Gauthier Colard Group 3
European Governments have largely failed to integrate their religious minority communities
Introduction
Since a couple of years, Europe was the theatre of the rise of far-right parties which based some of their political rhetoric on the scape-goating of migrants, exploiting fears and inciting resentment [1]. This growing rejection of religious minorities is common to most European countries, regardless of their differences in terms of integration policies.
I Assimilation/ Integration: definitions
We should first and foremost define the term “integration”. Anja Rudiger and Sarah Spence define in their paper commissioned by the European Commission the notion of integration as the “process by which people who are relatively new to a country (i.e. whose roots do not reach deeper than two or three generations) become part of society” [2].
This term has to be differentiated from the concept of “assimilation”, which focuses on the assimilation of migrants to a pre-existing and unified social order and expect migrants to undergo a unilateral process of change in order for them to fit into this social order.
II/ Different policies of integration
In order to integrate minorities whose cultural background and values are different from the
rest of society, European governments have implemented different types of policies.
France has a specific model based on a kind of shared civic faith that rejects the idea of a multicultural society. By not recognizing different ethnic groups and religious minorities, the government has tried to create a feeling of belonging around core republican values in order to create homogeneity of thinking in the population. The limits of the model concern individuals who puts religion as an important marker of identity as they would feel denied most of their identity [2].
According to this view, some political scientists such as Randall Hansen encourage to limit freedom of religion to the private sphere and others, such as James Hamsphires, argue for compulsory courses for immigrants about the host states’ official language and the generic liberal values that govern public life[3].
However, this ideology has been shaken in the last couple of years especially with the arrival of the Muslim minority in France, as evidences of discrimination against this minority were given, leading to many policy adjustments by the government.
The UK, on the contrary, favors multiculturalism and does not try to assimilate religious minorities to the British society [2]. By recognizing and regulating ethnic and religious minorities, the government acknowledge their specific needs. Based on a principle of equality, every minority should be given equal rights and opportunities in life as a group. One of the strength of this system is the acknowledgment of multiple identities by members of minority groups, which have less difficulties to fell both British and Muslim for example.
Critics of the model argue that such policy could isolate groups from one another and favors ethnic ghettoization.
Finally, another model based on a more functional assimilation has been developed in Germany [2]. The government’s priority is to grant migrants access to the labor market and social welfare system to integrate them to society. However, according to a study from Ruud Koopmans, integration in the labor market does not necessary outcomes in an efficient integration on the socio-cultural aspect, whereas the contrary has empirically been demonstrated to be true[4].
III/ Europe: a region with a high level of hostility towards religious minorities
Unfortunately, it seems that independently from the country’s policy, Europe as a whole has experienced a growing hostility toward religious minorities this last couple of years.
According to the Pew Research Center, hostility against religious minorities is currently higher in Europe than the rest of the world as a whole.
Harassment of Jews and Muslims was particularly widespread. According to the criteria used in the research, Jews faced harassment in 76% of the countries in the region, a higher share than in any other region. In the rest of the world, Jews were harassed by individuals or groups in society in only 25% of countries.
Furthermore, the study shows that in about two-thirds of the countries in Europe, organized groups used force to intimidate or attack specific religious communities. This type of social hostility was much more prevalent in Europe (30 of 45 countries, or 67%) than in the rest of the world (38%). It also demonstrate the presence of hate groups that gather people around an organized and therefore much more dangerous form of hatred towards minorities.
IV/ A closer look to Islamophobia
Since the 11 September 2001, numerous evolutions have been observed concerning the way European societies see the Muslim minority and how the Muslim minority perceives itself.
As the Muslim minority has become the largest religious minority in almost every European country, governments were forced to address the particularly sensitive issue of their integration, especially since anxiety concerning their presence grew in European societies. In 2011, a study by the Pew Research center found that a majority of respondents in Germany (72%), Spain (69%) and France (54%) thought that Muslims were looking to be distinct from mainstream society[5]. When the same question was asked to the Muslim minority itself, respondents affirmed at more than 60% that they fell to belong very or fairly strongly to their country of residence.
After the events of the 11 September, the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia found that hostility as well as verbal and physical abuses toward Muslims increased [7]. While European Muslims used to be perceived as racial, ethnic or national minorities, their identity became marked by their faith. This change in the perception from society towards the religious minority influenced the Muslim community to stress religious identity above any other identities.
A more recent study by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights from 2016 confirmed the presence of Islamophobia in Europe as 39 % of the Muslim respondents considered having been discriminated in the last 5 years because of their religious belief[6].
While the redactors conclude that “the more recent results of the 2015 Eurobarometer confirm the existence of an anti-Muslim feeling in the European Union”, the study provides interesting data about the proportion of persons who ‘do not like’ to have Muslims as neighbors according to their country.
As we can observe on the chart, both France and the UK scored the lowest, whereas their models of integration are, as we saw previously, more or less opposite in their theory. It could be an argument in favor of the efficiency of both policies, none of them being better than the other.
Conclusion
Majors European countries have displayed a clear intention to try to integrate their religious minorities into their society. This integration can’t be considered as a total failure, but rather as partial success, integration being still a work in progress.
In his article “Does assimilation work?” Ruud Koopmans questions the link done by scholars between high rate of unemployment found in religious minorities and discrimination as an explanation to this rate. According to his study, members of a religious minority fully integrated to the host country (i.e that have a good language proficiency, follow host-country media and have many interethnic social contacts) have the same unemployment rate than the rest of the society [4].
Bibliography:
[1] Payne, A. (2018). MAPPED: The growth of the far-right in Europe. [online] Business Insider. Available at: http://uk.businessinsider.com/map-shows-far-right-growth-across-europe-2016-3.
[2]The European Commission and the OECD (2003). Social Integration of Migrants and Ethnic Minorities Policies to Combat Discriminations. Brussel. http://www.oecd.org/migration/mig/15516956.pdf
[3]Banfi, E., Gianni, M. and Giugni, M. (2015). Religious minorities and secularism: an alternative view of the impact of religion on the political values of Muslims in Europe. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 42(2), pp.292-308.
[4]Koopmans, R. (2015). Does assimilation work? Sociocultural determinants of labour market participation of European Muslims. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 42(2), pp.197-216.
[5]Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project. (2015). Latest Trends in Religious Restrictions and Hostilities. [online] Available at: http://www.pewforum.org/2015/02/26/religious-hostilities/ [Accessed 23 Apr. 2018].
[6]European Union Agency For Fondamental Rights (2017). Second European Union Minorities and Discrimination Survey Muslims – Selected findings. p.22.
[7]European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia, Summary Report on Islamophobia in the EU after 11 September 2001 (Vienna 2002)