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Causes of Antagonism |
1. Contemporary Factors
The reasons for West's unsympathetic reception of Islam are several. The most immediate cause
can be found in the fear of rising Muslim violence spawned in the context of frustration over
the plight of the Palestinians. This rationale has now been almost entirely displaced in
Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Iran and Iraq by political discontent in contexts unique to each
country. In the United States this image of Islam is reinforced by official policy towards
Israel and the concomitant result that enemies of Israel must be regarded with suspicion.
In Europe the roots of antagonism are essentially demographic. Germany, France, Austria and
the United Kingdom are troubled by a massive increase of Muslims, first by immigration and now
by the birth rate of domiciled immigrants.
The problem in France is more acute that in other countries because of former French
colonial rule of Morocco and Algeria and the geographic proximity of these countries to
France. The French see Islam as a threat to their culture. "We don't want
France to be come an Islamic republic," says Philippe de Villers, a member of the National
Assembly. Charles Pasqua, Minister of Interior, has begun large-scale deportation of illegal
immigrants, and pledges to close French frontiers and to reduce immigration to zero by the
year 2000. France is concerned that the increase in population in Tunisia, Morocco and
Algeria will produce a massive invasion. This is not to suggest that Pasqua is anti-Islamic,
for he has also taken actions, mentioned later in this essay, which indicate an understanding
and sympathy for Islam. His concern is the likelihood of France being overwhelmed by
immigration, especially from North Africa. The fact that such immigration is Muslim is
secondary to the issue of the magnitude of an impact too great for the nation to absorb.
The novel The Camp of the Saints, first published in France in 1973, forecasts a cataclysmic
invasion. This novel by Jean Raspail was popularized in the United States by Matthew
Connelly and Paul Kennedy in a bleak analysis of the global immigration problem appearing
in The Atlantic Monthly in December 1994.
The wearing of the hijab (head scarf) by girl students in French schools has been the
precipitating even in antagonism towards Islam. The Ministry of Education banned the wearing
of "all ostentational religious symbols in public schools." The Conseil d'Etat had ruled
against the ban but in 1992 the Constitutional Council overturned the decision with an
ambivalent verdict declaring the hijab compatible with the French ideal of secularism but
banned a religious sign if the manner of wearing it was provocative. The Minister of
Education determined that it was provocative; hence the ban. This decision has been
attributed to a "wind of 'Islamaphobia' which is more serious in France than elsewhere in
Europe."
The Muslims in France number 4 million (1.2 million of whom are from Algeria) of 1/16 of
the total population; the ratio in other European countries is much lower. The violence in
Algeria generated by the frustration of Muslim groups deprived of their legitimately elected
government and by the military coup which usurped power by nullifying that election was
frightening to the French. That violence is associated with Islam generally. The problem
is exacerbated by the instability of the government to deal with some 600 Muslim organizations
and with a Muslim population that, while predominantly Algerian, includes Muslims from sixty
countries. The current conflict is a legal problem of the relationship of Conseil d'Etat to
the Constitutional Council which can be resolved only by action of the National Assembly.
The close geographical and cultural ties with Algeria have acerbated relations and there
is suspicion that the agitation in France is supported if not caused by the Algerian National
Salvation Front. The children of immigrants, now French citizens by birth, are demanding
political rights. Organized into groups such as Young Citizens of France, they have turned to
Islam as a political protest. The expulsion of some 88 girls from school for wearing
headscarves is especially troubling since Sikhs are allowed to wear turbans and Jews may wear
skull caps (yarmulke). In December 1994 highjackers commandeered an Air France Airbus 300 in
Algiers. En route to Paris the plane stopped to refuel in Marseilles where the hijackers
killed three passengers and released others. French commandos stormed the plane, killed
the four highjackers, released all the passengers and found about twenty sticks of dynamite
beneath the plane' s seats. It was though the plane was on a suicide mission to explode in
or over Paris. The next day, four Catholic priests, one of the Belgian, three French, were
murdered in northern Algeria.
In Germany the focus is on unemployment, especially since unification. In Austria the
attitude towards Muslims is merged into the larger problem of immigration, most of which is
non-Muslim. Located on the frontier of Europe's immigration phenomenon, Austria has received
and process the bulk of refuses from the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe: some 42,000
from Yugoslavia alone. Nearly half a million foreigners live in Austria whose populations is
7.5 million. New immigration laws passed in 1993 make it difficult for immigrants to live and
work in Austria. The backlog of applications for residence permits is some 60,000 and the
long delay means that the applicants lose jobs, places to live an are forced to return to
their places of origin. As in other European countries, the strict immigration policy
enhances the standing of some politicians who advocate an end to all immigration.
In Britain anti-Muslim sentiment arises from fear of British culture and institutions
being overwhelmed by foreign immigrants (Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Wet African, West
Indian) whose cultures are markedly different from that of Europeans. The Islamic dimension
of this fear is subordinate to the issue of the magnitude and incompatibility of the new
migration. To a lesser extent than in the United States, this sentiment gains some strength
from the Zionist-Arab politics of the Palestine issue in which British policy played the
determining role in 1948. The galvanizing event (analogous to the wearing of head scarves
in France) has been the matter of government support for Islamic schools. There is some
feeling that this policy started with Sir Keith Joseph, a Zionist; whose as Minister of
Education maintained that Islamic education would contaminate the cultural purity of British
education. This view has continued for there is no objection to support of Jewish, Catholic
or Protestant schools. The British National Party's success in getting its candidate elected
to the Borough Council of Tower Hamlets in London's East End was disturbing since the National
Party Platform advocated forced deportation of all blacks and Asians. This election of
September 1993 followed the beating into a coma of a 17-year old Bangladeshi by a group of
whites. In the context of 7,993 racial attacks reported for 1993-almost double the number for
1992-this election was viewed with alarm by Muslims.
2. Bedrock of Antipathy
Beyond these contemporary sources of antagonism lie deeply rooted circumstances. It can
justifiably be said that these 20th century feelings can be traced to the Crusades which
generated repugnance towards Islam in the 12th and 13th centuries. Dante's Inferno sentenced
Mohammed and Ali to the ninth bologia as dangerous sowers of discord and disunity (seminator
di scandalo e di scisma). Mohammed was regarded as the figure who broke the hold of
Christianity, hence was sentenced to the cruelest punishment described in the Inferno:
being cleft from head to crotch. Allegorical though it was, the Inferno was undoubtedly a
reflection of mediaeval thought.
Only six centuries after the rise of Christianity, Islam emerged incorporating some of
the doctrine of its two Abrahamic predecessors, Judaism and Christianity, and claiming to be
the ultimate divine revelation Islam was, and continues to be activated, by a dynamic zeal for
global propagation which directly confronted the same Christian impulse. The universality of
Islam was threatened by this dynamism as Islam spread in Asia an Africa and to the very gates
of Vienna, destroying the possibility of converting the whole world to Christianity.
The second factor, peculiar to American culture, is the phenomenal rise in the United
States in visibility and authority of evangelical Protestant fundamentalist Christianity with
its emphasis on the Old Testament, and on "biblical inerrancy,"i.e. the literal interpretation
of Scripture as the infallible word of God. An important part of this view is the literal
belief in biblical prophecy. These views, persuasively propagated by televangelists,
emphasize the special status of Israelites and Zion and warn that divine retribution will be
meted out to whomever disagrees. The contemporary Israelis are equated with biblical
Israelites, and their possession of Palestine is proof, according to this view, that a
biblical prophecy has been fulfilled. These notions are coupled with what might be called
the Judaization of Christianity, in which the Judaic antecedents of Christian doctrine and
the Jewish genealogy of Christ and the Holy Family are given so much emphasis that the
distinctions between the two religions are blurred. The theological and historical
relationship between these two religions cannot be denied and should be explained and taught.
But this view ignores the third Abrahamic religion, Islam, which has both Jewish and Christian
roots. Thus Islam, marginalized, is seen as the enemy to both. Since these ideas touch the
very essence of the Arab-Israeli problem, namely the status of Israel and Palestine, they are
hardly conducive to increasing empathy for Islam. The recent work of Fuad Sha'ban shows the
depth of these beliefs and reveals a dimension which ahs been eclipsed or isolated form the
political context in which Islam is immersed. He shows that fundamentalist views of Zion are
not new but are deeply embedded in American 19th century literary and religious sources. It
is the millenarian attitude, enmeshed in Old Testament prophecy, which generated much of the
pilgrim's euphoria inspiring the settlement of the Unites States. America became the Zion,
the paradise, for the early settlers, later including the Mormons. This is reflected in the
names given to thousands of towns throughout the United States: Salem, Sinai, Nazareth,
Providence, new Jerusalem, Bethel, Mt. Olive, New Bethlehem, Zion, Hebron, Mt. Carmel, Mt.
Hermon, Canaan, Mt. Pisgah, Nebo, Lebanon, Palestine, to name but a few.
Some of these names were given by settlers from Syria/Lebanon but most were bestowed by
European settlers inspired by biblical references. The New Jerusalem of the early settlers'
fantasy is materialized in the recreation of the Jerusalem of modern Israel. The relationship
between this view of Israel and the consequent isolation of Islam is subliminal but remarkably
influential in molding American views of Islam. These modified perceptions are strengthened
by antecedent imagery of the Crusades against the infidel allegorized in the Inferno and are
given new and stronger meaning by contemporary events which plunge them into the maelstrom of
global politics. The consequence is that the emotional circumstances sustaining a western
alienation with Islam are given new meaning and depth. American attitudes towards Islam and
Arabs are not exclusively the consequence of the 1948 establishment of Israel, the Arab oil
embargo, the Iranian hostage taking or other violent events attributed to Islamic
inspiration. They have much deeper roots. |
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