American Foreign Policy Interests, 32: 297312, 2010 Copyright # 2010 NCAFP ISSN: 1080-3920 print=1533-2128 online DOI:

10.1080/10803920.2010.517124

Europes Muslims: A Foreign Policy Issue

Bernard E. Brown Abstract
Some 15 to 20 million Muslims now reside permanently in Western Europe, which has led some observers to speak of a veritable revolution. In this article it is suggested that mutation might be a better term than revolution; the possibility that Muslims will dominate all of Western Europe (creating Eurabia) is remote; discrimination against Muslims undoubtedly exists, but other factors contribute to the difficulty of integrationincluding construction of a separate identity that reinforces an ethnic fracture within European society. The cultural and political links between Muslims in the West and their coreligionists elsewhere raise issues that are high on the agenda of global diplomacy. whom were single males performing manual labor and considered temporary residents. In the space of three decades, beginning in the 1980s, the Swiss suddenly found a large Muslim community in their midst, coming seemingly out of nowhere. There are now more than 400,000 Muslims residing permanently in Switzerland, about 5.3 percent of the population of 7.5 million. In American terms that would be the equivalent of almost 18 million people, roughly the population of New York State. These newcomers are not spread out evenly but rather tend to concentrate in certain localities where they constitute local majorities and parallel societies. Many Swiss were bewildered by this sudden influx of people with different lifestyles, languages, and above all a religion that historically had been considered with suspicion. There were some important differences between the Muslims who settled in Switzerland as compared to France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. A majority of Swiss Muslims are from the Balkans (56%) or from Turkey (21%), although their imams are mainly from North Africa and the Middle East. Many of these clerics voice loud objections to Western culture, social mores, politics, and even religions (or lack thereof). It has been estimated that only 14 percent of Swiss Muslims are observant, but that can be misleading. As elsewhere in Europe, they can be very conscious of their distinctive cultural heritage and identity. One drawback of this massive new immigration is a huge increase in the cost of welfare, health, educational, and criminal justice systems. Switzerland also hosts a center of Islamic studiesthe Centre

any Americans wondered in December 2009 whether the Swiss had gone mad. So admired as practitioners of direct democracy and a model of a prosperous, well-ordered society, why were they on the warpath to prevent Muslims from building minaretswhen there are only four minarets in the whole country, none of which uses loudspeakers to call the faithful to prayer? This episode is as good an example as any to begin an exploration of problems of immigration and integration of Muslims in Europe. First, some background. As recently as the 1970s there were only a handful of Muslims (perhaps 16,000) in all of Switzerland, whereas France, Germany, and the United Kingdom were already hosting large numbers, many of

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` vethat is a beacon of Islamic Islamique de Gene culture for all of Europe, particularly for neighboring France. Its director is the very observant Hani Ramadan, brother of the flamboyant Tariq Ramadan. The grandfather of the Ramadan brothers was a founder of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood; his principles have never been repudiated by the grandsons. Tariq Ramadan is a highly active writer and speaker and an accomplished debater. The stage was set for a confrontation when a Muslim congregation in a suburb of Berne applied for a permit to build a minaret. Leaders of two important political parties then decided to prevent what they termed the rampant Islamization of Swiss society by making use of a quintessentially Swiss political procedure a popular initiative in this caseto amend the constitution. The leading spokesman for the initiative was Oskar Freysinger, a former e, professor of German literature in a Swiss lyce and a picturesque character who looks and sounds like a radical leftist of the 1960s. The initiative proposed to amend an article of the Swiss constitution regulating relations between the state and religion by prohibiting the construction of minarets, purportedly as a measure that would help to keep the peace between members of diverse religious communities. The initiative quickly registered the 100,000 signatures needed to put it on the ballot. The campaign caught public attention. Freysinger and none other than Tariq Ramadan engaged in a series of eight monthly debates on Swiss television (in which a few other people participated on a rotating basis) that gripped the public. Ramadan claimed all of the rights of a native-born Swiss citizen (which he is) to practice freedom of religion and argued that Muslims were victims of discrimination. He contended that the initiative was a diversion from the real problems of unemployment, poverty, and exploitation, without bothering to provide details about policies that would resolve these problems apart from the noble principle enshrined in Islamic law of sharing. Freysinger

insisted on the incompatibility between Swiss democracy (in which the people make law) and Islam (in which the law, or shariah, is handed down from religious authorities). He accused Muslims of taking advantage of Swiss freedoms to bring about the end of freedom. The initiative carried by an impressive popular majority of more than 57 percent and won approval in 22 of the 26 Swiss cantons. The double majority met the standard required for amending the Swiss constitution.1 This episode is useful in testing some generalizations about immigration and integration of Muslims in Europe. (1) Bosnians and Turks do not have brown or black skins. Discrimination against them, insofar as it exists, cannot be simply a matter of racism. (2) Switzerland has never been an imperialist state. It may have invested abroad, but it did not have an empire. There were no historic antagonisms between the Swiss and either Bosnians or Turks deriving from direct rule by imperialists (disdainful, arrogant) over colonized (exploited, humiliated, resentful). (3) If skin color is irrelevant, it is legitimate to ask whether Islam has something to do with frictiongoing beyond anything in the history of immigrationbetween the Swiss and newcomers. (4) Hostility of natives to newcomers is not (or not any longer) confined to small xenophobic groups on the extreme right. If 57 percent of Swiss voters are uneasy over the immigration of Muslims, we are no longer dealing with a small band of fanatics on the right. That feeling of unease now extends to the mainstream parties in the center, including some on the left. What are the concerns of those in the center who reject xenophobia but supported the measure to ban construction of minarets? An editorial writer for Le Figaro, Paul-Henri du Limbert, expressing a widespread French view, pointed out that the loudest voices raised on behalf of Islam speak in menacing and at times warlike tones. It is not merely President Ahmadinejad of Iran, he continued, but imams throughout the Middle East and Europe who

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vilify and threaten the West. He sees a vote against minarets as a way of saying NO to that kind of Islam. Behind the minaret, behind the mosque, he commented, European public opinion now senses intolerance and is reacting against it. Rightly or wrongly, it believes that Islam is a religion with an imperialist design, which slowly but surely seeks to impose its law. And, he added, in his opinion communalism is winning. French President Nicolas Sarkozy struck a similar note. The Swiss vote in favor of the constitutional amendment had nothing to do, he said, with freedom of religion. The peoples of Europe, he continued, are welcoming and tolerant. But they do not want their way of life, their mode of thought and of social relations to be perverted. He called on French Muslims to live their faith as do all of their compatriots but to remember that Christian civilization and Republican values are part of French national identity. Anything that appears to be an act of defiance launched against this heritage and these values will lead to the failure to create an Islam of France (that is, compatible with the Republic). Hence Muslims should avoid provocative or ostentatious acts.2 Are the concerns of Limbert and Sarkozy justified? How does the influx of Muslims compare with previous waves of immigration? Christopher Caldwell, a senior editor of the conservative Weekly Standard, argues that the changes being brought about in Europe by Muslim immigrants are so sweeping as to constitute a veritable revolution. Is there any sense in which this is the case? Caldwells recent book, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe, has the great merit of raising provocative questions concerning immigration and Islam in Europe and by extension in the entire West, including the United States. Answering these and a few additional questions may help introduce Americans to the complex debate now taking place in Europe concerning issues that will be high on the agenda of global diplomacy in the twenty-first century.3

Dimensions of the Problem

No one knows for sure how many Muslims live permanently in Europe because most countries prohibit questions about religious affiliation to be asked during a census. Estimates for France vary from four to six million (mainly from North and sub-Saharan Africa), depending usually on the political predilections of the demographer, or between 8 and 10 percent of the population. There are probably four million (mainly Turks) in Germany and another two million (most from Pakistan and India) in the United Kingdom. The total Islamic population now residing in the European Union (plus Switzerland and Norway) is probably in the vicinity of 15 to 20 million. That would be 3 to 5 percent of the total population of some 450 million. Three aspects of this immigration are striking. (1) It happened with remarkable suddenness. Until about 1960, there were hardly any Muslims working and living in Western Europe. It should occasion no surprise that Europeans are confused about the phenomenon and how to deal with it. Should they rejoice in this newfound cultural diversity, rush to ethnic restaurants, and welcome the newcomers? Or should they discourage this immigration and keep out in particular the illegals who arrive without employment prospects and go directly on the welfare rolls? Or adopt some policies in between? (2) The initial immigration consisted mainly of single males who came or were invited to take jobs that Europeans themselves no longer wantedparticularly as unskilled workers performing repetitive tasks in mass production industries and coal mines or service functions like garbage collection. But the mass production industries soon thereafter were transformed through technological innovations (like robots) and the revolution in electronic communications. Unskilled workers were no longer required. Instead of going home, however, the immigrants stayed on, indeed sending for their families to join them.

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It turned out that they were not passive interchangeable objects but had minds and wills of their own. They preferred European welfare states to certain poverty in their homelands. European taxpayers began to complain about the expenses incurred in maintaining their universal health and welfare systems, as well as added costs for education and police. (3) Islam was perceived as a threat by many Europeans. There is a long history of conflict between Christians and Muslims going back some 1,300 years. Islam faded as a menace during the period of European expansion and imperialism, but it remained a distant and alien force in the European psyche. Shortly after the publication of Caldwells book in 2009, the Hudson Institute hosted a panel discussion devoted to it, with the participation of the author himself, several members of the Hudson Institute, and Justin Va sse, an outside critic. Va sse is coauthor of a book on the integration of Muslims in France that might win a prize for relentless optimism in social science if such a prize existed.4 Among his major accusations was that the author was contributing to the scare literature on Eurabia (implying an impending Arab conquest of all of Europe). Va sse scoffed at the notion that 20 million (or even in the future 30 million) Muslims could conquer a Europe of more than 450 million people. Caldwell was at first taken aback by the ferocity of the attack. He denied claiming that Europe was in danger of being conquered by Islam. Yet he had cited with apparent approval a celebrated comment by Bernard Lewis, one of the Western worlds leading authorities on Islam. When asked in 2004 by a journalist whether the European Union would be a superpower by the end of this century, the Princeton historian replied: Europe will be a part of the Arabic west, of the Maghreb.5 In a later comment, not cited by Caldwell, Lewis explained that an Arab conquest of Europe was not impossible. Muslim immigrants in Europe, he said, had some clear advantages over the

European natives in host societies. They have fervor and conviction, which in most Western countries are either weak or lacking. They also have demography on their side, which could lead to majorities in some cities or even countries.6 Lewis is hardly a wild-eyed firebrand; but one may suspect that he is exaggerating in order to help galvanize European public opinion to prevent Islamic domination from happening. It should be noted that many Islamist spokesmen do in fact proclaim that Islam will conquer Europe, notably the irrepressible Mommar Gaddafi. In several fiery harangues, the Libyan leader laid out a scenario for just such a development. We have 50 million Muslims in Europe. There are signs that Allah will grant victory to Islam in Europe, without a sword, without a rifle, without conquest. The 50 million Muslims will have transformed it into a Muslim continent within a few decades. And he warns that Europe and the United States should agree to become Islamic or else declare war on the Muslims.7 Let us take Caldwell at his word: He is not predicting an Islamic conquest of Europe. Fifteen to twenty million Muslims are hardly enough to overthrow the established order of 450 million Europeans and institute Islamic rule even if all Muslims wished to do sowhich is certainly not the case. Is Caldwell justified in calling massive immigration of Muslims a revolution? This term conjures up images of the events in France in 1789 and Russia in 1917, social upheavals that resulted in new political and cultural systems. We are not there, at least not yet. One of my French colleagues suggested instead the term mutation, which seems to me more appropriate. It designates fundamental changes that occur suddenly but fall short of revolutionary transformation. The constitutional democracies of the Western world are firmly in place but are under enormous new social, cultural, and political strains well described by Caldwell. Whole slabs of European territory in both urban centers and suburbs for many native residents now

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resemble the third world. Also, it is difficult to subject Islam to the same rigorous examination that has long been accepted for other religions without running the risk of physical violence, even assassination. Two notorious examples are the murder of the Dutch cineaste Theo van Gogh by an Islamist in 2004 because he made a film critical of the treatment of women in the Koran; and worldwide violent protests when a Danish newspaper editor in 2006 solicited and published unflattering cartoons of Mohammad by a dozen different artists. It was his way of calling attention to unprecedented kowtowing in dealing with Islam. The issue came up when the author of a childrens book on the prophet could not find an artist willing to illustrate the text (which happened to be sympathetic to the subject), because images of Mohammad are prohibited by the Koran. One artist had to receive police protection and recently escaped assassination by an Islamist only by fleeing to the specially constructed safe room in his house. Antidiscrimination suits, moreover, have been brought throughout Europe against authors who criticize any aspect of Islam, like the eminent French historian who argued that Arabs were not the only people who helped maintain the legacy of ancient Greek philosophy in the Middle Ages. The problematic is not Eurabia or revolution but rather the emergence of an adversarial culture among Muslims who live increasingly in separate communities, leading to a weakening of traditional European values.

Discrimination as the Root Cause of Muslim Anger

It is undeniable that Muslims encounter discrimination throughout Europe in seeking employment and suitable housing and in their contacts with teachers, police, and other agents of the state. To focus on the case of France, many if not most social scientists contend that

the underlying cause of Muslim anger and alienation is the social discrimination and humiliation to which they are subjected. They explain the violence that exploded in the riots of 2005 and which continues to erupt as an understandable and inevitable reaction to the violence inflicted on them. To these observers, the new immigrants are on the outside because of discrimination; and they really want to be on the inside. Do young Muslims burn schools? It is because they resent being considered inferiors who are first disdained and then tracked for menial jobs. Do they burn buses and disrupt public transport? It is a protest against a transportation system that keeps them bottled up in ghettoes. Do they steal and set fire to automobiles? It is to express their disgust with the materialistic values of their oppressors. Should we conclude that the more such immigrants riot, burn, and destroy, the more they are expressing their desire to be accepted and to integrate the host society? Should we agree with the numerous French scholars who see violence as an expression of a desire for integration, that the greater the violence the greater is the evidence of a frustrated desire to be part of the society? The problem with such a view is that it cannot be disproved. Karl Popper observed that a theory (or conjecture) that cannot be disproved is not a scientific theory. We are rather in the realm of ideology or faith, and in this case a fighting faith. In his debate with Caldwell, mentioned earlier, Justin Va sse related a heartwarming tale about one of his brilliant female Muslim students at Sciences Po. This young lady later joined the staff of a minister and went on to a successful career in the French civil service. Hence there is no reason why young Muslims could not be integrated into French society provided they were given opportunities to succeed. I am not worried, he assured the audience. But many Europeans are not so easily reassured. They worry. Warning flags are flying that Muslim immigrants are not integrating as rapidly and

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completely as did previous waves of immigrants who also were initially subjected to discrimination. Is poverty, the presumed cause of violent protest, caused by discrimination? Or is it the other way around? And what is the role of culture as a set of intervening factors? Poverty results when people do not participate actively and creatively in an economy. Why do some people have greater (or lesser) success than others in preparing themselves for gainful employment and social advancement? The quality of a persons education is crucial. Children who are eager to learn, respect teachers, and discipline themselves by foregoing immediate gratification in order to meet the challenge of school are more likely to go on to advanced studies and qualify for high-paying jobs in a modern economy. Children who are uninterested in school, have no respect for teachers, and refuse classroom discipline are likely to qualify only for manual labor or drift into apathy or criminal activity. What role does Islam as both religion and way of life play in this interaction among family structures, schools, state authority, and gainful employment? These are critical questions that call for exploration and debate. To assert flatly that discrimination is the only cause of friction and violence makes it impossible even to consider other factors and effectively shuts off inquiry and debate.

Islam as a Factor Contributing to Separatism

Islam, like Christianity, is a complex theology created in a distant past, with layers added later by self-proclaimed disciples and agents; it contains multitudinous ambiguities. Its well over one billion people are spread out mainly over North Africa, the Greater Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia.

Islams practitioners are of an astounding diversity of ethnic groups governed under a variety of political systems. Central concepts of Islam can be interpreted in different if not contradictory ways. Jihad, for example, can be seen either as a striving of individuals after moral perfection or a call to conquer and subjugate nonbelievers. Any type of political system, economy, or political movement can be interpreted in a way as to be compatible with Islam. In principle, Islam could be and has been invoked to justify authoritarian and constitutional government, theocracy and individual liberty, democracy, and dictatorship. John Bowen proclaimed in the very title of his recent book that Islam Can Be French. But many others have argued with equal conviction and passion that Islam can also be anti-French.8 Was Islam a factor in the riots that swept France in 2005? Consider the disturbance in Clichy-sous-Bois, a Paris suburb (population 28,000), that set off the conflagration. Three youngsters fled when police investigated a report of a break-in at a construction site, taking refuge in a fenced-off space housing an electricity transformer. Two were electrocuted and one badly burned. Immediately protesters clashed with police. French TV viewers saw several hundred young rioters face off against a line of French police and gendarmes in front of high-rise buildings inhabited mainly by immigrants. A rallying cry started among the demonstrators and then was taken up as a chant by the hundreds of people watching the scene from their windows and balconies: Allahu Akbar (God Is Great)! How could anyone deny that Islam was an important factor in motivating and uniting the rioters and the Muslim community? Yet, in seeming defiance of common sense, most seasoned French analysts concluded that Islam had nothing or very little to do with the rioting. Olivier Roy, one of the leading authorities on immigration and integration in France, is categorical. The rioters were irreligious, totally uninterested in theology; they were

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concerned above all with discrimination and police brutality. In addition, gang leaders wanted to protect their territory. His position seemingly was validated by an unimpeachable ne raux (RG; source: the Renseignements Ge Intelligence Service) of the French Ministry of the Interior. In a report that effectively closed debate, the RG declared that France had just experienced a form of nonorganized insurrection. It was characterized as a popular revolt of the disadvantaged neighborhoods without leaders, or gang chiefs, or radical Islamists, and without a program. Olivier Roy has recently commented that radical Islamism is now a marginal phenomenon embraced only by a few born-agains and converts, a personal choice completely detached from culture and politics.9 End of story? Hardly. In light of the analysis , one of the most perceptive by Sebastien Roche observers of the 2005 riots, the RG report should not be taken at face value. According to him, a political struggle was raging within the Ministry of the Interior involving the minister himself (none other than Nicolas Sarkozy), political rivals (within his own governing party as well as the opposition Socialists), professional police (including the RG) and their unions. Sarkozy had antagonized many people, particularly in reversing the policy of embedding police in neighborhoods to perform essentially the function of social workers. It cannot be ruled out that the RG report was an attempt to discredit Sarkozy and his tough policies. Especially questionable is the RG characterization of the riots as a popular revolt. The hard-core delinquents and gang leaders in the front ranks of the violent protesters were hardly of the people. Sarkozy was probably correct in positing that there was an organization at work in deploying the protestors who communicated by cell phone. It is true that some Islamic clerics tried in vain to calm down the protesters. But they were clerics who received support and subsidies from the French state and consequently were distrusted by the

community. Even the RG estimated that perhaps 90 percent of the rioters in 2005 were of either Arab or African origin and Muslims. Asian immigrants did not participate in the insurrection. And the haunting question remains, why did the cry of Allahu Akbar res suggests that Islam contributed onate? Roche to a kind of construction of identity that consolidated an ethnic fracture in French society; it helped create a context within which riots could take place and favored its rapid spread.10 calls attenThis balanced appraisal by Roche tion to the changing role of Islam corresponding to generational differences between the first immigrants to arrive in the 1960s and 1970s, their children, and their grandchildreneach with a distinctive type of social capital. The difficult integration of Muslims into French (and other Western) societies is presented as a drama in three acts or successive phases by some ` le analysts (notably, Lucienne Bui Trong, Miche 11 le ` ne Kaltenbach). Tribalat, and Jeanne-He

Act I
Many immigrants of the first wave (in the 1960s and 1970s) were recruited from rural areas in Algeria specifically for manual labor. They were mainly illiterate and=or did not speak French. They could not take advantage of all of the opportunities offered for their children, and many did not trust French institutions anyway. Frequently their own children looked down on them. Many youngsters defied all authority, especially that of teachers and police. They played games with the police, taunted them, became petty delinquents, and clashed with all those (including their parents) who attempted to enforce discipline. They particularly delighted in stealing and then burning cars (an average of 30 every night in all of France). From time to time the game turned deadly, and lives were lost. In most cases the police did not actually kill anyone; but in the course of police chases or even

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of simple deployment, there were deadly accidents or encounters. Many children of immigrants were in a condition termed by Emile Durkheim as anomiefamily, religious, and other traditional structures had lost their magic, and new structures (school, the state, and other Republican institutions) had not (or not yet) acquired legitimacy.

Act II
Demonstrations are organized to protest police brutality. Enter the big brothers, the leaders of gangs engaged in a lucrative drug trade and other criminal activities using the high-rise buildings in the suburbs as a base of operations. Chronic delinquents take the lead in fighting the major threat to their business estimates the operationsthe police. Roche drug trade in the suburbs at about one billion euros. Each stairwell in typical high rise buildings in some suburbs generates 3,000 euros from the drug trade alone every day. These profits sustain an immense underground economy, stretching from top dealers, who live flamboyantly, down to a small army of drug laboratory technicians, messengers, runners, lookouts, and hired thugs. For Julien Dray, many riots are in response to intervention in the affairs of local drug dealers by the police or even by inquisitive social workers. The dealers encourage the kids to go on a rampage, which makes their territory a sanctuary; the kids find their reward in looting. There are no-go zones, says Dray, where police are routinely insulted, mocked, and even attacked. He quotes one police chief in Seine-SaintDenis, who stammered: We are nothing; we are lost in all that; we no longer know what to do. Hostility toward the police carries over to firefighters who try to extinguish blazes and save lives. They are routinely vilified and ambusheddrawn into a trap where gangs can harass them, occasionally by throwing pro tanque balls or incendiary jectiles (like deadly pe devices) from rooftops. We no longer park

alongside those buildings, one firefighter explained, to avoid being hit on the head by a refrigerator. In 2008 no less than 899 firefighters were attacked while performing their duties. Bus drivers are especially exposed and vulnerable. One confided to Dray: The bus is their territory. They take over the bus as if it were an elevator cage. It is not a means of transportation but an occupation of the premises. Some get on board with unmuzzled pit bulls. They smoke, insult us, play with the stop button, force us to stop anywhere to pick up friends. We dare not say anything, or they say Shut up and drive. The kids threaten reprisals, saying they know where we live. Naturally, no one pays . . . . The anomie produced by the disappearance of old values and the failure of the new is replaced by the discipline and attraction of criminal gangs. In this stage, Islamic clerics play no direct role.12

Act III
After the clashes come arrests, trials, and protest marches, all of which are well organized. Militant groups that defend the rights of immigrants arrive on the scene with their leaders, activists, and lawyers. Also in evidence are radical Islamic clerics, who have considerable success in winning over previously irreligious young people. The phenomenon of reIslamization of the young is striking, especially in the areas where Muslims constitute a large majority. To the dismay of left-wing secular militants, for example, there is a movement among young girls to demand the right to wear the veilwhich protects them from harassment within the Muslim community even as many attend secular schools and seek advancement in the outside modern world. Another sign of re-Islamization is that perhaps 70 percent of Muslims in France now observe Ramadan by fasting, up from less than half that number just a decade ago. Islam at first is a factor in reinforcing the identity of a traditional rural society. This

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brand of Islam almost disappears among young people, particularly the delinquents. Finally, it reappears in a more militant form, even holding center stage in an increasingly antagonistic culture. The issue is not Islam as such, comments Nicola Sennels, a Danish psychologist who counseled Muslim prisoners. It is rather the consciousness on the part of Muslimseven those who have little or no knowledge of the Koran and do not attend religious services that they have a proud history and culture. This strong sense of identity has made possible the survival of Muslim communities throughout the world for more than a millennium. However, Sennels continues, it is also difficult for Muslims to accept and adjust to different and conflicting values and cultures in Western societies. He reports that all Muslims arrested during riots in Copenhagen (including those who could be called irreligious) claimed that their violence (setting fires, fighting with police, etc.) was justified. The official pressure in favor of integration and the reprinting of the Mohammed cartoons, they said, convinced them that Danes were racist and opposed to Islam and Muslim culture.13

The Battle for the Hearts and Minds of Muslims in the West
Christopher Caldwell has offered a rough classification of Muslim attitudes toward their host countries in the West that seems to me reasonable. About 10 percent are fully integrated; a roughly equal number (10 percent) consider themselves in an adversarial relationship to their host countries; and the rest are pulled back and forth between the two extremes. Those who are integrated may be happier to be citizens or permanent residents in the West than natives are and are more European than the Europeans or

more American than the Americans. They appreciate the freedom of democratic societies, take full advantage of the opportunities offered by schools and the marketplace, and tend to have high per capita incomes. The radicals or jihadists, on the other hand, consider their Islamic culture superior to that of the West. They subscribe to extreme versions of Islam (Wahabbi or Salafi) that provide them with a coherent and attractive worldview. Among the central ideas: Islam is the seal religionthe last to come, incorporating the essential values of Judaism and Christianity; it is thus superior; and Muslims have the duty to impose their superior religion and morality upon the unbelievers, or infidels. By carefully selecting examples from the 10 percent that are fully assimilated or secular, as well as among the 80 percent that waver, it is possible to prove that Islam is compatible with and may even strengthen Western institutions. But it would be foolhardy to ignore the importance of the 10 percent that are radicalized. How many of the radical sympathizers are hard-core jihadists, susceptible to becoming involved in terror networks? One must tread warily in the murky world of counterintelligence. By far the greatest number of jihadists, outnumbering those of all other European countries combined, according to the wellinformed observer Robert S. Leiken, are in the United Kingdom. Leiken quotes the director of Britains MI5 in 2007, who estimated that 2,000 people in the United Kingdom were known to be involved in terrorist related activity, with probably an equal number that they do not know of. He said also that MI5 was aware of 200 terrorist networks and 30 active plots. These 4,000 active terrorists are only, says Leiken, a small portion of the countrys Islamic radicals. The Party of Liberation in the United Kingdom, which is openly jihadist, has perhaps 10,000 members, mostly linked to similar groups in Pakistan. American intelligence officials apparently believe that the

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greatest threat to the United States comes from jihadist networks and sympathizers in the United Kingdom. In contrast, jihadists in France are estimated in less than thousands (which, however, could be as much as in the United Kingdom), in Holland at about several hundred, and in Spain perhaps 300. It is paradoxical that the United Kingdom and the Netherlands have been most welcoming to Muslim asylum seekers, some of whom turn out to be jihadists. Leiken points out that these able-bodied immigrants, under no obligation to seek citizenship, receive unemployment insurance, public assistance, health care and housing subsidies, affirmative action jobs, subsidies for a wide range of religious and social organizations, bilingual education, and free courses on their native culture.14 The French are very aware that they have been specifically targeted by jihadists. In September 2006 Al Qaeda created its fourth national branch in the Maghreb, covering Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. (The other national branches are in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Afghanistan.) The goal of the Al Qaeda branch in the Maghreb is to coordinate terrorist activities throughout North Africa and, as explained by Zawahir (bin Ladens second in command), to strike fear into the hearts of French traitors and miscreant offspring. It must also plant a bone in the throats of American and French crusaders. Some 138 reputedly dangerous Islamic radicals were arrested in France in the year 2006 alone.15 Of critical importance for Al Qaeda networks is the recruitment of Muslims resident in the West who can travel freely and better take advantage of loopholes in antiterrorist defenses. For a long time Americans believed that the relative prosperity of Muslim immigrants in the United States as compared to continental Europe would protect them against terrorist acts. The recent terror incidents involving Faisal Shahzad, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, Anwar Al-Awlaki, David Headley, Najibullah Zazi, among many others,

shattered this comforting belief. A number of in-depth studies reveal several characteristics of Western jihadists.They are not generally uneducated or victims of economic exploitation; they take Islam seriously, most frequently in its Wahabbi or Salafist form; and they identify with a global Islamic community for which they are ready to sacrifice themselves. Typical is the profile of the four young Muslims who, on July 7, 2005, blew up trains and a bus of the London transport system, killing 56 (including themselves) and injuring more than 700. Three were from a desolate suburb of Leeds called Beeston. The fourth bomber was born in Jamaica but grew up in the United Kingdom. The ringleader, Mohammad Sidique Kahn, was married with one child and was a social worker and youth mentor. A second Beeston bomber worked in his fathers fish and chips shop and had studied sports science at Leeds University. The third, age 18, was a student at a local college. The Beeston bombers were secondgeneration Pakistanis. Sidique (called Sid by his white schoolmates and friends) was born in Leeds. He turned away from his familys moderate version of Islam and was drawn instead to Wahabbi fundamentalism. He was no longer connected either to Britain or to a traditional way of life in Pakistan, but he was not drifting aimlessly between two worlds. As the Prospect investigative reporter Shiv Malik explains: The Wahabbis and Islamists win new members by contrasting their galvanizing message of world Islamic justice with the inactivity and irrationality of the first-generation traditionalists. In Khans video suicide note, he railed against the preaching of traditionalist imams and scholars who try to please the British authorities rather than Allah. They tell us ludicrous things, he declared, like you must obey the law of the landPraise Be God! How did we ever conquer lands in the past if we were to obey this law? According to an official report, the four bombers were filmed on the morning of their attack by a video

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camera at Kings Cross Station, hugging one another. They were ecstatic on their way to martyrdom through the murder of their fellow citizens. These terrorists were not anomic; they were thoroughly integrated into their communitywhich was that of global jihadism, not the traditional (moderate) religion of their parents, nor the modern rationalism of the country where they lived. Shiv Malik adds an interesting observation: The Beeston bombers were examples of what Emile Durkheim called altruistic suicide (due to excessive integration) as opposed to egoistic suicide (due to insufficient integration).16 The characteristics cited earlier keep popping up in the profiles of other Western jihadists. The Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, similarly evolved from a traditional Islam faith (bordering on secularism), of his family in Pakistan to Wahabbi-style worship after his arrival in America in 1999. He began attending mosques five times a day and even asked his American-born wife (from a Pakistani-American family) to wear a hijab. In e-mails to friends he expressed skepticism about the utility of peaceful protest. Can you tell me a way to save the oppressed? And a way to fight back when rockets are fired at us and Muslim blood flows? He was fully integrated and loyal to his community integrated into jihadist networks and loyal to the global community of Islam.17 No screening process for an American student visa or even for citizenship after he married an American citizen could have kept Shahzad out of the United States. Not every Muslim immigrant is or becomes a jihadist, of course. We can only assume that approximately 10 percent of Muslim immigrants in a Western nation normally will have or acquire jihadist sympathies, and perhaps several thousand in France, the United Kingdom, or the United States will become active members in Al Qaeda networks. But that is enoughtogether with links to and support from local sympathizers and a global population of well over a billionto create a lethal striking force.

Communal Versus National Identity

For Max Weber a key factor in creating nationsmore important than language, religion, or economic interestis sharing with others an heroic period of historical development.18 The heroic period of the Muslim peoples of North Africa was not shared with the French but rather in opposition to France and to Europe generally. Their heroes were Mohammad and his disciples. Their venerated military leaders were those who first conquered lands in the Middle East, extending their sway through the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and Andalusia, knocking on the doors of Europe at Poitiers and Vienna. After glory came humiliation, when the French and other Europeans in the nineteenth century conquered the former conquerors in all of North Africa, and many other Islamic lands as well. For Muslims a new heroic period began when they won the wars of liberation from European rulers after World War II. Conflicting historical memories are not the only causes of tensions. They are one strand in the complex fabric of social capital, which includes attitudes toward work, the state, politics, education, science, religion, family structures, and everything else that makes up a way of life. The ups and downs of communal strife in Europe are affected especially by shifting demographic trends. Since the early 1980s, immigration problems have become more intractable because of a tendencydocumented ` le Tribalat notably by the demographer Miche toward concentration of the immigrant population. The most striking development in France, according to Tribalat, is the increasing importance of the Ile-de-France in receiving foreign immigrants, going from 16 to 37 percent of the population from 1968 to 2005. Within this region the percentage of young people of foreign

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origin has risen dramatically, averaging 40 percent in Paris, Val-de-Marne, and Val dOise, and up to 57 percent in Seine-Saint-Denis. In some communes in Ile-de-France, as many as three-fourths of young people were of foreign origin in 2005; three of these communes are frequently in the news concerning riots or criminal activity (Clichy-Sous-Bois, Aubervilliers, and La Courneuve). In none of these communes was the proportion of young people of foreign origin greater than 20 percent in the 1960s. Another development is the increase of young people from sub-Saharan Africa, going from practically zero in 1960 to 3 percent in all of France. In Seine-Saint-Denis, one young person out of six is from sub-Saharan Africa. There has also been an extension of immigrants of foreign origin to Western France. In Maine-et-Loire only one young person out of one hundred was of foreign origin in 1968; by 2005 it had gone up to one in fourteen. The change is striking in Blois, where one-third of young people were of foreign origin (80 percent Muslim) in 2005, compared to 5 percent in the 1960s.19 Ethnic concentration is the rule elsewhere in Europe as well, observes Tribalat. In Amsterdam, 48 percent of the population was of foreign origin in 2005. In Germany, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, and Nuremberg average 38 percent. In Oslo, one-third of the population is of foreign origin; 46 percent for young people. In Brussels, 57 percent of new-born babies are Muslims; six of the seven most common first names are foreign. As Tribalat sees it, politicians continue to hope in vain for social mixing (which never really existed in the past) to dissolve the ghettoes. In truth, she suggests, segregation is caused by the rational calculations of individuals. The natives who gradually leave when foreign immigrants arrive are not replaced by other natives. A major reason is that schools in these areas tend to deteriorate. The chances of scholarly success for native students in schools that become difficult are reduced by as much as 50 percent. At the same time, immigrants tend to feel more comfortable

with one another. Segregation (or demographic substitution) is not necessarily the result of discrimination, says Tribalat, but, more often than we like to think, of preferences.20 How is the trend toward concentration of ethnic communities affecting the process of integration? Consider the appraisal of Andre rinformer mayor of a town in the Lyon Ge region, now a deputy and head of a parliamentary commission studying the regulation of the wearing of burkas in public. Asked by an interviewer whether he had discovered realities he had not been aware of, he replied: I discovered that the problem is even more serious than I thought. Among his concerns were the following: In some large companies religious or communal organizations call into question the intermingling of the sexes at work or the kind of clothing worn by women workers. In some schools, half of the young girls are excused from gymnastics or swimming classes, and kids disrupt their classes in history (especially coverage of French rule in North and sub-Saharan Africa, and the Holocaust) and the natural sciences (notably, Darwinian theory of evolution). The teachers are pleading with us to help them. In hospitals, male doctors are threatened individually by gurus who accompany veiled women patients and will permit only women doctors to rin also declared that it is attend them. Ge important to liberate women forced to hide their face by French Talibans. By this term he meant the husband, big brother, family, or even the neighborhood because a kind of sharia law reigns in certain areas. And the full veil, he added is only the visible part of this dark rin happens to be tide of fundamentalism. Ge a member of the Communist party; he cannot be dismissed as a typical right-wing fanatic.21 To take another example, one of the most visible imams in France, Hassen Chalghoumi at Drancy, advocates respect for the law of the Republic and reconciliation between Arabs and Jews. He denounces extremists like the Salafists and the wearing of a full veil. Alas, he constantly receives death threats and must

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be protected by personal bodyguards. Police cars are stationed outside his mosque, which is the scene of noisy protest demonstrations. This imam for peace is cherished by the government but vilified by militants in his own community.22 Much will depend on the way in which ongoing geopolitical conflicts turn out. If Iraq, Afghanistan, and border areas of Pakistan are pacified; if Somalia and Yemen are stabilized and reconstructed; if Iran is contained; if the Arab-Israeli conflict is ended and the status of Kashmir settled, then tension between the West and the Islamic world would be lessened. These are immense ifs. No one can predict when, how, or even whether these crises will be resolved. Nor can we rule out a doomsday scenario: Jihadists come to power in Iraq and Afghanistan (and perhaps Pakistan, to boot), Al Qaeda succeeds in using weapons of mass destruction in several Western cities simultaneously and demands surrender as the price of peace. Americans and Europeans would be confronted by the choice Japanese had in 1945. Assuming that geopolitical issues will somehow be managed and that a doomsday scenario will not unfold, the struggle within the Islamic community in the West will depend on social, economic, and cultural trends. Prospects vary from country to country. Christopher Caldwell argues that Western Europe faces a common immigration and Islam problem but that there are significant variations. Britain is the country, in his estimation, most in danger from violence and extremism; Sweden has the most intractable segregation; Spain is most at risk of being swamped; Germanys assimilation of Turks may succeed, but it will be a very slow process. It is his verdict on France that comes as a surprise. France can expect spectacular social problems, he says, but its Republican traditions give it the best chance of fully assimilating the children and grandchildren of immigrants. It is the only country where a European equivalent of the American dream is likely.23 Nowhere else in

his book does he express any optimism about satisfactory integration of French Muslims. It is true that the French government has made an immense effort in recent years to reconstruct the suburbs. Many high rise towers, dating from the 1960s, have been demolished and replaced by more modern structures in more agreeable settings. Yet the process of demographic substitution (of immigrants and their descendants for natives) continues apace as a matter of preference by both newcomers and natives. Many Muslims are able to live in their own communities almost as if they had never left their homelands. The irreligious gang leaders and radical clerics tend to be more dynamic than those who integrate fully into the host society. They are the ones who set the agenda. What is to be done? Some on the far right favor barring the entry of all Muslims into Western nations and for good measure expelling those already there. In that case Western societies would not have to cope with an Islamic fifth column. To do so for most Westerners is unthinkable, at least it has been up to now. It would violate the rights of people to live and worship as they please and contradict the values of tolerance, freedom, and rule of law that are at the foundation of democratic political systems. However, natives in Western societies also enjoy freedom to express themselves, criticize all and sundry, and defend their values from subversive attacks. They can make life uncomfortable for jihadists and their sympathizers and even for ordinary Muslims. In Denmark, for example, public opinion was shocked by the violent reaction of many Muslims to the publication of the Mohammed cartoons. Some Danish intellectuals began to argue that integration of Muslims had failed; that they had become an intolerable burden on taxpayers; and that Muslims should be helped financially to live their faith and develop their talents by removing to Islamic-majority countries. This policy was championed by the Danish Peoples party (DPP), founded in 1995 and now

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the third largest party in the country with 14 percent of the vote. The DPP supports a center-right government that adopted a voluntary repatriation policy in November 2009. Third world immigrants may now qualify for cash grants of about $15,000 to leave Denmark. They get 10 percent upon departure and the remainder when they surrender their Danish residency permits. During the British election campaign in May 2010 the Conservative party proposed a quota system for non-European immigrants because they increased the cost of public services. In the Dutch election campaign in June 2010, the Liberal Democrats suggested that poor immigrants be barred from entry and that immigrants no longer be accorded financial aid during their first 10 years of residence. President Sarkozy in July 2010, angered when rioters in Grenoble protested the police shooting of an armed bandit fleeing after holding up a casino, crossed a political Rubicon. He declared solemnly, weighing every word: We are suffering the consequences of fifty years of insufficiently regulated immigration that has led to a failure of integration. Never before has a popularly elected European chief executive stated flatly that integration has failed. He proposed that French nationality be withdrawn from any person of foreign origin who willfully tried to take the life of a police officer, gendarme, or any other figure of public authority. His minister of the interior added a few other categories for depriving people of their French nationality: illegal work, female excision, traffic in human beings, serious criminal acts, polygamy, and fraudulent applications for family allowances. Such proposals in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and France may not be adopted by coalition governments or parliaments or survive legal challenges but are signs of the times. It is thus possible that the flow of Muslims to the West in some countries will be reduced24 or reversed. In countries where large numbers of Muslims have settled, it is probably too late to eliminate the immigration of Muslims

altogether, deport those already legally inside the tent, or even offer financial incentives for repatriation. Efforts instead are being made to provide immigrants and their descendants more educational and economic opportunities and eliminate discriminationall of which is commendable. But integration on terms acceptable to majorities in host countries remains difficult to achieve. The irony is that some descendants of Muslim immigrants graduate from elite Western universities, have honors and rewards heaped upon them, and then gravitate toward jihadism. For them and many others, religion and culture trump formal citizenship or nationality.

About the Author

Bernard E. Brown is professor emeritus of political science at the CUNY Graduate School and director of the Transatlantic Relations Project of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy. He is the author, coauthor, or editor of more than a dozen books on comparative politics and political theory and numerous articles in professional journals. His most recent book is Tout ce que vous avez toujours lections ame ricaines voulu savoir sur les e (Paris, 2008).

Notes
1. Highlights of the debates on Swiss television can be viewed on YouTube. Click on Oskar Freysinger-Tariq Ramadan debates. phane Kovacs, Oskar Freysinger, See also: Ste le pourfendeur des minarets, Le Figaro, January 12, 2010. For background information: fe rendum sur les minarCyril Hofstein, Le re moi, ibid., November ets met la Suisse en e 27, 2009 ; and Les Suisses votent linterdiction des minarets, ibid., November 29, 2009. 2. Paul-Henri Limbert, Les lec ons des minarets, ibid., 3 December 2009. Sarkozys

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comments are reported in ibid., December 8, 2009. 3. Christopher Caldwell, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West (New York, 2009). 4. The two-hour symposium is available as a video on the Hudson Institute site. See past events; then September 2009 on the home page. See also Jonathan Laurence and Justin Va sse, Integrating Islam: Political and Religious Challenges in Contemporary France (Washington D.C., 2006). 5. In an interview in Die Welt, July 28, 2004, cited by Caldwell, op. cit., p. 14, without a hint of dissent. 6. Speech by Bernard Lewis at the American Enterprise Institute, April 22, 2007, available on its Web site. 7. See his recent speech, repeating earlier boasts, live on YouTube, June 12, 2009. 8. John R. Bowen, Islam Can Be French: Pluralism and Pragmatism in a Secularist State (Princeton, 2010). For similar views see Henri Rey, La Peur des banlieues (Presses de la fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1996); Le Bras, Immigration and Jack Lang and Herve Positive (Odile Jacob, 2006). Among those who point to incompatibility between Islam and the Republic: Bernard Godard and Sylvie Taussig, Les Musulmans en France (Robert Laffont, 2007); Ivan Rioufol, La Fracture identitaire Taguief, Les (Fayard, 2007); Pierre-Andre actionnaires Contre-Re (Denoe 2007), l, especially pp. 559593 on limmigrationnisme. Anne-Marie Delcambre, LIslam des interdits e de Brouer, 2003); and the classic work (Descle by Henri Pirenne, Mahomet et Charlemagne dition 1970; 2e e dition 2005). (PUF, 1er e 9. Cf. Olivier Roy, Get French or Die Trying, New York Times, November 9, 2005; tre Musulman en France, and comment in E Le Monde des Religions, SeptemberOctober 2009, no. 37, p. 49. For more extensive background see my God and Man in the French Riots, American Foreign Policy Interests, vol. 29 (2007), pp. 183199.

meute: , Le frisson de le 10. Sebastien Roche violence urbaines et banlieues (Seuil, 2006), pp. 6768. 11. Cf. Lucienne Bui-Trong, Les racines de meute au communautarisme la violence: de le ` le Tribalat, Dreux, voy(Audibert, 2003); Miche age au cur du malaise franc ais (Syros, le ` ne Kaltenbach and Miche ` le 1999); Jean-He publique et lIslam: entre Tribalat, La Re crainte et aveuglement (Gallimard, 2002); and le ` ne Kaltenbach, Lime ritie franc Jean-He aise, publi i, editors, La Re in R. Dra and J.-F. Matte que bru le-t-elle? (Michalon, 2006), especially pp. 116117 where she presents the interlocking phases in the evolution of riots as a drama in three acts. , Le 12. On the drug trade: Sebastien Roche frisson, op. cit., p. 186; Julien Dray, Etat de viol celia ence (Paris, 1999), pp. 151158; and Ce Gabizon, Comment Sevran est devenue une de la drogue, Le Figaro, December cite 1213, 2009. On the police and firefighters: Dray, op. cit., p. 171; and Christophe Cornevin, s, Les pompiers dans le chaudron des cite ibid., October 8, 2009. On the ordeal of bus drivers: Dray, op. cit., pp. 132136. Julien Dray was one of the founders of SOS Racisme. Elected a Socialist deputy in 1988, he spent six months living in a difficult neighborhood gole ` ne Royal of his district. Spokesman for Se in 2007, he subsequently had personal difficulties involving dubious financial transactions. For Emile Durkheims concept of anomie, see his De la division du travail social (Presses Universitaire de France, 8th editionoriginal edition 1893), 343365, 405406; and Le suicide, Etude de sociologie (Presses Universitaires de France, 1960original edition 1897), 264311. See also Anthony Giddens, editor, Emile Durkheim, Selected Writings (Cambridge, 1972), 173189. 13. See the interview of Nicola Sennels by Felix Struenng, in Europenews, March 31, 2009. Sennelss book, Among Criminals, A Psychoanalytic Experience, appeared in Denmark in 2008 and received much attention

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in Scandinavia. It will be translated and published shortly in the United States. 14. Cf. Robert S. Leiken, The Menace in Europes Midst, Current History (April 2009), pp. 186188. This article anticipates the authors forthcoming book, Europes Angry Muslims: The Revolt of the Second Generation (Oxford University Press, 2010). Caldwells classification of Muslim attitudes toward host societies in the West is in the previously cited remarks at the panel discussion of his book at the Hudson Institute on September 9, 2010, not in his book. 15. See Isabelle Lasserre, Lorganisation terroriste al-Qaida senracine au Maghreb et se rapproche de lEurope, Le Figaro, April 13, 2007. She cites among others the work of Jean Filieu, a political scientist who follows Al Qaeda ` res du djihad (Fayard, 2006). closely, Les frontie See also Jean-Marc Leclerc, La France se e par le regain dactivisme des sent menace djihadistes, in the same issue of Le Figaro. 16. Shiv Malik, My Brother the Bomber, Prospect, June 30, 2007, issue 135. 17. Andrea Elliott et al., Bombing Suspects Long Path to Times Square, New York Times, May 16, 2010. The appeal of jihadism for some children of moderate and even prosperous Muslim immigrants is noted by Richard Bernstein, Upper Crust Is Often Drawn to Terrorism, The New York Times, December 30, 2009 (on Nidal Hasan, Umar Abdulmutallab, operational leaders of the 9= 11 attack, et al.); and Fouad Ajami, Islams Nowhere Men, Wall Street Journal, May 10,

2010 (on Beeston bombers, Faisal Shahzad, Nidal Hasan, et al.). In-depth studies of individual Western jihadists include Ginger Thompson, A Terror Suspect with Feet in East and West, The New York Times, December 30, 2009 (on David Headley); and Scott Shane and Souad Mekhennet, From Condemning Terror to Preaching Jihad, Ibid., May 9, 2010 (on Anwar Al-Awlaki). 18. Webers reflections on nationalism were occasioned by his attempt to understand why Alsatians considered themselves French rather than Germans. See H. H. Gerth and C. W. Mills, editors, From Max Weber (New York, 1946), pp. 176177. ` le Tribalat, Les Yeux grands 19. Miche fermes: Limmigration en France (Denoe l, 2010), pp. 157159. This book, by one of Frances leading demographers, is indispensable. 20. Ibid., pp. 161163. On baby names in Brussels and references to sizable concentrations of Muslim immigrants throughout Europe, see Alain Besanc on, in a review of the Caldwell book, Commentaire, no. 128 (Winter 2009=2010), pp. 10691071. Ge rin in Le Figaro, 21. Interview of Andre January 20, 2010. 22. Cf. Ullrich Fichtner, Iman for Peace Sows Discontent, Der Spiegel, April 23, 2010. 23. Christopher Caldwell, op. cit., p. 301. 24. President Sarkozys speech at Grenoble on July 30, 2010, is available on video and in e, Pre sidence transcript on the Web site Elyse publique. de la Re

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