The global Islamic upsurge is not only a political movement but also a revival of commitments with explicitly religious underpinnings. It has led to a restoration of Islamic beliefs and lifestyles based on ideas about the relation of religion and the state, women, and the moral codes of everyday behavior, which contradict the modern ideas of European liberal states in many ways. This appeal of Islam to migrants is not just a “homeland hangover” of new arrivals and older people, but often is a source of identification for second- and third- generation youths who are trying to find their place between the culture of their parents and the indifference, rejection, and sometimes outright racism, of their country of birth. Oftentimes, it is the sons and daughters of assimilated migrants—both workers and professionals—who choose to wear the dress and accoutrements that symbolize Islam in public life. The revival of Islam has been as much, if not more, a reaction to attempted integration processes, as a product of an alien culture imported by immigration. These attempted integration processes have differed cross-nationally in Europe, not least in they way that they facilitate cultural recognition for migrant identities and religions.

Europe’s Responses to Migrants

State policies for migrant incorporation range from assimilationist, by which migrants receive rights to the extent that they are prepared to fully adapt themselves to the dominant political culture, to multicultural approaches, by which migrants acquire full political rights from the receiving state and in doing so are permitted to retain some cultural, ethnic or religious group identification. European countries have markedly different ways to confer group rights and accommodate religion, which are built upon their citizenship traditions. The focus here is on Britain, France, Germany, and the Netherlands, where approximately three quarters of Western Europe’s migrant population lives.

In Germany, migrants have no institutional channels by which to access the political process except the powerless Ausländerbeiräte, or local foreigners’ councils. This policy for separating Germans and “foreigners” encouraged the persistence of “homeland” cultures; for example, public radio has had broadcast programs in migrants’ languages since the 1960s. Far from an early stab at multiculturalism, such policies were intended to smooth the eventual return of migrants—even those born in Germany—to their native Turkey. This approach to preserving homeland ties did not extend to religion, however, which would have implied a more permanent institutional presence on German soil. For example, there is no facility for the Turkish to pay the “Church tax,” which the German state collects from employees and then allocates to recognized institutional religions. This leaves Islamic faith institutions empty handed compared to Christian and Jewish ones. Prior to a relaxation of citizenship and naturalization laws in Germany in 2000, migrants were basically excluded from political rights. This channeling of migrants’ political attention to the “homeland” meant that disputes about cultural difference have emerged later than in other countries. In recent years, however, there have been institutional conflicts over the public expression of Islam. The German Federal Administrative Court ruled in 2002 that a teacher applying to a school in Baden-Württemberg could be denied for wearing the headscarf. In September 2003, the Supreme Court overturned this ruling, by five votes to three, reasoning that it constituted an illegal employment ban. Yet at the same time, the Court made it clear that federal states have the right to pass laws banning headscarves for teachers, which several states including Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, immediately announced their intention to enact.

In contrast, France has attempted to convert her migrants into “Frenchmen.” Naturalization laws are open, but as a condition for entry to the national community, the state has placed assimilationist pressures on migrants, who must renounce all particular identities in favor of allegiance to secular values of the French republic. Prior to 1981, no “ethnic” associations were permitted, and migrants were expected to integrate themselves into society through political parties and trade unions. The French state is also aggressively secular; since 1905, public funding has been prevented for all religious communities, including Christian ones. The French state sees public displays of religious faith as a challenge to its own secular republican ideology. Consequently, the visible presence of Islam with mosques, minarets, and calls to prayer readily becomes a public controversy leading to a series of “clashes of civilizations.” What is characteristic of France is that these institutional conflicts are mostly brought forward by state authorities asserting their laïcité, or secular ideology, by banning the accoutrements of Islam in public life. In 2004, the French Justice Minister Dominique Perben barred a woman from a jury duty because he considered her headscarf a sign of religious commitment that would prevent her impartiality. The French Parliament, with the blessing of President Jacques Chirac, passed a bill by 494 to 36 votes in February 2004, banning the Muslim headscarf and all other overt religious symbols from schools. Operating in this highly restrictive political space for associational activity along ethnic or religious lines, the French Muslims’ responses are often reactions—through street protests and assemblies—arguing for the individual right to Islam as a form of cultural expression subordinated to republican allegiance. Other responses, less willing to adopt this neutered “French Islam,” have been to look abroad for financial support to sustain and build Muslim community institutions.

British and Dutch policies come from the multicultural end of the spectrum, where migrants are allowed to publicly express aspects of their particular identities and interests as part of the national political community and are sponsored to do so by core institutions, including local authorities, schools, the military, and the media. Yet they differ in the degree, type, and form of officially recognized identification. British political elites adopted “race” as their policy category. A state-sponsored “Race Relations” industry thus emerged, backed by anti-discrimination legislation for ensuring equal treatment, especially in the labor market. A key feature of this legislation is that it gives rights to secular groups of minorities, but not religious ones. Several ruling interpretations of the 1976 Race Relations Act have refused to extend group rights against discrimination to Muslims, although two ethno-religions, Sikhism and Judaism, have been legally included since 1983. Thus, even when the Commission for Racial Equality brought a case in 1991 against a firm that refused to employ Muslims because it saw them as “extremists,” the employer was found guilty of only “indirect discrimination” and his anti-Muslim sentiments went unpunished. The impact of the “Rushdie Affair,” in which Muslims discovered that blasphemy law did not cover offences to Islam and responded by protesting in ways that offended liberal values, persists. It is only in the last few years that Britain started funding a few Islamic “faith schools,” though it has funded Anglican, Catholic, and Jewish denominations over many years. Race Relations politics is also rife with institutionalized conflicts. The state remains unwilling to recognize group rights for Muslims, fearing that their community associational activities will promote a political role for Islam that cannot be easily incorporated. The actions of some Muslim organizations, demanding a Muslim welfare state, or rejecting education curricula because they promote Western values, appear to make such fears well founded.