Identity And Islam
By Tanveer Ahmed
Znet
February 10, 2004
The French ban on wearing headscarves at schools is part of the wider challenge of the multicultural state - how to integrate migrants yet foster diversity and difference.
It is a problem being played out through the Western world, including Australia. At its essence, it’s about how identities will be shaped in an ever changing global landscape.
Identity will increasingly be the issue of the 21st century. With mass migration, mixed marriages and the melting pot being stirred at breakneck speed, a longing for the tribalism of nation, and race versus newer, more fluid forms of identity will be the key conflict of the modern psyche.
So it is with the multicultural state and the issue of our times: terrorism.
A number of the perpetrators of the World Trade Centre bombings were raised and educated in the West. A French study looked at the life of one of them, Moussaoui. He came to France as a young child and had a relatively normal upbringing in the outer suburbs of Paris where there are large numbers of Muslim immigrants. He was an average student in school and showed no signs of pathological behaviour.
His first moves towards extremist Islam coincided after being discriminated in the workplace and in leisure situations. There was one clear incident where a bouncer denied him entry into a Parisian nightclub, telling him openly it was because he was an Arab. Moussaoui’s brother told the French sociologists that his interest in Islam began soon afterwards. The rest is now history.
The study went on to hypothesise that extremist Islam was only an option when being French no longer seemed a possibility.
The man who kidnapped the Wall Street Journal journalist, Daniel Pearl, was born in Britain, studied at a posh English public school and the London School Of Economics - not known for its ‘madrasah’ qualities. His parents were Pakistani emigrants. Ahmed Omar Sheikh said he wasn’t British, nor Pakistani, just a Muslim. He said he could never be accepted by the ‘racist’ British.
It is something I see in my younger psychiatric patients of Asian or Arab background in Sydney.
It is difficult for them to feel deep ties to the country of their parents. They see the pictures on the walls, may speak some of the language but ultimately have never lived there. And when they have visited, for the majority, it is the first time they have felt Australian.
But living in Australia, the recurring motifs of Australian life - sun, beer, sport - do not connect with the migrant experience. Nor do the myths and legends of outback Australia have resonance. Their non-white appearance is often commented upon at work or school. These are not usually racist or discriminatory remarks, but highlight a sense of the foreign nevertheless.
Perhaps notions of mateship and egalitarianism do resonate, but they are not enough to drive home a feeling of being Australian.
What often fills the void is religion. This is where their search for identity finds a voice. And it is not necessarily Islam. Christianity or Buddhism can have just such a transformative effect.
But for groups that may suffer from feelings of exclusion or discrimination, Islam provides the deepest connection. Islam has become the religion of choice for the dispossessed, the poor or the oppressed. From African Americans to Afghan refugees, Islam cushions a feeling of disconnection. A religion now defined by its ability to turn feelings of frustration and defeat to outright defiance, it can win the hearts of those longing to belong.
I visited a weekly gathering of Muslims in Sydney, and included an Arab patient of mine. It was led by a charismatic Egyptian cleric. The patient was of Lebanese background and had been depressed. His malaise was deeply rooted in a feeling of disconnection.
But he seemed to be improving since attending these meetings.
The group was dominated by those under the age of thirty. Everyone I met had a university degree and spoke in an Australian accent. Despite having plenty of great things to say about Australia as a country and a sense of gratitude at the opportunities they were given, many of the youths felt they could never be accepted as an Australian, that they would remain on the fringes culturally. They felt their ties could not extend beyond the economic.
However, I saw no evidence of a turn towards extremism. This would require a stimulus from the outside world. For Moussaoui, it came when he was rejected from somewhere as apolitical as a nightclub. For others, it may be a missed promotion, a jibe at a party or an unjust encounter with the police.
It is a global theme that will be one of the key challenges of managing the multicultural state. How to let diversity flourish, maintain tight security in containing terrorism, yet foster a sense of national identity that carries divergent groups.
In Britain, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are three times more likely to be unemployed. In France, half of the inmates in prison are of Middle Eastern origin. At least the British can claim some public figures from its minority groups, such as South Asian newsreaders and members of Parliament. France cannot even claim that, despite the largest Muslim population in Europe. Even the French parties built on anti-racism, such as the French Socialist Party, do not have a single black leader.
Unlike Britain or France, Australia is yet to have a definitive ethnic underclass. Indeed it has considerable social mobility, indicated by the growing affluence of many minority groups. However, it can learn from the separate approaches of the British and French, with the aim of providing a more successful model of integration.
But as tension in areas of Sydney continue to grow, with many conflicts filled with obvious racial overtones, the challenge mounts.
Tanveer Ahmed is a doctor and journalist based in Sydney, Australia.