Source: Contemporary Sociology, Vol. 36, No. 6 (Nov., 2007), pp. 507-511 Published by: American Sociological Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20443955 Accessed: 01/02/2010 13:47 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=asa. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. 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American Sociological Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Contemporary Sociology. http://www.jstor.org A SYMPOSIUM ON "POLITICAL ISLAM" When Muslims and Modernity Meet ASEF BAYAT ISIM/Leiden University In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in the U.S., a series of events ranging from the Madrid bombings of March 11, 2004, the murder of Dutch filmmaker van Gogh in No vember 2004, followed by the London blasts of July 7, 2005, riots in the French banlieues in November 2005, and then the cartoon cri sis in Denmark have caused a profound anx iety about the "Islamic threat" to security and the cultural well-being of Europe. The native majority seems to view the Muslim minority as a danger to the indigenous demography (currently estimated at 11-12 million or 3% of the continent) and cultural landscape of the continent in a remarkably similar fashion that Muslim elites in the Middle East perceive rur al migrants as distorting the cultural integrity and modern make-up of their cities. So, the growth of mosques, Islamic schools, head scarves, the traditional clothes, and facial hair have been turned into an anomaly in the Eu ropean urban setting, in the same manner that the spread of squatter settlements, street vendors, traditional religiosity-allegedly re sulting from poverty, anomie, and extrem ism-are seen as "ruralizing" the Middle East ern modern urbanity, turning such metropo lises as Cairo or Istanbul into "cities of peas ants" (Bayat, 2007). Underlying this appre hension in both Europe and the Middle East is the prevailing belief that the "traditional culture" collides with rational behavior and organized modern life. Just as the urban elite in the Muslim Middle East (politicians and planners, for instance) fear the distorting "peasant culture," the European majority dread "Islamic traditions," which they fear are undermining liberal democracy, individual freedom, and rational ways of life. Indeed, the predominance of what Mahmood Mam dani (2004) calls "cultural talk" in Europe has virtually Islamized ethnic designations and urban problematiques. Thus, Turkish, North African, or South Asian minorities are invari ably labeled as "Muslims," and "immigration problems" as "Islamic." What are the under When Islam and Democracy Meet: Muslims in Europe and in the United States, by Jocelyne Cesari. New York, NY: Palgrave, 2006. 280pp. $24.95 paper. ISBN: 1403971463. The Islamic Challenge: Politics and Religion in Western Europe, by Jytte Klausen. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2005. 264pp. $34.95 cloth. ISBN: 0199289921. Islamic Modernism, Nationalism, and Fundamentalism: Episode and Discourse, by Mansoor Moaddel. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2005. 424pp. $24.00 paper. ISBN: 0226533336. lying issues in this tension? Do the sources of conflict lie in the clash between Islamic tra dition-al values and the modern fabric of Eu ropean life? The three books under consider ation, despite their different depths and per spectives, offer useful historical entry and so ciological backdrop to grapple with these questions. To begin with, as both Jocelyn Cesari and Jytte Klausen demonstrate, the Muslim mi nority in Europe and the U.S. represent a het erogeneous entity differentiated by ethnicity, class, educational background, and religious inclinations. In addition, both authors attest to the fact that the conflict of "tradition and modernity" bears little purchase in explaining the roots of the current clash between the Muslim minority and the native majority in the West today. But, as to the underlying log ic behind the conflict, the studies do not of fer fresh insights. The studies are preoccu pied primarily with individuals (immigrants) and organizations, rather than with historical context within which the Muslim minority's relationships with the host society are sys tematically examined. I propose that the key 507 Contemporary Sociology 36, 6 508 Symposium issue lies in the European projection of a modernity, Europeanness, the costs of which many Muslim migrants cannot afford, even though they wish they were able to. The fact is that groups in general, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, possess differential capacities (or capitals) to cope with the exigencies of modernity. While segments of the European Muslims have indeed succeeded in this path, others are in the throes of a protracted strug gle. On the whole, three groups within the Muslim minority can be currently identified. First are the "secular Muslims," those who seem to be fully "integrated" as they try to reach out to the "majority" culture, economy, and social interaction, even though they are frustrated by the fact that many natives do refuse to recognize them as "Europeans." In France, 87% of Muslims surveyed said they believed Islam was compatible with the French Republic. The elite segment of this Muslim group, or what Klausen calls "Euro pean Muslim leaders," is the subject of Klausen's Islamic Challenge. Despite its quite narrow focus, Klausen's study sheds a posi tive light on the social make-up and the worldviews of these Muslims who represent some 2,000-3,000 influential individuals ac tive in politics, media, business, religious, and civil society organizations. Klausen sug gests that European Muslims, represented by these leaders, constitute a new interest group, which will affect the European politi cal systems as a result of their participation in the political process. These Muslims embrace liberal democracy, resent the extremism of fundamentalist Sheikhs and radicals, respect human rights as a God-given gift that cannot be taken away, and wish to build a "Euro pean Islam" through the reinterpretation of religious texts. Possessing the necessary re sources-higher education, respectable jobs, information and relevant knowledge-the group is enabled to handle and live a Euro pean life. They enjoy and take advantage of what modernity offers-including liberal democracy-and know how to maneuver within it. The second strain within the Muslim mi nority consists of young extremist groups, linked to transnational networks, who make up only a very small portion (Dutch police, for instance, say there are some 150 such persons in the Netherlands). But these radi cals, who get much of the media attention, are hardly "traditional" in the sense of being fed the norms and values of their parents' home culture. They are largely second-gen eration ethnic or non-white Europeans or converts, who rarely speak native languages, nor have much knowledge about "tradition al" Islam, but are influenced by what Olivier Roy describes as a "de-cultured" Islam. In other words, it is neither the "traditional cul ture" nor the "culture of Islam" (whatever that is), but primarily the "deculturation" of religion-the construction of a "pure," ab stract, and "fundamentalist Islam" devoid of human cultural experience and influence that inform these young Muslims. Suspended from their own ethnic values and dejected by the host culture which views them in suspi cion and derision, they look desperately for an outlet to forge identities. Detached from the governing values of ancestry, yet en gulfed by the multiplicity of lifestyles, and overwhelmed by the flow of transnational in formation, the truth of which they can sel dom ascertain, these youngsters tend to re sort to an imagined "authentic" reference-a trans-local, global, and abstract Islam stripped of cultural influences, one that can be exploited for arbitrary use/abuse. And then there is a significant but little known third group of Muslims to which nei ther Cesari nor Klausen pay serious attention. It includes the first generation immigrants who try to speak the European languages, strive to hold regular jobs, and wish to live a normal life, but are oriented to practicing many aspects of their home culture-food, fashion, rituals, or private religious practices. Most of them strive to survive and to live with dignity, invest in their children to get by in the societal settings they often find too complex to operate. So they are inclined to restore and revert to their immediate circles, the language and religious groups, informal economic networks, and communities of friends and status groups built in the neigh borhoods or prayer halls. In sum, they feel at home on the margin of the mainstream. As such, this feeling at home on the mar gin is hardly a thing of Islam, nor a sign of resentment against modernity, or a primor dial desire for "tradition." Rather, it represents a familiar theme in the classical Chicago School of urban sociology-a typical coping strategy that lower-class immigrants often Contemporary Sociology 36, 6 Symposium 509 pursue when they encounter complex for eign life-worlds. It reflects the paradoxical re ality of peripheral communalism that enables the members to get around the costs, to en dure, and to negotiate with the mainstream in an attempt to be part of it. Because to im merse fully in the mainstream requires cer tain material, cultural, and informational ca pabilities that most plebian migrants, Muslim or non-Muslim, do not possess, which com pel them to seek alternative venues. Thus, being part of an organized economy de mands regular payment of various dues and taxes; if you cannot afford them, then you go informal. If a migrant cannot afford to pay for the cost of fixing his bathroom through regu lar companies, then he will look for, or gen erate, a network of friends, relatives, and lo cals to mobilize support. If he cannot afford to shop in the mainstream modern super markets, or to borrow money from regular banks (because he does not have the credit and credentials), then he resorts to ethnic street bazaars to get his affordable supplies, and to informal credit associations to secure loans. When he lacks the necessary informa tion and skill to function within the modern bureaucratic organizations-which do not understand flexibility, negotiation, and inter personal relations-he relies on the locals with whom he establishes flexible transac tions based upon mutual trust and reciproci ty. If people cannot function within a culture that is perceived to be inhospitable, too for mal and strict, then they are likely to get in volved in the ones that they fit. An unintended consequence of these eco nomic and cultural processes is the likely re vitalization of "negative integration," in paral lel and peripheral communities, where ethnic networks or religious rituals are revived to serve as structures of support and survival. It is no surprise that "ghettoization" is especial ly more pronounced among lower-class British Muslims where unemployment re mains three times higher than that among other ethno-religious groups (Cesari, p. 23). This process of "feeling at home on the mar gin" represents a way to cope with the im peratives of modernity embodied in the bu reaucratic arrangement, the discipline of time, space, fixed and formal contract, and the like. Unless host societies are prepared to maximize these people's capabilities and minimize their costs of integration, such mi grants are compelled to seek refuge in their informal marginal existence. This process is by no means specific to Muslim migrants' lives in Europe. It is a widespread global phenomenon. Rural migrants in Cairo, Tehran, Istanbul, or Casablanca undergo more or less similar experiences as many res idents with Turkish or Moroccan origin in Germany or in the Netherlands. However, anti-Muslim rhetoric of the mainstream polit ical and intellectual circles, not to mention the ultra-nationalist parties (National Front in France, Geert Wilders's party in Holland, Germany's neo-Fascists, Danish People's Par ty, and the American evangelical preachers), further push such Muslim minorities to seek sanctuary in themselves. Otherwise, they yearn for a modern life of relief and recogni tion, but strive to manage and minimize its detriments. Muslims' varied encounters with the forces of modernity in the Islamic heartland are not terribly different from those residing current ly in the West. Like their counterparts in Western Europe, the Muslim population in the Middle East is also divided into segments with different religious intensity (secular lib eral, moderate Muslims, fundamentalists, and violent trends) and differential experiences of encounters with modernity. Mansoor Moad del's ambitious book, Islamic Modernism, Nationalism, and Fundamentalism, shows with impressive detail and clarity how the Middle East has been home to many overar ching secular and religious ideologies, in cluding Islamic modernism (wanting to rec oncile Islam with modernity), liberal nation alism, and lately the exclusivist "fundamen talist" Islam. Rather than being rooted in some traditional psyche or cultural make-up of Muslims, "fundamentalism" is an historical, indeed, a modern movement. It is, according to Moaddel, an exclusivist religious reaction to monolithic secular states (Moaddel dis agrees with those who view this movement as a reaction to "foreign domination"). Where a pluralistic intellectual market prevailed, in clusive ideologies such as liberalism and Is lamic modernism flourished. Whether or not one agrees with the term "fundamentalism" (I prefer to use the term Islamism), it still re quires further clarification. In my understand ing, "Islamism" developed as the language of self-assertion to mobilize those (largely mid dle-class high achievers) who felt marginal Contemporary Sociology 36, 6 510 Symposium ized by the dominant economic, political, or cultural processes in their societies, those for whom the perceived failure of both capitalist modernity and socialist utopia made the lan guage of morality (religion) a substitute for politics. In a sense, it was the Muslim middle class way of saying "no" to those who they considered their excluders-their national elites, secular governments, and these gov ernments' Western allies. Hence, they re buffed "Western cultural domination," its po litical rationale, moral sensibilities, and nor mative symbols, even though in practice they shared many of those traits, as in their neck ties, food, education, and technologies (Bay at 2007). Even though Moaddel's argument may not hold for the growth of "fundamentalist" ide ologies in the current pluralist settings such as Europe or in Turkey, he neglects the ele ment of new awareness and rhetoric about the real or imagined "global domination" that has come about due to the educational growth and global information flows. Never theless, his emphasis on indigenous and modern sources of "fundamentalist" Islam is crucial. Yet the book concentrates primarily on the intellectual elites, the producers of ideas-a theme that holds its own important merit, but offers little on the worldviews of ordinary people, on how these grand dis courses are perceived and negotiated at the base. Indeed, Moaddel's preoccupation with episode-or bounded temporal constellation of major events-to explain ideology forma tion would leave little ground to examine how ideas are constructed among social groups. In other words, in his scheme, ide ologies are the products of particular times/episodes, rather than of particular so cial groups. I would not dispute that attribut ing fixed ideas to particular social classes as a means to pursue their "objective" interests is a misguided approach. Yet, I would not write off altogether the role of "interests" in forming ideas. But I take a different under standing of "interests." Perceived in Isaac Bal bus's sense as having a "stake in" or "being affected by" (Balbus, 1973: 279), "interests" in my understanding includes both material and non-material (like respect, honor, or moral certitude) elements, and refers to those that are articulated by the agents themselves rather than fixated as "objective" by outside observers. Perceived as such, "interests" in the end play a central part in determining why certain individuals or groups uphold certain ideas or patterns of behavior at cer tain times. This is crucial because it can help us understand why differential Muslim mi norities with different positions and capaci ties espouse different relationships with mod ern life, with some of the mainstream im mersed easily in its rationale while others have to negotiate and navigate their way through diverse venues to minimize their costs. Why is it that despite the complex dy namics and struggles of Muslim communities to live a life similar to most inhabitants in Eu rope, opinion makers in the continent con tinue to project the interaction in terms of cultural clash for which "Islamic traditional ism" is supposedly responsible? Historically, European elites seemed to express reluctance to host immigrant communities in their homeland. Instead, they welcomed "guest workers"-from ex-colonies or nations such as Turkey and those of North Africa and South Asia-who were expected to return home after performing their functions as fac tory or construction workers. Once European elites realized that Muslim immigrants were here to stay, anxiety arose; it reached a crisis point when that anxiety in recent years turned into fear-fear of terrorism, of in creasing Muslim immigration, of "eroding lib eral democracy," and the loss of "European character," even though in reality violent groups remain extremely small and many or dinary Muslims embrace liberal democracy. It appears then that the "multiculturalism" that countries like the Netherlands were practic ing in 1960s and 1970s has been rather disin genuous since it was designed not to equip the "guest-workers" with the necessary ca pacity and skills to live a life of fellow Euro peans, but to enable them to return to their home countries. So while the relentless process of global ization has turned Europe into a multi-ethnic continent, the mainstream Europeans have yet to acknowledge and come to terms with this historic shift. In reality, a multi-ethnic Eu rope means also a multi-religious citizenry; it means recognizing the reality of mosques, minarets, headscarves, even burqas in the public squares along with churches, temples, and the like. But the assimilationist senti ments fail to acknowledge that co-existence Contemporary Sociology 36, 6 Symposium 511 and integration imply a two-way process of give and take. Klausen is right when she charges the European nativists with wanting the Muslim minority to change (and when they do, Muslims do not get recognition), but refusing to change themselves. Instead, they lump the Muslim minority together under the broad cultural religious category (as Mus lims), with little attention to differences and conflicts within the category, and without re gard to their desires, dilemmas, and struggles to cohabit in peace. Thus, the association of Al-Qaeda violence with Islam, and the latter with scenes of veiled women walking in the streets of Amsterdam or Berlin, instanta neously conjure up the image of Muslims and Islam as Europe's cultural "Other." And this is happening at a time when Europeans seem to aspire to revive their troubled national identities in the aftermath of European inte gration and an accelerated globalization. Once again, Islam-or rather contradistinction with Islam, the idea that "we are different" has come to play that crucial role in forging such an identity. This is not new. The early modern Europe also built its identity partly in relation to Islam and the Ottoman Empire. However, then, Europe suffered from an "in feriority complex"-with the Christians anxi ety over Islamic wealth and might (Vitkus, 1999), whereas today it boasts on a superior ity fixation (as in the Dutch politician, Geert Wilders). In both times, anxiety seems to guide Europe's relations with Islam. References Balbus, Isaac. 1973. "The Concept of Interest in Pluralist and Marxist Analysis," in The Politics and Society Reader, edited by I. Katznelson, G. Adams, P. Brenner, and A. Wolfe. New York: David McKay Co. Bayat, Asef. 2007. Making Islam Democratic: So cial Movements and the Post-Islamist Turn. Pa lo Alto: Stanford University Press. Mamdani, Mahmood. 2004. Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror. New York: Pantheon. Viktus, Daniel. 1999. "Early Modern Orientalism: Representation of Islam in 16th and 17th Cen tury Europe," in Western Views of Islam in Me dieval and Early Modern Europe, edited by D. Blanks and M. Frassetto. New York: St. Martin's Press. Are Muslims Really That Special? HALDUN GULiALP Yyldyz Technical University, Istanbul hgulalp@superonUine.com In an interview with the Washington Post, only weeks before the invasion of Iraq, I de clared that "September 11 came as the turn ing point that sealed the end" of Islamism. Perhaps because of my undergraduate edu cation in economics, I was used to making ceteris paribus assumptions, but failed to mention it in the interview. My intention was to join the chorus of opposition that was al ready growing against the war by indicating that it was unnecessary and unjustified. One could say that my prediction about the end of Islamism failed, but I believe that the situa tion is more complex than that. In fact, there seem to be at least two lessons in it for soci ologists: one heartening, and the other dis heartening. The first is that predictions do not always hold in sociology, because our ideas direct our behavior. This may be found heartening because it is about the power of our theories: theorists may make a difference. The second, When Islam and Democracy Meet: Muslims in Europe and in the United States, by Jocelyne Cesari. New York, NY: Palgrave, 2006. 280pp. $24.95 paper. ISBN: 1403971463. The Islamic Challenge: Politics and Religion in Western Europe, by Jytte Klausen. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2005. 264pp. $34.95 cloth. ISBN: 0199289921. Islamic Modernism, Nationalism, and Fundamentalism: Episode and Discourse, by Mansoor Moaddel. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2005. 424pp. $24.00 paper. ISBN: 0226533336. however, is that our ideas may be wrong and may therefore mislead us. One might add that the more subtle and sophisticated our Contemporary Sociology 36, 6