Europe Unveiled

ROME

It is not surprising that old Europe is the new battleground for the clash ofcivilisations and that the "veil" of controversy is spreading across thecontinent. This just days after a messy speech by Pope Benedict mentioning Islamwhich sparked worldwide anger. The rapid-fire speed at which fighting words arebeing thrown into the public square hints at deeper fears and larger aims.

Europe is asserting its primacy over the social sphere against the assertionof Muslim identity. There is a palpable sense among Europeans that their way oflife and their sense of individual freedom are threatened. Jack Straw’scomment on the "niqab" may have sparked the current round but it isnoteworthy how quickly he was joined by Tony Blair, who called the veil a "markof separation." Romano Prodi of Italy too jumped into the fray, saying that itwas alright to wear a veil but "you have to be able to be seen." You can’tcover your face because it is a question of identity. Rightist members ofparliament in Italy and Germany have added the more provocative bits to thedebate.

Daniela Santanche of the neo-Fascist National Alliance was given Italianpolice protection after she told an Imam in a TV debate that the Quran did notrequire women to be veiled. The Imam said she had no right to interpret thebook, a right presumably bestowed only on him and his ilk. A few days laterSantanche compared the veil to the Star of David that the Jews were ordered towear by the Nazis. In Germany, home to 3.2 million Muslims, efforts are underwayto ban the veil from public schools. Teachers in Baden-Wuerttemberg, theconservative-run southwest state, are already prohibited from wearing the veil.A proposed new law says that such clothing can disturb peace and raise doubtsabout secular credentials of the state. German courts are struggling to find theright balance. France, which has Europe’s largest Muslim population at 5million, passed a law in 2004 against donning of religious symbols in publicschools. The trigger was the "hijab."

This re-grab of the public square began in earnest after the 7/7 trainbombings in Britain last year when Europeans learnt much to their horror thatthe perpetrators were born and bred in the Muslim neighbourhoods of England anddidn’t fly in from the rugged plains of the "uncivilised" world. TheBritish model of multiculturalism had failed. The 2004 Madrid attacks and themurder of a Dutch filmmaker were staged by a network of terrorists drawn fromthe fringes of European society. Four of the 9/11 attackers spent time in one ofGermany’s Muslim communities. The extremely liberal and accommodating Danishmodel couldn’t bear the strain of a few cartoons. With each successive attackcame a growing realization that it is in Europe where the battles were beingplanned and will be fought. It was time to assert the European/Christianidentity or at the very least stop the slow incursions of Islamic mores into thesocial fabric.

Average Europeans I talk to are mostly bewildered by all the body-coveringdemands of Islam on women living as they do in the world of perfectly tannedbodies and barely seen tops. They say assimilation into society is largely theresponsibility of the immigrants since they chose to come to Europe. The veil isa symbol of suppression, not modesty. They can’t accept a teacher in a "niqab."For them it is an insult, a world gone topsy-turvy. They fear their childrenimbibing "strange" values from another religion. Rather than risk exposure,they want to force assimilation of the "other," the outsider on their terms.

Europe’s Muslim population has tripled in the last 30 years, mainly becauseof immigration from North Africa, Turkey, Pakistan and Bangladesh. But in thosethree decades, most European governments stayed aloof from the segregatedpopulations. Now it scares them to think that Europe could lose its Christianidentity. The prospect of nearly 83 million Muslims of Turkey joining theEuropean Union scares them even more. A former EU competition commissioner,Fritz Bolkestein, warned of "Europe becoming Islamicised" and noted thatAmsterdam and Rotterdam will be minority European within a decade.

Resurgent Islam has given rise to strident voices within the Catholic Church.There are bishops who would like to fortify the church against the new realityof an Islam within rather than embrace the plurality. They have grave doubtsabout peaceful cohabitation and warn of an Islamic conquest of Europe. In themany internal synods and high-level meetings in Rome, a constant theme hasbecome "us vs. them."

Europeans are aware that the struggle against fundamentalism must be wagednot only in faraway Afghanistan but also in the segregated communities withintheir own countries. A 2004 report by the French domestic intelligence agencysaid that nearly half of the 630 communities with a concentration of Muslimswere "ghettoized" along religious lines. But against the scale of theproblem, the response is piece meal at best and wrong-headed at worst. Attackingoutward cultural symbols can’t constitute a successful political plan tointegrate Muslims when jobs and a good education remain elusive to most poorimmigrants.