**Majority** *versus* **Minority: 'Governmentality' and Muslims in Sweden**

#### **Anne Sofie Roald**

**Abstract:** This article deals with the Muslim community in Sweden in view of the majority–minority dynamics with focus on how values, attitudes, behaviors, and practices of the Swedish majority influence Muslim minority communities and how majority society's approach to Muslims and Islam influences both the relationship Muslims have with non-Muslims and the understandings that Muslims have of Islam.

Reprinted from *Religions*. Cite as: Roald, A.S. "Majority *versus* Minority: 'Governmentality' and Muslims in Sweden." *Religions* 4 (2013): 116–131.

#### **1. Introduction**

The 'clash of civilizations' thesis was much debated in the 1990s. Promoters of the thesis regarded the 9/11 attacks as a confirmation of its truth. Whether intended by Huntington or not, the thesis came, particularly after the 9/11 attacks, to be a depiction of the struggle between 'the Islamic' world and 'the Western secularized' world. It is thus pertinent to ask whether this Al-Qaida attack on US economic and political symbols of power was really a clash between these two 'civilizations'? It seems more plausible to analyze this violent event in view of other factors. First, there is the globalization of the media which boomed in the 1990s, particularly with the spread of satellite television. Until 1996, the Arab world had strict national censorship for the distribution of news. With the launching of the satellite Arab-medium TV-channel Al-Jazeera, most Arab-speaking families got access to news from all over the world as well as to critical political analyses of their own political leadership and of the relation between 'the West' and 'the Rest'. It seems thus that political rather than civilizational factors better explain 9/11 and its aftermath.

A second political factor in the conflict between 'Muslim regions' and the 'secularized West', at least until the Arab uprising of 2011, was the US and European support for dictators in the Arab world, including Hosni Mubarak, Saddam Hussein, Ben Ali, and Muammar Gaddafi. This support of the Arab elite left the political opposition in a state of powerlessness, creating a notion of Muslims as a global powerless minority *versus* the 'West' as a global powerful majority.

A third important factor, cultural rather than political, was and is the globalization of the 'Western' entertainment culture. As it is the 'low culture' rather than the European classical culture which is spread all over the world, the Muslim consumers in particular have the impression of a 'Western' degenerating culture with sex and violence as the main ingredients. With the growth of satellite television and the Internet in Muslim regions, the entertainment industry has taken a hold of Muslim youth. Islamist resistance to 'Western cultural imperialism' is incorporated into a general political resistance against a global powerful majority, 'the West'.

The 'clash of civilizations' thesis in terms of the 'Islamic' *versus* the 'Western secularized' world seems to be less a clash between two big civilizations and more a conflict between groups identifying themselves with one or the other of these two 'civilizations' who tend to fight against 'the others' either orally or by physical violence. This global conflict has saturated the public debate in many receiving countries, and Muslims have to a great extent become 'the immigrants'. To link the global struggle to the relationship between majority societies in the West and the Muslim immigrant minorities, it is important to regard the situation in each country with Muslim immigrants within a pattern of a dynamic interaction between majority and minorities.

#### **2. Case-Study: Sweden**

As shown above, it is important to look at various aspects of the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims in order to understand its complex dynamics. Within nation states in today's receiving countries it is important to analyze religion (or anti-religion), ethnicity, majority *versus* minority aspects, *etc*, in order to estimate the relevance of Huntington's conflict theory in each nation state. This study will focus on one aspect of this complex issue, namely the majority-minority dynamics. How do the values, attitudes, behaviors, and practices of the majority influence minority communities in a given country? This article takes Sweden as a case study in order to examine how the majority society's approach to Muslims and Islam influences both the relationship Muslims have with non-Muslims and the understandings that Muslims have of Islam. The main presupposition of this study is that the dynamics between the majority non-Muslim population and Muslim minorities shape behaviors, attitudes, and social and religious developments within Muslim communities.<sup>1</sup>

Although Sweden is the main case study, it is necessary to make some comparisons between the Swedish situation and the other Scandinavian countries, Norway and Denmark, in order to anticipate the consequences of the particular majority-minority dynamics in Sweden. Politically speaking, the three Scandinavian countries share both common political characteristics and similar public welfare service systems. But as the discussion below will indicate, these similarities do not necessarily mean that the three countries share the same political climate and value system.

Two different topics will be discussed in order to look at how the relationship between the majority non-Muslim population and Muslim minority communities influences the latter's behavior: (1) the coverage of immigrants in the media; (2) the Swedish populist party, the Sweden Democrats, and its political role. There will also be a discussion of Islamic developments in Sweden in view of the Muslim minorities' intentional and unintentional responses to majority discourses.

The empirical material in this study is mainly based on extensive fieldworks with interviews and observations in Muslim communities mainly in Sweden, but also in Norway and in Denmark, from the 1990s onwards [1–4].

<sup>1</sup> The majority-minority dynamics influence even developments in the majority population. However, this perspective is outside the scope of the present study.

#### **3. Sweden as a Receiving Country**

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Sweden was mainly a sending country [5]. From the 1930s onwards, however, Sweden became a receiving country, with the Turkish-speaking Tartars from Finland and Estonia settling in Sweden as the first Muslim community. The Tartars established the first Islamic congregation in 1948 ([6], p. 14). Despite the increased immigration beginning in the 1940s, including the first wave of guest workers from Southern Europe, Turkey, Morocco, and Pakistan, the Swedish authorities did not have a particular immigration policy [7]. It was not until the government restricted the immigration in the mid-1970s that a particular attitude towards immigrants was launched, characterized by the words 'equality' (jämställdhet), 'freedom of choice' (valfrihet), and 'partnership' (samverkan) [8]. These buzzwords must be understood within the framework of the Human Rights declaration and of the 1966 International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (ICCPP), ratified by Sweden in 1971. The latter states every people have the right to 'self-determination' by freely determining "their political status" and freely pursuing "their economic, social and cultural development" (Article 1). Although these rights are mainly linked to territorial majorities, Article 27 introduces the rights of minorities "to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion, or to use their own language", thus indicating minority rights even in political and social development. This Swedish approach to immigrants in 1974 can be regarded as a forerunner to the concept of 'multiculturalism' ('mångkulturalism') and the 'multicultural society' (Det mångkulturella samhället), introduced in Sweden in the early 1990s ([3], p. 43).

The number of Muslims living in Sweden today is difficult to determine, primarily because religious affiliation is not measured in the census. A general estimation is that in 2010 there were around 400,000 Muslims in Sweden, constituting approximately 4.5 per cent of the total population [9]. A SST (The Swedish Commission for Government Support to Faith Communities) statistic from 2011 gives the number of 110,000 Muslims registered in Muslim congregations [10].<sup>2</sup>

#### **4. 'Swedish Values'**

In Swedish public discourse, lofty ideals of democracy, individual rights, tolerance, and equal opportunities across racial, sexual, religious, gender, and age borders, are frequently promoted. In order to offer a brief overview of Swedish society, two prominent social traits, individualization and equal opportunities, will be discussed. Moreover, the notion of 'homogeneity', an underlying and implicit trait in both official policy and public space, will be examined.

#### *4.1. Individualization*

The Swedish individualistic approach is likely the result of the historically strong bond between the monarchy and the peasants, a bond shaped by the general absence of feudalism in Sweden [11].

<sup>2</sup> Even this number is not reliable as some individuals might be members of more than one organization. Moreover, this number includes only those congregations registered with a Muslim National Organization. It is important to note that for instance the big mosque in Malmö, The Islamic Centre, is independent and its members are not included in the SST Statistic.

The Social Democratic policy of the People's Home (*Folkhemmet*) [12], which first arose in the interwar period, might be a product of this historical trait, but whatever the case, this social model reinforced the individual trait on behalf of family bonds. Berggren and Trägårdh claim that, viewed globally, Sweden is the country where the individualization process has developed the most [13]. They argue that resources in Sweden are oriented towards the individual citizen rather than the family or organizations. Swedish society, they maintain, is based on "a social contract offering the individuals maximal liberation with minimal moral consequences" ([13], p. 74). This individualism is in contrast to the collectivistic social pattern common in many of the homelands of Sweden's Muslim immigrants, where the family, rather than the individual, tends to be the social core.

#### *4.2. Homogeneity*

An important aspect in the relation between Scandinavian majority society and Muslim communities is the general concept of 'equality', also one of the buzzwords in the Swedish approach to immigration in the 1970s. The concept is linked to a perception that, prior to the waves of immigration arising in the mid-twentieth century, Sweden was a strictly homogeneous society. There is a claim for conformity (this goes also for the two other Scandinavian countries) in which differences in views and appearances are regarded as problematic, and the tendency is to homogenize the Swedish majority as well as minorities through "the discursive praxis of equality" ([1]; [14], p. 186). The claim for homogeneity has to be regarded as one of the reasons of the segregated urban spaces. In immigrant-dense areas, schools have few and in some cases no 'ethnic' Swedish pupils, and meeting places between the majority and Muslim minorities are few. It is mainly through the media that various groups obtain information about each other. Due to the way that media reports often focus on that which is different and problematic as opposed to what is familiar and recognizable, the 'we' *vs*. 'them' narrative becomes reinforced in the Swedish majority as well as in Muslim minority communities.

According to Sander, Sweden has been built on the notion of "one nation, one people, one religion" ([15], p. 272). He links the segregation of Muslims in Sweden to this idea of "a common culture and religion, including common manners, norms and value system, as well as a common way of thinking in general" ([15], p. 273). One important trait in this homogenization of culture is discussed by Ehn and Löfgren. In their discussion of how elites maintain cultural hegemony, they refer to the opposing strategies of either antagonizing subcultures or incorporating cultural expressions of various sub-cultures in society [16]. In Sweden, it seems probable that the authorities, in a homogenizing manner, have largely chosen the strategy of incorporating subcultures. One example is feminism. The American scholar Joyce Gelb claims Sweden to be a country of "feminism without feminists" thus indicating an incorporation of sub-cultures into governmental policy [17]. Gelb sees this phenomenon as a problem-solving strategy in order to avoid significant conflict between the state and civil society in general, and she concludes that due to this strategy, feminist theory has not had a real impact in Sweden. It is interesting to look at her

statement in view of how male Social Democratic leaders have proclaimed that they are feminists,<sup>3</sup> even though they have failed to fight strongly for issues such as equal salary for equal jobs, a crucial claim within feminism. A similar trend can be seen on environmental issues, where more or less all political parties have incorporated parts of the environmental program of the Environmental Party (Miljöpartiet) [19]. Following Gelb, Ehn, and Löfgren, Swedish patterns of conflict resolution have incorporated parts of conflicting ideologies rather than the whole.

This claim for homogeneity might be one reason—despite the Swedish individualistic approach—that the pattern for incorporation of new groups in society is built on a corporatist membership model [20]. <sup>4</sup> Soysal describes this model as that corporate groups, "defined by occupational, ethnic, religious, or gender identity—are emphasized as the source of action and authority" ([20], p. 37). Thus the collective identities of immigrants are stressed and through such multicultural policy the community becomes the locus for agency.

#### *4.3. Equal Opportunities*

The value of equal opportunities, particularly equal gender opportunities, has a strong hold on Swedish society.<sup>5</sup> The equal gender legislation of the late 1970s was to a great extent linked to immigration. Instead of importing foreign labor, women in general should take a more prominent role in society [23]. Already in 1971, the tax legislation had changed from joint taxation to separate taxation for married couples. This new legislation created a need for many families to have more than one salary. From a feminist perspective, this new legislation empowered women, enabling them to enter the labor market and to leave the domestic sphere where they had been subordinated to and economically dependent on their husbands.

#### **5. 'Governmentality'**

Up to the end of the 20th century, the claim for homogeneity in Sweden has been handled both through a united school system and through a united public space. The state's monopoly on

<sup>3</sup> The Social Democratic Prime Minister at that time, Göran Persson, proclaimed that he was a feminist in January 2002, and the present Social Democratic opposition leader , Stefan Löfven stated that "I am a convinced feminist" in his inauguration speech in January 2012 [18].

<sup>4</sup> This corporatist model has to be regarded in view of the historical growth of 'interest groups' (intresseorganisationer) in Scandinavian countries.

<sup>5</sup> It is important to note that at least up until 2002 women have been most actively involved at the lower levels of society. The Grant Thornton Report from 2002 indicates that Norway, Denmark, and Sweden have a quite low percentage of women in management or on boards of directors. Ireland topped the list with at least one woman on 72% of its boards of directors. Norway had only 52%; Sweden, 51%; and Denmark, 47%. The low scores of the Scandinavian countries are regarded as the result of the family pattern in Scandinavia, with frequent divorces, working grandparents, and few families with domestic helpers. In Ireland, divorces have been less common, most grandparents are at home helping with childcare, and domestic helpers are common [21]. See [22] for the development of equal opportunity in Swedish legislation.

television<sup>6</sup> as well as the strict regulations for establishing private schools made television and the public school system the means for the particular implicit power system which can be understood in the Foucaultian concept of 'governmental rationality' or 'governmentality' [25]; through socializing all citizens into particular norms and modes of action, the citizen's internalized self-governess or self-discipline<sup>7</sup> creates a fruitful soil for a homogenous society. According to Foucault, the state's responsiveness to its 'population' (through bio-politics) is the basis for the state's prosperity, and "the aim of the modern art of government, viz., to develop those elements of individual lives in such a way that their development also fosters the strength of the state" ([26], pp. 251–52; [27], p. 10). Moreover, Foucault speaks in terms of

[T]he tactics of government which make possible the continual definition and redefinition of what is within the competence of the state and what is not, the public *versus* the private, and so on; thus the state can only be understood in its survival and its limits on the basis of the general tactics of governmentality ([25], p. 103).

The two examples above of how Swedish prime ministers incorporate parts of feminist and environmentalist thought and practice, but not feminism or environmentalism *in toto*, can illustrate Swedish responsiveness to the 'population' and the general 'tactics of governmentality'.

From the late twentieth century, however, three main interlinked factors have changed. First, the increase of immigrants (read: Muslims) have transformed the cultural setting in Sweden. Despite the perception of homogeneity, Sweden has in fact not been homogenous in the sense that there have always existed cultural differences in terms of north/south, west/east, rural/urban, high-educated/low-educated, *etc*. However, the new cultural constellation, with persons with different appearances (clothing as well as skin complexion and hair colors) and with different views on 'Swedish' values, has created a notion of heterogeneity and parallel value systems, a contrast to the notion of 'the Swedish homogeneity'.

Second, the opening up for the establishment of private schools funded by the governments has made it possible, at least in praxis if not in theory, to socialize children into a different value system than the 'Swedish'. The norms that children in these schools internalize might not be within the boundaries tolerated by society or the state, and the principle of 'governmentality', the aspect of citizens' self-governess or self-discipline according to tolerated norms, loosens up while the discourse of the majority and its control over citizens' minds to a great extent weakens.

Third, since the late twentieth century, governmental control of public space through media, particularly national radio and television, has weakened drastically with the advent of cable and satellite dishes. The fragmentation of public space has various implications. As it comes to the youth, whether majority or minority, they watch American sit-coms and reality shows more than Swedish 'educational' programs. Thus, the internalizing of 'Swedish values', even for the majority

<sup>6</sup> The Swedish state's TV-monopoly ended, when the first commercial Scandinavian TV-channel, TV 3, was launched December 31, 1987. To avoid Scandinavian legislation's prohibition of commercial TV-channels TV3 sent to the three Scandinavian countries via satellite from the head office in London [24].

<sup>7</sup> Foucault links self-government to morality ([25], p. 91). Although his discussion of self-government is linked to the state power it is also reasonable to see self-government in terms of how through the art of governing, individuals will be socialized into a moral self-governing system.

youth population, is at stake. Moreover, the immigrant population tends to watch the national

satellite television programs of their countries of origin, or for the Arabic-speaking population in Sweden, the various Arab-medium news channels portraying international events in a fashion quite differently from Swedish news program [2].

As a result, the Swedish value systems have loosened in recent decades, and the system of 'governmentality' as a means of controlling the population's attitudes, norms, and practices has become more complicated than it used to be. The episode of a young Muslim woman, born in Egypt and raised in Sweden from the age of four, who served as a kindergarten teacher and who claimed her right to wear a face-veil at work, illustrates the gap between legislation and norms which have arisen in this newly fragmented public space. As politicians and public employees wanted to ban the use of face-veil, the woman complained to the Swedish Ombudsman that she was a victim of ethnic discrimination. The claim for change in the legislation of what is 'acceptable' clothing and what is not was put forward in the following debate. The debate indicates how norms for acceptability have previously been well internalized; there has been a common public recognition of what is approved or disapproved of in the public sphere, making for instance legislation on clothing unnecessary. But in Foucault's words: "A power whose task is to take charge of life needs continuous regulatory and corrective mechanisms" ([28], p. 144). The general tactics of 'governmentality' is therefore also about broadening, narrowing, and moving the borderlines according to socio-political and cultural public discourses. With the fragmentation of the public sphere, public norms become less homogenous and less obvious, but, despite the weakening of governmental control of its subordinates, it is still mainly the authorities who can decide or place limits on what is 'acceptable' and 'unacceptable' through bio-politics, legislation, media, and policy-making.

#### **6. Majority-Minority Dynamics in Sweden**

It is obvious that there are conflicting issues between the majority in Sweden and the Muslim minorities. One important issue is the Swedish involvement in Afghanistan, as well as the authorities' lack of public criticism of Israeli policy on the occupied Palestinian territories. Although important, these issues fall outside the scope of this study. This study's purpose is to examine Swedish internal affairs as it pertains to the majority-minority relations.

The concept of 'governmentality' is a convenient analytical tool for examining the relationship between the majority population and minority communities in a country like Sweden with its underlying claim of homogeneity.

#### **7. Muslims in Media**

In order to evaluate how the media can influence the relationship between the majority and Muslim minority communities in Sweden, it will be fruitful to compare the Swedish approach to that of Denmark and Norway. To a certain degree, both the media and the Danish authorities, with the latter's embracing of the populist party, The Danish People's Party (Det Danske Folkepartiet), along with that party's hostile discourse towards Muslims and Islam, tend to have a quite hostile attitudes towards immigrants, which in the Danish context has become synonymous with

Muslims [29]. In Sweden, on the other hand, there is a general wariness and caution in the portrayal of immigrants in general. In between the two extremities lies Norway, where public discourse tends to oscillate between the two positions, as will be indicated below.

When it comes to the images of Muslim immigrants in public discourse, the difference between Sweden on the one side and Denmark and Norway on the other can be illustrated by the media discussion of Islam and honor killings after the Kurdish-Swedish woman, Fadime Sahindal, was killed by her father in January 2002. In Sweden, Islam was mentioned as a possible accomplice to the killing in the days that immediately followed. After a relative of the family told the national television that the family has no Muslim background (which it indeed had, although the father had no religious inclination) ([30], p. 29), the public debate shifted its focus to Kurdishness rather than Islam, with the understanding that the killing was a result of women being victimized by men in general. In the two other countries, honor killings and Islam remained as the primary explanations in public debate for the killing of Fadime, with the prohibition in Islamic law against marriage between Muslim women and non-Muslim men viewed as the cause of her death ([30], pp. 29–30). (Interestingly, the man Fadime had a relationship with was also probably from a Muslim background, as his father was a refugee from Iran.)

Another important aspect is how the media handles the naming and describing of criminals. In October 2012, the text-television of the national TV-company DR1 broadcast breaking news on three wanted criminals. All three criminals were identified by name, and two of them had obvious Muslim names. In a large Danish newspaper BT in November 2011, the names of both the murdered person and the suspected murderer were released, and both names were Muslim. In contrast, in Sweden, names are only released in the media after the person(s) has been tried and found guilty by a court. Even the victim is seldom identified by name since this is regarded to lead to speculation as to whether she/he has a non-Swedish name. This is clearly an attempt to reduce anti-immigrant sentiments. In two immigrant-dense towns in Scania, in southern Sweden, three women were murdered by close relatives with immigrant backgrounds in the period between April and July 2012.<sup>8</sup> In all three cases, names and additional information that could link the victim or the killer to immigrant milieus were not released.

Even when a program on Islamist organizations and their close cooperation with government officials in Sweden was broadcast on national television in December 2009, there were no follow-up television reports, and there were few reactions in the Swedish press. Both in Denmark and in Norway, such programs tend to set off a chain reaction in the press, with news programs on most television stations as well as daily newspapers conducting follow-up reports in which experts and Muslims of various stands are interviewed.

The caution showed by the Swedish media, and the informal directive of withholding names and information that might stigmatize immigrants in general and Muslims in particular, might be regarded in view of 'governmentality'. As stated above, in Sweden, there has been a tendency to embrace parts of conflicting ideologies or ideas, such as 'feminism' and 'environmentalism', in order to keep the social homogeneity and avoid open conflicts. Thus, by embracing and promoting

<sup>8</sup> The information of the killers' 'immigrant background' was given to me by two journalists working in the national TV company SVT.

immigrants as part of the 'Swedish', it is possible for the authorities to accept and promote cultural and social traits found among immigrant communities that are within the limits of the 'acceptable', limits which are continuously regulated according to legislation and the majority discourse. When relating extremist issues, politicians, journalists, and experts on Islam tend to use the recurrent narrative that although some Muslims are terrorists, have extremist views, or belong to criminal gangs, this does not extend to all Muslims in Sweden [31].

The aim of promoting self-governess or self-discipline has been largely successful, at least as it comes to many leading Muslims in Sweden. The general awareness of how immigrants are portrayed in the media and how the political parties tend to protect immigrant rights might be a reason why many Muslims leaders express loyalty to the 'Swedish system'. 9 Moreover, the emphasis by most political parties on engaging Muslims reinforces this sense of loyalty towards the Swedish authorities and society. In a study of Muslims in positions of leadership in various political parties, all expressed that they felt their views were accepted and listened to by their party fellows ([3], p. 161). One prominent Muslim politician from a party that actively supports homosexuals' rights in all fields of human life, including the adoption of children, expressed his support for such rights even though he is a practicing Muslim. "If we, the Muslims request equal rights, then we also have to accept that this request also goes for other discriminated communities in society, such as for instance the homosexuals."10 Other practicing Muslims from various parties expressed that they did not support homosexuals' rights, but as members of parties who did, they chose to just withdraw during such discussions and refrain from taking an official stand. This is an example of 'governmentality'; Muslim immigrants have internalized the notion of homogenization and abstain from explicitly express their divergent view on homosexuals, a view which is not within 'the acceptable' in Swedish society.

#### **8. Populist Parties**

All three Scandinavian countries have populist parties with parliamentary representation. But whereas in Norway and Denmark these parties not only wield significant influence, directly and indirectly, but also cooperate with other parties in Parliament, in Sweden, the newly established Sweden Democrats are more or less boycotted by the other parliamentary parties. In this case, the Swedish authorities have not employed their strategy of embracing conflicting ideologies. An ethnic Swedish political activist from the centre-right ruling party, the Moderate Party (Moderaterna) explained to me: "The Sweden Democrats are racists, and we do not cooperate with people who distinguish between races and religions". In view of the concept of 'governmentality', Swedish authorities have not included 'hostility towards immigrants' into what is socially acceptable. In Denmark, the strength of the Danish People's Party (Dansk Folkeparti) after the election in 2001 made other parties respond positively to their propositions in Parliament. Interestingly, Norway's Conservative Party (Høyre), which is in a position to win the election in 2013, has pushed the boundaries of what is acceptable and what is not by opening up for a possible

<sup>9</sup> Interviews with Muslim leaders from various Islamic associations, 1996–2012.

<sup>10</sup> This informant is in his late thirties and came to Sweden from a southern European country as a toddler. He has an explicit Islamic identity.

cooperation with the Progress Party (Fremskrittspartiet), a populist party*.* 11 This is in contrast to the Conservative Party's firm opposition to the Progress Party in 2001, when the former's party management insisted that such cooperation would be a "nightmare scenario" [33]. The reason behind the differences between Sweden and the two other countries might, apart from that the populist parties in Denmark and Norway have a longer experience in politics, be as simple as pure pragmatism. The percentage of the immigrant population in Sweden is much higher than in Denmark and Norway [34]. Moreover, in all the three Scandinavian countries, coalition governments have become the rule rather than the exception, and the major political parties might be in need of the populist parties in order to form a government. In Sweden, the Sweden Democrats is still a small party with less than 10 per cent of the voters. In October 2012, the Sweden Democrat announced a zero tolerance for racist expressions within the party [35]. Only time will tell whether this new approach, together with the potential growth of the Sweden Democrats, will make the party more housebroken from the public viewpoint.

It is interesting to note that the Liberal Party (Folkpartiet), a party with governmental representation, launched a proposition with more demands on immigrants, demands that overlap with those of the Sweden Democrats. These include demands for immigrants to possess a certain amount of Swedish language proficiency when applying for citizenship, for unemployment insurance to be withdrawn if immigrants reject a job offer, and that social service or state-sponsored economic support for immigrants should depend upon their participation in specific activities. These demands generated massive criticism from other political parties as well as in media [36].

Furthermore, 'banal nationalism' is strong in both Norway and Denmark where there is emphasis for example on flags as well as 'Norwegianness' and 'Danishness'. In Sweden, such nationalist manifestations are less frequent. A common notion is that this lack of 'banal nationalism' is linked to the fact that Sweden has not had war on its soil for approximately 200 years, a marked contrast to Denmark and Norway in light of the German occupations of the Second World War. This lack of expressed national sentiments might explain the fact that the Swedish populist parties have been less successful than their counterparts in Denmark and Norway. Since the local government election of 2008, however, the Sweden Democrats have started to become more visible in the public sphere, and in the parliamentary elections in 2010, the party gained parliamentary seats. The party has its strongest support in Scania, a region with many Muslim immigrants.

The public debate has to a certain extent changed as the Sweden Democrats have increased their influence in the public space. However, when the head of the party announced in the newspaper *Aftonbladet* that "Muslims are our greatest foreign threat" [37], he was attacked by most political representatives as well as the broader public. He was even sued for "frenzy against an ethnic group", a criminal offence in Sweden. In contrast, in Denmark and even in Norway, politicians and the media can be much more outspoken in their criticism towards Muslims without fearing legal proceedings ([38], pp. 69–77). Many Muslim politicians in Denmark have been questioned for their "Islamic values", and some of them have been forced to leave the political scene due to heavy media campaigns against them [39]. Muslim politicians in Sweden have not been questioned in this way.

<sup>11</sup> According to the Official Poll January 16th, 2013, The Conservative Party got 32.2% and the Progressive Party 16.8% of the votes [32].

The 'governmental rationality' of the Swedish rightist government (2012) is to include the immigrants, regarding them as a beneficial source for social development in Sweden. The populists, however, are outside what is regarded as acceptable, at least for the time being. The government's policy towards the Sweden Democrats reinforces the accommodating attitude towards immigrants, particularly Muslims, as some leading politicians within the Sweden Democrats have an expressed anti-Islamic or Eurabian sentiments [40].

#### **9. Developments in Swedish Muslim Communities**

Researchers have anticipated an individualization process among Muslim youth in Scandinavia [3,41]. One study of Pakistani children and youth in Norway indicated that the younger generations of Muslims developed *integrated plural identities* and became both 'Norwegian' and 'Pakistani'. Muslim youth tend to embrace individualistic 'Norwegian' values such as freedom, democracy, gender equality, *etc*., yet they also embrace more collective values identified with their parents' worldview, such as belonging to a group, a religion, *etc*. [41]. There are similar findings in Sweden on issues such as gender relation and the relationship between individual and collective rights ([3], pp. 165, 201–03).

The gender equality policy in Scandinavia has influenced Muslim communities. Many practicing Muslims from second- and third-generation immigrant communities claim that "Islam *is* gender equality" ([3], p. 20). In contrast to their children, most of the first-generation practicing Muslims believed that "[i]n Islam we do not have gender equality" ([3], p. 20). This generational difference reflects the variation in socialization and public discourse. First-generation Muslims link Islam to the gender values they were socialized into in their homelands. One example of this might entail the belief that demonstrating respect for women means that male relatives must provide women with protection and economic support. However, those Swedish Muslims who have attended Swedish schools have internalized a different value, the value of gender equality. This is understandable given that gender equality saturates the entire educational system in Sweden.

This difference in understanding can be linked to Bobby Said's perception of 'Islam' as the *master signifier*, *i.e.*, Islam becomes a reference point with different content in varying contexts [42]. 'Islam' becomes 'the incarnated good', and despite the variation in content, this *master signifier*  maintains the interpretive framework as Muslims believe in 'Islam' and create its content in varying contexts. Thus, Islam becomes that which is 'good' in each and every context. In many of the countries of origin of Swedish Muslim immigrants, including Afghanistan and the Arab countries, public discourse has set the standard of what is 'good' for women, namely to be protected, whereas in Sweden the 'good' is equal gender opportunities. For Muslims born in Sweden, what is 'good' goes even for other Swedish values such as individual rights, democracy, tolerance, *etc*. A practicing Swedish Muslim woman with Lebanese-Palestinian parents talked about the importance for women to take individual responsibility for their Islamic practice. "If you wear a hijab because your parents or your husband force it upon you, you will have no divine reward (*ajar*). To wear a hijab is an individual choice". 12 Her mother, however, expressed a different view: "I want my daughter to wear hijab because that make her a decent woman, and God

<sup>12</sup> Interview with 'Huda' 27 years, July 2002 in Sweden.

wants women to be decent dressed and not to be temptresses, creating chaos (*fawda*) in society."<sup>13</sup> The mother's view indicates a collectivistic view of Islam as a social system, regarding social order as well as family values and family coherence as important Islamic values.

The governmental policy of equal gender opportunities is also reinforced in the material world. The same Swedish system that creates the need for both men and women to enter the labor market also affects Muslim communities. Many Muslim immigrants in Sweden have lower educational levels in comparison to the majority population. Many also have difficulties learning the Swedish language, an important prerequisite for getting a job. Therefore, many Muslims are dependent on economic support from the state, which means that even refugee and immigrant women must actively seek employment. Sweden has social programs with courses and training for women that help them acquire a stronger position in the labor market. This has created a change in gender structures in Muslim communities toward a much more egalitarian system of labor division, a contrast from the countries of origin where women mainly work in the domestic sphere.<sup>14</sup>

Another example that reflects Muslim adaption to Swedish homogeneity is the view on sharia among Muslim leaders in Sweden. Prior to the parliamentary elections of 2006, the leader of the Swedish Muslim Association (Sveriges Muslimska Förbund), Mahmoud Aldebe, wrote an official letter to the political parties. The letter was published in the newspaper *Dagens Nyheter* on April 27, 2006. In the letter, Aldebe asked for legislation giving Muslims the right to take leave on religious festivals, to have a mosque in every city, to have particular days for men and women in the local swimming pools, and to have sectoral legislation in family legislation issues [43]. Aldebe argued that the law on freedom of religion in Sweden is built on an 'individualized understanding of religion' whereas Muslims focus on 'the collective expressions of religion' [43]. On the following day, Aldebe modified the content of the letter in a press release in the same newspaper. He withdrew the claim for 'sectoral legislation' for Muslims, asking instead for the possibility of dispensation in certain cases [44]. It is interesting that the strongest criticisms of Aldebe's claim on sectoral legislation came from within the ranks of Sweden's Muslim leadership. The spokesperson of one of the largest Muslim national organizations, Mehmet Kaplan, rejected Aldebe's claim: "He [Aldebe] cannot be a spokesman for all Muslims. This is the role he put on himself when he wrote 'Muslims believe' and 'Muslims demand'" [44]. Kaplan agreed with some of Aldebe's claims, such as the right to take leave on religious festivals. Still, Kaplan insisted that the request for sectoral legislation was totally unreasonable. Even leaders within Aldebe's own organization rejected his claim publicly [44].

Aldebe, who has a Palestinian-Jordanian background, is a first-generation Muslim immigrant who came to Sweden as an adult. Kaplan is of Turkish origin and came to Sweden at the age of one. Through his Scandinavian upbringing and education in Swedish school, Kaplan is well socialized into the system of self-governess. He is fully aware of what is and is not 'acceptable' in public space. It is likely he would agree with the majority discourse. Therefore, the issues he agrees with in Aldebe's letter are all acceptable claims according to 'governmental rationality', whereas

<sup>13</sup> Interview with 'Huda's' mother, July 2002. She was 59 years at the time of the interview in July 2002, and she came to Sweden in 1989, 46 years old.

<sup>14</sup> Personal observation in Arab-speaking communities in Sweden and Norway.

the claim for sectoral legislation, particularly in regards to the gender issues that Aldebe focused on, are far beyond what is acceptable. Kaplan is an example of what Foucault sees as a citizen's internalized self-governess or self-discipline.

#### **10. 'Governmentality' and Socialization**

In Sweden, Muslim communities tend to be regarded as 'problematic'. This is due largely to social problems that are linked to class, low educational levels, and a lack of social networking within majority society, as opposed to religion or Islam. However, in Muslim minority communities as well as in the majority population, one encounters individuals from a wide array of class, educational, and employment backgrounds and levels. With the social mobility of some second- and third-generation Muslim immigrants and the change of Islamic discourses from patriarchal to equal rights, the stereotyped image of Muslims as 'deprived victims' (read: Muslim women) or as 'oppressive patriarchs' (read: Muslim men) may gradually change. The constellation of Muslim communities in Sweden, together with particular features of Swedish state policy, influences the situation in Sweden. As Muslim youth are socialized into Swedish realities, they might gradually internalize Swedish identities and loyalties. As discussed above, the wariness in the media that affects how Muslims and Islam are covered, as well as the official policy towards the populist Sweden Democrats, has already created fertile soil for Muslims, including those of the first generation, to feel loyal to the Swedish authorities.

More important is that the newer generations of Muslims will ask different questions than their parents, and they will get different Islamic answers to some of the same questions asked by their parents, as indicated above in the discussion of Islam *vs*. equal gender opportunities. The strong emphasis on equality, particularly in regards to gender, might impact the Islamic discourse on gender as well as on tolerance towards religious and social diversity. Muslim youth's activism in Sweden promises new tendencies in Muslim understandings of the Islamic sources. However, whether new generations of Muslims will experience a true 'sense of belonging' [45] to Swedish society depends not only on changes within Muslim communities. It depends also, to a great extent, on the art of government, *i.e.*, the aspect of 'governmentality', and on how well the majority population manages to incorporate parts of nonconformist thinking and to enlarge the boundaries of what is acceptable. Moreover, the particular art of 'governmentality' in Sweden might be a reason for the relative avoidance of conflicts, in the Huntington sense of civilizational clashes, between the majority and the Muslim minorities. Many Muslims, particularly those born and raised in Sweden, are socialized into the art of self-governance, according to that which is socially acceptable or unacceptable, making their attitudes and behavior, to a lesser or greater extent, well-tuned into the majority way of life.

Although this study focuses particularly on Sweden, Danish and Norwegian material has also been included. A study I conducted in Norway in 2004 shows a similar trend of loyalty and changes towards more individualistic attitudes and behavior among the descendants of the first generation of Muslim immigrants [3]. This is true even though the Norwegian media has a much more critical attitude towards Muslim communities than the Swedish media. This might indicate that although the dynamics between the majority population and Muslim minority communities is important, the system of 'governmentality' is also an influential factor when it comes to the internalization of 'Norwegian' or 'Swedish' values. As Muslim youth attend public schools together with the non-Muslim majority, the values and behavior promoted in the majority discourse will probably play a role in their socialization process and in the process of construction of their identity.

### **References**


## **Religious Racism: Islamophobia and Antisemitism in Italian Society**

#### **Alfredo Alietti and Dario Padovan**

**Abstract:** Racism and racial prejudice, considered a relic of obsolete and outdated social systems, is emerging in the depths of ultra-modern Western societies with different characteristics from the past but with a surprising and worrying virulence. These waves of prejudice and racism testify to the many fears that fill the horizons of advanced societies, undermining not only their internal reliability, but also just their democratic settings. This paper presents a critical review of Islamophobia as a racial prejudice, showing that two main definitions are at work: Islamophobia as xeno-racism or linked to the so-called clash of civilizations. Then, it presents the outcomes coming from a Computer Assisted Telephone Interview (CATI) survey led among a representative sample of the Italian population (*n* = 1,523) on Antisemitic and Islamophobic attitudes. The cogency and structure of anti-Muslim public discourse and connected mass attitudes, revealed by our investigation, confirm the emergency of these two relevant dimensions of Islamophobia, which claim for a more accurate definition of Islamophobia. Moreover, the distribution of anti-Semitic and Islamophobic attitudes illustrate an interesting overlapping of Islamophobia and Antisemitism which claims that racism is multi-targeted and that there is not so much options between Antisemitism and Islamophobia. Finally, we use three main variables—anomie, ethnocentrism, and authoritarianism—as predictors of Islamophobia and Antisemitism. We tested the strength of these three predictors with the aid of path technique based on multiple regression analysis, which helps to determine the direct and indirect impacts of certain independent variables on dependent variables in a hypothetical causal system.

Reprinted from *Religions*. Cite as: Alietti, A.; Padovan, D. "Religious Racism. Islamophobia and Antisemitism in Italian Society." *Religions* 4 (2013): 584–602.

#### **1. Introduction**

Despite what is claimed by fans of neoliberal globalization, societies have not moved to a state of deep and widespread prosperity, free from conflict, hostility, exclusion, and discrimination. Racism and racial prejudice, considered a relic of obsolete and outdated social systems, is emerging in the depths of ultra-modern Western societies with different characteristics from the past but with a surprising and worrying virulence. They testify to the many fears that fill the horizons of advanced societies, undermining not only the internal reliability, but also just their democratic settings. Forms of racial prejudice, such as Antisemitism, reappear in unexpected forms, presenting new and unpredicted characteristics, whereas Islamophobia seems to challenge, by diffusion, transversality, and essentiality, the worst historical anti-Semitic exhibitions of early twentieth century. These waves of racial prejudice that are passing through all Western countries seem to tackle more with cultural and religious signs of otherness than with differences inscribed upon bodily traits. This is the reason why some scholar speaks of "religious-driven hatred and hostility" [1].

The endeavour of this research is to understand the nature of these new cultural and religious racisms, which are irresistibly growing up inside Western societies. In the paper we will use different terms and concepts—such as prejudice, racism, hostility, intolerance, discrimination, and so on—to which we give, for now, similar and interchangeable meaning. We realize that the logics of racism are not easy understandable, but the reasoned choice of appropriate theoretical vocabulary for the definition of plastic, changing, elusive phenomena such as Islamophobia or Antisemitism, on which scholars are still questioning, may be a consequence and not a premise of researches such as that presented here.

This research is based on 1528 interviewed with CATI technique (Computer Assisted Telephone Interview) subjects, which are a representative sample of the Italian population stratified according to age, gender, and residence. The questionnaire used was built by a set of scales divided according to areas covered by our working hypothesis, scales that are part of a well-established empirical tradition. Regarding the items of the scales of Antisemitism and Islamophobia, we have pursued well-beaten paths, especially those related to questions *(items)* on anti-Semitic attitudes that have reached in time a certain maturity and methodological validation, whereas for the anti-Muslim attitudes the situation is less clear and evolved [2]. To these scales we add three others scales pursuing a strategy aimed at the unveiling of a structured model, which takes into account some crucial attitudes of the psycho-sociological dynamics of prejudice. Specifically, we designed three scales aimed at the identification of these attitudes, respectively the authoritarianism, ethnocentrism, and anomie scales.

The frame for the reflection upon data is formed by different sections: in the second we discuss some aspects of the Islamophobia category, trying to identify among scholars two different and latent dimensions of Islamophobia, the first related to the so called xeno-racism the second to idea of clash of civilizations. In the third one, we present some anti-Muslim discourses spread in Italy in recent years. In the fourth section we discuss on the basis of our data the two dimensions of Islamophobia while in the fifth we present some theoretical aspects related to the empirical overlapping of Antisemitism and Islamophobia. Finally, we present the racist predictors pattern we used to explain the nature of this new racism, its liquidity and its final and unexpected function of social bonding.

#### **2. Some Critical Notes on Islamophobia**

In recent literature, the prejudice against Muslims has been called Islamophobia, the meaning of which was delineated in 1997 by the *Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia* promoted by Runnymede Trust [3]. The use of that category, and its variations, has not been without criticism and disagreement, more or less legitimate and plausible [4]. This has led us to a short reflection on

the general concept of Islamophobia. First of all, a "phobia" is not racism. It is an attitude that is fed more by fears than a willingness to subordinate, racialize, and crystallize the differences and inequalities of the "Other", as in the case of Antisemitism. Even though it encourages racist attitudes or practices and it is able to change from fear to racism, it is not by definition a racial prejudice. Islamophobia appears in such way as a polysemic concept, embracing too much different phenomena and with porous borders permeable to various kinds of interpretation. The Runnymede Trust's large definition of Islamophobia risks losing a rigorous perspective of analysis [1,5]. Therefore, the term Islamophobia is to some extent misleading, as it refers primarily to a fear of Islam historically rooted in the Christian-Western culture since the time of the Crusades. As reported by Zafar Iqbal, "Islamophobia is a new word for an old fear". It is a form of religious intolerance, whose manifestations can be found in historic wars, crusades and genocides spread long over centuries [6].

In reality, these deep feelings of cultural distance often overlap to broader phenomena as, for example, fear of immigrants or foreigners. Moreover, Islamophobia refers to a perception of threat that seems not thus widespread as the belief that the Muslims are instead a closed and biased group. As suggested by Heitmeyer and Zick [7], Islamophobia is a form of group-oriented enmity and a general attitude of rejection of Muslims and all religious symbols and rituals that stem from the Islam. This definition focuses on construction of the enemy, which implies not only a generic 'phobia', but a rational construction of a racialized other where symbols and rituals become parts of an unchangeable identity. Here 'phobia' becomes a racism, because it transforms the bearer of a perceived threat in a racialized 'Other', where there is a strong continuity between religious characters and individual behavior, in which it is thought that the group exercises strong influence on individual will, where differences are crystallized once for all.

Without wishing to belittle or invalidate the concept of Islamophobia as a means to highlight aggressive and hostile attitudes and discourses against Muslims, we think that it is possible to recognize two different patterns of Islamophobia or anti-Muslim racism: one oriented to the model of 'internal enemy' and strictly connected with the fear of the proximity of Muslim body [1]; the second oriented to a more general view of Islamic civilization as an 'external threat' perpetrating attacks, wars and invasions. In the first case we observe an Islamophobia that seems very close to the so-called cultural or differential racism [8,9]. The lack of phenotypic racial characters of people targeted by this cultural racism makes it moving towards a religious-driven racism very close to Antisemitism. As suggested by Balibar [9], all the contemporary differential racism can be understood from the formal point of view as generalized Antisemitism. For this reason it is possible to understand the potential theoretical proximity of the terrorist, fanatic, violent, and intolerant Muslim with the dreadful, conspirator, outrageous Jew. Although different and not fully overlapped, racisms fed by these figures share the same classical racial morphology and the same authoritarian and fascist syndrome well known in European history [10].

The difference is that in recent years the new Islamophobia has replaced in the prejudiced social imaginary, as regards distribution, grounding and virulence, the old Antisemitism, to the point where it should be compared to hostility against the Roma, perhaps the most stigmatized and racialized subject around the world. The folk devil represented by the Muslim—and in smaller measure the Jew—is, in this view, a figure of collective anxieties and fears, a scapegoat which

nourishes the racist and fascist conviction that only cultural, religious and racial purity can stem the breakdown of social order and the collapse of society [11]. This kind of anti-Muslim prejudice is a process in which Muslims—but also Roma, Blacks, Jews, Asians—are seen as a threat to the purity and order of the nation and its ethnic fabric, a nation imagined as a cohesive community. In this way, the racism we are facing is liquid, transitive, highly mobile, generically oriented against all foreigners. Following the Sivanandan definition, we are witnessing the rising of a new racism, called 'xenoracism' [12]. This anti-foreignness sentiment, this fear of strangers means at the same time the defence and preservation of "our people", our way of life, our standard of living, and our "race". "If it is xenophobia, it is—in the way it denigrates people before segregating or expelling them—a xenophobia that bears all the marks of the old racism, except that it is not color-coded. It is xeno-racism: a feature of the Manichaean world of global capitalism, where there are only the rich and the poor—and poverty is the new black. The rhetoric of demonisation is racist, but the politics of exclusion is economic: a prelude to creating a peripatetic underclass of international *Untermenschen*".

After the September 11, this xeno-racism has been directed against Muslim communities even though they have been settled in Europe for decades, and are European born citizens. They do not merely threaten Europe as the "enemy within" in the war on terror; their adherence to Islamic norms and values threatens the notion of Europeanness itself. Under the guise of patriotism, a wholesale anti-Muslim racism has been unleashed which itself threatens to destroy the fabric of the multicultural society [13]. Undoubtedly specular to this process, some Muslims tend to construct a polarized world-view opposing the Islamic *ummah* and the West, the latter seen to be led by a Jewish-American conspiracy [11].

It is this ubiquity that makes this racism working as a social bond for scared and isolated people inside Western societies, yet not only in these latter. It asks for subordinated assimilation and instantly recognizable inferiorization of Others, putting them on the last rung of an imaginary social ladder. This desire to subordinate the Other is strictly linked with the authoritarianism, which is embracing not only Italian society. Here lies the thrust towards *coercive assimilation*, through the adoption of a number of measures, which include the recasting of citizenship laws according to security considerations; the introduction of compulsory language and civics tests for citizenship applicants; codes of conduct for the trustees of mosques; a cultural code of conduct for Muslim girls and women who, in some areas of Europe, will be forbidden to wear the hijab in state schools and other state institutions. However, all these obligations are inscribed in the frame of an insurgent authoritarianism and European ethno-nationalism. As has been stressed by different authors, all modern nation-states seek to reduce differences to a majoritarian conceived unity. In this way majorities can feel 'possessive about the country for democratic, historical and other reasons and insist that the definition of national identity should reflect their privileged status. The implication we draw from this concern is that the inclusion of minorities within nation states must necessarily *negotiate* a potentially coercive "othering" tendency [14] (see also [15]).

The second model of anti-Muslim racism is something new. This kind of racism not only blames the single Muslim or the single domestic settled community, the single fundamentalist who lives next door, the single body which bears intolerable cultural and religious symbols (flags, graves, hijab), but the entire civilization which produced and shaped him. Is this generalization so decisive at the point to render Islamophobia a unique and different form of racism quite unlike that of familiar racialization of Roma, Blacks, Jews, or Asians? Are fears leading to Islam-phobia really so different from those driving to Jew-phobia or Roma-phobia? As suggested by Theo Goldberg, 'Islam is taken in the dominant European imaginary to represent a collection of lacks: of freedom; of a disposition of scientific inquiry; of civility and manners; of love of life; of human worth; of equal respect for women and gay people' ([10], p. 345). The guilty party here is the Muslim civilization, which is producing and reproducing anomic and anonymous violent guys, broadly global networked to tear up the social fabric of Western democratic societies. The Islam is bringing death inside Europe, on the fear of which, as pointed out in a very brilliant way by Goldberg, Hobbes so heavily rested the motivation to (Euro-) modernity's social contract. Not individual Muslims, not even Muslim communities, but the collective Muslim, his ancestry civilization and legacy, has come to represent the threat of death. Islam is becoming the monster of our times, our collective nightmare, the paranoia of Europe's cultural demise, of European integrity. In this view Islam appears as the epitome of traditionalism, pre-modernism, the enemy of modernization and globalizing democracy, the bearer of tyranny, despotism, and absolutism. From here, there is the unavoidability of the clash between the West and Islam. In this perspective, as noted by Iqbal, first *Orientalism* appeared as a fruitful perspective to study Islam and its relations with other civilizations [6]. Then, in the same wake, came Huntington's thesis that a new cold war would take place not on the basis of economics or politics, but based upon culture and civilization marked by epistemic orders and religions.

#### **3. Public Anti-Muslim Discourse: Some Evidence from Italian Case**

The Italian case presents both these perspectives. Undoubtedly, the Italian case appears in certain ways anomalous if compared to the rest of Western Europe. The specificity of Italian Muslims comes from the great number of their countries of origin, the speed of the settlement, their scarce or sporadic visibility in public space, the fragmentation of their circles, and the weakness of their representativeness in front of public institutions [16,17], in spite of their significant presence being equal to 2% of the total population.

The reasons for the quick rise of anti-Muslim public speaking considering the early stages of Arab-Islamic immigration are manifold [17,18]. The issue of immigration in Italy faces a historic period of profound changes in social, economic, and politics. The early 90s witnessed the collapse of the old political system and the emergence of new political forces—such as the Northern League and Forza Italia—whose populist nature has long been analyzed and studied [19–22].

The racist party the Northern League was the key carrier of explicitly anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim positions, promoting both public discourses and national and local governance practices [20]. In his discussion of the Italian variant of populism, Laclau notes that the Northern League has moved increasingly into a 'theory of the enemy' endorsing the idea that if a radical change had to happen the social field had to be split in two [23].

Over time, the Islamophobia of Northern League gained radical forms of mobilization against the construction of mosques in some major cities of the northern regions in which are concentrated the majority of immigrants. According to some observers, the turning point occurred in a small town near Milan, where the granting of land for the construction of buildings to be used as a place of worship for the Islamic community unleashed an Islamophobic campaign fiercely reaching extremes, including the invitation to sprinkle the ground with the urine of 'Padanian' pork. The mobilization against the mosques by the Northern League is undoubtedly a paradigm in building the "internal enemy" and to endorse logic of social antagonism. The partial, but significant support of local citizens is the outcome of this emphasis on foreignness.

The legitimacy of an anti-Muslim public discourse aimed at building the internal enemy has found support from some influential intellectuals, opinion-makers and members of the Catholic clergy [24–27]. After September 11, the most widely read and important Italian newspaper, *Corriere della Sera*, published a long article by the noted novelist Oriana Fallaci, entitled 'The anger and the pride'. The article is an openly racist invective against Muslims (Muslims 'breed like rats', 'we have no place for muezzins, for minarets, for false teetotallers, for their fucking Middle Ages, for their fucking chador'), where she complains against the softness of the West in the confrontation with Islam, which is portrayed as the contemporary absolute evil, a new Nazi-fascism (see [24]).

In 2001, she published a book with the same title of the article [28]. Translated into major languages, it became a sensational bestseller, with more than one million copies sold, reflecting a creeping and a growing consensus in public opinion toward the xenophobic and anti-Muslim arguments developed by Fallaci. Her next book, also published in 2004 and entitled 'The Force of Reason', became a bestseller. Confirming her former extremist thesis, she evokes the risk that the higher birth-rate of Muslim immigrants can transform Europe in 'Eurarabia' [29]. In 2006, a few months before her death, Oriana Fallaci was interviewed by *The New Yorker*, an event that contributes to international resonance to her anti-Muslim fundamentalism, stressing the comparison of Islam with Nazism and Fascism, the impossibility of dialogue and urging destruction of a mosque:

'They want to build damn mosques everywhere.' She spoke of a new mosque and Islamic center planned for Colle di Val d'Elsa, near Siena. She vowed that it would not remain standing. "If I'm alive, I will go to my friends in Carrara—you know, where there is the marble. They are all anarchists. With them, I take the explosives. I make you jump in the air. I blow it up! With the anarchists of Carrara. I do not want to see this mosque—it's very near my house in Tuscany. I do not want to see a twenty-four-meter minaret in the landscape of Giotto. When I cannot even wear a cross or carry a Bible in their country! So I BLOW IT UP!" [30].

A special case concerns the political scientist Giovanni Sartori, professor emeritus at the Columbia University in New York and at the University of Florence, columnist for the *Corriere della Sera* and intellectual of the center-left. His essay 'Pluralism, multiculturalism and foreign', published in 2000 [31], shows an unambiguous reasoning that is configured as an explicit model of 'academic Islamophobia' [26]. On the one hand, he proposes the essentialist representation of the Islamic religion as dogmatic, intolerant and marked by fanaticism; on the other hand, he focuses on the compatibility of Islamic immigrants to our 'cultural tradition'. In a passage of the essay he shows this qualitative leap that opens up a very problematic horizon about the possible integration:

'I'm wrong, for example, to argue that the immigrant Muslim is for us the farthest, the most alien and therefore the most difficult to integrate? If I'm wrong no one has shown me it. But not even I mistake in claiming that Muslim immigrants are fundamentalists at all' (cited in [26]).

The invectives of Fallaci and the erudite reflections of Sartori serve up to the Italian conservative intellectual and political class a significant Islamophobic trend, reinforcing the political logic of building the internal enemy. Pulled by this rhetoric, a larger Islamophobic vision takes hold in an Italian racist landscape, investing the entire Islamic civilization. The first case regards Magdi Allam, a Muslim who recently converted to the Catholic faith with much fanfare, for years deputy director of *Corriere della Sera* and influential commentator on Islamic issues. In an article published in 2005, before his conversion, entitled 'Mosque-mania: need a stop', he calls, by virtue of his being a secular Muslim, for the suspension of the construction of mosques as they 'generate the brainwashing that turns human people into death's robots' [32]. The narrative used sustains the stereotype of the Muslim potential terrorist and of the Imam as a preacher of hate towards the West. This discourse is clearly oriented against the Islamic fundamentalism that provides for 'well-founded' fear that unites honest Muslims and Italians'.

The second one regards Marcello Pera, another well-known intellectual who moved from philosophical relativism to the conservatism by election in Italian Parliament with Berlusconi's party, Forza Italia. He published, in February 2006, a Manifesto called 'For the West, Force of Civilization' which, in total harmony with the clash of civilizations paradigm emphasizes the spiritual and moral crisis of the West incapable of responding to the challenge of terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism and 'the commitment to reaffirm the value of Western civilization as a source of universal and inalienable principles, contrasting in the name of a common historical and cultural tradition, any attempt to build a Europe alternative or opposed to the United States' [33].

This is still the case of an intransigent rhetoric defending Western values against Islam, only shown in its fundamental dimensions, and interweaving both with the exaltation of Christian civilization and the negative image of the Italian left guilty of hating our civilization and handing it over to Islam, of being lenient with countries and terrorist groups and of being in favor of multiculturalism. Here, the image stemming from these neo-conservative positions is that of the global threat, of the invasion perpetrated by the terrifying world of Islam. These examples of intellectualism, clearly hostile to Islam and its embodiment in the Muslim migrants, pose a significant question: the formalization of a model of thought that nourishes a prejudiced common sense targeted against Islamic otherness and multicultural society (see also [24]). What unites these various interventions, before and after September 11, is an a-critical view of Islam seen as a single monolith, incompatible with the principles of democracy and freedom, very close to the differentialist thesis of the Samuel Huntington's clash of civilizations. The question is whether this representation in Italian public opinion has had a consensus, or if there are less hostile views to Islamic civilization than forms of prejudice connected to the proximity and visibility of Muslim migrants.

#### **4. The Two Latent Dimensions of Islamophobia**

Data collected by the survey show that the double dimension of Islamophobia above mentioned is well rooted. In fact the distribution of frequencies among the single items of Islamophobia scale reveals this double nature of anti-Muslim prejudice (Table 1): on the one hand, we note that public opinion is scared by the Muslim in 'flesh and blood'; on the other hand, people feel threatened by an entire and historical civilization. For the largest part of the sample, Muslims are intolerant, fanatical, anti-modernist, strongly closed in themselves, with a clear and powerful identity, scarcely loyal to the country in which they live, barely committed against terrorism. From the other side, Muslims are seen under the light—negative or positive—of their civilization, of the weight of culture and intellectual and scientific life in European tradition.


**Table 1.** Item frequencies of Islamophobia Scale.

In this double perspective, some data illustrate how widespread is the typical representation of Muslim as a subject that expresses great distance from our lifestyles and values. For example, the closure of Islamic communities and their loyalty to the country of origin is a tangible sign of the plausibility of the discourse on the difficulty of integrating Islamic immigrants to Italian society.

Some others illustrate that Islam considered in its overall dimension of civilization arouses more positive feelings. In fact, there is a polarization between two positions: one that does not feel threatened by the Islamic civilization, believes that Islamic culture was important for European culture and, above all, that it is not inferior to ours and is able to convey values similar to the ourselves; vice versa, a second position expresses a high level of incompatibility and the perceived threat of Islamic civilization. Moreover, positions regarding the construction of mosques confirm this ambivalence. Only a clear minority expresses its opposition to the mosque building, outcomes that show how protests and mobilizations manipulated by the Northern League involve only a livid minority. This distinction is confirmed by the factorial analysis of the Islamophobia scale, which shows two separate factors in line with what is stated on the analysis of frequencies of individual items 1 (Table 2). The first dimension or indicator consists of those items related to the aforementioned characteristics of closeness, intolerance, traditionalism, and anti-modernism

<sup>1</sup> The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy is large 0.889, and the Bartlett's Test of Sphericity is 0.000. These results indicate that is reasonable to proceed with factor analysis.

holding hostile attitudes towards Muslims considered a homogeneous group negatively defined, while the second factor evokes feelings regarding Islamic culture and religion in its generality, belief that results in less prejudice than the previous one. The items forming these two separate dimensions are quite homogeneous, except perhaps for two sentences that might be deemed dissimilar: item 2 (*Islam is a religion too traditional unable to adapt to these times*), and item 9 (*It's right that we build places of prayer for Muslims*). The explanation for this apparent discrepancy may be of both a statistical and cognitive nature. From a statistical perspective, if we remove those two items, outcomes of factor analysis are the same, namely the significance of the two groups does not change. On the cognitive level, we can say that respondents may have understood the questions in the same direction as here emphasized. The charge of conservatism against Muslims could be used as the explanation for certain events associated with patriarchal customs (such as the killing of young women who wanted to marry an Italian guy) or with external signs brought by Muslim people such as the Hijab of Muslim women. In this view, conservatism does not refer to an abstract dimension but to the concreteness of everyday behavior of subjects considered Muslims. The item on mosques is perhaps one of the most discussed in literature. The substantial agreement of the sample with the sentence is interesting because it shows a degree of religious tolerance likely depending on the fact that Islam is a legitimate monotheistic religion with a long history. Here, we don't find discomfort for the building of a mosque, but the adherence to a principle of religious freedom, which is well adapted to the second dimension of Islamophobia that we detected.

Here the problem is to understand the nature of this polarization, which shows also diverging rates of hostility: the first dimension records more hostility than the second one. We can affirm that the first indicator is more able to represent attitudes against Muslims as 'internal enemy or threat'. The second indicator recognizes Islam as an 'external and threatening enemy' and it is less shared by Italian public opinion. The first dimension appears strongly supported by the negative image of Muslim individuals and communities as visible elements bearing an irreducible cultural distance; conversely, when Islam is considered in its cultural and religious dimension that image weakens. We can say that Islam in its version of the "clash of civilizations" breaches the conservative political side, which in turn shows preference toward authoritarian and ethnocentric attitudes that are important in shaping the racial prejudice.


**Table 2.** Factor Loading for anti-Muslim Attitude Scale \*.

\* (Cronbach Coefficient Alpha: factor 1: 0.70; factor 2: 0.67).

The responses (Table 3) were then reclassified on four classes or scores through a uniform system of allocation of points in which higher scores were expressing Islamophobia. This re-classification has allowed us to identify four clusters of attitudes (see for another interesting classification [34]):


These categories try to capture the different and often ambivalent feelings, which are at work among people. We use the term 'tolerant' in a way very close to Michael Walzer [35]. For him, tolerant people are those who have no difficulty making room for men and women whose beliefs they do not accept, nor try to imitate their practices; people living with otherness whose presence in the world they approve of, but which still remains an element far from their experience. Among tolerants, we include of course even those who enthusiastically endorse the differences we might call 'xenophile'. Tolerants are mainly people with a good level of education and center/left position.

The terms indifferent/neutral combine two types of social distance identified by Bogardus [36]. The pattern of indifference and neutrality is based on the absence of social contacts with members of other groups, on a permanent separation from those racial groups that they do not understand, on the lack of (positive or negative) emotional reactions. No new experience can change their alleged neutrality and indifference to the other groups. Here, people with higher education level and positioned at the center/left of the political spectrum are more likely neutral.

The loyalist model comes from a strong sense of loyalty to the belonging "racial" community, which often hides the vices and defects of the members of their same group, thus, creating an immutable social distance [36]. A complex of overestimated superiority leads many people to attitudes of superiority towards the less fortunate races. Behaviors of prejudiced paternalism characterize this type of person, especially if their social status is not threatened by the "inferior races". Here we may note that high, medium, and low levels of education are equally represented, while center-right positions are generally more widespread than the center-left.

The intolerant model comes from a combination of different but homogeneous attitudes: a sense of superiority; the belief that the other races are intrinsically different and alien; the idea of having an exclusive right in certain areas of privilege and advantage, and the fear and suspicion of the subordinate races full of projects in order to weaken the prerogatives of the dominant race [37]. Here people with lower education level and positioned at the center/right are more likely intolerant.


**Table 3.** Frequencies level of Hostility against Islamics (%).

At the general level, we may assert from the point of view of main socio-demographic variables (age, gender, cultural capital, and class) that older people have more widespread negative attitudes than younger ones, and education plays an important role: the lower the cultural capital is, the more often the attitude is negative; gender is not so meaningful, while anti-Muslim feelings are equally distributed among all social classes. In general, a greater openness to Islam by young and well-educated people is confirmed.

A particular importance regards the influence exerted by political affiliation on racial prejudice. People that express an orientation toward the center/left are more tolerant than those oriented to the center/right. These latter confirm their hostility toward both the internal dimension of threat and the external one connected with the "clash of civilization" syndrome. However it should be noted that an important part of the center-left political orientation (34% of sample) agrees intolerant attitude concerning the "internal threat" indicator, although it is tempered by a greater openness on the second indicator.

#### **5. The Overlapping between Islamophobia and Antisemitism**

Our idea is that we are facing a racism that changes easily its targets reproducing a well-known morphology. It is confirmed by the fact that the 45% of the sample cultivates simultaneously prejudice against Muslims and Jews. This idea pays a tribute to Robert Fine argument sustaining that recently there has been a "methodological separatism" in the field of racial and ethnic studies, which split the study of Islamophobia, Antisemitism, and other kind of racisms in different and often oppositional areas [38]. It is a remarkable outcome of our survey the identification of a strong connection between these two kinds of racism, as noted in other researches [39]. Meer and Modood argue that there are important analogies in the racial content of Antisemitism and anti-Muslim sentiment or Islamophobia [14,40]. A comparison of Antisemitism and anti-Muslim sentiment could promise novel insights not only into our understanding of both, but also into the interpretation of the widely racialized dynamics which embrace our multicultural societies. This strong similarity and overlapping of Antisemitism and Islamophobia (see Table 4) should be explained by the plastic

nature of the new racism. Jews and Muslims, although with differing percentages, are targets of a single racial prejudice, characterized by indifference to its victims and an alarming transitive property that makes it move easily from one target to another. We face the emergence of a public racist discourse that sees the bearer of different symbols and beliefs, the "otherwise" Italian or European, a threat for the majority cultural homogeneity and for the sense of group position. Almost 45% of our sample expresses attitudes against Jews and Muslims, while only 15% is tolerant. Furthermore the 65% of those who show anti-Muslim feelings are at the same time anti-Semitic, while 91% of those who show anti-Semitic attitudes are at the same time anti-Muslim.


**Table 4.** Frequencies overlapping hostility against Jews and Muslims.

One might call this phenomenon an 'indiscriminate discrimination' or a 'systemic and generalized racism' or again as we have, 'liquid racism'. The overlap between the two forms of prejudice suggests some thoughts. On the one hand it shows that, at least in this country, prejudice and racism unfolds along similar and symmetrical models. The two groups are perceived hostile based on similar characters. Both groups are considered closed, little tolerant, loyal to foreign countries, especially traditionalist and immutable. Of course, nobody denies them a place to pray, just as their contribution to European culture it is not in discussion. But both are undergoing a process of essentialization or racialization. Secondly, one can see that the two groups are not perceived as actors of a conflict where one or the other may have reasons on their side to justify their mutual animosity. Unlike those who think that judgments on the two groups are fuelled by polarized ideologies—something that is confirmed for 40% of the sample and probably for reasons that go beyond the ideological tensions produced by the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis—60% expresses similar opinions on both groups.

It may be noted here that in history, waves of racism occur which change their target from one group to another. Antisemitism is a historical form of racism so elaborate that it constitutes a model for the racialization of other groups. Racism against Muslims shares the same pattern of anti-Jewish racism, as it would appear that anti-Romaism, which is becoming the prevalent racism, spread on the basis of a model once more similar to that forged by Antisemitism.

Finally, as noted by some anthropologists, Jews and Muslims share, in the light of detractors, some dystonic and opposing attitudes towards globalizing modernization, such as preferences for food processed on the basis of principles of worship, for religious and traditional garments, for more or less esoteric and secret traditions, and the fact of being monotheistic religions in competition with Christianity. All aspects that cast over the two groups, at least in this country, a shadow of prejudice and vilification.

#### **6. Predictors for Antisemitism and Islamophobia**

In the social-psychological and sociological research different prediction models of racism are used. Dekker e van der Noll [5] used for example as a predicting model of prejudicial attitudes a combination of three processes: direct contact, socialization and attitudes' self-generation through inference processes (see also [41]). In the case of Zick, Küpper and Wolf [42], the focus was on the Group-focused Enmity syndrome and the predictors were six different elements: anti-immigrant attitudes, Antisemitism, anti-Muslim attitudes, racism, sexism, and prejudice towards homosexual persons.

Differently from these researches, we tested a more classical model based on ideological dimensions, which however entail behavior and practices. Our research design was based from the outset on the idea that the intolerant conduct, in this case against Muslims and Jews, is dependent on other components of the system of beliefs, attitudes and practices of social actors. This viewpoint was first tested a high level of reflection and empirical research by Adorno, Levinson and colleagues in the famous research on authoritarian personality. Usually, this system of ideas is called ideology, but this term, since its coinage, has changed over time gaining multiple and divergent meanings. Some scholars, reviewing the dimensions of ideology, gave to the concept a twist of cognitive nature that makes it a more useful and high rank research tool. A cognitive angle was also present in the research of Adorno and colleagues: in the Introduction it is said that "ideology is the term used in this volume in the common meaning in current literature, under which it designates an organization of opinions, attitudes and values a way of thinking about man and society" ([43], p. 18). But their interest was primarily oriented to explaining the correlations between ideology and individual personality, whereas the latter factor mediates the sociological influences on ideology and attitudes. Some components of the ideology that influence the racist views and attitudes have long been believed by social scientists to be those of ethnocentrism and authoritarianism. To these two predictors we have added one further explanatory variable, used repeatedly in research on racism, but more structural and situational, which we call anomie.

According to these underlying assumptions, research shows that racism is the result of three large collective phenomena or conditions that mark Italian society:


the source for new social ties, but also a tool to deal with the crisis of the rule of law. Here lies the thrust for the drive towards assimilation.


In our research we tested the strength of these three predictors (Authoritarianism, Ethnocentrism, and Anomie), made from its scales, with the aid of path technique based on multiple regression analysis which helps to determine the direct and indirect impacts of certain independent variables on dependent variables in a hypothetical causal system. From the multiple regressions, coefficients are obtained that indicate the strength of this effect, called beta coefficients.

Authoritarianism and ethnocentrism, which are highly correlated (+0.61), explain clearly the intolerance toward Muslims and Jews. The more one is authoritarian and ethnocentric, the greater is one's level of intolerance towards Muslims and Jews (β coefficient = 0.27 and β = 0.28). In this model, the distrust of the future is not in a significant causal relationship with intolerance because it is mediated by the other two indicators, with which it is strongly correlated: +0.45 with authoritarianism and +0.41 with ethnocentrism.

From the presentation of the various diagrams showing the direct and indirect effects of the three main predicting variables of the model we can make some evaluations. First, the authoritarian attitude proves to be a decisive factor in shaping negative opinion of Jews and Muslims, in line with several other research studies. Even ethnocentrism reinforces the injury due to the high correlation between these two variables. Undoubtedly, expressing opinions of an authoritarian model easily connects to the emergence of attitudes that favor a positive vision of subjects' own hegemonic group identity. In the sociological dialectic between in-groups and out-groups, such attitudes are often the result of a series of historically specific social circumstances, which increase the flow. In other words, the relationship between authoritarianism, ethnocentrism, intolerance, and prejudice against Muslims and Jews should not lead us to think in terms of specific personality, but rather to reflect on the current social and economic situation of our society and how it promotes the emergence of these attitudes, especially in those people that belong to the right of the political spectrum. Anomie has no direct effect on intolerance, it is nevertheless a condition that feeds an authoritarian and ethnocentric perspective, which provides "good reasons" and structural conditions for the occurrence of prejudice and racism. In essence, anomie acts as carrier of resentment that feeds on the legitimacy of authoritarian and ethnocentric reasons.

It is however important to note (Figures 1 and 2) that the two predictors considered authoritarianism and ethnocentrism—act on prejudice against Jews and Muslims in a different, if not completely opposite manner. In the case of Antisemitism, authoritarianism turns out to be less important than ethnocentrism, thus revealing a nationalist prejudice fed by a special sense of irreducible distance between cultures. In the case of Islamophobia, authoritarianism prevails instead in the causal relation, confirming, as argued earlier, that prejudice against Muslims is more closely linked to a sense of social disorder, to the feeling that people of Islam religion are in themselves threatening or dangerous. Authoritarianism is a syndrome embraced especially by the lower class. It is likely that the social frustration generates growing demands for conformity, justicialism, hierarchy and control of outsiders. Authoritarians claim for a well-ordered society where "others", here identified with Muslims, must occupy their fated social position avoiding any voice for rights. Ethnocentric people feel Jews as high-level competitors bearing privileges naturally stemming from ethno-national origin and belonging. Insofar as Muslims are seen as a threat of natural social order and so are matter of hierarchy, Jews are felt as competitors belonging to another but privileged ethnic minority and so are matter of national loyalty.

**Figure 1.** Path between Authoritarianism, Ethnocentrism, Distrust in the future and Intolerance towards Jews (R-square = 0.18).

**Figure 2.** Path between Authoritarianism, Ethnocentrism, Distrust in the future and Intolerance towards Muslims (R-square = 0.15).

#### **7. Conclusions**

The research here summarized casts a glance on the pervasiveness of prejudice in Italy, a phenomenon that is often underestimated, if not entirely denied. The firm denial that racist attitudes exist poses a double problem: on the one hand, this denial takes the form of self-exculpatory behaviours considered limited to minority racially or ideologically extreme situations that may also justify certain attitudes, and second, that denial is a proper strategy which, by denying the evidence of harmful policies, speeches, statements, does not openly violate the order of public discourse, which obviously is not racist. The latter strategy generalizes the classical assertion that individuals use to excuse themselves from guilt: 'I'm no racist, but...', and surreptitiously undermines the anti-racist public discourse.

This research illuminates a reality consisting of deep-rooted and pervasive hostile attitudes targeted both toward minorities such as Jews, which we believed had vanished from the ideological horizon of the citizens of democratic societies, or to new internal enemies that can be identified in Muslims. These prejudices have grown slowly over the time, scarcely contrasted, supported by coarse, but clear, discourses and ideologies, diffused by media and by, so called, "political entrepreneurs of racism". Furthermore, this trend has grown on the basis of widespread authoritarianism, ethnocentrism, and social distrust, which mark these collectivities expressing fear of the future and living (or feeling) a deeply socio-economic uncertainty. Feelings of fear and distrust find in racism and prejudice a "safety valve", especially among popular classes, and people with scarce cultural resources, who are more vulnerable facing a generalized political and economic crisis. The collected data show some further points:


The data here commented on ask unavoidable questions mainly to anti-racist people, because they show how anti-racism, mainly because of an irresistible trend of ideological reproduction, is almost totally ineffective in curbing racism. The current anti-racism has become a pale replica of the great mobilization and critical skills that marked the years immediately following World War II, when the racism to be fought was much more evident on both the ideological and political sides, consisting of the extermination Jews, Gypsies, and other minorities. The current racism that hides behind phenomena such as social insecurity, or at the back of discourses such as the authenticity of cultures and their natural hierarchies, is very different from the explicit racism of the early twentieth century, but it is quickly becoming a common sense, which is already part of the public discourse. To combat it we need thin and insightful tools, able to deconstruct the self-evident argument as to who is racist and to pierce the veil of ignorance that envelops the racists—"by choice" and "by chance"—and the anti-racists who want to fight them. More appropriate then, would be a more courageous and compelling critique of the political ideologies and institutional practices that often fuel hostility.

#### **Conflicts of Interest**

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

#### **References**


## **Has Multiculturalism Really Failed? A Canadian Muslim Perspective**

#### **Baljit Nagra and Ito Peng**

**Abstract:** In recent years, claims that multiculturalism has created segregated communities, encouraged terrorism, and failed to foster shared national identities in western nations have gained popularity. In this paper, we use young Canadian Muslims' lived experience of multiculturalism to reflect on this debate. Contrary to popular rhetoric, our interviews of 50 young Muslim adults show that many maintain a dual Canadian-Muslim identity by utilizing the ideology of multiculturalism, even though they are increasingly stigmatized for their religion. These findings lead us to problematize the discourse surrounding the 'failure' of multiculturalism and to highlight the contradictions within it.

Reprinted from *Religions*. Cite as: Nagra, B.; Peng, I. "Has Multiculturalism Really Failed? A Canadian Muslim Perspective." *Religions* 4 (2013): 603–620.

#### **1. Introduction**

On February 5, 2011, at the Annual Munich Security Conference, British Prime Minister David Cameron declared: 'State multiculturalism has failed' [1]. According to Cameron, multiculturalism creates segregated communities, encourages terrorism and fails to provide a shared sense of British identity. In his speech, he also warned of increased scrutiny of Muslim groups receiving public money but not tackling extremism [1]. Cameron's comments followed hard on the heels of similar warnings from German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy [2]. Their sentiments are reinforced by rapidly shifting multiculturalism policies and discourses worldwide. Some critics note the return of assimilationist policies and a rejection of pluralism in such countries as the US, Germany and the Netherlands [3,4], while others see recent emergent political consensus in Western Europe as a recalibration rather a rejection of multiculturalism [5].

The recent disenchantment with multiculturalism in both Europe and North America has been fuelled by anxieties about Islam and fears about security following 9/11 [6]. The catastrophic events of 9/11 significantly altered how Muslim communities are seen worldwide [7,8]. Islam has long been subjected to orientalist depictions but following 9/11, Muslim communities were projected as a threat to the very existence of western civilizations [9] in ascending order please. In Canada, there was a 16-fold increase in hate crimes directed towards Muslims in the year following 9/11 [7]. Many western nations, including Canada, implemented anti-terrorist laws targeted at Muslims. Canada's Bill C36, introduced approximately two months after 9/11 [7,9,10], modified 22 existing laws, including the criminal code, and led to the creation of new criminal offenses such

as facilitating and enticing terrorist acts [7,11]. The implementation of anti-terrorist legislation also coincided with fears that multiculturalism could foster terrorism. For instance, Robert Fulford ([12], A19), columnist for a major Canadian newspaper, *National Post*, asks 'How can multiculturalism which preaches tolerance above all else—be squared with a militant, intolerable creed that demonizes non-believers?'

Since Muslim communities are at the forefront of debates about multiculturalism, and Canada is often perceived as the world leader in multiculturalism (having been the first western nation to officially adopt a multicultural policy), it seems appropriate to study young Canadian Muslims to clarify the dynamics of multiculturalism. Because 9/11 was a critical turning point in world politics, resulting in a noticeable shift in the state's and society's attitudes towards and relationships to Muslim communities, the post 9/11 experiences of Canadians Muslims opens a window on multiculturalism and how it works both as an idea and as a practice. Furthermore, by focusing on Canadian Muslims, we can fill a gap in empirical data, as the treatment of Muslim communities in Canada post 9/11 has largely been ignored in academic literature.

In our in-depth interviews of 50 young Muslims, we found that young Canadian Muslims are increasingly stigmatized and marginalized for their religion. Their Muslim identity is often a target of discrimination and abuse in public spaces. Institutions such as the labor market and state security practices seem to have become more discriminatory towards Canadian Muslims. Interestingly, many young Canadian Muslims are using the ideology of multiculturalism to resist discrimination and pressures to assimilate, and proudly retain a dual Muslim and Canadian identity. This obvious contradiction between the reality of racial and ethnic discrimination and ideology of multiculturalism yields important insights into the ground level dynamics of multicultural negotiations. Our study suggests that in Canada, multiculturalism is not a given reality but an everyday micro-contestation; furthermore, the increased public scrutiny of Muslims after 9/11 helped them articulate and embrace multiculturalism.

These findings lead us to problematize the discourse surrounding the 'failure' of multiculturalism, and to highlight its inherent tensions. Though multiculturalism is often understood as a means to ensure diversity and equality [13], many academics argue that its core objective is to assimilate minorities to the dominant culture [9,14–17], a sentiment supported by our findings. If this is the case, we argue that the 'failure' of multiculturalism might have more to do with Muslim resistance to assimilation than their ability to maintain loyalties to western nations. In the post 9/11 era, the retention of Muslim identities in western nations may not be welcomed because of how Islam has been demonized, as illustrated by increasingly explicit government policies of zero tolerance of Muslim religious and cultural practices, along with popular public support of these policies. For example, the most recent debate of a ban on religious symbols in Quebec.

In the next section, we review European discourses that suggest a growing endorsement of assimilationist policies. These are interesting because of their distinct focus on ethnic and religious immigrants, and more precisely, Muslims, differentiating them from the race and class dominated multiculturalism and immigration discourses in Canada and the US. In the third section, we provide an overview of the Canadian literature on multiculturalism including its critiques. The fourth section explains our research methods, and in the fifth, we show how multiculturalism plays out in the daily lives of young Canadian Muslims. Here we show how young Muslims face pressures to assimilate as they navigate through public spaces and institutions, but use multiculturalism to resist discrimination by asserting both their Muslim and Canadian identities. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of what these experiences tell us about current debates surrounding multiculturalism and its inherent contradictions. We suggest that the discourse surrounding the 'failure' of multiculturalism is not neutral but racialized, highly influenced by the post 9/11 social and political context.

#### **2. Discourses of Multiculturalism in Europe**

European multicultural debates are particularly relevant for this study because of their focus on Muslim ethnicity and religion. They provide an important contrast to debates on multiculturalism in Canada and offer valuable insights into how race, ethnicity, and religion intersect in multicultural discourses about Muslims.

In contrast to the growing support for multiculturalism in the 1970s and 1980s, the 1990s and 2000s saw a multiculturalism backlash [18]. In many European countries, a growing belief in the failure of multiculturalism led to policy retreat [3,18,19], with multiculturalism being blamed for ethnic segregation, social isolation of immigrants, and weakened national identity [4]. Some even argue that the combination of multicultural policies promoting cultural diversity and access to generous welfare support for immigrants have, instead of facilitating immigrant integration and social citizenship, led to increased welfare dependence and social and economic marginalization [20].

In the Netherlands, until recently one of the most pro-multicultural countries in the EU, for example, the government began to balk on its *Minderhedennota* policy (minority policy) in the 1990s, as media and political discourses took an anti-immigration and anti-multicultural turn. The minority policy gave resident immigrants a wide range of citizenship rights, including access to civil services and local voting rights and support for cultural associations. The policy also developed an institutional framework for immigrants to access political and policy decision-making, such as the creation of consultative immigrants' councils, and introduced education and employment programs and policies against racial discrimination [21]. These policies and programs, however, met with growing criticism in the 1990s, from both the political right and left, for being ineffective and for promoting social segregation. Critics argued that despite the multicultural policy, the immigrant unemployment rate remained high, and immigrants appeared to have made little progress integrating into Dutch society. In 'Multicultural Drama', vocal critic Paul Scheffer called the multicultural experiment bankrupt and argued for the need to rethink immigrant integration in Dutch society [5,22]. In response to these criticisms, the Dutch government shifted its policy focus from celebrating cultural and language diversities to labor market integration. Such programs as obligatory Dutch language and social orientation for newcomers were introduced in an effort to better assimilate immigrants into Dutch society [19,23]. Troubled by high unemployment rate among visible minority immigrants, and by high profile incidents such the assassinations of Pim Fortyn in 2002 and Theo van Gough in 2004<sup>1</sup> , successive governments introduced increasingly

<sup>1</sup> Pim Fortuyn was a populist right-wing politician who campaigned on an anti-immigration ticket. He was killed during the national election campaign in 2002. Documentary filmmaker Theo Van Gough was murdered in 2004 after he made a controversial film about the treatment of women in Islam.

strict citizenship tests to educate and normalize immigrants to Dutch culture, society, and values. For example, the 2003 Naturalization Test was replaced by the Integration Test in 2006, a compulsory citizenship test for immigrants applying for temporary residence permit. The test stresses, in addition to the knowledge of Dutch language, understanding of Dutch culture and its liberal secular values, including the ideas of gender equality, individual freedom and autonomy, and the right to self-determination [22].

Vesta [19] argues that the Dutch government's shift to integrationist approach to immigrants was a part of welfare state restructuring that put more emphasis on individual self-sufficiency. Others, however, perceive this as part of a much larger and pervasive European-wide political and cultural shift: an attempt to recalibrate "multicultural ontology" [5], or what Jeffery C. Alexander calls Fortress Europe's' attempt to redefine and reconstruct European civil sphere in the face of the rising threat of a global multicultural tsunami [24].

Indeed, similar shifts in multicultural policies can be observed in other EU countries, including France, Germany and Denmark. In France, public debate on the headscarf began in the early 1990s; after 2002, the debate took on a noticeably more political tone as mainstream political parties such as PRP and UMP began to actively campaign for a ban on headscarves in public space. Joan W. Scott maintains that the passing of the 2004 French law banning the headscarf and other religious symbols was as much a response by President Jacques Chirac's UMP party to the threat of the growing electoral strength of the far-right nationalist anti-immigrant party *Front National*, as it was a response to growing public anxiety about Muslims in the post-9/11 French society [25]. In Germany, public debates of 'ghettorization' and 'parallel societies' burgeoned in the early 2000s [26]. As in France, the shift in public debate led to the introduction of a ban on the headscarf in 2003 [27]. In Denmark, increasing anti-immigrant public sentiments led to the abolishment of some key NGOs supporting immigrants, including the Danish Centre for Human Rights, the Board of Ethnic Equality, and the Documentation and Advocacy Centre on Racial Discrimination ([28], p. 217). Muslim protests of the infamous Muhammad cartoons met with the anti-dialogue and 'zero tolerance' policy of the Danish government [28].2

These changes in public and political debates of multiculturalism in Europe highlight a particular form of multicultural rejection. Unlike the issues of racism and social economic inequalities between visible minorities and the white (Anglo) majority that continue to dominate North American multicultural debates, European debates focus on resident Muslims and Muslim immigrants, and the fear of European social disintegration resulting from the 'multicultural indulgence' of earlier decades [5,24]. Jeffrey C. Alexander [24] points out:

Inside history's most radical experiment in supra-national and anti-ethnic democracy, the European Union (EU), there has emerged a molting fear that, particularly vis-à-vis Muslim immigration, the independent status of the European civil sphere has become vulnerable indeed. From this sense of endangerment has followed newly restrictive legal, administrative and political measures; the rise to popularity of extremist political parties; and episodes not merely of random violence against Muslims but organized murderous attacks against outspoken supporters of the multicultural expansion of European civil societies (p. 533).

<sup>2</sup> Here, 'zero tolerance' means zero tolerance towards Muslim threats against cartoonist Kurt Westergaad.

#### **3. Multiculturalism in Canada**

Canada is routinely cited as a world leader in multiculturalism, representing the peaceful coexistence of multiple ethnicities and regions [29]. Canadian multiculturalism is frequently understood in terms of three different yet related notions: a specific government policy of pluralism, a social reality of a culturally and demographically diverse society, and a political ideology advocating cultural pluralism [29,30]. Additionally, Augie Fleras [31] argues that multiculturalism functions through an ideology and as a set of practices. As an ideology, multiculturalism proffers an image of how Canadians should live and interact within a pluralistic society, valuing diversity and being tolerant, respectful and non-discriminatory. As a set of practices, Canadian multiculturalism claims to embody fairness and equity whether by individuals, groups or institutions [13].

We see a serious contradiction between what multiculturalism promises and what it actually delivers, and argue that this contradiction can be best understood by conceptualizing it as a lived experience. Kymlicka [13] has argued that to understand the meaning of multiculturalism, we need to look at what it does in practice, not just what it says. That is, how does it impact intergroup relations and access to important social institutions? Similarly, Wood and Gilbert [29] contend that cultural identities are often negotiated in public spaces, institutions and everyday interactions. Therefore, simply examining particular multicultural policies misses an important point about what multiculturalism means for individuals and how it functions as a social ideology and in daily reality. In this study, we consider how Canadian multiculturalism is practiced in different social locations to reflect on its dynamics.

#### *3.1. Critiques of Canadian Multiculturalism*

Will Kymlicka argues for the enduring success of multiculturalism in Canada [13,18]. He contends that immigrant groups in Canada integrate more quickly today than before the adoption of multiculturalism policy, and they integrate more effectively than in countries without such a policy [13]. For example, naturalization rates have increased since the adoption of multiculturalism. Compared to other western democracies, Canadian immigrants are more likely to become citizens and to participate in the political process [32]. Moreover, children of immigrants and minorities have better educational outcomes in Canada than in any other western democracy [13]. Similarly, Dib *et al*. [33] point out the lack of extreme isolation often seen in American ghettos, the rise of mixed marriages, and the mixed socioeconomic conditions of concentrated immigrant areas as indicators of the success of Canadian multiculturalism [33].

However, many believe that multiculturalism impedes immigrants' ability to integrate into mainstream society. For example, citing a growing number of ethnic enclaves in Canada, Jimenez [34] argues that multiculturalism results in ethnic segregation and separatism. Taking the idea of ethnic communities to the extreme, Fulford [12] declares that Canada has become a land of ghettos because of multiculturalism.

These arguments are by no means new. In the mid-1960s, John Porter feared a strong emphasis on ethnic differentiation might lead to the emergence of multiple and divergent identities that would impede the development of a singular Canadian civic culture and identity [35]. In 1994, Neil Bissoondath [36] popularized this argument, saying that multiculturalism had undermined Canadian identity and values, created divided loyalties, fostered ethnic separatism and prevented the integration of newcomers. In addition, Reitz and Bannerji [37] found that second-generation minorities express lower levels of belonging to Canada than their immigrant parents. Multiculturalism has come under fire recently for fostering the development of socially harmful and politically dangerous transnational ties. Canadian historian Granatstein [38] believes multiculturalism promotes unhealthy forms of politically orientated transnationalism that undermine Canadian unity, identity, and foreign policy. He maintains multiculturalism encourages immigrants to engage in issues of the motherland, develop dual political loyalties, and import 'old world' conflicts, thus compromising opportunities to develop a strong Canadian identity and a sense of allegiance to Canada. This type of argument has snowballed since 9/11.

#### *3.2. Pluralism vs. Power Politics*

Multiculturalism in Canada has been attacked by scholars for not adequately addressing issues of social justice that impact on immigrants groups. Bannerji notes that the very foundation of multiculturalism is problematic: 'the core community synthesized into a national "we", is still a colonial European identity slightly reworked into a Canadian identity, which decides on the terms of multiculturalism the degree to which multicultural others should be tolerated or accommodated' ([14], p. 42). Arat-Koc [39] adds that multiculturalism is based on a fundamental inequality between those who 'tolerate' and those who are 'tolerated'. Similarly, Hage [16] stresses that both racists and multiculturalists believe they govern the nation and it is up to them who stays in or out of the nation. Razack [9] and Thobani [10] note that multicultural policies celebrate white tolerance of racialized others by erasing colonial white settlement, the historical displacement of First Nations communities and the mistreatment of early immigrant groups. Others point out that multiculturalism shifts attention away from social justice and racism by focusing exclusively on ethnic identity and cultural diversity [14,40,41] Not surprisingly, Haque [17] concludes that multiculturalism is not a plurality in which all cultures are equally valued but premised on the privilege of western liberal cultures to which all other cultures are subordinated.

By grounding our analysis in the lived experience of multiculturalism, we show how Canadian Muslims' experiences reflect the various debates. Does multiculturalism ensure equality and the respect for diversity, as advocated by Kymlica? Has multiculturalism prohibited Canadian Muslims from developing a strong sense of national identity, as claimed by academics such as Bissoondath and Granastein? Or does multiculturalism leave Canadian Muslims vulnerable to discrimination by placing them in a subordinate position, as often suggested by those that study power politics?

#### **4. Research Methods**

We conducted in-depth interviews with 24 Muslim men and 26 Muslim women between the ages of 18 and 31. In-depth interviews are useful for studying the perspectives and thoughts of marginalized groups, as they allow the discussion and dissemination of their stories [42]. The interviews took place between 2005 and 2008, allowing us to learn about the experiences of

Muslims in the four to seven years following 9/11.<sup>3</sup> The interview participants were guaranteed anonymity and given pseudonyms. The interviews were tape-recorded, transcribed, coded thematically, and analyzed using the N-VIVO qualitative analysis software program, which allows ideas and themes to be linked.

All participants identified themselves as Muslims. With the exception of one, who converted to Islam, all were born into Muslim families. The vast majority are second-generation Canadians. Eighty-two percent (41/50) are Canadian citizens; 40 percent (20/50) were born in Canada, 42 percent (21/50) were naturalized, and the rest were not Canadian citizens at the time of the interview and had lived in Canada for less than five years. While 30 participants were born outside of Canada, the majority had lived in Canada for many years. Interviews were conducted in Vancouver and Toronto, two metropolitan areas hosting 70 percent of the Muslim population in Canada [43].

We relied on personal networks to find interview participants. We directly approached some young Canadian Muslims. We initially contacted Muslim student organizations at the University of Toronto and at Simon Fraser University. To avoid over-sampling Muslim student organizations, we contacted other university organizations as well. At the end of each interview, we relied on snowball sampling and asked the participants if they knew of anyone else we could interview. However, we restricted the number of referrals from each interviewee to avoid over-sampling from a specific group.

During young adulthood, people explore a range of choices and begin to make commitments to interpersonal relationships, work, career, and ideology [44]. Therefore, we focused on Muslims in their young adulthood as they are in an important stage of identity formation and may have been more impacted by multiculturalism. We also focused on young Canadian Muslims because of the concern about second-generation visible minorities having lower sense of attachment to Canadian society as suggested by Reitz and Bannerji's [37] study. We wanted to see whether this also applies to Canadian Muslims.

All participants are well educated. At the time of the study, all had completed a post-secondary degree or were pursuing one. This is representative of young Muslim population in Canada, as the vast majority have some post-secondary education [45]. The sample also reflects the diversity of Islam. The participants come from India, Pakistan, Fiji, the West Indies, Libya, Bangladesh, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and East Africa, they belong to Ismaili, Shia and Sunni, and they speak different languages. Even though many do not wear religious symbols, 12 women wear the hijab. With the exception of one who is half German and half Pakistani, all are visibly non-white. Diversity in the sample is important; findings are less likely to focus on experiences specific to a certain Muslim religious tradition or a particular ethnic or linguistic group.

This study does not claim to represent all young Muslims in Canada. Since this is not a randomly chosen sample, it cannot be generalized to the wider population with any degree of statistical confidence. Rather, it is designed to take an in-depth look at the experiences and interpretations of as wide a range of young Canadian Muslims as possible. Since our goal is not to evaluate the

<sup>3</sup> Comments may well have been different before 9/11. A before and after comparison would be interesting, perhaps with an older study group.

honesty and accuracy of their responses, we take the accounts at face value. That said, we look for contradictions in their stories and for explanations of what they say to avoid inaccuracies.

#### **5. Canadian Muslim Experiences**

Thirty out of our 50 interviewees (60 percent) claimed to have experienced overt forms of discrimination related to being Muslim since 9/11. Forty-one (82 percent) also have families or friends who have faced such discrimination. The discrimination directed at these young Muslims varied from everyday encounters with individual white Canadians where they were verbally and physically harassed to more systematic cases of racism such as employment discrimination and racial profiling at airports and borders.

#### *5.1. Discrimination by Bystanders*

Many of our interviewees told us that they were stigmatized because of their religious choices. For example, Haleema, a 19-year-old woman who immigrated to Canada at the age of eight from Jamaica, says she often gets racist and patronizing comments because she wears the hijab:

Sometimes people make comments: 'You don't have to go around hiding your beauty' or 'you don't have to go around trying to be so modest'. People say, 'Oh by the way you guys are very beautiful. You don't have to wear the hijab, and you don't have to be hiding your looks. You know this is Canada. You're free to do whatever you please. You don't have to wear that'.

Though mundane, these interactions signify pervasive inequalities and highlight the sense of entitlement felt by some white Canadians to question Muslim Canadians' religious practices and to pressure them to assimilate. The hijab is increasingly associated with militancy extremism, oppression of women, and anti-western sentiment post 9/11 [46], all of which feed into intolerance and/or patronizing attitudes towards Muslim practices. Many of our participants also recall being insulted or yelled at, and a few have had things thrown at them. Aatifa, a hijab-wearing, 24-year-old woman born in Saudia Arabia who immigrated to Canada at the age of 13, was spat upon:

Once I was on the subway and this white lady spit on me. First she just started screaming obscenities and saying how 'it was my people who did this', 'I was a terrorist' and 'that I need to get out of her country.' And then she spit at me. But I just kept quiet the entire time. I thought if I said something, I might provoke that person. And I wanted to show that we are not all the violent type.

Perry [47] notes hate crimes are often 'message crimes' that emit a distinct warning to all members of the victim's community: step out of line, cross invisible lines, and you too could be lying on the ground, beaten and bloodied ([47], p. 125). Since racialized violence is a way of asserting power, the racial violence directed at Muslim Canadians signifies deep inequalities. These actions thus inform Muslim communities that Islamic practises are not welcome.

As Wood and Gilbert remind us, 'public space is a space of presence, recognition, participation, and citizenship—it is the means by which difference is negotiated, affirmed or contested' ([29], p. 686). Public spaces, especially public transit, test the relationships between members of society and reveal the gaps between every day practises and the rhetoric of multiculturalism. The subway is a site of real public cultural contestation for Haleema:

One day I was leaving Islington subway station and there was a guy walking by us and I could have sworn he mumbled terrorist. And I was like 'Did you just call us Terrorists'? I asked him because I was taken aback and I wanted to know if he had said it because he had mumbled it. And he goes 'yeah you are a terrorist'. I was like this sounds crazy so I just walked away.

To avoid facing harassment some, like Amineh, a Canadian-born, hijab-wearing, 23-year-old woman of Libyan descent, simply stopped using public transit:

I stopped taking public transit because I started getting harassed a lot…People would just do things to me. Like on the sky train I had these girls, teenage girls, blow condoms and start hitting me with them. There was such a huge group of them that I was worried about my safety. So I got off at the next stop and switched trains. And no one else on that sky train said anything or did anything. After that I stopped taking the public transportation because I do not feel safe or secure on public transit.

Amineh's experience illustrates the extent of the post 9/11 humiliation of Muslims. In this case, the silence of others during acts of discrimination works to condone the harassment. Others have found little support from authorities such as the police. A 31-year-old Egyptian man who came to Canada a year ago as an international student, claims that when his wife was verbally harassed and pushed on the street by a stranger in Toronto, the police did not show up for hours. Hate motivated violence commonly strives in an enabling environment [11]. Perry writes that 'racial violence is explicitly condoned when police fail to investigate or lay charges when victims report assaults motivated by racial violence' ([47], p. 129). In effect, law enforcement agents validate those who commit the crimes and reinforce discrimination by failing to respond seriously or in a timely manner.

The discrimination directed at Muslim Canadians not only involves verbal and physical abuse but can take the form of insensitive comments. For instance, Leela, a non-hijab wearing, 20-year-old woman born in Toronto to an East African family and Salim, a 25-year-old man, who came to Canada 11 years ago from Saudia Arabia, mention the following:

Leela: Sometimes when I meet someone new and they start asking you 'Oh where are you from? And what's your religion?' I get a bad reaction when I say 'I am Muslim'. Sometimes people will be like 'Oh, so that means you are a terrorist'. And I'd be like, 'What's wrong with you? No that does not make me a terrorist.'

Salim: When I was living in residence in university, I would have other students come up to me and make the stupidest comments. People would make comments around me like, 'How can Muslims do that' or 'How can Islam be a religion that allows something like that'. I even had a student actually come up to me and say 'What are you planning'? It took me awhile to respond to that and my response was 'I have nothing to do with any of this. I don't support it. I have nothing to be planning for.'

Clearly, being Muslim is often considered synonymous with being a terrorist. Muslims are seen as a homogenous group and are held accountable for the action of a few; as a result, they face comments that stigmatize their religious identities and rob them of their individuality.

#### *5.2. Discrimination in the Labor Market and at Border Crossings*

Many of our participants discussed difficulties finding work because of employer discrimination against Muslim. This is especially a concern for Muslim women who wear the hijab, as Aisha says:

I think it was in 2002 when I was looking for a summer job and I had no luck. I did not know if it was because of me wearing the hijab or me being a Muslim or is just not me being lucky. I applied to several supermarkets and retail stories and that kind of places. And I remember the situation, my sister does not wear the hijab and there was a job opening at a store. I went there with my application and I asked where I could drop off and they said they had already hired someone. My sister knew someone that worked there and knew that they still had an opening. So my sister that does not wear the hijab went there and they actually took the application from her.

Hostility directed at the hijab can have serious economic consequences for Muslim women; not only does it compromise their religious freedom as discussed previously, but it limits their opportunities to find work, jeopardizing their livelihood and career prospects.

However, men also worry about finding work. Dawoud, a 25-year-old who was born in Saudia Arabia and came to Canada as a young child, recalls having difficulty finding a co-op work term, but suddenly 'began getting more interviews and job offers' after he deleted information about his involvement with Muslim organizations from his resume. Some potential employers pressure Canadian Muslims to abandon their religious customs. For example Umar, a 22-year-old Indian-Canadian with a long beard mentions that once at a job interview he was told by a potential employer to shave his beard if he wanted to work for their company. According to our interviewees, the labor market is a racialized space where they face blocked access and pressures to assimilate.

Canadian Muslims also have problems at airports and border crossings. While travelling abroad is a major headache, the extensive searching they experience within Canada is perhaps even more troubling. Several participants note problems associated with re-entering Canada. Zaahir, a 22-year-old Saudi-Canadian male, says:

Coming back to Canada has always been a problem. People would see that I am born in Saudi Arabia, that I am a Muslim, my family is all Muslim, so based on that they spend a lot of time going through our belongings or doing security checks. The reason why I see it as unfair is that we have been Canadians for 18 years without a blemish or any bad records.

Many of our participants feel that state surveillance practices at borders target them as potential threats to Canada—not as citizens. Although they have legal citizenship in Canada, they fear their rights can be revoked, especially when they are treated as if they do not belong in Canada.

What do these experiences tell us about multiculturalism in Canada? It is often claimed that the intent of multiculturalism is to ensure that minorities are treated equally by and within the larger society [13]. The experiences of the Canadian Muslims in our study do not reflect this claim; instead, they support the assertion that the multicultural model in Canada does not equally value all groups [9,14,15,17,40]. Instead of showing respect for diversity, in Canada (and other western nations), Muslim cultural practices are considered inferior and inappropriate. Cultural racism, wherein mainstream society is considered culturally appropriate and racialized groups are imagined to be culturally incompatible [48], prevails in Canada. Furthermore, because multiculturalism posits Anglo-Canadian culture as the core culture [14], white Canadians often feel entitled to question the practices of Canadian Muslims or to banish them from public spaces. Finally, the discrimination Muslim Canadians face in social institutions such as the labor market reveals that multiculturalism does not ensure a meaningful redistribution of power, resources, and opportunity.

#### **6. Maintaining a Dual Canadian and Muslim Identity**

Although most of the Canadian Muslim youths we interviewed frequently experience harassment and discrimination because of their Muslim identities, we also found that many continue to assert a strong Canadian identity, often using the rubric and ideology of multiculturalism.

Although few participants (13 out of 50) recall feeling less attachment to their Canadian identity after 9/11, the majority do not. In fact, 27 claim they have a strong Canadian identity, while 10 have developed an even stronger sense of being Canadian, despite discrimination. For example, Aneesha, a hijab-wearing, Pakistan-born 20-year-old woman who came to Canada as a young child, claims that 9/11 affirmed both her Canadian and Muslim identities:

The aftermath of 9/11 did not change how I saw myself as a Canadian. I think it changed how I saw myself as a Muslim [by affirming my Muslim identity], but not as Canadian. I've always seen myself as a Canadian. Like, I've been to the Canadian public school system since I was in kindergarten…Like, I don't like to keep myself within a certain area. I like to help out in different ways. I'm Canadian.

Other interviewees agree with Aneesha. These findings correspond to results from the 2002 Ethnic Diversity Survey [49], which found that many racial minorities continue to express warmth towards Canada despite economic inequities.

Political and international policies can affect the way Muslims relate to Canadian society. Several participants claimed to have developed a stronger sense of being Canadians after 9/11 because of Canada's global image as a peacekeeping nation and because of the perception that Canada is more tolerant of Muslim communities than other western countries. Asima, a Canadian-born 23-year-old woman of Indian-East African background, is one of these:

I think I became the happiest person in the world to be a Canadian. I mean we did not enter the war in Iraq. We did not support America. We are a country of peace, and to be associated with a country like that it is amazing. The kind of treatment you get by having Canadian citizenship is amazing. Just the whole thing Canada stands for I was proud of. I was extremely proud to be Canadian and was proud of the way we handled the whole situation.

The discrepancy between the young Canadian Muslims' experiences of discrimination and their strong sense of Canadian identity may be attributed to the ideology of multiculturalism. It appears that for many of these young Canadian Muslims, multicultural policies provide what Breton [50] refers to as 'symbolic statements' that help them carve out a space within Canadian society. Our study suggests that the ideology of multiculturalism plays a huge role in how young Canadian Muslims place themselves in Canadian society. They describe a Canadian as someone who is 'tolerant', 'open to living in a multicultural society', 'welcoming' and having 'respect and appreciation for other cultures'. Thus, they envision being Canadian to mean being a part of a society that is inclusive of many cultures and groups, a sentiment officially advocated by

multicultural policies since the 1970s. For instance, Sanya a 25-year-old woman born in Canada to an Indian-East African family, says the following:

I'm very happy to be Canadian. I think it's really a great society that it's multicultural; a lot of people from different backgrounds live here and are tolerant of each other. I know its cliché, but I'm proud to be Canadian because I just think that, you know, this country is more culturally tolerant than any other country in the world. Even though you're part of a visible minority group, you're still Canadian. You're still embraced into the Canadian culture. So you feel like everybody can be Canadian. I feel like it's sort of very welcoming, and that we try to respect and appreciate all cultures.

For our interviewees, multiculturalism is a crucial component of Canadian identity, inspiring them to hold onto to their Canadian identity despite living in a hostile environment. They believe that multiculturalism helps reduce racism by promoting cultural diversity and tolerance. Umar, a 22-year-old man, who was born in India and came to Canada four years ago, says: 'Multiculturalism encourages dialogue across cultures and ethnicities so it helps to deal with racial issues'. Moreover, many feel that multiculturalism has directly benefited Muslim communities in Canada. Yaman, a 25-year-old man, who was born in Canada and comes from an Indian background, mentions:

I think multiculturalism has helped a lot of communities in Canada, Muslim communities and others. I think it has helped me because without Toronto pushing for that in a lot different areas, I think it is possible that I would have been discriminated against more so. Yes, I think it has helped a lot.

Relying on the ideology of multiculturalism, young Canadian Muslims define the discrimination they encounter as being as anti-Canadian. Umar, a 25-year-old man who was born in Canada and who comes from an Indian background says:

They pushed me and called me 'terrorist' and told me to 'go home', so I got a little upset about that because I am in a university that teaches tolerance, acceptance, living in a multicultural Canadian society and the behavior they had towards me was the opposite of what that the university and society teaches.

Similarly, Zeba, a hijab-wearing 22-year-old female born in Canada but with an Indian background, resists discrimination by asserting her Canadian identity:

I don't like it. I mean I am Canadian. I'm born here and raised here. Just because I'm not a certain skin color does not necessarily mean I'm not Canadian. When people say 'I am not Canadian,' I become all rigid and tight inside. I'm member of society as anybody else.

Canada's national identity has historically been defined as 'white' [9,10,14], and as a result, Muslim Canadians fight to be recognized as Canadian despite holding Canadian citizenship. Through this resistance, they challenge the assertion that they do not belong in Canada.

However, as noted above, our participants retain a dual identity: they may be proud Canadians but they are also proud Muslims. Zeba says:

They ask me, 'So do you feel you're Muslim or do you feel you're more Canadian?' I've had people ask me this, and they think you can't be both, that somehow you have to pick one. And I think that's ridiculous, especially in a multicultural society to be asking something like that. I don't think there is a tension between the two. I think outsiders feel there's a tension, but I don't personally feel that there is a tension.

Our participants insist on maintaining their Canadian identities but they strongly assert their religious identities in the post 9/11 era. Fifteen participants indicate that their Muslim identity was a focal part of their identity before 9/11 and has remained so. Thirty-four say they have come to identify themselves more strongly as Muslims and feel a deeper connection to their faith in reaction to public reactions towards Muslims after 9/11. A total of 49 out of 50 participants maintain a strong Muslim identity or have affirmed their Muslim identity since 9/11. Radi, a 25-year-old Canadian-born man with a Pakistani background, comments:

After 9/11, I was more proud to be recognized as a Muslim than before. When I would be with Muslim sisters who would wear the headscarf, I would want to be recognized as a Muslim compared to anything else. I wanted people to know that I was not going to be drawn away from the faith. I wanted people to know that the true Islam is not what happened with 9/11.

Despite seeing their religion associated with terrorism and under pressure to abandon their religious customs, these young Canadian Muslims fight back. They feel that they have every right to follow their religion and to assert their Muslim identity.

Overall, our study shows that many young Canadian Muslims continue to hold a strong dual identity despite facing discrimination in Canadian society. They do so by adopting and exploiting the ideology of multiculturalism. Our findings show that despite the many problems of multiculturalism, racialized groups may use its ideology as a resource to resist discrimination and to ground their identities. Our findings are similar to Matt James [51] who asserts that multiculturalism has historically served as a tool for excluded and oppressed people to form a civic voice. Of course, our interviewees are well educated and therefore more knowledgeable about their rights and better able to articulate those rights than those who do not have higher education.

#### **7. Conclusions**

In recent years, multiculturalism has been declared a failure on the world stage. It has been criticized for fostering ethnic separatism and failing to provide a common sense of national identity in western nations. Many even fear that multiculturalism may encourage terrorism in western nations. Our study, however, shows little evidence of such multicultural dissention in Canada—at least among our sample of young Muslims. Rather, it appears that many retain a strong sense of Canadian identity in the face of discrimination by exploiting the ideology of multiculturalism.

In light of these findings, how are we to make sense of the discourse surrounding the 'failure' of multiculturalism, which often uses Muslims as the prime case in point? Our findings lead us to argue that this discourse is, in fact, a racialized one. Since 9/11, the idea that Islam is innately and historically at odds with western values and principles has gained momentum. This sentiment has been popularized by authors such as Huntington [52] through the idea of the 'clash of civilizations', and Caldwell [53]. In his more recent work, Huntington [54] continues to label Muslims as an indigestible minority in the western world and casts Muslims outside the realm of western civilization. In a similar tone, Caldwell disparages the possibility of Muslims truly assimilating into European societies, pointing out that '[i]t is deeply held beliefs, not skin color, that present the main challenge. Europe's predicament involves population decline, aging, immigration, and the steady implantation of a foreign religion and culture in city after city'

(p. 327). Since 9/11, this narrative of cultural clash has gained legitimacy among politicians, policy advisors and academics, and has taken center stage in debates of multiculturalism. In the recent cultural clash narrative, religion takes the place of race as the chief hindrance to modern society. Accordingly, whereas racism has been diminished by modernity and globalization, it is assumed that the inflexible nature of certain religions makes multicultural coexistence difficult.

Our research on Canadian Muslims illustrates that being Canadian and Muslim is not mutually exclusive, thereby challenging the 'clash of civilizations' framework. Other studies on British Muslims and American Muslims have reached similar conclusions. For example, Kibria [55] finds that despite the popular rhetoric that young Muslims in Britain reject their 'Britishness', many consider being 'British' as one of the most important aspects of their identities, one that coexists with their Muslim identities. Sirin and Fine [56] find that American Muslims value both their American and Muslim identities and utilize them simultaneously. These studies, along with ours, refute the idea that Muslim identities and western identities are irreconcilable.

The experiences of Canadian Muslims also reveal the inherent tensions and contradictions within multiculturalism. To be sure, many young Canadian Muslims live daily with contradictions of a national rhetoric that expounds of the multicultural citizenship rights on the one hand, and the reality of racial and ethnic discriminations at workplace, institutions, and public spaces on the other. The intensity of harassment and discriminations experienced by these Canadian Muslims should suggest that multiculturalism in Canada is failing them. However, what does it really mean for multiculturalism to 'fail'? If multiculturalism is to allow groups to maintain their cultural or religious identities while simultaneously adopting a western one, the Canadian Muslim case shows that it is not 'failing'; on the contrary, our interviewees maintain a dual Muslim and Canadian identity. Moreover, they maintain their dual Canadian Muslim identity by exploiting the ideology of multiculturalism in the face of discrimination. However, if the ultimate goal of multiculturalism is assimilation to the dominant culture, then perhaps it is 'failing', as Canadian Muslims do resist pressures of assimilation and instead work hard to retain their Muslim identities.

Mackey [15] reminds us that multiculturalism in Canada has been based on the management and controlling of difference—multicultures are fine as long as they are properly managed and remain loyal to the western project of nation building. Similarly, Ahmed [57] conveys that multiculturalism is often a contradictory process which distinguishes between those differences that it is willing to tolerate and those considered dangerous to even the most heterogeneous nations. In the post 9/11 era, Islam is seen as the biggest threat to western nations, and Muslim cultures and practices are no longer welcomed. The experiences of our interviewees make this abundantly clear. If any affiliation with Islam is perceived as a sign of disloyalty to the western world, then the refusal of Muslims to assimilate is most certainly seen as a 'failure' of multiculturalism.

#### **Conflicts of Interest**

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

#### **References**


## **Promoting the Everyday: Pro-Sharia Advocacy and Public Relations in Ontario, Canada's "Sharia Debate"**

**Jennifer A. Selby** 

**Abstract:** Why, in the midst of public debates related to religion, are unrepresentative orthodox perspectives often positioned as illustrative of a religious tradition? How can more representative voices be encouraged? Political theorist Anne Phillips (2007) suggests that facilitating multi-voiced individual engagements effectively dismantles the monopolies of the most conservative that tend to privilege maleness. In this paper, with reference to the 2003–2005 faith-based arbitration debate in Ontario, Canada, I show how, in practice, Phillips' approach is unwieldy and does not work well in a sound-bite-necessitating culture. Instead, I argue that the "Sharia Debate" served as a catalyst for mainstream conservative Muslim groups in Ontario to develop public relations apparatuses that better facilitate the perspectives of everyday religious conservatives in the public sphere.

Reprinted from *Religions*. Cite as: Selby, J.A. "Promoting the Everyday: Pro-Sharia Advocacy and Public Relations in Ontario, Canada's "Sharia Debate"." *Religions* 4 (2013): 423–442.

#### **1. Introduction**

The 2003–2005 "Sharia Debate" in the province of Ontario, Canada offers a lens with which to consider why, in the absence of a clear interlocutor, an orthodox religious group was able to position itself as representative of mainstream Muslims who supported faith-based arbitration (FBA).<sup>1</sup> This dominance is significant given the efforts made by an Ontario provincial government-appointed commissioner to facilitate broader more "everyday" responses. To reflect upon possible ways Western governments have sought to create democratized representative processes for minority Muslims that are not top-down state-created councils like the French Council of the Muslim Faith<sup>2</sup> , I consider political theorist Anne Phillips' [5] suggestion that the reification of conservative

<sup>1</sup> These kinds of debates and controversies receive a great deal of attention by journalists and academics. Yet, these requests are rare. Statham *et al.* ([1], p. 438) show in their analysis of group demands in the Netherlands, Britain and France from 1992–1998 that Muslim group requests for accommodation accounted for fewer than 3.5% of all such appeals to the government. They are, in short, extremely minor.

<sup>2</sup> In 2003 French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy created the *Conseil Français du Culte Musulman* (CFCM or French Council of the Muslim Faith). Sarkozy envisioned a representative body for French Muslims who could be called upon when input was needed. Christians and Jews had similar representation in place. The government's involvement with the CFCM has drawn criticisms about state interference. These remarks were sharpest with the appointment of Dalil Boubakeur by Sarkozy as the first council president and with complaints that the organization

religious men as spokespeople for communities in the UK could be rectified by facilitating heterogeneous theological positions. Moira Dustin and Anne Phillips' ([6], see also [7]) work on British policy formation underscores how, in a misguided attempt to be inclusive, when orthodox rather than liberal clerics are positioned as experts on religious practice in policy debates, too much power is granted to the more powerful members or gatekeepers in ways that overemphasize maleness. In *Multiculturalism Without Culture* ([5], p. 161), Phillips concludes that a better approach is to emphasize individuals and not groups to create a default multiplicity. In engaging Phillips' proposal I seek to reformulate Talal Asad's discussion of "how religion becomes public" ([8], p. 182) to ask *which* religion emerges predominantly, in this case which "Islam." I aim to show how, in practice, Phillips' suggestion is not effective in democratizing a variety of mainstream theological positions into public discourse. In practice, this approach is unwieldy and does not work well in contemporary soundbite-necessitating contexts.

In this paper, I propose three possible explanations as to why orthodox positions dominated the "Sharia Debate"—a lack of knowledge, competing voices, and poor public relations—and suggest that the debate was a benchmark in underscoring the importance of public relations for religiously conservative Muslim groups in Ontario. The Islamic Institute of Civil Justice's dominance made clear the importance of articulating arguments that are more palpable to a broader public. Thus, rather than assuming that Western governments should grant more voice to individuals to counter the power of orthodoxy as Phillips suggests, religious groups themselves must proactively develop public relations through websites and press releases to better translate their interests. Ideally this multi-voiced media-savvy engagement could reshape the so-called secular sphere to carve out space so that more religiously-motivated concerns could have a place in public debate, better reflecting a post-secular [9] and de-privatized public sphere [10].

Methodologically, I frame this critique with reference to fieldwork in 2008 and 2009 with pro- and anti-FBA members of advocacy groups in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), where most of Canada's Muslims live, and examination of the 191-page government-mandated report and related press releases. I draw on statistical studies to cast the concerns of the so-called "everyday" Muslims I argue were excluded from the polarizing debate (on lived religion, see [11–15]). A 2008 Canadian Muslim Profile Survey suggests that 31% of self-defined Canadian Muslims attend mosque on a weekly basis<sup>3</sup> , yet other data show that no matter their level of practice, more than 90% of Ontario Muslims seek to marry using a *nikah* or Islamic marriage contract.<sup>4</sup> "Average" Muslims are thus not necessarily attending weekly congregational prayer but do engage with Sharia

does not adequately represent the diverse makeup of French Muslims (see [2], pp. 71–84; [3], pp. 24–25; [4], pp. 85–87). Seats on the CFCM are apportioned according to the physical square footage of individual mosques, a system that benefits groups with greater financial resources.

<sup>3</sup> According to the Canadian Muslim Profile Survey conducted in 2008 by the Canadian Institute of Policy Studies, 37% of respondents went to the mosque more than twice a week, and 31% once a week. Some (15%) of respondents attended the mosque only for special programs, and 2% of respondents never went to a mosque [16].

<sup>4</sup> Julie Macfarlane's recent qualitative research with Muslims on Islamic divorce in Southern Ontario and in three American cities (Dearborn, Los Angeles, and Omaha) concludes that "the number of Muslim North Americans who marry using a nikah is far higher than those who regularly attend prayers or even consider themselves to be observant." Ninety-eight percent of the marriages in her study were contracted using a nikah ([17], p. 11; [18]).

**167** 

at their time of marriage (and of divorce, thus necessitating some engagement with an imam or religious leader to be granted a religious divorce; see [17]). Accessibility to and engagement with Islamically-informed family law therefore generally matters to this population. Studies in Australia and the UK map similar kinds of everyday engagements with Islamic law (see [19–21]).

#### **2. Context**

In late 2003, the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice (IICJ) held a press conference to announce they would begin offering arbitration services in private family disputes in accordance with Islamic law and the province of Ontario's 1991 Arbitration Act. A two-year international debate followed this announcement. The FBA debate sought to assess the suitability of religiously-based legally-binding private arbitration in matters of commercial and family law. Arbitration decisions that articulated religious language and reasoning became possible in Ontario following an amendment in 1991, motivated to alleviate backlog in the courts and to move toward more cost-effective privatization. Because a number of Western European countries fear similar requests of accommodation by non-Christian minorities, the debate unfolded with international attention. Public concern centred on the legitimacy of references to Islamic family law in binding decisions. This focus explains why "Sharia courts" erroneously became short-form for the controversy.<sup>5</sup> As though Sharia were a uniform instrument, this popularly used phrase falsely raised the spectre of stoning women and capital punishment [22,23]. In addition, Julie Macfarlane's [17] research with Ontario imams shows that mediation, and not legally-binding arbitration, takes place primarily; and, most common are meetings in imams' offices or in family homes and not in courtroom settings. In other words, commonly-expressed fears were unfounded.

That a non-mainstream Islamically-conservative position dominated the debate is worth noting for, as I will show, a 191-page government commissioned report, "Dispute Resolution in Family Law: Protecting Choice, Promoting Inclusion" [24], effectively captured multiplicity among Muslim groups. To the credit of its appointed author, former attorney general Marion Boyd, akin to Phillips' proposal, the "Boyd Report" portrayed the sophisticated non-theological arguments advanced by some pro-FBA groups and concluded that this form of dispute resolution continue with some caveats. Yet, these positions did not translate into public discourse. Instead, one conservative religious group, the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice, promoted their own *Darul-Qada* ('Islamic Court of Justice') and monopolized the pro-side of the debate. My aim is not to question the outcome of the controversy—religiously-based family law arbitration was legally outlawed in Ontario with a 2006 amendment—but rather to ask how and why a falsely representative "pro-Sharia" position was embraced as normative in representations of the debate. Their position erroneously exaggerated the degree and depth of cultural disagreement.

At the same time, reliance on orthodoxic positions is understandable for a number of reasons. Firstly, audiences of the Ontario FBA debate (including many Muslims) likely held little knowledge of the parameters of the traditions of Islamic law, so that more extremist positions like the IICJ's went unquestioned. FBA was surprising to many Ontarians. Generally, the public was

<sup>5</sup> This paper refers to both *sharia*, as Islamic law stipulated in the Qur'an and the Sunnah, and *fiqh*, as jurisprudence or the more practical application of these sometimes abstract notions.

not aware that the Arbitration Act could be used to settle family law and inheritance disputes, or that if an arbitration award were made under the Act, it could be enforced by Canadian courts, no matter the religious tradition. Until 2003, it had taken place without public scrutiny; when Islamic law was referenced, concern heightened. In this way, a lack of knowledge alongside irrational fear of Islam (or Islamophobia) were factors in how the IICJ and their message monopolized public debate. Prior to this period, faith-based family law arbitration had taken place in Ontario for 14 years with no public fanfare, largely among Orthodox Jews but also among some Christian groups as well as Shi'ite Ismailis ([24], p. 56; the Boyd Report notes the Ismailis' "sophisticated and organized" arbitration model [24], p. 57).

Secondly, the tremendous ethnic and legal diversity among the Ontario Muslim community made centralizing religious authority in the community a challenge. Therefore, when the IICJ became the de facto spokespeople for FBA it was difficult to draw together a counter-narrative. Paul Bramadat ([25], p. 13) describes how Canadian Muslims constitute the most ethnically diverse group in Canada and they are similarly theologically diverse. 6 Longer discussions on the malleability and construction of *fiqh* (Islamic jurisprudence) in minority populations did not have a necessary 'soundbite' quality to counter the IICJ. Even if, following the spirit of what Tariq Ramadan calls "the building of the Muslim personality in the West" ([22], p. 7; see also [31]), a number of imams in the GTA have worked together to contextualize Islamic law for a Canadian Muslim minority situation and develop a *fiqh* for minorities, positioning family law for all Muslims in Ontario at the moment of the debate was impossible.<sup>7</sup> Compiling a '*fiqh* for minorities' is a long-term project that could not be amassed within a few weeks, particularly given the provincial Muslim communities' diversity.

Thirdly, the pro-Sharia side's public relations errors gave it visibility. Its more extremist views on apostasy were simplistic and were therefore more readily taken up by opponents and through media statements. Indeed, seeking to locate stable theological positions—and not the complexities within which most religio-cultural interpretation takes place—meant that media outlets and the final government response by the provincial Premier accentuated a more facile monolithic religiously-conservative position.

I contend that exploring the IICJ's dominance in light of Phillips' contribution is worthy of examination because the dispute devolved into debates that highlighted fears of patriarchal religiosity that did not appropriately engage with a number of substantive issues. A more robust, reflective and useful debate could have taken place. As Anna Korteweg and I have argued

<sup>6</sup> The Muslim population in Canada in 2001 was 36.7% South Asian, 21.1% Arab, 14.0% West Asian, and 14.2% were part of other minority groups (not including the small percentage of Chinese, Black, Filipino, Latin American, Korean, and Japanese Muslims; [26]). PEW's 2010 estimations suggest there were just under 1 million Muslims in Canada or 2.8% of the entire population [27] The most recent reliable data predict that by 2017, the Canadian Muslim population will be approximately 1.6 times the 2001 population of 579,645 (see [28,29]) and that by 2030 the population will be approximately 2.7 million, or 6.6% of the Canadian population [30].

<sup>7</sup> The Canadian Council of Imams (CCI) was established in 1990 and is constituted by more than 40 members. The CCI meets monthly to discuss relevant elements that affect Muslims in Canada (see [32,33]). Their website notes that it "has become the principle [sic] liaison with Federal, Ontario Provincial and Toronto Municipal Governments."

elsewhere [34], matters like unilateral *talaq* divorce<sup>8</sup> and the equal rights of all women in private arbitration no matter their faiths were never publicly debated<sup>9</sup> , in part because the more varied pro-faith-based arbitration (FBA) positions captured in the Boyd Report did not translate beyond the document into public discourse. Because the debate remained focused on murky fears of Islamic law, significant power issues in arbitration and patriarchal divorce proceedings were not formally debated and have remained unchanged.

Pro-FBA advocates were not aided by the IICJ's conservative head, former lawyer Syed Mumtaz Ali, whose initial public announcement spurred the debate. Ali had begun lobbying for these tribunals two decades earlier.10 The IICJ made a number of significant public relations gaffs through their publicly-accessible website and in interviews where Ali shared inaccurate claims. For example, Ali announced the opening of "sharia courts," a turn of phrase that gave a false sense of courtrooms where Muslims would be judged, when studies show that most Ontarian Muslims seek out counseling or assistance from imams, who take a mediative and not arbitral role ([17], p. 15, [37], p. 76). In addition to his invocation of "sharia courts," in seeking to inspire Muslims to use his services, Ali set out vitriolic theological claims that warned of apostasy: only "good Muslims" would use their services [39,40].<sup>11</sup> Ali referenced Qur'anic passages that described "infidels," rhetoric that served to alienate the *Darul-Qada* from mainstream Muslims ([42], p. 247) and non-Muslims. In sum, references to "sharia courts" and "good Muslims" did not quell fears that groups like the *Darul-Qada* sought to create a parallel legal justice system, which would weaken the rights of Muslim women and the functioning of the liberal democratic state ([34], p. 12). The IICJ's condemnatory language in their press releases and on their website gave the impression of a newfound coercive power overstepping the bounds of the Canadian legal system. Ali's characterization of "Sharia Courts" suggested that arbitration decisions are not subject to judicial oversight, a point that was quickly propagated in the community and with the media. Ironically, there is no evidence that the IICJ ever carried out formal religious arbitration ([37], p. 68).

Opposition to the IICJ's announcement to open "Sharia courts" emerged quickly among local and national secular and Muslim organizations. Two anti-faith-based arbitration groups led by women perceived as Muslim12 became most prominent: the "International Campaign Against Shari'a Court in Canada" and the government-funded Canadian Council of Muslim Women were sophisticated in their press releases, websites, and social media mobilization. Other secular Muslim

<sup>8</sup> There are typically three forms of marriage dissolution outlined in mainstream Sunni jurisprudence: *talaq*, *khul* and *faskh*. In the first case, traditional Islamic juristic traditions accord unilateral extra-judicial divorce rights solely to men, grant women limited alimony ranging from three months to one year, and typically favour men in child custody and inheritance rights. *Talaq* divorce—or unilateral divorce by the husband—is the most common form of divorce among Canadian Muslims (see [35], pp. 33–34; [36], pp. 20–23).

<sup>9</sup> In addition, many Ontario-based imams who act as mediators are being stretched thin by the familial counseling often demanded of them and are ill-equipped to respond to domestic abuse [17,37].

<sup>10</sup> Ali was called to the Ontario Bar in 1962 and was the first lawyer to take his legal oath on the Qur'an rather than on the Bible [38]. Syed Mumtaz Ali passed away in 2009.

<sup>11</sup> Here Ali uses polemical language like that critiqued by Mahmood Mamdani [41].

<sup>12</sup> Homa Arjomand of the International Campaign against Sharia Court in Canada calls herself an "atheist Muslim" [43]. Alia Hogben of the CCMW claims to be a practicing Muslim.

organizations like the Muslim Canadian Congress were also involved in critiquing FBA. <sup>13</sup> Altogether eighty-seven groups came together to oppose the IICJ's announcement ([45], p. 257). Only nine organizations espoused FBA publicly, several with qualified support, like that from the Jewish Beth Dein. These groups include the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR–CAN)14, the Islamic Society of North America Canada (ISNA), the Canadian Islamic Council (CIC)15, the Federation of Muslim Women and the Coalition of Muslim Organizations of Ontario (COMO), which represents over 30 Muslim organizations ([48], p. 108). While fewer in number, analysis of media coverage throughout the debate shows how the pro-FBA stance was underrepresented ([49], p. 441).

In response to growing concerns about Islamic law exacerbated by comments like these ones, Marion Boyd, a former Ontario Attorney General, was appointed by the provincial Attorney General and the Minister Responsible for Women's Issues to review the Arbitration Act and its impact on vulnerable peoples in the province. During the course of the review Boyd met with close to 50 groups ([24], p. 5). Six months later in December 2004, Boyd submitted her report that outlined concerns expressed during the debate and made 46 recommendations. The report gave qualified support for FBA for all faiths. Boyd concluded that to only bar Muslims from religiously-based arbitration constituted clear discrimination ([24], p. 73).

Following Boyd's qualified recommendation of the status quo, a number of pro-Sharia representatives like Faisal Kutty [50], legal representative for the Coalition of Muslim Organizations of Ontario (COMO), assumed the debate was over and that citizens could continue to choose to legally arbitrate family matters with a religious leader. Having participated in the exercise of the Boyd commission, and having seen their views reflected in the Report, groups like COMO excused themselves from the public eye. Following Boyd's recommendations, as Katherine Bullock, ISNA representative noted, "the eventual decision in 2005, to ban FBA for all, did not cross our minds—we could not imagine that the government would take away an accommodation that was already present in the law" ([51], p. 258).

However, following the publication of the Review, public debate continued. Boyd's reasoning to maintain FBA in Ontario fell on deaf ears as subsequent international protests at Canadian embassies against "Sharia Courts" in September 2005 referenced the stoning of women and human rights atrocities. With mounting international pressure, on 11 September 2005 (a Sunday not typically reserved for government press releases), then-provincial Premier Dalton McGuinty announced: "There will be no Shariah law in Ontario. There will be no religious arbitration in Ontario. There will be one law for all Ontarians" [52], thus barring FBA for all religious groups.

<sup>13</sup> Internationally, these groups received support from the Progressive Muslim Union of North America and the grand mufti of Marseilles, Soheib Bencheikh. Nationally, these groups' critiques of FBA were bolstered by prominent politicians like Quebec MPP Fatima Houda-Pepin and the Ontario Women's Liberal Caucus [44].

<sup>14</sup> The Ottawa-based non-for-profit Council on American-Islamic Relations Canada (CAIR-CAN) was founded in 2002 and has been active in a number of lobbying campaigns, including those surrounding the Maher Arar and Omar Khadr cases ([46], p. 203).

<sup>15</sup> The CIC is based in Saskatoon, SK and was formally incorporated in 1998. It has been in the active in the media on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, a Human Rights complaint against *Maclean's*, and the Canadian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001, among others [47].

An amendment in February 2006 (the Family Statute Law Amendment Act) legally ended faith-based arbitration in Ontario. However, social scientific research by Julie Macfarlane and Christopher Cutting demonstrates that, because arbitration was never widely used (informal mediation was far more common), very little has changed. Religion can inform an arbitrator's rulings so long as the texts of final rulings use the language of Canadian law and make no reference to religious principles [17,50,53]. With this background of the debate in mind, I now turn briefly to three factors that influenced the IICJ's monopoly of the debate: a lack of knowledge about what was being requested, competing authorities, and poor public relations.

#### **3. Islamophobia and Ignorance**

Islamophobic elements are evident in how the debate unfolded and may partially explain its derailment into now familiar patriarchal critiques of Islamic beliefs and practices. In these public debates, Islam was often positioned homogeneously as a patriarchal religious tradition that condones the cutting off of hands and the stoning of women [54–56]. These media accounts and press releases were not neutral. A number of pro-FBA Muslim spokespeople observed that paternalism and Islamophobia informed those who conducted media interviews. For instance, part-time ISNA Canada spokesperson Katherine Bullock noted that "the level of hatred has been frequently astonishing" [57] and recounts having experienced Orientalizing portrayals of the tradition in her encounters with the media ([51], pp. 262, 269). The IICJ's inaccurate call for "Sharia courts" gained a great deal of attention and authority because of a lack of knowledge about the parameters of Islamic family law and the kinds of mediation that were commonly taking place. This lack of knowledge extends within Ontario Muslims' communities, as well. Some of the so-called average Muslims I interviewed in 2008 similarly felt they could not speak up to counter this characterization, as they were not legal specialists.

#### **4. Dispersed Authority**

Dispersed religious authority had a significant impact on the seemingly highly-conservative pro-FBA lobby. In the first place, theological diversity in part explains why it took longer for the Coalition of Muslim Organizations of Ontario (COMO) to respond as a united group. A shared sense of the parameters of Islamic jurisprudence and arbitration processes did not coalesce in the midst of the debate, so that Muslims and non-Muslims were unable to engage with its potential positive implications. Part of this lack of representation relates to the traditions of Sunni Islam and its non-centralized authority structure that does not support a hierarchical clerical class that acts as a representative body. Federal and provincial governments have not established religious authoritative representatives following Protestant models, like the French government has mandated with the French Council of the Muslim Faith.

This lack of a unified theological position became apparent in how pro-FBA groups disagreed about the utility of referencing the term 'Sharia'. On the one hand, pro-FBA groups like ISNA Canada and the Islamic Institute of Toronto (IIT) suggested that over-usage of the term precluded a measured and qualified discussion of how *fiqh*-based arbitration could be developed and regulated. They preferred the more specific and contextual term *fiqh* or what Marion Boyd, aware of

differences on the term, referred to more generally as 'Muslim principles.' On the other hand, the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) noted in a media communiqué that the term must be embraced, out of respect for its meaning and history:

Sharia is Arabic for Islamic Law and there is no need for Canadian Muslims to be apologetic. Those who oppose the use of the word Sharia, but say the tribunals will use 'Islamic principles' are contradicting themselves [. . .] We should not let those abusers rob us of a word that has a long and noble history [58].

This discord on language reflects a range of views. Despite having been organized for a few years, the COMO (the Coalition of Muslim Organizations of Ontario) formed their common unified response following the announcement to end FBA [24]. At that point it was too late to impact public opinion.

In the third place, this kind of public opinion campaign is not easy for groups often largely composed of volunteers. ISNA Canada representative Katherine Bullock described having had a number of work and familial responsibilities that made her often unavailable for the short turn-around time necessitated by the media ([51], p. 261). Her absence meant that at times more moderate pro-FBA voices were excluded.

These shortcomings in theological unity and public presence overshadowed the other Ontario-based pro-FBA Muslim groups' press releases' sophisticated arguments submitted for consideration by Marion Boyd. While I recognize the homogenizing and naturalizing forces in determining the "mainstream," I argue that these arguments sought to demonstrate how FBA could signal a Canadian multicultural ethic in light of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms; pointed to how FBA could save tax dollars in alleviating the overburdened public court system; claimed that structuring it more formally would allow for greater transparency; and argued that, counter to the main concern by anti-FBA groups, FBA offered better opportunities for the protection of women's rights in allowing for "indigenizing" opportunities. These kinds of arguments that move away from apostasy arguably would have had greater credibility and been more legible amidst the broader public narrative on the suitability of FBA in a supposedly secular country. Despite constant references in the Report to the country's secularity, Canada does not have a formal legal separation of religion and politics [59].

Firstly, in their press releases and submission to the Boyd Commission, the Islamic Society of North America Canada based their support for FBA primarily on liberal democratic grounds. They challenged the notion that judicial autonomy in the form of 'sharia-inspired tribunals' would lead to a fracturing of the secular state and stated that "a denial of this right to Sunni Muslims will be reckoned as discrimination and a singling out of a religious group in Ontario. This will be counter to Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees freedom of religion for all groups" [24]. The group drew on multicultural guarantees and political arguments regarding the possibilities for coexistence of religious law within a secular framework. CAIR-CAN framed its rationale similarly, stating that any form of Muslim dispute resolution would be "consistent with Canadian law and the Charter" ([60]; see also [61]; [24], p. 44). The Canadian Islamic Congress's (CIC) then-president went further to describe the end of FBA as a violation of the Charter.

Secondly, the head of the CIC appealed to practical considerations noting that such arbitration would "ease the backlog in the courts" and that "many judges prefer this" [62]. In other words, FBA saves taxpayers' money. This justification worked for former Premier Mike Harris whose then-conservative majority privatized a number of government programs as cost-saving measures in the 1990s.

Thirdly, a number of pro-FBA groups noted that mediation related to familial conflicts was already common, making arbitration a viable new option. Here pro-FBA advocates noted how many Ontarian Muslims feel that their interests and confidentiality are better protected by an imam, who also typically does not charge for his services, unlike a professional counselor, mediator or lawyer [17]. Following this argumentation, Riad Saloojee, a CAIR-CAN spokesperson, pointed out in a communiqué submitted to the Boyd Report that pragmatism should motivate policy makers to maintain the status quo related to FBA: "The reality is that on the ground, faith-based arbitration is already going on in an informal way," noted, so that "the best way is to regulate it and ensure it is transparent" [63]. Faisal Kutty, legal representative of COMO, moved from an argument of practicality to one of fairness and suggested that FBA for Ontarian Muslims reflected an opportunity to "indigenize" Islamic legal rulings so that they could be better regulated and supervised ([50], p.124). For Kutty, this process would allow judicial oversight into practices that would better reflect the beliefs of religious minorities while integrating them into the Canadian legal system. He referenced similar language to Saloojee, arguing that "formalizing the process will allow for greater transparency and accountability" [64], both of which would positively impact women.

On this note, contrary to the pejorative portrayal of pro-FBA groups like the CCMW whose public platform focused upon how Muslim family law perpetuates patriarchy ([24], p. 48; [65]), pro-FBA groups also reflected on Islam and gender politics, a point that did not translate well into the public debate. ISNA Canada's spokesperson, Katherine Bullock, proposed an equity model based upon gender complementarity to counter what she called the "Liberal-feminist version which says that if men and women are not treated in an identical manner, then women are being oppressed" [50]. Other pro-FBA advocates positioned Islam as pro-women and saw FBA as a way to convince culturally-patriarchal religiously-minded men of this fact. As cited in the Boyd Report, Mubin Shaikh of Toronto's Sunni Masjid El Noor16 noted:

when decision [sic] in favour of women are made against men who are ignorant of the rights of women afforded in Islam. The authority of the Tribunal will prevent a disputant from accusing it of ignoring their Islamic values—a claim frequently made against the secular system. Through this authority, the community will pressure the wrongdoer to conform to the norm and encourage him/her to cease their sinful behaviour ([24], p. 64).

Along these lines, in one of its public position papers, ISNA Canada argued that immigrant women would feel more "at home" with Muslim arbiters, who would also guarantee privacy and confidentiality in a way a "secular court" does not [24]. This concern about women's rights was *the* central issue for anti-FBA groups, a point that needed to be better addressed by groups who supported it. Despite nuanced written submissions for the Boyd commission by pro-FBA advocates

<sup>16</sup> Formally since 1982 and informally prior to that, the Masjid El Noor has offered counselling, mediation and arbitration services carried out from a pastoral care point of view. Their mediation board consists of seven people, one of whom is an imam and the rest of whom are volunteers divided equally between men and women. The mosque provides translations in Gujurati and Urdu to those who need services in other languages ([24], p. 60).

of the potential advantages FBA afforded to women, symbolic representations trumped these reflections. In the wake of the debate, Faisal Kutty, legal counsel for COMO, conceded that from a public perception perspective, the group should have strategically situated Muslim women as the leaders and spokespersons [50,66]. Because Muslim women are not equally represented in the institutional structures of Ontario communities, such as in mosques, schools, and community centers, this inclusion would have greatly aided public perception. The 'pro-Sharia' campaign thus did not respond effectively to the oppressed Muslim woman trope that emerged so prominently; there was little confidence that Sharia-based tribunals would be any more responsive to women's interests.

A unified and authoritative message that effectively and, following John Dewey's theory of communication [67], aesthetically and effectively conveyed the socio-political benefits of FBA for non-Muslims or non-religiously practicing Ontarians—including a reduction in public court costs and a potentially more robust multiculturalism—did not occur. In part, enunciation of the role of women might have been better assured by stronger public relations. These articulations matter because when policy discourses privilege orthodox positions like the IICJ's, they tend to accept sweeping characterizations of women's social comportment and rights [68–72].

#### **5. Orthodoxy and Public Relations**

Religious conservatism does not lead to uniformity in theological positions. Acknowledging the power dynamics laden in the homogenizing category of the "mainstream," religious studies scholars are well aware of the diversity of belief and practice in religious systems, including a range among the most orthodox. Nancy Davis and Robert Robinson's ([73], p. 243) quantitative overview of conservatism among Protestants in the US demonstrates that the religiously orthodox exhibit little consensus of opinion on specific issues and, as individuals, hold inconsistent views. Rajeev Bhargava [74] warns of intra- and interreligious domination, where certain branches within the same religious tradition are privileged by members, the public and by scholars. Overuse of a narrow understanding of orthodoxy is therefore problematic because, as I have described, it is not representative of contradictory everyday experiences of religious beliefs and practices among mainstream publics.

Facilitating these positions assumes that everyday individuals will want to share their opinions. These 'average' individuals have a right to indifference or a lack of knowledge on the application and interpretation of religious law. For instance, one of my female interlocutors interviewed regarding her experience of the FBA debate explained her frustration with herself for not becoming more involved. 'Asma' explained, "I'm busy with my three young children. I think this is an important issue, but what can I do? And I don't know the Sharia. I can't go on talking about it when I don't know the hadith" [75]. Capturing Asma's position is central to unlocking the common concerns of Muslims in Ontario who were for FBA, but whose voices were absent from discussions. Asma's experience reflects how other individual pro-FBA voices existed, but were not captured by the public debate for a variety of reasons, including not being sensational enough for the media, who preferred a simplistic, reductive approach to the issues at hand.

In sum, with the exception of Phillips' [5] suggestion of emphasizing individuals in Western public policy matters rather than institutionalized groups, theory about *which* religion emerges through policy has not fully considered how orthodox positions take precedence [10]. Critiqued for how she characterizes Muslims primarily as "different, as not-wholly-Canadian, and perhaps as potential threats to 'real' Canadians" ([76], p. 350) and for too plainly pushing a multicultural ethos that masks inequalities [77], Marion Boyd's Report is nevertheless a good example of what Phillips describes. The Boyd Report successfully captured nuances related to arbitration and to Islamic law from a variety of Muslim perspectives. Even if the pro-FBA groups under examination engaged with the language, national culture and citizenship rituals necessary for full engagement in their consultation with Boyd ([1], p. 428), pro-FBA groups were unable to translate this into political action and public discourse. In part this disconnect was due to limited resources, to a media bias and to a lack of understanding in the community regarding the broader implications. Pro-FBA groups were not able to transmit their more sophisticated explanations in the mediatized debate that had too quickly latched to the IICJ. By way of conclusion, I suggest that policy engagement and media knowledge are keys to this end.

#### **6. Conclusions**

The Sharia Debate has become a benchmark for a number of Ontario Muslim groups who seek to better facilitate their positions in public debate. Public perception and relations are clearly important in shaping opinions and the course of debates like this one. The post-9/11 and 'Toronto 18' 17 environment casts suspicion on Islamic-informed engagement. In this climate, Ontario Muslim groups acknowledge the importance of promoting the positive engagements of their members. Macfarlane similarly notes that while post-9/11 Islamophobia negatively impacts the lives of women and men who are Muslims in Ontario, it also enforces a "commitment to greater openness and communication with non-Muslims" ([17], p. 7). Canadian Muslim organizations have, since the Sharia Debate, become more cognizant of the need for sophisticated public relations and political lobby. To make this point, I point to three examples in Ontario, the US and the UK that highlight differing ways these groups have shifted their strategies.

Firstly, a public policy and government course developed in the wake of the FBA debate at the Islamic Institute of Toronto specifically addressed the importance of knowing the system to engage government ([78], p. 362). This initiative reflects a newfound post-2005 proactive stance. The aim of these evening classes was focused on affording Muslim Canadians knowledge of the political system so that they would feel empowered about practical matters, like governmental structure and when advocacy could take place. In one May 2008 class, the Pakistani-born Canadian teacher outlined the hierarchies of municipal and provincial governments, the common ways in which policy and law are created, and when an informed citizen might best lobby his or her council member (town hall meetings are too late). This course clearly advocated religiously-informed lobby and was inspired by frustration felt by the instructor who worked in the provincial legislature. This kind of mobilization suggests that knowing the political system allows individuals to better engage with government so to translate their arguments, and exemplifies Jose Casanova's

<sup>17</sup> The "Toronto 18" refers to eleven men and four youths arrested on 2 June 2006 (two others were arrested who were already serving prison terms, another was arrested two months later), accused of participating in plots to attack Parliament Hill among other locations. That these were the first arrests after the 9/11-related anti-terrorist legislation and that these threats to Canada were "homegrown" raised the spectre of radicalization.

[10] now-classic argument of the deprivatization of religious perspectives in political lobby. This engagement does not wait to be called upon as consultants like with the Boyd Report but rather seeks to frame potential issues.

Secondly, in 2011–2012, the New York State-based Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), which has 30 chapters in the US, launched a \$3 million public awareness campaign to destigmatize the term "sharia" among the American public. Its timing suggested that it emerged in part in response to the IICJ's public relations disaster. Its campaign focused on recent Sharia debates in the United States where 13 states are considering legislation to forbid "Sharia," with aims to dispel "the myths surrounding Shariah Law" and to communicate "the truth to the American public." They outlined these efforts as defending religious freedom and warding against Islamophobia [79]*.* Using Christian-based references to appeal to non-Muslim Americans they noted:

There is no one thing called Shariah. A variety of Muslim communities exist, and each understands Shariah in its own way. No official document, such as the Ten Commandments, encapsulates Shariah.

ICNA does not elaborate, however, as to more specific sources of authority and how *fiqh* would be determined. Their campaign is primarily focused on de-stigmatizing Islamic law.

Thirdly, Marta Bolognani and Paul Statham [80] point to how British Muslim organizations have formed alliances to more efficiently and effectively brand themselves. Based on qualitative interviews with British Muslim organizations, they note that Muslim community representatives recognize how the media shape perceptions. They cite an imam who argues that "stories about Muslims [are] restricted to a negative focus and limited to only a few oft-repeated clichéd cultural issues, usually on wearing a burqa or niqab, or claims about the treatment of women" ([80], p. 238). Bolognani and Statham report that their participants found that sensationalism meant that unrepresentative, even if camera-ready, individuals were more often selected for interviews; one example given of someone who had interviewed a great deal but who has few actual followers was Anjem Choudary, akin to the IICJ's former president, Syed Mumtaz Ali. They also cite a representative from the Bradford Council for Mosques who suggests how engagement with the media is necessary, and that "faith leaders generally are not very good at interacting with the media. There are many positive stories and many positive examples of work which should be shared widely. The media offers us the opportunity to do this" ([80], p. 239). Daniel Nilsson DeHanas and Zacharias Pieri [81] similarly show the significance for the Tablighi Jamaat of hiring a PR company to manage their image and website in the midst of the building of a 'mega-mosque' construction adjacent to the main 2012 Olympic site near London. Nilsson DeHanas and Pieri note that the mobilization of their website (now defunct) allowed them to promote a more modest mosque. Beforehand, the Tablighi Jamaat's web and PR absence "perpetuated their image as an isolated and secretive group" ([81], p. 809). Again, these apparatuses matter.

Returning to the Canadian context, the importance of this sophistication and proactive media portrayal has been solidified. After the April 2013 Boston Bombings when the Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrested two men suspected of a railway terror plot in Toronto [82], a number of Muslim organizations like CAIR-CAN very clearly and intentionally dis-associated themselves from these actions. This collaboration of Muslim groups with police reflects years of negotiation and trust-building undertaken with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Toronto Imam Yusuf Badat made evident to CBC Radio that Muslim leaders are taking steps to help prevent radicalization. Badat concluded:

We tell them [members], 'be part of the broader mainstream community. Get involved. Be part of the civic engagement. Learn Islam from the right sources, rather than being radicalized through these internet videos' [82].

In a televised press conference in a media room (and not in a mosque) after the Via Rail plot was revealed, CAIR-CAN reminded Canadian Muslims to immediately notify police whenever they have knowledge of criminal activities. In denouncing the terror plot and reminding the media that the most important tip came from an imam, its executive director Ihsaan Gardee emphasized the everyday-ness of Muslims:

Like all Canadians, we want to feel safe and protected in our own country. We trust that our fellow citizens will see this for what it is: the alleged criminal and misguided actions of a few who do not reflect or represent Canadian Muslim communities [83].

Salam Elmenyawi, president of the Muslim Council of Montreal, similarly sought to show his community's separateness from the suspects and noted that no one seemed to know them from local mosques. He said the fact that the accused opted not to be represented by a lawyer demonstrates he is either "stupid or mentally ill," [84] clearly separating the suspect from mainstream Muslim groups. In this 2013 instance, in announcing the arrests, the RCMP thanked Muslim leaders for their help and publicly credited them with bringing a suspect to their attention [85].

As a flashpoint, the FBA debate in Ontario is thus illustrative of the need for PR by mainstream religious groups. Even if the 'average' Muslim would not attend, the public policy class that emerged at the IIT following the debate is an example of this emerging space. Individuals who have taken this class may be better equipped to steer conversations to what matters to them. Even if clear discrimination has been charted and Muslim Canadians are significantly under-employed in contrast with other religious groups <sup>18</sup> , the country's Muslim communities are conversant civic contributors.

The sophistication and significance of FBA for pro-Sharia groups was mired by problems in not specifically addressing the gender concerns of most critics and not translating their message to the "sound-bite" terms of the debate. However, events in the wake of the debate suggest an increasing recognition of the importance of public relations and opinion to better represent the positions of Muslims in Canada, the US and the UK. The challenge for these groups and individuals is to allow for a subtlety and depth of representation so that Muslimness does not necessarily become the sole defining feature of this political engagement should the interlocutors choose otherwise. This reductive understanding of identity, wherein religiously-determined behaviors and beliefs come to

<sup>18</sup> Statistics Canada data 2001 show that despite a higher level of education than non-Muslims, Canadian Muslims' level of unemployment (14,4%) is more than twice as high as the national average [86]. A 2004 CAIR-CAN study suggested that 43% of their 467 respondents knew at least one other Muslim who had, since 2001, been questioned by the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police), CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) or local police. More than half (56%) had experienced at least one anti-Muslim incident since 9/11 [87].

solely encompass identities, parallels the over-reliance of the singular representation of the IICJ in the FBA debate in Ontario, Canada.

#### **Acknowledgements**

This paper has benefited from comments raised in a panel discussion at the 2012 American Anthropological Association meetings organized by James Bielo and Eric Hoenes del Pinal, as well as insights from Faisal Kutty and suggestions by anonymous reviews. I thank Katie Flood for her bibliographic assistance. Field research was conducted in the Greater Toronto area from January–August 2008 and July–August 2009 with support from a Fulbright Scholar award and with research funding from Memorial University of Newfoundland.

#### **Conflicts of Interest**

The author declares no conflict of interest.

#### **References**



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http://www.canadianislamiccongress.com/cic2010/2004/08/28/sharia-defines-who-we-are-saysislamic-congress-fears-of-potential-abuse-called-unfounded/ (accessed on 6 September 2013).



## **184 Learning to Be Muslim—Transnationally**

### **Louise Cainkar**

**Abstract:** This essay discusses the religious upbringing experiences and reflections upon them articulated by 53 Muslim American youth who were interviewed as part of a larger sociological study of Arab American teenagers living transnationally. On extended sojourns in their parents' homelands, these youth—most were born in the US although some migrated to the US at a young age—were taken "back home" to Palestine and Jordan by their parents so they could learn "their language, culture, and religion". They were asked about learning to be Muslim in the US and overseas in the context of a much larger set of questions about their transnational life experiences. The data provide insights into the various types of early religious learning experiences Muslims have access to in a US Christian-majority context. The essay then examines how these youth later experienced and interpreted being Muslim in a place where Muslims are a majority. The study found that while a majority of youth said they learned more about their faith, almost half (42%) said that it was the same as in the US, that they did not learn more, or that the experience contributed both positively and negatively to their religious understanding. Key to these differences was the character of their experiences with being Muslim in the US. A majority of girls and of youth who attended full-time Islamic schools and/or were part of a vibrant Muslim community in the US gave one of the latter responses. On the other hand, most of the boys who grew up isolated from other Muslims in the US reported learning more about Islam. They were especially pleased with the convenience of praying in mosques and with being able to pray in public without stares. The data show that living where one is part of the dominant religious culture does not necessarily make for a deeper experience of religion. What seems to matter more is the type of experience with being Muslim each youth brings into the situation, as it was these that informed their subjective interpretations of what it means to be Muslim.

Reprinted from *Religions*. Cite as: Cainkar, L. "Learning to Be Muslim—Transnationally." *Religions* 5 (2014): 594–622.

#### **1. Overview of Findings**

This study's data on religious upbringing in the US show that family, especially mothers, are the most important transmitters of Islamic religious beliefs and practices to young children, a finding consistent with studies of the transmission patterns within other religious groups in the United States. Parents often tapped the resources of Saturday or Sunday schools to reinforce family teachings, but these were not always available nearby. Youth who attended these schools (38% of sample) largely described them as not particularly helpful, mainly because of their reliance on memorization, focus on historical figures rather than contemporary matters, and because they felt that classes were taught by untrained teachers. The data also suggest that the intermittent nature of these programs in combination with their significant distance from students' homes failed to create community among young Muslims, where friendship and solidarity could be experienced and teachings could be reinforced. On the other hand, some 20% of the youth interviewed in this study attended full-time Islamic schools for at least some part of their childhood in the US and were overwhelmingly positive about such experiences, in significant measure precisely because they created such community. Eleven percent of the interviewees said they had had no Islamic religious education in the US.

This particular analysis of study data also sought to understand whether, and in what ways, youth who spent their early years in the US found living in a Muslim majority context helpful to their religious growth and understanding, and if there was any relationship between the types of religious education they had in the US and their interpretations of these experiences. For example, were youth who had only family-based religious education more likely to view living in a Muslim majority country as helpful to their religious understanding than youth who had multiple sources of education, or did these resources not matter? Findings show that a majority of youth (58%) said that living in a Muslim majority place improved their religious growth and understanding. However, a substantial minority (42%) said that it did not help, that is was the same, or that it both helped and hindered. Youth who said they learned about Islam and being Muslim from their family alone in the US were the most likely to say that the experience of living "back home" was beneficial to their religious learning, while those who had attended full-time Islamic schools in the US were more likely than other youth to say that they did not learn more about their religion in a Muslim majority context, that it was the same, or that it was unhelpful. Youth who attended weekend Islamic classes answered in both ways, suggesting that something other than a linear process of religious learning is at work, that other variables come into play to influence their experiences and interpretations. Religious learning outcomes were clearly gendered, as girls were much more likely than boys (71% *versus* 44%), independent of religious education in the US, to say that the experience was not helpful, the same, or that it had elements that helped and elements that did not. Indeed, girls and boys spoke about and experienced religion in very different ways "back home". When girls spoke about expressions of their religious faith, they referred mainly to ways of dressing and behaving around others, but when boys spoke about the same subject they talked mainly about praying.

This essay lays out in an organized and descriptive fashion the youth's recollections of their early religious learning experiences in the US as well as their commentary on their overseas experiences of religion, especially whether and how such experiences contributed to their religious understanding and growth. The data clearly show that youth interpret "indigenous expressions" of religion [1] in multiple ways and that these interpretations are informed by their previous US experiences. Their observations and experiences of presumed "religious authenticity" do not necessarily produce the outcomes expected by their parents, nor those of religious leaders and scholars who believe that immersion in a Muslim majority climate is beneficial to the religious formation of young Muslims growing up in places where they are a minority. What seems to matter more is the quality of that experience, and that is a subjective interpretation informed by the prior experiences each youth brought into the situation.

#### **2. The Importance of Family, Congregation, and Society in Religious Upbringing**

Sociological studies of religious upbringing<sup>1</sup> in the United States have tended to focus their analyses on two levels: the family and religious congregations. Although most US studies have been of Christians and secondarily of Jews, the recent upsurge in immigration to the US has provoked research on a range of other religious groups. Studies of the roles of family and community institutions in religious upbringing consistently find that the most significant actors in the religious education of children are the family, especially the mother, followed by religious institutions and their attendant congregations. Parents transmit religious beliefs and values and model religious practices within the home [1–3]. When parents are members of religious congregations, they convey their congregations' perspectives and beliefs on matters such as piety, faithful practice, authenticity, and religious authority. It is the parents who funnel their children into religious schools and institutions, their worship services, religious education classes, and affiliated social groups—the places where children learn "what it is that my religious tradition teaches" [4]. Speaking to the importance of religious congregations for conveying beliefs, Edgell (speaking mainly about Christians) notes:

People get religious ideas through a variety of sources, and people pursue a variety of paths to express their religion. But when it comes to asking questions about what it is that I believe or we believe as a religious community, congregations are probably the place for many, many people [4].

The growing body of sociological research on religion among immigrants and their children in the US tends to be focused on religious congregations (institutions and their communities). This literature finds that religious congregations play additional formative roles to those mentioned above: they aid in immigrant adjustment to the new place of residence and in the formation of second-generation identity and a sense of belonging [5–7]. The few studies that have addressed religious practices in the home confirmed that these are important to the religious upbringing of the children of immigrants [1,6,8]. Park and Ecklund, who studied second-generation Asian Americans of five different religious faiths, found a significant role for a more broadly defined extended family, in which mothers had the central influence, across all of the groups studied. The family's influence overlapped with the congregation as "parents provided the means by which children receive religious training in the congregation and provide models of participation and leadership for children" ([1], p. 98). They also found that "home-based religious practices" (reading the Qur'an or the Bible to children, reciting family prayers, receiving moral instruction) were equally important for all of these groups, even though they had assumed they would be more important for religious groups with fewer institutional and organizational resources. Additionally, they found that

<sup>1</sup> Religious upbringing is a more broadly encompassing term than "the religious education of children"; it draws directly from the Arabic word *tarbiyya*, which connotes both formal education and ways of being and acting. Amer, one of the youth interviewed, described *tarbiyya* as "learning how to be a good human being".

"international family visits" were especially important to the religious socialization and understanding of Hindu youth: "visits to relatives in distant countries linked children and young adults to indigenous expressions of religion" ([1], p. 107). Recent studies [9,10] have examined the impacts of transnational journeys embarked upon by American Muslim adults in order to develop deeper religious understanding. More than seeking to experience "indigenous expressions" of religion, these adults intentionally sought out specific religious teachers, who were often critical of local practices and indigenous expressions. In contrast to these adult seekers, the youth discussed here mainly interacted with Islam as locally practiced, taught in schools, and understood within the family, but across two very different places. In the US, these sources not only taught them what it means to be Muslim, they informed their expectations of what being Muslim would be like in a Muslim majority society, a perspective they carried with them overseas that imposed upon their interpretations of local religious teachings and behavior. In this way they were different from their parents and from local youth, often questioning matters that others may have taken for granted. Their transnational lens (see, e.g., [11]), informed by but not bound to Islam as practiced in the US or in their parents' homelands, was a resource they consulted when considering what they were being taught about Islam and how they would practice their religion, or if they would practice it at all. This unique transnational positionality adds a layer of complexity to what might actually be occurring during international family visits, such as those cited by Park and Ecklund. Finally, most studies of religious groups in the US, whether of new groups or of Christians and Jews, treat the Christian-majority social context of the United States as normative. Few have examined the specific ways that dominant social structures and cultures infused by a religious normativity, where certain religious beliefs, values, and calendars are taken for granted, affect the daily lives and sense of belonging of members of minority religious traditions (see, e.g., [5,12,13]). The data from this study speak to these impacts as described by youth, whose insights on how these matter are keener once observed through a comparative lens.

#### **3. Methods**

This analysis is based on interviews conducted by the author in 2011 with 53 Arab American Muslim youth whose parents had taken them "back home" to Palestine or Jordan to learn their language, religion, and culture (the reason stated by nearly every youth interviewed), including twenty five females and twenty eight males. While they had moved from the US at various ages, depending on their placement among siblings and other family-related variables, and some had been born overseas, all were juniors or seniors in high school in Palestine or Jordan when interviewed for this study. The youth saw these overseas experiences as temporary sojourns; the overwhelming majority said they intended to return to the US as adults. Most of the interviews were conducted at high schools in the Jerusalem-Ramallah area (Palestine) and in greater Amman (Jordan), mainly because high schools are the best places to find such youth and these geographic locations are where schools catering to English language speakers have been established. School principals assisted me in locating students eligible for the study [raised in the US, high school junior or senior], sent study information and consent forms home to parents, and then excused participating students from classes so I could interview them. The interviews selected for this analysis were part of a larger study of transnational Arab American teenagers that also includes

youth from Yemen as well as Christians. The findings reported here are thus not from an in depth study focused on religion, but one that examined transnational experiences in which religious learning is one aspect.

Youth in the study grew up in a wide range of places in the US; many were not raised in large cities or in places where other Muslims lived nearby. Youth living in Palestine and Jordan reported growing up in thirty-four different US cities and towns; less than half said there was an Arab or Muslim community in the place that they lived. The strength of this sampling method is that it does not have the congregational bias so often found in studies of members of religious groups, nor the focus on a concentrated ethnic community. We are able to learn about the experiences of Muslims living on the edge, whose daily lives are performed in a context where they are often swimming alone. One of its drawbacks is that it underplays what it's like to be Muslim in the US when surrounded by a Muslim community with robust Muslim institutions. Through examining these youths' recollections of learning to be Muslim and their narratives of current experiences we gain insights into what they consider to be the key agents and methods of their early religious socialization in the US as well as into how they interpret the "indigenous expressions of religion" they are engaged with "back home". As with all data that taps into memories, their recollections of earlier experiences should be understood as such. That is, when youth describe how and what they learned about Islam as children in the Unites States, they are recounting what they remember as meaningful, rather than expressing verifiable factual details.

#### **4. Learning to be Muslim in the US**

Interviewees described five main patterns of religious learning during their childhoods in the United States, including one described by 11% as none at all (see Table 1). The most common method cited (32%) was through their parents and extended family (sometimes including nonrelated adults), followed by 19% each citing Saturday or Sunday school, full-time Islamic school, or Saturday or Sunday school and family. The meaningful difference between the number of males and females offering the latter response suggests that something is going on: perhaps multiple-methods (weekend school and family) were utilized more frequently with females than males, or perhaps males were more likely to forefront formal instruction and de-emphasize (and thus render invisible) instruction that occurred in the informal sphere of the home. Youth who attended full-time Islamic schools in the U.S., who were more likely to be male than female, considered these schools as their primary source of religious education and usually did not mention family. That is, while half of the youth specifically identified family as a source of religious education, we should not conclude that family was uninvolved in the religious education of other half but rather that they imputed greater importance to formal, institutional educational venues, even if they did not find them useful.

Place matters with regard to the resources parents have access to for their children's religious education. Despite significant growth in number and size of Muslim institutions in the US [13], not every U.S. city has a full-time Islamic school, and many Muslim families live at significant distances from mosques where they can worship or institutions offering weekend classes<sup>2</sup> . Many

<sup>2</sup> Not sure why this is here. Appears again on page 6. According to Bagby's ([14], p. 4) study of mosques in the US, about 80% of mosques are in large cities and their suburbs. "The number of mosques and mosque participants

youth interviewed in this study attended a mosque service only on religious holidays, citing distance as the main barrier to more frequent attendance. The locations of youth who attended full-time Islamic schools attest to these limitations as they grew up in the large cities of Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Atlanta, Boston, Brooklyn, and Miami. At the same time, there were plenty of youth from these same cities who did not attend full-time Islamic schools, highlighting matters of proximity, cost, and parental preference.


**Table 1.** Cited Responses to: "How did you know you were a Muslim? How did you learn about your faith when you were younger?"

#### *4.1. Learning from Family*

Youth who said they learned how to practice their Islamic faith from family members spoke of their parents', especially their mothers', endeavors to read Qur'an to them, teach them how to speak Arabic, pray, and fast during Ramadan. Families were most effective, however, according to the interview accounts, at transmitting moral lessons on how to distinguish between good and bad as a Muslim and in conveying their interpretations of the behavioral boundaries of the religion. These elements of the faith, which we might call a Muslim ethos and its daily life application, were repeatedly referred to by youth as either the "rules" or the "basics," and were often framed in comparison to what "Americans" do. Indeed, learning "the rules" and how to fast were mentioned more often than any other aspect of religious education within the family and for many youth the "rules" were their main take-away and had the most memorable impact. Listening to these teens describe the pedagogical process, one can sense the challenge parents faced raising their children as Muslims in the US and appreciate why they thought taking them "back home" would be beneficial to their Muslim upbringing.

When asked how she learned about her religion, Sawsan replied: "Our parents, my mom mostly. She was always like 'You are living in America, but you are a Muslim. You're living in America, but you have to follow my rules. And Islamic *rules*.' And she always kept the Islamic boundary around us." The notion of boundaries carried the message that good and bad for Muslims were different from good and bad for "Americans." Indeed, Mohammed said it was better for a Muslim to be raised in Palestine than in the US because if a Muslim stays in the US "maybe he's going to do

continue to show significant growth. The vast majority of mosques are located in metropolitan areas but the percentage of mosques in urban areas is decreasing and the percentage of mosques in suburban areas is increasing."

things wrong, not listen to his parents." When asked what kind of wrong things, he replied, "Like drink beer. Go out with girls. Like other things, you know what I mean…" And then he clarified, "I'm not talking about the Americans. I'm just saying for like us." Mohammed felt that his experience in Palestine would help him teach his own kids "what's right from wrong for a Muslim".

Ziad, who learned about religion from his parents and also attended weekend school, described the boundary as a "red line" for Muslims:

Um my parents weren't so strict as uh being, in a religious way, but they also kept like a red line. You know like don't cross this line because that's against our, against Islam. So I would stay behind that line. [Give me some examples of the lines.] Red lines? Like um like we would watch TV, regular, but we shouldn't like you know watch things that has a lot of nudity. Also no kissing, no touching, you know, those kind of stuff. [Anything else?] No, not really. [Did they have books for you to learn from?] Well yeah they had the Qur'an for us in the house, but I didn't know how to read Arabic, so that wasn't a lot of help.

Diala, who spoke of receiving religious guidance from her mother, grandmother, and Muslim family friends, felt that she did not learn as much as she would have liked, but she knew the "basics":

I mean my mom was mainly the person to teach us about religion... So yeah, I mean, although we didn't get exposed to as much Arabic and religion as I would have liked at home, you know, we still knew *the basics*. You know, we don't have boyfriends and, but they made me understand why, and although they were never really um strict about what I wore, I don't know, naturally I just, I didn't feel comfortable wearing shorts anymore.

Still, Diala distinguishes between knowing religious practices and understanding why Muslims engage in these practices. She did not learn the "why" until she moved to Palestine.

But to be honest with you, when coming here, to Palestine, I-we did-technically we did not know that much about religion. You know? I mean, yeah, we knew Muslims prayed and fast, and we did fast, and, you know, you're supposed to wear the hijab. I never understood why though until I came here, until I got older. So, I mean, I wish my mom had—

Miriam's account describes her parent's efforts to convey the "traits" of a Muslim, which required developing an understanding of good and bad from a Muslim perspective. She considered these efforts more successful than their attempts to teach Qur'an, which were no doubt difficult because the Qur'an is written and taught in the Arabic language.

We would, say it was night, we have nothing to do, so my dad would just gather us all, and he'd just like read a hadith [sayings of the Prophet] out of the hadith book, and explain it, like, the traits of a Muslim where you can't lie, basically, you have to help each other…the whole idea of like you're either a good person or you're a bad person… My mom would try and get us to write the Qur'an, and try to translate it in our own way and what it means and stuff like that, on like it was Friday mornings. No sorry, it was Saturday mornings where we used to do that. But that also didn't last.

Youth who learned how to be a Muslim from their parents and extended family alone tended to be from places in which they had limited exposure to and interaction with other Muslims. Their neighbors were not Muslim, few if any other children at school were Muslim, and they reported visiting a mosque only occasionally, usually during Ramadan and the Eids [feasts], due to distances. I should note however, that none of the youth interviewed for the study cited attending services at a mosque as part of their religious learning experience. This is probably because learning is not catalyzed in situations where one feels somewhat out of place: their Arabic language skills were limited, they did not know the prayer ritual well, and many were not regular members of the congregation.

#### *4.2. Weekend Classes*

Youth who attended Saturday or Sunday school, including those who specifically also mentioned their parents as teachers and those who did not, had the benefit of growing up where this resource was available, although for many the schools were located at a significant distance from their homes. They described weekend schools as places where they were taught how to pray, memorize Qur'an, speak and read Arabic, and learn the rules. Some also spoke of learning about the prophets. The educational content of the weekend schools was thus similar to that of the home with the addition of language learning, memorizing Qur'an, and Islamic history. Adnan put it this way: "My parents they taught me most of the things like how to pray and things like that and Sunday school I learned more about prophets and stuff like that…"

Nearly unanimously, youth recounted the weekend school experience as not beneficial to learning to be Muslim, whether they had educational back up in the home or not. Hasheema said, "I went to a Saturday school, basically, growing up, until I got big and then I just stopped going because we didn't really learn much." Reflecting on what he had gained from attending weekend school during the summers, Samer reported, "When I got here I did not know that much." Similarly, Aisha, who attended Sunday school for Arabic language and religion, simply recounted, "it was difficult to learn about them, but I know there was more to see over here." Many complained about the memorization required, which they viewed as unhelpful to learning. Many also described their teachers as lacking qualifications to teach religion. As Yara put it, "teachers are just like volunteers." Similar to those who learned to be Muslims from family alone, learning the "rules" or "the basics" was what youth who attended weekend classes recalled most. These youth described going to a mosque very occasionally, more often during Ramadan and the Eids, and, as noted above, did not describe these visits as learning experiences. Students commonly lived at significant distances from each another and the weekend courses were episodic, so there was little opportunity for these young Muslims to develop community with each other. Consequently, with few Muslims in their neighborhood and social life mainly revolving around family, there was limited external reinforcement, support, or reward for being Muslim.

#### *4.3. Full-Time Islamic Schools*

Youth who attended full-time Islamic schools described learning how to pray, fast, speak Arabic, and memorize Qur'an. Notably, they did not to refer to their religious education as learning the rules, the basics, or the boundaries, probably because it offered so much more. For example, Etedal said she "knew everything" before moving to Palestine because she went to an Islamic school, unlike her brother, who only knew the basics. She does note, however, that in Palestine she learned about the everyday practice of being Muslim, the repertoire of daily life values and behaviors that compliment worship and rituals.

Well because I went to a private school I already knew all this stuff, so I didn't really learn any—much here. No, I already knew everything before I came. And now I know how to act, I know like the right way to act, to behave, treat your family and friends and everything like that. I knew that but, like, my younger brothers didn't know that, they like, they knew the basics and everything, but they didn't know much.

It is likely that prior to living in Palestine Etedal knew this repertoire, yet in Palestine its performance is more spaciay comprehensive as the expectations of behaving with propriety exist everywhere and are reinforced through the observation of others, including strangers. Etedal says: "I became more mature, and I learned, you know, the way you're supposed to behave here, and act and everything. You know, that everything, like, everybody's watching you here basically. And that was basically it."

Most of the youth who attended full-time Islamic schools made a point about how great it was to be part of a community of young Muslims. Lina said fondly, "I felt like I was surrounded by religion everywhere" as prayer rituals were woven throughout the school day. Nasreen recalls:

I love how they would, uh, you know in Islam we have like our five prayers, five daily prayers. They would have like during the school time. Uh, we have the mid-day prayer. We have to pray it.

We can assume that these positive feelings about Islamic schools speak to their contribution to happy childhood experiences in the US but also to something that is missing overseas, something they would not miss were it not for their transnational lives. Some youth said they missed the sense of community that was created at the school and carried over to the nearby mosque. In the Muslim majority world, mosques are mainly places where men go to pray and listen to sermons, while in the US most mosques house congregations composed of families. For example, Saif said:

Here I don't have that great of a connection with the mosque. For example in America the mosque was for me was a community, people would be going, talking, here the mosque is just, it's a mosque, it's a place where you pray and then you leave.

Youth who attended full-time Islamic schools also talked about having classmates who were of different nationalities. Khalil had great memories of his Islamic school, where his classmates were from India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and other Arab countries. Although he did not see them much outside of school, he said they always looked forward to collective activities like fundraisers. The racially and ethnically diverse context of full-time Islamic schools in the US spawned their awareness of a religious faith, an Islam, that was not tied to a single culture, as it was with their immigrant parents.

In Islam for example it's a religion that's based on unity of people no matter the race. Before anything, we're Muslims. So we used to interact a lot. We wouldn't feel that there was much of a difference.

Boys and girls who attended full-time Islamic schools (as well as girls more generally) were the ones most likely to say that they did not learn much more about their faith while living overseas, and many of them were disappointed with their experience of religion in a Muslim majority society. The benefits they were told of living in such a society for their religious growth eluded them, and this was not simply because they felt they had already learned enough about their religion. Having been educated in a multi-ethnic community of Muslims where presumably the Islamic pedagogy was cleansed of cultural variations, they found that Islam as practiced "back home" was too culturally bound.

#### **5. Learning Religion "Back Home" in Palestine and Jordan**

During the course of interviews, youth were asked how living in Palestine or Jordan, both Muslim-majority contexts, affected their religious knowledge, growth, and personal experiences as Muslims. They were specifically asked: "Has being here helped you in your understanding of Islam?" and "How is it different being a Muslim here than being a Muslim in the US?" responses to which were probed for details. The following discussion is based on responses to the first question, with responses to the second question providing further insights. We expect that being Muslim in a Christian-majority context is quite different from being Muslim in a Muslim-majority context. In one case your religious rituals, calendars, diet, and modes of dress are at odds with the majority culture while in the other case they are normative. Theoretically at least, the same distinction should apply to dominant social values and norms of appropriate behavior, although being understood as humanly rather than divinely constructed these are more subject to variations associated with class and place and to change over time. Furthermore, technologies of globalization are making obvious inroads into local cultures, informing the musical and material tastes of youth. Nonetheless, the fact that these youth were taught while growing up that Muslims have different boundaries than "Americans" and that knowing how to conduct life within such boundaries turned out to prepare one well for social life in Palestine and Jordan indicates that these cultures are infused with a local variant of Islamic norms and values. However, as we will see below, the unique transnational lens of these youth produced varying interpretations of whether being Muslim in such a context was all together better. Some saw the dominant culture as productive of a mechanical conformity, different from the deeply considered actions driven by faith they were taught, and found that disconcerting. Thus, while one might assume that living in a Muslim majority context enhances religious learning in ways that cannot be achieved in a Muslim minority context, which is certainly something parents believed to be the case when they took their families overseas, the data show that these teenagers do not necessarily see it the same way. While some, especially boys, were thrilled by their freedom to be Muslim and especially their ability to pray wherever they wanted, others, especially girls but also many boys, were disappointed when the moral geography of Palestine and Jordan was not what they expected. They were surprised to discover that many Muslims did not practice their faith dutifully by praying five times a day, or by praying at all. They were also disheartened by what they saw as a lack of behavioral and moral consistency when persons who publicly performed acts of faith [praying, wearing hijab] acted in other settings in ways they considered un-Islamic. These observations, because they defied their expectations, are products of their US-based experiences that taught them to see Muslims in very fixed and sometimes very ideal ways, whether from a mainstream American culture that represents Muslims in religiously essentialized, non-complex ways, or from their religion teachers at home and in school who often contrasted how others behave to how "we" Muslims behave. What they

found instead were human beings, with all the variations and vulnerabilities that implies, a social fact that locally-raised youth likely took for granted.

When responses to these questions are examined by the type of religious education youth had received in the US before going to Jordan or Palestine, the data show that those who learned religion from their family members alone and those who reported no prior religious education gained the most from living "back home." This outcome is not surprising given that their starting position was one of limited information. On the other hand, youth who attended full-time Islamic schools at some point during their childhood in the US were the least likely to say they experienced gains in knowledge and understanding. Youth who attended Islamic weekend schools were split: some said they learned more while others said that they did not, that there were positive and negatives, or that it was the same. Girls who attended weekend schools were more likely than boys who did so to offer a nuanced analysis (both positive and negative) or to say it was the same. The opinions and insights expressed below are based on the observations of youth informed by their unique position as transnational learners of Islam. Rather than treating their views as the perspectives of adolescents—persons at a developmental stage of growth—I see them as having a certain type of integrity that is less obfuscated by the demands of conformity imposed on geographically situated youth or adults. In my view, based on much research, their in-betweeness or liminality makes of them keen observers. The answers and explanations these youth gave in response to questions about learning religion and being Muslim provide key insights into the complex ways that religion, gender, and society intersect in two geographic locations. After a brief exploration of gendered differences, the data are organized according to the three levels of social organization they discussed when describing their religious learning experiences—schools, community, and society.

#### *5.1. Gendered Differences*

A majority (31, or 58%) of the 53 youth interviewed said that their knowledge and understanding of Islam increased while living in Palestine or Jordan. On the other hand, 42% (22) said either that it did not contribute positively to their religious understanding, that it contributed in both positive and negative ways, or that it made no difference. Boys were far more likely than girls to say that their knowledge and understanding of Islam increased (71% *versus* 44%). Reasons for this distinctly gendered difference would benefit from ethnographic study, but study data and prior research by the author suggest three explanatory variables: gendered patterns of upbringing, role of mosques, and cultural perspectives on Muslim men. With regard to upbringing, Muslim parents in the US place more emphasis on teaching girls the "rules" than boys and expect more conformity to them from girls than from boys. Girls are therefore better prepared for the Islamic flavor of daily life in the social environment "back home", while boys have a sharper learning curve.

Mohammed's rendering of how he learned Islam in the US highlights this focus on girls:

I remember how my mom was in America and we were in America, my mom sat with my sisters and she was telling them, she was teaching them what a Muslim can do and what a Muslim can't do and they listened. They know that when they go to school, they can't do nothing wrong. They know that they can't eat beer—or drink beer or eat pork or anything cause in our *din*—in our religion—they can't do that.

While a gendered difference in expectations also exists in Palestine and Jordan, boys there are generally held to a higher standard of behavior than in the US, by extended family, community, and the society at large. The boundaries or red lines that were mainly enforced on females in the US also encompass males in Palestine and Jordan, although breaches by males are tolerated to a much higher degree than those by females. Thus, Mohammed said, "Maybe I would not have listened to my mom in the States cause I would have looked at others doing everything wrong and copied them." In Palestine he developed a stronger personal sense of right and wrong and he appeared to appreciate it. He concluded that Palestine is "the right place to live…a good society." In Palestine "there are people to tell me what—like my relatives and cousins they tell me what's right from wrong. In America, maybe there's nobody except my mom and dad. Maybe I would have not listened to them".

A second reason that might explain why boys overwhelmingly said they learned more about their religion in Palestine and Jordan than girls is related to mosques, which are much more conveniently located than in the US and are generally male-only places. Boys are not only welcomed in the many neighborhood mosques in Palestine and Jordan, they are by their own accounts highly encouraged to pray in them. This interaction of proximity and gendered space means that boys are far more likely than girls to be placed in situations where knowing how to perform prayer rituals and recite Qur'an matter, circumstances where they would need to learn more than they knew coming in. Largely excluded from mosques, girls do not face this type of religious ritual performance challenge. Their challenges are much more likely to come with regard to matters of public behavior, dress, and manners, which, as noted above, are behaviors for which they tended to have received training in the US. Finally, one cannot help but think that freedom to be a Muslim male, without the associated negative stereotypes found in the US, and freedom to pray publicly without invoking stares or slander, contribute to a subjectivity that boys would feel good about. In multiple gendered ways, being Muslim in Palestine and Jordan is very different from being Muslim in the US.

#### *5.2. Learning Islam in High School: Palestine and Jordan*

Youth interviewed for this study were juniors and seniors attending high schools in Palestine and Jordan where the Islamic religion is taught as a class [*din*]. Religion courses were usually mandatory, except that some private schools exempt English language dominant speakers from religion courses if they are taught only in Arabic. The majority of youth attended private schools that teach in the English language (even if they were raised in Brazil or Puerto Rico), although some offered both an English and Arabic track of instruction, because their Arabic was not proficient enough for public schools or private Arabic language schools. Some, however, attended local public schools or private schools with Arabic language instruction because either schools with English language instruction were far away from their homes or because their parents choose to enroll them in Arabic speaking schools, despite the fact that their Arabic was not at the high school level [most youth said they were at the 6th grade level]. Christians were also interviewed in this study, although they were a proportionately smaller group. The schools they attended offered *din*  courses in both Christianity and Islam.

Only a handful of youth said that religion courses at school played a significant role in furthering their knowledge about Islam and those who did so tended to have had little formal religious instruction at any prior time in their lives. For example, high school religion classes in Jordan were Samira's first formal religious learning opportunity. She grew up in Texas and learned how to pray and fast from her parents. The closest mosque was in Fort Worth, an hour and a half drive away, so they went there only on Muslim holidays.

It was my first time actually learning about my religion because they gave religion classes. It was part of the curriculum; it wasn't anything extra. So I learned a lot from that, I learned how to read and write Arabic, so I was actually able to read the Qur'an in Arabic. Um the hijab, I just recently started wearing it. I've only been wearing it for two years now. I don't know as much as I should know, but you know, I'm still learning. But here it helped a lot. I wouldn't have learned that much over there as I have here. [So, you learned it mostly in school?] Yes.

A few others mentioned religion classes at school as a source of learning Islam, but they coupled it with a string of influences, such as extended family, community, and mosques (boys only), suggesting that it was not a strong contributor to religious learning on its own.

Nayef from Amman grew up in New Jersey and said he did not know much about Islam before moving to Jordan. While he spoke about his religion class (in a relatively liberal school) in positive ways, it was only after he mentioned his parents and mosques, and then being prompted:

I didn't know anything before, like, about Islam, what's haram and what's halal. But now I do. [Where are you learning?] My parents, and two mosques, like... I'm more familiar with Islam, and I can read Qur'an really good now so, it's better. [And you study it in school too, right?] Yeah, only in religion class. They give us the sura, like, and they translate it to English so you can understand it, but you have to memorize the Arabic too. [Do you talk about it?] Yeah we do talk about, like class discussions a lot…. here we're free, like we—'cause we have some, we have two atheists in the school. Yeah, so like, we're free to talk about it, like, 'cause we had a debate, Darwin theory against creationists, and, so she discussed with us evolutionists and how it's wrong and stuff. Yeah.

Similarly, Mohammed, who was quoted earlier as feeling vulnerable to social risks in the US, credited his family, the mosque, and religion classes. In Palestine he is "Memorizing the Qur'an more. Learning about *din*. Going to the mosque a lot, almost like every day. And learning *din* in our school".

Muna grew up in Chicago, where she said she learned the "basics": how to pray, fast, and wear hijab. She was now living in Turmos Ayya (Palestine), attending a local, Arabic language public school. She credits school and her family with helping her understand the reasons she should pray, fast, and dress in certain ways. Indeed, understanding *why* Muslims practice their faith as they do was important to many youth, mostly girls, who wanted to know the meaning behind what appeared to be routinized behavior.

[So has being here helped you understand religion better?] Yes, it did. Over there they told me the basics, the simple basics. I learned at home how to pray, how to fast in Ramadan, how to wear the scarf. But I don't know why, why to wear jelbab, mandeel, I mean hijab, when the right time comes; I never knew why. Why I should pray, how I should fast, *etc.* Here they told me why, and how a girl should behave in Islam. [So, you learned that in school?] Yes, here and at home.

Dalal from Ramallah grew up in New Jersey and was one of the very few who said they enjoyed religion classes. She said she always thought of herself as a "Muslim first", yet she credits moving to Palestine with dramatically changing her experience of religion.

I moved here in 2006, by 2007—I moved here Fall of 2006, by Ramadan of 2007 I had started praying, cause and you know when I was in America I thought 'Oh, praying is just, you know you don't have to do it' but I didn't realize it was, I mean, it is, you know it's a must. You know? And I want to pray. I wanted to always pray. So I finally learned that and I finally understood what religion is, you know. It's so beyond praying and fasting and this and that—you know? And uh I became very proud. I started enjoying religion classes a lot. So now I feel like um I understand the religion much more—

The above quotes express the points of view of the small number of youth who had positive things to say about religion classes at school. Far more common were criticisms of these courses. Indeed, many students elected to be interviewed during *din* class because they said they found it boring or could not understand the Arabic. Study data point fairly solidly to the conclusion that religion classes at school did not enhance religious knowledge or understanding for the overwhelming majority of these youth. For some they were a turn off because they stressed memorization, rules, and history, while allowing for little questioning and discussion. These critiques are similar to the ways in which they described weekend religion classes in the US. Hasheema grew up in Michigan and attended weekend religion classes, but said she did not really learn much from them. Although there were two mosques near their home, she only went to a mosque on the *Eid*. Now living outside of Ramallah, she said, "I'm a better Muslim here for sure." Yet when asked about her current religion classes at school, she said they teach "stuff that doesn't even matter anymore".

Yeah, we take…yeah, but we learn things that aren't really like, like we'll learn about stuff that doesn't even matter anymore. Like history more so than religion. And we'll learn about, like, like now we're taking something called *zaqat*, like giving money to the poor. And it's really, it's like 'If you have thirty cows you have to give a sheep' or something…it's like, what does that have to do with…I'm never gonna need that, so, yeah.

Fadwa from Amman said simply "it's just those details, like, you have to memorize".

Miriam, who was born and raised in Atlanta and now lives in Ramallah, said religion classes are not "enhancing critical abilities":

We're studying religion in school, yeah, but I don't feel like…it, all they do is just give you rules, this is what you can't do, this is what you can do. Abide by them. I don't feel that they're enhancing our critical abilities of dealing with situations, or, it's just more like of giving you just this guidebook with strict rules, and just following them. That, I don't think that's what—[So you're not studying the Qur'an?] We—we memorize the Quran, but we're not studying the Quran.

Appeals to a type of piety based in mechanical conformity did not resonate for many of these young Muslims, especially girls, who wanted a deeper sense of meaning, an understanding of why Muslims believe and act as they do. Boys, on the other hand, rarely spoke of a quest for deeper meaning. Instead, they tended to discuss the joys of praying and going to the mosque or to be broadly critical of the Muslim society they found.

A few youth said that religious instruction was biased by cultural interpretations. Abla, who grew up in New Jersey and now lives in Amman, said her religious education began in Jordan. She described her father as a borderline atheist and her mother as non-practicing. She said that religion classes "don't really go into the spiritual like side" and "they don't really care about like having you like really understand or enjoy your learning, they just want you to learn the material and that's it". She described her male religion teachers as biased.

Yeah like sometimes you can just like see a bit of like bias like from teachers, because sometimes Islam is kind of like more, like leans more toward the guys, and like more privileges for them, and like once you have a male religion teacher, like it's supposed to be between, equality between the sexes, but the males over here in the society, like, they take their own liberties in like interpreting it as how they want it to be, where they have like more dominance, so once, so there are some things that when you take it, and then they're talking about the role of the woman, how she has to stay at home, she can't leave without asking her husband. [They say that in religion class?] Yeah it's not in the Qur'an but it's like, there were some questions, and then we take a lesson about the roles of each individual, and so like when it came to the woman, the teacher he like asked a question, he's like so what do you think about like the woman leaving the house without calling her husband? And then for me, it's, I'm ok with that, like you don't have to call him for everything, like I'm leaving the house, I'm getting in the car, but he said, no you have to call because like you have to know, so it depends on like who's teaching you it.

#### *5.3. Religious Growth*

Despite the nearly unanimous criticism of high school religion classes in Palestine and Jordan, 58% of the youth interviewed said that living in Palestine or Jordan did increase their religious knowledge and understanding. This group included those who said they learned nothing about Islam in the US, all but one of those who learned to be Muslim mainly from family members, about half of those who attended weekend religion classes at some point in their childhood, and one boy who attended a full-time Islamic school. For these youth, being surrounded by Muslims was key to their religious growth. They came to better understand Islam as a way of life and as a way of acting around others; they enjoyed sharing Muslim feasts and fasting communally. Boys especially appreciated the ease with which they could pray and attend mosque services, felt more commitment to a Muslim ethos [as moral and behavioral code], and generally more free to simply be Muslim. These youth derived a sense of completeness, freedom, and comfort from the ubiquity (Islam and Muslims are everywhere) and totality (the full Muslim experience) that contextualized social life as a Muslim in Palestine and Jordan, one that moves in concord with Muslim rituals, calendars, and sensibilities. It allowed for a social and psychological ease that accompanies feeling that one is a constituent part of the society instead of an outsider who must deal with the assumptions, expectations, and discrimination of others. The presence of large extended family, which was true for most but not all of these youth, added key reinforcement to being Muslim in multiple ways, as teachers, observers, reinforcers, disciplinarians, and communities with whom to share being

Muslim. These communities of support and face-to-face relationships with other Muslims were sorely lacking for many of these youth in the US, an outcome of migration and settlement patterns.

#### 5.3.1. Feeling Ease, Free, and Complete

Fadwa from Amman, who grew up in Houston, described the experience of being Muslim as one that feels "complete". Although she notes that it is the same Islam with the same rituals and feasts [*eids*], being surrounded by other Muslims and hearing the call to prayer [*adhan*] creates "a whole different feeling". That feeling propelled her to pray and read Qur'an.

Actually, being here, by itself, gave me a new, a new… I don't know, what would you call it. It's the same religion, same, same thing, same fasting in Ramadan, same *eids* and everything, but over here it's just, when you have all those people around you, most of them are Muslims…it's just, it's a whole different feeling. Like I hear the *adhan* over there, you know how the *adhan…* Yea, I started praying, and I'm reading Qur'an more. It's just, it's, it's a nice feeling– I don't know it's like, I felt, like, complete…

Husni from Ramallah, who grew up in Alabama learning about religion from his parents, also appreciated being surrounded by a community of Muslims who lived according to the same lunar-based schedule and celebrated feasts together. When speaking about fasting, Ramadan and the *eids*, he compares Palestine, where "everyone" is "used to what's going on" to the US, where fasting was perceived by those around him as abnormal, the rotations of the lunar calendar were confusing, and feasts were not really celebrations.

Here it's easier to be a Muslim. Cause like there's not really much trouble like you can, people are like are used to what you're doing. Like in Ramadan if you don't fast, everyone's not fasting, I mean everyone's fasting. But over there, if you fast everyone's like "what's going on, is he normal?" Like everything's changing. Cause Ramadan changes from time to time so they get confused. But here everyone is used to what's going on, and like on the Eid, everyone goes out and celebrates. Over there it's like a small Muslim community that goes out and celebrates and it's not as much as like really celebration, it's just being with each other at that time.

Ala' grew up in Virginia learning about Islam from his parents, a full time Islamic school until third grade, and then Sunday school. He now lives in Amman and acknowledges that "there were a lot of things I thought I knew, but I didn't know actually", signifying that his experience in Jordan has taught him substantially more about his religion. He described fasting during Ramadan while in the US as an outsider experience, sitting "in the library if I wanted, instead of sitting in the cafeteria, or if I wanted to hang out with my friends, I would still sit in the cafeteria with my friends and fast". In Jordan he said he actually *feels* Muslim, it's "regular" and he doesn't "stand out".

Here you actually feel being a Muslim—I mean it's like a common, common thing here. It's like regular that I'm Muslim. Over there it's like something that stands out.

Alia, who said she is more religious in Jordan and understands Islam better, spoke about a greater sense of freedom that comes from not having to deal with the expectations of non-Muslims. Growing up in Minneapolis learning religion from her parents and at weekend classes she felt external pressures to act in certain ways because she was Muslim.

When you're in America, cause they expect you to be Muslim they have this mind in their head they expect you to be like wearing a scarf, and all like, like praying every five minutes and stuff, and they expect you to do this, and like that, but here it's like you're a Muslim, but it's a normal thing cause you're in a Muslim country, you're in a Arab country. Like it's more free to be a Muslim and people don't expect more out of you because you are Muslim.

Alia's perceptions of American expectations of Muslims mirror expectations held by quite a few Muslim American youth. Many had imagined that Muslims "back home" were unambiguously religiously observant, living their daily lives true to the rituals, values, and ethos of Islam. They assumed that a social environment compatible to Islam produced better Muslims. As we will see below, many of the youth who had this expectation became disappointed by the Muslim realities they found, circumstances that did not inspire their religious development.

#### 5.3.2. Islam is a Way of Life

Practicing Islam according to the Qur'an and Sunna [sayings of the Prophet] is intended to be a fully encompassing way of life that includes not only religious rituals but also ways of speaking, dressing, showing gratitude and humility, disciplining, and engaging in all sorts of social relationships. Jumana, who grew up in Florida, said she learned about these aspects of Islam living in Ramallah. In her view, Islam as practiced in the US follows a Christian model of attending services and praying, but that is only part of what Islam is.

Like it makes me more aware of what Islam is. It's not just a religion, it's a way of life and I never really understood that before. Like it has to do with the way you dress, the way you talk to your parents, the way you act. It's more than what I thought. It's not just like you go to church on Sunday like I was used to over there in America. It's like you go to a mosque every Friday and you pray every day and that's Islam. So here I'm like no, they taught me more.

#### 5.3.3. Praying and Fasting around like Others

Boys who said they learned more about their religion in Palestine and Jordan were especially keen on mentioning the presence of mosques, fasting in the company of others doing the same, being able to pray during prayer times, and to pray anywhere. As noted earlier, mosques are places where men pray and listen to sermons; there are few mosques in Palestine and Jordan that accommodate women, who are expected to pray at home. Ala' described the Muslim American experience as one of concealment, as living in a place where a Muslim cannot pray openly, especially as compared to being able to pray "in the middle of the street".

Over here there are like mosques here—everywhere you're surrounded by Muslims, like especially when it comes to praying and fasting. I could do it in the middle of the street here and no one would—it would be regular. In America, it would be, it really stands out. Like if I would go and ask 50 people around me what religion they were, maybe only one person—not even one would be Muslim, so over there it's a lot more—its not secretive, but its more concealed.

Adnan, who grew up in Alabama and learned about Islam mostly from his parents, also felt that being able to pray anywhere without attracting stares made being Muslim easier in Jordan.

Being a Muslim is easier in Jordan cuz like you can pray anywhere. I mean like nobody will look at you but like in the States if you're in the mall or somewhere and its time to pray you have to go somewhere, everybody starts looking at you. But here it's easier.

Not all of the youth living in Jordan or Palestine would agree with him, but Ala' said he really liked the social life in Amman, which includes family, neighbors, and the way that religious practice is seamlessly woven into life due to the close proximity of the mosque.

See in America, great school, but not so great social life. Here, poor school, but great social life. So basically if the school was here great and the social life was great, it would be the perfect lifestyle. [So what makes it great?] I mean cause the family. We have family right here and I have another aunt in Marj il Hamam and we always sit with them, hang out, dinners. Also the religion. I have a mosque two minutes away from the house. I go there, pray, come back. We're friends with our neighbors. The friends here I can easily go out and have fun and we all live next to each other and stuff.

Sameeh grew up in a Chicago suburb that had only two Arab families and now lives in a village outside of Ramallah. In the US he learned about Islam from his parents and went to a mosque "occasionally, maybe twice a year … because there's not that many Fridays we get off." Even then, he said "we would just pray and then leave… I never really saw any Arabs or anything." Like Ala', he compares fasting in Palestine, where everyone is "doing it", to fasting in the US, where one must sit in the school lunchroom while everyone else is eating. Being in Palestine has helped him understand his religion more because practicing Muslims surround him. He highlights his ability to go to the mosque, listen to the sermons, and pray during class time, experiences he did not have in the United States.

Because 90% of the people here are Muslim compared to America, where I think it's like 1% are Muslim. I'm not sure. It's something like that. It's under 5% that's for sure. So going from where everyone around is Muslim and practicing the same thing. Ramadan and fasting month is easier cause everyone is doing it compared to when I used to sit at lunch and everyone is eating. So, and you learn more cause you go to the mosque more, you hear speeches, you learn a lot from the people around you because they're all religious and they hear things compared to just learning things from my parents and yeah. You learn a lot. Yeah I learned more, but I also practice my religion more here because in America I didn't really get up to go and pray in class, but over here it's '*adi*. It's normal.

Narratives about praying and going to mosques were largely male accounts. I cannot help but think that their importance to these young men is due not only to the social fact that worshipping in mosques and praying in public are male only activities. I also believe that simply being able to engage in these activities freely is a liberating experience because being male and Muslim in the US is a stigmatized identity and they know it. Although young, most of the teenagers I interviewed reported experiencing some type of hate speech, anti-Muslim joke, or discrimination while in the US. While these events did not dominate their memories of growing up in the US, they certainly informed their sense of being different and being part of a religious faith that is looked down upon. Growing up in American society, it is hard to imagine that these youth were not exposed to the images of Muslim men praying that were contextualized in a way that sparked fear in so many

Americans. In combination with their significant isolation from many other Muslims, one can imagine their unease with being practicing Muslims.

Yara's story is unusual for a girl because she speaks of praying in a mosque. Yara was living in a village near Bir Zeit (Palestine) and was raised in Palestine, Cleveland, and Tallahassee. She went back and forth between Palestine and the United States throughout her childhood depending upon conditions in Palestine (Israeli military activity, schools closures) and the family's desire to stay together (her Palestinian father, born outside of Palestine, has been unable to acquire entry to or residency in Palestine from the Israeli authorities). Her school in Palestine does not require that she take religion class because it is an Arabic subject, so she learns at home from her mom, which reminds her of the memorization of Qur'an she did in Saturday school in Florida "cause they don't want us to like forget". She describes the mosque in Tallahassee as being a "run down" place that nobody cares about, especially in comparison to Christian churches. Palestine is a better experience for her as a Muslim because she fits in better in a society where there is "prayer everywhere".

I mean it's hard because … it's so like uncared for. Like you just go and you see all these gorgeous churches, and all these like Sunday schools, and all these benefits…And then you come to this mosque and it's like this little run-down place, because like it feels like nobody cares. And like teachers are just like volunteers, and it's not like something that it should be. It should be a mosque, a beautiful place to pray and worship, like the churches that they have there, but we don't have that. [So you come here, and …?] I mean, I love it. Because it's just like prayer everywhere. It's like I feel like I fit in more. [Do you ever go to the mosque here?] I have, there's one in Surda. For prayers, and I go.

While boys who found their religious learning experience positive commonly credited being able to go to a mosque regularly, not being able to go to the mosque, because it was an activity largely restricted to males, was a source of discontent for many girls, and is one reason that overall, girls were less likely than boys to find their overseas experience helpful to their religious learning. For example, Fatma from Turmos Ayya, who grew up in Chicago, says she learned more about religion in Palestine from school, daily life, and her mother, but "here not a lot of girls go to the mosque, so my mother tells my brother to go to the mosque but not me". Fatma says that in Palestine a mosque "is just a mosque" but in the US "it is not just a mosque it is a place for all Islam people to gather", a point we will return to when we look at why some youth found their experience as Muslims better in the US.

#### 5.3.4. Being Responsible

Finally, another reason a number of youth gave for learning more and understanding their religion better in Palestine and Jordan had to do with becoming a responsible Muslim, learning how to behave in a Muslim appropriate way. As might be expected due to upbringing patterns in the US that are gendered, this development was something only young men reported. Ayman from Beit Hanina credits being in Palestine with helping him to "grasp" his religion and be "responsible". The social environment encouraged him to start listening to his father. Growing up in Tampa, his father used to talk to him about religion, but he was never "into it". He went to the mosque only for *eids* and never attended weekend school. Now he reads Qur'an, prays, goes to the mosque on his own, and listens to the sheikh's qutba's (sermons).

I really never, like my father used to tell us about it, like you should fast and stuff like that, but I really never, like, was into it until I came here. [When you came here how did that change?] I finally like grasped it, in, like I read the holy, I started readin' the holy book the Qur'an, I'd pray, listen to the sheikh and stuff like that. [Did you do that on your own? In school?] No I did it by myself. My dad like told me about it and then like I started to learn from him how to pray and stuff, and then like I started going by myself. [To a mosque?] To the mosque.

… Like um before I was lazy, to tell you the truth. But then now like uh once I came here and stuff, I'm more responsible. [Why?] Because like when my father used to tell me about my religion and stuff, like the fasts, I never used to do it back in the States. And over here like I felt like, you know, stupid. I should listen to them and stuff like that. And now like Fridays I go to the mosque and pray, and then I pray by myself, I read the book and all that. [So being here helped you in your understanding of your religion.] It helped me a lot, yeah.

Ayman's sentiments were echoed by a number of males, who said they did not fully listen to their parents or follow "the rules" for Muslims while living in the US. Recall Mohammed quoted above, who used to listen to his mother tell his sisters how to be good Muslims. He said it was better for a Muslim to be raised in Palestine than in the US because "here, maybe there are people to tell me what—like my relatives and cousins, they tell me what's right from wrong". The same was true for Iyad from Turmos Ayya, Palestine. Iyad grew up in California and said he knew nothing about his religion before coming to Palestine. In Palestine he learned the social and behavioral boundaries set by his religion.

Way better, like over there I know that I am Muslim, but I don't know the stuff we can do and we the stuff we can't do. Over here I know a lot of stuff.

Significant differences in behavioral expectations of Muslim boys and girls, such as existed in the US, were not done away with in Palestine and Jordan, but they were substantially lessened. Muslim girls were generally well prepared for the rules of comportment that governed the social environment they moved to while boys had much to learn. Corresponding to these heightened behavioral expectations on boys, as well as greater freedom to be Muslim in public space and a plentitude of mosques in which to pray, boys were far more likely than girls to say that their knowledge and understanding of Islam increased in Palestine and Jordan. Still, many girls derived pleasure from the Muslim infused social setting, describing a sense of ease and completeness about being Muslim that enhanced their religious growth. And while the mixing of politics and religion was discussed mainly by those for whom it discouraged religiosity, Hadeel, who was raised in Philadelphia and lived in a village outside of Ramallah, said she learned more about her religion in the context of observing and feeling daily life under Israeli occupation.

Actually being here made me learn more about like religion. I knew a lot about religion, but being here seeing with my own eyes and feeling like…what people go through, like just seeing it, then hearing it, it's different. It is totally two different things. And when you sit and see what's going on, you would just sit and cry. Like literally.

#### *5.4. Ambivalent and Negative Experiences of Religious Growth*

Forty two percent of the youth interviewed, including 14 girls and 8 boys, said they did not learn more about their religion while living in Muslim majority Palestine or Jordan: that living there did not contribute positively to their religious growth, that it contributed in both positive and negative ways, or that it was the same as living in the US. Nearly all of the youth who had attended full-time Islamic schools and about half of those who attended weekend Islamic classes in the US fall into this group. We have already discussed the fact that high school religion classes had little positive impact on religious development, yet neither were they cited as specific sources of disaffection. Like those who said living in Palestine or Jordan had increased their religious knowledge and understanding, those who were less positive also referred to the people, the culture, and religious institutions. However, where the former saw ease of being, freedom to pray, a concordant rhythm of life, and Muslim completeness, they saw regimentation, insincerity, lack of commitment, and a perceived inappropriate mixing of culture, politics and religion. Moreover, for those who had experienced it in the US, they missed the sense of community they had at mosques and Islamic schools, which was not duplicated overseas. For this group, their discontents were heavily informed by their moral imaginaries of what a society would be like when organized by and with people living according to a Muslim ethos; it did not live up to their expectations.

#### 5.4.1. Assumed Moral Geography of Islam

Youth naturally brought with them on their sojourns assumptions they had developed in the US about Muslims and Muslim majority societies, just as they had constructed imaginaries of what life in an Arab country would be like [15]. One of these assumptions, held by many, was that all or most Muslims would practice Islam fully: pray five times per day, wear hijab, shun alcohol, pork, and dating—assumptions that mirror what a large number of non-Muslim Americans think. The continuums of practice they actually observed in Palestine and Jordan, from rigorous to imperfect to none, were dismaying. Kamilla, who grew up in Texas and California before living in Amman, describes her expectations and what she found:

And I remember coming here and I brought my prayer rug and my prayer clothes and I assumed every single person would be praying and nobody would drink. It was interesting because most people don't pray in our school here. Maybe its because were in high school, but not everyone prays. The majority—we only have three people who are covered.

She attended an elite private school in Jordan where being able to discuss such incongruities was helpful.

Most are not devout Muslims, but we could openly speak about it with no worry and I think that's a kind of comfort and that helped me build my self-esteem about being Arab—about being Muslim.

Sam, who attended a full-time Islamic school in Boston, said that "in America" people think that Muslims in Palestine are very religious [although it is not perfectly clear who he is referring to, he seems to mean US Palestinians], but when he got there he found that not to be the case. Instead, he believes that because of the pressures of the Israeli occupation many had "let go" of religion

while others followed it to the exclusion of everything else. Neither of these extremes was satisfying to him.

The thing is in America they think that they're really religious here, everyone like takes a very important role in religion, we have Jerusalem, we go pray there all the time, blah blah blah, but that's not how it is here. People are really sick of like, sick of how things are here, and because of this they kind of, some of them let go of religion and fall apart. I feel like others, those who choose to follow religion, follow it so closely to the point where they forget everything else. They forget who they are, life, whatnot. And that kind of separates them from society.

#### 5.4.2. Lack of Sincerity

The most commonly articulated criticism of those who were ambivalent or negative when asked whether living in Palestine and Jordan increased their religious understanding revolved around observations of the perceived un-Islamic or insincere behaviors of persons whose outward appearance suggested that they were believers. In their view, Muslims who pray or wear hijab should do so out of deep faith and not behave in ways that contradict this faith. This view was often expressed in a comparison to their perceptions of Muslims in the US, who they saw as persons serious about their religious faith, who prayed and conducted their daily lives according to Muslim values and a Muslim ethos, or as non-practicing Muslims. While the latter were not faithful to their religion, they did not pretend to be. These youth were, in other words, disturbed by what they saw as the insincere performance of Islam for public consumption.

Luqman grew up in Los Angeles, went to the mosque every Friday and attended Saturday school. He felt his religious education was better in the US than in Jordan because "in the US people who go to mosque have pure intentions. Here they go cuz have to". Lina, who attended a full-time Islamic school in the Detroit area before moving to Palestine, expressed dismay at girls wearing hijab and dating.

Even if it is an Islamic people over here, it is not Islamic. Muslim people over here are like two faces, you know. Anyone who wears the *mendeel* (hijab), I can guarantee, I can guarantee you, that more than 15% that they have boyfriends.

Mai, who lived in Los Angeles and Louisiana prior to Palestine, was bothered by the same phenomenon. She concluded that American Muslims were more religious than Palestinian Muslims.

I think people in America where I grew up, they were more religious. If they were religious they actually stuck to it, whereas here they are fake about it and they do it as for show for the *balad* [village], so they don't get a bad reputation. Cause I know girls that are hijabis and they're hooking up with guys in empty houses. That—stuff like that—you know and they're sitting here talking about religion and it's not. It's not like, in America when girls put it on, they leave it on. They don't go take it off when some dude walks by.

Sam, who grew up in Boston and attended a full-time Islamic school in his early years, came right out and said that he thinks men in his Palestinian village worship in mosques for show.

Over here, nobody cares about religion, in all honesty. Like for example in [my village] I feel like people

go to the mosque on Fridays because they have to, or else their image will be bad in front of everyone else.

Sam said he was more religious in the US. He believes that Muslims are more religious in the US "because they're forced to be. Their community, um, if they're not religious then their community, they'll separate, they'll fall apart."

#### 5.4.3. US Muslims Hold onto Religion More Tightly

Sam's thoughts were echoed by many others who found their overseas experience with religion unsatisfying. They felt that American Muslims cared more deeply about religion than Muslims in Palestine and Jordan; some saw them as conformists or performers lacking moral depth, while others saw them as persons who were less serious about faith. Using various ways to describe it, they attributed the American Muslim phenomenon to Muslim's social position as religious minorities. Khalil, who grew up in the Houston area before moving to Amman, tried to put it in context:

To tell you the truth, being a Muslim is always being a Muslim but basically of course this is what we try to understand… but sometimes there is bound to be a little bit of difference… sometimes. Not necessarily in the practicing or so… sometimes over there… lets say they're a bit more attached over there… I mean over here, we're attached as well but I mean a lot of times I find people…I don't know they really just don't care too much about it, but over there they really do and also at the same time when you're a Muslim you also get to blend a bit of your American culture into your Arabness and Muslim.

Diana, who grew up in Ohio, Georgia, and Florida before moving to the Jerusalem area, said being different is what encourages American Muslims to "hold on".

Over there because you're different you try to hold on to it and over here because *khalas* everybody is the same and in the United States you hold on to it tightly.

Aziza, who lived in Massachusetts before Amman and learned religion through family and 12 years of Sunday school, calls it "uniqueness" and recalls fondly the sense of community she had with Muslims in her area.

I was part of the youth group and stuff so we'd hold events and during the summer we'd have speakers come in and stuff, so I loved it. It was really good community. We don't have that here in Jordan because it's not like a unique thing to be a Muslim or anything, so there's no like core community cause it's everyone. So in the States like because we were a minority we formed like our own little community family. It was nice.

In her view, Muslims do not have community in Jordan because everyone is Muslim. Of course not everyone is in fact Muslim and Muslims in Jordan do have community, but it is generally not formed via religious institutions. However, for young Muslim boys and girls who grew up around other Muslims in the US, the mosque and the Islamic school, if one existed, were among their primary sources of community.

#### 5.4.4. The Mosque is not a Community

This disjuncture between the way the mosque functions in Palestine and Jordan and the way it functions in the US was disconcerting to many of the youth who said their experience in Palestine or Jordan did not enhance their religious understanding. Saif from Jerusalem, who grew up in New Mexico and went to a full time Islamic school for 8 years, said the mosque in Palestine is "just a mosque" a place to pray and then leave.

For example, the mosque, in America the mosque for me was a community, people would be going, talking. Here the mosque is just, it's a mosque, it's a place where you pray and then you leave. So I guess I really didn't learn much more about my religion here. I learned that um a lotta people, cause again a lotta people misinterpret religion and I guess a lack of connection between the mosque and you know people.

When we consider that the majority of boys who reported learning more about their religion in Palestine and Jordan also spoke highly about praying in a mosque, and that these also tended to be boys who had less consistent exposure to Islamic institutions in the US, we can probably safely conclude that those young men had not experienced the American variant of mosque as community. They thus did not have the same comparative referent that Saif, Sam, and Luqman had, which produced a very different perspective on mosques. Where they found comfort praying in a mosque, the latter found a kind of emptiness. Saif also felt his Islamic education in the US was "more defined" than in Palestine. Here we see another impact on perspective that flows from living in a community that has invested in its Muslim institutions.

You'd have books and people who taught and people who actually went to college just to study Islam and to be a sheikh or an imam and they would be teaching. Here I don't have that great of a connection with the mosque.

Muslim youth who said they were part of a Muslim community in the US, because they attended full-time Islamic schools, were regular members of a mosque congregation, and/or because they had many relatives living nearby, were more likely express this kind of dissatisfaction with what they saw as a lack of community among Muslims in Palestine and Jordan. Ali, who attended a full-time Islamic school in the Chicago area and lived near a mosque, said Ramadan and the Eid were better in the US, and this was mainly because religious events shared with lots of family.

Like in America, Eid was fun, we had all cousins and all my aunts, but over here we have only one uncle and one aunt we go see. Yeh, my family is there, I liked there, and Ramadan there. Say like the month of Ramadan, it felt more Islamic there like in Ramadan. Over here no one fasts in school, like no one knows anything, except some of them, but a high number don't fast.

Ali said he did not learn more about his religion in Palestine, but he did learn about his culture:

No I can't say that, but it helped me understand my culture, because I learned how to do things over there, how to do the prayer and fast. I still do them over here.

#### 5.4.5. Islam and Culture are Mixed Together

A number of youth spoke disapprovingly of the mixing of culture and religion. For example, when asked if being in Palestine helped her understand her religion better, Mai said:

No. I've always understood Islam. I know right from wrong. When I came here I hear people saying, "this is haram." This is haram and it's not, it's just *'ayb* (culturally wrong). It's just what they look down on in the *balad* (village). So they're mixing culture and religion, which isn't—it doesn't make sense.

#### Sam said:

For example, when you don't talk to girls and what not, that has nothing to do with Islam here. It's more about culture and honor and what not than it is about Islam and religion.

Awareness of the mixing of culture and religion is common to adult second generation Muslims who were raised in the US within a community of Muslims [16]. As they search for commonality with Muslims in their schools and mosques whose parents have different national origins than theirs, they look to shed the cultural practices that separate them from each other and find the authentic Islam that binds them. Yang and Ebaugh ([6], p. 280) found this pattern more generally among second-generation Americans from many religious traditions, who "return to theological foundations … because they must bridge differences of culture and ethnic origin (internal pluralism) among co-religionists and because the authority of a religion that is based simply on tradition loses its power." It is too simple to say that this type of observation emerges only from a transnational perspective, because there are Muslim movements within the Muslim-majority world also fostering such a return. However in the case of these youth, because they said they did not learn more about Islam in Palestine and Jordan, this perspective is likely to be an outcome of earlier experiences with in the US.

#### 5.4.6. It's Political

A few of the youth in Palestine, all males, were critical of the political meaning embedded in practicing Islam. Sam said his classmates discouraged him from practicing his religion, ridiculing him by saying "you're not Hamas." He became less religious in Palestine due to such peer pressure.

I feel like over here I've kind of become less religious, in a sense, than I was in America. Cause in America you have your friends who are very religious, they influence you, over here I feel like people are like "what are you doing? Don't do that. You're not like Hamas. You don't need to do that." [Like do what?] Pray, go to memorize Qur'an, whatnot. And like I'm free to do what I want, you know what I mean? So I guess I've become less religious when I moved here. And that's because of the people around me.

#### **6. Discussion and Conclusions**

These data show that learning to be Muslim transnationally is not the simple linear process that many, including parents and youth, had expected it to be. Rather than learning more deeply about Islam upon moving from a Muslim minority social context to a Muslim majority one, adolescent Muslims learned about Islam differently. By this I mean that they experienced rhythms of life, ways of practice, religious institutions, forms of community, and gendered expectations rooted in Islam that were different from those they knew in the US. Some found that these social features enhanced their understanding of Islam while others did not. Youth brought to their experiences in Palestine and Jordan an interpretive frame informed by their experiences of being Muslim within the United States, and these varied widely. Some were part of vibrant communities hosting mosques, youth groups, well-developed weekend classes, and full-time Islamic schools. Others intersected with fellow Muslims outside of the family only sporadically, because other Muslim families, mosques, and weekend religion classes were located some distance away. In between points on a continuum of Muslim American experiences include places where mosques and weekend classes were nearby but lacked the quality of investment, development, and staffing found in vibrant Muslim American communities. What they knew about Islam and how they felt being Muslim in the United States informed their receptivity to a different way of being Muslim, in a place where being Muslim is normative but also imperfect.

Muslim youth growing up in Muslim minority contexts develop moral imaginings of what Islam looks like in its geographic home [9]. Parents, relatives, religion teachers, friends, and a range of media sources inform these constructions of what "we" do and how "we" live. Their interpretations of later engagements with "authentic Islam" are shaped by these expectations. Youth who expected and perhaps desired a geography of full observance and free-willed sincerity were often disappointed by the more complex and flawed realities they found on the ground. Observations of non-practicing Muslims, perceptions of men attending mosques for social approval and hijab-wearing women acting improperly, and a conduct of social relations not always infused with charity and humility, bothered them deeply. Youth perplexed by what they saw as regimented conformity lacking spiritual depth thought American Muslims were more sincere, practicing out of choice and a deep commitment to their faith. They inferred that piety should be a conscious decision and not have the appearance of a mechanical act (cf. [17]). Many, however, found joy and comfort in the freedom to be Muslim, anywhere, anytime, in the syncopation of religion and daily life, in learning Islam as a way of life more deeply, and in sharing expressions of faith and religious holidays with so many others. Youth who felt this way said they understood Islam better because of these experiences. These realities co-exist in Palestine and Jordan, subject only to the different interpretations and emphases given to them by young Muslims.

Girls had different experiences of being Muslim than boys, both in the US and in Palestine and Jordan. In the US, parents placed more effort on raising their daughters to know Muslim values and "the rules" of proper Muslim decorum, including modesty, ways of carrying oneself, how to relate to male and female strangers, and showing respect for others. They buttressed these teachings with notions of difference from other Americans and by setting behavioral boundaries. While parents tried to inculcate these ideas into their sons, monitoring and enforcement was often weak. Girls were far more likely than boys to say that they did not learn more about Islam in Palestine or Jordan, that it was the same, or that it was both positive and negative. One main reason for this gendered difference is because they were already well prepared for living in a Muslim majority society, in matters of dress, behavior, values, and public decorum. Boys, however, found that in Jordan and Palestine people had higher expectations of them with regard to following the rules. While boys still had wider latitudes in behavior than girls, the differences were less extreme and they found that they had to change. In addition, because girls were largely excluded from religious institutions in Palestine and Jordan, their abilities to properly engage in ritualized actions such as praying, reciting Qur'an, and comprehending religious sermons were put to the test publicly less often than boys. Boys had to perform ablutions and prayers in front of those for whom these were almost natural activities and recite Qur'an and listen to sermons among others whose command of Arabic was far superior. In lieu of engaging in communal or public prayer, the public performance of an appropriate Muslim repertoire of behavior had enhanced religious significance for girls. It is no surprise then that girls who said their understanding of religion grew spoke about cognitive matters such as grasping the meaning behind why Muslims value and do what they do, while boys spoke mainly about ritual matters, such as going to mosques and praying in public, practices out of reach and even stigmatized for many boys in the US and out of reach for girls in Palestine and Jordan.

This study shows that for youth the transnational experience of being Muslim plays out in complex ways, very much dependent on how they experienced being Muslim while growing up in the US. The more satisfying the US experience, especially for boys, the more disappointing the one in Palestine and Jordan, not because it was inherently flawed, although they may have interpreted it in this way, but largely because it was different. Youth who grew up among a vibrant community of Muslims in the US, in which they were regular members of a mosque congregation, where they may have also attended a full time Islamic school and had extended family was close by, tended to describe their American experience positively. While in Palestine or Jordan, they interpreted their experiences with religion from this perspective and found them lacking, especially because mosques did not play the community role that they were used to. Boys for whom being Muslim in the US was a largely isolating experience, who spoke of fasting alone in the lunch room and having only sporadic contact with other Muslims, found community in Palestine and Jordan through family and mosques, and comfort in being Muslim, signified by the freedom to pray anywhere without stares. Both outcomes highlight the importance of community and solidarity to producing a positive and meaningful religious experience, which I think has heightened importance for Muslim men who have lived in places where their identities are stigmatized.

This article examined the processes of learning religion as described by Muslim American youth who lived in two countries before they reached the age of 18, one in which they were a religious minority and another in which they were part of the majority group. They were brought to the latter by their parents, who wanted them to understand their culture, language, and religion better. The data show that although the different contexts matter for some aspects of being Muslim, living in a place where one is part of the dominant religious culture does not necessarily make for a deeper experience of religion. Living in a society where daily life is scheduled around your religious calendar, celebrations, and rituals and where you can practice your faith freely without stares, assumptions, or discrimination provides a personal sense of comfort and ease. Yet these factors alone are not sufficient to import a better understanding of religious faith. For some, they are counter-balanced by a seeming mechanical conformity and ritualism, sometimes perceived as disingenuous. What seemed to matter more than objective features of the macro social context was the type of experience with being Muslim each youth brought into the situation, because it was these experiences that informed their subjective interpretations of what it means to be Muslim.

#### **Conflicts of Interest**

The author declares no conflict of interest.

#### **References**


### **Post-9/11: Making Islam an American Religion**

**Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad and Nazir Nader Harb**

**Abstract:** This article explores several key events in the last 12 years that led to periods of heightened suspicion about Islam and Muslims in the United States. It provides a brief overview of the rise of anti-Muslim and anti-Islam sentiment known as "Islamophobia", and it investigates claims that American Muslims cannot be trusted to be loyal to the United States because of their religion. This research examines American Muslim perspectives on national security discourse regarding terrorism and radicalization, both domestic and foreign, after 9/11. The article argues that it is important to highlight developments, both progressive and conservative, in Muslim communities in the United States over the last 12 years that belie suspicions of widespread anti-American sentiment among Muslims or questions about the loyalty of American Muslims. The article concludes with a discussion of important shifts from a Muslim identity politics that disassociated from American identity and 'American exceptionalism' to a position of integration and cultural assimilation.

Reprinted from *Religions*. Cite as: Haddad, Y.Y.; Harb, N.N. "Post-9/11: Making Islam an American Religion." *Religions* 5 (2014): 477–501.

### **1. Overview: Increased Islamophobia**

The attacks of 9/11 have been analyzed in various ways as constituting a point of transformation in American history after which "everything had changed"—including perceptions about the world and one's surroundings, and relation to and awareness of a broader political geography ([1]; [2], p. 180; [3]). A major marker of this post-9/11 paradigm shift was, and for some remains, religion, including levels of religiosity and what it means to hold a particular religious view or identity in the United States. Some American Muslims reported that 9/11 introduced an era of intensified suspicion about Islam and Muslims on the part of non-Muslim neighbors, colleagues, classmates, and friends. Others reported that the initial suspicion of law enforcement officials, elected politicians, and homeland security agents over the last 12 years has developed into systematic, and sometimes extralegal, scrutiny of Muslims and Muslim communities [1,4]. 1 The increase in hostility toward Islam and Muslims by security officials appears to have a direct impact on the faith and practice of Islam in the U.S., including the interpretation of the tenets and scriptures of the faith, the formation of Muslim identity in America, and the emphasis on volunteerism and civic

 1 For an overview of the codification of Islamophobic rules and policies designed to monitor American Muslims, see [5].

engagement. For many Muslims and those who study the religion, Islam in America since 9/11 has undergone significant transformations.

This article explores some of the key events that led to periods of heightened suspicion about Islam and Muslims in the United States in the last 12 years. It provides a brief overview of the rise of anti-Muslim and anti-Islam sentiment known as Islamophobia, and it critically examines the claims of those who promote legislation designed to marginalize American Muslims on the basis of their Islamic faith. The article addresses the perspectives of American Muslims who believe they are singled out in the national security discourse on terrorism and radicalization, both domestic and foreign. The authors take seriously the need to evaluate historical realities and shed light on developments, particularly among Muslim communities in the United States in the last 12 years, which might belie allegations of widespread anti-American sentiment among Muslims or questions about the loyalty of American Muslims.

In the last part of the article, we take up the epistemic shifts in relations among American Muslim communities since 9/11. Many American Muslims are embracing an authentically American identity inspired by and infused with modern and recognizably post-9/11 interpretations of mainstream Islamic orthodoxy and orthopraxy. They are increasingly choosing to integrate into American society through participation in and production of American culture in both civic engagement and in new, innovative ways such as art, filmmaking, political involvement, authorship, scholarship, and interfaith engagement. Advancements in Sunni-Shi'a engagement and collaboration are underway. We take note of how major Muslim organizations, such as the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), have stayed at the forefront of Islamic reform. ISNA has maintained its relevance and its membership by capitalizing on and recognizing major trends in American Islam at its annual national convention.

We attempt to identify the major trends in American Islam as well as changes in the everyday activities of American Muslims after 9/11.<sup>2</sup> We argue that Islam in America is continuing to change and be transformed in ways that sometimes coincide with the policy objectives of the U.S. government and national security officials.

Islamophobia (coined by the Runnymede Report to describe western proclivity to anti-Muslim sentiment) did not arise in a vacuum. Anti-Muslim and anti-Islam sentiment has a venerable history in Western culture. Since 9/11, a specific set of events helped to perpetuate the claims of the Islamophobia industry in the United States and Europe. While there are relevant contexts that have intensified Islamophobia in the United States, it is clear that they are exploited and exaggerated by individuals who are motivated by political considerations or are seeking self-enrichment and notoriety. The awareness of Islamophobia as a social problem in the United States and Western Europe was heightened in the academy with the publication of Edward Said's *Orientalism* [9]. While Said did not use the term 'Islamophobia', he laid the groundwork for a greater awareness of the phenomenon. This phenomenon has been exacerbated since 9/11 as revealed in the number of new publications on the topic and on Islam in America [10–20].

<sup>2</sup> There is not space in this short article to discuss the transitions of Muslims in America over generations from being an immigrant society quite separate in some ways from the majority society to, especially after 9/11, integrating into the fabric of American society. For more on this, however, see [6–8].

Although the term 'Islamophobia' is now widely accepted and used in academic as well as legal, political, and social contexts, it remains contested in certain discourses. As such, there are multiple definitions of Islamophobia. Richard Schaefer, writing for the *Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society*, dates the term back to the early 1990s and defines it as a "range of negative feelings toward Muslims and their religion, from generalized bigotry, intolerance, and prejudice on the one hand to a morbid dread and hatred on the other" that might "manifest itself in… discrimination against Muslims, social exclusion, verbal and physical harassment, hate crimes, attacks on mosques, and vilification of Islam in the media" [21,22].

#### **2. American Muslims under Scrutiny**

While the whole world has heard of the tragic loss of life perpetuated by the 9/11 attacks, relatively few outside of academia have paid attention to the impact of 9/11 on the lives of the thousands of American Arabs and Muslims who were detained without warrant under the auspices of the USA PATRIOT Act. The authors of *Arab Detroit 9/11: Life in the Terror Decad*e describe this context of reinvigorated prejudicial treatment of Arabs and Muslims in the United States. Focusing particularly on the Arabs and Muslims of Detroit, the authors describe the first decade after the attacks of 9/11 as "post-9/11"—a "time/space in which they (American Arabs and Muslims) were linked to enemy Others and were expected to prove their loyalty to the nation-state in ways other Americans were not" ([23], p. 2). The book goes on to define the means by which the concept of a "target of opportunity" was re-appropriated by US national security officials as essentially a PR-friendly framework for engaging in thinly veiled institutional racism toward American Arabs and Muslims. This trope of Muslims as "enemies within" lingers. In September 2013, for example, Sid Roth, the founder of a Jewish Messianic movement that broadcasts Islamophobic messages, invited Erick Stakelbeck to speak about "stealth Jihad", which he identified as "the enemy (Muslim) in a business suit", and expounded the theory that the Muslim Brotherhood is working to destroy America and Europe. In the months after 9/11, FBI officials in Detroit, home to hundreds of thousands of Arabs and Muslims arrested, convicted, detained, and deported thousands of individuals due to their national origin or religion [24]. This narrative has also gained traction in Europe, Canada, and other countries [25–30].

Overwhelmingly, the targets of these national security procedures to gather intelligence have been American Muslims and their communities across the country. The March 2013 report *Mapping Muslims: NYPD Spying and Its Impact on American Muslims*, produced by the Muslim American Civil Liberties Coalition, corroborates the problem of law enforcement officials singling out American Muslims as national security threats despite evidence that demonstrates a more serious threat from white supremacists and other far-right groups. According to the report, New York police "marginalized and criminalized a broad segment of American Muslims" based on their religious identity [31,32].3 

As Arabs and Muslims in America increasingly experience the infringement of their civil rights and direct discrimination, questions of freedom of religion and the value of diversity or multiculturalism in the United States come into focus. Are Muslims the exception to America's history

<sup>3</sup> For a comparative analysis, see [24].

of gradual integration of minorities into its social fabric? Do Muslims in America face the options of either change, or as one interviewee in *Mapping Muslims* put it: "decrease your Islam," or, failing that, treatment as an "enemy of freedom" and threat to national security ([32], p. 56)? If the answer to these questions is "yes", then it is necessary to define what is meant by "too much Islam" or by "bad Muslim" as opposed to "good Muslim."

Despite the passage of over 12 years since 9/11, American Muslims continue to face scrutiny and, in some cases, are subject to direct FBI surveillance due to the perceived contradiction between their religious and national identities—more bluntly, many cannot accept that the same person can be simultaneously a practicing Muslim and a good, loyal American. In the national media and many Washington offices, American Arabs and Muslims are still portrayed as "potential threats to American security," but also, vexingly, as potential assets as seen during the Bush administration ([23], p. 88).<sup>4</sup> The Obama administration has neither reversed nor challenged its predecessor's policies and has also taken up the "campaign to reshape the Middle East and fight the War on Terror" while enlisting the aid of American Muslims [34,35]. In an October 2012 article for *The Guardian*, Glenn Greenwald argues that the Obama administration has been working to "fully institutionalize—to make officially permanent—the most extremist powers it has exercised in the name of the war on terror" [36].

#### **3. How the Killing of bin Laden Increased Islamophobia**

Although Islamophobia is partially the result of unquestioned assumptions about Muslims, it is also clear that specific events occurred in the West after 9/11 that helped to reconstitute Americans' latent fear of Muslims and Islam and likely further intensified anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and Europe. These include, among others, the 2004 murder of Theo Van Gogh in the Netherlands, the 2004 Madrid train bombing, the 2005 attacks on London's train system, and the release of a DVD titled *Obsession*: *Radical Islam's War against the West* [37,38]. The effect of these events was exacerbated by the 2006 controversy over the Danish cartoon defaming the Prophet and Pope Benedict's controversial lecture in Germany [39,40]. The 'Ground Zero Mosque' controversy in 2010 again exacerbated fear of Muslims in the West [41,42].

The "Arab Spring" in January 2011 and the killing of Osama bin Laden in May 2011 led some to believe that the Global War on Terror might be coming to an end and that perhaps Islamophobia was seeing its last days.<sup>5</sup> Then two events re-enlivened suspicions across the United States about "homegrown Islamist terrorism," namely the attack on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012, killing U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens [44–48], and the Boston marathon bombing carried out by two brothers of Chechen Muslim origin on April 15, 2013. Many American Muslims believed that the death of bin Laden would usher in the beginning of the end of the Islamophobia they had faced in the prior decade. However, a 2011 survey conducted by the Ohio State University School of Communication, Cornell University's Survey Research Institute, and the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, suggested that many Americans' view of Islam and Muslims counter-intuitively deteriorated further following

<sup>4</sup> For more on Washington's support of the NYPD's surveillance of American Muslims, see [33].

<sup>5</sup> For an example of enduring Islamophobia, see [43].

Obama's dramatic Sunday-night primetime announcement of the al-Qaeda leader's demise.<sup>6</sup> It seemed that the killing of bin Laden, and perhaps the media's handling of the news, served to exacerbate negative attitudes toward and associations with Muslims.

The study found that while half of the participants believed American Muslims were "trustworthy" and "peaceful" before bin Laden was killed, only one-third maintained those attitudes post-bin Laden. Omar Sacirbey surmises that "the most troublesome finding was that these negative shifts had occurred among political liberals and moderates, a constituency that had been seen as the most sympathetic to Muslims after the 9/11 terrorist attacks." Specifically, the survey found that the proportion of political liberals who indicated that "Muslims make America more dangerous" increased from 8–24 percent after the media's coverage of bin Laden's death [48].

For non-Muslim Americans, the handling of bin Laden's death by the national media made them more apprehensive about becoming close friends with a Muslim—whereas 9% had expressed hesitance before his death, that figure rose to 20% some days afterward. In Portland, Maine, the day following bin Laden's death, someone vandalized a local mosque and spray-painted the message "Osama Today, Islam Tomorrow" on one of its walls. In Texas, a schoolteacher was suspended for saying to a 9-year-old Muslim girl in his algebra class, "I bet that you're grieving" [48].

#### **4. The Islamophobia Industry in America: Shaping and Contesting American Islam**

While the demonization of Islam has a long history in America, 9/11 is seen by many to have marked a new phase [3,49]. A veritable Islamophobia industry developed around the demonization of Islam. Publications such as *Fear, Inc.*, a report by the Center for American Progress, the Council on American-Islamic Relations' (CAIR's) annual 2009–2010 and 2011–2012 Islamophobia Reports as well as its briefs and other documents, and *The Islamophobia Industry* by Nathan Lean identified a ring of "pseudo-scholars" and authors supported by a verifiable 40-million-dollar-a-year Islamophobia industry in the United States with an increasingly global reach. CAIR estimates that between 2008 and 2011, the industry made approximately 120 million dollars [50–52]. The industry is driven by neocon stars: Daniel Pipes, Robert Spencer, David Yerushalmi, Glenn Beck, Pamela Gellner, Paul Wolfowitz, David Horowitz, and Frank Gaffney as well as native informers Walid Shoebat, Walid Phares, Wafa Sultan, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ibn Warraq, Brigitte Gabriel, Tawfik Hamid, and Zuhdi Jasser. They have been prolific, producing and re-circulating false or exaggerated information about Islam and Muslims in order to gain lucrative speaking engagements and increase their influence among neocons in government [53].

Their lectures and publications promote the idea that there is a global Muslim conspiracy to take over the United States and impose "medieval Islamic law" on America [54–56]. They also demand that the government of the United States begins "religion building" [57] to help fashion a "moderate" Islam, which would essentially mean an Islam that is devoid of elements of praxis or articles of faith [58,59]. Some people have accused them of scare tactics in that any Muslim who prays and fasts is deemed to be either a terrorist or a potential terrorist who cannot be trusted. The

<sup>6</sup> See [48] for a poll based on 500 interviews between April 7 and May 1 (when bin Laden was killed) and another 341 interviews between May 2 and May 24, reporting that "the number of respondents who said Muslims living in America 'increased the likelihood of a terrorist attack' rose from 27 percent before May 1 to 34 percent after."

Islamophobia industry promoted the Park 51 attempt to stop New York Muslims from constructing an Islamic community center several blocks from "Ground Zero." Muslims saw that effort as a direct affront on their right to freedom of religion as American citizens [60].

The Islamophobia industry today is working to outlaw the Islamic ethical code, known as 'shariὰ', in every state in the country [61]. Since 9/11, some Republican legislators around the U.S. have convened congressional hearings to investigate whether Islam is a religion and have submitted proposals in over 32 states to legally ban shariὰ law [62,63]. The 2013 Boston marathon attack re-ignited Islam- and shari'a-phobia. As a result, American Muslims mourned the attack in Boston but also felt increasingly marginalized and targeted.

#### **5. The "Good Muslim, Bad Muslim" Effect**

Mahmood Mamdani may not have coined the phrase "good Muslim, bad Muslim," but his now-paradigmatic book, *Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror* drew on the large body of literature and evidence that gained traction after 9/11 when government offices were actively seeking to define 'the enemy' in the Global War on Terror. Muslims were placed under the microscope [64,65]. While Mamdani's book did not receive as significant a response from the academic world as perhaps it could have, his research forms a definite contribution to the study of the policies that seek to identify two essential Muslim personality tropes in terms of national security: "good" and "bad" [66]. Mamdani's book ultimately gave rise to a flurry of other published books and articles about the efforts to brand Muslims as either 'good' or 'bad'. His conception of the detrimental impact of a worldview—one that is quite common in Washington—that tends to subdivide all people into "moderns" and "premoderns" helps to constitute a fuller genealogy of the Islamophobic policies produced by lawmakers in the aftermath of 9/11.

Mamdani constructs his critique of this dichotomy on the basis of the genocide of the Herero people in South West Africa in 1904 by the Germans and the Holocaust later that century perpetrated by Hitler's Third Reich regime. For Mamdani, the relevance to Islamophobia today is clear: both of these genocides, and indeed all genocides, begin with what he calls "race branding" ([66], p. 7). He notes that "(t)he link between the genocide of the Herero and the Holocaust was race branding, which was used not only to set a group apart as an enemy but also to annihilate it with an easy conscience" ([66], p. 7).

Analyst Peter Danchin, in his multiple installments on *The Imminent Frame*, an online blog featuring researchers of religion, secularism, and nationalism, spotlighted what may be the most conspicuous, and perhaps earliest, use of the "good Muslim, bad Muslim" dichotomy in an official narrative. His posts in the spring of 2010 were a response to the February 23 Chicago Council on Global Affairs Report titled, "Engaging Religious Communities Abroad: A New Imperative for U.S. Foreign Policy" [67]. Drawing on the work of Mamdani, Danchin's 2010 entry expands on the U.S. foreign policy implications of the modern-premodern paradigm that animates the hostility of the Chicago Council Report toward various political forms of Muslim identity. Danchin indicts the conflation of religion with power politics not only for its facile reductionism but also for its potency in legitimating state-sponsored surveillance of American Muslims, as well as violence against Muslims abroad in the name of the Global War on Terror.

In this vein, Saba Mahmood in "Secularism, Hermeneutics, and Empire: The Politics of Islamic Reformation" has posited that since 9/11 the U.S. government, including politicians on both sides of the aisle, has worked to institutionalize secularism in Muslim societies "both as a political doctrine and as a political ethic" [68]. According to Mahmood, secularism in "contemporary American discourses on Islam" is "deeply shaped by U.S. security and foreign policy concerns in the Muslim world" ([68], p. 323). For Mahmood, "contrary to normative understanding of secularism today," the "force" of what she terms "secularity" in the U.S. government policy of reforming Islam "from within" is not in "neutralizing the space of politics from religion" but is rather in "producing a particular kind of religious subject who is compatible with the rationality and exercise of liberal political rule" ([68], pp. 323, 344).

The work of this policy over the last 12 years has led to constraints on the identity formation of American Muslims. For this small but diverse and largely un-integrated religious minority, Mahmood asserts that having to choose between "religious truth" and secularity "can only elicit an equally singular vision in response, one in which all shades of interpretive, moral, and ethical ambiguity must be leveled so as to salvage the dregs of what might have once constituted a tradition or a life-world" ([68], p. 326). In "Muslims and American Religious Pluralism", Yvonne Haddad similarly argued that post-9/11 government security measures that target American Muslims "have isolated Muslims and placed them in what one Muslim called a 'virtual internment'" where Muslim identity is politicized and regarded as a security threat rather than a religious identity that can co-exist with American identity [69].

The Chicago Report recommends that U.S. foreign policy ought to focus on attacking the premodern Muslims who are anti-Western, while acknowledging that "at the same time, American security crucially depends on more effective engagement with, and support for, the good Muslims, not only to save them from the extremists but also to create stable, peaceful, and cooperative partners in a strategically and geopolitically vital part of the world." This pragmatism in foreign policy is lost on American Muslims in the United States who feel marginalized and are frustrated by being treated as a constant 'enemy within' who pose a threat to national security at every turn [70].

#### **6. The National Security Agenda and its Double Discourse**

On June 13, 2007, the anti-Muslim hate group Society of Americans for National Existence (SANE), under the leadership of David Yerushalmi, unveiled the "Mapping Shari'a in America Project" that targeted some 2,300 Islamic institutions in the United States [71]. The project draws on the fear of some Americans that Muslims are attempting to "Islamify" the country by applying "shariὰ law" in US courts [72]. Yerushalmi designed the "Mapping Shariὰ" project to "collect information about America's… mosques and associated day schools, provide information to both law enforcement officials and the public, and test the proposition that Shariὰ amounts to a criminal conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. Government" [73]. SANE publications claim that Islamic centers in the United States have become hotbeds of extremist activity that "promote violence, terrorism and hatred against America, and violent jihad" [74]. In February 2007, SANE issued a policy paper that stated: "Whereas, *adherence to Islam as a Muslim is prima facie evidence of an act in support of the overthrow of the US*. *Government* through the abrogation, destruction, or violation of the US

Constitution and the imposition of Shariὰ on the American People. . . It shall be a *felony punishable by 20 years in prison to knowingly act in furtherance of, or to support the, adherence to Islam*" [75]. Yerushalmi has been quoted as saying: "Shariὰ is not merely speech, and it is certainly not religion as understood by the West... Rather, it is a political and ideological mandate to destroy the West. We believe that every act to teach, preach, and live according to traditional, historical, and authoritative Shari'a contributes to a criminal conspiracy to overthrow our government." Yerushalmi has offered a template to legislators in over 20 states that claims to sidestep constitutional objections to singling out Islam by avoiding explicit mention of the religion (not all states have used his template).

By the 1990s, American society could virtually be divided along two paradigmatic lines [76]. One boundary delineated the United States as a Judeo-Christian nation, which by implication excluded and marginalized members of other faith groups. Belonging to this category required serious cultural and religious sacrifices as well as, not accidentally, adopting an unwavering support for the State of Israel. This practically kept Arabs and Muslims on the outer fringes of acceptable American identity. Those outside the bounds of this paradigm operated on the assumptions of a second paradigm that promoted the United States as a nation that honors pluralism and celebrates diversity. This conception of pluralism that created space for Muslims made many Protestant evangelicals and supporters of Israel uncomfortable.

Muslims everywhere, once thought to be natural allies of the United States against the atheist Communists, were re-imagined during the 1990s. They were once again, as they were after the establishment of Israel and in the decades thereafter, depicted by some as enemies of freedom unfit for citizenship in the new American world. This depiction of Muslims as enemies facilitated the use of drones by President Obama [77]. Yasmin Alibhai Brown has pointed out that the drones have become an instrument by which to kill Muslims who in any way may have obstructed US interests abroad [78]. While claims of American exceptionalism have been on the decline, the argument is far from having been laid to rest. A 2011 article for *Foreign Policy* entitled "The Myth of American Exceptionalism," Stephen Walt advises that "if Americans want to be truly exceptional, they might start by viewing the whole idea of 'American exceptionalism' with a much more skeptical eye" [79].

In the 12 years since 9/11, Muslims in Western Europe and the United States have faced unprecedented and rising xenophobia and Islamophobia, at least in part as a consequence of the propaganda for multiple wars in Muslim majority countries. However, scholars such as Jack Shaheen, Tariq Modood, and Michael Suleiman, who focus on depictions of Muslims in the West and their treatment, argue that Islamophobia is an extension and manifestation of a more deeply-seated and visceral resentment that must be recognized as an intense and vitriolic form of racism and bigotry [80].

#### **7. Emergent Forms of American Islam**

American Muslims have responded to 9/11, Islamophobia, and changing attitudes about American identity within their own communities in many different ways. In 2010, Qasim Rashid, an American Muslim writer, in an article in the Religion section of *The Huffington Post*, responded to an e-mail he had received, which asked, "Are Muslims even allowed to be loyal to the United

States?" [81]. Rashid's reply reflects the latest trend in American Muslim attitudes. "For a Muslim, loyalty to the United States is not simply lip service but a fundamental requirement of faith" because America recognizes "the equality of its citizens regardless of background, and champions a universal freedom of religion."

Others have also written more extensively about how Islam in America has shifted since 9/11 toward a more deeply integrated relationship with American society and identity [82]. In a 2004 Nawawi Foundation paper, "Islam and the Cultural Imperative," Umar Faruq Abd-Allah argues that American Muslims cannot "(safely) retreat from the task" of "(c)reating a sound Muslim American identity" [83]. Abd-Allah's paper contributes an intentionally Muslim voice to the discourse on Islam in America and to identity formation for American Muslims seeking a safe space in post-9/11 American society. Omid Safi's 2003 edited volume, *Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender, and Pluralism*, also stresses the need for Muslims in the West to find ways of better integrating their Muslim identities and interpretations of Islamic doctrines and practices with their societal and cultural settings [84].

The availability of Islamic literacy programs and Islam 101 sessions run by Muslim Student Associations on college campuses has proliferated nationwide in the last 12 years [85]. These events are meant to combat Islamophobia and present accurate information about Islam and Muslims to those most in need of a basic literacy in Islam and Muslim identity. Many of the conferences led by The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), Islamic Relief, The Next Wave Muslim Initiative (NWMI), The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), The Muslim Political Action Committee (MPAC), and the Muslim Student Association (MSA) as well as certain United States government internship programs since 9/11 have focused on Muslim engagement with and participation in mainstream American society, politics, and culture [86].

The 50th ISNA annual conference in 2013, entitled "Envisioning a More Perfect Union: Building the Beloved Community," kicked off with a session on "Our History: The Story of American Muslims Through ISNA's Eyes" [87]. The organizers dedicated the second session of the conference to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in honor of the 50th anniversary of the "I Have a Dream" speech. The speakers included Imam Zaid Shakir and Azizah Al-Hibri, Yasmin Mogahed, Tariq Ramadan, and Yasir Qadhi [87,88]. Mogahed is known for her support of pluralism and pietistic approach to Islamic faith and practice in general [89].

Also at the conference was Abu Ammaar Yasir Qadhi Al Amreeki, an American Muslim writer and blogger on muslimmatters.org. He is Dean of Academic Affairs at the Al-Maghrib Institute, an Islamic educational institution [90]. Qadhi has written three books on *shirk*, that is, 'polytheism' or equating other deities with the one God of Islam, and has spoken publically about Jews and Christians being *mushrikun*, or polytheists, who are "filthy" in the eyes of God and whose lives and property are *halal*, or religiously lawful, for the taking until they testify to their belief in the one God of Islam [91].

The 2006 ISNA convention featured Pakistani speaker Farhat Hashmi, a controversial speaker who, like Qadhi, has a large following in the United States. Hashmi runs a school for girls in Pakistan with branches in Toronto and Houston [92]. The girls at the school must wear *niqab*, or a full-lengthy black garment that covers every part of a woman including eyes and hands. Hashmi is known for supporting the practice of polygyny in Islam and encourages Pakistani women to allow

their husbands to marry multiple times [93]. Her following in Pakistan is mainly among middle and upper class women [94]. New Muslim groups may be challenging the previous stature of older, larger organizations like ISNA and ICNA or the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) [95]. The latter organization has responded by funding The Islamic Chaplaincy Program at Hartford Seminary. This is an effort to train Muslim chaplains in the United States. IIIT began funding for the creation of a core of American religious leadership who are knowledgeable about American religions and who could engage in interfaith dialogue as well as communicate comfortably with Muslim American youth [96].

#### **8. Reform and Gay Rights Muslim American Organizations**

What ISNA and ICNA are contending with are indigenous movements within Muslim American communities to create "reform" mosques and communities that reflect their changing values and politics [97]. The Washington, D.C. based Muslims for Progressive Values (MPV) group is gaining a following among the growing Muslim population in the D.C. metro area [98]. The group promotes women's empowerment and a "progressive shariah" guided by their philosophy of progressive Islamic humanism. MPV provides counseling services to same-sex couples and explains that it uses "traditional Islamic formulations of ijtihad, to derive clarity from Quran and authentic Sunnah," following the teachings of Imam Daayiee Abdullah [99]. Abdullah, an African-American and a graduate of Georgetown University, was born Sid Thompson in Detroit, Michigan and is an openly gay Muslim and widely recognized leader for gay rights in Islam. He uses his MPV website and the Al-Fatiha Foundation, as well as his connections with the Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity, the LGBT Muslim Retreat, Muslim Gay Men, and the mosque he directs, Masjid Nur Al-Isslaah, to combat Islamophobia and discrimination against homosexuals [100]. His MPV group started as a small group of American Muslims who met in a library and has now grown into a nation-wide movement with 12 chapters including Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Atlanta [101]. While ISNA and ICNA organizers have yet to consider broaching the topic of gay rights in Islam or the status of women, MPV mosques have female Imams who lead mixed congregations in prayers where men and women stand side-by-side, and openly support same-sex marriages between Muslims and between Muslims and non-Muslims, including situations where a female Muslim marries outside the faith—a practice banned by traditional Muslims.

In a 2007 Huffington Post article about MPV, Mohamed Magid, ISNA president, was asked about the values of the MPV group. He was careful not to condemn the groups, saying "he welcomes a 'marketplace of ideas' competing within Islam" and emphasized that he has "no right to strip anyone of Islam who wants to be Muslim" ([101], p. 2). Still, he was firm that in his mosque only men lead prayer and he does not believe Islam "condones homosexuality". While the MPV group enjoys some popularity, only a very small segment of American Muslims support it and they have struggled in the past to maintain places of worship in the face of challenges and discrimination by more traditional Muslims.

Muslim reform groups in the United States were very marginal in the mainstream until the years following 9/11 [102]. Oftentimes, American Muslim reform movements enjoy some support for a short period and then fall out of favor with the community and shut their doors—defunct websites like *islamicreform.org* are testaments to the lingering resilience of traditional Islam and the **222** 

hesitation of American Muslims to break from the past. However, reform movements coupled with gay rights advocacy organizations, such as the Al-Fatiha Foundation, established in 1997, and the Safra Project, created in 2001, have managed to stand the test of time [103].

#### **9. American Muslims Engaged in Culture Production**

In recent history, American Muslims have played an integral part in American sports, often as wildly popular professional athletes.<sup>7</sup> They have engaged pop culture as musicians, actors, and TV personalities [104].8 American Muslim comics are also gaining recognition and becoming household names. <sup>9</sup> Only recently, however, have American Muslims begun making their stories known through the medium of film. Before 9/11, Muslims were regularly depicted as the stock "bad guys" in mainstream Hollywood movies. In a 2013 article by Philip Giraldi, "Why We Hate Them: Arabs in Western Eyes," Geraldi explains that in early films, "Arabs were increasingly depicted… as lawless savages who mindlessly opposed the advanced civilizations of Europe, not unlike the American Indians who had stood in the way of manifest destiny" [105]. In line with the "good Muslim, bad Muslim" effect discussed above, Geraldi argues that good Arabs conformed while "the bad Arabs were the 'disobedient' who sought to maintain their traditional ways of life." The exact terms of this dichotomy may have shifted with time, but many American Muslims continued to struggle with the "good Muslim, bad Muslim" paradox throughout the last decade. No longer complacently accepting a subaltern status, American Muslims have begun to enter the movie-making business and are intent on making a positive difference in the way Muslims are characterized.

Movies made by and about Muslims in the United States include the 2009 film, *Amreeka*, by Cherien Dabis and Nisreen Faour, or the 2007 short film, *Arab in America* by Nabil Abou-Harb, and the 2011 movie, *Mooz-Lum*, by Qasim Basir starring Danny Glover. However, aspiring American Muslim filmmakers are seeking innovative ways to fund their creative visions for original motion pictures like *Adeela* by Nicholas Paul Ybarra. *Adeela* is a movie in the making that is struggling to raise funds to move into the production phase. The movie seeks to tell the story of a Muslim girl raised in the United States who falls for a Jewish boy and experiences a "culture clash in America" [106]. It is taking time for American Muslims to make it in Hollywood but it is significant nonetheless that people like the creators of *Adeela* are not giving up.

In the meantime, filmmakers who are sympathetic to the plight of Muslims in America, like Evangelical Reverend Steven D. Martin of Tennessee, are using their resources to produce short documentaries such the 2012 film *Islam in America: The Christian Truth* [107]. The film features American Muslim leaders who are known for their positive messaging about American Muslim identity and Islam in America. Most prominently among them is Islamic Society of North America President Imam Mohamed Magid, and the first Muslim university chaplain in the United States,

<sup>7</sup> E.g., Muhammad Ali, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Mike Tyson, Shaquille O'Neal, Hakeem Olajuwon, and Rasheed Wallace.

<sup>8</sup> Famous American Muslim Musicians: Casey Kasem, Yusuf Islam, formerly Cat Stevens, Yusef Lateef, and famous rappers like Ice Cube, Lupe Fiasco, Mos Def, Snoop Dogg, Q-Tip, Immortal Technique, Busta Rhymes, T-Pain. Actors and TV personalities: Mehmet Oz, a.k.a. Dr. Oz, Iffran Khan, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Sayed Badreya, and Said Taghmaoui.

<sup>9</sup> Comedians: Dave Chappelle, Aasif Mandvi, Dean Obeidullah, Azhar Usman, and Ahmed Ahmed.

Imam Yahya Hendi. Islamic scholar John Esposito is also interviewed. These individuals helped portray the struggles of American Muslims in the face of rising Islamophobia after 9/11. Along these lines, the 2010 American Congregations report, *A Decade of Change 2000–2010*, documents efforts by various Christian denominations to reach out to members of other faiths, including Muslims [108].

As American Muslims moved toward greater engagement in local, state, and federal government after 9/11, they re-examined many of their previously held social conservative stances [109]. While a majority of Muslims voted Republican before 9/11 out of support for the domestic policies of the party that reflected "traditional values," the processes of integration post-9/11 served as an opportunity for American Muslims to re-evaluate their own positions on issues of national importance, such as religious freedom and, as we have seen, gay rights [110].

#### **10. American Muslims Engaging in New Ways**

American Muslims have responded to Islamophobia and shari'aphobia in variegated and creative ways [111]. They have assumed a redemptive posture in combatting misinformation about Islam and American Muslim identity while reclaiming each by supporting, participating in, and initiating community and civic engagement projects as well as contributing to U.S. politics, popular culture, and an ongoing national interfaith dialogue. American Muslims today emphasize what they see as shared American and Islamic values of honoring and celebrating difference. They also envision their efforts to integrate Islam into the tapestry of American society as a way of protecting themselves from the phobias that adversely affect and threaten their communities.

In 2006, the first Muslim congressman in the U.S., Keith Ellison of Minnesota, was sworn into office on a copy of Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an from 1734, after much consternation over whether or not an oath is valid on any scripture other than the Bible [112]. His experience paved the way in 2008 for Andre Carson, democrat from Indiana, the second Muslim elected to Congress whose campaign and election were much quieter and drew fewer questions about his religion [113].

American Muslims today understand newfound forms of cultural engagement and civic activism to be important avenues for securing the right of religious freedom in the name of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights for American Muslims. U.S.-based partnerships like the 501(c)(3) Clergy Beyond Borders (CBB), founded jointly by Muslim, Jewish, and Christian American clerics, further illustrate this larger trend among forward-looking Muslim Americans and their counterparts in other faiths to integrate Islam into America's cultural and religious fabric. The CBB website emphasizes the organization's vision that "all religions contain a message of commitment to improving the world" [114]. CBB advocates "mutual recognition among religious communities, seeking not to remove meaningful borders between them, but rather to build bridges of understanding and cooperation" [114]. Like American Muslim youth organizations, part of the goal of CBB is to educate non-Muslims and Muslims about the uniquely democratic, pluralistic, and modern nature of Islam, or at least American Islam [114,115]. Muslim American youth have set out to integrate Islam into the American popular conception of religious pluralism and diversity through the modern avenues of networking, blogging, events on college campuses, and conferences and seminars open to the public that cater to non-Muslims around the country [116].

Other Muslim-based organizations, including the United Muslims of America (UMA), the American Muslim Alliance (AMA), the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Muslim Ummah of North America (MUNA), and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), began increasingly to support interfaith engagement across the United States after 9/11 [117]. Appropriating "One God We Trust," UMA's website features a full section devoted to interfaith activism. The description of the section explains that UMA sees "America as one nation, endeavoring to create one family through interfaith understanding. We promote racial and religious harmony through religious institutions, projecting an image of America as a world leader who stands up for the human rights for all communities." Eboo Patel, well-known for his work in interfaith around the world, drew a lot of attention with the establishment of the Interfaith Youth Core that some people likened to a "Muslim Peace Corps" interfaith organization [117].

American Muslims have found a kind of special kinship with American Jews in working toward greater interfaith cooperation [118]. Not to be left in the dust of the rapid advancements in post-9/11 Muslim interfaith engagement, ISNA president Mohamed Magid and a delegation of imams from around the world, along with Congressman Keith Ellison, traveled with the U.S. State Department to the Wall of Death in Auschwitz, Germany to offer prayers where many thousands of Jewish prisoners were killed during the Nazi Holocaust [119].

Muslim-Christian alliances in the 12 years after 9/11 have also expanded widely and, along with improving Muslim-Jewish relations, may help to create a more accepting space for American Muslims in U.S. society in the long term [120]. American Muslim communities, particularly mosques, which may not be directly affiliated with interfaith organizations, have also opened their doors to Americans of other faiths to join in worship services as well as holiday celebrations. American Muslims have also led prayer services and vigils at times of national mourning in the last 12 years, whether or not the assailant was allegedly Muslim [121]. Ramadan, the holy Muslim month of fasting, provides an opportune venue for interfaith engagement at meals where Muslims are encouraged to break the day's fast with their neighbors [122].

An important feature of American Islam in the last 12 years has also been intra-faith dialogue and engagement—"intra-faith" in this case refers to work by American Muslims on improving Sunni-Shi'a relations. The website The American Muslim (TAM), run by Sheila Musaji, a leader in developing frameworks of understanding American Islam, quotes a 1959 fatwa, or religious treatise, by Shaikh Mahmood Shaltoot of Al-Azhar University: "Islam does not require a Muslim to follow a particular Madh'hab (school of thought). Rather, we say: every Muslim has the right to follow one of the schools of thought which has been correctly narrated and its verdicts have been compiled in its books" [123]. The excerpt goes on to specify that the Shi'ite school of thought is "religiously correct to follow in worship as are other Sunni schools of thought." Musaji's piece includes a nearly exhaustive list of articles and links to websites dedicated to Sunni-Shi'a, or "SuShi", reconciliation, mutual understanding, and intra-faith engagement [124]. This too marks a significant shift in American Muslim attitudes since 9/11. Whereas before 9/11, American Muslims either ignored Sunni-Shi'a issues or assumed sectarianism was not a problem in the United States, post-9/11, American Muslims are acknowledging that this is an important area with increasingly profound consequences for the world community of Muslims [125]. In fact, the sphere of

Sunni-Shi'a intra-faith activism may be one field in which American Muslims are leading the way forward internationally.

Amid rising tensions between Sunni and Shi'a Muslims in Iraq, Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria and other countries where sectarian violence has spilled over into civil war and attempts at genocide, a group of American Muslim scholars and Imams were convened by ISNA in September 2013 to sign the "Washington Declaration Uniting Shi'ah and Sunni Scholars of North America" [126]. According to one of the signatories, "this declaration rejects all forms of sectarian violence between schools of thought within Islam… It calls for the respect of religious symbols of all sects of Islam… (and) for dialogue between the schools of thought and calls for imams to carry this message of mutual respect to their communities" [127]. ISNA president Mohamed Magid asserted that "ISNA is a platform for the unity of Muslims—whatever brings Muslim together strengthens all of them."

Among some of the most active groups of American Muslims in the pre- and post-9/11 efforts to integrate Islam into the mainstream of American psyches and culture have been activist youth programs [128]. The February 2010 Purple Hijab Day was promoted as an annual event where women don purple headscarves to end domestic violence "in our ummah," a reference to the Muslim community [129]. Green Muslims in the District, based in Washington D.C., have evolved from an online blog to a full website where events are coordinated, such as Zero Trash Parties and networking mixers for Muslim green activists to meet and pool efforts [130]. The nationwide Ramadan Fast-a-Thon has quickly developed a positive legacy on campuses across the country. Muslim Student Associations typically organize a day of fasting where non-Muslims are invited to join their Muslim classmates in abstaining from food and water from sunup to sundown and are then welcomed to partake in a special meal to break the fast (*iftar*) and accompanying prayers. They donate the funds they gather to a charity. Students spend the day in communication and many participants have explained that Fast-a-Thon helped them better relate to Muslims in America and at their universities.10 Other programs established by American Muslims are run by professionals but targeted toward American Muslim youth, such as IMAN's Takin' it to the Streets, Patel's above-mentioned Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC), and the Muslim Public Service Network (MPSN) [131].

More and more Muslim college students are finding creative ways to reach out to their local communities beyond their campuses as well. Georgetown University's Muslim Chaplaincy, one of only 13 such programs in the United States, offered a "Muslim Alternative Spring Break" for the first time in March 2012. After a competitive selection process, 12 Muslim undergraduate students led by their campus Imam traveled to Parkersburg, West Virginia to work with Habitat for Humanity building homes for a family in need. Students spent their entire Spring Break in service working side-by-side in the community. Parkersburg is a city with likely very little to no direct exposure to Islam or Muslims in the recent past. The Georgetown group attended church services in solidarity with the local community and baked cookies for the congregation after the service. The church community broke bread with the Muslim students before the week's end, and they are

<sup>10</sup> There is no official website for Ramadan Fast-a-Thon at this time but Vanderbilt University's description is helpful. Available: < http://www.vanderbilt.edu/leadership/signature-events/ramadan-fast-a-thon-by-msa >.

working to maintain strong ties and possibly return to Parkersburg the following year. Their service was noted by local newspapers and television news media who pointed out that these students willingly came to snowy Parkersburg rather than enjoy a more "traditional" Spring Break [132].

As American Muslims come to define Islam in America, they are also poised to contribute to Islamic scholarship and the training of Imams. In 2008, the Zaytuna Institute, founded in 1996 in Berkeley, California by Muslim "rock stars" Hamza Yusuf, Zaid Shakir, and Hatem Bezian, became Zaytuna College. The college follows an integrated curriculum of Islamic studies, Arabic language, and liberal arts including U.S. history and literature. Its motto is "Where America meets Islam," and its goal is to be accredited by the University of California system—it compares itself to private religiously-based universities founded by American Jews and Christians [133].

#### **11. Conclusions: Re-telling the Story of Islam in America**

The question of the future of Islam in America is tethered to our understanding of the history of Muslims in America before and after 9/11, as it always has been. However, in this study we have attempted to demonstrate the utter complexity and irreducible polyvocality of this large and diverse community of Americans. There are no easy answers as to whether Islamophobia will ever loosen its grasp on the psyches of millions of Americans who lived through 9/11 and witnessed 12 years of sporadic 'homegrown' attacks on American soil and cannot help but associate Islam and Muslims with terrorism and violence. However, there have been and continue to be transformations in Muslim identity in the United States and paradigm shifts in what Islam means in American contexts as well as what constitutes Islamic values and practices for American Muslims.

American Muslims are leaving behind the familiar grievance narratives about Islamophobia and instead are responding to fear, ignorance, hate, and even violence in creative, positive, and culturally substantive ways through art, media, film, writing, scholarship, partnerships, and institution-building. To be sure, the everyday lives of Muslims in America who struggle to reconcile their identities require further analysis. This whirlwind glance at the status of Muslims and Islam in the U.S. in the last 12 years has revealed some of the polygonal and quixotic ways individuals and communities are re-negotiating their identities in relation to their changing interpretations of and attitudes about Islam and religiosity. While this article extrapolates upon several types of trends in American Islam, no one major trend *per se* has arisen that can capture the multifaceted nature of "an American Muslim community." Instead, we are left with a greater appreciation of liberal- and less- or even anti-liberal leanings and trends in a vast plurality of American Muslim communities. These individuals and collectivities are not shaped by 9/11 or Islamophobia, nor do they occupy a penumbral space in the shadow of the specter of terrorism. American Muslim identities and emergent forms of American Islam were never circumscribed by terrorism narratives and today they continue to defy and subvert assumptions about Islam and Muslim identity.

American Muslim communities, and individuals, make decisions on a regular basis that challenge prototypical idealizations and stereotypes of Islam—they choose to reform, or not, and American Muslims perceived as "conservative" or "traditional" are increasingly engaged in American society and aware of their decisions. They operate on informed rationalities, as do their counterparts who have chosen different paths of practice, spirituality, and epistemology. What these tides in American Islam share is a common hope and struggle for acceptance and integration into the broader American tapestry of culture, religion, politics, and sociality. In many senses, the proverbial ball is now in the court of non-Muslim Americans who must decide how they will choose to perceive, categorize, interact with, interpret, and respond to American Muslims and American Islam as well as Muslims and Islam in America—the two are not always the same, particularly among communities of Muslims who may be more recent immigrants to the United States. In its relatively short history, the United States has already undergone major societal transformations to accommodate groups of people who were previously marginalized, demonized, or otherwise subjugated and discriminated against. Will the next sea change in American society be to end the "othering" of Islam and Muslims? Will the nearly 50% of Americans who believe Muslims pose a threat to national security re-examine their assumptions about nationalism, patriotism, American exceptionalism, and of course Islam or 'Islamism' to create a safe space for American Muslims? [19,134].

Not long ago, Muslims in the United States prided themselves on their Islamic exceptionalism and isolated themselves from American society. In 2007, 47% of American Muslims surveyed identified Islam as their primary allegiance above that of nation and citizenship [135]. Islam maintained a special dispensation and was a source of security that allowed America's Muslims to stand outside while simultaneously living within American society. Muslims in America seemed content to live on the edges of the mainstream until 9/11. Ten years later, America's Muslims are engaged and struggling to enter the mainstream of American society.

In the months and years after 9/11 under the Bush and Obama administrations, both American Muslims and the U.S. government have worked toward integrating American Muslims into American society [136]. However, persistent fear, widespread prior misconceptions, and an ongoing lack of cultural literacy about Islam and Muslims after 9/11 resulted in the rise of anti-Muslim, or Islamophobic, sentiment among many conservatives and, undoubtedly, opportunists in the United States. Today, American Muslims have a long way to go to secure either a safe or at least a less-contested space in American society. Yet, through their continued and ever-more diverse efforts, the prospect of Islam becoming widely accepted as an American religion is becoming increasingly real.

There are encouraging signs of a more defined and recognizable narrative of Islam as part of the family of American religions. Keeping with the tradition of annual White House Ramadan dinners started by his predecessor, George W. Bush, Barack Obama attended the 2011 Ramadan breaking fast dinner at the White House. In his speech to the audience, Obama stated, "Islam has always been part of America," and "America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings" [137]. This type of acknowledgement coming from the President may help to advance the efforts of American Muslims working to gain broad, cultural acceptance of Islam as an American religion, but, for many of the individuals involved in Islamic literacy work, speeches are not sufficient on their own.

Our research has found that there has been a notable shift from a Muslim identity politics based on disassociating from American identity, or 'American exceptionalism' and its cultural trappings, to a stance of integration and cultural assimilation. That is not to say that Muslims have abandoned their customs to conform to an Anglo-American imaginary, but that many American Muslims have redoubled efforts to retell the story of Islam in America—sometimes claiming origins that date back to the 12th century [138]. American Muslims in the last 12 years have also sought to substantiate their claims about a copacetic identity that is both American and Muslim by writing about Islam as an authentically American religion; indeed, since 9/11 there has been a plethora of publications both online and in print dedicated to the notion that Islam is an American religion and that Muslims are every bit as American as their Jewish and Christian counterparts [8]. These works are another piece of the intricate tapestry of projects and movements American Muslims have initiated since 9/11.

Combined, these undertakings illustrate a certain set of social shifts taking place in American Muslim communities and intellectual circles. These changes reflect the evolving realities of a more deeply rooted immigrant population as well as the complex and lasting impact of 9/11 on America's most diverse and vulnerable religious community as it struggles to gain acceptance into mainstream American society through the practice of different but integrated forms of American Islam [139].

#### **Author Contributions**

Yvonne Haddad and Nazir Harb co-authored the article based on research made possible by funding support from the Dean of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

#### **Conflicts of Interest**

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

#### **References and Notes**


York: CLEAR Project, AALDEF, MACLC. Available online: http://www.law.cuny.edu/ academics/clinics/immigration/clear/Mapping-Muslims.pdf (accessed on 11 September 2013).


## **Pervasive Anxiety about Islam: A Critical Reading of Contemporary 'Clash' Literature**

**Meena Sharify-Funk** 

**Abstract:** This article analyzes and critiques North American and European "clash literature"—a genre of post-9/11 writings that popularize elements of Samuel Huntington's "clash of civilizations" thesis, with particular reference to putative threats posed to Western civilization by Islam and Muslims. Attention is given to a series of salient themes used by multiple texts and authors, in a manner that creates an overarching narrative of Western moral superiority *vis-à-vis* a monolithic, authoritarian, and misogynistic Islamic culture; betrayal of Western culture by "politically correct" intellectual elites wedded to ideas of multicultural accommodation; and a cascading threat posed by the rapid influx of unassimilable Muslim immigrants who are poised to mount a demographic takeover of Europe and possibly America as well. The content of clash texts is then analyzed and evaluated in light of its detachment from relevant scholarship, its reliance on highly essentialized identity constructs, its use of demographic extrapolations and alarming anecdotes, and its stark rejection of contemporary pluralism. The article concludes with reflections on how scholars might respond to the identity insecurities revealed by clash literature as they seek to advance alternative narratives based on values of dialogue and coexistence.

Reprinted from *Religions*. Cite as: Sharify-Funk, M. "Pervasive Anxiety about Islam: A Critical Reading of Contemporary 'Clash' Literature." *Religions* 4 (2013): 443–468.

#### **1. Introduction**

Since Samuel Huntington posited the now infamous "Clash of Civilizations" theory in a 1993 essay published in the journal *Foreign Affairs*, much academic controversy has flared around his assertion that cultural and religious differences will become the main source of international conflict in the post-Cold War era. Although Huntington's thesis has been frequently criticized by a broad spectrum of academics for its extremely broad-brush approach to conflict analysis and its vulnerability to manipulation as a conflict-intensifying cliché, the events of September 11, 2001 catapulted his ideas beyond the academy and into the heart of contemporary discourse. His predictions that civilizational conflicts would be especially prevalent between Muslims and non-Muslims received particular attention, as did his effort to shift discussion of international affairs from the ideological geopolitics of the Cold War to resurgent religio-cultural identities rooted deep in history. With statements on political geography such as, "Europe ends where

Western Christianity ends and Islam and Orthodoxy begin," Huntington proposed that religiously based civilizations constitute the largest meaningful framework for human loyalty, and emphasized the frailty of political projects with broader scope and ambition, from the European Union to the United Nations. Huntington also arguably contributed to an intellectual atmosphere within which many less disciplined writers felt greater freedom to write their own manifestos linking contemporary concerns about terrorism to a primordial struggle between "Islam and the West".

While most academics ignore writings that might be construed as combative popularizations of Huntington's clash theory, the proliferation of exactly this variety of *clash literature* since September 11, 2001 constitutes a phenomenon worthy of investigation and analysis. This broader clash literature, which proclaims an intent to break the shackles of "political correctness" and tell the truth about Islam and the West, contains many volumes which have risen to best-seller heights and is deservedly controversial. In content as well as tone it is decidedly alarmist and insistently polarizing. Leaving behind the subtler forms of orientalist derogation critiqued by Edward Said in his influential thesis on the subject [1], the new clash literature represents Islam and the West11 as irreconcilable entities locked into ideological and sometimes actual warfare for decades if not centuries. Dismissing dialogue and relying on strident "us *vs.* them" rhetoric, the literature actively seeks to interfere with the development of relations between Muslims and non-Muslims. Though produced by authors of varied backgrounds, the written products display striking consistencies in core premises and ultimate conclusions, as "ex-Muslims" who generalize from negative personal experiences find common cause with atheists warning against religious resurgence as well as with theologians who worry that apocalyptic demographics will displace their religious heritage once and for all.

Given the astronomically higher sales of such books (e.g., *Infidel* and *Surrender* and *America Alone*) when compared to writings espousing dialogue and coexistence, themes from the clash literature have undeniably infiltrated the public imagination in Europe and North America, amplifying negative perceptions of Islam and Muslims and reinforcing popular anxieties. Though emphasis varies somewhat across texts and authors, books from the clash literature consistently encourage a culture of suspicion within which Islam and Muslims constitute a threat to Western societies. Islam is portrayed as the religious heritage of a dysfunctional and misogynist "tribal" society that prevents Muslims from adapting to modern settings and leaves all Muslims vulnerable to indoctrination with radical ideology. Because Islam is incompatible with cultural and political liberalism, Muslim immigrants cannot be integrated into Western culture, and "ghettoization" of Muslims in Western societies is self-inflicted rather than driven by adverse social, economic, and political factors.

While acknowledging differences in emphasis and focus within the clash literature, this article will analyze and critique prominent shared themes found throughout these books. Particular attention will be given to what might be described as the overarching narrative that informs the clash literature. According to this narrative, "the West" and Western liberalism embody humanity's

<sup>11</sup> "The West" as defined by clash literature is implying both Europe and North America. However, some books specifically focus on Europe with America in the background. For this article, it is important to note that the influence of clash literature whether focusing on Europe and/or America extends from North America to Europe (especially since most of the authors are originally from North America).

highest achievements, which are manifest in societies, structures, and norms that underscore individual freedom and political secularism. Rather than push Muslims and Muslim societies to adopt these ideals, however, Western elites have lost confidence in the fundamentals of their own traditions and succumbed to patronizing forms of "good will" and practices of political correctness, epitomized by policies that promote multiculturalism and ignore the pathologies of immigrant cultures. By opening the gates of society to large-scale Muslim immigration and failing to require assimilation, this approach has put Western and especially European societies on a path that will eventually lead to the demise of Western culture. Demographic factors linked to differential marriage and fertility rates will now lead to an inexorable decline or "slow suicide" of Western civilization as we know it. The only way to correct this decline and avoid a "last days" scenario, these authors suggest, is to assertively condemn Islamic culture and promote women's emancipation within Muslim communities.

After identifying and illustrating key themes of this narrative within multiple clash texts, analytical attention will be directed not so much to specific exaggerations and distortions inherent in this literature as to the overarching mode of argument and the way in which key themes are intended to speak to North American and European readers. Although there is no denying that many purveyors of clash literature have political motives [2–4] and are reproducing, in exaggerated form, classic tropes of orientalism [5] that run counter to much empirical evidence [6], the clash literature is also worth probing for what it reveals about contemporary "Western" identity insecurities. Clash authors rely heavily on pessimistic extrapolations and cherry-picked facts in ways that serve to advance a dehumanizing image of Islam and Muslims, all the while articulating a clear intent to sharpen polarization and dispel hope that relational engagement might transform or mitigate conflict. The fact that tendentious arguments purveying dehumanized enemy images have led to remarkable book sales should arouse concern.12 By taking contemporary identity insecurities seriously but not succumbing to discourse rooted in dualism, blame, or scapegoating, scholars who pause to reflect on the meaning of the clash literature have the potential expand academic as well as popular conversations. The very appeal of the clash literature points to a profound need for new arguments and visions—for accessible but not unsubstantial literatures that seek to stretch human imagination beyond the simplistic dichotomies and the reactionary impulses that have come to define the "post-9/11" era.

### **2. The West as a Threatened Savior: Western Liberalism** *vs.* **Islamic Authoritarianism**

At the core of the new clash literature is an attempt to define Western values and identity in relation to—and at the expense of—a threatening Islamic "other". "The West" is portrayed as a fundamentally sound civilization, embodying the peak of idealism and human achievement, whereas Islam is characterized as a confounding diseased tradition that is rotten to the core.<sup>13</sup>

<sup>12</sup> For commentary on the significance of dehumanization and enemy images with the context of identity conflict, see [7–9].

<sup>13</sup> It is interesting to note that Muslim dissident reformist literature, which utilizes clash discursive tendencies, differs on this point. Such literature inherently advocates that Islam is not innately evil rather, Islam is worth saving and reform is essential for any transformation to occur. Much of this literature claims to be a "wake-up" call for

Whereas the West is inherently benign, peaceful (there is no critique of colonialism and the imperial era), and focused on the liberation of human potential, Islam is equated with violence, an irrational drive towards world domination, and an absence of human liberty. For each attributed virtue or positive quality of the West, Islam provides an idealized foil or contrast. The West appears without the taint of historical errors or injustices, while Islam is essentialized as the West's antithesis, or shadow.

Robert Spencer, a prominent conservative blogger who has been officially banned from Britain for his provocative advocacy against Islam [12], articulates this approach to contrasting Islam with the West in quite vivid terms. In his *Religion of Peace?: Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn't*, Spencer argues that the core of Islam, including Sharia laws, is built on the fundamentals of violence and domination. He therefore urges all other religious orders to align against this "common enemy" of "Islamic supremacy" ([13], p. 204). In making such arguments, Spencer and most other clash authors establish a fundamental distinction between their own discourse and arguments made in conventional post-9/11 anti-terrorism discourse. Whereas the former asserts directly that Islam is fundamentally flawed in ways that predispose followers toward violence, the latter differentiates between extremist and mainstream positions within the Muslim community.<sup>14</sup>

A related theme of clash literature is that, despite the obvious hostility of Islam and Muslims, most Westerners are unaware of the gathering danger posed by Islamic infiltration of European and North American societies. As Bruce Bawer argues in *Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom*, "We in the West are living in the midst of a jihad, and most of us don't even realize it…" ([15], p. 3). Bawer proposes that because violence and Islamic supremacy are intrinsic to the Islamic faith, Muslims living in the West are necessarily engaged in jihad to dominate Westerners and deprive them of individual freedom. To lend credence to this position, he utilizes individual stories of trauma and pain in which Islam can be identified as the perpetrating factor.

Like many fellow authors within the clash literature, Bawer draws heavily on the writings of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a best-selling Muslim "dissident" and controversial former Dutch parliamentarian who now resides in the United States. Hirsi Ali attributes much hardship and suffering to her fundamentalist upbringing as a Somali migrant whose family settled in Kenya. Her early Islamic education was heavily influenced by Wahhabi or puritanical forms of religious interpretation, and she extrapolates from examples derived from her own experience of conservatism within a particular branch of Muslim culture to arrive at negative conclusions concerning the whole of Islam. She describes her Dutch education in Enlightenment thinking as a liberating force in her

Muslims. One prominent example in this literature is Asra Nomani's *Standing Alone in Mecca: An American Woman's Struggle for the Soul of Islam* [10]. For a comparison of this literature to the clash literature analyzed in this article please see my forthcoming manuscript, *Controversies, Clichés, and Conversations: Islam, Muslim Women, and the Negotiation of Identity in Contemporary North America* [11].

<sup>14</sup> Spencer is a charismatic speaker and author who received his Masters in Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina. He has published twelve books specifically on the Islamic threat to Western society, and is currently the director of *Jihad Watch*, an Internet blog designed to monitor and report subversive Islamic theology and action. He also has participated in numerous seminars for American military groups (*i.e.*, United States Central Command, United States Army Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Army's Asymmetric Warfare Group, the FBI, the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and the U.S. Intelligence community) [14].

own life, particularly after the violent incidents of September 11, 2001. Having faced deeply threatening reactions to her personal liberation from Islamic conservatism and her growing political activism, she generalizes about Muslim immigrants in Western countries and argues that they pose a grave threat to the social and political fabric of these countries. Western institutions and individuals, she asserts, need to stop supporting the preservation of foreign cultural values, particularly those derived from Muslim cultures. Instead of multiculturalism, the emphasis should be put on replacing Islamic ways of thinking and living with alternative values derived from the European Enlightenment: democracy, individual freedom, and gender equality. Once again, Islam and the West are presented as antithetical wholes with diametrically opposed ideals and values. Where Islam suppresses the individual and subjugates women, the West liberates. Where Islam teaches dogmatism, authoritarianism, and ideological closure, Western rationalism promotes freedom of thought, choice, and opportunity.

Personal narratives of oppression and liberation from figures such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali as depicted in her best-selling books (*i.e.*, *Infidel* and *Nomad*) are central to clash literature, providing personal traumatic testimonials from disaffected Muslims to back up larger, more abstract arguments. The following passage from Bawer is illustrative:

In response to the common criticism that Hirsi Ali is inappropriately disrespectful toward Muslims: "Why should anybody be expected to respect a religion that demands his or her submission, subordination, or even execution?" … As for 'insulting'—well, exactly who is insulting who? It isn't as if European Christians and Jews are running around raping Muslim women, defacing Muslim cemeteries, shooting bullets into the facades of Muslim houses of worship, and tormenting Muslim children in school ([15], p. 139).

Treating those who threatened Hirsi Ali for her advocacy against Islam and Muslims as the authentic representatives of the religion itself, Bawer does not hesitate to hold Islam as such responsible for the negative dynamics of her particular life experiences. Having ascribed guilt to Islam in general, he then asserts the innocence of Western and specifically European parties *vis-à-vis* Muslims. Leaving aside the events of the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s, when behaviours such as those described by Bawer did in fact take place, the mode of argument manifests strong elements of provocation, and can be understood to imply that the Islamic religion begets offences that are presumably alien to the Christian and Jewish experiences. Insofar as historical analysis reveals that abusive behaviours in the name of Christianity and Judaism have occurred in a manner not unlike those attributed to Islam, a discerning reader could easily receive the impression that the eagerness to generalize darkly about Islam and Muslims is at least in part driven by a psychology of projection and a desire to refuse confrontation with past ghosts of the Western experience, including "religious" wars and various ways in which individual and women's rights were denied or suppressed.

This inability to articulate the complexity of the Western experience, and the manner in which the story of "the West" (insofar as one can be told) is very much a struggle for "Western" solutions to "Western" problems, is intimately linked to attitudes toward Islam that some critics would describe as neocolonial. If the West represents the fulfillment of humane values, and if it is itself devoid of a shadow side, why should the West not also be the primary vehicle for saving benighted societies that lack indigenous virtues and credible wellsprings of internal reform? Such thinking about Western superiority and the need for Western victory in a cultural war with Islam is an explicit theme in Hirsi Ali's writings as well as in the clash literature more generally. Throughout, there is an equation of the West with freedom and Islam with incarceration. The following passage from Hirsi Ali is illustrative:

When I'm told to be careful not to impose western values on people who don't want them, I beg to differ. I was not born in the west and I did not grow up in the west. But the delight of being able once I came to the west to let my imagination run free, the pleasure of choosing whom I want to associate with, the joy of reading what I want, and the thrill of being in control of my life—in short, my freedom—is something I feel immensely as I manage to extricate myself from the shackles and obstacles that my bloodline and my religion imposed ([16], p. 242).

In Hirsi Ali's view, the Western story of human emancipation through reason and education can unshackle Muslim societies just as it liberated her own imagination. She calls upon schools and universities to "openly challenge the beliefs of Muslim children and their parents" and help them to cast off Muslim "self-imposed blinkers" ([16], p. xix). The West holds an antidote to superstition, poverty, and tyranny, and should vigorously seek to win a cultural war against Islam: "There is already a clash, and we are in some sense already a war. That western civilization is superior is not simply my opinion but a reality I have experienced and continue to appreciate everyday. I assume that the west will win. The question is how" ([16], p. 245). Such arguments articulate quite succinctly key elements of the worldview present within the clash literature: two civilizations are locked in struggle, one based on reason and the other rooted in religious law and stifling superstitions. The superior civilization must confidently pursue victory over the lesser civilization, but to defend its gains and to liberate those shackled by centuries of religious obscurantism.

#### **3. The Denial of Muslim Moderation**

To maintain this vision, writers of clash literature need to persuade readers that Muslims are far more alike than unalike, and that they cannot be trusted either to harmonize with Western social norms or implement their own religious reformation. Many are quite blunt in asserting that, though Muslims may differ somewhat in the means that they choose, there are not significant differences between the goals of mainstream Muslims and those of terrorists. Mark Steyn, author of the 2006 New York Times bestseller, *America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It,* states that, "A large majority of Western Muslims support almost all the terrorist's strategic goals." He substantiates this by citing a poll in which "over 60 percent of British Muslims" articulated a desire to "live under *shari'a* in the United Kingdom" ([17], p. 76). Though this is certainly an unsettling statistic for many non-Muslims, its significance is less obvious than Steyn implies, given that Muslims differ quite profoundly in their understandings of sharia, and a desire among many to make their personal lives (particularly matters such as marriage, intimate relations, funerals, and divorce) compliant with traditional Islamic norms need not necessarily imply a totalizing theocratic threat to the Western way of life. Like statistics concerning the number of Americans who question evolutionary theory or who believe end times are imminent, the number cited by Steyn does not immediately lend itself to a definitive, let alone alarming, interpretation. Sounding an alarm is,

however, a quite definite intention behind works like *America Alone*. Steyn's book addresses the relationship between America, Europe, and Islam. Writing within the overall context of the global war on terror, Steyn places particular weight on recent demographic statistics signalling population trends in Muslim and non-Muslim countries: Muslim immigration, birth rates, fertility rates, and marriage rates. He darky raises the prospect that Europe will fall to Muslim domination, leaving only America to uphold Western values in the face of a Muslim opposition that lacks true moderates. The text, incidentally, was recommended by former U.S. president George W. Bush to his staff.15

For Steyn and other clash authors, the West has no trustworthy allies within the Muslim world, except for those who place themselves on or beyond the outer margins of Islamic faith and belief. Creating a vision within which an authentic Muslim cannot truly be moderate, they portray Islam itself as an extreme religion that prevents assimilation and compromise. Those who seek to paint a different picture of an Islam that is dynamic and flexible or endowed with positive values are discounted as "apologists."

A writer known as Ibn Warraq in his *Why I am Not a Muslim*, himself reputedly a former Muslim, dismisses those who represent Islam positively and equates Islam with the worst events in Muslim history, which are presumably far worse in magnitude than persecutions organized by followers of other religions.

Apologists of Islam still insist on perpetuating the myth of an Islam that accorded equality to her non-Muslim subjects: they talk of a time when all the various religious communities lived in perfect harmony in the Islamic lands. The same apologists minimize, or even excuse, the persecution, the discrimination, the forced conversions, the massacres, and the destruction of the churches, synagogues, fire temples, and other places of worship ([18], p. 214).

For Ibn Warraq, as for other clash authors, Islam is an exception in the domain of religions, intrinsically intolerant and aggressive. Implicitly, Muslims who insist otherwise are either being dishonest or else they are not truly Muslims.

Many clash authors appear to favour the former interpretation, that so-called "moderate Muslims" are actually hiding the extent of their support for radical Islamic ends. Rhetorically, Steyn attacks the credibility of his intellectual opponents by associating their views with those of terrorists. The language is inflammatory, and seeks to discredit all Western Muslim commentators as potential enemies within: "Given the very few degrees of separation between very prominent Western Muslims—ambassadors, princes, professors—and the terrorists, it seems likely that many prominent figures in these parties will be supportive of terrorists ends" ([17], p. 204). Bawer uses a similar approach to characterize his adversaries, suggesting that even the most "assimilated" or liberal of Muslims living in the West harbour elements of the Islamic worldview, which, by their nature of being Islamic, clash irreconcilably with those of the secular Western worldview. "No, there's no guarantee," states Bawer, "that western Muslims, in meaningful numbers, will ever

<sup>15</sup> It is important to note that Steyn is a Canadian-born writer, political commentator and cultural critic. Steyn often writes articles for the most popular Canadian journal, *Macleans*. In 2007, the Canadian Islamic Congress filed human rights complaints against Maclean's Magazine for publishing eighteen "Islamophobic" articles by Steyn to the Canadian Human Rights Commission. The Commission dismissed the complaints in June 2008.

openly and actively champion freedom and defy jihadists; to do so, after all, is alien to every value with which many of them were raised" ([15], p. 276).

Hirsi Ali similarly discounts the notion of Muslim moderation, focusing particularly on what she sees as the inherent contradictions of this position. Because Islam, in her view, is scripturally wired for immoderate beliefs, an authentic Muslim cannot truly be "moderate" or "modern." Writing as if a large number of moderate, educated, and religiously dedicated interpreters of Islam did not exist, Hirsi Ali proposes that Muslim insistence on basic articles of faith such as the inspired nature of the Qur'an precludes intelligent reflection on the meaning of scripture for today:

A moderate Muslim does not question Muhammad's actions or reject or revise parts of the Quran. A moderate Muslim may not practice Islam in the way that a fundamentalist Muslim does—veiling, for example, or refusing to shake a woman's hand—but both the fundamentalists and the so-called moderates agree on the authenticity and truthfulness and the value of Muslim scripture ([16], p. 195).

In making this argument, Hirsi Ali chooses to ignore the vast differences in position taken by Muslims of differing ideological and interpretive dispositions, and demonstrates a lack of awareness that even so-called fundamentalists *interpret* their religious sources.

Significantly, the pronouncements of clash authors are themselves based on an interpretation of Islam – an interpretation that equates religious extremism with religious authenticity. Robert Spencer's proposal for a religious alliance against Muslims to defend the West reveals this quite clearly:

Islam seeks the conversion, subjugation, or death of not only Christians but also all-non-Muslims. Thus it is imperative that all the victims or potential victims of Islamic jihad—Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, atheists, secular Muslims, and all others—recognize that…we must all hang together, or we shall indeed hang separately ([14], p. 10).

For Spencer, the beliefs of the most extreme and inflexible Muslims are to be taken as normative, while the beliefs of others are discounted and treated as either insincere or insignificant. Islam, he proposes, cannot accommodate moderation, and must be resisted.

Some authors of clash literature affect a less strident and more nuanced attitude toward Islam, while conveying a generally negative evaluation of the religion and its adherents. Christopher Caldwell, Senior Editor at *The Weekly Standard* and a regular contributor to the *Financial Times*, casts serious doubt on the Muslim capacity for adaptation, and points to disproportionate incarceration rates among European Muslims ([19], p. 135). In his popular book, *Reflections on the Revolution in Europe,* skepticism about Islam is conveyed more indirectly and with greater subtlety:

Reaching out to so-called "moderate Muslims" is the cornerstone of European strategy against terrorism. Moderate Muslims are the people who can be trusted not to "distort Islam", or at least to distort it is a positive way-by building a "European islam" that can interact with the continent's political institutions without breaking them ([19], p. 283).

By inserting the adjective "so-called" before the term "moderate Muslims" and using a lowercase letter for "European islam," Caldwell casts doubt on the authenticity of accommodating Muslim responses to Western culture and institutions. In the clash literature, the mark of authenticity is applied to forms of Islamic practice that appear most incompatible with the idealized Western model with which they are compared.

#### **4. Demise of the West: Muslim Demographics and the Loss of Faith**

Demographics are a salient theme in a variety of clash texts, and one of the primary areas in which the authors perceive the West to be vulnerable. Drawing upon a variety of trajectories, projections, and conjectures, the authors paint a picture in which Muslims gradually overcome their non-Muslim counterparts, particularly in Europe, and achieve by high immigration levels and birthrates what they could not accomplish by military means: a "Muslim Takeover" of Europe. They accomplish this "Takeover" with the complicity of liberal elites attached to welfare and multicultural policies that impede assimilation and foster an atmosphere of political correctness that stifles protest.

Concern about new classes of immigrants who cannot be assimilated is by no means a new phenomenon. In the United States, large-scale immigration of Catholics from Ireland and southern Europe generated great anxiety in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, leading to arguments about fertility rates and questionable religious loyalties that parallel those made about contemporary Muslim immigration to Western contexts.16 The validity of such comparisons is not obvious to clash authors, however, who view the opening of immigration to Muslims through a dark lens.

In *Decline and Fall: Europe's Slow-Motion Suicide*, Bruce Thornton goes so far as to describe Europe's accommodation of a Muslim presence as "suicide by immigration"—not just resignation in the face of an "invasion" ([20], p. 80), but "a complete capitulation and betrayal of Western civilization" ([20], p. 80). This betrayal reveals the extent to which "cultural toxins" have infected the West since WWII, especially "fashionable self-loathing guilt over supposed Western crimes like racism, imperialism, colonialism." This guilt weakens Europeans and emboldens "invaders" ([20], p. 80).

Christopher Caldwell's language is less pointed, but advances similar undertones of Muslim invasion. When Europeans opened their doors to mass immigration in the wake of World War II, they began a monumental experiment without any consideration of the long-term consequences or "hidden costs". As a result, the face of Europe is changing:

Muslims now either dominate or vie for domination of certain important European cities…. Such places may, as immigration continues and the voting power and political savvy of the Muslims already there increases, take on an increasingly Muslim character ([19], p. 118).

As soon as it became obvious that certain immigrants proposed to establish foreign cultures on European lands, immigration – and Muslim immigration a fortiori – appeared in a different light. It appeared in the light of a project to claim territory ([19], p. 132).

Using government statistics, social surveys, think-tank reports, novels, and newspapers in eight different languages, Caldwell argues that changes are underway that will fundamentally change the character of the European experience, providing lessons in failed government policies that have increased the challenge of merging newcomers who were already resistant to assimilation into the continent's established cultures and values.

<sup>16</sup> For more about this comparison see reference 6.

Walter Laqueur's *The Last Days of Europe: Epitaph for an Old Continent* explores similar themes, but with added emphasis on the unplanned and uncontrolled nature of Muslim immigration, as well as on what he regards as the dysfunctional impact of welfare policies. Like Caldwell and other authors, he bemoans the fact that Europe's once predominant place in the world is a thing of the past. Continued decline, he suggests, appears inevitable; changes in the European landscape associated with the large influx of Muslim immigrants are both a consequence of this decline and a major contributing factor.17

Laqueur points out that the first wave of immigration had much to do with the dissolution of Empires (e.g., West Indians, Pakistanis, Indians from India, and Indians from Uganda going to the United Kingdom; North Africans migrating to France) and was generally assumed to be a temporary phenomenon regulated by work permits. Many of these immigrants, however, managed to stay on legally or illegally, "and the host governments were not willing to enforce the law against those who broke it." Thus, major foreign communities were developing in Europe at the same time as the oil crisis of 1973, which reinforced trends toward high unemployment ([21], pp. 34–35). The growth of Asian, African, and Middle Eastern immigrant communities, then, had less to do with genuine opportunity than with high birthrates, success in bringing dependents to Europe (legally or illegally), the transformation of illegal immigration into an organized business, and the proliferation of asylum seekers fleeing imprisonment or political turmoil. To underscore the rapid pace of population growth and its transformative impact, Laqueur cites a variety of data that indicates the doubling and tripling of Muslim communities across Europe since 1980s–2006 ([21], pp. 36–37).

In Laqueur's view, these changes bode ill for the future of Europe, for a variety of reasons. In addition to the fact that many immigrants have been unable to find steady and gainful employment, European countries were not well prepared to absorb large-scale immigration by foreigners emanating from wholly different cultures ([21], p. 170). Though Laqueur does not go so far as Bawer in emphasizing undesirable values held by new immigrants who were not prepared to play by established rules and respect European institutions,18 he does suggest that European countries were to some degree taken advantage of by immigrants whose primary motivations were economic, and whose ranks included a criminal element:

…[E]ven though the majority of these immigrants, probably the great majority, were not political refugees but economic immigrants in search of a better life for themselves and their children. Among the political asylum seekers there were islamists or even terrorists who were indeed in danger of being arrested in their native countries, but for reasons that had nothing to do with the struggle for democracy and freedom…also asylum seekers were criminals and came to establish criminal gangs ([21], p. 35).

In permitting large-scale immigration, therefore, European nations allowed the infiltration of Islamists, terrorists, and others who were in danger of being arrested in their own countries. The

<sup>17</sup> Other factors in Europe's decline include the stalling of the movement toward European unity and the crisis of the welfare state, as well as a European crisis in self-confidence that is both a contributor as well as a result of these factors.

<sup>18</sup> Bawer states "Most come from poor villages in underdeveloped countries with high levels of corruption—a background that tends to breed cynicism, duplicity, and an exceptional skill at manipulating the system" ([1], p. 30).

latter established criminal gangs specializing in the drug trade, prostitution, car, and other illegal activities in their new home countries. A significant proportion of the immigrants came to depend on European welfare services "from the day of their arrival." State authorities should have instead directed them to "productive labour" ([21], p. 172). Laqueur finds it particularly upsetting that some Muslim immigrant religious leaders were inclined to incite their followers "against the decadent and sinful Western way of life" and believes these figures should have been deported. "They should have been expected to behave in accordance with the law of the land and the values and prevailing norms. If these laws and norms were not according to their convictions, they would have been free to leave." ([21], p. 172).

Steyn's treatment of this subject echoes that of other clash authors, underscoring Europe's low birth rates and generous welfare state. These factors have weakened the continent and made it dependent upon immigrants, largely Muslims, to work and maintain the social benefits for the elderly non-productive social sector. The European "nanny state" has therefore played a central role in transforming Europe into "Eurabia." Even as many immigrants work to support the welfare state, however, many others become dependent on its services in ways that support the maintenance of state-subsidized enclaves that cannot assimilate to mainstream culture.

Thornton agrees with Steyn that Europe impedes the progress of immigrants is by lavishing welfare benefits on them, and further elaborates on the idea of "Eurabia" by drawing on Bat Ye'or's definition of the term: "Europe's evolution from a Judeo-Christian civilization, with important post-Enlightenment secular elements, into a post Judeo-Christian civilization that is subservient to the ideology of jihad and the Islamic powers that propagate it." Thus, again borrowing from Bat Ye'or, Europe is becoming a "civilization of dhimmitude" ([20], p. 90)—that is a civilization that is being subservient to Muslim rule. Thornton associates this condition with the decline of Christianity and Europe's failure to protect Western Christianity:

In the past, Europe's resistance to Islamic imperial ambition was fired by Christian faith... But having abandoned God and country, where will Europe find the spiritual resources to assert the rightness of the Western civilization Christianity helped to create, and fight back vigorously against those who wish to destroy it? ([20], p. 130)

In Thornton's account of the situation, secularism has created a politics void of religious conviction. In the absence of such conviction, the void is being filled by outsiders, hostile to Europe's unique religious heritage.

Intriguingly, this call to respect and protect Europe's Christian heritage finds an echo in Ayaan Hirsi Ali, herself an atheist. Hirsi Ali calls on Muslims to learn from and perhaps convert to Christianity, largely on account of modern, post-Enlightenment Christianity's superior treatment of religious dissenters.

I would by far rather live in a Christian than a Muslim country. Christianity in the West today is more humane, more restrained, and more accepting of criticism and debate. The Christian concept of God today is more benign, more tolerant of dissent. But the most important difference between the two civilizations is the exit option. A person who chooses to opt out of Christianity may be excommunicated from the Church community, but he is not harmed; his destiny is left to God. Muslims, however, impose Allah's rules on each. Apostates—people, like me, who leave the faith—are supposed to be killed ([16], p. 244).

Hirsi Ali goes on to represent the involvement of Christian groups as perhaps the most crucial element in integrating Muslim immigrants and stopping the spread of radical Islam: "the clash of civilizations can be won through religious competition" ([16], p. 253).

Virtually all clash authors blame the West for lacking an appropriate strategy to deal with Muslim immigration; some also credit Muslims for having a dangerously coherent and effective strategy for infiltrating and asserting control over Western nations. William Wagner's *How Islam Plans to Change the World* is such a text. "In analyzing the Muslim strategy," Wagner states, "I have come to the conclusion that they have a three-pronged plan, which is as follows: jihad, daw'ah, and mosques." ([22], p. 12) According to Wagner,19 Islam becomes a threat and danger to the entire Western world and more importantly the Christian world, through their forms of proselytization, holy struggle and visibility. Wagner refers to Islam as a more or less unified and monolithic entity driven a drive for world domination: "In the search for world dominance, *Islam* will use truth as *they* understand it even if it conflicts with the Christian understanding of the term…Both the concepts of truth and fear have proven to be helpful in the *overall Islamic strategy*" ([22], p. 136, *italics added*).

Wagner dedicates a whole section of his book to the Islamic process of da'wah, or missionary work. One of his key concerns is that Christians are not competing vigorously enough with their Muslim counterparts.

These 'propagators' also carry the title of being *daa'i*. Sometimes these Islamic missionaries are fully funded…. Most likely, there are more *daa'is* preaching Islam in the West than there are missionaries in the Muslim countries preaching Christianity ([22], p. 42).

Though Wagner believes Christians are falling behind Muslims in the missionary enterprise, he remains convinced that Christian missions are morally superior to Islamic *da'wah*, and dedicates an entire section within his text to the differences between the two religious approaches. One of the contrasts, for instance, is the greater Christian emphasis on charitable enterprises: "Christian Missions engages in the establishment of schools, hospitals and other benevolent institutions through cooperative methods" whereas "Islamic *Da'wah* stresses the construction of a mosque and then establishes its ministries" ([22], p. 44). This argument is pitched toward a relatively narrow audience and neglects to acknowledge the very extensive social services provided by Muslim revival organizations within Muslim-majority societies, but provides insight into how some Western Christian groups perceive interreligious relations within the context of the broader clash literature.<sup>20</sup>

<sup>19</sup> William Wagner is a Baptist missionary and a professor of missions at the Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary.

<sup>20</sup> Whereas most of the books cited in this paper were published by mainstream, non-religious presses, Wagner's text was produced by a Christian publisher dedicated to missionary work. Kregel Publishers, the publisher of Wagner's text, mission statement reads, "Our mission as an evangelical Christian publisher is to develop and distribute…trusted, biblically based resources that lead individuals to know and serve Jesus Christ." [23]

#### **5. Failure of Muslim Immigrant Assimilation**

According to most clash authors, the failure to assimilate Muslim immigrants is the Achilles heel of Western civilization. The following quotes are illustrative:

[T]he spectacular failure of integration has brought some nations to the verge of social chaos and is leading others steadily in that direction ([24], p. 233).

The European failure to assimilate immigrants, as Timothy Garton Ash notes, may contribute to a "downward spiral which will be the curse of the national politics of Europe for years ahead…." Immigrant Muslim youth will increasingly become involved in Islamist extremism and outright terrorism, as happened in Madrid and London, thereby reinforcing native-born resentments and fears ([20], p. 45).

Almost without exception, contemporary clash authors paint a highly pessimistic picture of Europe's future, within which youth riots and incidents of delinquency and terrorism become ever more frequent.

Notably, clash authors steer clear of in-depth sociological analysis. Many thinkers who frame their analysis in terms other than those of the clash literature have argued that failures of integration are at least to some extent caused by barriers within European societies, which for decades desired guest workers for economic reasons and yet created legal as well as social obstacles to citizenship and full participation. Marginalization was therefore an outcome of specific policy choices, and inability to overcome job discrimination or invest appropriate resources. Clash authors, however, take the position that European nations have been far too accommodating. Laqueur, for example, argues that individual European citizens "had never been asked whether they wanted millions of new neighbors in their country... [and] about this very essential issue no one had ever consulted them" ([21], p. 171). As a result, European governments and societies found themselves in a position in which they were unable to provide guidance to newcomers but were instead "highly permissive." Social and political elites had lost their self-confidence; among the establishment, cultural and moral relativism rather than pride prevailed. Thus "newcomers to these countries were bound to gain the impression that prevailing laws and norms could safely be ignored" ([21], p. 172). Caldwell amplifies this point about ignoring prevailing Western norms and laws, stating that, "Islam in Europe is different." "Since its arrival half a century ago," Caldwell states, "Islam has broken or required adjustments to or rearguard defenses of a good many of the European customs, received ideas, and state structures with which it has come in contact." ([19], p. 13).

In addition to the general concerns about the failure of assimilation, the ghettoization of European Muslims is a major concern of clash thinkers. A number of authors stress that this condition is self-imposed by the Muslim community, and that religious leaders are particularly culpable. In these respects, Muslims are perceived as different from other ethnic communities:

Muslim newcomers apparently like to stick longer with their coreligionists than do other groups of immigrants, and they are encouraged by the preachers to do so. This is true even with regard to India, where there is more ghettoization than in Europe; even middle-class Muslims seem to be reluctant to leave the areas where members of their community live ([21], p. 42).

Muslim religious leadership has a vested interest in keeping Muslims in ghettos because it allows them to have better control in ensuring that "there is little, if any, contact between the faithful and the infidel." ([21], p. 206)

Of central concern is that areas of concentrated Muslim settlement become intensely conservative and resist cultural influences from the larger society. Most authors express concern that these new Muslim ghettos are "breeding grounds" with major demographic consequences, as reflected in high marriage and fertility rates. Because these rates are significantly higher than in the general population, the authors express grave concern Europe will be overwhelmed demographically from within, and not only in comparison to other world regions with rapidly growing populations.

It is against this backdrop of stated concerns that Steyn proclaims his thesis that, as central as America may be saving the world, concerted action is now necessary to save America. Calling his production "a doomsday book with a twist" ([17], p. 15), Steyn uses demographics to demonstrate Europe's inept and suicidal social politics, and to warn Americans about Europe's demise. He wants America to resist gradual "Islamization" that has penetrated the developed lands of Europe. In his view more Muslims in Europe correlates directly with more terrorism, honour killings, and polygamy, and inversely with individual and political freedom. To save America from such a fate, it must refashion its traditional role as the land of opportunity for newcomers, and avoid giving minorities too many rights. America, he proposes, is the West's last chance, and faces nothing less than an ideological war to preserve the "Western way of Life".

#### **6. The Problems of Political Correctness and Multiculturalism**

Another central theme of the clash literature is that Western elites have betrayed their mother culture, by indulging in excesses of self-criticism and self-doubt. These habits of thought and intellectual attitudes have led to an under-valuation of Western culture and to the rise of multiculturalism, which has been exploited by a Muslim adversary who benefits from pluralism without practicing it in relation to others. As the West now faces a powerfully motivated and implacable foe, clash authors assert, the West needs to recover faith in its past greatness and cultural heritage, as well as its willingness to engage in critique of other cultures.

Robert Spencer blames political correctness for current problems. Building on Bernard Lewis's judgment that Europeans "have no respect for their own culture," Spencer argues that political correctness has led to a double standard according to which the majority culture and religious traditions affiliated with this culture are subjected to scholarly and societal criticism:

Americans and Europeans…need to stop apologizing for all our forefathers allegedly and actually did wrong, and for the culture they built and remember what they did right, recognizing what Judeo-Christian civilization has brought to the world ([13], p. 3).

Rather than focus guiltily on historical misdeeds committed in the name of culture and religion, Spencer proposes, Western education and social commentary need to restore a sense of cultural pride or patriotism to collective consciousness. Without such a shift to a different way of being, Spencer believes that the West will ultimately lose the "War on Terror" ([13], p. 4).

Closely associated with this theme of political correctness is the idea of moral equivalency. Clash authors argue passionately in favour of Western moral superiority *vis-à-vis* Islam, and accuse Western elites of fostering a false perception that all religions and cultures are equal. Spencer, for example, argues that the present state of society and academia in the West has permitted the rise of a perception that Islam is "morally equal" to Christianity ([13], p. 1)—a perception with which he emphatically disagrees. Whereas an attitude of moral equivalency conceals the flaws of immigrant Muslim culture, respect for Western values demands an unwavering critique. Gilles Kepel elaborates on this point, specifically arguing that it was "the multicultural elite [who] was, almost without exception, allied with the Islamic right… [in] explaining away delinquency, suppressing reports of violence, standing up for the hijab, and so forth." ([24], p. 212) Multiculturalism, this logic proposes, leads elites to stand up for the "other" even when the practices of this other are not acceptable in light of modern societal standards.

Bawer argues that Muslims pose a grave threat to liberal values in the Western countries where they live. The inability of Western leaders to uncompromisingly assert the priority of these values over the dictates of multiculturalism (which forces compromise with the Muslim immigrants' expectations), may be the factor that will ultimately result in the demise of Western liberal values. Bawer is especially concerned with what he perceives as the vulnerability of the right to free speech, and believes Western countries have taken too accommodating a response to Muslim offences during the past two decades, including rioting, death threats against critics, and murders of non-Muslims.

Free speech is in a crisis. To respond with the "accommodation" recommended by so many journalists, politicians, and intellectuals would be simply to submit to abandon freedom, embrace dhimmitude, and hope for the best from our new overlords ([15], p. 276).

For Bawer, multiculturalism is an evil that has forced Westerners into complacency with foreign cultural norms. It has blinded intellectuals to the threat that Islam poses to Western democracy, while simultaneously empowering Muslim immigrants and allowing them to resist adaptation to the ideals of the Enlightenment. To put the matter in even stronger terms, it has enabled Muslims to wage cultural warfare against the West from within the heart of Western societies. In Bawer's view, Muslims living in the West are engaged in a "cultural jihad" and will stop at nothing to bring the West into the "House of Submission", or "Dar al-Islam" ([15], p. 3). Bawer alleges that "the pernicious doctrine of multiculturalism" motivated non-Muslims to support Muslims in targeting Salman Rushdie, as multiculturalism "teaches free people to belittle their own liberties while bending their knees to tyrants… which… has proven to be so useful to the new brand of cultural jihadists that it might have invented Osama Bin Laden himself" ([15], p. 5).

A similar polemic against multiculturalism appears in Ibn Warraq's *Why I am Not Muslim*. According to Ibn Warraq, multiculturalism has lowered cultural defenses and enabled newcomers to make excessive demands. He equates multiculturalism with one or two attitudes with respect to human values—a false universalism or a harmful relativism:

The implications of Muslim demands on the wider British are enormous. Unless great vigilance is exercised, we are all likely to find British society greatly impoverished morally, and all the gains, social and moral, may well be squandered in an orgy of multicultural liberalism ([18], p. 353).

Multiculturalism is based on some fundamental misconceptions. There is the erroneous and sentimental belief that all cultures, deep down, have the same values; or if these values are different, they are equally worthy of respect. Multiculturalism, being the child of relativism, is incapable of criticizing cultures, of making cross-cultural judgments. The truth is that not all cultures have the same values, and not all values are worthy of respect ([18], p. 356).

At the core of this argument is the contention that Muslim values overlap very little with Western liberal values, and that multicultural tolerance is one of the central factors perpetuating certain practices that are especially problematic from a Western liberal point of view. Rather than an attitude of respect and dialogue which invites reciprocity and coexistence, Ibn Warraq sees in multiculturalism and inability to engage in critical thinking, as well as a racism of low expectations: "Multiculturalists are incapable of critical thought, and in a deep sense are more racist than the racists they claim to fight" ([18], p. 354).

Bruce Thornton's *Decline and Fall* embellishes on this theme of multiculturalism as a key causal factor preventing assimilation. Thornton's overarching thesis is that Europe is becoming "Eurabia" due to "cultural toxins" imported by Muslim immigrants. This process is facilitated by a doctrine of multiculturalism that permeates the thinking of Western elites. The essence of multiculturalism is not the call to recognize and respect the value and contributions of other cultures, something that he believes the West has been doing for centuries. Rather, openness to the cultural 'other' and willingness to criticize one's own ways has degenerated into a naïve idealization of the non-Westerner and a corresponding hatred of the West ([20], p. 96).

Thornton explains that modern multiculturalism in the West began with Europeans admiring the "noble savages" they encountered, including American Indians, South Sea Islanders, Africans, and Arabs. These peoples seemed to embody a simpler, more humane existence that the West had abandoned in its pursuit of power and profit. This is seen in the Romantic complaints such as the following by Wolfgang von Goethe in 1828:

We other Europeans are ailing. Our styles of life are far from the healthy state of nature, and our social relations lack charity and benevolence. … I often wish I were one of those so-called savages born in the islands of the South Seas, so that at least once I could savor human experience in its purity, without some artificial aftertaste ([20], pp. 97–98).

Thornton contends that such attitudes have dominated the art and literature of the West for the last two centuries, eroding cultural certainty and self-confidence.

Another key factor in Thornton's critique of elite attitudes that have undermined the West is Marxism. He notes that, like the Romantics, Marxists similarly complained about the West in their writings on the destructive effects of industrial capitalism, which Marx himself represented as a system which had replaced the humane, organic relations between people with the alienating, dehumanizing power of the contract, private property, wage labour, and the profit motive ([20], p. 98). Such assumptions, Thornton alleges, caused the West to give more credit to pre-capitalist non-Western societies than was warranted. Idealization of the non-West also found reinforcement in later Marxist analyses of imperialism and colonialism. This led to the idealization of the Third World as "history's instrument for transforming the wicked West; because of this, resistance to

immigration, demands that immigrants assimilate to their new homes, and expressions of national pride have all become 'fascist', tainted with Nazi racism and the Holocaust" ([20], pp. 99–100).

Echoing many other conservative thinkers and clash theorists, Thornton argues that Western intellectual elites have destructively wedded themselves to "self-hating" ideas. Leftists, he believes, have used naïve idealizations of the Third World as the basis for pursuing the liberation of the oppressed, while ignoring the very brutal imperialist ambitions of the Soviet Union as well as the current expansionist ambitions of jihadists. The currently reigning mode of thought is "Third Worldism," the doctrine that "every Westerner is presumed guilty until proven innocent" ([20], p. 100). The way of thinking is the product of a combination of noble-savage idealism and Romantic discontent with Marxist-Leninist theorizing and post-Marxist multiculturalism. The result is a suicidal self-hatred among many Westerners, who, convinced of their guilt, do not have the cultural resources for defending their way of life: "These days, the successor of Europe is Eurabia" ([20], p. 101).

Because of multiculturalism, then, Muslim immigrants have been allowed to perpetuate their cultures no matter how alien to the values of western civilization even as the European nations make it difficult for those who wish to assimilate. Immigrant communities are allowed to create their own standards of behavior, educational curricula, social mores, and public practices, indulgences not allowed native born-citizens of host countries ([20], p. 101).

Multiculturalism, then, creates too much space for difference. To back up this claim, Thornton uses the following examples:


Thornton categorically rejects the notion that at least some bias towards Muslim immigrants is based on prejudice and ignorance. He characterizes "Islamophobia" as a new thought-crime, a variation on the "racist" charge used by multiculturalists to forestall criticism or silence those who speak of uncomfortable facts. Such oversensitivity, he proposes, illustrates how far the European establishment has gone in abandoning its own values such as freedom of speech and respect for truth in order to appease a vocal minority ([20], p. 103). Thornton rejects charges of Islamophobia for his own beliefs, and maintains that many of the supposedly false prejudices about Islam are true. He maintains, for example, that Islam is responsible for the mistreatment of women and for intolerance towards other faiths ([20], p. 104).

A core theme of the clash literature is that, rather than accommodate Muslim identity, Europeans and Westerners need to assert Western identity. Western eagerness to be politically correct results in efforts to accommodate Muslims at any cost. It gives Islam an advantage and adversely affects Western policy and the Western way of living. Whereas a focus on accommodation and mere integration contributes to an erosion of Western identity, a reemphasis on assimilation might help to correct a creeping tendency toward Muslim domination ([17], p. 60). Steyn frames the reassertion of a more exclusive Western identity as a matter of "Cultural Will": the Western majority culture needs to use the power it still has, and demonstrate that it is not weak.

#### **7. Women's Emancipation as a Focal Point**

In the clash literature, the status of Muslim women is construed both as a major defect in Muslim culture and as a potential wedge issue in the struggle between Islam and the West. Muslim women are presented as inexcusably oppressed, in a manner that faithfully reflects fixed and inflexible Islamic beliefs. Clash authors see these beliefs as the primary determining factor in a number of negative cultural dynamics, particularly abusive patriarchal authority, submissive and oppressed women, and the perpetuation of dangerous Muslim countercultures characterized by resentment and rapid population growth. They therefore aspire to amplify the voices of the most aggrieved and confrontational voices among Muslim or ex-Muslim women, who are represented as reliable interpreters of the overall Islamic experience.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, often selected by other clash authors as the most authoritative voice on the oppression of Muslim women, represents the plight of women under Islam in starkly negative terms. Her portrait offers minimal nuance, and takes no note of variation in Muslim women's experiences in accordance with interpretive beliefs, geography, culture, or social class. "The will of little girls", she states, "is stifled by Islam".

[B]y the time they menstruate they are rendered voiceless... they are reared to become submissive robots who serve in the house as cleaners and cooks... they are required to comply with their father's choice of mate and after the wedding their lives are devoted to the sexual pleasures of their husband and to a life of child-bearing... their education is often cut short when they are still young girls, and thus as women they are wholly unable to prepare their own children to become successful citizens in modern, Western societies. Their daughters repeat the same pattern ([16], p. xvii).

Nowhere in this account can one find acknowledgement of facts, which do not fit stereotypes, such as the dramatic growth of women's presence at university campuses (where they sometimes outnumber Muslim men) and in professions. Hirsi Ali's characterization is entirely consistent with Robert Spencer's hostile representation of Islam as a faith that in its immutable essence promotes gender inequality and violence towards women through genital mutilation, honour killings, stoning adulteresses, and holding women responsible for being raped ([13], p. 35). Neither author seeks to educate the reader about the non-universal character of such practices, or about Muslim voices who argue against them on an Islamic basis.

A reasonable argument can of course be made that traditional forms of Muslim patriarchy pose barriers to the advancement of Muslim women and to the successful integration of Muslim communities within Western societies. Hirsi Ali underscores this issue, albeit in a manner that equates the essence of Islam with specific historical practices and interpretations, and presents religion as an overwhelmingly negative factor:

I believe that the subjection of women within Islam is the biggest obstacle to the integration and progress of Muslim communities in the West. It is a subjection committed by the closest of kin in the most intimate place, the home, and it is sanctioned by the greatest figure in the imagination of Muslims: Allah himself ([16], p. 160).

As a formerly Muslim informant testifying to her own experience of oppression by family members in the name of religion, Hirsi Ali has produced a raw account that has a powerful impact on North American and European readers. Most Muslim feminists, however, would object strongly to her rhetorical equation of cultural pathology with the essence of a religion, articulated in a manner that seems intended to provoke outsiders to fight for the souls of Muslim women. Hirsi Ali argues that Western feminists should take on the plight of Muslim women and make it their own cause. There are three goals they must aspire to: ensuring that Muslims girls are free to complete their education; helping them to gain ownership over their own bodies and sexuality; and making sure that Muslim women have the opportunity to enter the workforce and stay in it, without restraints. Western feminists might also be at the forefront of a campaign to educate Muslim men on the importance of Muslim women's emancipation ([16], p. xix).

Although it may be an exaggeration to describe this approach to Islam and Muslims as "kill the Muslim, save the woman," most writers of Western-sourced clash literature regard fighting to liberate Muslim women as a critical front in the culture war between Islam and the West. They are profoundly impatient with "mainstream" voices of reform and moderation within Muslim communities, and give disproportionate attention to individuals who have written off Islamic reform movements and denounced Muslim culture categorically. The predominant tendency is to use the "status of women" issue as a key talking point in generalized critiques of Islam, with the goal of demonstrating the superiority of contemporary Western norms.

#### **8. Analysis**

Despite variations in emphasis and in the precise structure of arguments, the clash literature manifests a number of consistent tendencies that express the profound anxiety of many authors with respect to Islam, and that signal serious challenges for protagonists of intercultural dialogue and coexistence. First, the literature as a whole appears to be driven by deep-seated identity insecurity, not just in relation to an "intrusive" and seemingly monolithic Islam that is wholly "other," but also in relation to an idealized but now receding West that is being threatened from within by what the authors perceive a corrosive over-extension of their civilization's own ethos of critical reason. The remarkably broad generalizations and sharp dichotomies used in the literature are best understood not just as efforts to define an enemy, but also as attempts to recapture or define an "authentic" identity that has become internally contested. Thus, the arguments are not just about Islam, but also about the West. Second, in their critiques of Islam the clash authors rely heavily on extrapolation from past demographic data trends and from provocative incidents, with only limited consideration of complex causal factors that might provide a much richer context for understanding the phenomena in question. In this sense the literature appears to be more alarmist

than analytical in nature and intent. Third, to the extent that the authors surface some genuinely problematic issues within Muslim cultures (immigrant and otherwise) and Islamic-Western relations, the insistence on polarization and "winning" manifested by their writings actively pushes against collaborative solutions predicated on dialogue and relational engagement.

#### *8.1. Arguments Rooted in Insecure Identity*

The arguments of clash authors manifest not just a profound fear of Islam, but also a powerful anxiety about threats to the future of "the West" that predates current controversies. In other words, the clash literature's call to arms against Islam and Muslim immigration is not simply a matter of Islamophobia, though certainly the discourse is permeated with deep distaste for all things that purport to be Islamic. Rather, is it also an expression of a longstanding debate about what the West is and should be. The fact that "the West" is so consistently represented in unproblematic, uncontested, essentialized terms—even as traitorous or suspect Western tendencies such as multiculturalism, Romanticism, or leftism are denounced—is itself a signal that, whatever else concerns the clash authors, they are fundamentally engaged in Western identity politics. In this sense, Islam enters the equation both as a substantive concern (there is no reason to doubt the genuineness of their fears) and as a foil, a useful "other" for defining what the "self" ought to be or not be. The clash authors' simplistic, essentialized, and almost entirely negative representations of Islam, therefore, serve the purpose of defining basic us/them distinctions that have an import which transcends intercultural relations.

In a very real sense, the clash authors' are deeply insecure about and uncomfortable with what the West concretely is and has become: hybrid, diverse, contested, culturally plural, and religiously diverse. This discomfort has been a long time in the making and is not new. The issue of Islam brings this discomfort to the surface, producing discourse that seeks to save what the authors fear they are losing, and to that end seeks to draw sharp dichotomies that reassert cultural boundaries and amplify debate about what it means to be "Western." The result is a discourse that privileges an idealized Western and European culture, juxtaposed with willfully undifferentiated representation of Islam as a static, unchangeable, and threatening adversary culture. Unreflective use of the term "Eurabia" manifests a sharply reductionistic tendency to equate Islam as a whole (a faith that spans continents and cultures) with Arabia and Arabia with salafist extremism.

The diversity within both of these "macro-identities" is purposefully downplayed and the relevant scholarly literature on this diversity is ignored. Europe is presented as the human Christian civilization that gave birth to skeptical humanism, and Islam as a universal, authoritarian, misogynist ideology without significant internal conflicts, schisms, and interpretive or legal debates. In seeking to galvanize Europeans against Islam and Americans against the European response to Islam, the authors seek to call Westerners back to fundamentals and undermine adversaries within their own context. Some readers may detect notes of envy in clash authors' characterizations of strong Muslim identities and doctrinal certitudes. Caldwell, for example, emphasizes the strength, confidence, and cohesion of Muslim culture, which in his view is an inherent threat to a more loosely anchored and "malleable" European culture ([19], p. 349). This imbalance, he believes, works to the detriment of Europeans, which are easily overwhelmed by strong immigrant cultures.

To be sure, certain issues more salient for some clash authors than for others. For some, security and terrorism remain the preeminent issues, while, for others, a greater sense of motivation may arise from a sense of threats to individual freedom (including freedom from religion) or from a sense that traditional allegiance to Christianity or Judeo-Christian civilization has been betrayed by intellectual elites. In the issue of Islam, however, clash authors find common cause and a push to renegotiate among themselves a "pure" Western identity that is in many respects a new construction. In the process there is an opportunity and a need to affix blame to those who have let the "barbarians" through the gates.

Insofar as the clash literature is not only about "them" (Muslims) but also about "us" (people of the West and their existential discomfort with a changing world), the genre is arguably more symptomatic than diagnostic. Clash authors manifest great concern to draw lines and refuse identity negotiations with the deemed recalcitrant "other," and show very little interest in developing a nuanced, complex understanding of who that "other" actually is. Notably absent is the increasingly voluminous scholarly literature on Muslim negotiations with modernity, and only a few select scholars who deal with things Islamic are deemed trustworthy. Caldwell, for example, dismisses discussion of Muslim diversity "pleasing glibness," and like other clash authors characterizes Islam as a primordial religion impervious to outside influences and change. Thus, those who seek points of contact and shared values—let alone a reflection of the self in the other are portrayed as outlandishly naïve.

#### *8.2. Reliance on Extrapolation, with Minimal Context*

In playing the role of Cassandra *vis-à-vis* a growing Muslim threat, clash authors repeatedly employ a style of reasoning based on simple extrapolation from past trends and generalization from specific, emotionally gripping incidents. The approach treats cultural and religious entities as static vectors rather than as dynamic communities that can change in response to new circumstances and relationships, and actively selects from the most disturbing of current events to give meaning to changing demographic realities.

Superficial use of demographic data is a clear liability of the clash literature, even when the figures themselves do speak to dramatic new tendencies in European societies. Immigration rates and differences in birthrates matter, and it appears certain that Islam will henceforth (albeit not for the first time in history, given centuries of Muslim presence in Spain and in Southeastern Europe) be a visible part of the European experience. The notion that this European experience will not or cannot have an impact on the way Muslims experience and express Islam, however, is as poorly founded as the notion that Muslim culture is immune to the sort of demographic transition that typically occurs in populations subsisting in industrial and post-industrial economic milieus. Anyone with close experience of young Muslim women pursuing university degrees, for example, is likely to discover that these women have professional and life aspirations that are highly similar to those of their non-Muslim counterparts. Simply put, "Islam" and "Muslims" are not categories that place human beings outside the larger continuum of human experience, and the notion that Muslims cannot adapt or will inevitably overwhelm others appears not just ill-founded but also prejudicial.

Another troubling tendency in the clash literature is its frequent exploitation of disturbing events for emotional impact. Clash authors over-select such events in their narratives and overgeneralize their representativeness, in ways that are clearly intended to arouse fear and anxiety in the reader. At the same time, they pass over incidents of violence or intimidation directed at Muslims in silence. While such selectivity and desire for emotional impact may be inevitable features of the journalistic style in which these books have been written, there is nonetheless a telling absence of humanizing portraits in the clash literature, despite the reality that "ordinary", non-threatening Muslims are much easier to encounter than extremists bent on violence or wedded to grandiose agendas. By over-selecting the negative, remaining silent about abuses committed against Muslims, and putting events and statistics in the most alarming context possible, clash authors seek to influence their audience in ways that are more alarmist than analytical.

This can be seen in Steyn's use of data from a poll conducted by the Times of London. Steyn conveys that seven percent of Muslims questioned agreed that suicide bombings of civilians could be justified in certain circumstances. Steyn interprets this to mean that significant numbers of Muslims are radical extremists. However, he does not explain how many people were polled, and to what extent those polled could represent the larger European Muslim population. He also ignores other data which reveals that the percentage of people who are willing to justify intentional bombing of civilians under "some circumstances" is roughly comparable in Western and Muslim contexts. By cherry-picking facts and ignoring those that do not fit the picture, any nation or religious group can be portrayed in a dark light.

A hallmark of quality analytical literature is that it is capable of confronting problematic issues and behaviour patterns in ways that probe beneath the surface, generating insights into circumstances and motivations in a way that does not obscure common humanity ore foreclose the possibility of constructive change. The clash literature falls short on these counts, by denigrating the search for drivers of extremism (an exercise that is deemed a form of capitulation), downplaying social class and social justice considerations, and ignoring the significance of prejudice, discrimination, and social exclusion. While there is no need to place all responsibility on host societies and governments or to hold immigrant communities blameless in instances where maladaptation is evident, the clash literature is deeply problematic in a host of ways: it ignores useful sociological insights, it vastly overgeneralizes about the other, it discounts the relevance of dialogue, and substitutes cultural reassertion for wide-ranging examination of policy options.

#### *8.3. Insistence on Polarization over Relational Engagement*

Ultimately, the clash literature identifies some genuine problems with Muslim integration in the West as well as in contemporary Muslim-majority cultures, but subverts critical reflection on ways in which "the West" is either implicated in these problems or capable of positive engagement with constructive forces within Muslim communities and cultures. The worldview of clash authors is not relational, and seeks no meaningful relationship with the Muslim other. The approach is profoundly non-dialogical and polarizing, with an emphasis is on winning rather than on transforming the conflict.

To an extent, the clash literature manifests continuity with Cold War narratives, albeit but with a new religio-cultural twist. Like post-9/11 Europe and North America, the Cold War world was one of polarization and ideological competition, within which complex world events were often viewed through lenses of East-West competition rather than in relation to complex local circumstances and realities. Then as now, the loyalty of Europe to the Western cause was suspect in the eyes of many Cold War protagonists, and the successors of these leading Western Cold War thinkers are now among the ranks of those seeking to understand the world in light of a new polarity.

If there is to be hope of transcending this polarity and creating a world in which "Islam" and "the West" are not mutually exclusive categories, relational engagement and dialogue are indispensable. It is not enough for Western pundits to speak about or even "to" Muslims, and dysfunctional to try to resurrect a past civilization based on mythical notions of purity. New forms of engagement are needed, and Western protagonists of such engagement need not embrace "relativism" to pursue it. Indeed, interlocutors that were truly confident in such putative Western values as reason, freedom, and equality would see no need to mythologize Western history (which, after all, has been full of both contradictions and progressive struggles to overcome them) or deny the existence of Muslims whose values overlap with those held by people in the West. Insofar as the clash literature manifests a certain lack of confidence in the West's greatest virtues, particularly in the domains of self-critique, dynamic reinvention of the self, and free-spirited of exploration, it offers few starting points for the needed cross-boundary engagement.

#### **9. Conclusions**

This essay has provided an overview and critique of a literature that is not often engaged by university-based scholars. There are reasons for this: most of the literature is not academic in nature, ignores relevant scholarship, and traffics in oversimplifications and polarizations that few scholars embrace. Nonetheless, precisely because this literature has wide circulation and plays a powerful role in constituting political discourse (as is evidenced by preemptive anti-sharia campaigns in the United States and the formation of anti-immigration parties in Europe), critical examination is needed.

While the term "clash literature" may seem novel or ambiguous, the term has been used here to refer to writings that articulate a number of consistent themes. First, these writings present a stark worldview in which Western liberalism is locked in a dangerous conflict with Islamic authoritarianism, with highly consequential developments currently unfolding in Europe. These events put the future of the West in question, despite its unassailable moral superiority in relation to Islam and non-Western cultures. Second, clash authors maintain that this struggle is rendered all the more difficult by what they judge to be an absence of genuinely moderate, progressive, and conciliatory tendencies within the global Muslim community. Islam demands conformity, they argue, and even "moderate" Muslims identify with some of the same grievances articulated by "extremists." Third, culture-clash thinkers place a very strong emphasis on threatening demographic trends associated with Muslim immigration; these trends have been made possible by (and accelerate) a loss of faith in the Judeo-Christian tradition, and make the demise of the West distinctly possible, to the extent that Europe may already be "lost." Fourth, clash authors seek to reinforce their arguments by claiming that resistance of Muslim immigrants to assimilation is a static and multi-generational condition. Muslims are unlike most other immigrants, and operate by values, which are alien to the contemporary Western tradition. Fifth, they maintain that the West has long been in denial with respect to these growing problems, on account of pervasive political correctness and the salience of multiculturalist sensibilities. Simply put, the West is in in crisis because of the disloyalty of its own intellectuals. Those responsible for economically based decisions to permit large-scale immigration, to satisfy demands of industry for guest workers and cheap labour, are not targeted with comparable accusations. Finally, clash authors propose that women's emancipation is one of the most fundamental wedge issues between Islam and the West, and needs to receive a strong focus from those seeking to stave off a Muslim takeover of Europe and push for victory in the protracted cultural war between civilizations.

While critiques of these sweeping, pessimistic assumptions are not difficult to identify, this article has sought to draw particular attention to three crucial issues raised by the clash literature. First, I have argued that, while these writings are intensely Islamophobic and purvey hostile stereotypes, they also reveal a great deal of insecurity with respect to Western identity. The literature's deeply problematic essentializations and generalizations warrant strong criticism, but there is also a need for awareness that the popular success of this literature stems not just from prejudice and lack of knowledge but also from deep-seated anxiety and insecurity. Old visions of what Europe and "the West" should be clearly to not fit the present reality, and there is a vacuum of compelling visions for how these identity structures might evolve in the future. The clash literature seeks to fill this vacuum with disturbing, reactionary visions that conveniently stigmatize a particular identity group.

The second and third lines of critique relate to the types of argument used and to the authors' proclivity for polarizing relationships that might possibly be bridged by other means. Clash books thrive on pessimistic extrapolation of demographic trends without a deep analytical investigation of underlying factors, and rush to conclusions about entire population groups based on specific cases of delinquency and violence. Their thesis that Muslims are difficult if not impossible to assimilate closely mirrors accusations directed against Catholic immigrants to the United States during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This pattern provides cause for reflection. Polarization and sharpening social conflict appears to be a primary goal of the genre, which actively dismisses dialogue and the value of relational engagement.

The clash literature demands a response—preferably a response that is not just a reaction or an application of pejorative labels to the authors, most of whom are doubtlessly sincere in their fear of Muslims, even when capitalizing on popular moods and anxieties for commercial gain. What is needed is a response that makes the complex nature of Islam-West relations more easily intelligible, and that liberates creative imagination by telling new stories. Scholars as well as journalists need to find ways to give voice to people who thrive at the intersection of cultures, who are not afraid, who honour the past but do not cling to it, and who are willing to learn and expand their sense of identity and belonging through encounters with otherness. A reaction to the clash literature that merely stigmatizes the clash theorists is a reaction that addresses symptoms but not the deeper problems. To give substance to ideas of dialogue and coexistence, authors need to dispense with simplistic dichotomies and dualisms, and with efforts to make fortresses out of Europe, North America, or any other cultural region. A scholarship that is itself dialogical and engaged might offer a stronger remedy, by surfacing latent visions, articulating "unstoried" experiences, and demonstrating that the points of intersection among cultures are sites not just of friction, but also of mutual learning, shared discovery, and common humanity.

#### **Conflicts of Interest**

The author declares no conflict of interest.

#### **References**


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