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VIEWPOINT
THE EUROPEAN MENTALITY AND ISLAM
MORAD HOFMANN
Let me take you, by way of introduction, <? the contemporary religious super
market in Europe. The old continent, formerly nothing but Catholic or Protestant
(either Lutheran or Calvinist), nowadays offers something for everybody from
Anthroposophy with its popular belief in re-incarnation to carnal Satanic cults
to sects which try to enhance the religious awareness of people through drugs
? la Carlos Casta?eda.
Under this caption we intend to publish articles of topical interest on which we would like
to have the comments of our readers. We are pleased to initiate this series by publishing the present
article by Murad Hofmann, a German Muslim, who has served Germany in senior diplomatic
positions. His article is important in so far as it reflects the views and sentiments of many Muslims
across the globe, including the West. We look forward to a lively expression of views on the points
Murad Hofmann has raised. We will be happy to publish, in the forthcoming issues, a selection of
comments that we might receive.
Only one thing you should better not be: a Muslim. In fact, modern
pluralism and its seemingly limitless tolerance disappear abruptly in the face of
Islam. Habits and practices which are easily accepted from others are dubbed,
in the case of Muslims, as fanatic, primitive, unconstitutional, and backward.
In the case of a Che Guevara, .a beard is progressive; in the case of a Muslim,
the same beard is reactionary. Mary is never depicted without her hair covered.
But if a Muslim woman wears a scarf, she will be evicted from her school in
France!
If you have doubts about this situation, try to build a mosque in France
or Germany. Unless you are exceptionally lucky, you will have to approach
courts of justice at every step along the administrative process. In the end, after
eight or ten years, you will probably be able to obtain the permission to build
your mosque somewhere behind the railroad tracks or near the slaughter house.
There will be a lot of wrangling with the authorities over every meter
of elevation planned for the minaret. You will hear that cement factories and gas
kettles all easily fit into the European countryside, but not a minaret! Again, the
permission to build a minaret does not necessarily include permission to use it
as a minaret; that is, to call for prayer. It has therefore been light-heartedly
suggested by someone to change the call to prayer: the muezzin, abandoning
"Allahu Akbar", should copy the church bells, and shout: "Bim-bam! Bim
bam"! Shouldn't that be acceptable?
The same is true when Muslims, like the Jewish communities, seek
official recognition as a religiou body under public law. This is granted to a
community of 30,000 Jews in Germany, but denied to 2 million Muslims.
Again, double standards!
Have you ever heard that Nagasaki and Hiroshima were destroyed by
a "Christian" bomb? Of course, not. But when a Muslim country like Iraq or
Pakistan is suspected of developing a nuclear device, that is referred to as an
"Islamic bomb".
Indeed, the media seem to have reserved certain derogatory epithets like
"fanatic" and "obscurantist" exclusively for Muslims. Hence Qadhdhafi,
Khomeini and Saddan} Hussein are "fanatics" but Milosevic is not. Terrorist
attacks in Northern Ireland or Spain are not committed by "fanatic" Protestants
or Catholics or Basques or Catalonians. But whenever a Muslim uses force,
even in legitimate self-defence, Western media are likely to denounce him as a
fanatic.
II
The facts are clear. The animosity described is real. What are its
causes? My hypothesis is that these anti-Islamic manifestations result from an
anti-Arab attitude ? a modern form of selective anti-Semitism combined with
memories of the Turkish campaigns, in addition to some other deeply rooted
factors. I shall isolate the following factors:
All these factors make up the Western mentality vis-?-vis Islam. If I try
to identify them I will not at all be guilty of racism. For I am not saying that
anti-Islamic attitudes are running in the blood. However, several factors
mentioned above are indeed "inherited", in the sense that everyone willy nilly
shares the collective memory of his nation.
People in the Occident are still aware that from the 7th century onwards Islam
expanded extremely rapidly into most of the world then known.
(a) That Christianity should not be the last and final religion, that there
should be another major prophet after Jesus who would lure Christians
away from their faith by the millions, was not only incompatible with
the Christian world-view. In fact the very idea was a monstrous
provocation. In order to save one's face and one's faith, the Christian
world invented the legend that Islam spread in the past, and will always
spread "through fire and sword". This conviction is very much alive
even today, even though the fire and sword legend has scientifically
been disproved. The Christian populations had accepted Islam either
because in many lands the Islamic rule was more benevolent than, for
instance, the Byzantine rule, or because the Christology of the Qur'?n
corresponded to their own (basically still Arian) beliefs.
2. Crusaders' Mentality
If you scratch a little the veneer that covers the European civilization, you will
discover, quite close to the surface, unhealed scars and virulent motivations
dating back to the Crusades. Indeed the traumata caused by the crusades are
deeper in the West than in the East.
One trauma resulted from the shock which the crusaders received when
they observed that the supposedly barbaric and heathen Muslims were more
developed, more civilized, and more advanced in natural sciences than they.
Indeed, the wisdom, chivalry, honesty, tolerance, generosity, and spirituality of
the great Kurdish military leader Sal?h al-Dln ("Saladin") became legendary in
the West. Moreover, many crusaders had discredited themselves through their
cruelty and avarice. The Crusaders' sack of Constantinople in 1205 ? their
greatest "feat" ? left deep scars, and gave them a lingering bad conscience and
nagging doubts about their superiority. Nevertheless, the impetus and rhetoric
of the Crusades have been kept alive to this day. The expulsion of the Muslims
and Jews from Andalusia after 1492 ? an early case of religious cleansing a la
Karadjic ? was a continuation of the Crusades, and so was the foolish attempt
of the young Portuguese king Sebasti?o to re-Christianize North Africa in the
16th century.4
This crusaders' mentality is wide awake and alive and explains the
cultural imperialism of a Francis Fukuyama5 or Samuel Huntington.6 Their idea
that the Muslim world, sooner or later, will either disappear or become fully
marginalised can be traced back to European thinking since the Age of Reason.
On the contrary, the Western man has fully convinced himself that his
civilization ? the so-called "Project of Modernity" (better called the "American
Way of Life").? is the ultimate civilization and is bound to become dominant
world-wide. His international law, his code of human rights, his economic
system, his scientific approach, and his philosophy ? la Ludwig Wittgenstein
condemning all metaphysics, are seen as essential ingredients of an emerging
world culture made in USA/mitdc in Europe.
about him, or even less. Can you imagine what happens to one's mind when one
realizes that the people one had learned to despise ? the Muslims ? had been
right all along?
4. Anti-Arabism
It is significant that the average European views Islam as an Arab religion even
though Arabs are a minority within the Islamic world. As a result, all prejudices
against Arabs ? and there are plenty of them ? are transferred to Islam.
In order to know what this prejudice consists of, one should watch
Hollywood films on the Arab world. Invariably, the Arabs are shown as lazy
cowards ? always good for a stab in the back ? stupidly naive, fanatic and
over-sexed. You see Arab shaykhs surrounded by women reposing near their
oil-wells: a contemptuous picture, yet feeding on the hidden desires of the
Western viewer. Whenever Islam expressly enters such films, it is portrayed as
a religion for simpletons without spirituality. Prayer is performed as a physical
exercise, Ramadan as a time for nightly orgies, pilgrimage as an absurd heathen
custom.
Alas, this form of anti-Semitism is not at all a taboo in Europe and the
USA. Yes, we did have personalities like Johann Wolfgang von Goethe who
with much sympathy, made an effort to know more about Islam. But on the
whole, many Western orientalists and Islamologists until recently seem to have
studied their subject with disdain, frequently using their knowledge as a weapon
in the interest of colonialist penetration of the Muslim world.
In the middle-ages, Europeans did not associate Islam as much with Arabs as
with Turks. Some of the earliest translations of the Qur'?n into European
languages presented it as "complete Turkish code of law"10 or the "Turkish
Bible".11
these strange foreign people are indeed strange precisely because they are
Muslims. The so-called man in the street, I am afraid, now holds the view that
these Moroccans, Algerians, Tunisians, and Turks do not quite fit into Europe.
People in government will not say that, but can one be sure they do not think
so?
Some German officials have even presented local Alevis as a model for
such a convenient, harmless Islam. People who do not build mosques, do not
pray or fast during working hours, whose women do not cover their hair, who
do not go on pilgrimage, who drink wine and beer instead ? such people pose
indeed no problem for integration ?. Needless to say that these suggestions have
led to more, and not less, potential confrontation in Germany among Turks, and
between Turks and Germans.
The media have made matters worse by implying that the upsurge and
re-emergence of Islam, its revivification everywhere, were basically directed
against Europe. Even at NATO Headquarters statements were made to the effect
that after the demise of the Soviet Union the Alliance had to prepare for a
possible North-South military conflict. As a result, Europeans feel almost
personally threatened whenever Islamic movements, be they in Algeria, Tunisia,
Egypt or elsewhere, challenge the legitimacy of their governments.
The anti-Western rhetoric will become even louder when these young
Muslims will realize that Green Peace and Amnesty International seem to be
more concerned with saving whales and rescuing prisoners in China than with
aiding Bosnian Muslims or political prisoners in nearby Muslim countries.
III
The consequences of this European mentality for the Muslim world are
far - reaching, and very serious.
One might argue that the inactivity of the West during the last three
cruel years, standing on the sidelines with "humanitarian aid" while massacres
took place, had nothing to do with religious prejudice! Indeed, even self
centredness and moral decadence might sufficiently explain the Western refusal
to make any significant sacrifices. In fact, the West behaves very much as it had
done in 1453 during the siege of Constantinople by Sultan Mehmet II. As Steven
Runciman has described12 the Vatican, Venice, France and England at the time
virtually justified their inaction in the same manner as NATO countries did vis
?-vis Bosnia some 500 years later.
At any rate, during the last three years, Western leadership disregarded
each and every lesson learned during the yearly crisis management exercises of
NATO. They issued their threats too late, gave too much warning time,
constantly signalling that they did not mean it. The politicians in question cannot
be suspected of being incompetent. Thus the conclusion is inescapable. They
never wanted to intervene because the victims were not Christians but Muslims.
1453 Constantinople, 1993 Sarajevo.
This is so crucial that something has to be done about this situation. But
what? Confrontation between the European and the Muslim world around the
Mediterranean would be disastrous and must be avoided at all costs. What, then?
Are the Muslims to emigrate from Europe, all 16 million or so, in a new hijraft!
Whereto? No, this is no solution either.
It is imperative that both sides must seize upon every opportunity for
serious and honest dialogue, particularly between political parties, the media,
universities, and the religious establishments. The ultimate aim of this multiple
dialogue should, however, be more than just tolerance. As Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe put it: "Tolerance should only be a transitional attitude, leading to
acceptance; merely enduring is a way of insulting".13