Religious Renaissance in European Politics
In an interview last summer to Eurozine, a network of Europe's leading cultural magazines, Dr. Eder, the prominent Berlin-based sociologist claimed, "Not the Americas, not Africa, or Asia ...When you speak about secularization, you speak, therefore, only of Europe." From Socrate's questioning of the pagan Greek gods, to the Renaissance undermining of religious authority, to the Enlightment period's emphasis on humanism and reason; the progressive story of the secularization of Europe is an irrefutable social fact.
In contemporary times, the sharp decline in church attendance is seen as testament of secularization's grip on the European public and thought. A 2004 Gallup poll found that just 15 percent of Europeans, compared with 44 percent of Americans, attend a place of worship weekly, and only 21 percent of Europeans say religion is "very important" to them. Moreover, despite last minute campaigning by Poland, Italy and Ireland, the European Union (EU) constitution omitted any mention of God.
Even though there is the appearance of an absence of faith in modern Europe, there are signs of Christianity's alliance with the powerful citizens and political leaders of the continent. Galvanized by actions such as the terrorist attacks across Western Europe and the murders of prominent Dutch figures in the name of Islam, mainstream politicians from Hague to Berlin are embracing the old continent's Christian identity. Daughter of a Lutheran pastor, Germany's Angela Merkel disclosed to a group of journalists in August 2006: "We need a European identity in the form of a constitutional treaty and I think it should be connected to Christianity and God."
Pope Benedict in his most recent visit to Turkey stressed Europe's "Christian roots", calling upon Christian communities worldwide to renew Europe's awareness of its religious heritage. France's center-right president Nicolas Sarkozy in his recent book La Republique, Les Religions, L'Esperance called for a greater alliance between religion and public policy. This public proclamation of Christianity is an abrupt change from earlier years, where devout Christian leaders -- such as Tony Blair -- would have kept their personal faiths away from the public arena.
Europe's Growing Identity Pains
With an increasing number of European politicians displaying public religiosity a la Americana, it seems the seeds of a reconsideration of the role of religion in European public policy have already been planted. The new pattern of religion's advance on a continent that had largely abandoned it, however, masks a much deeper crisis -- a crisis of identity. According to Zachary Shore, author of Breeding Bin Ladens: America, Islam and the Future of Europe, Europe is "struggling to accept that it truly lives in a migrant society," one that is in a perpetual state of change on account of its new arrivals. As Europeans struggle with all the implications of integrating ëimmigrant others,' it "undergoes the spasmodic growing pains familiar to Americans from centuries past," he writes.
"Now that Islam has emerged as Europe's second largest religion, and Muslims grow daily more assertive in the public arena, Europeans confront a challenge to what it means to be a European," he asserted in a recent interview with me.
According to Shore, this new awareness has jolted politicians into embracing Europe's Christian heritage not only as a unifying factor in attempts to create a 'supranational identity,' but also to gain appeal and influence across the continent. Mohammed Hirchi, a Moroccan born professor of French and Arabic at Colorado State University, mirrors a similar viewpoint; even though, religion does not necessarily occupy an important place in the lives of most Europeans, he points out, it serves as a means of cultural resistance in moments of ideological or identity crisis -- especially with the "resurgence of a dynamic political Islam in and outside of Europe."
A growing Ummah
In just three decades Islam has moved from essentially being a non-factor to a religion that challenges Europe's largely secular identity. Perhaps nothing illustrates this change in the European landscape more graphically than the ubiquitous symbols of Islam; Europe's influential cities now bristle with Islamic schools, halal butcher shops, Arabic signs in store fronts, fluttering Turkish or Pakistani flags over the entrance of residential buildings where women in hijabs push baby carriages, with more children stringing behind them. Cities that were until recently homogenous are now obligated to accommodate a rapidly growing non-Western culture.
Indeed, the case of numbers shed some light on the newfound European fear of Islam's presence on the continent. By varying estimates, the E.U is now home to 18 million Muslims, with France hosting the largest number. Annually, half a million migrants flow into the European Union and another 400,000 seek asylum, many of whom are Muslims. Added to this mix, is the yearly estimated influx of between 120,000 to 500,000 illegal immigrants.
Rapid immigration from Muslim nations, combined with the fertility advantage of immigrants, means that ethnic Europeans might eventually lose their demographic weight. In this scenario, the populations of some of the powerhouses in Europe would be half foreign within two generations. In places such as France, where Muslims constitute 7-10 percent of the population, the change would mean one-fourth Muslim by 2025. In Holland, major metropolises like Rotterdam or Amsterdam, the majorities would be non-ethnic Dutch. Seizing upon these numbers, Bernard Lewis, a leading expert on Islam, advanced the argument in 2004 that Europe would be a predominantly Islamic continent by the end of the century.
Books and articles denouncing Islam as the new totalitarianism leading Europe on a path to 'cultural suicide' have been popular since the late Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci's contentious anti-Muslim bestseller The Rage and the Pride in 2002. Books with anti-immigration sentiments, coupled with visible demographic changes have prompted fear among ethnic Europeans that their province is falling prey to 'a colony of Islam,' as Fallaci lamented -- whereby a sense of surrender of central European values such as freedom of expression and democracy are felt.
The issue of Turkey
Despite the recent suspension of talks, the sense that Europe's Christian identity is under siege is further heightened by the debate surrounding Turkey's accession into the EU whose 72 million inhabitants have elected a pro-Islamic government. In 2002, when Recep Tayyip Erdogan became prime minister in a landslide victory, it sent shock waves across Western cities. Initially, it was uncertain how Erdogan and the AKP would lead the country, but there is increasing speculation that the party is exploiting the EU issue as a means to reverse the tide of Kemalist secularism.
Even as Turkey aspires to become a member of the European Union, the present administration has made several attempts to roll back secularism; lifting of the headscarf ban, passage of punishing taxes on the alcohol industry, and decriminalization of Hezbollah-backed Koran courses were only a few of the items on the administration's reformist menu. The recent July 2007 re-election of AKP, and the appointment of Abdullah Gul, a pro-Islamic figure, to the post of presidency is bound to create an agenda that will irreversibly change the face of Turkey. Fearful of its Islamic weight on the European parliament, recent surveys indicate that only 35 percent of the European public is in favor of Turkish membership. Turkish membership would multiply the number of Muslims living in Europe more than five-fold to an estimated 90 million.
At a time of growing conflict between Islam and the West, the question of Turkey has been a powerful tool for those who contend that Islam is irreconcilable with the Christian West. German politician and chairman of the Christian Social Union (CSU), Edmund Stoiber remarked recently that Turkey has different cultural and spiritual leanings, rendering it unfit for the EU. "Turkey is not a Germany, or a France, and it will never be like these countries," he said. "If the current members want to establish Europe on the base of Christian values, Turkey can never be European. If Europe means Christian discrimination, it means that the EU has to live with more than 100 million non Europeans (Muslims) inside."
Echoing similar sentiments, the archbishop of Westminster (London) inquired in the Times of London: "I think the question is for Europe: will the admission of Turkey to the European Union be something that benefits a proper dialogue or integration of a very large, predominantly Islamic country in a continent that, fundamentally, is Christian?"
Meanwhile, France's now president Nicolas Sarkozy once made headlines in the Islamic media in 2004 with his remark, "If Turkey were Europe, we would know it." Sarkozy continues to be vocal about his resistance to Turkish membership.
Albeit, the progressive Islamization of Europe remains to be the primary reason why religion has made a comeback in Europe, there are also other fringe reasons. Recent controversies surrounding such issues as gay rights, abortion and religion in public schools have inspired a deeper examination of Europe's 'moral compass,' as the Christian Science Monitor put it in a report. In 2004, the EU was embroiled in a volatile dispute over whether to include a reference to God in the EU Constitution, highlighting centuries old divisions between secularists versus deists. In 2005, the government of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero incurred the wrath of the Vatican and its followers by legalizing same-sex marriage and relaxing divorce laws. Adding salt to Catholic injury, Zapatero also announced the end of mandatory Catholic education in schools. Past August, Brussels admonished Poland's Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski over his party's conservative views on issues ranging from homosexuality to the death on the grounds that it posed a threat to mainstream European values.
In post-secular Europe, Christians now claim they are the victims of liberal laws -- laws that are often perceived as "an excessive exaltation of the freedom of the individual," as Benedict XVI framed it in valedictory Mass in Valencia. Criticizing the European contempt for religion, he recently stated: "We are no longer able to hear God -- there are too many different frequencies filling our ears."
But new Christian voices in the European Union are emerging: Poland, and newcomers Bulgaria and Romania are renowned for their strong church-state ties. Poland's Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who is a devout Roman Catholic himself, has made the war on 'encroaching liberalism' a key feature of his Prime Ministry. As the self-appointed defender of Polish traditional values he has called for the restoration of the death penalty, a total ban on abortion and a stalling on gay rights. Similarly, many of the new EU nations were among the strongest critics in the failed effort to include a reference to God or Europe's Christian heritage in the constitution, which stalled last year after French and Dutch rejection.
Conservatives within the Union may be placing pressure on governments and politicians to have a Christian agenda, but clearly Islam remains the fuel behind much of the debate surrounding the ideological crises. The integration of Europe's newly arrivals from non-Western cultures stands as one of the greatest challenge facing European governments in contemporary times. However, it makes no sense to fight the "Islamic worldview" with that of the "Christian worldview." After a grinding, brutal and drawn out history of religious wars on the continent, Europe needs to be deeply skeptical of religious exhortations laced with patriotic intentions. Upholding and preserving its Enlightment rationalism -- a characteristic that has distinguished the continent from the rest of the world ñ all the while implementing programs to integrate its alienated non-Western arrivals will be the best way forward. Shore, in Breeding Bin Ladens sums it up poignantly: "If Muslims can be truly integrated into the European identity, to become fully at home in sharing Europe's most basic values of individual liberty, human rights, and democratic participation, then the great European experiment can succeed." It is up to Europe to decide whether its future will be guided by enlightened secular values or religious supremacism.
