gaining ground - a perhaps George W Bush-inspired preventive war against the 1 million Muslim immigrants and their allegedly "evil" plans to re-attach Spain to Islam. A "headscarf controversy" already erupted in Madrid last April. Local town councils have been prohibiting the burqa and niqab - French-style (although a national ban was only narrowly defeated in the Spanish Congress last July).

It comes as no surprise that the extreme right is more turbocharged than ever in scores of European post-industrial cities which used to be center-left; that's certainly the case of Wilders in Rotterdam, Le Pen in Marseille, Strache in Vienna and Akesson in Malmo. Simone's assessment is being proven right.

And what makes these populists even more dangerous is their cross-pollination. Austria's Freedom Party copied a game from the Swiss People's Party in which players shoot at minarets popping up in their The Sound of Music-like landscape (with the added Austrian bonus of shooting at the muezzins as well).

The SD learned a lot from Wilders as well as the Danish People's Party and its chairwoman, Pia Kjaersgaard. They are all copying Wilders' trademark tactic of pitting immigrants against old pensioners - Islamophobia mixed with the widespread fear of the welfare state being plundered by foreigners.

In France, the revamped National Front - targeting Islamophobia - may be even more dangerous, now led by non-dogmatic, "intellectual", business suit-wearing Marine Le Pen, the daughter of Jean Marie, the party's founder; Marine wants to conquer the political center, to the point where Sarkozy simply won't be able to win anything without her.

This cross-pollination might even lead to an European-wide alliance, also including the US and Canada; an Atlanticist Islamophobistan. In fact that's Wilders' dream; the outfit is actually called International Freedom Alliance and was launched last July - to "defend freedom" and "stop Islam".

Marine Le Pen is not so hot about it - her preferential agenda is to conquer power in France. The US is also a dodgy proposition - after all Muslims make up only 1% of the US population, leading to the surrealist American phenomenon of Islamophobia without Muslims. Anyway it's troubling that virtually 50% of Americans say they have a negative impression of Islam. Allah needs a good PR firm, fast.

Fear Sells

So what to do? We are smack in the middle of the second globalization. The first globalization took place between 1890 and 1914. It's a back to the future scenario mixed with a return of the living dead; then as now the acceleration of capital transfer, migrations and transportation is generating regression - misguided nationalism, xenophobia, racism, and a New Inquisition.

At a recent meeting of writers and journalists organized by the magazine Internazionale in Ferrara, in Emilia - one of Italy's and Europe's wealthiest provinces - arguably the most crucial debate was titled "Islam; a specter hovers around Europe". The key speakers were Tariq Ramadan, professor of Islamic Studies at Oxford and a real academic rock star in Europe, and Olivier Roy, professor at the European University Institute in Florence and one of Europe's top authorities on Islam and jihad. It's fair to say both have provided a road map for sensible citizens to follow through.

Asked about the reasons for the widespread fear of the Muslim immigrant, Ramadan noted that this "perception harks back to the construction of the European project". These immigrants were supposed to have come to Europe just to work. "But now we have immigrants of second, third and fourth generation, they leave their ghetto, they are more visible, they feel at ease to express themselves, and their voices are heard." That causes a tremendous conflict with their overall perception.

Ramadan insists "European Muslims have it very clear in their minds the European concept of freedom of expression." And he is adamant; "Integration is a thing of the past; we are already integrated" (but try convincing Angela Merkel about it, or the citizens of Malmo for that matter).

Ramadan's key point is that Europeans - and Americans as well - should "make a clear distinction about the instrumentalization of these fears by movements and parties, derived from ignorance and fear itself. We should go beyond the theme of integration and stress common values. There is a consensus now in Europe that immigrants from second and third generation are more visible, in the cultural, political and sporting spheres. It's passivity facing instrumentalization that could become a tremendous risk for all European citizens."

Roy attacks the impasse from a different perspective. For him, "now there's a sort of fake consensus. Our consensus on Islam is related to the fact that we Europeans don't agree on what we are. Now in most European parliaments the left and right vote together to forbid the burqa, the construction of mosques ... Left and right seem to be in agreement against Islam, but for different motives. There's a disconnect between a religious marker and everyday life. What is religion? And what is culture? We should say religion is religion, and citizenship is citizenship. That's how it works in Europe. City of Man and City of God. Muslims in Europe have adopted and are adopting the European model of separation between Church and State."

Roy defines "two aspects about the fear of Islamization; immigration and Islamization. For most of public opinion, they are synonyms, but that's not true. In France, for the second and third generations, there is everything, Muslims who pray all the time, some that pray sometimes, those who have no practice but say they're Muslims, Europeans converting to Islam, Muslims converting to Catholicism ... Everything depends on the political culture of the country. Freedom of religion in Europe is not a consequence of human rights. It was defined as a compromise after centuries of religious wars. But this compromise - in each European country - is now in crisis. For two reasons. One, the nation-State is in crisis. Because of globalization, European integration, national compromises overrun by supra-national laws. And now the freedom of religious practice is an individual right. That's something entirely new in European political culture."

Not sure that would be enough to convince Wilders and Akesson. They are not for inclusion; they're for exclusion - and more than ever they know the electoral business of fear sells. The New Inquisition will go on no matter what (and it will go out of control if one of those ghostly al-Qaedas, from Iraq, from the Maghreb, from the Horn of Africa, from wherever, crashes a jet on the Eiffel Tower). With that bleak prospect in mind, I left Islamophobistan the best way I could - boarding a flight to a non-hate, non-fearful, certainly hopeful, boundless dynamic and religious war-free part of the world: South America.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). 

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com. 

(Copyright 2010 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Muslims Belong Here

German President Says "Muslims Belong In Germany" As Much As Christians and Jews After Islamophobia Surges.

Last Modified: 04 Oct 2010 06:19 GMT
Courtesy Of "Al-Jazeera"

The German president has urged his people to recognise that the religion of Islam and its followers have a legitimate place in Germany after a recent spike in anti-Muslim sentiment in the country.

Christian Wulff, who as president is considered a moral authority for the country, issued the statement on Sunday during a speech celebrating two decades of the country's reunification.

"Christianity doubtless belongs in Germany. Judaism belongs doubtless in Germany. That is our Judeo-Christian history. But by now, Islam also belongs in Germany," Wulff told an audience in the northern city of Bremen.

"First and foremost, we need adopt a clear stance: an understanding that for Germany, belonging is not restricted to a passport, a family history, or a religion," he said.

Wulff's speech was part of nationwide festivities marking reunification of the country's east and west in 1990, after Germany spent a half-century divided into two countries following defeat in the Second World War.

Islamophobia Rises

The president's call for more integration of the third largest religion in the country comes amid heightened tension over controversial remarks made by Thilo Sarrazin, a board member of Bundesbank, the country's central bank. He accused Muslim immigrants of leeching off the socialist state, refusing to integrate, and making Germany a "dumber" country.

After publishing his ideas in a book called "Germany Abolishes Itself," which became a bestseller and sparked both widespread outrage and Islamophobia throughout the country, Sarrazin had to quit his post under government pressure. His anti-Muslim views polarised Germany and tested the country's tolerance level.

Public opinion towards Muslims had already been tottering for years as citizenship laws gave little recognition to the country's more than four million Muslims. Although most had migrated to the country decades ago, only 20 per cent have German citizenship.

Mainly due to labour migrations from Turkey in the 1960s and several waves of political refugees in the 1970s, Islam has long been Germany's largest minority faith.

Wulff's supportive rhetoric for Muslims is consistent with Chancellor Angela Merkel's earlier statement, following the Sarrazin row, that "mosques will be a somewhat larger part of our cityscape than before".