Fears of Eurabia
How Much Allah Can the Old Continent Bear?
By SPIEGEL Staff
Switzerland's recent vote to ban the construction of new minarets has
shocked and angered Muslims around the world. But the controversial
move also reflects a growing sense of unease among other Europeans who
have trouble coming to terms with Islam's increased visibility.
In the small Swiss town of Langenthal, the battle over the minarets
has been fought, and there seems to be no hope of reconciliation
between the victors and the vanquished. "I feel abused and injured as
a person," says Mutalip Karaademi. "We wanted to hit a symbol," says
Daniel Zingg, "and we hit it."
Zingg has prevented the minaret that Karaademi wanted to build, and
has managed to make it illegal for any other minarets to be built in
Switzerland. He was one of the authors of the referendum that was
passed by the Swiss on Nov. 29 with 57.5 percent of the votes. The
constitution will now contain the following sentence: "The building of
minarets is banned."
The Swiss decision has shocked Europe and the world because its
ramifications go far beyond the building of minarets -- they also
concern the identity of an entire continent. This was a referendum on
Western society's perception of Islam as a threat. The issue is
generating intense debate: Just how much of Islam is predominantly
Christian Europe prepared to accept? The decision by the otherwise so
tolerant Alpine country reveals the deep-seated fear of an Islam that
is becoming increasingly visible.
Are Muslim immigrants threatening European values? This is a concern
shared by many Europeans across the continent. Surveys last week
revealed that 44 percent of Germans oppose the construction of
minarets, followed by 41 percent of the French. Fifty-five percent of
all Europeans see Islam as an intolerant religion.
Does the Swiss vote reveal an attitude that a majority in Europe would
also support if given the opportunity?
Vehement Criticism
This would also explain why criticism of the vote was so vehement.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, the United Nations and the Vatican were all equally up in
arms. They said that the Swiss vote violated the principles of freedom
of religion and non-discrimination. Turkey's EU minister called on
Muslims to invest their money in Turkey instead of Switzerland, and
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said it reflects "an increasingly
racist and fascist stance in Europe."
But the vote was welcomed and cheered in comments on some Internet
blogs, and right-wing populists like the head of the Dutch Party for
Freedom, Geert Wilders, and France's far-right National Front party
voiced their approval. Roberto Castelli, a top politician in Italy's
Northern League said: "The Swiss have once again given us a lesson in
civilization. We have to send a strong signal to stop pro-Islamic
ideology."
For the time being, what has been stopped is the minaret of the
Islamic religious community in Langenthal. Mutalip Karaademi, 51, an
ethnic Albanian who emigrated from Macedonia 26 years ago, is standing
in front of the building used by his religious association, a former
paint factory on the outskirts of town. There is a wooden construction
on top measuring 6.1 meters (20 feet) It shows the height of the
planned minaret, the first one that cannot be built.
Karaademi is the leader of the local Islamic community, whose 130
members come from Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia. The small mosque has
been here for 18 years. At the outset the minaret wasn't so important,
says Karaademi. It was simply an ornamental addition. But now it's a
matter of principle. He wants to take legal action -- if necessary
going all the way to the European Court of Human Rights, where it is
very possible that the judges in Strasbourg will end up reversing the
Swiss constitutional decision. He loves Switzerland, this model
country, says Karaademi. But this ban is "racist and discriminating
against us," a scandal for the civilized world.
One Man's Battle
The quiet winner of this battle is Daniel Zingg, 53, a balding man
with wire-rimmed glasses. He's sitting in a pizzeria across from the
railway station in Langenthal and speaking in a hoarse whisper. The
minarets, those "spearheads of the Sharia," those "signs of territory
newly conquered by Islam," can no longer be built, he says, and thus
the Swiss have solved a problem that has already become seemingly
intractable elsewhere, such as in the large cities of England and
France. It's a well-known fact that first come the minarets, then the
muezzins, with their calls to prayer, the burqas and finally Sharia
law, he says. According to Zingg, the ban is not directed against
Muslims, although it is naturally true that "the Koran gives (people)
the mission to Islamize the world, and the Muslims here have no other
mission, otherwise they would not be Muslims."
For the past 15 years, Zingg has been giving lectures in support of
Israel and against Islam. He's a politician with the ultraconservative
Christian party, the Federal Democratic Union, which received 1.3
percent of the vote in the last election. He has never set foot in the
mosque in his town because he has heard that anyone who walks barefoot
in one becomes a Muslim. Zingg doesn't want to take that risk.
One might wonder how a man like this, whose radical views certainly do
not reflect the majority opinion in Switzerland, was able to win a
majority for his cause. There is also the question of why a country
that has very few problems with its roughly 400,000 Muslims would
decide to take such a dramatic step.
Perhaps fears are growing and radical demands are becoming ever more
popular because there is practically no open political debate on what
place Islam will assume in Europe.
An estimated 15 million Muslims currently live in the European Union,
or roughly 3 percent of the population. But this is more than at any
other time in the past. Immigrants, most of whom came as guest workers
decades ago, have brought Islam to Europe.
Can Europe still be Europe if, for instance, in 2050 most young people
under the age of 15 in Austria are Muslims? And when Muhammad today is
already the most common name for newborn boys in Brussels and
Amsterdam, and the third most common in England?
An 'Official Discussion of Islam' and a Subterranean One
American author and journalist Christopher Caldwell recently published
his latest tome, "Reflections on the Revolution in Europe:
Immigration, Islam and the West," a widely-read and skeptical book on
Europe and its Muslim immigrants. What fascinates him about the result
of the Swiss vote is the gap between the rejection of the ban in
surveys and the considerable support that it received during the
referendum. "It means there is an official discussion of Islam and
that there is a subterranean discussion of it," he says. "That should
worry Europeans."
Caldwell doesn't sound the same alarmist tones in his book as other
conservative authors who have dubbed the old continent as "Eurabia"
and see it -- due to higher birthrates among immigrants -- as a future
outpost of the "Islamic world empire." But he also writes: "It is
certain that Europe will emerge changed from its confrontation with
Islam. It is far less certain that Islam will prove assimilable."
Caldwell believes that Muslim immigrants have had greater difficulties
than other groups integrating themselves into European society. On the
one hand, only a minority can identify with political Islam, also due
to the wars that the West has waged against Islamic terror over the
past few years. On the other hand, their religion goes hand in hand
with conservative attitudes toward women, family relationships, sexual
freedom and the rights of gays and lesbians. These religious attitudes
are problematic for many Europeans.
Caldwell says that Muslims are a small minority, but Europe is
changing its structures because of them: "When an insecure, malleable,
relativistic culture meets a culture that is anchored, confident and
strengthened by common doctrines, it is generally the former that
changes to suit the latter."
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