Is Islam incompatible with multicultural democracy? Many people point to the fact that few Muslim societies are democratic and conclude that Islam must be inherently undemocratic. They point to Muslim rhetoric suffused with hatred of the West and deduce that Muslims cannot be good citizens of Western democracies.
Britain, with around 1.6 million Muslims in a population of 58.7 million, provides an excellent place to test these notions. Three-quarters of British Muslims come from the Indian subcontinent, mainly rural Pakistan and Bangladesh. This is important because some of their difficulties in settlement arise not from religion but from unfamiliarity with modern life.
ILLUSTRATION: MOUNTAIN PEOPLE
So far, Britain has seen only four Muslim riots, compared to about eight race-related riots by Afro-Caribbeans. One concerned Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses, the others were triggered by police insensitivity and white racist marches. With the qualified exception of the first, all riots were local, relatively minor, and lasted barely a day or two. So Britain's Muslims have presented no major problems of law and order.
But Muslims' presence in British society has presented other challenges. One is a "clash of practices," including demands for halal meat for Muslim schoolchildren, Muslim dress, prayer time, female circumcision, polygamy and arranged marriages. Female circumcision and polygamy are banned, and Muslims accept this.
Muslims also generally respect "Western values" such as equality, freedom of expression, tolerance, peaceful resolution of differences and respect for majority decisions. Indeed, equality among races is an important Muslim value and practice. Equality of the sexes poses the gravest difficulties -- particularly because Muslim girls in Britain increasingly assert it.
Similarly, after some theological debate, British Muslims have widely accepted that they owe unreserved loyalty to Britain. However there is some ambiguity about what they should do when the claims of the state clash with those of the umma (the worldwide community of Islam).
For example, Muslims objected to the 1991 war against Iraq, but did not mount public protests. The government urged the country to respect Muslims' "understandable sympathies for their fellow-religionists," and tensions were avoided. A small number of young Muslims later fought with the Taliban. But most British Muslims condemned them, insisting on loyalty to Britain. Most Muslims also approved when the police raided and confiscated weapons at the Finsbury Park mosque in London, whose imam had long preached hatred of the West and support for terrorists.
Moreover, Muslims eagerly participate in public affairs, voting at a rate not much different from the rest of the population. There are 150 local Muslim councilors and eight mayors, slightly fewer than other ethnic minorities, but not alarmingly so. There are four Muslims in the House of Lords and three in the House of Commons, more than for some other ethnic minorities.
Indeed, in formal and informal ways, Islam is increasingly interpreted in a manner that brings it closer to the central values of British democracy. A distinctively British brand of Islam is beginning to emerge, just as France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain are producing their own forms of Islam.
"British" Islam obviously clashes with some aspects of the Islam with which immigrants arrived. But religion does not operate in a vacuum. Its influence is mediated by many other factors. When Muslims find themselves living in democracies, they adjust. Political survival is one reason: when in a minority, the option of pressing for an Islamic state, with all its undemocratic potential is closed. Others welcome the opportunity in a democracy to pursue legitimate interests, and even to protest.
The main problem for Muslims is not democracy, but coping with a multicultural society. Muslims are convinced of the absolute superiority of Islam, which is reflected in the constant invocation and desperate desire to revive past glory, as well as a positive duty to convert followers of other religions. They may marry non-Muslims, but do not allow others to marry their women, and expect those marrying within Islam to convert to it.
This cannot be attributed to the current widespread feeling among Muslims that their identity is under threat. Even in the self-confident Ottoman Empire, where Jews and Christians enjoyed considerable tolerance, followers of these religions were second-class citizens. While free to convert to Islam, they were forbidden to convert Muslims or marry their women.
Muslim attitudes towards multiculturalism are consequently one-sided. They welcome it because it gives them the freedom to retain their religious identity and to familiarize others with their beliefs. But they resent it because it denies their superiority and exposes them and their children to other religions and secular cultures.
Islam and Europe have long shaped one another's cultural identity. Each has been the other's "other," and their sometimes friendly, sometimes hostile, relations have bonded them more deeply than either realizes.
But with the exception of Spain and parts of Eastern Europe, they have until very recently interacted at a distance and outside Europe's boundaries. They now need to find new ways of coexisting and cultivating civic amity. Britain's experience shows that there are strong reasons for optimism.
Bhikhu Parekh is centennial professor at the London School of Economics, a Labour Party member of the British House of Lords and president of the Academy of Learned Societies in Social Sciences. This column emerged from an independent working group named by European Commission President Romano Prodi and charged with identifying the long-term spiritual and cultural perspectives of the enlarged Europe.
Copyright: Project Syndicate/Institute for Human Sciences
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