Muslim Women and Youth in the West: Background Paper

Chapter V: Best Practices

In this section, we will analyze the success of various attempts—often experimental or pilot programs—by public authorities and nongovernmental organizations to integrate Muslim communities into Western societies. Studies of these “best practices” have focused primarily on education, community development, and discrimination, ¹⁹³ with some attention to political participation. In recent years, government authorities in many Western countries have also collaborated with Muslim representatives on programs to enhance security and integrate Muslim communities.

Any understanding of best practices implies both comparison with other countries and some evaluation of the goals that are being pursued. The implied goals are usually higher levels of integration and acceptance. With the exception of recent projects by Aristide Zolberg and Allison Joy Clarkin,¹⁹⁴ however, most existing scholarly studies have avoided transatlantic comparisons, instead focusing either on a particular country ¹⁹⁵ or on the European Union. ¹⁹⁶ The resulting lack of a comparative framework makes an examination of best practices somewhat less effective.

Education

There has been considerable discussion on both sides of the Atlantic of the failures and difficulties in integrating Muslim immigrants through established educational systems, especially in Europe. But there have been interesting experiments, both in private and public education, which could be useful tools of integration, if expanded and geared toward Muslim communities. In the United States, for example, some New York City public high schools that recruit students through special examinations — Stuyvesant High School, Townsend Harris High School, and the Bronx High School of Science, in particular—have been recruiting immigrant children since before World War I. Together with the universities that now comprise the City University of New York, these schools have become instruments of social and economic mobility for generations of immigrants. In more recent years, affirmative action programs have also succeeded in educating new generations of minority students and in placing them in positions of influence and power. Such programs have not affected the success of most members of those communities, but they have produced a more visibly integrated network of minority elites. In Britain, some faith-based Muslim schools have made an important contribution to the improvement of student perfor-mance. ¹⁹⁷ And in France, public education programs have been developed to promote “positive discrimination” and “equality of chances” (the French equivalents of American affirmative action). In the case of the latter, however, there has not been much discussion of their successes and failures so it is difficult to judge to what extent, if any, they have fostered integration.

Education can be a highly effective means of integration, especially in Europe, where there are large numbers of Muslim students within the school system despite the fact that Islamic populations are minorities within most countries. In Amsterdam and Rotterdam, immigrant children (the vast majority of whom are of Muslim origin) are a majority; in Brussels, they comprise more than 40 percent of the student body; and in London, “English is a second language for a third of the children in school.” ¹⁹⁸ Education policies vis–à–vis accommodating religious practices vary with patterns of church–state relations, but schools have made considerable efforts to advance integration, both of students as well as their families.

In Germany, Austria, and The Netherlands, for example, schools have provided language courses for immigrant mothers that both facilitate adult learning of local languages and encourage mothers to support their children academically. Perhaps more importantly, they have given parents a place to meet and talk about common challenges. According to a report of the Migration Policy Institute:

The most recent studies that have been conducted on these projects in different countries show clearly that the level of parental participation is higher when the activities are organized in cooperation with the schools and their children, and take place in the schools. Such an approach also has the secondary impact of facilitating contact between teachers and parents. ¹⁹⁹

Mentoring projects have also been successful, particularly in Britain, The Netherlands, Sweden, and Belgium. ²⁰⁰ During the past 10 years, immigrant students in these countries who have succeeded at the university level have been brought back into the school system to work as mentors within their communities. This method of linking successive immigrant generations has its roots in similar programs in the United States, Israel, and Canada. In Europe, such efforts are more recent and involve much smaller numbers of students. They have also been organized, for the most part, at the local level, and are therefore more widespread where the educational system encourages local initiatives.

Colleges and universities are also increasingly recruiting students from impoverished ethnic areas. The elite Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris (also known as Sciences Po) has created a program to seek out and provide aid to talented students from neglected Zones of Educational Priority (ZEP). These ZEPs, created partly on the basis of the percentage of school–age immigrant children in different areas, were established in the early 1970s. Although the scale of the Sciences Po program is small—it recruits fewer than 20 students each year—it is a good model for other elite universities and colleges. Sciences Po is also working to provide tutoring and financial aid to secondary schools in a select number of places.

Antidiscrimination

As discussed in chapter 3, there has been a growing body of antidiscrimination legislation throughout the West, as Muslim populations establish a permanent and growing presence there. In Britain, additional legislation during the past decade has extended the coverage of the Race Relations Act to the police and other public officials who had been previously exempt from laws against discrimination. In The Netherlands, many aspects of the minorities policy have been toned down and more emphasis has been placed on combating expressive racism by considering it as criminal activity. In France, the High Authority for the Struggle Against Discrimination and for Equality (HALDE), established in 2005, has created a mechanism for receiving and publicizing complaints. ²⁰¹ How well conceived and useful are these new approaches? ²⁰² A report on Islamophobia published in 2006 by the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia revealed a growing perception of discrimination among young Muslims. ²⁰³ Patrick Simon has pointed out that there is a paradoxical aspect to the question of discrimination:

Discrimination becomes more widespread when young people of immigrant origin have succeeded in school and have solid credentials on the job market. They then look to gain more competitive jobs while employers perceive their origins as a “negative sign” in the course of selection. ²⁰⁴

In addition to governmental schemes that are being instituted under EU antidiscrimination directives, there are other, more informal programs, such as efforts by employer associations, to hire minority employees. The French experience since the 2005 riots indicates that the combined efforts of local government and industry can have an impact on unemployment. In Yvelines, a locality in the suburbs of Paris, a collaboration between Renault and the local government reduced unemployment by 15 percent in one year by combining education with training and jobs. This program has proved to be quite successful as a pilot project for how government and industry can work together to overcome the effects of discrimination. ²⁰⁵

In the United States, there has been plenty of research into the tradition of ethnic associations helping new arrivals to bypass discriminatory barriers and create a niche in the American economy. One study reported that approximately 12 percent of the labor force in the 216 metropolitan areas studied was employed in ethnic niches. ²⁰⁶ The development of such niche employment has also been studied in Europe, but the importance of ethnic associations has perhaps been underestimated. ²⁰⁷

Political Integration

Methods of political integration vary considerably across Europe and between Europe and North America. Canada and the United States have been integrating immigrant populations through the political system since the 19th century. In fact, many early settlers found it easier to rise through politics than through business, and ethnic political organizations in Boston, New York, and Chicago became legendary as instruments of mobility. Immigrants in Europe, however, and particularly Muslim immigrants, have been relatively unsuccessful, both at getting their collective voices heard and in gaining political office.

In France, which has the largest Islamic community in Europe, there are currently no Muslim deputies in the National Assembly and relatively few in local councils. There are indications that growing social mobility has resulted in increased immigrant activity in French politics and associational life, but this has generally occurred at the local level. ²⁰⁸ In contrast, there have been some successful Muslim candidates in the national legislatures of Britain and Germany, but only in areas of high immigrant concentration. Studies have shown that political parties have played a more positive role in recruiting minority candidates in Britain than in France, where community organizations are largely responsible for political mobilization. ²⁰⁹

Despite being far weaker, local branches of political parties in the United States have been much more open to the political recruitment of immigrants than their European counterparts, and this has resulted in stronger ethnic representation nationally. However, this can vary considerably from one locality to another. Roger Waldinger notes important differences between the more open political system in New York and the more elitist system in Los Angeles, ²¹⁰ and Richard Alba and Nancy Foner point out that very little is known about cross–national practices of political integration:

. . . there is another problem that comes from putting so much emphasis on convergence, as many cross–national immigration studies do. Because convergence theorists (and indeed many other comparative analysts) focus so heavily on official government policies, or the representations of these policies in political discourse, they tend to tell a story of increasing immigrant inclusion; and they risk missing, or at least seriously underplaying, the way historically rooted and durable social, political, and economic structures and arrangements create varying levels of barrier to immigrants and their descendants in different societies. [W]e take as our focus an aspect of the political arena that has to do with actual political practices: the ability of immigrant–origin politicians to be elected to office. Surprisingly, this topic has received little attention in the literature on cross–national comparisons although it is clearly critical for the integration of immigrants and their children—and indeed for their ability to influence the policies that shape their lives in such important ways. ²¹¹

With the exception of a few community–based studies, ²¹² there is little information and less analysis of best practices with regard to political integration in the West. Thus one cannot conclusively state that the North American experience indicates the importance of the political system in fostering and leveraging integration in society and the economy, nor can one accurately gauge the significance of lower levels of political integration in Britain and the virtual absence of political integration in France.

Security and Islamic Communities

As we have already noted, Western governmental attempts to enhance security by working with Muslim individuals and community organizations are increasingly widespread. The success of these measures, however, is not yet clear. The decadelong French effort to create the French Council for the Muslim Religion (CFCM) has successfully provided a meeting point for religious representatives and government officials, and played a useful role in winding down the suburban riots in the fall of 2005. ²¹³ However, it has proved less useful for integrating urban youth, whose primary grievances are unemployment and lack of access to French society rather than issues related to Islam. ²¹⁴

In Britain, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and the Department of Communities and Local Government have led government efforts to institutionalize consultation with Muslim community and faith leaders. But the stated objectives of these programs suggest that they have been undertaken to mobilize support for British policy rather than to reflect the priorities of that population. ²¹⁵

Recent reports suggest the limitations of the British approach. Even Muslim community leaders who have been most cooperative with government efforts have been reluctant to get involved in developing programs for the operation of mosques, ²¹⁶ for example, or to set standards for the recruitment of Muslim prison chaplains. A series of measures proposed by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Ruth Kelly to give civic training to imams and to encourage “a message about being proud to be British, proud to be Muslim” has received little support among Muslim leaders. ²¹⁷

For British government leaders, there appears to be some sentiment that, from the point of view of “best practices,” the emphasis of the French system on the use of intelligence gathering and investigating judges is worth emulating. After the attacks on the London underground, then–British Home Secretary Charles Clarke stated a number of times that a French–style system in Britain could be more effective in detaining suspects while a case is being constructed against them.²¹⁸

In the United States, the Department of Homeland Security has an Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties that “has worked to help the Department establish and cement positive relationships with a variety of ethnic and religious communities, and the organizations that represent them.” ²¹⁹ As mentioned in the previous section, its interagency Incident Management Team was formed to bring key bureaucrats who deal with both security issues and public relations together with two dozen Muslim scholars and community leaders in the United States.²²⁰ For Homeland Security officials, this is the beginning of a larger effort to focus on the diversity of the United States, “to connect with young people from these communities,” and to bring more minority youth into public service. ²²¹ However, the American federal system is such that it necessitates the coordination both of various national agencies as well as local and national security programs, which can be problematic. ²²² New Department of Homeland Security initiatives to deal with Muslim communities are part of an attempt to bridge this “federal gap.”

These recent programs appear to be far less ambitious than the parallel efforts in Britain and France. There is, however, one similarity. They all tend to work directly with Muslim organizations and Muslim community leaders, rather than through local officials, or even local authorities responsible for security. This centralization is probably easier in France, with a long tradition of centralized control through the Ministry of the Interior, than it is in the United States, or even Britain, where security and community relations have been far more decentralized.

Generally speaking, the “best practices” used by French, British, and American authorities to simultaneously integrate their Muslim populations and enhance security measures include a combination of gathering intelligence, defusing tensions, and enlisting community leaders in the struggle against terrorist networks. As noted at the start of this section, however, insufficient evaluation and comparison of the impact of these programs makes it hard to assess which deserve to be elevated to the status of best practices.

Conclusions

We began this analysis by noting that 2005–2006 has been a particularly difficult period for Muslims in the West. Many of the trends that we have examined herein—not the least of which is continued immigration from the Islamic world into Europe and the United States—have indicated that tensions are likely to persist into the future as well.

Most Muslims currently living in the West are no longer immigrants, however. The majority are either citizens or on the way to becoming citizens. They are also disproportionately young and thus an important part of the future of the West. Beyond providing manpower for economic expansion and contributing to the European welfare state, they have made a significant impact on popular culture, cuisine, and the arts. For all of these reasons, reports of the European Commission have called for more, not less, immigration over the next half century. ²²³

So on the one hand, young Muslims are at the core of problems of integration, both economic and social; on the other, they are also the key to the growth of European economies and the stability of European society. Young women, in particular, embody this inherent contradiction. The recent focus on dress codes and the demands by and for Muslim women seem to indicate a growing gap between European secularism and Islam. Our report supports this conclusion in part, but has also found that young Muslim women are more successful and politically active than their male counterparts. As much as their patterns of dress and religious observance indicate traditional behavior, they also point toward growing activism and independence.

Some of the agents of Muslim integration are the same as they were for previous waves of immigrants. The economy, for example, continues to be of overriding importance. Employment and antidiscrimination programs are crucial to reducing the sense of alienation among Muslim youth. The American experience has demonstrated that such programs are most effective in creating new ethnic elites who can serve as a bridge for broader economic and social mobility. ²²⁴ Despite increasing visibility at various levels of the economy, though, the unemployment rates of young Muslims are significantly higher than those of other young people throughout Europe (but not America). This is related in part to their lower levels of education. But, as we have noted, and as confirmed by several European studies, ²²⁵ it is also caused by slow economic growth and discriminatory labor practices. Nevertheless, a large proportion of Muslim youth have excelled within the educational system and in the labor market despite these barriers. ²²⁶

The American experience, though relatively recent, also indicates that politics is an effective instrument for creating a sense of civic identity among immigrants. ²²⁷ Yet this traditional agent of integration is not as important as it was in the past. While previous generations of immigrants were integrated through the trade union movement and through active participation in political life, these mechanisms have not been as effective for Muslims in this generation. Trade unions are less powerful than they used to be, and political parties have made little effort to mobilize and integrate Muslim citizens. Instead, state authorities in Europe and the United States have attempted to use mosques and religious authorities as intermediaries with the Muslim population.

In contrast, legal institutions have played an increasingly significant role in integration by establishing minority rights that in most cases support multiculturalism. They have kept the doors of immigration open in Europe and have constrained the most questionable behavior of the federal government in the United States since 2001. Although the courts are not comparable to the economy, religious institutions, and the political system in assimilating immigrants, they have been crucial negotiators of evolving identity. ²²⁸ In France, for instance, many young Muslims are legally changing their names to more European sounding ones to facilitate their integration, particularly in the job market, and they seem to enjoy the sympathy of the judicial system. A recent Le Monde article relays the experience of the judge Anne–Marie Lemarinier who has presided over many of these requests in the last two years:

Mme Lemarinier knows them well, these files of French men and women of more or less remote foreign ancestry for whom a Muslim first name is an impediment to integration. Many tens of times per year, she hears the same tales of refusal for jobs or for renting an apartment when one is named Mohammed, Abdel or Tarek, and the obstacles that are removed as soon as they become Fred or Paul. ²²⁹

The role of ethnic associations is also important to integration. Although their number increased over the past decade, with various degrees of legitimacy, until now they played only a relatively minor role in developing and representing the interests of Muslim communities in the West. Now, as Western governments are increasingly seeking out intermediaries to deal with their Muslim communities, such associations could play a more significant role as arbiters of both identity and integration. ²³⁰ Growing considerations of domestic and transnational security have intensified the search for intermediaries and have also created a greater sense of urgency among leaders of Muslim communities to fill this role.

Ethnic associations must play a role in developing such instruments as citizenship examinations and citizenship training programs, for example, that Britain and France, respectively, are using to assess the integration of immigrants. It is crucial that Muslim minorities not become the objects of such programs, but act in concert with governmental authorities in defining emerging national identities.

Integration is clearly a very complex issue, and one that is difficult, if not impossible, to define in universally accepted terms. Context matters in terms of both time and space. Western countries are struggling, with varying degrees of success, to develop policies that will improve the process. It would be inaccurate to say that integration is failing, either in Europe or the United States. Rather, we seem to be at a crossroads, where governments and their Muslims populations are beginning to articulate a new kind of citizenship pact in the West.

As the report of the High–Level Group for the Alliance of Civilizations rightly states the following:

Establishing coherent integration strategies requires regular dialogue among representatives of government and immigrant communities, civil society representatives, religious organizations and employers, engaging at local, regional, national and international levels. While informal and ad hoc engagement is valuable, institutional structures that support dialogue on a regular ongoing basis can ensure the efficacy of such approaches in promoting greater integration. Such efforts help achieve a balance between the demands of integration and the need to maintain one’s cultural and religious identity. ²³¹

The report goes on to say that

political, civil society, and religious leadership in the West can help set the tone within which debates regarding immigration take place by speaking forcefully and publicly in defense of the rights of immigrants wherever they are endangered and by acknowledging the contributions that immigrants make to the life and livelihood of their communities. ²³²

These are not easy times to determine the right terms for the integration of Muslim communities in the West, and in Europe, in particular. Tensions between the Muslim and Western worlds are reverberating within Muslim communities in the West. The search for identity (among individuals, states, and Europe as a whole) is exacerbated by internal factors, such as economic and social problems and cultural clashes, as well as external factors, such as international conflicts and the struggle against transnational terrorism. Thus, all involved—governments, ethnic associations, employers, educational institutions, and religious voices—must exert a concerted effort to develop and define what might become a citizenship pact. Such a pact would spell out obligations and rights in a clear way; the question would no longer be whether integration is achieved, but whether citizenship is fully enjoyed and mutual obligations honored. As citizens, reassured in the integrity of their private values but in full agreement with the encompassing legal system of their adopted countries and its political culture, Western Muslims could become an inspiration for the larger Muslim world as it struggles to strike a balance between faith, tradition, and modernity. Furthermore, the resolution of current tensions in which Muslim communities are embroiled in the West—tensions that are of concern to the rest of the Muslim world—might lead to a more harmonious relationship between the West and the Muslim world.

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