[update by nadezhda] Several months ago, MCMasterChef shared with us a paper he wrote during his final semester at Boston University. The paper, which is an overview of the history and challenges facing Europe and European Muslim communities, has unfortunately become all too relevant to debates in the wake of the London bombings.

It seemed to me a reprise of the Chef's paper is in order. First, it's a good review of recent writings by some of the more thoughtful scholars and commentators working on the topic of Islam in Europe. The paper is also a useful corrective for some of the more sweeping claims about "Europe" -- the Chef highlights important differences among European countries, especially Britain and France, in the distinctive histories and demographics of their Muslim populations, and consequently some major differences among countries in the issues each faces. He also distinguishes among a variety of strategies European countries have adopted over the years. Finally, and especially important in light of the London bombings, the Chef doesn't restrict himself to the heated debates on the politics of immigration. He stresses the problems being presented by failure to integrate a second and third generation and the attendant radicalization of many young Muslims who are European-born citizens.

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[originally posted May 16 2005]
Clash of Identities
Integration, Islamism, and the Question of Europe’s Muslims

Historian and Princeton scholar Bernard Lewis provoked an outcry recently when he suggested in a July 2004 interview with the German paper Die Welt that Europe will become a part of the Muslim world by the end of the 21st century. Citing demographic and immigration trends, Lewis claimed that Muslims would comprise a majority of Europe’s population by 2100, resulting in its becoming “part of the Arab West or the Maghreb” (Vinocur). Lewis is not the only one making such claims: Bat Ye’or, an Egyptian-born British writer living in Switzerland, has been embraced by conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic for her coinage of the term “Eurabia” to describe the Islamization of Old Europe. A menacing fusion of two civilizations deemed hostile towards the United States, Ye’or’s Eurabia is “fundamentally anti-Christian, anti-Western, anti-American, and antisemitic”, and its development ultimately entails the subordination of Europe to the status of “a cultural and political appendage of the Arab/Muslim world” (Ye’or). Many American conservatives have endorsed the idea, interpreting the tense cross-Atlantic relations of the past several years as the outgrowth of European impotence in the face of the “Islamic challenge”. Lewis echoes this analysis in his comments, suggesting that the European Union “could rename itself the community of envy”, and that European-Muslim sympathies can be explained by their mutual jealousy of American strength (Vinocur).

Not surprisingly, these comments have been provocative in Europe, where right-wing politicians and parties across the Continent have seized upon the perceived threat to their identities, advocating stricter immigration controls and other measures in an effort to limit the influence of European Muslims. The 9/11 attacks and, to an even greater extent, the Madrid bombings of March 2004 and the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh half a year later, have further polarized the debate. The presence of a cell of 9/11 operatives led by Egyptian engineering student Mohammed Atta in Hamburg, Germany, raised fears that radical jihadists were using Europe as a staging ground for their violent attacks abroad, but the Madrid bombings and the Van Gogh murder heightened those fears further by making it clear that Europe itself could be a target. Differentiating between the religion of Islam, political Islamism, and its violent jihadi offshoots is extremely difficult. The marginalized economic and social status of Europe’s Muslim population; colonial legacies of racism and communalist strategies for dealing with minority groups; and the outright resistance by many European Muslims to the process of cultural assimilation does not make dispassionate consideration of European-Muslim relations any easier.

This paper attempts to examine those relations and trace their development, from the arrival of large groups of Muslim immigrants following World War II to the spread of political Islamism through those communities in the 1970s to the current tensions born out of 9/11 and other recent attacks by terrorists proclaiming an Islamic jihad against the West. Contrary to — or perhaps partly in reaction to — Ye’or and Lewis’ assertions, political bifurcation and division, not convergence, appears to best summarize the relationship between European Muslim subcommunities and the larger societies they inhabit.

As Timothy Savage carefully admonishes, it is worth remembering that

To talk of a single Muslim community in Europe ... is misleading. Even within individual countries, ethnic diversity, sectarian differences, cleavages within communities arising from sociopolitical and generational splits, and the nonhierarchical nature of Islam itself mean that Europe’s Muslims will be more divided than united for decades to come. Like European Christians and Jews, European Muslims are not a monolithic group.

With this caveat in mind, some level of generalization must necessarily take place in order to study the experience of Muslims within the unique context of Europe. This paper focuses generally on Muslims in Western Europe (which skews the issue by omitting discussion of the historical Muslim presence in Southeastern Europe and the Balkans), and most particularly in the United Kingdom and France. Broadly speaking, their experience has been one of social marginalization. Full blame for this situation can be ascribed to neither group entirely. While the native European population’s reaction to the growing number of Muslims living next door can hardly be described as welcoming, influential theories of Islamist communalism that emphasize social and political isolation from the corrupting influence of the kuffr (infidels) have further set back the integration process. Attempts at reconciliation will require an understanding of the historical and political factors that have produced the current standoff, but the multiple layers of separation between native Europeans and their Muslim counterparts and the aggravating factor of jihadi terrorism make prospects of future rapprochement daunting.
more below the fold   more »

Awkward responses from the US, including at a State Dep't press briefing, re Musharraf's decision to retain his military position along with his presidential duties. From the view of democratic symbolism, certainly not a very positive step, and many are understandably suspicious. The following comment from an Outlook India Online recent thread is not atypical.

Musharraf, like Zia and other khakis who ruled Pakistan; is no better than any other tin pot dictator. He has perfecetd the art of attire according to the occassion. His military dress with all those "tamgas" when talking to Pkaistani public, and hand crafted suits -when abroad, makes for a topic in itself. This man can never be trusted.

Our friends at The Acorn put the matter a bit more elegantly in commenting on Dan Darling's recent Winds of Change.NET report on a conference he attended on Al Qaeda .

Dan does not cover Musharraf’s dealings with Pakistan’s jihadi outfits in detail — if he did, he would have found out that the jihadi groups are just one of the variables Musharraf controls to stay in power. In this context, Musharraf is not actually trying to distinguish between good and bad jihadis (for that distinction is invalid) but manoeuvering to do the barest minimum to keep that other variable (United States) from knocking him down. Pakistan’s military establishment has effective control over all al-Qaeda related jihadi groups as well as on their spiritual leaders, patrons and mentors.

The Waziristan operation was a wild-goose chase — the tribesmen did support al-Qaeda and bin Laden, but only slightly more passionately than millions of their compatriots. The most dangerous jihadi leaders, those who can shed the most light on al-Qaeda and its global operations, remain in Pakistan, free to go about their business as long as they keep their head down.

Osama bin Laden is Musharraf’s golden egg laying gander (to invoke the avian reference again), and the General knows all about that fable. As for those jihadi groups, they cannot even hope to subvert the Pakistani state. Musharraf is far more secure and is in far greater control of the situation that he would like the United States to believe.

And then there's the Pakistani domestic opposition to Musarraf. The circus of Benazir Bhutto's husband's release, rearrest and re-release over the past two days has underlined how tricky the "reconciliation process" may be. The rearrest followed Musharraf's announcement about going back on his promise to relinquish his military leadership post on December 31, which flies in the face of the position Bhutto's group has vigorously supported.

Zardari's re-arrest appeared to dim hopes of reconciliation between former Prime Minister Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party and Musharraf, a key ally of Washington in the war on terror.

However, some analysts said it might have been orchestrated by figures in the military government worried about losing influence should the reconciliation process move forward, rather than by Musharraf himself.

"It's to do with local ambitions and local politics," said newspaper editor and political commentator Najam Sethi. "I don't think Musharraf had a hand in that."

Bhutto herself appears to have taken a rather low-key and non-confrontational approach to the goings-on regarding her husband and re-emphasized the need for dialogue with Musharraf to achieve sustainable reconciliation.

Islamist opposition leaders, on the other hand, have called for nation-wide protests on January 1. From the FT and Reuters:

“Musharraf has become a security risk for the country,” said Qazi Hussain Ahmed, leader of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal ( MMA), the coalition of Islamic parties, speaking before a crowd of about 5,000 supporters who braved heavy rain to attend a protest gathering in Rawalpindi, a suburb of Islamabad. “The military dictatorship is the root of all our evils.”

Mr Ahmed announced a nationwide “black day” on January 1, when a series of protest meetings would be held in different cities. MMA officials said the coalition then planned to hold more frequent protests. Opinion was divided over how big a threat yesterday's announcement was to Gen Musharraf[...]

A focus on Musharraf's presidential role, however, while certainly merited, fails to look at the other side of Musharraf's equation. Syed Saleem Shahzad, bureau chief for AsiaTimesOnline, looks at what's going on within the Pakistani army. His report suggests why Musharraf believes he must retain titular as well as de facto control of the "only organized institution" in Pakistan -- and it's not just to ensure his personal safety from further assassination attempts. Shahzad may share The Acorn's view that Musharraf has more control over things than is conventional wisdom, but it's a control that remains vulnerable and will take quite a bit more time and initiatives by Musharraf to consolidate.

Musharraf has forced Pakistan's military into an abrupt and wrenching U-turn. If Pakistan is to modernize and moderate its internal politics, and become less of a disruptive force externally, remaking Pakistian's military certainly must be at the top of the list of critical tasks. And let's be realistic about the process. It's going to be difficult and often violent. If the military in Turkey was the, frequently brutal, force for secularization and internal modernization, Pakistan's military has been built for leadership in "Muslim renaissance and pan-Islamism" as part of a strategy of "political hegemony" in South-Central Asia.

Shahzad sees it as a matter of "Purging Pakistan's jihadi legacy:"   more »

[UPDATE 11-19-04] For a very interesting review of Marc Sageman's book, as well as of a more scholarly monograph on Afghan-Pakistani terror links by Mariam Abou Zahad and Olivier Roy, see Steve Coll's piece from Washington Post Book World, August 2004.

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[UPDATE 11-20-04] A fascinating look at the radicalizing process in French jails for the growing population of Muslim prisoners in this article from NYT earlier this month by Craig Smith.

From the standpoint of growing self-critiques of French failure to integrate its Muslim population, particularly following the recent murder of the Dutch artist, the article is a searing indictment. It also is suggestive of why concerns about the effects of high US incarceration rates for low-level criminality should not be dismissed lightly. It further underlines some of the observations above about the Salvadoran deportees who have found their way into Mara Salvatrucha, etc.

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A couple of months ago, Bondra pointed out for us the potential for disaster lurking in the growth of Central American gangs and the increasing indications of some linkages with Middle Eastern terrorism and Al Qaeda.

The expansion of the geographic zone of attention is part of the broader recognition that the nature of "the Al Qaeda threat" is continually morphing. As Peter Bergen argues, it is not simply an organization anymore but is also a movement; that those it inspires are as or more likely to come from Europe as from majority-Muslim countries; and the means, methods and networks used to harm the US and "the West" more broadly are likely to be far more varied than what we've come to think of as the "classic" Al Qaeda modus operandi.

Of particular concern in the Western Hemisphere is El Salvador's Mara Salvatrucha. The LA Times' Kevin Silverstein has a new piece focusing on the domestic problems for El Salvador presented by the gangs, their links to the prison population in the US, especially California, and measures being taken by El Salvador to crack down on the gangs.

Government officials, including Deputy Citizens' Security Minister Rodrigo Avila, blame the violence at least in part on the deportation of nearly 12,000 Salvadorans with criminal records from the United States since 1998. Many are prison-hardened former gang members in Los Angeles and other U.S. cities who were sent back here as illegal immigrants.

"The deportations are at the core of the problem," Avila said. "Gangs here now copy the whole L.A. gang culture, the way they talk, the clothes they wear and the absolute ruthlessness."

Many deportees simply join their counterpart gangs here upon arrival, often gaining leadership roles because they are generally the most violent in the ranks, National Civil Police Chief Ricardo Menesses said in an interview.
[...]
The brutality of the gangs' crimes is increasingly horrific. [...]In September, M-18 members attacked a teenage girl in San Salvador, stabbing her in the neck and abdomen before beheading her, police said. Gang rivalries were at the root of the killing of a 16-year-old mother here last year. Gang members also killed and dismembered her 5-month-old daughter.

A number of organizatons have protested the heavy-handed tactics being used as ultimately counter-productive, and their calls for a different approach seem to have had at least a modest effect. Indiscriminate roundups had earlier resulted in all but a small percent of those brought in by the authorities actually being arrested and charged with criminal activity. More recently, the government's operations seem to be better targeted and, they claim, producing results in reduced homicides and fewer "no go" areas. And the general Salvadoran public is supportive of most anything that will limit the impact of the gangs on their lives.


The most troubling part of the story, from my view, is the dimension of alienation described, and the role of the gangs in offerng an identity to deracinated young men. They are certainly of quite a different class in terms of family income, education and social status from the alienated young Muslim migrants described by Marc Sageman (Understanding Terror Networks) as the primary energy source for Al Qaeda-type groups in Europe. But there are some unfortunate similarities as well, including the strong group identity that appears to "justify" incomprehensible levels of violence against "enemies" of the group.    more »

With the positioning of Hill committees and party caucuses and mobilizing of interest groups, all circling over the still breathing Chief Justice Rehnquist on Sunday talk shows and op-ed pages, one theme has started to emerge. Maybe the next Chief Justice should come not from among the current members of SCOTUS . The discussion seems to be increasingly couched in high-minded terms of commitment to constitutional principles rather than the "litmus tests" of Roe v Wade or other hot button cases. But the dearth of credible candidates has been noteworthy.

Now comes before us a candidate of deep conviction and commitment to principles upon which our Constitution was based:

There are no adequate grounds for abolishing or suspending the right not to be imprisoned without trial, which all inhabitants of this country have enjoyed for more than three centuries.

Even more to the point in this age of sound bites and posturing, someone with a bit of attitude, who says "bring 'em on,"(pdf) though in rather more Churchillian strains.

This is a nation which has been tested in adversity, which has survived physical destruction and catastrophic loss of life. I do not underestimate the ability of fanatical groups of terrorists to kill and destroy, but they do not threaten the life of the nation. Whether we would survive Hitler hung in the balance, but there is no doubt that we shall survive Al-Qaeda. The Spanish people have not said that what happened in Madrid, hideous crime as it was, threatened the life of their nation. Their legendary pride would not allow it. Terrorist violence, serious as it is, does not threaten our institutions of government or our existence as a civil community….

[S]uch a power in any form is not compatible with our constitution. The real threat to the life of the nation, in the sense of a people living in accordance with its traditional laws and political values, comes not from terrorism but from laws such as these. That is the true measure of what terrorism may achieve. It is for Parliament to decide whether to give the terrorists such a victory.

Thanks to Crooked Timber for the link to the opinion.

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[UPDATE] Speaking of Crooked Timber, there's an interesting and sometimes heated discussion going on there about the discovery that CT, like much of the academic and policy-related blogosphere, displays a marked gender imbalance in numbers, if not in quality. This is in rather stark contrast to the finding in a survey earlier this year that females account for a bit more than half of authors of all blogs -- at least using "blog" in its widest sense as including the large number of strictly "family and friends" blogs.

Since I've spent my entire professional life being in situations where I was the one woman out of groups of anywhere between five and twenty, I have to admit I hadn't really noticed the pattern, just found it "normal." In fact, I probably would have been more likely to have noticed the gender breakdown only if there had been a substantially higher percentage of women authors on CT. Probably worth a bit more thought.

In the meantime, Ann Bartow at Sivacracy.net (home of Siva Vaidhyanathan, BTW author of The Anarchist in the Library re IP and copyright issues) wonders "could 'Crooked Timber' be one of those double entendres?" Ouch.

[UPDATE] The conference was terrific -- very rich with observations and fasinating anecdotes. And quite a collection of speakers. There was no "wrap-up" -- either of the individual panels or the day as a whole. I'm working through my notes and trying to digest it. Hope to have a few broad comments pulled together soon. In the meantime, CSPAN is showing various panels throughout the weekend. And for the whole show, the CSPAN site has it broken into two parts. This is the link to their archives.

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On CSPAN-2 all day today, a conference on Al Qaeda, sponsored by NYU's Center on Law and Security and New America Foundation. Here's Steve Clemons' description of the conference -- they've got everybody who's anybody in the US on the topic. I'll be blogging some of this, trying to catch some of the more interesting observations.

[UPDATE 10:30PM EST 11-30-04] John Robb has translated the Afghan terror/drug conundrum into his "Global Guerrillas"-speak.

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From AdamSmithee, a first-rate source of interesting observations on development economics:

Moral Conundrum

Afghanistan has managed to drag a fair number of people out of absolute poverty in the past two years, with some effect on a range of health indicators. One huge reason is a rebounding opium crop, which may have accounted for as much as 60% of Afghanistan's economic output in 2003. As Brad DeLong points out, if you don't buy Third World products, their makers just have to go off and do something less rewarding. In the case of Afghanistan, that's likely to throw people back into absolute poverty, and that in turn means higher mortality. Heroin addiction is terrible. But death is surely worse. Given that, how hard should we pursuing opium growers in the country?

Well it may not be how we ought to be proceeding, but it seems the way we'll claim we're proceeding is to fight the "war on drugs" as the great scourage of a free and democratic Afghanistan. Via the FT, from a press conference Nov 18 2004:

Britain, the lead nation in the anti-narcotics drive in Afghanistan, admitted that there was a risk of the opium boom re-creating the conditions that the “war against terror” was supposed to eliminate.

Bill Rammell, the British foreign office minister responsible, said Afghanistan was a “narco-economy” and that the west needed to take urgent action.

“We have always held the view that if you have a narco-economy, those are the very conditions in which terrorism breeds,” he told a press conference in Brussels.

On Wednesday the US announced an $800m plan to fight Afghanistan's ballooning opium industry a big increase in spending that reflects growing concern about the threat of the drugs trade to the fragile country.

But the UN report made it clear that such a move could further destabilise the country.

The UN's drugs and crime office suggested that the lucrative poppy crop is one of the few things keeping the lawless country from falling further into anarchy and poverty.

“Narcotics are the main engine of economic growth and the strongest bond between previously quarrelsome people,” it said. The crop is now grown in all 32 Afghan provinces.

Afghanistan's opium economy is put at $2.8bn, producing 87 per cent of the world's total supply.

Now don't get me wrong, and I'm sure we're dealing with different time periods here, but $800 million in anti-drug trade efforts is almost one-third of the drug contribution to GDP. Maybe a simple set of cash transfers would do more to get some other economic activity going than trying to stamp out 60% of the economy?

Maybe it's not such a bad idea after all that the next Secretary of State is an old Kremlinoligist. November has been an active month for Russia-watching, some good news, some not so good news.

Main areas of interest in this clippings collection:

1. A second term for President Bush -- views from Moscow
2. Black Gold - Russia has more... and then some
3. The evolving structure of Russia's political economy, and the dilemma of low growth and investment outside the energy sector
4. The CIS and the Near-Abroad -- Russia's posture in its sphere of influence, and the West's responses
5. NATO -- areas of collaboration and friction
6. Nuclear weapons and treaties
7. Chechnya

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Matthew Yglesias' recent post, A Different Kind of Hack Gap, which praktike pointed to in Checking In, is well worth highlighting further, not just for his post but for the comment thread.

First his post, which has a good collection of links to some thoughtful pieces on alternatives to the Bush approach to combatting terrorism.

I've recommended it before, but now that they're advertising with me, let me recommend once again The Century Foundation's report Defeating The Jihadists. ... Let me also recommend Winning The War On Terror from the minority staff of the House Select Committee on Homeland Security along with the HSC minority staff's other reports. There's also good stuff on the New American Strategies website, and in the DLC's Progressive Internationalism document. I also like the Truman Project from Oxblog's better half (quarter?) Rachel Belton.

People out there are thinking and writing about this stuff, but it's not hitting the radar screen, even of Democrats who are political junkies.   more »

This started as a post about religious fundamentalism and shifted into something else. I'll come back to the fundamentalism stuff in a different post when I get the chance, but since I'm celebrating Veteran's Day with marathon paper-writing (like Trickster the past week has been extremely busy for me on the school and Habitat fronts, hence the skimming and lurking on my part) it may have to wait a while. In any case, here's the something else part:

Praktike has just recently registered the domain Liberals Against Terrorism, in what I think is probably a long-overdue step. He says he's not sure what to do with it yet, though I suspect he has something in mind... but I'll toss in my idea on the subject anyhow.

The fact that "liberals" broadly speaking, spend less of their time commenting on the serious threats that radical fundamentalism poses to the secular, pluralistic liberal society that we cherish — as seen in the murder of the Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh for his controversial statements on Islam's treatment of women, among other offenses — than we do the many failings of the Bush administration's attempts at tackling this threat has in effect ceded the initiative in the debate. Rather than being the first ones to say "this is awful" and explain why from the liberal perspective, we end up being the ones adding "yes, but.." This isn't good from a political standpoint and probably not for our sense of perspective either.

As much as I don't like to admit it, there are members of the political left (and a few of them are even Democrats) who really do consider the U.S. a bigger threat to world peace than what they see as the comparatively minor threat of terrorism. I do think they are a minority within the Democratic community, but that the relative silence of the middle -- not at all helped by a media that rewards sensationalism over substance -- has allowed them a larger share of our collective voice than they deserve. This colors the rest of us in a negative light.    more »

But I thought we weren't supposed to do that ...