Abstract
“Governance of religious diversity” appears to be the latest term to address the relationship between the state and (immigrant) religious groups in Western Europe. Conventional/established arrangements and frameworks of state-church relations (i.e. secularism) need to be revisited to include new religions and religious groups to the equation. It is suggested that contemporary multicultural societies require a broader perspective and a sophisticated framework than established understandings of secularism, and receiving states’ governmental policies. Today, the main concern of Western European states is not the relationship between the state and church, but how to deal with Islam and accommodate distinctive religious practices in public spaces. This review article examines the current debates on governance of religious diversity through elaborating on the six books reviewed.
Keywords
Dawson A (ed) (2016) The Politics and Practice of Religious Diversity: National Contexts, Global Issues. London: Routledge, pp.208.
Gonzalez F and D’Amato G (eds) (2017) Multireligious Society: Dealing with Religious Diversity in Theory and Practice. London: Routledge, pp.299.
Copson A (2017) Secularism: Politics, Religion and Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.153.
Warsi S (2017) The Enemy Within: A Tale of Muslim Britain. UK: Penguin, pp.379.
Ahmed A (2018) Journey into Europe. Washington: Brookings Institution Press, pp.573.
Bruce B. (2019) Governing Islam Abroad: Turkish and Moroccan Muslims in Western Europe. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.303.
One of the drastic outcomes of the post-immigration flows to Western Europe was the emergence of significant religious diversity. For a long time, religion was not a defining category for diversity-related issues, though. Instead, race, ethnicity, and culture were the essential conceptual categories in understanding and explaining diversity. Beginning from the late 1980s onwards, a series of events and incidents like the Rushdie Affair and the French headscarf controversy, which were decisive cases with regards to the public visibility of Muslims, changed this. These incidents and many others have led religion to gradually become the defining category for diversity-related issues. This conceptual shift is best manifested in a semantic change in naming immigrants. Ex-colonial subjects and guest-workers (a social category) first turned into Asians, Turks, or Arabs (an ethnic category) and then into Muslims (a religious category).
“Governance of religious diversity” appears to be the latest term to address the relationship between the state and (immigrant) religious groups in Western Europe. Conventional/established arrangements and frameworks of state-church relations (i.e. secularism) need to be revisited to include new religions and religious groups into the equation. It is suggested that contemporary multicultural societies require a broader perspective and a sophisticated framework than established understandings of secularism, and receiving states’ governmental policies. Today, the main concern of Western European states is not the relationship between the state and church, but how to deal with Islam and accommodate distinctive religious practices in public spaces.
Governance of religious diversity entails secularism as a political concept and policy approach, but it transcends secularism. “Governance” refers not just to the political mechanism of governments, but also to the activities of non-state actors in legal and other means (Dawson, 2016: 3). Local, national, or transnational non-state actors intervene or fill the gaps in areas where receiving states cannot. They, including religious groups themselves, can balance the determinative role of receiving states with regards to the terms of accommodation of different religions and religious practices in public spaces (Halafoff, 2016, in her essay in Dawson, 2016).
This review article examines the recent scholarship on the governance of religious diversity by focusing on the six books reviewed, which provides significant insights about the governance of religious diversity. Multireligious Society and The Politics and Practice of Religious Diversity consist of various essays that offer interesting theoretical discussions on and provide empirical insights regarding various issues such as secularism, Islamophobia, multifaith spaces, legal pluralism, and so forth. Andrew Copson’s Secularism is an informative text that makes a case for secularism as a core value for Western European countries. Sayeeda Warsi’s The Enemy Within is an interesting read that reveals much about Muslims’ story in Britain. Warsi’s careful and meticulous discussions on some of the politically delicate issues such as anti-Muslim hatred, extremism, the British values, etc., not only reflect perspectives of an active member of the political class and Muslim community in the UK, but also set a good tone for the debates on governance of religious diversity. Akbar Ahmed’s voluminous Journey into Europe offers a thought-provoking discussion on identity of Muslims and of Europeans. Ahmed’s holistic approach to the history of Europe and Muslims and his ethnographic findings provide some fresh insights. Finally, Benjamin Bruce’s Governing Islam Abroad makes a late but important contribution to the debates on how transnational actors (i.e. sending-states) influence Muslims and governance of Islam in Western Europe. Each book reviewed helps us to comprehend the importance and multifaceted nature of governance of religious diversity and helps to locate where we are in the respective debates and how we can go forward.
Secularism
As a result of catastrophic religious wars, Western European countries had settled the relationship between the state and religion. The idea of separation of the state and church has been the predominant political idea. Indeed, secularism, in its simplest and widespread form, is widely understood as separation of state and religion. Views on secularism, though, have been varied across Europe. It is embraced as a core national value (Amiraux and Koussens, 2017: 121, in their essay in Gonzalez and D’Amato, 2017), or seen as “a marker of western identity” (Sayyid, 2009:188–189). Understandings and practices of secularism strongly related to respective states’ political-cultural regimes/structures (Kuru, 2009).
In Secularism, it is argued that various normative goals shape western countries practices with regards to secularism. For instance, American secularism seeks to protect religion from the state, whereas the French laicite seeks to protect the state/individual from religion; Indian secularism has a different aim, that is, to protect people of different beliefs from each other (Copson, 2017: 50). Some states (e.g. France and Turkey) developed coercive or oppressive attitudes towards religion(s), whereas others (e.g. the US, Canada, and the UK) developed more accommodative attitudes.
Governance of religious diversity in contemporary Western European context implies responding to specific demands of different religious groups and individuals. In fact, from a policy perspective, it is possible to argue that the success of governance of religious diversity depends on how well the receiving nations accommodate the specific needs and demands of religious groups and individuals. Multireligious Society and The Politics and Practice of Religious Diversity, in this respect, offer interesting empirical insights.
Prisons, hospitals, airports, and schools are among the essential public places where religious diversity is de facto reflected. As examined in chapters 12 and 13 of Multireligious Society, there has been a growing demand for equality of all religions and religious practices in these public spaces (de Velasco, 2017; Griera and Martines-Arino, 2017, in their essays in Gonzalez and D’Amato, 2017). Demands for the free exercise of religious practices (e.g. wearing the veil) in public spaces, and for multifaith worshipping rooms, are partly met by some of the European countries. Studies that focus on exercise of religious practices in public spaces help to grasp how changes take place at institutional, political, and legal realms, or how the status quo is protected. Spain, for instance, witnessed two major societal changes simultaneously: increasing religious diversity and pluralism, on the one hand, and the decline of Catholicism at the political realm, on the other. As Catholicism remains a strong force at cultural level, there seem to be resistance or intolerance towards, say, Muslim religious practices. In the meantime, however, legal and political fields reflect more tolerant and accommodative attitudes (Griera and Martinez-Arino, 2017: 252, in their essay in Gonzalez and D’Amato, 2017). In other cases such as Denmark, Norway, and the UK, although there is no institutional secularism framework, some inclusive or accommodative practices have been developed in practice (Copson, 2017: 98). Still, there appears to be a shared inclination in Europe to ban burqa or full-face veil in public spaces, at local or national levels. Countries like Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, France, Austria, and Belgium prohibited full-face veil in public spaces. Far right groups and political parties fiercely campaign against the public visibility of Muslims, even the presence of them, which translates into a widespread intolerance towards Islam in Europe. It is now accepted that Islamophobia is on the rise across Europe.
Evidently, Islamophobia or anti-Muslim hatred has become “the latest form of prejudice” (Warsi, 2017: 136). Sayeeda Warsi (2017: 134) rightly argues that “a dislike of a group of people is not a new thing”, neither the fact that every society produce its bigots. Still, one must be aware of the difference between overt and coveret Islamophobes, as Warsi warns. While the overt ones refer to those like the BNP, Pegida and the EDL, the coveret ones, the dangerous ones, refer to those “who dress up their anti-Muslim bigotry in reasoned intellectual arguments” (Warsi, 2017: 136). Chapter six of The Enemy Within eloquently discusses some of the intellectualized and rationalized reasons/arguments for Islamophobia. These arguments include that there is no Islamophobia; Muslims hate us, not the other way around; Islam is the problem, not Muslims; why Muslims do not condemn terrorists; those who do not condemn terrorists condone them; Muslims invade Europe (e.g. Londonistan), and so forth (Warsi, 2017: 137–154). These arguments feed anti-Muslim hatred, hence, must be challenged as part of the governance of diversity project. Another “intellectualized” argument relates to “values,” e.g. that Muslims challenge the very European values such as secularism; so, it must be re-asserted.
Indeed, today, secularism is reasserted and seems to be gaining popularity due to two main reasons. Firstly, it is believed that secularism can be a solution for the major challenges that contemporary societies encounter. Andrew Copson (2017: 53) claims that secularism is the best framework for the state religion arrangement because it provides “freedom, equality, peace, and democracy in a modern society.” Copson (2017: 142) promotes secularism as the only plausible principled concept that offers a promising future. He even goes as far to claim that secularism is a panacea for all the problems that contemporary western societies face. However, although secularism has been a fundamental political framework and a critical component of the governance of religious diversity in Western European countries, it is evidently not a panacea for all the problems that contemporary multicultural societies face. For instance, inclusion of Muslims is against some of the understandings of secularism in Western Europe (e.g. French) (Modood, 2009: 185). In fact, as just noted, majority of Western European countries prohibit Muslim religious symbols, such as face-veil, and minarets, in public spaces.
Secondly, today secularism is re-asserted and re-promoted as a means of dealing with the articulation of Muslim identity (Sayyid, 2009: 199); or, as Modood (2009: 185) puts it bluntly, secularism is re-asserted as an ideological force to “oppose Islam and its public recognition.” There are two competing views here. On the one hand, it is believed that secularism is a core European value, and assertive Muslim identity and illiberal Muslims practices in the public sphere threaten it. Joppke (2015), for instance, claims that Muslims’ attitudes on women and sexuality are illiberal, hence pose significant challenges to the secular liberal democratic states of Europe. On the other hand, people like Tariq Modood (2009: 185) argue that reasserting secularism as an ideological force to counter Islam and Muslim identity challenges foundational European values such as pluralism, equality, and democracy per se.
Those who favor the former view promote a radical form of secularism, which aims to oppose “distinctive” religious practices in the public sphere, and seeks to confine them to the private realm, at best. Some academics (Casanova, 2009: 163; Foner and Alba, 2008: 365–366), therefore, claim that there has been a strong insistence on secularism in Western Europe that seems to be generating challenges regarding religious pluralism, and accommodation of Muslims, in particular. And the latter view is right to argue that articulation of secularism, as a weapon to fight against Muslims, is highly contentious and profoundly counterproductive. Governance of religious diversity in a liberal democratic state implies adopting inclusive and accommodative, not oppressive, attitudes towards religion(s) and religious practices in public spaces.
To sum up, secularism is a central political concept in, and a core value for Western European countries. It is widely understood and framed as a separation between the state and the church. Current religious landscape of Western Europe, however, includes religious groups that were not part of the previous/established political/institutional arrangements regarding the state-church relations. Since the last few decades, therefore, the problem regarding state-religion relations reemerged due to the increasing visibility of “different” (i.e. Muslim) religious symbols and practices in Western European public spaces. The debates on the return of God (Hertzke, 2016: 156, in his essay in Dawson, 2016) or the revival of religion appear to be, as D’Costa et al. (2013: 3) note, rather “a revival of worries about” a specific religion and its adherents: Muslims. But, who are Muslims? And why they matter so much? Akbar Ahmed offers a thorough story.
Identity
As the last decades proved, religious diversity inevitably enflames debates on identity. This is meticulously articulated in Akbar Ahmed’s Journey into Europe. Ahmed makes it clear that identity politics lies at the heart of many issues in Europe, including its relationship with its Muslims. Specifically, the presence of Muslims in large numbers, their appearance in public spaces with their distinctive religious symbols, and increasing demands of young European born Muslims regarding recognition and respect have been keeping the debates on identity very much alive (Ahmed, 2018: 510). Journey into Europe is a thought-provoking study not because it discusses Muslim identities, but because it unpacks European identities and makes it clear why European identities matter.
European Identities
Ahmed examines three types of European identities: primordial, predatory, and pluralist. Primordial or tribal identity refers to “societies that value their own unique traditions and culture” (Ahmed, 2018: 20). Primordial European identity manifests itself through some core principal concepts including blood, lineage, tribe, land, and so forth. For instance, Ahmed (2018: 199, 235) writes that countries like Germany and Denmark have distinctive things and backgrounds to associate/identify with, and hence, developed tribal identities. Secondly, by predator identity, Ahmed means those defined through aggressive means, often by targeting different ethno-religious groups. And thirdly, the pluralist European identity refers to multireligious experiences of Europe such as Andalusia and Sicily (Ahmed, 2018: 20).
Understanding European primordial identity is key in terms of contemporary political debates on migration, immigrants, and Muslims. Ahmed (2018: 101) contends that primordial identity not only “provides stability, continuity, and a sense of belonging,” but also shapes “European attitudes towards terrorism, immigration, integration, multiculturalism and the emergence of the Far Right.” Tribal European identity, Ahmed articulates, views Islam as a backward religion, as a threat to European values, and thereby, as its natural “other,” and even “enemy.” In this respect, primordial/tribal European identity underpins the very values that it seeks to protect such as democracy, equality, and freedom of belief, thereby threatens religious diversity.
Bearers of European primordial identity show paranoid attitudes towards Muslims. In the last few decades, when there have been terrorist attacks by some Muslims, Muslims as a whole have been held accountable by some Europeans. Indeed, due to this kind of paranoid approach (of the states, groups, individuals or the media), terrorism has become a part of Muslims’ story in the West, which has been undermining the debates on Islam and Muslims. As Warsi (2018, 120) argues, when it comes to Muslims, “group responsibility, guilt by association, and collective punishment were the order of the day.” For instance, in a radio interview, Douglas Murray (2017), a self-confessed neo-conservative, stated that the problem of Islamic violence and terrorism is simply “a problem that comes from Islam.” He implies that adherents of Islam are inclined to violence because the creed is violent. Obviously, for Murray, there is no difference between a small group of terrorists and the vast majority of Muslims. In his response to the Lee Rigby murder, Murray (2013) went as far to refer to Sayeeda Warsi, back then Faith and Communities minister, as “the enemy at the table.” To sum up, far right groups across Europe think that Islam and Muslims cannot be a part of Europe because the creed is the source of violence, and its adherents are culturally alien and cannot be assimilated.
Today, primordial/tribal identity, to a certain extent, triumphs across the European continent. Far Right groups, Ahmed (2018: 428) argues, are the champions of European primordial/tribal identity. These groups include Britain First, Danish People’s Party, and Pegida of Germany, just to name few major ones. A shared feature of these groups is that they are anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim; and, they developed increasing intolerant and violent attitudes towards Muslims. According to Ahmed (2018: 479), “the process whereby primordial identity adopts an aggressive predatory aspect and monsters take shape is visible in Europe today.” The “antidote” Ahmed (2018: 521) offers to the problem of predator European identity is “the convivencia of Andalusia.”
This leads to the third European identity Ahmed discusses: European pluralist identity. By European pluralist identity, Ahmed exclusively refers to Europe’s experiences of Andalusia and Sicily; that is, the relationship between Christians and non-Christians in a pluralist manner, not an intra-Christian pluralism per se. Indeed, Journey into Europe is distinctive by means of providing a thorough discussion on historical patterns of Muslim-Christian relations in Europe. A discussion that clearly indicates the fact that Europe and Muslims did not clash all the time, but managed to live together in certain periods. Ahmed (2018: 22–23) argues that Jews, Christians and Muslims lived side by side in Andalusia, Sicily and parts of the Balkans such as Bosnia. Muslims rulers embraced Christians and Jews in Andalusia; likewise, Christian rulers of Sicily like Alfonso X and Fredrick II embraced Muslims and Jews, and enabled co-existence or convivencia. For Ahmed (2018: 22), convivencia or Andalusian model can be “suitably adjusted to our times, provide[s] an alternative European identity to the one based in notions of tribe and race.”
Despite the fact that Ahmed’s antidote (i.e. convivencia) to the danger of the rise of far right groups and their possible threats to a European pluralist identity needs to be discussed further; his concerns are real. As such, Ahmed’s (2018: 360) suggestion that a study of Andalusian convivencia “could act as catalyst to begin a dialogue and explore ways of building bridges in Europe and elsewhere” is important, although living together means and entails different things today.
Muslim Identities
Ahmed categorizes Muslims as indigenous European Muslims, immigrant Muslims, and European converts. To begin with, his take on indigenous Muslims is important by means of reminding the readers that Bosnians, Pomaks, Albanians, Kosovans, Tatars of Crimea and Lithuania, Turks and Chams in Greece, the Roma, and so forth are all indigenous Europeans and Muslims. Islam is a European religion too, Ahmed writes. Indeed, studies on “Muslims in Europe” or “European Muslims” often neglect these indigenous European Muslims. Ahmed’s holistic perspective might allow one to have a less prejudiced view on Muslims/Europeans, on the one hand, and create a shared understanding of the history of living together, on the other. Journey into Europe strongly emphasizes on that Islam is not the natural enemy of Europe, but a part of it. Thus, the book is itself an attempt to increase this awareness pertaining to European pluralist identity or convivencia.
The second group of Muslims is Muslim immigrants (e.g. ex-colonial subjects, guest-workers). Studies on transnational migration of Muslims are numerous and intensive. Ahmed’s take on immigrant Muslims provide no new insight, mostly rephrases the existing literature. The section on European converts, the third group of Muslims, however, is interesting. Studies on European converts are not numerous. It is often argued that European converts to Islam make a significant cultural break, imitate their fellow Asian/Arab/Turkish Muslims, and are attracted to Salafi radical groups. In her study on German converts to Islam, for instance, Esra Özyürek devoted a chapter on how Salafism attracts, and why it is popular among German converts to Islam. According to Özyürek, one-third of the one of the well-known Salafi mosque’s (al-Nur mosque) congregation is made up by German converts to Islam. She argues that Salafism is attractive because it is conversionist, literalist, anti-culturalist, and antinationalist (Özyürek, 2015: 114). Generally speaking, Özyürek (2015: 131) argues, Salafi mosques such as the al-Nur “are the only Muslim spaces in Germany where piety matters more than the ethnic or national background.” Journey into Europe does not reflect on European converts who are attracted or joined to Salafi or radical groups. It seems Ahmed focused on positive examples alone.
Having said that, Ahmed’s fieldwork reveals a significant tendency among European converts. He demonstrates that increasing number of European converts believe that Islam is compatible with the European values. As such, they became aware of the fact that they don’t have to imitate their fellow Turkish/Arab/Asian Muslims. Instead, growing number of European converts seek to build a European Islam. New converts, Ahmed observes, do not necessarily make a radical cultural break; instead, they try to negotiate their culture and new faith. Today, with the increasing number of European converts to Islam, it is possible to argue that a “European Islam” cannot be imagined without including European converts into the equation. Converts’ role pertaining to the localization of Islam is increasingly becoming relevant. What kind of role European converts to Islam may play in governance of religious diversity is a vital question that remains to be addressed.
Journey into Europe is a thorough study of Muslims in Europe. It goes beyond describing the status quo regarding Muslims and religious pluralism in Europe. Ahmed examines historical periods such as Andalusia and Sicily not only to trace the signs of European experiences of pluralism but also to promote these experiences as possible starting points to create another era of European pluralist identity. Journey into Europe shows the sophisticated and multifaceted nature of the relationship between Europe and its Muslims, which must be reflected in the governance of diversity, e.g. bringing transnational actors into the equation.
Transnational Actors
It is now widely acknowledged that increasing number of transnational actors such as sending states, supranational unions, and non-state actors are involved in and influence issues in the diaspora. Studies on diaspora and transnationalism underline that growing numbers of sending states reach out to and engage with their co-nationals in the diaspora with the aim of gathering support (e.g. remittances), maintaining national identity or controlling dissidents. They deliver social-cultural-religious services through formal or informal transnational networks and associations. Benjamin Bruce’s Governing Islam Abroad focuses on Turkey and Morocco, as sending states, in terms of how they shape Muslim religious field in Western Europe. Bruce concentrates on transnational governmental associations of Turkey and Morocco and examines their activities in relation to governing Muslim field in Western Europe.
As Bruce (2019: 20) argues, both Turkey and Morocco have developed (i) “official Islam,” and (ii) transnational formal/informal and direct/indirect channels to engage with and govern/control Muslims in the diaspora. Turkey’s Diyanet (Directorate of Religious Affairs) and Morocco’s Habous (Ministry of Habous and Islamic Affairs) are the major governmental actors that represent official Islam. According to Bruce, official Islam “is the form of Islam which best suits the state’s interests at a precise moment in time and which is subject to changing political conditions” (Bruce, 2019: 68), whereas unofficial Islam simply refers to non-state religious groups and actors (Bruce, 2019: 22–23).
Policies of Turkey and Morocco regarding the Muslim field in Western Europe concentrate on controlling the community, and preventing dissidents, as much as gathering support for the homeland. Turkish and Moroccan states seek to prevent non-state actors to become important actors abroad as they could pose challenge to the state. Generally speaking, Bruce (2019: 20–23) claims, respective sending states developed religious services in the diaspora as a reaction and response to non-state actors or unofficial Islamic groups. Until the mid-1980s, non-state religious groups in Europe, such as Turkish Milli Gorus and Suleymancilar, managed to establish hundreds of mosques and religious associations, while the Turkish state was largely absent. Afterwards, however, Turkey changed its policy towards the diaspora and began to send imams. Over time, it took control of the vast majority of Turkish mosques in Europe and established over a thousand imams across Europe. In short, Turkey and Morocco have increased their activities in diaspora extensively to the extent that today they have become “indispensable actors to the governance of Islamic affairs” in countries like France and Germany (Bruce, 2019: 3).
For Turkey and Morocco, governing Islam in the diaspora mainly entails exporting imams and providing funding, two direct ways to shape the Muslim field in Western Europe. Bruce observes that while Turkey has “a more organized and extensive program when it comes to its religious personnel abroad” (Bruce, 2019: 186), Morocco is more concerned with providing funding for religious associations (Bruce, 2019: 232). It sends imams only in Ramadan for a short period of time (Bruce, 2019:166–167).
The legitimacy of religious authority is a key issue for Muslims at home and abroad. After abolishing the caliphate in 1924, the new Turkish Republic founded Diyanet with the aim of controlling the religious field and groups, as much as preventing the emergence of higher/charismatic religious authorities that could possibly challenge the state’s authority in Turkey. This is why, as Bruce (p. 258) observes, Turkey has developed an extensive and sophisticated program of sending religious personnel to Western Europe. By sending imams and preachers, Turkey seeks to provide legitimate religious authority, and hence, create control over the Muslim field in the diaspora. Indeed, greater control over religious actors can translate into greater control over the religious field. However, an increasing number of studies, including Governing Islam Abroad and Journey into Europe reviewed here, underline the importance of training imams in Europe, as European trained imams can be more aware and engaged with the socio-cultural and political fields around them. For Turkey and Morocco, as sending states, however, the number one priority seems to be promoting national interests and identity and controlling the Muslim field in the diaspora. For the receiving states, training local imams can be challenging, but it is a necessity with regards to the integration of Muslims and the localization of Islam in Western Europe.
To sum up, transnational actors, such as sending states, supranational unions, and non-state actors, have become significant agents in the context of immigrants in the diaspora. Sending states seek to gather support, control the community, and prevent the dissidents in the diaspora; thus, increasingly invest in engaging with people in diaspora. As such, supranational unions such the European Union and transnational non-state actors such as religious groups are interested in issues related to immigrants and, thereby, have become important interlocutors in the debates on and processes of governance of religious diversity. Conscious of these, Western European countries, as Bruce discussed, reach out to, negotiate, and cooperate with sending states. Governing Islam Abroad proves how sending states, as transnational actors, are important in terms of governance of religious diversity. In this respect, it is a timely and welcome contribution to the scholarly field.
Conclusion
Secularism has been a fundamental value and political concept for Western European countries. It is believed that secularism is now under attack. According to Andrew Copson (2017: 66–88), secularism is challenged by nation-states, Islamic states, established Churches, etc. either to protect the religious status quo or to promote the one true religion, as perceived by them. Christian Joppke (2015) wrote a whole book to express that secular liberal states are under attack by Evangelical Christians in the US, and by Muslims in Europe. It would not be too contentious to argue that the idea of secularism will endure to the extent that it accommodates contemporary religious diversity.
As the reviewed books clearly indicate, governance of religious diversity is a global issue; and resistance to religious pluralism seems to be a trend around the world. European countries like Austria, Denmark, France, and others around the world like India, Russia, and China show resistance to accommodate religious diversity, Muslims in particular. Some countries like China even show an oppressive, often violent, attitude towards Muslims. In Western Europe, Islamophobia and far right groups are on the rise. And there seems to be a general trend to ban Muslim religious symbols in public spaces. Western Europe does not, however, show a total unwillingness to accommodate religious pluralism and Islam in particular. Multiculturalism has long contributed to the inclusion of minorities, including Muslims, into Western European countries. “In the 1980s and 90s,” Warsi (2018: 39) articulates, “the concept of multiculturalism was an expression of our Britishness, the acceptance of other cultures, faiths and practices, a belief in plurality.” It is not a coincidence that intolerance to the difference is raised when belief in multiculturalism is declined. As Modood (2019) argues, this resistance to the accommodation of religious pluralism must be challenged by adopting a multiculturalized secularism, addressing/accommodating the demands of different religious groups, negotiating and cooperating with transnational actors.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.