Introduction: The Problem of Islam

We are at war and I am a soldier. For me it was those words that brought it home. Delivered in the broadest of Yorkshire accents, the statement came from a young man just like myself: the same age; university educated; the son of an immigrant from the subcontinent, raised in Britain. A European citizen. Yet Muhammed Sidique Khan was prepared to die and to kill for the most abstract of hatreds:

I and thousands like me are forsaking everything for what we believe. Our driving motivation doesn’t come from tangible commodities that this world has to offer. Our religion is Islam - obedience to the one true God, Allah, and following the footsteps of the final prophet and messenger Muhammad. This is how our ethical stances are dictated.

Your democratically elected governments continuously perpetuate atrocities against my people all over the world. And your support of them makes you directly responsible, just as I am directly responsible for protecting and avenging my Muslim brothers and sisters.

Until we feel security, you will be our targets. And until you stop the bombing, gassing, imprisonment and torture of my people we will not stop this fight.

We are at war and I am a soldier. Now you too will taste the reality of this situation.

He could so easily have been myself, a twisted reflection from a world we in Europe still barely understand. The parallel universe of Jihad, Shar'ia, martyrdom and the AK-47, a terrifying alternative reality served up for our consumption as 24-hour rolling news.

A year on from the 7 July suicide bombings in London – of which Khan was the ringleader – there has (as yet) been no repeat. Thankfully the second wave of would-be terrorists failed in a blur of incompetence. But these men came not from the outside, like the Madrid bombers who killed hundreds in 2003. They came from within, from inside our own states and societies. Our worst fears are being realised.

The London bombings were no isolated example of what is a growing malaise. This summer, European air travel came to a standstill after a multiple bombing plot led by British-born Muslims was uncovered. Last year, the French banlieues exploded in a maelstrom of pent-up frustration and resentment as the country’s disenfranchised young Muslims took to the streets. Danish cartoons satirising the Prophet Mohammed inspired immense anger in Europe and rioting across the globe. In the Netherlands, the Islam question is the political issue of the day: Pim Fortuyn; the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh; the Ayaan Hirsi Ali affair.

So let’s cut the crap and admit that there’s a problem. People across Europe are afraid, and at the basest level what they are afraid of is Islam.

Yet, hiding as it does behind a wall of political correctness, the European state is curiously unable (or unwilling) to come up with an answer to the growing tide of Islamic dissent. Why?

Not at the Dinner Table: Politics and Religion

An answer lies in the history books, where we find that the relationship between politics and religion is fraught to say the least. Over the centuries, countless millions died in European conflicts that, at their core, were fought over the separation of church and state. Ultimately, the historical process saw power wrested from the hands of monarchs claiming to be ‘appointed by God’ and clergymen declaring themselves ‘servants of God’ and thrust into the hands of the population as a whole. The turbulent story of the church and state is, indeed, the story of democracy.

Nowadays, the separation of church and state is so sacred to us in Europe that we snigger behind our sleeves at the very notion of a God-fearing politician. Tony Blair, for example, a committed Catholic, deliberately plays down his faith. On the few occasions when an unguarded remark slips out – such as his belief in “being accountable to God” over Iraq – his critics are merciless. Germany’s Christian Democratic Union party (CDU) is affiliated to Christ only in name; in reality it is almost entirely secular.

Though Christianity has enjoyed something of a revival in the former Communist Bloc, elsewhere in the continent churches are emptying at an alarming rate. Torn apart by internal arguments, institutions such as the Church of England are swiftly becoming irrelevant, its Archbishops and senior clerics but marginal figures on the fringe of the establishment. We, the people of Europe, no longer respect the first estate. Religion and politics just don’t mix any more.

Unwelcome Guests

Or do they? Forget Christianity and consider this. There are now probably over 15 million Muslims in Europe. Perhaps 6% of the Dutch population is Muslim; in France it is 9%. There are 3 million in Germany; even in tiny Denmark there’s 250,000. Almost a third of Londoners were born outside England, and a high proportion of them follow Islam. That’s a lot of Muslims. So maybe faith isn’t an issue we can just consign to history.

We owe this new demographic to the collapse of Empire following World War II, and the subsequent mass migration of people from the former colonies to Europe: Pakistanis and Bangladeshis to Britain; Algerians to France; Indonesians to the Netherlands. Moreover, as post-war recovery and industrialisation gained pace, countries such as Germany and the Netherlands actively called for and recruited thousands upon thousands of gastarbieters to fill critical holes in the labour force. Expectations that these workers would simply go back to where they came from were unfounded and frankly naïve. Add to this the influx of refugees escaping the wars of the new world disorder and you have all the ingredients for quite a cocktail.

But while the US was founded upon the idea of a ‘melting pot’ of migrants, all equal before God, Congress and the Constitution as they pursued the American Dream, Europe most certainly was not.

There is no ‘European Dream’. You don’t become German just by living in Germany: there is some Teutonic essence that even second- and third-generation Turks never achieve. Algerian-origin footballer Zinedine Zidane may be a national hero, but does he boast the je ne sais quois of a true Frenchman? I think not. Every major metropolis in Europe has significant and entrenched enclaves of Islamic immigrant communities. With Pakistanis in Peckham and Bangladeshis in Brick Lane, no wonder they call it ‘Londonistan’.

Faith in the State

The thing is that in our European concept of religion , God is someone you only speak to on Sundays. But in other faiths, spirituality is a way of life.

Islam is a perfect example. Though there are certain rituals and tasks that a good Muslim must perform each day, a true believer has no need for an elaborate mosque or a vocal Imam. Hang around long enough in any major airport, and you’ll see someone unroll his prayer mat, align it to Mecca with a pocket compass, and begin fulfilling his obligation of prayer (salat) – as often as not just across from the duty free store. Being a Muslim is not about just turning up at the Mosque on Friday and doing your dues. It is about who you are.

Contrast this with us the absence of faith among we Godless Europeans. Perhaps it was the Reformation, the Enlightenment, Darwin and the advances of science. Perhaps it’s something deeper in the culture. Perhaps we’re simply too lazy to take religion seriously any more. But we simply can’t relate to these exotic folk who have come to live among us. Our conception of the social order is too different. The only thing that rules over us in our day-to-day lives, whether in the shape of the taxman or the policeman, is the state – if it dares.

And it’s this dynamic that exacerbates the tension. The European state is distinct from its religion, specifically Christianity, and that is the way it wants to stay, thank you very much. But in Islam there is a crucial and fundamental difference. For Muslims, their faith is at the root of their lifestyle, their laws, their language, even their economics. Community leaders and the Muslim clergy are one and the same. The state is religion.

At the zenith of this concept are the forms of state that Europeans fear the most: Afghanistan under the Taliban, or Iran under the Ayatollah. Most Muslims are of course far more moderate. But it’s an uncomfortable fact that the typical Muslim in Europe may identify far more with Islam than with the weak and nebulous state he lives in within, let alone the weak and nebulous European Union. A recent survey backs this up, with 81% of Muslims in Britain considering themselves Muslims first and Britons second (though their major concerns are the same as everyone’s – earning a living and paying their way).

When it comes to faith and the state, this is the challenge that Europe faces. There are fundamentalist groups in Germany that say integration into European society is treasonous to Allah. The more radical Muslims among us do not recognise the legitimacy of our corrupt and secular governments. Like Mohammed Sidique Khan, their allegiance is first and foremost to Islam. Islam is the state above all states. It is not necessarily compatible with the kind of state that we actually have.

A Salat for Europe?

Does the answer to this schism then lie in what some have termed ‘European Islam’? What’s that when it’s at home?

Well, think of McDonalds. Operating in over 100 countries, the franchise churns out millions upon millions of identical products, right? Wrong. Think what you like about the grisly cuisine on offer, but the marketeers know what side their burger’s flipped. Every restaurant serves a regional variation of its products. In the Netherlands you can tuck into a McKroket. In China you can order a McStirfry. In India, where beef is not eaten, there’s a vegetarian Aloo McTikki burger (that comes in a McStyrofoam box). Sometimes the difference is as subtle as a name – in France a quarter pounder with cheese is famously ‘a Royale with cheese’ (or so the characters in the movie Pulp Fiction would have us believe).

Many believe that the Islam ‘brand’ could similarly be adapted to fit in with the cultures it must live alongside. Kamal Atatürk’s vision of Islam – recognising the equality of women and the abolition of headscarves, for example – was designed not only to brink Turkey kicking and screaming into the 20th century but to pave the way for it to become a more ‘European’ nation – though this is lost on the many who would rather not see Turkey join the European Union. Couldn’t this idea simply be expanded across the continent?

At first glance ‘European Islam’ appears ideal. But think again. Inventing – and then attempting to impose – some kind of state-sanctioned Islam – is going to be as useful and relevant as teaching a fish to ride a bicycle. Just as democracy and civil society in the Middle East cannot be enforced at the point of the gun, European Islam is a concept that can and must only develop organically and of its own accord. It is outside the remit of the state, and it is certainly not as easily malleable as fast food. The Shah of Iran tried to make Persia a secular nation, and look what happened to him.

Learning to Live Together

But it’s not impossible for ‘foreigners’ to fit in. Look to those immigrants who have successfully integrated, namely the Indians and the Chinese. You don’t see many of them strapping a rucksack full of explosives onto their backs and detonating it in a busy train. Instead, those from the subcontinent or Hong Kong are now some of Europe and America’s most successful entrepreneurs. The Chinese and Indian diasporas succeeded through the cold, raw, and dull power of simple economics. At the basest level, they got on their bikes and found jobs.

The solution is not to change Islam to suit Europe but help Muslim people to become more ‘European’. Work and education, therefore, are keys to unlocking the divide between Islam and Europe – and even in today’s global capitalist society these are not outside the remit of the state. By educating its citizens, Muslim and non-Muslim alike; by bringing them together; and finally by fundamentally changing the way it deals with the socio-religious divide there may be a way for the Western nation-state system and Islam to come to terms with each other and dispel the rising tide of fear and suspicion.

Too often, however, young European Muslims are in the clutches of foreign-born religious instructors who deny the legitimacy of the societies in which their charges must live and preach an unsavoury and radical form of Islam. Their power must be broken.

To begin with, then, we must put an end to the religious divide among future generations. In Northern Ireland, wracked with violence for 30 years, mingling children of Catholic and Protestant backgrounds is already paying dividends. Bring children together outside their racial and religious enclaves and you bring together the communities. The same surely goes for the Europe-Islam problem too.

Moreover, the state must help eradicate the mutual distrust. Too many of our Muslims exist in a twilight world; the suburban ghettos of northern England, from where the 7/7 bombers came, or Clichy-sous-Bois on the outskirts of Paris. This is not necessarily by design: in a recent poll commissioned for the UK’s Channel 4 television, 94% of the Muslim respondents agreed that their communities should not live separately from non-Muslims. But the reality is that they often do, and here the onus is on Muslims (perhaps with a helping hand from government) to make the effort to break out.

Integration also involves communication. For example, only when the residents are able to speak the language of their adopted countries can they begin to peep outside the confines of their ethno-religious enclaves. Once the linguistic ice is broken, people can begin to craft their identities as European Muslims – note the distinction between this and European Islam.

Reshaping the Polity

But this aside, the issue is not just integration into society. Violence tends to be inspired by anger and frustration – yet the groups that make up modern Europe’s melting pot have no voice on the political scene. Only 10% of Muslims in Germany even have the vote – no wonder there’s little confidence in politics. At the core of the problem, then, is the relationship between the state and the Muslim citizens in our midst. It is non-existent.

Too often, ordinary Muslims complain that they are not represented in the political mainstream. The 7/7 bombers were neither undereducated, nor isolated, but articulate young men who saw no other way to make their views heard than to blow themselves up. This is what the state needs to address, and the solution may have to be a radical one.

The problem is that our political systems were designed in the post-Westphalian days when the European nation-state was a relatively new invention. Though it has never been a truly homogeneous entity of identical citizens with identical needs, what we face today is a far more complex and fractured society than ever before. Europe has changed. The political establishment needs to reflect this, not deny it.

But under current electoral systems, the typical politician is a dilettante, a jack-of-all-trades expected to understand and represent every one of his or her diverse constituents and voters. Clearly in countries with such significant proportions of immigrants and ethno-religious minorities this can’t work any longer. There needs to be a rethink and a restructuring of the political system in order to give these disenfranchised people a voice.

This would not mean a dismantling of current norms. It would certainly not mean rescinding the separation of church and state. But in order to reflect the reality of our modern multi-cultural societies, new political outlets should be erected in parallel. A body politic independent of the party system to better reflect the patchwork of different faiths and ethnicities of modern Europe. A kind of council of elders, a European version of the Afghan loya jirga or the Indian panchayat.

It would begin at a local level, with small groups of representative leaders, independent of political parties and chosen and elected by local people. These councils would not have direct power, but would act on a consultative level, bringing the actual political executive into daily direct contact with the issues that Europe’s people actually face.

If successful, the scheme could be expanded beyond these sectarian lines to include other interest groups, for example, local business and industry. A university town might introduce a seat for academics and students; a rural area would include a farmers’ representative and an environmentalist. The basic structure could also be expanded upwards to a regional, national and even a European level assembly, until what we are left with is a real and relevant second chamber in a bicameral legislature. It would be made up not of political parties but of delegations, people who know about the real troubles and concerns of the myriad groups and communities that intersect in the fabric of the continent today.

The Need for Dialogue

Of course there are deep flaws in this proposal. It is likely that a number of those elected would be well off the mainstream, but if a hundred Abu Hamzas or George Galloways is what the people ask for then that is what they will get; they’d soon see sense and the moderates would prevail. There would be controversy over what constitutes a legitimate interest group and what does not. A balanced voting system needs to be devised to as to ensure that the local bodies accurately reflect the make-up of the localities they represent. It could be prohibitively expensive.

But if such an assembly or any analogous structure had existed, then the extant political establishment might not have made the same mistakes that it has. Paris’s governors would have been more aware of the social tensions at its outskirts and would have had better access to people who could diffuse them. The German Bundestag would be more in touch with the country’s millions of Turks. We might even discover that there really is less difference between us than we thought. Jews, Christians and Muslims alike are children of the same book, after all.

The core of the concept is the need to somehow eliminate the conflict between Islam and the state, and to make them mutually compatible in a manner that is fair to all. At the very least, the political establishments of America and Europe need to stop dictating and start learning. Knee-jerk reactionism like the French headscarf ban can only serve to push embittered young Muslims further into the arms of the extremists. The Danish cartoons were not an expression of the right to free speech but a deliberate provocation. To paraphrase John F. Kennedy, free speech isn’t free; it comes with responsibility. Learning to live with Islam requires more than a little give and take, and it is up to both Muslims and the state to make some concessions.

Blood and Oil

Whether the European establishment would have the courage or strength to implement a proposal as far-reaching as this is highly doubtful, but the need for active engagement with the continent’s disaffected young Muslims has never been clearer. Mohammed Siddique Khan's fellow bomber Shehzad Tanweer reminded us why in an Al-Qaeda video screened in July:

What you have witnessed now is only the beginning of a series of attacks that will continue and increase in strength until you withdraw your soldiers from Afghanistan and Iraq, and until you stop your financial and military support for America and Israel.

If this is true, and I for one believe it is, then all of the above may be academic. What has really raised the ire of Muslims in Europe and across the world is not just a bunch of cartoons.

When we see images of extremism every night over our TV dinners we erroneously but instinctively assume that all Muslims are fanatical zealots striking at the heart of our society. And when a Muslim surfs the Internet and sees Muslims under attack in Palestine, Lebanon or Iraq it is with them that he sympathises, not the Western states he sees as perpetrating the outrages. This sentiment is crystal clear in the London bombers’ video statements. Khan and Tanweer saw the rape of Iraq and made the mental connection between Bush, Blair and everyone around them – a connection that finally prompted them to kill.

So Western leaders – that means you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair – need to be far more candid about the true nature of what’s going on out there. Whether or not European governments condone US policy, just as we often see all Muslims in the same light, they too can’t be blamed for seeing all ‘Westerners’ in the same light. What America does, right or wrong, casts a pall on Europe too. The nebulous idea of a ‘War on Terror’ is easily misinterpreted as a war on Islam, which it is not. It’s not a war for ‘freedom’ either. It’s a war for oil.

The West at a Crossroads

Too often, the profits of oil are restricted to corrupt elites that fail to properly manage and industrialise the states they govern. This monopoly on power, one of the key factors in the radicalisation of Islam worldwide, needs to be broken. Instead of railing against Al-Qaeda and Iran, the US must instead undertake a serious and sustained re-examination of its policy in the Middle East. It should start by looking at the ways in which it might help bring change and reform other than at the barrel of a gun.

Furthermore, Washington’s blind support for Israel is turning Muslims against the West all over the globe. Since George W. Bush arrived in the White House, there has been little inclination to maintain momentum in the peace process and tacit approval for Israeli belligerence. We can see the results in the second Intifadah and July’s assault on Lebanon. Neither of these are improving relations with what we must recognise is a global nation of Islam.

The Israel-Palestine situation, intractable as it seems, is not a dead end – but only the US has the influence to create any semblance of progress. The same goes for Lebanon, a sudden and futile war that undoubtedly radicalised thousands of Muslims against the perceived hypocrisies of Israel-supporting Western states.

Instead of descending into internal arguments that will only lead to deeper schisms, Europe, and especially Britain, should therefore put even more pressure on America to find acceptable solutions. Only when the US and its allies lose their addiction to oil, and the bloodshed and instability that accompanies it, will the bitterness between Islam and the West begin to heal.

But for this it may already be too late, and no doubt we will rue the consequences for decades to come. August’s foiled attack was just another warning. Europe may need to get its own house in order, but it’s American foreign policy that’ll kill us.