Insight Turkey Ayhan Kaya

7/31/2019 Insight Turkey Ayhan Kaya

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47

A

young French-urkish veiled

woman testies that she success-

ully learned to play with her multiple identi-

ties: When I was a child I was eeling more

urkish although I had several French peers.As I became older my French identity has be-

come more visible in the public space. Lately

I have discovered another part o my iden-

tity, i.e., Islam. I have a triple identity now.

And the good thing is that I can live with all

those three, and I dont have to choose any o

them.1 Migration brings about new openings,

encounters, bridges, doors and windows, butit may also become an attractive orm o gov-

ernmentality to be employed by the conserva-

tive political elite. Migration has recently been

ramed as a source o ear and instability or

the nation-states in the West, though it was

rather a source o content and happiness or

both the receiving countries and the immi-

grants in the 1960s. What has changed in the

meantime? Why is this shi in the raming o

* Department o International Relations, stanbul Bilgi University,[email protected]

Individualization andInstitutionalization of Islam in

Europe in the Age of Securitization

AYHAN KAYA*

Tis article discusses a new social

and political phenomenon in Europe,which has become evident along

with the visibility o Islam in theEuropean public space. Revealing

the current social-political context

in Western Europe, which is mainlycharacterized by a growing dri osecuritization o Islam and migration,

this paper argues that there are twosimultaneously running processes

regarding the changing nature oEuro-Islam, which seem to are

antithetical: individualization oIslam vs. institutionalization o Islam.Drawing upon the fndings o the feld

research in Germany, France, Belgium

and the Netherlands, this articleshows that while the processes oglobalization seem to prompt younger

generations with Muslim backgroundto liberate themselves rom the

constraints o their patriarchalparental and community culture,

western states as well as ethno-cultural and religious brokers tend

to reiy, or reinorce, their existingcommunal and religious boundaries.

Tat is to say that the descendants omigrants seem to have been squeezed

between individualization andinstitutionalization o Islam.

ABSTRACT

Insight urkey Vol. 12 / No. 1 / 2010pp. 47-63

Articles


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AYHAN KAYA

48

migration? Several dierent reasons like

deindustrialization, rising productivity,unemployment, poverty and a neo-liber-

al political economy can be enumerated

to answer such questions. Tis work is an

attempt to answer these questions with a

particular reerence to a qualitative and

quantitative work that I conducted about

the Euro-urks living in Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands.2 Against

this background, the main emphasis o the article will be to address a contem-porary issue in Western Europe: the exposure o two antithetical developments,

which are the individualization and institutionalization o Islam in Europe.

Te Overall Socio-political Context: Te Securitization of Migration

During the 1960s, migration was a source o content. More recently, however,

migration has been ramed as a source o ear and instability or Western nation-

states. What has happened since the 1960s? Why has there been this shi in the

raming o migration? Reasons such as de-industrialization, rising productivity,unemployment, poverty and a neo-liberal political economy can be enumerated

in answer to such questions. One should not underestimate either the inuence

o enormous demographic changes, led by the dissolution o the Eastern bloc.

Te period starting in 1989 signaled the beginning o a new epoch that resulted

in massive migration ows o ethnic Germans, ethnic Hungarians, ethnic Rus-

sians and Russian Jews rom one place to another. Te post-Communist era has

also brought about a process o re-homogenization in Western nation-states like

Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands. Political instabilityand ethnic conicts in the ormer Eastern bloc (the USSR and the ormer Yugo-slavia) pushed some ethnic groups to emigrate to Western European countries

in which they could nd ethnic afnities. Te mobility o millions o people has

stimulated a number o nation-states such as Germany, Hungary, and Romania

to ethnicize their migration policies in a way that approved o the arrival o co-

ethnic immigrants, but disapproved o the status o existing immigrants. Ger-

many, or instance, was not suitably equipped to absorb the spontaneous arrival

o so manyAussiedlers (ethnic German immigrants coming rom the East) dueto the social-economic burden on the reunication o the two Germanies. Tisperiod o demographic change in Western Europe has occurred in parallel with

the rise o heterophobic discourses such as the clash o civilizations, culture wars

and Islamophobia, as well as with the reinorcement o restrictive migration poli-

One could argue that modern

states tend to extend the earo migrants and others bycategorizing, stigmatizing andcoupling migration togetherwith major problems


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Individualization and Institutionalization of Islam in Europe in the Age of Securitization

49

cies and territorial border security vis--

vis the nationals o countries outside theEuropean space.

Te present usage o the term secu-

rity goes beyond its conventional limits.

Security used to be dened in political/

military terms as the protection o a

states boundaries, its integrity and its

values against the dangers o a hostile in-

ternational arena.3 Nowadays, however,security concerns are not only about protecting states against ideological and mil-

itary threats; they are also related to issues such as migration, ethnic revival, reli-

gious revival (Islam), identity claims and sometimes supranational entities such as

the EU. One could argue that modern states tend to extend the ear o migrants

and others by categorizing, stigmatizing and coupling migration together with

major problems.4 Tis tendency is reinorced by the use o racist and xenophobic

terminology that dehumanizes migrants. One can see this racist tone in the term

inux, which is used to mean large numbers o migrants.

Te securitization o migration became a vital issue aer 9/11. Te security

discourse conceals the act that ethnic/religious/identity claims o migrants and

their reluctance to integrate actuallyresult rom existing structural problems opoverty, unemployment, discrimination, xenophobia, heterophobia, nationalism

and racism: they are not the reason or such problems. It seems to us and severalother researchers that states tend to employ the discourse o securitization as a

political technique that can integrate a society politically by staging a credible

existential threat in the orm o an internal, or even an external, enemy, an enemythat is created by security services (like the police and the army) by categorizing

migration together with drug trafcking, human trafcking, criminality and ter-

rorism.5 Tis is what Michel Foucault called governmentality.6

As mentioned above, security is no longer limited to the protection o national

boundaries. oday, the term security has a broader meaning than it had during

the Cold War era, when it was linked to military and ideological threats. Ten the

ocus was on the security o the nation-state as an entity, and security was denedin political/military terms as the protection o the boundaries and integrity o the

state and its values against the dangers o a hostile international arena.7 Nowadays,

security concerns not only relate to the protection o the state against military

threats, they relate to issues such as immigration, ethnic revival, religious revival

Ethnic and/or religious revivals,

which appear among somemigrant groups as a reaction

to poverty, unemployment,insecurity and institutionaldiscrimination, seem to be

decoded by the state as achallenge to societal security


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AYHAN KAYA

(Islam), identity claims or supranational entities like the EU. In other words, is-

sues become security issues through a process o social construction, namely se-curitization. As the main rationale o the security discourse seems to have shied

rom protecting the state to protecting society, so the protection o society against

any kind o evil has become the pillar o the security discourse in a way that has

popularized the term security in all spheres o lie. Immigration resulting rom

poverty and anti-democratic regimes in the countries o origin has become one

o the principal worries o Western countries. Immigration has been dened as a

threat, not to the survival o the state, but to societal security. Ethnic and/or reli-

gious revivals, which appear among some migrant groups as a reaction to poverty,unemployment, insecurity and institutional discrimination, seem to be decoded

by the state as a challenge to societal security, a challenge that must immediately

be stied. Tis research aims to reveal whether ethnic and religious revival should

be translated as the reason or continuing problems such as xenophobia, discrimi-nation and conict, or as the outcome o these problems.

Recent research on the securitization o migration8 rightully draws our at-

tention to the act that, at the ofcial level, modern state institutions address only

an insignicant correlation between undocumented migration and the problemso global poverty, debt, health, environment and unemployment ostered by the

neo-liberal economic model9 In this regard, one should underline that the true

nature o the contemporary global crisis actually derives rom the process o de-

industrialization or post-industrialization, which has turned the uneducated and

unqualied masses into the new wretched o the earth to use Frantz Fanons ter-

minology.10 Furthermore, William Walters eloquently reveals that nowhere in the

ofcial programs o regulating immigration do the complex histories o Fortress

Europes economic, geopolitical, colonial and post-colonial entanglements in theregions and borderlands that are now designated countries o transit and coun-

tries o origin appear.11 Instead, we are presented with an external orce o illegal

immigration, rooted in regional disorder, or which the EU is then positioned as

a benign ramework o protection and prevention

Te architects o EU policies regarding justice and home aairs described in

the Amsterdam reaty o 1997 have indeed contributed to a discourse o other-

ing. Reerring to Jacques Rancire and Slavoj Zizek, Walters states that EU lead-ers engage in a kind o ultra-politics, which rames anti-illegal immigration ac-

tivities as a battle between us and them, sometimes as a struggle to the death.12

Framing the issue like this puts it outside the space o dialogue and orecloses

the possibility o politics and citizenship. Te problem lies in the very nature o

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Recent debates in EU countries reveal that the European orm o secularism is not yet equipped toaccommodate Islam, which has recently become very visible in the public space.

Photo:AA,MustafaYaln

the EU, which has been becoming like a territorial state over the last 20 years. In

this regard, maps, which display the routes undertaken by illegal migrants to get

into the EU, have been employed as ideological tools in order to territorialize the

European space. Maps can also rame others as enemies. Tis is the most cunning

and radical version o ultra-politics. As Zizek denes it, this is an attempt to de-

politicize conict by way o bringing it to an extreme, via the direct militarization

o politics: the oreclosed political returns in the real, in the guise o the attempt

to resolve the deadlock o the political conict, by its alse radicalization, i.e. by

way o reormulating it as a war between Us and Tem, our Enemy, where there

is no common ground or symbolic conict.13

Individualization of Islam among Younger Generations

Tere has lately been a tendency among the younger generation o Muslim-

origin Euro-urks to regard religion as an intellectual and spiritual quest in a

way that distances them rom the inherited cultural practices o Muslim com-munities. Reerring particularly to young Belgian-Moroccans, Nadia Fadil re-

veals how youngsters o Moroccan origin undergo a process o emancipation

and how they rescue their individual aith rom the authority o their parental

culture.14 Te younger generations dierentiate between Islam and culture. Man-

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AYHAN KAYA

daville observes a similar tendency, especially among young Muslim women in

the diaspora:

More and more women seem to be taking Islam into their own hands. Tey are not

hesitating to question, criticize and even reject the Islam o their parents. Oen this

takes the orm o drawing distinctions between culture, understood as the oppressivetendencies which derive rom the parents ethno-social background, and religion, atrue Islam untainted by either culture or gender discrimination.15

Migrant women are likely to see Islam both as a progressive orce emancipat-

ing them rom their traditional roots, and as preventing them rom surrender-

ing to Western cultural orms. Jorgen Nielsen claims that Muslim women in the

diaspora no longer reer to dress codes, arranged marriages and gender roles as

symbols o Islam.16 Te emphasis seems to be shiing towards the ethical and

spiritual values o Islam. In her study on Norwegian-Pakistanis, Mette Anders-

son similarly reveals that young Pakistanis in the diaspora heavily criticize the

ways in which their parents used religion as a shield or cultural practices op-pressing women.17 Teir critique is directed against those among rst-generation

Pakistanis who take orced marriage and unequal conditions or men and women

to be religious prescriptions. Te youngsters see illiteracy as the main source

or indierence and the mingling o religion and cultural traditions.18 Andersson

also draws our attention to the act that women, rather than men, problematize

the relationship between culture and religion.

We used to learn the content o Islam rom our parents. Tey taught us how to pray,

how to ast, and how to read the Quran. We learned those things in practice without

knowing the very meaning o the verses and the rituals. Our parents did not know

them either. Only the Imams knew what the verses meant, because they could under-

stand Arabic, the language o the holy book. But now we no longer need our parents to

learn the religion. We have the internet, religious associations, and schools to inquire

about everything. I dont want anybody, or any institution like the mosque, to impose

on me anything about my aith. I am always surng the internet, and I send my writ-

ings to the relevant orums.19

Tese are the words o a young veiled Euro-urkish woman, who treats Islam as

a way o emancipation rom the repression o both parental culture and tradition-

al institutions. In doing so, youngsters make use o modern telecommunicationsprovided by the contemporary processes o globalisation. Te media and inor-

mation technologies have certainly played an important role in the emergence o a

new breed o Islamist intellectual whose activities represent a orm o hybridized,

counter-hegemonic globalisation rom below. Brecher et al. dene globalisation

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rom below as a constitutive entangle-

ment, which has become a characteristico modern diasporic networks.20 Te ex-

pansion o economic, cultural and po-

litical networks between Euro-urks and

urkey is one such example o this trend.

In the context o the diasporic condition,

globalisation rom below reers to the

enhancement o access o transnational

migrants and their descendants to those social, cultural, political and economic

mechanisms that enable them to transcend conditions imposed upon them by

transnational capitalism, which organizes them into a system o international and

hierarchical division o labor.

Te global circuitry o modern telecommunications also contributes to the

ormation o a digitalized umma within the Muslim diaspora, which is based onthe idea o a more homogeneous community o sentiments,21 shaped by a constantow o identical signs and messages travelling across cyberspace. A digitalized

umma (Muslim community) shaped by electronic capitalism tends to get engagedin various orms oijtihad(an Arabic word meaning interpretation o the Quran)because each individual dwells in a dierent social, political or cultural context

within the diaspora. While the signs and messages disseminated across the diaspo-

ra are rather more homogeneous, their impact on individual lives diers greatly.

Te signs and messages orm a more heterogeneous and individualized type o

umma. Tis kind oijtihad, built up by the media, has the potential to turn recipi-ents into a virtual alim (an Arabic word or intellectual) who can challenge the

authority o traditional religious scholars.22

As Arjun Appadurai rightly says, neworms o electronically mediated communication are beginning to create virtual

neighbourhoods, no longer bounded by territory, passports, taxes, elections, and

other conventional political diacritics.23 Tese new communities o sentiments areconstructed in cyberspace, a space that is oen occupied by modern diasporic

subjects. For instance, Belgian-Muslim-urks, or Belgian-Muslim-Kurds are, to a

certain extent, the constructions o the modern telecommunication circuitry.

Euro-Islam: Te Revival ofHonorin an Age of Structural Outsiderism

Euro-urks, and Euro-Muslims in general, alienated by the system and swept

into a destiny dominated by the capitalist West, no longer invent local utures.

What is dierent about them is that they remain tied to their traditional pasts,

religions and ethnicities. Re-making, or recovering, the past serves at least a dual

53

Religious resurgence is a

symptom o illnesses broughtabout by various structural

constraints such asunemployment, racism,

xenophobia, exclusion and,sometimes, assimilation


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AYHAN KAYA

purpose or the diasporic communities.

Firstly, it is a way o coping with the con-ditions o the present without being very

critical o the status quo. Secondly, it

helps to recuperate a sense o sel that is

not dependent on criteria handed down

by others. Te past is what diasporic sub-

jects can claim to be their own. Hence,

their growing afliation with Islam, cul-

ture, authenticity, ethnicity, nationalism and traditions provides Euro-urks or

Euro-Muslims with the opportunity o establishing solidarity networks, bulwarks

against the major clusters o modernity such as capitalism, industrialism, racism,

surveillance, egoism, loneliness, insecurity, structural outsiderism and militarism.

Accordingly, the Islamic revival emerges as a symptom, or an outcome, o certain

processes o structural outsiderism.

Islam is, by and large, considered and represented as a threat to the European

way o lie in the West. It is requently believed that Islamic undamentalism is

the source o current xenophobic, racist and violent attitudes. However, one othe main premises o this paper is that the religious resurgence is a symptom o

illnesses brought about by various structural constraints such as unemployment,

racism, xenophobia, exclusion and, sometimes, assimilation. I this is so, then in

order to tackle such constraints, a discourse on culture, identity, religion, ethnic-

ity, traditions and the past becomes essential or minorities in general and mi-

grant groups in particular. Tis is actually a orm o politics generated by outsider

groups. According to Alistair MacIntyre, there are two orms o politics: politicso those within andpolitics o those excluded.24 Tose within tend to employ legiti-mate political institutions (parliaments, political parties, the media) in pursuing

their goals, and those excludeduse culture, ethnicity, religion and tradition to pur-sue their aims. It should be noted here that MacIntyre does not place culture in

the private space; culture is rather inherently located in the public space although

there are many dierent types o cultures, which are not to be conated. Tus, the

quest or identity, authenticity and religiosity should not be reduced to an attempt

to essentialize the so-called purity. It is rather a orm o politics generated by sub-

ordinated subjects. Islam is no longer simply a religion, but also a counter hege-

monic global political movement, which prompts Muslims to stand up or justiceand against tyrannywhether in Palestine, Kosovo, Kashmir, Iraq, or Lebanon.

In an age o insecurity, poverty, exclusion, discrimination and violence, those

wretched o the earth become more engaged in the protection o their honor,

54

In an age o insecurity, poverty,

exclusion, discrimination andviolence, those wretched o theearth become more engaged inthe protection o their honor,which, they believe, is the onlything le


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which, they believe, is the only thing le. In understanding the growing signi-

cance o honor, Akbar S. Ahmed25

draws our attention to the collapse o what Mo-hammad Ibn Khaldun once called asabiyya, an Arabic word that reers to grouployalty, social cohesion or solidarity.26Asabiyya binds groups together througha common language, culture and code o behavior. Ahmed establishes a direct

negative correlation between asabiyya and the revival o honor. Te collapse oasabiyya on a global scale prompts Muslims to revitalize honor. He claims thatasabiyya is collapsing or the ollowing reasons:

massive urbanization, dramatic demographic changes, a population explosion, large

scale migrations to the West, the gap between rich and poor, the widespread corrup-tion and mismanagement o rulers, the rampant materialism coupled with the low

premium on education, the crisis o identity, and, perhaps, most signicantly new and

oen alien ideas and images, at once seductive and repellent, and instantly commu-

nicated rom the West, ideas and images which challenge traditional values and cus-

toms.27

Te collapse oasabiyya also implies or Muslims the breakdown oadl(justice)and ihsan (compassion and balance). Global disorder characterized by the lack o

asabiyya, adl, and ihsan seems to trigger the essentialization o honor by Muslims.Te rise o honor crimes in the Muslim context illustrates the way honor becomes

instrumentalized and essentialized. Te popularity o honor crimes among Euro-

Muslims has made it very common or some o the conservative political elite and

academics in the West to explain it as an indispensable element o Islam. However,

one should note that honor crimes are not unique to the Islamic culture: they are

also visible in the Judeo-Christian world. Honor crimes have rather been struc-

turally constrained. Te traumatic acts o migration, exclusion, and poverty by

uneducated subaltern migrant workers without work prepare a viable ground ordomestic violence, honor crimes and delinquency.

Here is the way an interviewee perceived honor among the urks and the way

he distances himsel rom that state o mind:

Tere are cultural dierences between the two societies in terms o the way they live.

I used to have a Belgian acquaintance. He was around 65 years old. He used to come

to work rom 15 km outside o Brussels. One day he was complaining. I asked Whats

up? Is there a problem? and he replied I have a daughter o 19 years old. She broughthome a guy two months ago. I thought he was angry at her because she had stayed

with the guy outside marriage. He said I am 65 years old and working. Now there is

one more plate on the table. He will exploit me too. Can you imagine? In our culture,

we would take it as an oence to our honor, wouldnt we? Imagine that a 19-year-old

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AYHAN KAYA

girl brought home a guy and wanted to stay together. How many athers could accept

this? Te nancial aspect is the last concern or a urk. But the main concern o theBelgian ather is money.28

Although women are not so visible in the public space, they have an essen-

tial role in the construction and protection o the community in the diaspora. A

womans honor, which has to be protected, seems to be a tacit cement that keeps

the community intact. Te dominant discourse o the community may be mostly

based on ethnicity, religiosity and nationalism, but the discourse o protecting the

honor o women cuts across all other discourses. Another remarkable strategy to

keep the community intact is the attitude o athers in preventing their daugh-ters rom marrying European men. In coee houses around Germany, Belgium,

France and the Netherlands, one oen hears comments such as How could a

ather look into the others aces? Parents still seem to be inuential in deciding

whom their children will marry. Although it seems to be primarily the ather who

decides on behal o his daughter, women also play an active role in taking the

decision to remain within the community boundaries. Te way children are raised

within their amilies puts pressure on them to be more inward looking in order

not to lose the comort provided or them by the community. Teir upbringingprevents them rom taking counter-hegemonic decisions, which may eventually

outlaw them rom within their community. A young woman reported her dis-

comort concerning marriage outside the community with a German: I we get

married to a German man, then we risk losing all our amily and relatives.

Women become even more isolated in their private space when they are mar-

ried. A womans role then becomes even more determined by the community: that

o being a mother and a decent woman. Women become truly private womenwhen they marry, a very dierent status rom the public women that describe

European women.29 Women become active agents in replicating the community

through complying with its customs, traditions and values. Tey do not even ques-

tion why they cannot go beyond the boundaries o the community. It is just not

possible. Despite all, however, the boundaries o the community are not so rigid

and there is always a way out. One might describe the masculine power o man ashard power, and the power o the habitus30 as sof power. Individuals usually have

the capacity to escape rom the restraints o both hard power and so power byusing theirugitive power.31 Fugitive power is elusive, mobile, shiy and slippery;it is used by individuals to reposition themselves against the power o strategies

and ideologies that operate at the social and communal level. Compared to men,

women in the community are much more resistant, diversied and elusive in their

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daily lie. Teir successul tactics provide them with spaces in which they can oc-

casionally detach themselves rom the restrictive power o communal strategiesand ideologies intertwined with the politics o honor.

Figure: How do you dene yoursel with the ollowing statements regarding your aith?

In surveys, 7.5% o German-urks, 10% o French-urks and 6.8% o Belgian-

urks dene themselves as quite religious, a similar pattern to urks in urkey;

89% o German-urks, 80% o French-urks and 84% o Belgian-urks are re-ported to be relatively aithul. However, 2.4% o German-urks, 10% o French-

urks and 5.8% o Belgian-urks seem to be either atheist or agnostic. Tese

gures contradict the stereotypical perception o Islam in the West, which im-

prisons Muslims in their alleged undamentalist habitats o meaning. Recently,

some Islamic-oriented movements, such as the Cojepiennes based in Strasbourgor some moderate o-springs oMilli Gr (National Vision) based in severalcities in Western Europe, have shown a determination to adapt the Western way

o lie with their own identities. Such modern interpretations o Islam prove thatIslam does not actually pose a threat to Western values; its main concern is ac-

tually to incorporate itsel into the mainstream. Te ndings o the Euro-urks

research indicate that several Euro-urks identiy themselves with hyphenated

(multiple) identities such as French-Muslim-urkish, German-Muslim-urkish,

or Dutch-Muslim-urkish. What is remarkable here is that political identity is

prior to religious and ethnic identities. Similarly, there is also something anew

generating among the young generations o Euro-Muslims, i.e. the individualiza-tion o religion.32

Institutionalization of Islam

As opposed to the individualization o Islam among the young generations

o Euro-Muslims, an antithetical process is taking place at the same time: the in-

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AYHAN KAYA

stitutionalization o Islam in Europe. Dierent initiatives have been taken so ar

in order to institutionalize Islam: the Superior Council o Muslims in Belgium(Excutides Musulmans de Belgique, 1995); the CORIF in France (Council orReection on Islam in France, 2003); national organizations in the Netherlands

charged with overseeing the building o mosques, the employment o imams, and

the availability ohalalmeat;33 and German Chancellor Angela Merkels attemptto bring Muslims together through the Integration Summit held in July 2006 and

the Islam Conerence held in September 2006. But these attempts to organize Eu-

ropean Islam have until now been relatively unsuccessul because o the national,

ethnic and doctrinal cleavages dividing the Muslim populations. One should alsoconsider the ways in which the construction o the EU could inuence the orm

and the content o Islamic expression. Te ortication o European borders with

neighboring countries aer the Schengen reaty (1985) reinorced the political

and cultural borders separating Europe rom its southern and eastern neighbors.

Te rise o the clash o civilizations discourse has also deepened the boundaries

between lie-worlds o Europeans and non-Europeans. At the same time, social

issues such as the controversy surrounding the Gul War, Sudan, Aghanistan and

Iran, the publication oTe Satanic Verses in Britain, the killing o the provoca-tive Dutch lm director Teo van Gogh in the Netherlands,34 the cartoon debate

in Denmark, and the provocative intervention o Pope Benedict XVI regarding

the brutal nature o the Prophet Mohammad have all brought European Muslims

together in protest, provoking hostile reactions rom Europeans who, or the rst

time, viewed Europes immigrant Muslims as a unied whole. All these events led

to both a questioning o the signicance o Muslims collective presence in Europe

and a radicalization o the European Islamic identity. One should also note that

recent debates in EU countries reveal that the European orm o secularism is not

yet equipped to accommodate Islam, which has recently become very visible inthe public space.

In his study comparing Britain, France, and Germany in the period o 1973-

2001, Koenig revealed that the public incorporation o Muslim immigrants ol-

lows specic patterns shaped by the legally institutionalized logic o traditional

religious politics that emerged rom historically specic trajectories o state-or-

mation and nation-building. A rst crucial actor is the degree o the institutional-

ization o the idea o the individual in each polity, as it aects the very denitiono religion. In corporatist polities, where rights are ascribed to corporate bodies,

religion is regarded as a ormal membership organization, which can directly be

incorporated into the states rationalizing project. In statist and liberal polities,

where the individual is the primary bearer o rights, religion is perceived as an in-

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dividual orientation organized in volun-

tary associations. Koenig points out thatit is not by accident that conicts about

Muslim claims or recognition in Ger-

many crystallize around legal questions

o organization, as evinced by the notori-

ous debate about the recognition o Islamic organizations as corporations o pub-

lic law, a problem that in Britain is o rather secondary relevance. In addition to

the degree o the institutionalization o the idea o the individual, there is a second

actor, which is the degree o stateness: In nation-states oriented toward a statist

or corporatist polity models, such as France and Germany, the incorporation o

Muslim minorities is co-ordinated by the organizational center o the state, while

in liberal polities, such as the UK, it rather takes the orm o civil negotiations,

mostly at the local level.35 Te third actor is the relationship o symbols o national

identity to the metanarratives o secularization: As universalistic symbols o na-

tional identity are connected to ideologies o secularism, as in the case o French

lacit, explicitly religious claims or recognition are conceived as transgressing thesymbolic boundary between the religious and the secular. Unlikely, polities where

nation-building was sustained by collective religious or conessional mobilization,as in Britain and Germany, are in principle open to religious symbols.36

Koenigs study is also conrmed by the three separate studies conducted by

Patrick R. Ireland, Jan Rath et al., and Soper and Fetzer. Patrick R. Ireland claimsthat the reason why migrant groups organize themselves politically along ethno-

cultural and religious lines is primarily because host-society institutions have

nurtured ethnicity through their policies and practices. Irelands theory takes mi-

grant individuals as active reexive subjects, who orm their political participa-

tion strategies in response to the regulations o host-society institutions. Ireland

also tends to explain the Islamic revival as an outcome o the ways in which host

society institutions treat immigrant communities o Muslim origin: just as they

have been getting the Islam they deserve, so too, are they reaping what they sow

in terms o their immigrants political mobilization.37 Rath et al. conclude in theirstudy that the institutionalization o Islam is to a ar greater degree determined

by the societies in which Muslims settle than by the Muslims themselves.38 Simi-

larly, Christopher Soper and Joel Fetzer have revealed that the pattern o church-

state relations is the major actor explaining dierences in the accommodation oMuslim religious practices in France, Germany, and Britain.39

Te institutionalization o Islam seems to contradict with the process o in-

dividualization o Islam. Institutions tend to have their own lie-worlds. When

Te institutionalization o

Islam seems to contradict withthe process o individualization

o Islam

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AYHAN KAYA

Islam, or any other religion, is institu-

tionalized, it is inclined to create its ownindustry, which is composed o a group

o religious brokers who act as a buer

between their own religious communi-

ties and the state. Institutions need their

own clientele to survive; the survival o,

say, Islamic institutions, depends on the

existence o aithul subjects who are

ready to remain within the boundarieso the religious community without hav-

ing the need to incorporate themselves in the mainstream society. Tis process is

what Ian Rath calls the reminorization o minorities,40 which results in migrants

not being perceived as ull members o the receiving society, and that they are

likely to be tolerated but not accepted into key positions.41

Conclusion

Te discussions about the Euro-urks have been heated in a time when urkeyhas been given a ull-membership perspective to the EU. Tese discussions have

also become embedded in the debates on 9/11, 7/7, Islam, the killing o anti-Isla-

mist political leader Pim Fortuyn and lm director Teo van Gogh in the Nether-

lands, the cartoon crisis in Denmark, and the Popes unortunate gae about the

Prophet Mohammad. In the meantime, Euro-Muslims in general, and Euro-urks

in particular, have had a wider visibility in the European public sphere in a way

that has uelled the Islamophobic sentiments. However, it seems that the real clash

is not between Christians and Muslims; it is rather between the so-called secular-ists and Muslims who become more visible in the public space. urkeys attempts

to become a ull member o the EU also triggers the Islamophobic sentiments o

the seculars in a way that reveals the act that enlightened European secularism

is not yet ready to accommodate Muslims in the public space. Secular political

gures like Valry Giscard dEstaing and Helmut Schmitt have lately become ob-

sessed with underlining the Christian roots o the European civilization at the

expense o risking the channels o dialogue between the EU and its immediate

neighbors in the south and southeast. Secularists have opted or a religious dis-course trying to make use o the deensive cultural and religious mood prevailing

in Europe. Te escalation o this conict between the autochthonous (local) andallochthonous (migrants in Dutch) populations has resulted in politicization omassive number o Euro-urks in countries like Germany, France, Belgium, and

urkeys attempts to become

a ull member o the EU alsotriggers the Islamophobicsentiments o the secularsin a way that reveals the actthat enlightened Europeansecularism is not yet ready toaccommodate Muslims in the

public space

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the Netherlands. Although the new political atmosphere seems to be strenuous

or the Euro-Muslims and Euro-urks, it has compelled them to express them-selves through legitimate political channels rather than through culture, ethnic-

ity and religion. However, one should not undermine the latest challenge in the

EU countries regarding the conservative ofcial attempts to institutionalize Islam,

which are likely to result with the re-minorization o ethnic minorities.

Endnotes

1. engl Kara, estimony, ELELE Conerence Lacse, French Senate, Paris, January 27,2007.

2. For detailed inormation on the research, see Ayhan Kaya and Ferhat Kentel, Euro-urks: ABridge, or a Breach, Between urkey and the European Union (Brussels: CEPS, 2005); and AyhanKaya and Ferhat Kentel, Belgian-urks: A Bridge, or a Breach, Between urkey and the EuropeanUnion (Brussels: King Baudouin Foundation, 2007). Te research included in-depth interviews andocus-group discussions, as well as 1,065 structured interviews with 90 questions and quota sam-

pling in Germany, 600 interviews in France, and 400 in Belgium. Te structured interviews wereheld in Germany and France in December 2003 and January 2004, the ones in Belgium in 2007 win-ter. Te research on the Dutch-urks, which was conducted in 2007 winter, consists o only qualita-

tive research techniques. See Ayhan Kaya, Islam, Migration and Integration: Te Age o Securitization(London: Palgrave, 2009).

3. Roxanne L. Doty, Immigration and the Politics o Security, Security Studies, Vol.8, No. 2-3(2000), p.93.

4. Doty, Immigration and the Politics o Security: 73; and Je Huysmans, Te Politics o Insecu-rity(London: Routledge, 2006).

5. Huysmans, Politics o Insecurity.

6. Michel Foucault, Governmentality, Ideology and Consciousness, No.6 (1979), pp. 5-21.

7. Doty, Immigration and the Politics o Security, p.73.

8. See Barry Buzan, Ole Wver and Jaap de Wilde, Security: a New Framework or Analysis(Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1998); Saskia Sassen, A Universal Harm: Making Criminals o Migrants,

OpenDemocracy, August 20, 2003, http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article-10-96-1444.jsp# ;Huysmans, Te Politics o Insecurity; and Frank Dvell, Crossing the Fringes o Europe: ran-

sit Migration in the EUs Neighbourhood, Centre on Migration, Policy and Society Working Paper,No.33 (2006).

9. Sassen, A Universal Harm.

10. Frantz Fanon, Te Wretched o the Earth (New York: Grove Press, 2005).

11. William Walters, Security, erritory, Metagovernance: Critical Notes on Antiillegal Immi-gration Programmes in the European Union, Paper, presented at Istanbul Bilgi University, Decem-ber 7, 2006.

12. Walters, Security, erritory, Metagovernance.

13. Slavoj Zizek, For a leist appropriation o the European legacy,Journal o Political Ideolo-gies, Vol. 3, No.1(February 1998), pp. 63-78.

14. Nadia Fadil, Te political mobilization o Muslim minorities in the West: a gender (un)

riendly project? Joseph Suad (ed.), Encyclopedia o Women and Islamic Cultures. Vol. 2 (Leiden:Brill, 2005), pp. 293-295.

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AYHAN KAYA

15. Peter Mandaville, ransnational Muslim Politics: Reimagining the Umma (London: Rout-ledge, 2001), p.141.

16. Jorgen Nielsen, Muslims in Britain: Searching or an Identity? New Community, Vol. 13,No. 3 (Spring 1987), p.392.

17. Mette Andersson, Ethnic Entrepreneurs: Identity Politics among Pakistani Students, H. G.

Scakkan and Y. G. Lithman (eds.), What Happens When a Society is Diverse: Exploring Multidimen-sional Identities (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2006), pp. 44-48.

18. Andersson, Ethnic Entrepreneurs: Identity Politics among Pakistani Students, p. 45.

19. Kaya, Islam, Migration and Integration, p.190.Some o these popular orums include http://www.islamisohbet.net; http://www.nurluyuz.com; http://www.islamiweb.net; http://toplist.ihya.org;

http://www.islamilist.com, http://www.islamisanat.net

20. John Brecher, Brown Childs and Jill Cutler, Global Visions: Beyond the New World Order(Boston: South End Press, 1993).

21. Arjun Appadurai,Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions o Globalisation (Minneapolis,MN: University o Minnesota Press, 1996).

22. Mandaville, ransnational Muslim Politics: Reimagining the Umma, p.160.

23. Appadurai,Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions o Globalisation,p.95.

24. Alistair MacIntyre,Against the Sel-Images o the Age: Essays on Ideology (New York: SchokenBooks, 1971).

25. Akbar S. Ahmed, Islam under Siege: Living Dangerously in a Post-Honor World(Cambridge,

U.K.: Polity Press, 2003).26. Mohammad Ibn Khaldun, Te Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, N.J. Dawood, ed.,

Franz Rosenthal, trans. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969).

27. Ahmed, Islam under Siege, p.81.

28. Kaya, Islam, Migration and Integration, p.179.

29. Te dierence between private women and public women has been very successully drawn

by Claire E. Alexander. She used this classication in mapping out the modes o courtship o black

male Londoners. See Claire E. Alexander, The Art o Being Black: Te Creation o Black British YouthIdentities. Oxord: Clarendon Press, 1996), pp. 157-186.

30. Te term habitus is coined by Pierre Bourdieu (1984) to reer to a system o durable, trans-posable dispositions which unction as the generative basis o structured practices. See Pierre Bour-

dieu, Distinction (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984).

31. Te concept o ugitive power is used by Zygmunt Bauman. Te notion o ugitive power

describes the modes o democratic power operating beyond the reach o hard power (guns and

laws) and so power (norms, customs, culture industry, ideology). See, Zygmunt Bauman, LiquidModernity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000).

32. Kaya and Kentel, Euro-urks; and Kaya and Kentel, Belgian-urks.

33. Jocelyne Cesari, Muslim Minorities in Europe: Te Silent Revolution, John Esposito and

Franois Burgat (eds.), Modernizing Islam: Religion in the Public Sphere in the Middle East and in

Europe(Rutgers University Press, 2003), pp. 251-269.

34. Ian Buruma, Murder in Amsterdam: Death o Teo van Gogh and the Limits o olerance(London: Atlantic Books, 2007).

35. Matthias Koenig, Te public incorporation o Muslim migrants in Western Europe --a

comparative perspective, In Religion and diversity in international ocus: Research and policy issues,

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chair Paul Bradamat, John Biles, and m Humera Ibrahim. 8th International Metropolis Coneder-

ence, Vienna (2003).

36. Aristide R. Zolberg, Te Democratic Management o Cultural Dierences: Building Inclu-

sive Societies in Western Europe and North America, Occasional Paper17, United Nations Devel-opment Ofce, Human Development Report Ofce (2004).

37. Patrick R. Ireland, Reaping What Tey Sow: Institutions and Immigrant Political Participa-

tion in Western Europe, R. Koopmans and P. Statham (eds.), Challenging Immigration and EthnicRelations Politics (Oxord: Oxord University Press, 2000), p.269.

38. Jan Rath, Te Ideological Representation o Migrant Workers in Europe: A Matter o Ra-

cialisation?, J. Solomos and J. Wrench (eds.), Racism and Migration in Western Europe (Oxord:Berg Publishers, 1993), p.96.

39. Christopher Soper and Joel S. Fetzer, Explaining the accommodation o Muslim religiouspractices in France, Britain, and Germany, French Politics 1 (2003), pp.39-59.

40. Rath, Te Ideological Representation o Migrant Workers in Europe.

41. Pontus Odmalm,Migration Policies and Political Participation: Inclusion or Intrusion in West-ern Europe?(Hampshire: Palgrave MacMillan, 2005).

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