![Political Islam and the European Neighbourhood Policy](/api/image/getbookcoverimage?id=document_cover-page-image_509631.jpg)
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This chapter gives an overview of the current economic development of European Muslim communities and suggests initiatives that could be taken to improve the situation. The exercise was quite challenging since there is an absence of reliable statistics and figures on Muslim communities in Europe. Since 9/11, several subjects have monopolised the main discourses on Muslim communities: the debate around the radicalisation of Muslims, their integration and so-called ‘identity’, their visibility and their necessary adaptation into the host society. In a contemporary Europe characterised by the secularisation and privatisation of religious identity, the presence of Muslim communities claiming their faith is perceived by some as disturbing. On the other hand, socio-economic issues such as unemployment, discrimination and exclusion, while given less attention in the current debate, are at the same time considered to be causes of extremism and terrorism, and by the Muslims themselves as their most important worry for their future. As advocated by some sociologists, it is imperative to get away from the essentialism that dominates reflections on Islam and the Muslim communities in Europe. Pointing to Islam, its practices and ist visibility as the main reason for the problems of integration risks widening the existing gap between this religious minority and the secularised host society. The objective of this study is to investigate what the Muslim community can contribute to the development of society, to look at how religious discourse can help the younger generations identify with success, and how the faith factor can be a success factor for economic integration.
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The urgent need to tackle the discrimination faced by Muslims in Europe has emerged as a key concern of European policy-makers. Discrimination is considered a significant contributor to alienation and disaffection among Muslims, a barrier to integration and a risk factor for radicalisation. Developing effective and coherent policy interventions requires a clear understanding of the nature of the discrimination faced by Muslims as well as an assessment of the strength and limitations of existing policies. The first part of this paper examines the nature of the discrimination faced by Muslims in Europe. It sets out some of the research and statistical data that are available on performance by minority groups in relation to key socio-economic indicators. While this provides important information about the disadvantages experienced by minority groups that are predominately Muslim, the paucity of information on Muslims, as a group, limits our understanding of both the disadvantages and the discrimination Muslims encounter. In examining the data, the difficulty of identifying the role of ‘discrimination’ from data is explored. Furthermore, even when there is sufficiently robust data to allow statistical regression that can identify an ‘ethnic’, ‘religion’ or ‘migrant’ penalty, the nature of discrimination that Muslims are confronted with remains complex and varied. It is suggested that the main grounds for discrimination that Muslims face vary between different Muslim groups. For some, the first order of discrimination may be on the basis of nationality, refugee or immigration status. For others, colour and racial discrimination may be prevalent and for others it may be religious discrimination. Most importantly, attempting to identify a particular area of discrimination overlooks the potential for discrimination on intersectional and multiple grounds. Finally, even when it is possible to identify religious discrimination, the experience and impact of it can vary among Muslims. A second part of this paper explores the possibilities, potential and limitations within the current EU policies aimed at tackling discrimination. It begins therefore, by setting out the developments in EU antidiscrimination legislation and policy – with a focus on the EC Directive for tackling discrimination on the grounds of religion and belief in employment (the Framework Directive) – considering the relationship between equality and discrimination. It is argued that a fundamental constraint on the use of tools provided by the legal framework is the absence of any consensus on a vision of what equality for Muslims looks like. The paper then explores some of the limitations of the Framework Directive; these include the limited scope of the application of the directive, the potential for addressing multiple or intersectional discrimination and the continuation of an approach that relies on individuals making complaints.
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Despite its rank as the second-largest religion in several European countries, Islam is facing severe resistance at both state and societal level. Certain conservative political and media discourses associate Islam with violence and fanaticism. For most Muslims, however, their religion is associated with notions of justice and democracy. The conflict between these two conceptualisations of Islam has reinforced defensive attitudes on both sides. While Muslim stereotypes have increased since 9/11, so have the voices in favour of civil liberties for Muslims in Europe. As is argued here, ethnic media (i.e. Muslim media) are playing a major role on both sides of the debate. These questions are of common concern to many EU member states and associated states and European institutions. They are based on three assumptions. Firstly, new information and communication technology (ICT) has reshaped the media scene, which is now accessible to increasing numbers of people, including exchanges between European countries and third countries. Secondly, the transnational mobilisations are increasingly influenced by ICT, which makes it possible for individuals to travel – both virtually and in reality – between several countries. Thirdly, the representation of the minority or marginalised groups, particularly in the case of Muslims, has become one of the key questions of European sociopolitical debate, and at the same time can be seen as a test for European democracy. I would like to propose a historical reading of the representation of Muslims and Islam in the media. It is a question of understanding how media discourse evolved as it did and how and when Muslims are portrayed in the media. Several questions can be raised: How do media technologies influence conditions within both the Muslim community and the mainstream? What are the consequences of national and EU policies for Muslim citizens and their media regarding their social and political inclusion? How do European Muslims aggregate interests in a more effective and efficient way via their own media? Do Muslim media advocate social inclusion or pursue narrow interests?
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Over the past few years in the European Union, mainly among the large Muslim diasporas, there is a rapid spread and strengthening of Islamist radicalization. A similar process, albeit in a much more limited sizes began to be seen in Bulgaria. Radicalization that leads to violence is a phenomenon that can lead to acts of terrorism and endanger the fundamental values of the European Union – democracy, human rights, freedom and the rule of law. This demands the Member States of the Union to undertake adequate measures to counter effectively radicalization and terrorism, with a major emphasis on prevention.
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As between individuals, there are conflicts between the actors of the international scene, the solving of which is possible either by force or by diplomacy, both methods being used throughout history, sometimes even in a congruent way. At first, a few thousand years later, war prevailed due to the possibility of achieving faster and more lasting effects than through diplomacy.However, because generalized violence sometimes had catastrophic consequences for those endowed with sense and reason, they sought justifications for the recourse to the armed force, which materialized in the theory of warfare based on the idea of legitimate defense, but also on the formalization of the hostilities and the establishment of rules of warfare. Only in our time the idea that the shift to use of the armed force without any motivation is a crime of aggression prevailed, so that a return to diplomacy is considered possible, the choice between these two modalities remaining a politics attribute.Keywords:
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In a multicultural society such as ours the risk of micro conflicts is always present and in fact unavoidable. The realities we have analysed can easily lead us to predict that issues such as evolution of the political situation in Iraq and the related reaction of Turkey is likely to create tensions between the Turkish and Kurdish communities living in Belgium. Likewise, the liberation of Palestine will continue to be a major issue of mobilisation and tension for Belgian residents with Arab sensibilities and groups such as the ones we have observed will certainly try to capitalise on the unrest. And of course, xenophobic and fear-mongering parties in both the North and the South of the country are likely to use tensions (or an eventual terrorist attack) as grounds for promoting their own agendas. On the whole, however, Belgium’s Muslims are likely to remain no more radicalised than their Christian or their Jewish compatriots. At a time when religious radicalisation has become almost synonymous with Islamic radicalisation, it is important to remember that the need for political parties that express religious concerns or are inspired by a faith-based world view is present in all communities and is not likely to disappear as long as there are persons who place faith high among their priorities. As for political radicalisation, the phenomenon does occur in Belgium in many contexts, and unfortunately no faith, language, culture or any other element-based community is immune.
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The release of the anti-Islam movie “Fitna” by the Dutch Member of Parliament Geert Wilders, early 2008, aroused anxious fears of angry responses by Muslims communities. As happened in the Danish cartoon crisis, people expected the movie to trigger violent demonstrations, boycotts, the burning of flags and other aggressive responses by Muslim communities, both in the Netherlands and around the world. Months prior to the actual release of the movie, the Dutch prime minister already spoke of a crisis, predicting violent confrontations between Muslims and non-Muslims, and devastating consequences for Muslim integration in Dutch society.
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This chapter starts from the assumption that the process of integration in Spain is different from that in other EU countries and that it is marked by two main characteristics. First, immigrants from Muslim countries are fewer in number than immigrants from Latin American countries. Second, the existence of domestic terrorism, through the Basque separatist group ETA, tempers the impact of tensions and conflicts from radical Islam. Recent polls indicate that immigration and terrorism are among the main concerns of Spaniards. According to the 2007 Opinion Barometer survey conducted by the Sociological Research Centre (CIS)2, immigration (a concern for 11.6% of the population) stands fourth behind terrorism (23.6%), unemployment (14.4%) and housing (14.1%) in terms of the problems perceived as affecting Spain most acutely. This reference to terrorism focuses more on that perpetrated by ETA than that of the Islamic terrorist cells. Of course, the 2004 Madrid attacks changed many aspects of Spaniards’ perception of Islamic terrorism, making it much more real and threatening. Nevertheless, ETA’s permanent campaign and the failed Basque peace processes are still much more at the forefront of people’s minds.
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The phenomenon of ‘Islamic radicalism’ is an extremely significant one for Russia because of at least two circumstances: a) there areabout 20 million Muslims living in Russia (including 3.5 to 4 million migrant Muslims), and b) in the 15 years since the collapse of the USSR,Russia has been shaken by ethno-political conflicts with an apparent confessional component. Russia’s Muslim community is not uniform. Singled out in it may be two socio-cultural realms, the Northern Caucasian and the Tatar-Bashkir (for simplicity we call it Tatar), which, as a consequence of increased migrations, have recently been in active contact with each other alongside the direct participation of a third force – Central Asian Muslims. Without touching upon the differences between them, we note one characteristic: in the Northern Caucasus, radical tendencies and sentiments are stronger than in the rest of Russia. This characteristic sometimes makes it necessary separately to describe processes and situations related to Islamic radicalism.
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According to official figures published by the KRG Ministry of Planning, the percentage of individuals aged thirty and younger in the region constitutes two-thirds of the population. Half of the region's population is under the age of twenty, demonstrating the significant share of the population constituted by young people (KRG 2013). At this susceptible stage of life, youth seek “active engagement in processes of identity formation” (Ryan 2014, 447), and if their energies are not directed and invested in line with a national strategy, the potential repercussions could negatively affect their future and that of the region in general.
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The tourism industry, which is essentially considered useful, connecting people and cultures and generating jobs and contributing to the development of accompanying services and transport businesses, has been attacked by radical ideologies at both ideological and practical levels of terrorism and vandalism. The purpose of this report is to examine some of these, both theoretically and practically radical ideologies.
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The author analyses main the main achievements of Max Weber (1864 - 1920), one of the founders of sociology. Weber studied the influence of Protestant ethical attitudes on the growth of capitalism. He stated that Protestantism gave rational principles and enabled such a rapid development of this form of economy in Western Europe. The foundation of the capitalist stance were: the principle of treating work as a theological obligation, the principle of intense work for the glory of God (and not for profit), the principle of asceticism that limits the use of profit solely for further economic development (investment, not luxury), the principle of rational conduct in daily life, the principle of using time to carry out duties. The basis of specific life attitudes of Protestant capitalists was rationalism, namely the use of reason to achieve maximum economic benefits. The ideas of the Reformation introduced and became the framework of the Enlightenment.
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Tri su pitanja kojima mogu koliko-toliko da obuhvatim i shvatim široko duhovno polje Ivana Cvitkovića: šta jeste religija, odnos religije i religijske ideologije i dijalog i tolerancija među religijama. Svakom pitanju su potrebna druga dva, pa se ne može zameniti jedno, a da se ne promene ostala. U stvari, nema toga elementa u strukturi religije o kome naš i vaš Ivan nije rekao svoju reč. Tako on, između ostalog, raspravlja o odnosu religije i nacije, religije i politike, religije i nasilja, crkve i države, religije i društvene promene, religije i medija, religije i sekularizacije, religije i izbora, religije i porodice itd.
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Svoj prispevek k počastitvi jubileja dragega kolega iz središča/srca nekdanje Jugoslavije, h kateremu me je povabil oddelek za družbene vede Akademije nauka i umjetnosti Bosne i Hercegovine, bom napisal in poslal v slovenskem jeziku. (Bilo mi je ljubeznivo ponujeno, da ga lahko napišem in pošljem v slovenskem, angleškem ali drugem jeziku.)
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Unlike modern states which are founded on the values of the French revolution (1789), Church has always been marked by tradition and absolute identification with national interests.Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople officially recognized Romanian Orthodox Church in 1885 when Ecumenical Patriarch issued act formalizing this decision. In reality, autocephaly of the Romanian Orthodox Church, spread to Transylvania as well, in the sense of independence existed in Middle Ages and as such was confirmed on several occasions by Romanian leaders (rulers, the last of which Dimitrie Cantemir, several years before establishing the Phanariot rule in Romanian lands).
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