On Building a Multireligious Society / Muslims in the West — Does France have the answer?
On Building a Multireligious Society / Muslims in the West — Does France have the answer?
John R. Bowen teaches at Washington University in Saint Louis and is the author of “Why the French Don’t Like Headscarves” (Princeton University Press, September, 2006). In the San Francisco Chronicle John Bowen argues that France, despite it’s laïcité, despite the riots of 2005, is in fact the most promising model for integration and participation of Muslims in Europe.
The bright light comes not from particularly enlightened government policies but from the attitudes of ordinary Muslims and non-Muslims in France. They are far more willing to get on with the task of building a multireligious society than are the Dutch, British or Spanish — or even Americans. A 2006 Pew Global Attitudes Survey found two striking indications that there is a French exception regarding Islam. First, French Muslims are much more likely than other European Muslims to emphasize their French identity. When asked to choose between religion and nationality as their primary identity, 42 percent of them said, French first, Muslim second. By contrast, only 7 percent of British Muslims and 3 percent of Spanish Muslims put nationality first. By the way, Pew reports that American Christians choose between religious and national identities in almost exactly the same proportion as do French Muslims. In other words, French Muslims balance their identities in about the same way as do American Christians.
Secondly, French people as a whole think Islam can fit into France. When asked if there is a conflict between being a devout Muslim and living in a modern society, 74 percent of all French people said, “non!” Only about half as many other Europeans or Americans denies such a conflict. Indeed, French people are more positive about modern Islam than are people in Indonesia, Jordan or Egypt.
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The answer is that in France, and seldom elsewhere, history and policies push in the same direction — toward integration. The very bitterness of France’s colonial history channels Muslims toward demanding inclusion in French society. They, or their parents or grandparents, came from former French territories in North or West Africa, where they learned that they were now part of the grand story of France, albeit in second-class roles.
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The struggle, sometimes a violent one, is to rise within the society, not to live apart, and the momentum of French colonial history — including the anger at discrimination and inequality — pushes the struggle in this direction. French Muslims are fighting for long-denied equal status and respect, as did African Americans in the United States. Their experience is quite unlike that of, say, Moroccans arriving in Denmark, where no common pasts, languages or experiences prepare the way.Nor do French Muslims live in ethnic enclaves. The housing projects around Paris contain people from different parts of Asia, Africa and Europe, and stand in stark contrast to all-Turkish neighborhoods in Belgium and or all-Pakistani parts of British cities. Young Muslims who emerge from this mixed environment speak only French, and they demand French-language sermons in their mosques — and increasingly, get them.
French policies also push toward integration, with a mix of carrots and sticks. Head scarves are out at school, but some enlightened mayors are giving land for mosques. The state gives newly arrived men and women hundreds of free hours of French language lessons, in an effort to make them more competitive for employment. Contrast recent Dutch policies (applied mainly to poorer counties) that require would-be immigrants, even the spouses of Dutch residents, to prove that they already speak good Dutch before they arrive, but provide no help in learning the language. The Dutch are using language to exclude Muslims, the French to integrate them.
None of this is to say that France has solved its problems of racial discrimination, police harassment and unequal educational opportunity. But the French, non-Muslim and Muslim, are more willing to bet that they can be part of the same society than are any other people in the world today.