By Dr Mohamed Kirat
Various international news media outlets recently reported demonstrations in major European cities denouncing the rapid spread of Islam and demanding the departure of Muslims because they pose a threat to the safety and security of European citizens. These demonstrations, of course, were preceded by political posturing by the European nations themselves whether it’s to build mosques or prevent the niqab.
Hostility to Islam by political parties and politicians was also seen on several occasions. In Germany, for example, there have been scores of anti-Islamic movements in recent years. They usually begin by rejecting the building of a mosque and then evolve into acts of violence, clashes, and attacks on individuals and the burning of places of faith and prayer.
Islamophobia has, in recent years, become a phenomenon that threatens the status of Arab and Muslim minorities in Western countries. It also raises the problem of the relationship between the majority and the minority in democratic systems.
Islam is growing and spreading day-after-day to be the religion of the future in Britain, France and several European countries. The number of Muslims in the world increased by 35pc during the last twenty years reaching 1.6 billion in 2010. It is expected to exceed 2.2 billion in 2030. Projections indicate that the number of Muslims in the world in 2030 will be 26.4pc of the world population.
Despite the attacks, threats and intimidations against Islam and Muslims, Islam has always been expanding and proliferating, regardless of the accusations against Muslims and despite linking Islam with terror, crimes and barbarism.
The number of Muslims in Europe is on the rise. Netherlands, a country perceived to be most against Islam in Europe, has seen the conversion of 13,000 people to Islam during the past 26 years. Five hundred individuals embrace the religion every year in Holland. Islamophobia in Germany and the threat of Nazi racists left positive results in favour of Islam as the number of converts to Islam in Germany since 1953, reached 43,000. The number of adherents to Islam in Britain in the last ten years has risen two-fold, indicating that it amounted to 100,000 people, and that the total Muslims in Britain amounted to 2.7 million. Estimates suggest that the number of Muslims in Britain will double in 2030 to reach 5.6 million.
France, which is one of the secular states that does not grant Muslims freedoms, and with laws that targeted the niqab and hijab, saw the most pressure on Muslims from Islamophobia.
Despite these pressures, France, like other European countries has failed to put an end to the spread of Islam. There are 4,000 people converting to Islam every year in France, bringing the number of Muslims in France to 5 million. In 1990, there were 109,000 Muslims in Denmark; the number reached 226,000 in 2010. Spain, Ukraine and Poland have also experienced a rise in the number of Muslim immigrants, and adherents to Islam. Scandinavian countries experienced as well an increase in attacks against Muslims in recent years.
Paradoxically, the spread of Islam and the number of those who converted to the faith has also increased in these countries. The European countries’ indifference to the Muslim presence in the EU led to an increase in the confrontation and the emergence of radical groups in both communities.
This situation has extended the problem to other less militant circles as a consequence of the pressure exerted from different governments and the media. They started to observe the new climate of tension as a menace to their particular interests. So, the traditional European population have developed a general rejection that has led Muslim moderate sectors to defend their own rights enhancing mutual animosity.
Therefore, several factors emerged and have contributed to the creation of Islamophobia. European governments have failed to implement successful integration policies, and they didn’t start applying them till the late nineties.
As a result, the Muslim population was marginalised and lived in poor conditions for decades, because their presence was rejected and not implemented in the socio-economic and political programmes of European governments. Thus, negligence of the authorities allowed the progressive dissemination of the most traditionalist Islamic trends that spread their anti-western discourse among the Islamic communities.
The emergence of this powerful movement resulting in the appearance of several groups whose ideology were close to a distorted interpretation of the sacred texts, giving rise to radicalisation influenced by international jihadist networks.
At the same time, the foreign policy adopted by most European countries towards Afghanistan, Iraq war, and other Middle Eastern countries, as well as their position towards Palestine, have contributed to fuelling the confrontation. Consequently, the fear has led the relevant sectors of the European people to reject everything related to Islam, while the growing Muslim society continues to look for a place in Europe. This complex problem has to be resolved. While European secularism considers Muslim lifestyles incompatible with those of the Western world, Muslims in Europe believe that these differences are not a problem for their emancipation in the so-called tolerant, free and democratic western nations.
The writer is a Professor of Public Relations and Mass Communication at the College of Arts and Sciences, Qatar University.
The Peninsula
