«Coexistence is more difficult if we do not respect their religion»

The main problems faced nowadays in Europe by young immigrants are traditional racism, based the colour of a person’s skin, and widespread anti-religious sentiments. This is the opinion expressed by Olivier Roy, professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Scieneces Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. His most recent book, “La Sainte Ignorance” (2009), speaks of religious revivalism as the consequence of globalisation and a crisis of cultures.

The issue of Muslims living in Europe has re-emerged after the Swiss referendum against the building of new minarets, reminding us of the Italian issue of the crucifix in classrooms. What is your opinion on that?

In both cases the problem is that of the religious marker in the public sphere. The issue of these religious markers is that they are, actually, also cultural markers and not only religious ones. For example, the crucifix has been presented by the Italian government to the Strasbourg courts as a purely cultural symbol, but this is not the same position as that of the Catholic Church, for which the crucifix has a religious meaning. Therefore, the symbol itself represents an embarrassing contradiction between what is political and what has to do with cultural identity. For example, the meaning of the crucifix for the Northern League, and its religious and spiritual symbolism. And so in Switzerland the campaign against minarets was a campaign against immigrants, against foreigners. For those who voted, culture and religion meant the same thing.

Is there a real risk of Islamophobia in Europe?

Islamophobia in western Europe is rooted in two different tendencies and it is this alliance that makes Islamophobia strong and politically active. The first tendency is Christian identity. The belief that Europe has Christian roots has nothing to do with religious faith. This is the right-wing conservative position. The Italian Northern League does not attend church, but sees the church as part of its own identity. So these people are generally xenophobic and islamophobic. The second tendency is that of the secular left, which opposes Islam not because it is the religion of immigrants, but because it is a religion, and the secular left opposes any kind of religion. Until now, the 20th century has been focused on the debate between secular left and the Christian right, but now these are no longer opposing forces.

How will these two tendencies develop in the future?

The debate does not really reflect reality, because both secular and Christian society experience culture and religion as if they were the same thing. The secular left wishes that Muslims would stop being Muslims, and become integrated. Think of the issue of the Islamic veil in France; second generation Muslims who wear the veil are seen as traitors. The secular left would like all religions to be practiced in private. But what is happening is a progressive separation between religion and culture. The Islam of the second generation is not the traditional Islam, but a new, reinvented version of Islam in western terms. This reinvention does not necessarily lead to a more liberal version of Islam, though. So integration must take place through a reinvention of Islam merely as a religion, and not as a religious and cultural whole.

What is the biggest problem faced by second generation young people living in Europe?

The biggest problem is the conjunction of two elements; traditional racism, based for example on skin colour, and wide spread anti-religious sentiments. Even if we are used to seeing our society as a homogeneous block, that is not true. In Western Europe, the 20th Century has been a century of struggle for culture with civil wars, communism against capitalism, secularism against religion. So what can the word ‘integration’ mean in this kind of society? We live in deeply differentiated societies, and the gap is becoming wider every day, not only due to immigration, but also because of different religious practices. Religion will be the new cause of conflict in the coming years.

Translated by Francesca Simmons