An Ambivalent European Identity: Muslim Europeans as an example. - written by Oussama El Addouli, Graduate Researcher

"Islam is a vibrant faith. Millions of our fellow citizens are Muslim. We respect the faith. We honor its traditions. Our enemy does not. Our enemy doesn't follow the great traditions of Islam. They've hijacked a great religion. George W. Bush
'America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.' Barak Obama.
Both these quotations highlight the importance of Islam as a religion of chastity and tolerance. The pioneering leader of counter-terrorism, Bush, avers his appreciation to Islamic traditions while he condemns the Muslims, namely the radical and fundamentalist, to be hijackers of the traditions.
Going a bit deeper, Bush is exercising here his hegemonic power over "the so called terrorist" in confining their identity to the stereotypical identifications given by the Orientalists to Muslims.
The first Afro-American president, Barak Obama, didn't go further from the Bush stance in his conception of Islam as a faith of peace. However, the latter sought common and overlapping tenets that can guarantee convergence than divergence and peace rather that confrontation between the west and Muslims.
Given that Muslims are currently the largest religious minority in western Europe, the uprising of Islam is at the heart of questions, doubts and often violent oppositions. 'More than any other religion today, the forms of identifying oneself as a Muslim are profoundly inand#64258;uenced by a narrative that circulates a whole series of images and stereotypes portraying Islam as religiously, culturally, and politically foreign.' (Jocelyne Cesari, 2006:50)
Putting European Muslims identity in context, it is quite lucid that Muslims identity in Europe was subjected to changes. Any change in the dominant discourse about Islam is likely to generate a new structure and framework for shaping the identity. Muslims in Europe are no longer in control of these processes, and the discourse about Islam is imposed upon them. .
The centuries of confrontation between Muslims and Europe are deeply rooted in the modern European perception of Islam. What the Europeans claim to know about Islam is to a large extent the product of a vision constructed upon centuries of discord.
In an attempt to get rid of these fixed images and inferior identities, European Muslims can take various forms of resistance. Avoidance is of the form in which the Muslims attempt to get separated from the non-Muslims by developing a sectarian usage of Islamic religious beliefs.
Secondly, they can assume opposing standpoints to the dominant European discourse without being violent. For instance, the insistence of the French Muslims to wear veils in public institutions is a lucid form of that resistance.
Because of the shattered Muslims identity in Europe, Islam is likely to be a target of criticism and mockery from the part of the powerful western discourse. The latter has an intended tendency to correlate the Islamic theology with failure and poverty. It tends to condemn Islam to be the cause of misery and failure.
Talking about the universal dimension of Muslims identity, and in the world of individualism and globalization, Islam however stands as unifying force between various communities, races and ethnicities.
Islam seeks to forge one typical identity by reinforcing solidarity and convergence between the believers. However, did Islam succeed to forge that single identity within the Diasporic Muslim communities in Europe? Do the European Muslims view their identities from the ethnic or Islamic standpoint?
On the ground, the European Muslim identity exists in plurality and manifest in many forms. The global Muslim identity is strongly defended by the political and religious movement that accentuates the affinity and links to the community of believers.
However, the ethnic groups and cultural belongs are strongly noticeable in the practices of the European Muslims. It should be noted that ethnicity plays a vital role in the definition of Islamic identities.
Moroccan immigrants in France exhibit practices quite different to the other immigrants from Turkey or Middle East. Their Islamic practices differ in the rituals of festivities and ways of celebrating Islamic ceremonies. The priority of ethnicity over the religion sound great with believers who don't practice.
The ambivalence we have witnessed while trying to define the European Muslim identity is getting much stronger. The attempts to Europeanize Islam and affect its subjects looms quite paradoxical.
Alongside the various identities that define the European Muslims, Islamic tradition looms as great unifying peaceful religion. Any form of identity based on ethnicity or extremism is likely to be destructive and distortive to the Ethical text. The individual perception of Islam should be acknowledged. The use of the logic that takes into concerns the spatial and temporal factors in perceiving the tradition of Islam should be reinforced.
In this wave of optimistic change, the European discourse has to be more flexible and tolerant. The stereotypical images have to be vanished and altered with fraternal and altruistic actions. Public institutions have to be more diversified in response to the cultural and religious diversity. These institutions have to open a line of negotiation between citizens namely the European Muslims rather than imposing and structuring their identities.

References
- Daly, M.B. Making Muslim Space in North America and Europe. University
of California Press 1996.

- Hellyer, H.A. Muslims of Europe: The 'other' Europeans. Edinburgh
University Press, 2009.
- Jocelyne, C. 'Muslim minorities in Europe: the silent revolution', in John Esposito and Francois Burgat (eds.), Modernizing Islam: religion in the public sphere in the Middle East and in Europe, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ, 2003
- Leiken, S. Europe's Angry Muslims. Oxford University Press, 2009.

- Ramadan, T. Islam, the West and the Challenges of Modernity. The Islamic
Foundation, 2009.
- Said, E., Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Book, 1978.