E-Notes: FPRI
"Counterterrorism and the Integration of Islam in Europe
by Jytte Klausen
July 7, 2006
Jytte Klausen is associate professor of comparative politics at Brandeis University. Her most recent book is The Islamic Challenge: Politics and Religion in Western Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). This article is based on Dr. Klausen’s presentation to FPRI’s History Institute for Teachers on “Islam, Islamism, and Democratic Values,” held May 6-7, 2006.
Samuel Huntington’s theory of a global confrontation between Islam and “the West” is particularly attractive in Europe, where problems with Islamic minorities are regarded as local skirmishes in an international struggle at the heart of which lie values, symbols, and identity, and where conflicts over what to do with Muslims have reopened old debates about the position of religion in society and created unlikely political alliances.
French President Jacques Chirac enjoyed one of his few political victories when he proposed a law prohibiting girls from going to school wearing the Muslim headscarf. The law overwhelmingly passed the National Assembly in 2004; oddly, Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front, which advocates tough measures against immigrants, voted against it due to worries that secularists would put restrictions on Christians next."
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