Islamisation of Europe and its challenges for the international security

1. Islamisation of Europe and its challenges for the international security Elena Pereluigina, Ural State University

2. Main Questions: • Does Islamisation really threatens to Europe? • Why are the Europeans so afraid of it and can we speak about Islamophobia? • Where are the sources of such a situation?

3. Contents • Islam as a religion, is it dangerous • Islamophobia • Islamic terrorism • Europe and Islam • Mediterranean region • Turkey and the EU • Russia and Islam

4. Islam as a religion • The religion of Islam is the acceptance of and obedience to the teachings of God which He revealed to His last prophet, Muhammad

5. Islam as a religion • The notions of justice, solidarity and tolerance are central to the Koran and to Muslim ethics. • The very name Islam - the Arabic root word 'salama' - peace. Islam is based upon achieving peace through the submission to the will of Allah • Islam is a religion of peaceable and orderly people

6. Islam as a religion • The West was presented with a hostile, suspicion-oriented vision of Islam • The deep-rooted image on the West - fundamentalist Muslim world pursuing an international plot to destroy the Western identity • S. Huntington1 wrote : "Islam has not been hospitable to democracy “

7. Islamophobia • Islam condemned as an obscurantist religion, closed to any form of progressive thought. • The idea of an Arab Muslim world which is violent, fanatical and amoral. • The fear of seeing populations of Magreb and Turkey, immigrating to Europe • The propaganda chain : Arabs- the terrorist acts of 11.09.- economical slump

8. Reasons to keep Islam in the distance(according to Mass-Media) • Islam and democracy seem to be contradictory • Every Islamic pressure from Nigeria to Afghanistan, means an extension of the Shari’ a, i.e. less rights for the women, for the Non-Moslems and even for the Moslems. • Today, in Islam, the non-Moslem minorities are reduced as shagreen leather… Moslem colonies multiply in Europe. • From Cyprus to Indonesia the frontiers of Islam are blood-stained. • Islamism, the only modern ideology, openly opposed to the Human rights, fast established in some states and desiring to impose itself in the world , even by the force.

9. Islamic terrorism • The term “Muslim terrorist” is used to label Islam as a terrorist religion • Jihad – striving, an inner thing, within self, to rid it from debased actions or inclinations, & exercise constancy & perseverance in achieving a higher moral standard • Islam does not fight other religions. • Islam opposes any form of indiscriminate violence. The Koran states: “Anyone who has killed another except in retaliation, it is as if he has killed the whole of humankind.” (32:5).

10. Europe and Islam • The Historic conflict between the Christian West & Islam : the crusades, colonization, decolonization , the Arab-Israeli conflict, problems relating to oil & immigration • The social image of Arab and Turkish immigrants in Europe: from that of a foreign temporary worker to that of a devout Muslim transplanted into Europe

11. Islam - Europe's second religion Nearly 20 million inhabitants of the EU – Moslems: Europe's aging population - labor-thirsty for the next two decades + the population of the Arab Middle East - exploding & looking to move = by 2020 Moslems - 10% of the overall population of Europe

12. In 30 years, the Moslem population of GB rose from 82,000 to 2 million. • In Germany - 4 million Moslems, mostly Turks. • Over 5 million across the Rhine in France, mostly North Africans. • A million Moslems each in Italy & the Netherlands, & half-a-million in Spain. • Almost a tenth of all babies born in EU countries - Moslem.

13. the often-difficult process of mutual adaptation & accommodation between European societies & burgeoning Muslim populations • Moslem migrants -increasingly the targets of the "war against terror" in Europe. Afghani & Iraqi terrorists are claimed to have infiltrated refugees & asylum seekers

14. Mediterranean region Historical background • 1. In 711, the Arabs and Berbers in the Iberian Peninsula ( for 8 centuries, Al-Andalus, Cordoba) ; • 2. In the 11th century, the Christian “reconquest” • 3. From the 16th century onwards, European countries settled in the South Mediterranean (until the second half of the 20th century). • 4. Today, public opinion in Europe and the South Mediterranean lags far behind the views of intellectuals and politicians. .

15. the North-South divide at the Mediterranean: confrontation between two worlds which differ in culture, religion, politics, development levels, demography, emigration, and economic flows. • the European media - a decisive role in spreading the fear of a perceived Islamic threat • Modernisation is not synonymous with Westernisation • there is migratory pressure from south & east towards the north, there is a demographic imbalance .

16. Turkey & the EU The Turkish campaign for accession – 4 mainarguments: • a long-standing contractual relationship with the EU ( Association Agreement) • Turkey - economically on a par with or more advanced than many of the applicants, it’s a parliamentary democracy. • Turkey offers the EU strategic and economic advantages in terms of stability on its south eastern flank, & influence in the emerging countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia. • The application is crucial to Europe’s future relations with the Islamic south of the Mediterranean.

17. In the EU, attention tends to focus on several points: • Turkey is still a poor country in terms of per capita income. • Much of the economy is still agricultural. • There are very severe regional imbalances. • A successful Islamic revival in Turkey

18. Good reasons to say :” No for Turkey in Europe” (public opinion). • The birth of a Europe without any geographic limits. • The aggravation of the immigration. • Islamisation of Europe • The increase of unemployment

19. The re-Islamisation of Turkey • Islamists in Turkey say : “The re-Islamisation of Turkey - the first step towards the Islamisation of Europe”. • The Party of Prosperity (Refah), “Grey Wolves”, organization “Islamic Jihad” propagandize the following ideas: • Hatred to Europe • Islamisation of Europe • Panturkism • Xenophobie

20. The 14 months of Refah rule left some clear indications: • Foreign Policy: The friends were in Islamic states • The legal system: it promised to start the Islamisation of the legal system. • Education: its long-term aim was to phase out the ‘secular’ educational system in Turkey, and replace it at all levels by a religiously-oriented one. • Finance: Left to itself Welfare would have tried to ‘Islamise’ the economy

21. Russia and Islam • the Moslem population of the RF vary from 15 to 21 million. • Russia - an Euroasian country, the country of Christian-Islamic dualism.

22. Arange of measures for the limitation of the Islamic danger: 1. the depoliticisation of Islam, the de- Islamisation of politics; 2. the exclusion of interference in the sociopolitical sphere of Islamic organistions; 3. the limitation or full ban on the the activities of foreign Islamic organizations; 4. the reconsidering of foreign policy priorities towards cooperation with states which either do not use Islamism in foreign policy, or at a minimum do not use it against Russia.

23. the Moslem faith isn’t identified as such with the threat it sees as emanating from the extremist forces According to V. Putin and I.Ivanov: • A threat of Islamic extremism has emerged in Central Asia and the Islamic regions of the RF. • By militarily confronting this threat, Russia is protecting the entire international community (particularly the West), and deserves its support.