posted
CAIRO Plans to build a grand mosque in France's second-largest city of Marseille have set off a new wave of xenophobic fears, exposing the deep-seated anti-Muslim sentiments in the country and across the European continent. I am going to bomb it when it opens, an older French man told The New York Times Monday, December 28, wishing to be unnamed.
There are a lot of them (Muslims) already, and this will bring more of them, and there will be trouble.
Plans are underway to build a $33-million grand mosque in the port city in April.
“It’s a good symbol of assimilation,” said Noureddine Cheikh, the head of the Marseille Mosque Association.
The new worship house will have a minaret that would flash a beam of purple light – instead of Adhan -- for a couple of minarets to call for prayers.
But the mosque plans have stirred opposition from far-rightists in the city, where Muslims make up a quarter of its more than 1.5 million population.
The far-right Regional Front and local politicians have filed lawsuits to block the Muslim building.
“Today everyone agrees and reacts the same way,” said Youcef Mammeri, a writer on Islam in France and member of the Joint Council of Muslims of Marseille.
“Today we realize being a secular Muslim or a moderate or a radical Muslim is not the right question. It’s about being Muslim.”
Mammeri said that racism in France has moved from being anti-Arab to anti-Muslim.
“A terrible regression.”
France is home to nearly seven million Muslims, the biggest Muslim minority in Europe.
Islamophobia
Analysts agree that the Marseille mosque opposition reflects the growing anti-Muslim sentiments in the country and across Europe.
“Today in Europe the fear of Islam crystallizes all other fears,” said Vincent Geisser, a scholar of Islam and immigration at the French National Center for Scientific Research.
In Switzerland, it is minarets. In France, it is the veil, the burqa and the beard.
Last month, Swiss voters backed an initiative by the right-wing Swiss People's Party to ban mosque minarets in the country.
In France, a heated debate is raging about the wearing of burka in the country, which banned hijab in schools and public places in 2004.
The French government has also started a three-month debate on French national identity, which is seen as targeting the Muslim presence in the country.
Opposition is also growing in Denmark over plans to build the first two large mosques in the capital Copenhagen.
Geisser said whenever Europe's Muslims establish themselves as a permanent part of the national scene, the more xenophobic anxiety grows.
All these symbols reveal a deeper, more lasting presence of Islam, he said.
It is the passage of something temporary to something that is implanted and takes root, he said, noting that many Europeans are worried that their identity is eroding.
There is a feeling that Europe is becoming smaller and less important. Europe is like an old lady, who whenever she hears a noise thinks it is a burglary.
The anxiety, which stems from economic crisis, fear of globalization, increasing immigration and birth rate falls, is translated into a specific one, he said.
(Islam) a box in which everyone expresses their fears
Posts: 565 | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged |
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic