The Danish cartoon controversy reaching boiling point, Magda El-Ghitany delves into the issues underlying tensions between Europe and Islam On its cover two weeks ago, the popular French weekly L'Express International posted a girl with oriental eyes and a confident look. While her hair was covered with a white and red veil, the girl's face was also covered, all but her eyes, with the French flag, rendering the French state her niqab. Entitled "The rise of Islam in Europe", the magazine's 16-page special warned that the "rise of Islam in Europe may lead Europe to modify its own rules [and values] in order to suit the circumstances of [European Muslims], Europe's new people." The following week, the magazine's cover posted a Muslim burning the Danish flag, while the fire died down, a church and cross were visible in the background. In an article entitled "The Question of Mohamed," the magazine stated that "Muslims must abide by the European, international values, like all the other religious groups normally do." Jocyline Cesari, professor at Harvard University, told Al-Ahram Weekly, that the 12 offending Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohamed "constitute only one episode in the long chain of smearing Islam", unprecedented Muslim outrage over their publication and European "persistence" in reprinting the cartoons reflect "the implicit confrontation between Islam and Europe". Cesari added that although the cartoons will likely not be the last European offending action against Islam, "they are the first to highlight the contradictory nature between Islam and Europe as well as both sides' rejection to compromise their beliefs and values." Nezar Al-Sayad director of the Middle-East Studies Centre at University of California, Berkeley, told the Weekly that a third world war -- this time a religious war -- is not so unlikely, as a result of rising tensions between Islam and the West. According to Al-Sayad, following 9/11, not only were Muslims brought "under the gun" but Europe returned to its "exclusiveness". Unlike the 1980s and the 1990s, when most Europeans felt an affinity with the values of acceptance and understanding. Europeans now, however, feel that they want to defend themselves against "the other." The 9/11 attacks, Al-Sayad noted, definitively defeated "social justice and globalisation's multi-culturalism." Europe now feels it confronts a reverse colonisation -- "the colonised is now colonising" -- with the noticeable rise of Islam in its territories. "This is new for Europe," Al-Sayad told the Weekly. According to Al-Sayad, a major point that causes confrontation between Europe and Islam is the strong affiliation the Muslims of Europe demonstrate to their religion. In Europe, "Islam is seen as a competing identity" that undermines national and regional claims. "This is the justification [Europeans] use" when alleging an incompatibility between Islam and Europe. "I meet many university students in the UK and other European states and I find some students, for instance, of Pakistani origin telling me, 'we have never been to Pakistan but we are thrilled with what happened in 9/11'; they say, 'we are Muslims before being European citizens.'" In addition to concerns about the extent to which Islamic faith undermines European concepts of national belonging, Europe is also worried by the concept of the Islamic umma, or universal Islamic nation, that precedes other forms of citizenship for Muslims. For Europe, it is "not a fear that is baseless". As Al-Sayad confirms, "whenever there is a complex situation between Islam or Arab Muslim countries with Europe, the first Muslim reaction is refraining from taking the side of Europe." The Dutch, for instance, were "horrified following Dutch Muslims' reaction towards the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh -- who directed an anti-Islam movie. Dutch Muslims had a 'he deserved it' reaction, which disappointed Europe." It is not that Christians and Jews do not have the same strong affiliation to their religions as Muslims do: "They just do not state it explicitly. And, most importantly, they are simply not under the gun." Further, Europe "does not allow any factor, including religion, to overrule its secular values, like freedom of expression." Belonging to a faith is an "individual right but freedom of expression is a collective one". Consequently, most of Europe does not understand the outrage over the publication of the 12 cartoons. "Peoples with affiliations to other religions would not have done this," if put in the same situation "because, again, their overwhelming identity source is the nation state." According to Al-Sayad, it is not that Europe does not respect differences between religions; it is that in a secular society, religion plays a very circumscribed role. Europe is not ready to change these secular principles for Muslims. "'We do not need to change how we behave'; that is how most Europeans will address this issue," says Al-Sayad. Al-Sayad believes that the issue is not whether Islam and democracy are compatible; it is that one of them should eventually become subordinate to the other. It is either a democracy that is "dictated by faith; one that privileges Islam because it comes from God and considers democracy a system of governance that will come under Islam, which is hard for Europe to accept, or the European hierarchy that will always put Islam under secular democracy." In other words, Islam can exist in Europe if it will be subjugated to the larger historical process: "They will never be equal." Islam's survival in Europe is therefore possible if "Euro-Islam becomes more tolerant when it deals with secular Europe; so if European Muslims see a cartoon they dislike about their prophet, they will not go out in protest asking for the head of the man who made these cartoons; otherwise, Islam is very unlikely to survive in Europe," Al-Sayad believes. Other commentators say that in all cases Islam "is not going anywhere and it is there in Europe to co-exist and stay." Heba Raouf, professor of international relations at Cairo University, told the Weekly that a cultural third world war, though not a certainty, would only renew Europe's "war against religions". It would "be a façade for the exclusions of the capitalist system and the social injustice that minority communities suffer", she said. The problem is, Raouf noted, that Europe "suffers from a domestic problem concerning the boundaries of freedom of expression." Muslims of Europe do not oppose "values as freedom of expression, they oppose inappropriateness in the use of such values." For instance, European media declines to mention anything critical about the Holocaust, and British media refrains from publishing photographs of dead British soldiers from Iraq. "These are codes of ethics and not legal rules; why doesn't European media apply these codes when it comes to Islam, in a show of respect to Muslims, its second largest community?" asked Raouf. Raouf believes that the "secular nature of Europe will ultimately change," due not to the existence of Muslims in its territories but to the "rising role of the church in the Balkans and East European states". Islam can peacefully exist in Europe, Raouf maintains, if "Muslims of Europe exercise influence and negotiate with the European side and lead Europe to respond to their needs, thus reaching a compromise." Rapprochement can take place through numerous organisations and Euro-Mediterranean foundations, which so far, "have not practised their required roles of constructing dialogues between different civilisations and cultures properly." On the other hand, "changing the rules of Islam", concerning, for instance, what can be portrayed, "would not be a compromise but a grave concession," Raouf said.
