Corriere – Ideas & opinions – 2/12 – 2009
Dear Giulia, I’m giving you some insight to help you make an informed decision.
IDENTITY
THE MUSLIM IMMIGRANT FROM NORTH AFRICA
The fact that more illegal immigrants are Muslims from North Africa and have the characteristics listed above should not be overlooked, because they bring with them a cultural level and a set of traditions and habits that, in addition to being very different from ours, are a sort of glasses through which, at least in the first instance, they see and judge Western society. This difference in cultural level is already expressed in the impact with the forms of political organization of our states. In fact, all Arab countries with a Muslim majority are governed by systems that are not at all comparable to European democracies.
Therefore, when young Muslims arrive in Europe, contact with a mentality that is completely new to them leads them to suffer a strong psychological shock. This is a risky situation in which, if we do not prevent non-Europeans from being marginalized and left to their own devices, misunderstandings and frustrating attitudes can develop.
And it is precisely in this context that the presence and spread of Muslim centers in our cities must be evaluated. In the face of this state of disorientation, Islam becomes for many young immigrants the only clear point of reference both at a cultural and religious level. Because of the frustration, determined by the impact with a new type of mentality, the Muslim religion represents an easy opportunity for identification and strong unity.
MENTALITY OF YOUNG WESTERNERS
It may be interesting to examine the data from the survey recently carried out in France by Bayard Presse Jeune and the <<Youth Eucharistic Movement>> by sampling 704 young people between the ages of 12 and 15.
The picture that emerges from this survey is that of an adolescent world that rejects everything that is institutional. Only for 20% of these children is the religion they profess considered truer than the others. Almost half of the sample chosen (49%) is convinced that it is enough to love one another to have a sexual relationship while only 57% recognize the existence of God as safe or at least probable. Finally, the priority value is identified in the friendship that these young people establish among themselves.
A similar survey of the Christian Family conducted in 1985 presents more comforting data: in Italy about 80% of the sample claims to be believers in God.
Even if we consider these data simply as an expression of a tendency, we cannot help but notice how they reflect attitudes and mentalities diametrically opposed to the world, much more tied to the tradition that characterizes the countries of the third and fourth world.
ISLAMIC CENTRES
Apart from the religious difficulties, the immigrants’ first approach to our society generates disorientation, which worsens, as we have said, in cases in which the young non-EU citizen is left to his own devices and ends up in a reaction of rejection against everything that concerns the Western world.
This explains why Muslims find their natural refuge in the Koran, which is the source of the laws of their society, and in all those institutions that represent it in Italy.
Here, immigrants encounter a cultural position that is decidedly opposed to the relativism that is rampant among young Westerners. We can take as an example a cyclostyle distributed by the Islamic centre of Viale Jenner in Milan at the beginning of 1990. In this short text, written in Arabic, the supremacy of the Muslim religion over all the others is underlined. Islam is presented as the only faith pleasing in the eyes of God: those who do not profess it are destined to be losers on the day of judgment. Added to this is the invitation addressed to all immigrants to be wary of Christian religious centers, accused of having as their sole purpose of action that of exchanging bread with conversion to Christianity. Therefore, young Muslims are called upon not to trade their faith for the bread of Christians.
In addition, clandestinely circulating in Italy are recorded sermons on tapes that develop concepts at the limit of contempt. The publications in Italian of another Islamic religious center, also in Milan, continue in the same tone and intervene on problems of domestic and foreign politics exalting with holy war language the conquest of the territories of the infidels.
Some municipal social centres, driven by a spirit of welcome and generosity, have granted an Islamic centre in Milan the use of the library and the common room for cultural and religious purposes. But the library is in fact managed exclusively in an Islamic key, that is, anti-Christian, with books and writings published in Arabic that praise Islam in open opposition to the society in which they should be integrated.
The hospitality is badly reciprocated and is not included in its purpose of free service, causes an attitude of rejection or suspicion that does not help those who profess Islam to fit into our society.
This is also confirmed to us by Tahar Ben Jalloun, one of Morocco’s leading writers, who writes: <<Europe is restless, restless about the evolution of Islamic theses in the environments of those workers who have long been immigrants between its borders. He also recognizes that Islam is often used as a political and totalitarian ideology by a minority determined to do anything to acquire power. Throughout history there are frequent examples of extremist groups that have opted for street language, a spectacular language because it is based on a demonstration of strength and an appeal to violence>>(3).
In addition, the Islamic leaders consider the emigration of young people to the West with favour, because they see these young people as pieces of Islamic expansion in Europe, considered a mission land. In fact, through the conclusion of mixed marriages, that is, with Christian women who become (or are forced to become) Muslims, they achieve the Islamization of the European family.
Yet Islamic centres, in addition to the religious task, could play a fundamental role in improving integration in the country of adoption for the benefit of both the immigrant and the host society.
Especially since there are many convergences between Islam and Christianity, the followers of the two religions believe in the one God, in the resurrection, in universal judgment, in heaven and hell, and the Koran does not present any justification for hostility and violence.
Is it utopian or hopeful, then, to see religious centres, gathered together in the name of faith, solve the problems linked to the integration of immigrants into society?
WORDS OF CARDINAL MARTINI
The cultural problems created by the recent presence of followers of the Muslim faith in our western world, was also brought to the attention of the Archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, in the sermon <<Noi e l’islam>> given on 6 December 1990, on the feast of Saint Ambrose, patron saint of Milan. It was an intervention that, in addition to looking at the values of the Islamic faith and giving precise indications to the Christian communities as regards reception, did not hesitate to consider with extreme realism some problematic issues that today hinder a more fraternal relationship with Muslims.
From this point of view, Cardinal Martini recalled the situation of the Christian communities in the countries with a Muslim majority, saying: “We hope for relations of equality and brotherhood and therefore we will insist that the law and customs in force in Muslim countries with regard to Christians also conform to these relations, so that there can be a just and fair reciprocity”.
He recalled that the search for a common goal of respect and mutual acceptance requires that the prejudice, strongly rooted in Islam, according to which non-Muslims are in fact non-believers, be rejected.
The archbishop then stressed the need to make the Muslim communities understand that in Europe the relations between the state and religious organizations are profoundly different from those of their countries of origin: <<If religious minorities have among us those freedoms and rights that are due to all citizens, without exception, one cannot instead appeal, for example, to the principles of Islamic law to demand specific legal spaces and prerogatives>>.
Finally, the cardinal did not fail to emphasize the values of faith in Islam: <<It is a faith that, having great religious and moral values, has certainly helped hundreds of millions of men to render an honest and sincere cult to God and, at the same time, to practice justice… In a Western world that loses its sense of absolute values and is no longer able in particular to connect them to a God who is Lord of all, the testimony of the primacy of God over all things and of his need for justice makes us understand the historical values that Islam has brought with it and that it can still bear witness to in our society.
In this chapter we started from the complexity of the phenomenon of immigration, too often simplified by the mass media. We then dwelt on the most widespread case of the young Muslim immigrant from North Africa, examining the problems of cultural integration into Western society and comparing his mentality with that of young Westerners. We then mentioned the attitudes adopted by the centers that declare themselves representatives of the Islamic religion in Milan. From all this, the urgency of pursuing an authentic integration between such different horizons emerged. But through which instruments is it possible to face this now imperative need? This is the question we will try to answer.
Giuseppe Samir Eid
Free web translation from the original in Italian
The published articles intend to provide the tools for a social inclusion of the migratory flow, shed light on human rights and the condition of life of Christians in the Islamic world from which the author come from. Knowledge of the other, of cultural and religious differences are primary ingredients to create peace in the hearts of men everywhere, a prerequisite for a peaceful coexistence and convinced citizenship in the territory.