Recent sociopolitical conditions in Europe, most notably the mass immigration following the Arab Spring, have modified how European citizens define their identity and perceive otherness. A clear example is the rise of right-wing parties strengthening the image of us (Europeans) vs. them (immigrants, especially of Muslim origin). By the same token, concepts such as secularism, multiculturalism, and ethnic/religious identity have assumed new meanings and implications. Most notably, Europe seems to be abandoning its secularism in favor of its putatively Christian identity and values, apparently in order to emphasize its cultural difference from the Muslim world.
This edited volume by Toğuşlu, Leman, and Sezgin discusses the relationship between religious identity and multiculturalism in Europe by examining the social and political implications of recent changes through several case studies. The authors’ main aim consists of explaining the process of identification in post-migration and post-secular European societies. What scholars and ordinary citizens must do, they argue, is reformulate the concept of multiculturalism in order to make it more suitable to the current sociopolitical conditions of European societies. To achieve this aim, they suggest, established Europeans should abandon ethnocentric bias and treat contemporary European societies in terms of their existing multiple identifications. As the authors of this book clarify, if European societies fail to deal with the social reality of multicultural identities, there is the concrete risk of reinforcing racism, Islamophobia, and cultural discrimination.
The book is composed of two parts. In the first one, authors discuss several aspects related to the different social implications of the new multiplicity of identities in Europe. This topic is of particular importance, since Europeans of migrant origins negotiate values and traditions belonging to European and Muslim heritage. Cüneyd Dinç asks how young Muslims deal with their post-migrant condition in Germany. He argues that this situation leads to the creation of four identity patterns in devout post-migrant Muslims in which the binary opposition Native/Other, German/Migrant, loses its heuristic validity, thus underlining the necessity to recognize the pluralistic nature of migrant identity.
Examining complex identities in terms of different cultural values, Goedroen Juchtmans analyzes how second-generation Muslim children of Turkish origins living in Belgium negotiate the principles and education they receive at school and from their families. The author underlines how children adopt elements belonging to the host culture without losing their Muslim identity. Similarly, Kathryn Lum focuses her research on the Dalita Indian youth living in Spain. At the core of her study lies second-generation migrants’ struggle with multiple identities; to resolve this, she argues, echoing the broader theme of the book, Europeans must adopt a new paradigm in which multiple identities represent a normal condition for citizens. By the same token, Katarzyna Warmińska, examining the ambivalent status of Tartars in Poland, argues that members of the community live in an “in-between” situation in which their ethnic, national, and religious identities render them internal others.
Part two is focused on secularism and the production of an us vs. other dynamic in Europe. Vincent Legrand demonstrates that the issue of migrants has recently become the issue of Muslims, spreading Islamophobia across Europe. Similarly, Frederique Harry focuses on the Norwegian right wing's use of religion as symbol to justify and legitimize their hate against multiculturalism, immigrants, and Islam. Ephraim Nimmi explores the general relationship between non-Christian minorities and the state in Western democracies, and Chris Allen discusses the crisis of multiculturalism in the U.K., explaining that Muslim integration and multiculturalism have become synonymous with Islamophobia.
The book successfully underlines the importance of a new understanding of multiculturalism. Rejecting every attempt to label multiculturalism as Muslim invasion or the Islamization of Europe, the authors suggest that at a practical level multiculturalism should imply a harmonization among different realities/identities of Europe. The book makes that point well, and along the way offers important insights concerning the issue of multiculturalism in Europe and its social and political implications. The book's clear writing and organization make it suitable for both specialists and non-specialists.
