Islam and Public Controversy in Europe

Nilüfer Göle

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781317112532
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Globalisation
• Index: Social Sciences

The public visibility of Islam is becoming increasingly controversial throughout European countries. With case studies drawn from France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK, this book examines a range of public issues, including mosque construction, ritual slaughter, Sharia councils and burqa bans, addressing the question of 'Islamic difference' in public life outside the confines of established normative discourses that privilege freedom of religion, minority rights or multiculturalism. Acknowledging the creative role of dissent, it explores the manner in which public controversies unsettle the religious-secular divide and reshape European norms in the domains of aesthetics, individual freedom, animal rights and law. Developing an innovative conceptual framework and elaborating the notion of controversy as a methodological tool, Islam and Public Controversy in Europe draws our attention to the processes of interaction, confrontation and mutual transformation, thereby opening up a new horizon for rethinking difference and pluralism in Europe. As such, it will appeal to scholars across the social sciences with interests in religion, integration, cultural difference and the public sphere.

Part I Controversies and Publics

Chapter 1 Introduction: Islamic Controversies in the Making of European Public Spheres

DOI: 10.4324/9781315589930-1

Nilüfer Göle

In this volume, we study some of the controversies surrounding visible practices of Islam that take place in different public spheres across Europe. We focus on controversies that break out over the issues raised by Muslims who practice their religion and want to be recognized publicly for their religious difference. The public nature of these controversies implies and concerns social actors from all walks of life, rather than being limited only to those who are pious Muslims. Around a particular theme of converse, diverse actors with different voices and positions in relation to Islam emerge, including secular Muslims as well as non-Muslims, but also those who define themselves critically as “ex-Muslims” or as anti-Islam, producing new alignments and oppositions. In this sense, the controversies surrounding Islam change the established frameworks of European publics. We investigate the diverse manifestations of Islamic difference in the current context with a shared problematic around the notion of the public sphere. On the one hand, there is the need to describe the particularity of the historical moment and, on the other, to establish a conceptual framework, with both being intimately connected. We seek to explore the modes of encountering, confronting and connecting that are staged in public. New conceptual tools are required to study Islam in this particular point in time in which the sociological paradigm of immigration falls short of grasping the new dynamics of integration.

All the chapters in this volume give priority to the post-migration period from the end of the 1980s to the present day. We can broadly distinguish three stages to account for social and cultural changes in the phenomenon of immigration (Leveau 1998; Cesari 2004). The first stage is marked by the figure of the immigrant, the solitary male worker, with a status of foreigner, temporary guest-worker, gastarbeiter. The second stage is characterized by the settlement of the immigrant worker with his family. The figure of the “Arab boy” in France, for instance, is an outcome of this stage, representing the second-generation youth, who have no intention to return to their country of origin, yet who have not yet acquired the social credentials for integration into the host country. The Arab boy is perceived as a potential trouble-maker, a deviant, with problems of education and unemployment (Guénif-Souilamas and Macé 2006). Whereas in the first stage, social problems inherent in the living conditions and the legal status of workers are addressed, in the second stage, language learning and children's education become the priority for the politics of integration. Only in the third stage does the issue of religion become predominant. The new figure of the “veiled Muslim girl” at schools illustrates this new turn (Göle 2005). The figure of the immigrant thus changes from the working-class male and the unemployed youth to young schoolgirls. Islam becomes an issue at this stage of post-immigration that links together categories of gender and religion. We situate our inquiry in this third stage at a moment where the “visibility” of Islam becomes of central importance as Muslims manifest their religious difference publicly.

To broach this third stage, I propose highlighting the notion of the public sphere and the different modes of visibility of Islam so as to define the field and the problem that will be the subject of our investigation. The notion of the public sphere enables us to study the dynamics of encounters and confrontation, leading us to question the interface between private and public, personal and intercultural. How do Muslim actors reinterpret their religious piety in secular European contexts? Who are the Muslim figures with access to public spheres? What are the symbols and practices that become visible, ostentatious, even disturbing in the eyes of the majority? How is this difference perceived publicly and what controversies does the visibility of Islam in the European public space trigger? The question of the arrival of “new actors” is not limited to their expression in public life; it also poses the question of their representation in the political system. Although the relationship between the public sphere and the political realm warrants further exploration, especially as the participation of Muslim citizens in political life is in progress, this volume is dedicated specifically to the study of Islam in the public domain.

How are we to define the public sphere through the prism of Islamic difference? We cannot reduce Islam's dominant place in public debates to a sheer consequence of the media coverage given to it – it does not arise simply from media distortion or focalization. Certainly, the media participates in shaping the public agenda with regard to Islam – it can reinforce stereotypes and seek to communicate the sensational, building up “the Muslim problem” and sowing “social panic” (Dayan 2003; Macé 2007, 2008). Unquestionably, Muslims today are in the media spotlight, yet we cannot explain the phenomenon of the appearance of Muslims in the public spheres solely as a result of media coverage. This would be to deny any capacity to express agency or public manifestation on the part of Muslims. The public sphere cannot be confused with the media space. The latter amplifies the way in which the public views a phenomenon, while the public sphere reflects the interplay between the public and personal, intimate spaces. The visibility of Muslims in public spheres concerns both self-presentation and the perception of the other. Public spheres are the places of this articulation – of face-to-face meetings, encounters and confrontations. There is never a perfect connection between the subjective meaning that actors ascribe to their own practices and the perception of it by others; misunderstanding is intrinsic to this communication. Some of the meaning is always lost in crossing from the subjective to the public – a loss that is inherent to this kind of translation. The notion of visibility pinpoints a far more complex reality than typical media stereotyping is capable of capturing and conveying.

The public sphere also points to the private space, as it is where the actor crosses – even sometimes, as with Muslims, transgresses – the boundaries between public and private, between inside and outside. However, the departure of the individual from the private to the public sphere is always connected to the way in which we organize the intimate and the private; what we hide, and the parts of the body that we allow to be seen, but also the meanings we give to emotions, words and taboo subjects. Since the Renaissance, we find in Europe a jeu d’etiquettes, a play of propriety, which distinguishes between honorable and dishonorable body parts and calls to mind the need to conceal emotions, not to let certain parts of the face appear in a natural fashion, such as the mouth, through the use of coded signs, masks and make-up.¹ The Western feminist movement proposes alternative labels and advocates liberty through a different set of rules for the body: stop wearing corsets, loosen one's hair, wear men's pants and so on. The body becomes the platform on which women's identity politics knocks down former markers of decency and brings down sexual taboos, thereby enabling women to break free from the private domain.

¹ In the hearings of the National Assembly on the burqa, Nadeije Laneyrie-Dagen (2009), Professor of the History of Modern Art at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, noted that while Western civilization believes in revealing the face, as the vector of the soul, heart and personality, in reality it always develops jeux d’etiquettes that veil it in other ways.

The emergence of Muslim actors in Europe signifies another reorganization of the boundaries between the private and public domains, inside and outside, sacred and secular. The body parts to be concealed change, Islamic norms on modesty are raised, and sexuality remains the central marker of the boundaries between private and public, as well as between religious and secular. The case of young generations of Muslims participating in diverse youth associations in France and in Italy illustrates the centrality of the issues of Islamic gender regimes and romantic love for the construction of the pious self. The search for reconciling their commitment to Islamic norms and the desire to participate in mixed gender contexts compel these young Muslims to question both Islamic and liberal grammar of sexual encounters (Maddanu, Chapter 16, this volume).

Beyond the Paradigm of Identity

We can identify the moment at which we intervene in the field of study of Islam in Europe by three axes of simultaneous developments: the formation of new subjectivities and forms of Muslim piety; the emergence of the visibility of Islamic difference in European public spheres; and discord over the norms of communal life. For each of these axes, I have elaborated the conceptual tools for analyzing and understanding these developments based upon my research project on “the role of Islam in the making of the European public sphere.” This volume is an outcome of two international conferences, which were conceptualized as an extension of my research project to different case studies and disciplinary approaches.

With regard to the formation of new religious subjectivities, it is important to go beyond the paradigm of identity which served as a fecund heuristic category for studying new social movements in the 1970s but which falls short in the task of studying contemporary public expressions of Islam in Europe. By focusing on the public and private domains, we observe a series of renegotiations between the exigencies of Islamic ethics and secular life in the construction of subjectivities and articulations between different modes of visibility concerning modesty and piety. Rather than having a fixed and solid identity experienced in a collective and political form, Muslims are in a state of continual pursuit of piety, which is not given but is acquired through constant self-training (Mahmood 2005). The realization of piety and the construction of a pious self requires a self-scrutiny and coded practices for disciplining the “nafs” (the soul and the body in Islamic thought). These meditative and disciplinary practices guide their conduct in both the personal and public domains. In other words, what we try to do is not to do away with the problematic of identity entirely, but to redefine it through its translation into the ethical behaviors and aesthetic forms of the religious mode of life. Living as a Muslim in a secular context means living in a state of constant reflexivity, in a perpetual coming-and-going between subjective piety, private life and day-to-day experiences. This pendular movement creates tensions, readjustments and renegotiations in various cultural, artistic and commercial domains.

It is the notion of “halal” that best crystallizes these tensions in the encounters and confrontation between Islamic ethics and secular life. Halal recasts the issue of knowing how to live up to the prescriptions of one's religion and keep up one's piety in a secular age. How can one maintain one's piety, discipline one's “nafs” and control one's urges and desires? How can one conform to Islamic ethics, when they are tested daily by liberal mores and secular laws? In the current European context, the notion of halal is revitalized through the particularity of Muslims’ experiences. We witness the Europeanization of halal that no longer concerns only the consumption of meat. The nuances between the terms halâl, the original Arab version, and halal, the more recent Europeanized version, reflect contrasted meanings (Id Yassine, Chapter 14, this volume). The new European version of halal is understood as permission, a lawful extension into new areas of life and pleasure that Muslims seek to enjoy. Halal certification makes these areas compatible with Islamic prescriptions. This new Islamic certification under the label of halal enables European Muslims to penetrate and to appropriate secular realms of life and pleasure. It even becomes a tool for satisfying mimetic consumerist desires for European tastes and products, like champagne, foie gras and sausages. Indeed, halal certification is at the disposal of Muslims who want to enter into areas of life hitherto “off limits,” thereby creating new commercial opportunities and markets.

We have a tendency to think of the public sphere as a pre-established entity, an abstract place for argumentation. However, there is also a physical, spatial dimension to this notion. Public space puts the emphasis on the physicality of the public sphere. The Islamic presence bring into focus spaces such as beaches, swimming pools, public gardens, art galleries and markets, as they become sites in which competing norms are disputed. We observe the entry of Muslims into unexpected domains of life that they were not hitherto permitted to enter. In addition to the visibility of the veil in schools, burqinis (the Islamic swimming suit, the term coined using a combination of “burka” and “bikini”) in swimming pools and mosques in cities, Islam in public spaces also extends into areas of art, commerce and finance. Muslims in Europe today penetrate these distinct areas of life with a halal certification that allows them to observe their religious prescriptions. Such examples illustrate how Muslims take part in European life and reinterpret the norms and practices of their own religion through their interactions with European norms and practices.

In the same vein, “Halal art” seeks to promote a certain Islamic ethics of communication and presentation of the self on the theatrical stage (Jouili, Chapter 11, this volume). In this alternative art form, actors and spectators seek to create public modes of appearance and interaction, all the while remaining within the circle of licit, halal authorization. In their representations and repetitions, the actors of halal art seek an alternative “distribution of the sensible”² that conforms to the Muslim codes of modesty. The halal circle defines the norms of what is forbidden. However, these prohibitions are constantly rethought and rearticulated in a reflexive manner in every enactment, dramatization and theatrical experience of Muslims. The theater thus becomes the place for the inventive reformulation of Islamic mores.

² According to Jacques Rancière (2004), the notion of the “distribution of the sensible” signifies the intersection of aesthetic practices and politics. What is sensed and perceived is determined and regulated by the established social order. Social groups and artistic forms that do not have the same share of the “distribution of the sensible” can potentially question the established order and change it.

The access of Muslims to new areas of life through halal certification has triggered tensions throughout European societies. This also creates intra-community tensions among Muslims, who are forced to reflect on their urge to enter European modes of life and simultaneously remain in obedience to Islamic prescriptions. On the one hand, there is the self-questioning by Muslims of their entry into these areas of life whilst bringing the tenets of Islamic ethics along with them. On the other hand, there is also the perception of this difference by others – the public at large. Studying public spheres and spaces enables us to bring together the two facets of the subjective religiosity of Muslims and its public perception, with both sides challenging each other and sometimes colliding into one another. We thus witness the appearance of a particular form of Islam in Europe that triggers the Europeanization of public debates blurring national distinctions in the co-opting of Muslims’ claims for being recognized as equal citizens while keeping their religious distinctions. The debates over the introduction of Sharia councils in England and in France are cases in point that show how two very distinct conceptions of law become more similar in their modes of accommodating Islamic normativity (Bras, Chapter 12, this volume). The differences between legal traditions seem to weaken and converge together as they confront the challenge of regulating Islamic normativity. New dynamics of Europeanization are in progress with regard to responses to the issues raised by Islam.

From the Notion of Conflict to the Notion of Controversy

Studying controversies enables us to grasp the two sides of the same coin: confrontation and interaction. Controversies attest to the fact that the European publics are not indifferent to the appearance of Islamic difference. I favor here an agonistic approach of the public sphere that is open to conflict and not merely determined by consensus-making. The public sphere is not solely a receptacle to which newcomers must themselves conform in order to gain access; it also provides a democratic site where newcomers can argue over their places and their norms. The appearance of différend³ is characteristic of a democratic public sphere and is not symptomatic of its dysfunction. Indeed, an agonistic notion of the public space allows us to approach it as a site to which actors try to gain access in order to manifest their difference and dispute the maj...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Notes on Contributors
• Part I Controversies and Publics
• Part II Public Islam, Piety and Secularity
• Part III Islam, Art and The European Imaginary
• Part IV Halal, Sharia and Secular Law: Competing Sources of Normativity
• Part V European Genealogies of Islam and Politics of Memory
• Index