Cultural Diversity and European Integration

Ewha Womans University

(Image from Wikipedia)

The photo above shows pretty much what I see nearly every morning after exiting the subway station and heading for the entrance to Ewha campus, and I'll be seeing this scene later on this early Sunday morning, albeit with fewer students milling about, as I head for my duty as judge in a nationwide speech contest sponsored, if I recall correctly, by the JoongAng Daily.

Because of this early morning responsibility, I have little time for a substantive blog entry today, but I can at least note that Ewha's Division of International Studies has asked me to teach its course on European History this coming spring semester since the regular instructor will be on sabbatical. I intend to rework a course that I designed for Yonsei University's Underwood International College. Some of this will sound familiar to long-time readers of Gypsy Scholar:

In the book Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order, Robert Kagan proposes that Europeans are "turning away from power . . . [and] moving . . . into a self-contained world of laws and rules and transnational negotiation and cooperation . . . . a post-historical paradise of peace and relative prosperity, the realization of Immanuel Kant's 'perpetual peace'" (page 3). But is this European perception of its role realistic or deluded? European integration has drawn together a collection of distinct nations, each characterized by its own particular culture, forming the EU a truly multicultural organization. These nations, nevertheless, share much the same civilizational identity, as Samuel Huntington (Clash of Civilizations) would have agreed and Rémi Brague (Eccentric Civilization) would still attempt to set forth. But as Christopher Caldwell shows in Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West, the ongoing, extensive immigration from the world to Europe may be introducing a more radical version of multiculturalism, as groups adhering to other than Western identities begin to dominate and to practice, if not explicitly demand, cultural autonomy. Do such groups pose a political threat to the European paradise of peace? Were the Paris riots, for example, a harbinger of cultural -- perhaps even civilizational -- conflict to come? And with the current economic problems reflected in the Euro currency's woes exacerbate these cultural differences and bring the entire process of European integration to a halt, even a collapse? This course will focus upon such questions, broadly conceived.

This is a preliminary draft of the course description, and I intend to rework and reword it as soon as I get beyond finals grading and other editing jobs that have piled up recently.

Meanwhile, wish me energy for today's judging duty. I foresee three grueling hours . . .

Christopher Caldwell on European 'Identity'

European Map

Less than the West . . .

but greater than the European Union?

(Image from Wikipedia)

In Reflections on the Revolution in Europe, which I'm still reading, Christopher Caldwell notes with irony the fact that Europe is returning to a sense of self-understanding in part due to the growth of Islam there:

[T]he conditions unifying Europe culturally have not been better for decades, and Islam is part of the reason why. Renewed acquaintance with Islam has given Europeans a stronger idea of what Europe is, because it has given them a stronger idea of what Europe is not. (Page 301)

But this seems to mean less than it seems, if I may put his point paradoxically. Apparently, Europeans mean that "Europe is not Islam." Or "not Islamic." Or "not Islamist." Or not something like that. Europeans are not sure what they genuinely stand for. They're been 'post-Christian' long enough to no longer be certain what Christianity actually means. Culturally, says Caldwell, being 'European' seems to mean little more than holding to "equal treatment of women, racial nondiscrimination, and (perhaps above all) freedom of sexual comportment" as "absolute rights" (312). Not necessarily bad things, I might add.

In terms of "the EU model of belonging," however, one can be even less European:

You are one person for your culture and another for law. You can be an official (legal) European even if you are not a "real" (cultural) European. (307)

As Caldwell notes, one need not even be culturally European! This arises partly due to a radical multiculturalism that refuses to judge among cultures, but also partly due to political compromises. The EU is a multicultural entity, for it unifies various European cultures. This fact makes difficult any 'discrimination' among not only Europeans but also among non-Europeans, who are (naturally) just following their cultures . . . and who can protest about that?

Well . . . perhaps Europeans could, but this sort of cultural development in modern Europe has succeeded among native Europeans because even though they implicitly recognize their Judeo-Christian heritage, they have accepted that "the multicultural nation-state is marked by a state monopoly on moral order" and that "Christians and Jews . . . [will only] worship God privately" (311). This is a risky perspective, thinks Caldwell, because it is comparatively weak, for "Muslims are distinguished by their refusal to submit to this spiritual disarmament" on the part of religion, so if "the multicultural order [should] fall, Islam is the only value system waiting in the wings" (311). Apparently, Islam will not devolve into a 'private' religion.

I think that Caldwell is exaggerating on this issue of a merely superficial European identity. Granted, he's describing what he thinks many Europeans believe, but when I spent a lot of my time in Europe -- roughly from 1986 to 1995 -- I felt that there was more to being a European than subscribing merely to these somewhat narrowly delimited, superficially described rights identified by Caldwell. European identity included not just the Judeo-Christian inheritance but art, architecture, science, philosophy, rationality, law, a culture of discussion, even food and drink, and a host of other things.

But perhaps Caldwell has something less polemical and more substantive to offer on this topic of European identity -- not that he doesn't score points, of course.

Anyway, I'm still reading.

Christopher Caldwell: On Tariq Ramadan's "Resistance"

Tariq Ramadan

Irresistable?

(Image from Iqra.ca)

I've previously tried to figure out what the Swiss Islamic thinker Tariq Ramadan truly stands for since one hears all sorts of things about him, and Christopher Caldwell offers an intriguing suggestion in Reflections of the Revolution in Europe:

The word resistance is the master key to Ramadan's thinking. It is the foundation of everything else about Ramadan that can be understood doubly. The word appears almost constantly in all of Ramadan's most important writings and speeches. He notes that "in my family, resistance was a key concept, resistance against dictatorship or colonialism." Resist is not a democratic verb, in the way that reform or dissent or oppose is. It is a revolutionary verb. Resistance is what one offers against a system that has no legitimacy whatsoever behind it. The French reformed their constitutional order in 1958; they resisted the Nazis after 1942 . . . . Contemporary Europeans, unable to conceive of themselves as thoroughly without legitimacy in anyone's eyes, have chosen to believe that when Ramadan speaks of "resistance," and calls on Muslims everywhere to wage it, he really means "reform." He does not. He means jihad. (pages 294-295)

The question that arises, however, is whether Ramadan means the inner jihad of moral spiritual struggle or the outer jihad of Islamist holy war. Or is this the question? Caldwell says no, that the question isn't either-or. It's both. He argues that Ramadan means what his grandfather Hassan al-Banna, the Islamist thinker, meant, that "mental resistance (conscience) and political resistance (revolution) are simply different ways of describing the same coherent process" (page 297).

How does Caldwell know what Ramadan means? Caldwell says that he knows because he draws upon "the writings of al-Banna that Ramadan himself has cited in his own work" (page 297). Unfortunately, other than offering a few notes on pages 395-396, Caldwell does not provide the full citations (including quotes) that would enable me to make my own evaluation, and this is a weakness to Caldwell's entire book. It is full of compelling analyses and interesting opinions, but it is essentially a work of intelligent, informed journalism.

I am, nevertheless, learning a good deal from reading it.

Christopher Caldwell on the European system for 'managing' Islam

Christopher Caldwell

Holding Forth on His 'Likes'

(Image from Zocalo Public Square)

Here's Christopher Caldwell, author of Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West, stepping on some more toes.

He's discussing -- although perhaps not specifically in the photo above -- "The European model of managing religion," which he maintains is inadequate for addressing Islam because this model was conceived of with respect to Christianity and "deals with the place of religion in society rather than scrutinizing religious doctrines from the inside" (193). This ignorance of Muslim doctrine has consequences demonstrating the model's inadequacy:

One sign of its inadequacy is that politicians are increasingly given to pronouncing on what is and is not Islam. Those who make such pronouncements are usually trying to exonerate Islam from the charge that it is a violent or intolerant religion, as George Bush famously did in the days after September 11, 2001, by pronouncing that "Islam is peace." One hears non-Arabic-speaking statesmen holding forth on what the Koran does and doesn't say about the duties of veiling. One reads about "poorly trained, mostly foreign imams" who incite young men to terrorism or "poorly educated judges" on sharia courts. The blame never falls on Islam itself but always on something aberrant, adventitious, exogenous, atypical, something imposed on it by an unrepresentative handful of nutcases, misinterpreters, Svengalis, and secret agents. The public is generally unconvinced. It asks what kind of religion requires expertise -- even "training" -- to keep it from being dangerous in the hands of its practitioners. Surely most Christian ministers in the United States are "poorly trained," and most new priests in Ireland (where only a handful a year are now ordained) are "foreign." But they don't scare people. And if they did, few would argue that their scariness had nothing to do with "real" Christianity. (193)

Again, rather blunt. But also a bit unclear. The inadequacy that he refers to would seem to be the assumption on the part of many politicians and statesmen that Islam is a peaceful religion because religions are intrinsically peaceful . . . like Christianity. But Caldwell doesn't clearly state this point, and when he does draw a parallel to Christianity, he does so to a hypothetical case. But I'm not entirely convinced by his analogy to a hypothetical 'scary' Christianity. If ministers and priests did go about scaring people with threats of violence, I think that a sizeable number of observers (though not all, of course) would "argue that their scariness had nothing to do with 'real' Christianity." And they would be right! That sort of scariness would be a distortion of New Testament teachings (unless we're also intended to hypothesize a different New Testament text).

The problem with Islam's 'scariness' -- as Caldwell emphasizes -- is that very many observers have the impression that this is the "real" Islam. Most of those observing Islam and drawing this conclusion, however, are also judging Islam from the outside because they don't know its "religious doctrines from the inside." They, too, are "non-Arabic-speaking," much like the "statesmen holding forth on what the Koran does and doesn't say."

People are thus not entirely sure, and most of us would prefer to believe the best about such a powerful, numerous religion . . . but perhaps we should be investigating instead.

Reading Christopher Caldwell's Reflections on the Revolution in Europe

Christopher Caldwell

Reflections on the Revolution in Europe:

Immigration, Islam, and the West

(Image from Zócalo Public Square)

Among other things keeping me busy, I'm also reading Christopher Caldwell's recently published book, Reflections on the Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West. Some readers may recall that I mentioned this book in a blog entry of May 22 this year.

It's a pretty blunt book, as he forewarns his readers:

The reader should be warned that, without a certain amount of shorthand and bluntness, nothing serious can be said. (page 25)

In other words, expect Caldwell to step on some toes, which does rather often -- as he has probably done with these words:

The late Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington devoted much of his 1996 book The Clash of Civilizations to Islam's "bloody borders." This may be a controversial observation, but it is an observation -- it is not something Huntington dreamed up. As of this writing, Muslim countries or groups are either at war or in a hostile truce with every civilization that Islam abuts, from Nigeria to Xinjiang. (pages 162-163)

Five pages later, he picks up on this point:

If we return to Huntington's observation about the frictions between Islam and every single culture with which it is in contact, or if we consider the penury, servitude, violence, and mediocrity of Muslim societies worldwide . . . how do we explain it? Either there is a problem with Islam that must be addressed by Muslims themselves, or a wide variety of non-Muslim cultures has, by incredible coincidence, developed exactly the same unfair malevolence toward Islam. (pages 168-169)

As I noted, rather blunt words, and a lot of people won't like them, but I've also read similar words elsewhere -- sometimes in blogs, sometimes in newspapers, sometimes in books -- so this opinion appears to be growing rather widespread.

If Caldwell is right, then Europe will see itself split by what Huntington called "civilizational fault lines," and we will find out within our own lifetimes if Caldwell is right.