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Muslims Fearing Marginalization In Europe
LONDON (IslamOnline & Quds Press) - Despite the dramatic increase in the number of Muslims in the European Union (EU) - currently 20 million, about six percent of the population - Muslims in various European countries face both problems and hardships.
Muslims in many European countries suffer from an identity crisis, deterioration in educational achievement and cultural affiliation, and constraints on freedom of religious practice.
In addition to the rising efforts of right wing extremist political parties in directing their attention to the family in order to increase the population, there is an aim at curbing and restraining the Islamic presence on the continent.
Europeans are concerned about the increasing aging of their population in addition to a continuous decrease in birthrates. Muslims, on the other hand, demographically represent a younger population, inherently making them an economic, political and social driving force as Europe heads into the new century.
The new generation of Muslims in Europe suffer an identity crisis due to a sense that they are born and raised in a society they feel they do not belong to, in a cultural, linguistic, religious, and, even, biological sense. They are looked upon as "people from the other coast of the Mediterranean" without being able to have a real connection to the homeland of their forefathers.
Stemming from prevailing events in European societies on the one hand, and from certain legal and procedural obstacles on the other, European Muslims face difficulties in preserving their religious and cultural characteristics.
While European constitutions generally guarantee religious freedom, the application of these guarantees suffer from inconsistencies and differences in implementation from one country to another.
Difficulties are encountered in implementation from country to country. In Switzerland, Muslims are not allowed to build mosques with minarets or domes. In both Germany and Switzerland, Muslim teachers are not allowed to wear the hijab (head cover), an Islamic obligation. And in France, the hijab is prohibited in schools and universities, on the basis of secularism.
Parents as well have problems with coeducational swimming lessons, where Muslim females are obliged to wear swimming suits before their male colleagues; contents of Islamic lessons in public schools; and curriculum and teacher appointment decision-making.
Other areas of friction in many countries include issues related to food - and meat in particular, which has to be halal, slaughtered according to the Islamic Sharia' - wearing the hijab at work, granting leave for Islamic holidays and allowing Muslims to perform Friday prayers.
Many observers point to the fact that certain European authorities exercise outright discrimination by directing the sons of immigrants away from attending universities to the labor market in order to reduce them to an uneducated blue-collar workforce.
Studies concerning European Muslims indicate that due to social tensions based on religious discrimination, young Muslims suffer from high unemployment and social marginality, factors that could possibly lead to delinquency.
In France, Belgium and Netherlands, the highest delinquency rates exist among Muslims, who disproportionately commit crimes at higher rates than other populations, supporting suggestions that European society is attempting to associate Islam with drug addiction and violence.
The new generation of Muslims suffer from lack of sports clubs and youth entertainment centers, added to the fact that they are born and raised in areas called "belts of misery" surrounding large cities infested with underground crime, drugs and prostitution.
With all this in mind, mosques and Islamic centers are making an effort to fill a great part of that vacuum, especially with acceptance of the immigrants that flock to them.
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