Muslim Migration to Europe (Part 1)

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Is Muslim integration and assimilation in secular European societies possible? This question is of immediate importance as Islam is growing and thriving in European cities and towns, mainly through migration but also through higher birth rate (although declining) among European Muslims. This is happening amid insecurity caused by refugee crisis both inside and outside the borders of Europe. Islamist terror attacks in recent years have increased concerns about Islam and European Muslims among the European populace. The specter of right-wing threat is causing a lot of unease among the minorities. Growing frictions between the already present European Muslim minority and the host community is evident from the success of several anti-Islam and anti-immigration parties in national elections.

Historical Perspective

It is important to emphasize that Islam had centuries of presence in Southern (Iberia, Sicily, Malta) and Eastern Europe (Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, Balkans and Russia). Later that presence declined due to Reconquista and fall of Arab and Ottoman Empires. Now, any European detractor of Islam can say that this presence was mostly made possible via conquests and was colonial in nature, and that is why Islam never truly belonged or had real presence in Europe. Well, the same can be said of Christianity in the Americas, Africa and Australasia, which was entirely colonial and genocidal in nature. So, this argument about Islam’s ‘otherness’ does not hold much currency. In recent decades Islam gained resurgence through post WW-II working class labor migration. In the last two decades educated Muslim migrants have started to pour in, which has led to the creation of Muslim middle classes. In the Balkan region there exist three Muslim majority countries of Bosnia, Albania and Kosovo which can be collectively referred as Muslim Europe. Eastern Europe has a sizeable number of Muslim minorities who have lived there since many centuries. Apart from religion these Muslim groups have little in common and are linguistically and culturally heterogenous.

Statistical Projections

Around 25 million Muslims live in 28 member states of European Union. Muslim population currently stands at around 6% of the total population. With growing Muslim migration from Africa, Middle East, and South Asia it will reach around 11% by year 2050 and could be around 15–20% by the year 2100, according to medium fertility and migration level scenarios, whereas later it will stagnate. According to Pew Research Centre, by the year 2070 Islam will be the biggest religion in the world. This will be historically unprecedented. Europe’s neighboring regions, Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia will have two biggest populations by end of this century. Arab regions will be a distant third where the fertility rates are dropping. All of these regions will pose a migration challenge to Europe in coming decades.

Immigration – North America vs Europe

With these developments in mind one can ask this very pertinent question: How will Europe incorporate Islam and Muslim within its countries and cultures in the coming decades? And does the European populace want to accept and integrate Muslims in their societies? It will be absurd and Muslim phobic to suggest that Muslims are not capable of integration in liberal secular societies. A lot of them have already done so and have made Europe and the other Western countries their home. North America and Australasian Muslims are economically successful and well-integrated in their societies compared to their European counterparts. That can partly be attributed to the fact that unlike Europe (and the rest of the Old World) the Americas and Australasia are regions of mass migration. Their original or native inhabitants were exterminated by the Europeans. Due to the lack of validity of European nativist claims in these regions, and the prevalence of English language which most Muslim migrants already speak fluently, it was relatively easier for the arriving Muslims to integrate in these cultures. The hyphenated American identities, like Irish American, Pakistani Canadian, Arab American etc., are a source of immense pride for every migrant group.

Migration to Europe, on the other hand, is a different game altogether. It has thousands of years of recorded history and was relatively culturally homogenous till only a few decades ago. European societies, like the societies of the Old World, are Majority Societies with a parent culture, and are not like the migrant societies of America. With over a dozen national languages, most of which are quite small in influence, it is hard for the new migrants to be already fluent in these. Moreover, in Europe mixed or hyphenated identities are still a source of suspicion. Islam had no presence in Europe from the start of its history and later made inroads via political conquests. In comparison Muslim presence in the US was there right from the start of the European colonization of the Americas. US is more accepting of migrants, though has lots of social problems and a very weak welfare state. Europe has world class social welfare states but has very narrow definitions of what constitutes as European due to the Blood & Soil claim of the native population.

Should Europe Allow Migration?

Of course, it should. Europe and North America are the two biggest economies of the world, both have enormous cultural clout, unlike China which will be world’s biggest economy but has far less cultural outreach. These factors make these continents a magnet for migrants from the rest of the world. These two economies sell their products and services to people from other parts of the world, and extract resources from regions where other cultures already exist. That is why both have to allow ideas and people from those regions to arrive at their shores. One-way flow of culture, ideas, people and economics is nothing short of colonialism and has to be avoided. Here one has to distinguish between the concepts of mass migration and intermittent migration of small groups and people. Unlike Americas, mass migration in European host cultures can create a lot of tensions. This is not desirable by any means.

It is to be noted that migration is not a new phenomenon at all. Anti-Muslim and Anti migration Europeans would do well if they read their own history properly and without rose tinted glasses. Hundreds of millions of Europeans left Europe for the other regions of the world in the last five centuries, fifty-five million only from 1840s to 1940s. Many times their arrival meant near extermination of the native population of Americas or outright colonization and exploitation, which lead to the genocide and destruction of local economies in Africa and Asia. There was a time when Europeans migrated in droves and without any legal restrictions from regions to which they migrated, which is why right-wing European elements have no right to complain about legal migrants and refugees arriving at their doorsteps.  

Is Europe Tolerant of Migrants?

For the most part it has become now and has a lot of human rights enshrined in its constitutions, but this tolerance is fairly recent. The nonwhite and non-Christian migration was almost nonexistent for centuries. Every kind of minority was at risk of persecution until two or three generations ago. That changed in post WW-II era, and at the start of 21^st century most European governments recognized that migration is a fact of life in the continent, but some problems do persist. Attempts to limit Muslim life by stigmatizing head scarf, halal slaughter, Muslim public holidays happen from time to time. Anyone who gets out of line from mainstream opinions is demonized by the mainstream press. There is still a glaring lack of ethnic diversity at the upper strata of European societies. Many highly qualified migrants and people of color in Western Europe are relegated to somewhere at the middle of social hierarchy. Mainstream European politicians are shaky on this topic of tolerance of Muslims. Most people don’t accept Islam as an integral part of Europe, despite the religion having centuries of history in this continent. They just say that Muslims are welcome to Europe but not Islam, which a ludicrous statement. Any crime or act of terror committed by a white or person of European descent gets far less coverage in European press than a crime committed by person of color. There were thousands of attacks on refugees in the last few years, but that only got a passing mention in European press. Most native Europeans usually ignore such crimes if those are perpetrated by a white criminal. That helps perpetuate the myth of ‘Civilized European’ and the ‘Barbaric Other’ and this becomes an article of faith among the common masses.

Are Muslims More Violent and Aggressive?

This question, and the adjacent one about the supposed violent nature of Islam, has been raised again and again by Western media. In the last few decades Muslim world has been infiltrated by radical Islamist insurgencies of different kinds. The ensuing violence led many people around the world to become fearful of Islam and Muslims. Prevalence of Western mass media and a bias against Muslims ensured that every single atrocity carried out by Islamist terrorists got more coverage. The two most radical Islamic schools of thinking are the Wahabi-Salafi sect of Saudi Arabia and the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt. Both have different offshoots all over the world, including Europe. Many times, violent Islamists of different stripes were affiliated to one of these two doctrines. There has been cooperation between the members of these two groups, but also active competition and downright hostility towards each other to gain more influence among Muslims. As a result, violence in the name of Islam did increase. However, it had many non-theological and political reasons too, including constant Western intervention and war crimes in Middle East, mention of which is conspicuously absent from Western discourse. What common European narratives about Islamist exclude is the responsibility of Western powers in creating Islamism by their support of Mujahidin against the Soviets, invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, ongoing support of Jihadi elements in Syria and Iraq and support for the brutal Saudi regime.

There is ample evidence available that there are other regions of the world which are also wrecked by extreme violence and religious nationalism. Yet, Western media was fixated on Muslim world’s failed response to religious violence. Many detractors of Islam concocted ahistorical nonsense, just to portray Muslims in a perpetual murderous Jihad against non-Muslims. Many of these conspiracy theories are dying down now. There was an initial failure on the part of Muslim societies towards condemning and countering Islamism, but now there have been countermeasures against it, which has caused the decline of Islamist terror.

How Religious are the European Muslims?

There are different varieties of European Muslims out there with varying degrees of religiosity. Native Muslims of Balkan region are mostly a mix of moderately religious and secular Muslims. European converts to Islam tend to be more religious. There are Muslim groups, like Alevi and Alawite Muslims, who believers, yet they have a secular lifestyle and heterodox interpretations of Islam. There are people who are cultural Muslims and are atheistic, agnostic or irreligious and are not believers. Then there are new Muslim migrants who are well-educated and are religious, yet quite worldly- and open-minded. The most problematic group is the ultra-religious class of native and migrant Muslims. They profess Saudi, South Asian, Afghan and Muslim Brotherhood versions of religio-cultural forms of Islam. There was, till now, little to no assimilation policies from European states to integrate this conservative group. They were expected to assimilate in the wider society with time, but that never happened. It is this group which is prone to asocial behavior and wear religion on sleeves, leading to tensions with people around them. One way to integrate all of different kinds of Muslims is to secularize them via state indoctrination. Cultural Christianity, Atheism and Agnosticism are the unofficial religious doctrines of Europe and European societies want some conformity to it from its religious migrants. It is unlikely that all of Muslim will accept it, some might do. The other way is to create more contemporary forms of Islam.

Read the part 2 here.

Hassan Mirza

The writer is working as an applied scientist in Germany and specialises in Computer Simulations, Applied Artificial Intelligence, and Energy Modelling. In his free time he reads extensively in multiple languages (Urdu, English and German) and is interested in writing about scientific and socio-economic issues.