Europe�s Muslims still struggle to worship on their own terms

While negative collective judgement is typically found at the fringes, today in Europe it has clearly migrated to the centre. Today�s racists are particularly sophisticated in their regurgitation of hate

The past year has been coloured by the horrors of ISIL, with the group topping European concerns and leaving European Muslims reeling as the perennial question of the relationship between Islam and violence was given new lifeblood.
This was coupled with the greatest refugee crisis to face Europe in recent times, which reignited fears in the region of immigration in general and Muslim immigration in particular.
Thus in 2015, the two primary lenses through which Muslims have been discussed in the public sphere have been security and integration.
While neither of these are unique to 2015, they have certainly been given renewed vigour as the terrorist threat merged with concerns over immigration, creating the ultimate 2015 tabloid monster: “The Muslim terrorist-migrant”.
The consequence for European Muslims has been a sense of collective guilt and suspicion.
While negative collective judgement is typically found at the fringes, today in Europe it has clearly migrated to the centre. Today’s racists are particularly sophisticated in their regurgitation of hate, preferring primordialist arguments about “backward” values and “barbaric” culture to the outmoded focus on “scientific arguments” about skull shapes and evolution. It’s not Muslims that are the problem, the latest attempt at racist mental gymnastics goes, but Islam.
The good Muslim, it is increasingly clear, is he – or preferably she – who repudiates the faith; the “heroic” Ayaan Hirsi Alis of this world, prepared to confirm western supremacist narratives under the feeble cover of ethnic “authenticity”.
And this shrinking space in which one can acceptably exist as a Muslim – a practitioner of Islam – creates precisely the state of unease which extremist recruiters emphasise in their Manichean tales of impending cataclysm.
In this sense, Gilles Kepel is right in his recent book Terror in the Hexagon to point to a symbiotic relationship between the European far right and ISIL, both working assiduously to create conditions which render life in Europe so hard for European Muslims that embellished tales of embattled sides take on an increasingly tangible twist. Islam as a discursive tradition is being framed virtually incessantly by discussions about violence and terrorism, something that inevitably impacts on the believers’ self-perception and the limits of acceptable religious expression.
Political expression rooted in religious ideals becomes subversive and dangerous. This means any attempt to engage as people of faith in the public sphere is limited to a narrow realm of apologia, where the existence of Muslims as Muslims is restricted to a repudiation of violence.
This situation has only worsened the pre-existing “othering” of Muslim citizens as the state’s campaign against extremist groups creates a sense of collective suspicion on a heterogeneous body of individuals who often share very little in common aside from this ascription.
Some have even suggested that this undifferentiated perception of Muslims as potential radicals, who are thus justifiably the object of state scrutiny, actually reinforces a sense of grievance and alienation.
After figures revealed that as many as two-thirds of those arrested under terror legislation last year in the UK were never charged with a terrorist offence, compared with a 58 per cent charge rate for all criminal offences, one former Home Office counter-terrorism adviser alleged that UK authorities are in fact contributing to radicalising young Muslims.
And against this backdrop of collective guilt, attacks on Muslims – or those who “appear” Muslim, have dramatically increased. In the UK, the Metropolitan police recorded a 70 per cent rise in the past year.
Dr Chris Allen, an academic who specialises in anti-Muslim hate, has pointed out that very few policies have been introduced in the UK over the last 15 years to deal with this growing problem, and, in fact, the promise of Islamophobia legislation has been used as a dummy for Muslim communities.
What is more, legislation on Islamophobia has consistently been framed within the counter-extremism agenda, creating an implicit link between the two, which Dr Allen compares to the cultural theorist Stuart Hall in the 1970s arguing that anti-black racism would reduce if black men simply stopped mugging.
While Donald Trump may wish to shut down mosques in the US, in France the government actually began shutting down mosques using state of emergency laws brought in after the Paris attacks. Yasser Louati, spokesman for the Collective Against Islamophobia in France, described the current situation this way: “The Muslim minority in France feels like it’s being treated as the public enemy.”
The struggle against extremism has even seen the state delving into theology in the search for an “acceptable” Islam – a discussion which inherently problematises the faith of all Muslims. This has led to an attempt to devise official, “state” forms of Islam, a neutered version of spirituality that rebukes all forms of political opposition to the state as an extension of radical precepts, equating good religion with political acquiescence and ultimately capitulation to the status quo. In the UK, a very ill-defined notion of British values was brought in to “tame” the wild Muslims, unable it would seem to comprehend the rules of civility without them being dictated by the state and certainly not included as participants in any collective negotiation of those principles.
The theme of the day in European state intervention into the realm of theology has been “reform” – a reminder that the European proclivity for seeing Muslims as lagging on the developmental spectrum and thus in need of the application of the very principles European leaders regard as having historically tamed Christianity, remains strong.
To quote the academic Talal Asad: “The very common suggestion that Muslims should undertake a reform of their own religious tradition to help prevent ‘Islamic extremist violence’ assumes that Muslims constitute a single political subject, that they are entirely self-contained, and that reform has not in fact been continuously undertaken in Islamic history.”
This past year has been a difficult one for Muslims in Europe – but there is little sign 2016 is set for improvement. As we enter a new year, a mosque in Corsica has been desecrated, pig heads used to vandalise Muslim sites in the UK, British citizens are seeing their visas to the US denied and France’s leftist government is pushing for the creation of a two-tier system of citizenship that will disproportionately affect Muslims, just as the far right is predicted to continue its steady power grabs.
Caught in the crosshairs, European Muslims face a continuing struggle not to be defined by their othering and to hold on to their faith under conditions that presuppose its inherently problematic nature.

The writer is a journalist, broadcaster and a DPhil researcher at the University of Oxford

Europe�s Muslims still struggle to worship on their own terms

While negative collective judgement is typically found at the fringes, today in Europe it has clearly migrated to the centre. Today�s racists are particularly sophisticated in their regurgitation of hate

The past year has been coloured by the horrors of ISIL, with the group topping European concerns and leaving European Muslims reeling as the perennial question of the relationship between Islam and violence was given new lifeblood. This was coupled with the greatest refugee crisis to face Europe in recent times, which reignited fears in the region of immigration in general and Muslim immigration in particular. Thus in 2015, the two primary lenses through which Muslims have been discussed in the public sphere have been security and integration. While neither of these are unique to 2015, they have certainly been given renewed vigour as the terrorist threat merged with concerns over immigration, creating the ultimate 2015 tabloid monster: The Muslim terrorist-migrant. The consequence for European Muslims has been a sense of collective guilt and suspicion. While negative collective judgement is typically found at the fringes, today in Europe it has clearly migrated to the centre. Todays racists are particularly sophisticated in their regurgitation of hate, preferring primordialist arguments about backward values and barbaric culture to the outmoded focus on scientific arguments about skull shapes and evolution. Its not Muslims that are the problem, the latest attempt at racist mental gymnastics goes, but Islam. The good Muslim, it is increasingly clear, is he or preferably she who repudiates the faith; the heroic Ayaan Hirsi Alis of this world, prepared to confirm western supremacist narratives under the feeble cover of ethnic authenticity. And this shrinking space in which one can acceptably exist as a Muslim a practitioner of Islam creates precisely the state of unease which extremist recruiters emphasise in their Manichean tales of impending cataclysm. In this sense, Gilles Kepel is right in his recent book Terror in the Hexagon to point to a symbiotic relationship between the European far right and ISIL, both working assiduously to create conditions which render life in Europe so hard for European Muslims that embellished tales of embattled sides take on an increasingly tangible twist. Islam as a discursive tradition is being framed virtually incessantly by discussions about violence and terrorism, something that inevitably impacts on the believers self-perception and the limits of acceptable religious expression. Political expression rooted in religious ideals becomes subversive and dangerous. This means any attempt to engage as people of faith in the public sphere is limited to a narrow realm of apologia, where the existence of Muslims as Muslims is restricted to a repudiation of violence. This situation has only worsened the pre-existing othering of Muslim citizens as the states campaign against extremist groups creates a sense of collective suspicion on a heterogeneous body of individuals who often share very little in common aside from this ascription. Some have even suggested that this undifferentiated perception of Muslims as potential radicals, who are thus justifiably the object of state scrutiny, actually reinforces a sense of grievance and alienation. After figures revealed that as many as two-thirds of those arrested under terror legislation last year in the UK were never charged with a terrorist offence, compared with a 58 per cent charge rate for all criminal offences, one former Home Office counter-terrorism adviser alleged that UK authorities are in fact contributing to radicalising young Muslims. And against this backdrop of collective guilt, attacks on Muslims or those who appear Muslim, have dramatically increased. In the UK, the Metropolitan police recorded a 70 per cent rise in the past year. Dr Chris Allen, an academic who specialises in anti-Muslim hate, has pointed out that very few policies have been introduced in the UK over the last 15 years to deal with this growing problem, and, in fact, the promise of Islamophobia legislation has been used as a dummy for Muslim communities. What is more, legislation on Islamophobia has consistently been framed within the counter-extremism agenda, creating an implicit link between the two, which Dr Allen compares to the cultural theorist Stuart Hall in the 1970s arguing that anti-black racism would reduce if black men simply stopped mugging. While Donald Trump may wish to shut down mosques in the US, in France the government actually began shutting down mosques using state of emergency laws brought in after the Paris attacks. Yasser Louati, spokesman for the Collective Against Islamophobia in France, described the current situation this way: The Muslim minority in France feels like its being treated as the public enemy. The struggle against extremism has even seen the state delving into theology in the search for an acceptable Islam a discussion which inherently problematises the faith of all Muslims. This has led to an attempt to devise official, state forms of Islam, a neutered version of spirituality that rebukes all forms of political opposition to the state as an extension of radical precepts, equating good religion with political acquiescence and ultimately capitulation to the status quo. In the UK, a very ill-defined notion of British values was brought in to tame the wild Muslims, unable it would seem to comprehend the rules of civility without them being dictated by the state and certainly not included as participants in any collective negotiation of those principles. The theme of the day in European state intervention into the realm of theology has been reform a reminder that the European proclivity for seeing Muslims as lagging on the developmental spectrum and thus in need of the application of the very principles European leaders regard as having historically tamed Christianity, remains strong. To quote the academic Talal Asad: The very common suggestion that Muslims should undertake a reform of their own religious tradition to help prevent Islamic extremist violence assumes that Muslims constitute a single political subject, that they are entirely self-contained, and that reform has not in fact been continuously undertaken in Islamic history. This past year has been a difficult one for Muslims in Europe but there is little sign 2016 is set for improvement. As we enter a new year, a mosque in Corsica has been desecrated, pig heads used to vandalise Muslim sites in the UK, British citizens are seeing their visas to the US denied and Frances leftist government is pushing for the creation of a two-tier system of citizenship that will disproportionately affect Muslims, just as the far right is predicted to continue its steady power grabs. Caught in the crosshairs, European Muslims face a continuing struggle not to be defined by their othering and to hold on to their faith under conditions that presuppose its inherently problematic nature. The writer is a journalist, broadcaster and a DPhil researcher at the University of Oxford