February
14, 2008 Spanish Muslims at
Crossroads:
Integration or Exclusion?
Madrid
Will Spain have a liberal or conservative type of Islam? Could
fundamentalism soar? Will Muslims blend in, or will there be youth
riots like in Paris in 2005? Can Spain find a third way between
French-style assimilation of immigrants and British
multiculturalism?
As the first modern generation of Spanish-born Muslims is coming of
age, the country's Islamic communities stand at a crossroads.
The question of the integration of Muslims has come under a heated
debate after the opposition conservatives announced they would ban
Muslim headscarves in most schools if they win the March 9
elections.
The proposal sparked criticism from the governing Socialists and the
far left, which slammed the conservatives as xenophobic racists.
"Immigrants should never become a cheap electoral merchandise,"
Kamal Rahmouni, president of the Moroccan immigrants' association
Atime, said in an interview with DPA.
Spain needs to develop "solid elements" to deal with problems
related to immigration when they arise, Rahmouni stressed, calling
for a "state pact" between the two main parties.
Spain is estimated to have more than a million Muslims, making Islam
the country's second biggest religion after Roman Catholicism.
The Muslims are usually spoken of as a group, but in reality, they
include a wide variety of nationalities ranging from up to 800,000
Moroccans - the largest group - to Pakistanis, people from the
Middle East and West Africa.
The Muslims also include about 80,000 people living in the Spanish
enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla on the Moroccan coast, and up to
25,000 converts.
The currents of Islam present in Spain range from traditional
Moroccan Malekite Islam to orthodox Saudi Wahabism and even some
marginal fundamentalist movements. A part of the Muslims, of course,
practise their religion only occasionally or not at all.
In relations with the government, Muslims are represented by two
federations.
The Spanish Federation of Islamic Religious Entities (Feeri)
represents a liberal home-grown Islam embraced by many converts,
while the bigger Union of Spanish Islamic Communities (Ucide) stands
for a more conservative, social brand.
"Many Muslims do not feel represented by these organs, which were
created in the late 1980s and early 1990s," Rahmouni says.
Internal divisions and rivalries have prevented Muslims from having
a visible leader and a single voice, he observes.
That contributed to governments ignoring a pioneering 1992
agreement, which theoretically gives Muslims the same rights as
Catholics, according to observers.
Critics of the 1996-2004 conservative governments say they had
little enthusiasm for promoting Muslim rights because of their
closeness to the Catholic Church.
As the number of Muslims has grown, the current Socialist government
has timidly started reactivating cooperation with Islamic
associations in the framework of a new foundation.
Madrid boasts what is billed as Europe's biggest mosque, the
construction of which was financed by Saudi Arabia. Yet the vast
majority of Spain's 700 mosques continue operating in garages,
basements, former factories or warehouses.
With no national rules on the training of imams and hardly any state
subsidies to mosques, they are often left dependent on money coming
in from countries such as Saudi Arabia, Libya or Egypt.
That increases the danger of outside interference and of
fundamentalism, according to Muslim analysts.
Spain currently has only about 30 teachers of Islam for more than
70,000 potential pupils at state schools.
Questions such as that of the headscarf are sorted out on the
regional level, the tendency being to regard a girl's right to
education as more important than criticism of a symbol which some
see as denigrating women.
The Islamic communities and the government need to arrange for
Muslims to have democratically-elected representatives in order to
regulate the practice of Islam, Rahmouni says.
"Spain needs to find its own model of integration," based on the
existence of 17 semi-autonomous regions some of which have their own
languages alongside Spanish, he said.
"Spain's cultural diversity will facilitate the integration of
immigrants," Rahmouni believes.
Spain is unique in Western Europe in that it was partly under Muslim
rule for eight centuries until 1492. Spanish culture has numerous
Arab-Berber influences including more than 4,000 Spanish words that
are derivative from Arabic.
Few Spaniards, however, spare a thought for such links, and there
have been dozens of cases of local people opposing the construction
of mosques in regions such as northeastern Catalonia.
The 2004 Islamist train bombings, which killed 191 people in Madrid,
were followed by a slight increase in neo-Nazi attacks and threats
against mosques, but on the whole, Rahmouni describes the reaction
of Spanish society as "very mature" - at least so far.
Boloji.com is owned and managed by Boloji Media Inc Privacy Policy |
Disclaimer
No part of this Internet site may
be reproduced without prior written permission of the copyright holder.
