A Towering Controversy

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I read the reports with increasing dismay. The blinkered view that European politicians take of their national identities is short-sighted and unsustainable in the long run, given current migration patterns.

Here in India, I have grown up with very different ideas of secularism and inclusiveness. As in all cultures, differences scare us too, yes. But the way to deal with these differences cannot be to place blanket bans on the outward indicators of cultural fission. Commanding a woman not to wear a headscarf or stopping the building of minarets is a bit like an ostrich sticking its head in the sand at the first sign of danger. If you don't see the differences, does that mean the differences will just go away?

The rightist Swiss politicians have little moral authority. While loudly condemning conformity to traditional Islam, they are only really telling people to exchange one type of ideological conformity for another. One is seen as threatening and maladjusted unless ready to fit into a narrow definition of 'European identity'. Words like 'integration' are being used as an excuse to strip people of cultural differences and deny them the right to subscribe to a different world-view. In fact, the language of the 'integration' debate in countries like France and Switzerland seems to be designed to make people ashamed of their differences. The European identity, it seems, cannot be adopted in keeping with one's roots and traditions. It demands, if the conservatives are to be believed, the adoption of new traditions while the old ones are to be erased, or at least effaced, so that they do not make the 'natural Europeans' uncomfortable.

If minarets are an intolerable religious display, what of the thousands of church spires that dot every town and village in the European continent? Minarets are viewed as a sign of 'Islamisation', but church spires are not deemed a threat to the secular, liberal European identity. The rightists would scoff at my indignation. They would argue that Christianity has a historical tradition in the European continent, and as such is irrevocably tied into the political and cultural fabric of Europe. But then, shall we remind them that Islam too has been part of the historical reality of Europe? The minarets which they are rejecting today are only echoes of more ancient roots, from the Moorish architecture of Alhambra to the Ottoman arches of Constantinople in the East.

So am I unwelcome in France or Switzerland because I think that women should chose whether to wear the headscarf and that Muslims should have the same rights to build their mosques, as Christians and Hindus do to build their places of worship? Perhaps. Or perhaps the outcry that has followed the Swiss vote will really achieve something. At least a dawning realization that differences cannot be glossed over, identities cannot be assimilated as easily as they once seemed to be. The Swiss people have 'spoken' through their referendum. Now perhaps, it is time for them to speak amongst themselves.