The competition among some European politicians to capitalize on societal fears of Muslim immigrants “legitimizes” actions like the July 22 deadly attack in Norway, according to an expert on Europe, nationalism, identities and immigration.
Muslims in Europe have “challenged the homogeneous understanding of the nation” and are “shaking the relationship between state and religion,” Riva Kastoryano, a research director at the prominent Center of International Studies and Research in Paris, told the Hürriyet Daily News in a recent interview in Istanbul, where she comes every summer to visit her family.
Q: What did you feel when you heard about the attacks in Norway and the man who perpetrated them?
A: I said to myself, this was going to happen. This was coming, after all the populist rhetoric of politicians using much of the same discourse as the perpetrator. European politicians have over the last three or four years entered into a competition to reject the “other.” They are blaming Muslims for asking to have minarets in Europe, for wanting to wear the burqa. Politicians are bidding like at an auction to attack Islam.
Q: You blame the politicians. But perhaps they talk like that because of the general public mood?
A: There might be some fear in the society. But this fear is being developed by the politicians. The danger with politicians using a discourse that fuels these fears is that it legitimizes any action against multiculturalism, which in Europe means Islam. They are blaming the Muslims for asking for the same freedoms as the other citizens of Europe.
Q: But aren’t Europeans resentful of the Muslims’ integration problems?
A: Actually, the existing problems are there because they are more integrated. The immigrants have become citizens and they are asking for minority rights. But states are not ready to grant those rights. Anti-immigration trends started in the 1980s. But the issue then was not Islam. Muslims became an issue in the late 1980s as they started to become citizens.
Q: You emphasize Muslims, but not all the immigrants in Europe are Muslim.
A: Multiculturalism is oriented toward the Muslims, because multiculturalism is about recognizing the political rights of minorities. Muslims are [demanding] to have some rights. These rights are not claimed by the Portuguese, the Polish, new immigrants from Russia or the Roma. It is the Muslims who are concerned with equality and citizenship issues.
Q: Why are those issues of concern only to Muslims?
A: One Turkish immigrant living in Germany told me, “In a few years they will assimilate us but they can never take away Islam from us.” I think religion is the permanent difference. And the permanent difference is where you negotiate your rights. Why is it Muslims? Because they are the biggest minority and the one most discriminated against. They have challenged the homogeneous understanding of the nation. Europe’s philosophy is, “Take your citizenship and be one of us.” But Muslims are saying, “I want to be one of you but also Muslim.” This is not a problem of immigration. This is a minority problem.
Q: But if there are no similar problems with other non-Muslim minorities, are we then talking about a clash of civilizations due to religious differences?
A: I don’t call it clash of civilizations but there is a clash. Muslim migrants came in the 1950s and 1960s with the belief that they would go back. Then they started to settle in the 1970s and in the 1980s a second generation started to appear. By the 1990s, the need for mosques, religious education, and more arose. It was at this stage that Europe realized how important religion was as an element in the life of Muslim communities. It was then that discussions began about the headscarf.
Muslims are shaking the relationship between state and religion. Secularism is at the heart of Europe. It is an institutional arrangement between state and the church. But when all of a sudden Muslims came and made claims based on religion in the public sphere, within public institutions, it challenged the established understanding of secularism. We had internalized that we are all secular. But when another religious group comes and makes claims based on equality you wonder what the secularism you have internalized is about. Each state has a religion, the religion of the majority. Democratic states had to make some institutional arrangements in order to have other religions represented. What do we do with Islam, since there is a demand for Islam’s equal representation within state institutions? We are talking about a problem of institutional recognition.
Q: But doesn’t Europe’s problem with Muslims go beyond this institutional challenge?
A: Europe’s problem with Muslims is not even real. It is imaginary; the way they [equate] Islam with suicide bombers and terrorism. The guy in Norway [Anders Behring Breivik, who has confessed to killing at least 76 people in the July 22 attacks] talks about Islamophobia, but how many Muslims live in Norway? Almost none. That’s why this discourse by politicians is so dangerous. We came to this point because politicians tried to emphasize national identity so much by excluding the others.
People no longer complain that their jobs will be taken away. Now there are fears that society will become Islamized. Everyone in Paris knows that on Friday people pray in the street in the 19th arrondissement because there is not enough space in the mosque. But when the media makes news saying, “Look what is happening to our city. We can’t even walk here on a Friday,” then people start to panic. But is the problem about the person praying in the street or about the lack of enough space for that man to pray? There are only 600 burqa-wearers in France but they made a law just for those 600.
Q: But aren’t there integration problems that feed those fears when people witness behavior of which they don’t approve, like “honor killings” or female circumcision?
A: These are marginal. We had the Italian mafia, for instance. We have incest in French families, for instance. But of course I don’t deny that there has been resistance to adapting.
Q: You question in one of your articles whether the free movement of people will be the basis of the division of Europe.
A: On the one hand you have free movement and open frontiers; on the other hand, you start suspecting others and ask for tighter border controls. The EU is at a crossroads. The EU has been a project of the states, of the elites and intellectuals. The person on the street does not consider him- or herself as European but as French, or German. The EU needs to be endorsed by the societies and the media. NGOs and other groups should play a role in that direction.
Q: What do you think will be the effect of the attacks in Norway?
A: I wonder whether they will lead political parties to be more careful in their rhetoric. In the past, this rhetoric was considered extremely right-wing. If we continue to see this discourse as legitimate, the danger will continue.
‘Turkey became a mirror for EU’
Turkey’s bid to join the European Union has played the role of a “mirror” for Europe, according to expert Riva Kastoryano. “While saying no to Turkey, Europe started to question its own identity,” she said, adding that Turkey helped Europe know itself better.
Since the election of Nicolas Sarkozy, a known opponent of Turkish entry into the EU, as France’s president, public-opinion polls show that the rate of those opposing Turkey’s bid has decreased, Kastoryano said. While in the past there was no difference between Turks and Arabs in the eyes of the French, “due to Turkey’s recent economic successes, the French have started to say, ‘Yes, but the Turks are different,’” she added.
Who is Riva Kastoryano?
Born and raised in Istanbul, Riva Kastoryano currently lives in Paris and works as a research director at the prominent Center of International Studies and Research.
A former Harvard lecturer and a former research fellow at the Princeton University Institute for Advanced Studies, Kastoryano specializes in political sociology with a focus on Europe, nationalism, identities and immigration. The author of “Negotiating Identities: States and Immigrants in France and Germany,” published in 2001, she is also the co-author of several books on immigration and identity issues in Europe.