SPIEGEL: What has changed in Holland in recent years to enable the open and recently often shrill dialogue about Islam and multiculturalism that one can hear now? Is it a byproduct of 9/11?
Buruma: Perhaps as a reaction to years of having to be discreet because of political correctness, the debate has become overheated.
The events of 9/11 focused attention on Muslim radicalism, but it wasn't the only thing that changed. A deep general anxiety about the forces of globalization has grown everywhere. The easiest way to mobilize people and incite the emotions of the common man is to find an alien enemy like Muslims, who are also widely visible -- even in areas outside the big cities like Amsterdam and Rotterdam. They are an obvious target, and 9/11 certainly helped to confirm the prejudices that people might already have had.
SPIEGEL: When van Gogh was murdered in 2004, headlines in newspapers across Europe screamed that multiculturalism was dead on the continent. Do you think Muslim integration in the Netherlands has failed?
Buruma: No. As in France and Britain, a very large number of Muslims are integrated. There is a problem with people born in European countries who feel trapped between cultures. They are alienated from their immigrant parents' culture, but they also sometimes feel foreign and rejected in the country where they grew up. They are vulnerable to forms of extremism. But it has not been proved that integration of Muslims has completely failed in general. It is likely more people have been integrated than those who feel so alienated that they are prone to extremism.
SPIEGEL: Nevertheless, there is considerable debate in Holland and across Europe about the "creeping Islamization" of society. In Germany, "Hurray, We're Capitulating" was a best-seller, and Hirsi Ali's books have been translated into many languages.
Buruma: These arguments are nonsense. Muslims are still far too small in number to have that kind of effect on mainstream Europeans. And many are not particularly pious. As they move deeper into the middle class, they will probably become even less so. It is true that we must not be intimidated by the extremists. Islam, like any other belief, should be open to criticism. But the idea that we're going to be Islamized in some profound sense is just paranoia.
SPIEGEL: Given the dramatic events we have seen in the Netherlands and Denmark, set against the backdrop of a Muslim immigrant community that is one of the fastest-growing populations on the continent, no shortage of cultural critics see us moving toward a conflict of civilizations that will play out in Western Europe.
Buruma: I don't believe in that doomsday scenario. People who make those claims assume society is static and that all those people who would be classified as being of foreign and of Muslim ancestry would all share the religious and cultural habits of the original immigrants, which is not true. The second generation will be different and third generation different still. You can't extrapolate from figures that we will suddenly be faced with this majority of rabidly religious and politically radical people.
SPIEGEL: Still, French writer Pascal Brückner recently implied that the multiculturalism you advocate could help pave the way for a divided society. He said it gives blessing to "hostile insular communities that throw up ramparts between themselves and the rest of society." As minor examples that could have a snowball effect, he cited the fact that an "Islamic" hospital might soon open in Rotterdam that adheres to the Koran and plans in Italy for beaches catering exclusively to Muslim woman.
Buruma: I don't advocate multiculturalism. Nor am I in favour of imposing absolute social and cultural conformism. I don’t quite see the enormous threat posed by nudists or Muslim women or others who want privacy and do not wish to use beaches with the rest of us. Some feel this is caving in to religious pressure, but I don't see how it would be harmful to the rest of the community. There are many cultural enclaves. It is true on a smaller scale that parallel societies already exist, but nobody gets particularly fussed about Orthodox Jews in London who lead very different lives than most people around them.
SPIEGEL: By allowing parallel societies to be created, though, are we not in effect limiting opportunities in society and, therefore, creating a greater sense of alienation amongst immigrants?
Buruma: The supposition behind all this is that for people to be integrated as citizens they must conform to a common culture. I think people must obey common laws. Those two things are different. In that sense, European society should become more like the United States -- that is, to accept that you could become a citizen, participate in politics and still stick to cultural habits and customs of your own choosing, assuming they are lawful. At the same time, I would reject injecting all sorts of religious laws …
SPIEGEL: … you mean, recent experiments and calls in Europe to introduce Sharia Law regionally on issues like family policies as the Canadian province of Ontario sought to do?
Buruma: Our laws should be secular.
SPIEGEL: You have also criticized Hirsi Ali for her use of language describing Islam as a "backward" religion and describing the Prophet Muhammad as "perverse." Critics argue that such direct language is just the right medicine.
Buruma: I don’t think it is helpful precisely because I take Islamic revolutionary ideology seriously. Political Islam is a source of real violence. The only way to stop or control that is to isolate it inside the Muslim community. For that you need to convince European Muslims that they have a stake in liberal democracy and that the freedoms that one tries to protect against radicalism are also theirs. If you start to tell these people the problem is not just violent ideology inside Islam but that the Muslim religion itself is the source of all evil, then you alienate the very people you need to have on your side.
Hirsi Ali's idea that 9/11 is not just connected to Islam, but is at the core of it, is like saying that a fundamentalist Christian American who shoots a doctor for performing an abortion represents the heart of Christianity. It's wrong and the consequences are dangerous.
Still, it's positive that she has opened a serious discussion on the abuse of women in Islam, the consequences of the welfare state, attitudes towards immigrants and the fallacies of multiculturalism. She has encouraged people to talk about such things. At the same time, she has also become a kind of icon for a lot of people who simply want to condemn Islam per se, which I find unhelpful. I think the same is true of Wilders. Where he is useful though is that he's challenging people to think about the limits of free speech and the dangers of self-censorship.
SPIEGEL: Has the open and international debate sparked by van Gogh's murder and Hirsi Ali having to go underground pushed the issue of Europe's integration of and coexistence with its Muslim immigrants forward or backward?
The fact that there's a debate at all is a good thing. Nothing is worse than all these things being swept under the rug and people not being able to talk about them, with tensions building up and then leading to violence. Opinions on all sides are being heard, even though there is a lot of unpleasant polarization and invective.
Interview conducted by Daryl Lindsey.
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