Spain: Moorish revival

Via BBC:

A thousand years ago North African Muslims ruled southern Spain. Now some of their descendants are contributing to a “Moorish revival” that is regenerating parts of Andalucia, says the BBC’s Sylvia Smith.

Sitting in Abdul Hedi Benattia’s tea shop you forget for a moment where you are.

The sound of sweet mint tea being poured into tiny glasses, the murmur of Arabic in the background, and piles of almond cornes de gazelle, served to customers sitting on low sofas, all suggest Morocco or Tunisia.

This article was prepared by the Islam in Europe blog – islamineurope.blogspot.com

But step outside the shop and walk a few metres downhill and you are in Granada, Spain.

This teteria, or tea shop, is just one of dozens that festoon the historic area and have come to symbolise a significant change in the culture and economics of an important part of the city.

It was the opening of a tea shop alongside the city’s first neighbourhood mosque that ignited the North African renaissance in Granada, according to Said Ekhlouf from Tetouan in northern Morocco.

He and his fellow shop owners took over empty properties, breathing fresh life into a previously run-down area.

“Before we set up shop, few people dared walk down this street, especially in the evening,” he explains.

“Everything was boarded up and the only people you’d meet were junkies and prostitutes. But we have turned this street into one of the most popular.”

The transformation is eye-catching. Dozens of brightly coloured, open-fronted stalls sell all kinds of Moroccan and Tunisian handicrafts, and the only music you will hear is Arabic, interspersed with the call to prayer.

Taking advantage of low property prices, the first arrivals in the 1980s colonised the Calderia Nueva and began, unwittingly, to introduce a modern version of Islamic Andalucian culture.

Abdul Hedi Benattia, who is a Tunisian historian as well as owning a restaurant and tea shop, claims that Islam as practised in Granada is very close to the original tolerant religion that spread across North Africa and through most of the Iberian peninsula from the 7th Century until the 14th Century.

“We accept our Christian neighbours and respect their traditions,” he says. “We didn’t set out specifically to recreate peaceful co-existence, but at times you can’t help but reflect that this is exactly what has happened”.

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Netherlands: Muslims upset pig picture was removed

About a month ago, a Muslim local councilor in the city of Venray got upset at a sculpture depicting a pig, and demanded that the feelings of Muslims be taken into account in the future.

Is it that preposterous, then, to assume that Muslims would be insulted by a picture of a pig? It’s a no-win situation for non-Muslims. It would be interesting to see how the SMN responds next time a Muslim will complain about pig depictions. Unless I missed it, last time they did not say a word.

This article was prepared by the Islam in Europe blog – islamineurope.blogspot.com

The Dutch Moroccan Alliance (SMN) is ‘furious’ about the decision of the Linge Polyclinic in Leerdam to remove a picture of a pig because it would suuposedly insult Muslims.

On Thrusday the clinic said that they hang picutres for them to be pleasing and that they are no interseted in problems. A spokesperson said they get visitors of all kinds, and that therefore they removed the artwork if they get complaints.

The clinic removed the picture after a non-Muslim patient complained and said that it would offend Muslims.

Nonsense, says Habib El Kaddaoui of the SMN. “”Most Muslims are not offended at all by it,” he told AD Friday. “They have been living here for thirty, forty years, and know that the majority do eat pork. Moreover, many Muslims have worked in slaughterhouses where pigs were also slaughtered.”

(Photo, AD)

El Kaddaoui says that just a small group of ultra-orthodox Muslims might have trouble with such a pig. The ethnic Dutch complainer might have meant well, but complaining in the name of Muslims wasn’t useful.

It says the wrong message, says El Kaddaoui. It’s not prudent to think and feel for others, and the clinic went along with it.

Maurits Berger, an Islam researcher from Leiden, also doesn’t understand the exaggerated understanding position of the clinic. “This went too far. Muslims don’t eat pigs because they’re impure animals, but pictures are not impure.”

Despite all this, the clinic does not regret removing the picture. They just wanted to solve the complaint. Artist Sylvia Bosch is surprised that the pig picture won’t be returned. “We’re living in the Netherlands, aren’t we? You don’t expect such things here.”

Source: Elsevier (Dutch)

France: Muslims feel sting of discrimination

In a related story: Two Muslim women marched out of swimming pool in French holiday village because they were wearing burkinis

Via LA Times:

Be patient. This is just a phase. It will all blow over eventually. That’s what Abdel Basset Zitouni tells the young people who come seeking his advice on getting a job or starting a business.

But Zitouni’s counsel isn’t just in response to questions about finding work in a depressed economy.

Many of the people who knock on his office door are Muslims from the housing projects in this city west of Paris who have felt the sting of discrimination.

This article was prepared by the Islam in Europe blog – islamineurope.blogspot.com

They tell of an unwelcoming professional world, with regular bank rejections for business loans, or months without a callback for an interview.

Zitouni, who presides over the nonprofit National Assn. for Young Entrepreneurs here, says it is common to hear of employers asking new hires to change their names to something more “French-sounding” and less Muslim, apparently to appease touchy customers.

Others climb the sparse stairway to Zitouni’s single-room office with fists still clenched, mulling over a snide look after handing in a resume.

Zitouni reassures, and listens to their troubles.

Still, the 49-year-old prefers not to focus on the negative. If clients complain of discrimination, Zitouni stops them short.

“Serious and honest work will always bear fruit at the end,” he tells them.

But not all of France’s roughly 6 million Muslims are in the mood to be patient.

Muslim organizations and some critics of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government have condemned a cocktail of events that have made this a particularly tense time for Muslims in France, with violence against them rising sharply in the last year.

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Denmark: Immigrants moving their children to Danish-majority schools

Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten reports that immigrant families are moving their children away from schools which have many bilingual children and to places where Danes are in the majority.

According to the Kolding municipality, 39% of the city’s immigrant children will start the school year in a school outside their own district. This is three times as many as by Danish children and an increase from last year’s 34%.

This article was prepared by the Islam in Europe blog – islamineurope.blogspot.com

Ib Hansen, the city’s children and education director says he’s happy that the bilinguals are spreading themselves out voluntarily.

In contrast, in Aarhus, bilingual students who do poorly on the language test, are bused from, for example, Gellerup park to the city’s Dane-dominated wealthy areas.

In Esbjerg, Odense, Copenhagen and Aalborg immigrant parents move their children away from school witha high ratio of bilinguals.

Klaus Majgaard of the Odense municipality says that they’re probably not that different all other parents who also want their children to go to a good, mixed school.

School registration to the Tornhøj school in Aalborg, which has many bilingual students, shows that just half of the district’s potential kindergarten students chose the local school.

Several people point out that it’s the children from the resource-rich immigrant families who are spreading themselves voluntarily. This means some schools might be further marginalizes, because they’ve already lost the Danish students and now they’ll lose the children from the most well-functioning immigrant families.

Ikram Sarwar (S), deputy chairman of the integration committee in Copenhagen says that now all the parents have the resources to freely choose their school and what is best for the child’s education, and that the schools risk losing the resource-strong children.

Source: JP (Danish)

Normandy: Mosque defaced

Via RFI:

Inscriptions reading “Islam get out of Europe”, “No to Islam and to burkas”, along with swastikas, were discovered on Wednesday in Herouville-Saint-Clair, a suburb of the city of Caen in Normandy.

This article was prepared by the Islam in Europe blog – islamineurope.blogspot.com

The incident came a day after French lawmakers passed on first reading a bill banning women from wearing the full-face Islamic vail in public.

(photo)

Immigration Minister Eric Besson called the vandalism “cowardly” and “foolish”.

“I cannot begin to describe my indignation,” the minister said. “France has always been, and will remain, a land of immigration and integration.”

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Leeds: ‘There are still feelings there that triggered the bombings’

Via This is London:

A leader of the Muslim community in Leeds today said that the anger that fuelled the four bombers is still felt among some young men in the area.

Akhlaq Mir also called on the Government to “face up” to its responsibilities and help them fight terrorism.

This article was prepared by the Islam in Europe blog – islamineurope.blogspot.com

Mr Mir said: “There are still feelings there that triggered the bombings. As far as the Muslim youth are concerned, our soldiers are out in Afghanistan killing people every day and they are angry and they are frustrated.”

Mr Mir, chairman of an education centre in the Chapeltown area of the city, added: “We try to educate them, we tell them what Islam says.

“But the fear is always there that some of them will follow a path that they shouldn’t.

“The Government needs to do more, to provide projects like ours with funding and also give some of these young people a voice, so they can vent their anger and feel like they are being listened to without resorting to violence.”

(…)

Fahad Khan, 23, who works with Muslim teenagers in Beeston, said: “The bombers hijacked the Islamic faith in a negative way. We don’t want July 7 to be a legacy of Beeston or Leeds and so we are working hard to change that. Everyone wants to move on.”

A friend of the families of Tanweer, Hussain and Khan, said today was the day for the 52 innocent people killed but said the families “can’t understand how their sons could have done this and they will never get the answers to their questions”.

(more)

Source: This is London

EU: Wide Islamic perception ‘key to Muslim integration’

EU academics have identified that understanding different Islamic cultures, based on perceptions of regional identity, is pivotal to the successful integration of Muslim communities in Europe.

Their research was presented alongside Indonesian experts at a seminar last Wednesday, organized by the European Union Delegation to Indonesia, to promote interfaith dialogue between Indonesia and the EU.

In a keynote presentation, Agata Nalborczyk from the University of Warsaw, Poland, stated that there was “no single [Islamic] situation in Europe” stressing the existence of “different levels of religious and nationalistic identity”.

This article was prepared by the Islam in Europe blog – islamineurope.blogspot.com

She highlighted that “British Muslims from Pakistan held different religious beliefs to Tatar Muslims from Poland”, concluding that Islamic values often depend on individuals’ backgrounds and communities, rather than a universal mindset. Agata represents a group of European scholars who approach Islamic studies from a scientific, sociological level. Her work primarily attempts to analyze the role of the state and its effect on religious immigrant groups in Europe, noting governments should focus on integration over assimilation.

“The main problem Europe faces is citizenship and confessional laws. The French government relies on assimilation — immigrants are encouraged to think ‘I’m French’. The UK has a much better policy, it permits immigrants to remember their origins, such as British-Muslims or British-Pakistanis.”

The architecture of mosques in Europe also shows how different Islamic groups have integrated into European communities, she said, giving examples of mosques in Birmingham, the UK, made from local red bricks that attempt to blend in with the surrounding landscape.

In referring to recent protests that erupted in Cologne, Germany, when a new-age mosque’s minaret was planned to rise higher than the city cathedral’s, she emphasized the acceptance of mosques in Europe was an increasing problem.

“Many people see mosques as a threat, but they should see them as meeting places for interfaith discussions and a step toward integration for Muslim communities”.

This research was presented as part of broader dialogue the EU is initiating with Indonesia over Islamic integration in Europe. The discussions hope to draw upon Indonesia’s experience as the world’s largest Muslim-majority democracy.

(more)

Source: Jakarta Post

Berlin: Anarchists harassing Muslims for supporting Germany’s team

Leftist anarchists in Berlin have reportedly been harassing Muslim immigrants showing their support for the German football team during the World Cup, tearing down national flags and even setting one on fire.

This article was prepared by the Islam in Europe blog – islamineurope.blogspot.com

The leftists have been particularly aggressive in the city’s Neukölln district, home to many residents of Turkish and Arabic heritage, daily Der Tagesspiegel reported on Monday.

Here they have made a point of destroying and removing Germany flags hanging outside shops and vehicles because they believe the proud patriotism hearkens back to the ugly nationalism of the Third Reich, the paper said.

A group calling itself “Kommando Kevin-Prince Boateng” posted a notice on the website Indymedia calling on leftists to “capture” all Germany flags across the country. The name refers to the Berlin-born footballer, who is playing for Ghana at the world cup and knocked German team captain Michael Ballack out of the tournament with a brutal foul in the FA Cup final in May.

One Arab-German family has sparked their ire by hanging a giant Germany flag on their Sonnenallee building in support of the football team during the World Cup.

Ibrahim Bassal, who owns a mobile phone shop in the district, told daily Berliner Morgenpost on Saturday that since he and his cousin hoisted the flag they have had several uncomfortable encounters with the local leftists.

“During the day people from the left-wing scene come by and insult us,” Bassal said. “Am I not allowed to be proud of Germany?”

(…)

“They see us as immigrants,” he said. “They don’t understand that Germans who aren’t from Germany would defend Germany.”

Both Bassal and Mohammed told Berliner Morgenpost that they are incredulous they have to defend hanging a German flag to native Germans.

Though the store owner’s entire family have been citizens for many years, the leftists believe immigrants must remain foreigners, he added.

Meanwhile many of the residents of Arab or Turkish descent who live in the multicultural district are defending the huge flag and continuing to show their support, the paper reported.

(more)

Source: The Local

Stockholm: City settles in headscarf case

A woman who was forced off a state-run training program because she wore a long headscarf has now won damages from Stockholm’s local authority.

The training course was aimed at leading to work as a cleaner. But when the woman arrived for the start of teaching, in April 2008, she was told that employers would not accept her clothing – and she was struck off the course.

This article was prepared by the Islam in Europe blog – islamineurope.blogspot.com

Now she has been paid almost 5,500 Us dollars worth of compensation, after a decision on Thursday by the Equality Ombudsman to take up her case caused the city authority to settle a deal.

Source: SR (English)

Netherlands/Belgium: The link between crime and ethnicity

In the Netherlands, half the Moroccan youth get in trouble with the police by the time they’re 22. A third of this group are repeat offenders with more than 5 incidents on their record, according to a new study published in the recent issue of the Tijdschrift voor Criminologie (Journal of Criminology).

To the surprise of the authors, it turns out Moroccan girls commit three times as many crimes as Dutch girls. An multiple offenders are on average not more violent than people who commit a crime every now and then. According to another study in the same issue of TVC, asylum migrants commit more crimes than ethnic Dutch or regular migrants. An evaluation of of both studies, and the question is whether this study can be generalized for Belgium. Not so.

This article was prepared by the Islam in Europe blog – islamineurope.blogspot.com

The link between ethnicity and studying criminality is a sensitive issue. Registration of somebody’s ethnic background soon brings charges of ‘racism’. In Belgium there are no studies about this issue, but in the Netherlands there are. TVC devoted an entire issue to this subject.

A new study by Arjan Blokland, Kim Grimbergen, Wim Bernasco and Paul Nieuwbeerta is central. They followed everybody who was born in the Netherlands in 1984 (!) until they were 22. They checked how many times these people got in trouble with the police for a crime.

Such a study was never done before. Though it did appear already before that that the number of immigrants in the annual group of suspects in the Netherlands is twice as big as their part in the population. And also that about a third of all registered crimes in the Netherlands are committed by a non-Western immigrants. And you had another study by the city of Rotterdam, which showed that in 2007, more than half of the Moroccans in Rotterdam aged 18-24 got in trouble with the police at least once for a crime. The recidivism in this group is around 90%. These studies were snapshots and could therefore be biased. Never before was a complete birth ‘cohort’ (a group from a certain birth year which is followed for years) from across the Netherlands followed. That did occur now.

RESULTS

What are the most important results?

* 14% of these youth from 1984 got in trouble with the police at least once. Among Dutch men that was 20%, among Moroccan men 54%.

* Immigrant youth got in trouble with the police for a crime more than ethnic Dutch. This is true for all immigrant groups (Moroccans, Turks, Antilleans, Surinamese..)

* Moroccan boys are on average the youngest when they were first registered (17.6). The average starting age for Dutch men is 18.5. Moroccan boys also got in trouble with the police most often, on average (4.1 times).

* Turkish men commit mostly violent crimes, Dutch men are registered for destruction, disturbing the public order and traffic offense. Moroccan men commit property crimes.

* 5.4% of all girls born in 1984 got in trouble with the police at least once as perpetrators. For Dutch girls that was 4.5%, for Moroccan girls 16.6% (3.7 times as many). In the crime statistics, not only are Moroccan boys overrepresented by also Moroccan girls. This finding undermines the widespread idea that Moroccan girls are much better behaved than Moroccan boys. By Moroccan girls the crimes were mostly property crimes (presumably shoplifting) and very little violence. Girls from all backgrounds are less violent than boys.

With the group of criminal girls, Surinamese and Antillean girls commit percentage wise three times as many violent property crimes as Dutch girls.

* What’s the situation with repeat offenders? The authors define anybody who was registered more than five times for a crime as a repeat offender. Among men, that was 3.4% of all men born in 1984, or 14.9% of all criminals in this group. But the differences between the ethnicities are great. For Dutch men, it’s 12.8% of all criminals, for Moroccan men it’s 32.3%, almost three times as many. Most repeat offenders committed at least one violent crime, but in general their criminal career is not more violent than that of other criminals. The latter also surprised the authors.

Repeat offending is a man’s thing: the number of men who do it is 11 times the number of women who do it. However, it’s remarkable that the percentage of repeat offenders among Moroccan girls (7.4% of all female criminals) is twice as high as that of ethnic Dutch (4.8%). In total, barely 0.3% of all women born in 1984 is a repeat offender, and the same goes for 5.4% of all female criminals.

* Delinquent immigrants are more violent than delinquent ethnic Dutch. That is true both for one-time criminals and for multiple offenders.

* The Turks are most like the Dutch, though they too commit more crimes and are more violent than the Dutch.

EXPLANATIONS

The authors don’t bring any real explanation. They do discuss all possible options.

* They say that the cultures and religions of these groups differ enormously. Therefore, the explanatory factor can’t be that.

* The lower social-economic position of all immigrants certainly plays a role, for three reasons:

- Because in the lower circles have more negative “role models” (people who made it socially thanks to crime) than in the higher ones.

- Because the process of becoming an adult takes longer, and therefore the “criminal transition in puberty” also drags on longer and the risk is greater that this criminality would be lasting.

- Because various social factors can have negative neurological effects for small children, which encourage aggression.

But.. the lower social-economic position is not the decisive factor, since Dutch from the same low social class get in trouble with the police less for crimes than immigrants from that class.

* Being well or badly integrated in Dutch society also plays a small role. It’s been suggested that for Moroccan boys, the criminal group is better integrated than the not-criminal group. Moroccans with a strong focus on the Netherlands are often more frustrated that they can’t realize their desires from their disadvantaged position than Moroccans who aren’t focused on the Netherlands, say the authors.

* Social control does seem to be an important factor. This social control plays out both in the family and in the community. Social control could explain why Turks score so ‘well’: the Netherlands has a strong Turkish community, but that doesn’t apply to the Moroccans. Moreover, the Turks see petty crimes as “losing face” and that doesn’t apply to the Moroccans.

And yet, social control can’t explain everything either, since Moroccan girls are highly controlled, probably more than Dutch girls, certainly in their family, and they also score extremely high in the statistics.

* Does registration by the police play a role? A study from 1999 showed that there is little evidence that immigrants are treated differently than ethnic Dutch by the Dutch police. The fact that HALT cases (alternative sentences for petty crimes by minors who confessed) aren’t included in the statistics, since in such cases there’s no record, can mean that the number of ethnic Dutch is underestimated, because this group is over-represented in HALT. And the policy to focus on certain disadvantaged neighborhoods and repeat offenders can lead to an over-representation of Moroccans.

On the other hand, it seems that the differences between immigrant and ethnic Dutch are even bigger in studies in which everybody says which crimes they’ve committed, than in the police statistics. And so the effect of the registration factor could be limited.

The authors conclude that linking ethnicity and risk-factors for criminals on individual, neighborhood or social levels is a complex issue. “The danger exists that people will see ethnicity and culture as an explanatory factor, while ethnicity is just a social category which at best refers to other underlying causes,” they argue.

CRIMINALITY OF ASYLUM MIGRANTS

In the same issue of TVC Jan de Boom, Erik Snel and Godfried Engbersen published a study about the link between ‘asylum migration’ and crime. They checked how many asylum migrants were suspected of a crime in 2004.

Asylum migrants include both asylum seekers and recognized refugees, even those who got Dutch citizenship. Also rejected asylum seekers (ie, illegals) are included in the term ‘asylum migrants’.

3.4% of the recognized refugees were registered as suspects in 2004. This figure increased to 5.4% among asylum seekers (who were still in the process) and 10% of rejected asylum seekers. There more crime among asylum migrants – with an average of 5.1% suspects – than among ethnic Dutch and regular migrant groups, say the authors. In 2004, 1.5% of all ethnic Dutch were registered as suspects, 6% of Moroccans and 7.5% of Antilleans. But the data is difficult to compare, because asylum migrants are a specific group: (then still) mostly young men with strong social frustration and deprivation.

Mostly it’s petty property crimes (16% committed a single theft or shoplifting, 9% a robbery), and forgery (using false documents). According to the authors it’s notable that the worse the legal status of an asylum migrant, the higher their criminality.

AND BELGIUM?

What’s the situation in Belgium? We don’t know. In the Netherlands you can register the ethnic origin of perpetrators and suspects, compare databases and do scientific research on this subject. In Belgium – mostly due to the pressure of the PS (Socialists) and the privacy commission – not yet. In Belgium just recording somebody’s ethnic origin is ‘racist’ for some groups.

The few studies about the over-representation of foreigners (in Belgian studies that’s mostly people with a foreign nationality), the crime statistics in Belgium are invariably focused on possible police and court racism and on social exclusion. Cultural explanatory models are taboo here. As the reactions to the studies of Marion and San showed..

Comparisons between Belgium and the Netherlands and generalizations from one country to another should be done carefully. For multiple reasons:

- The Netherlands has certain groups of immigrants (Surinamese, Antilleans) that Belgium doesn’t. Belgium does have others (Congolese, Black Africans). These groups have different cultures and can’t be all thrown together. It should be said that the Dutch study of Blokland and co was about people who were born in 1984 in the Netherlands. This means that a number of ethnic groups now present in the Netherlands and Belgium (Russians, Kosovars, Serbs) weren’t included, since in 1984 they were behind the Iron Curtain.

- In Belgium a study like that of Blokland and co isn’t yet possible, because our country only has such crime statistics since 2000. So it’s not that simple.

- Integration is different. Moroccans are probably better integrated in the Netherlands than in Belgium. The employment percentage in the Netherlands is any case higher than here. In Belgium unemployment among immigrant youth in Brussels is up to 50%. It’s not clear what role this plays in criminality.

- The dutch police works – at least on the local level – more efficiently and professionally than the Belgian police. It’s not clear what the results could be: more registration of Moroccan suspects (through possible racism) or less (due to no-go-areas)?

If the Belgian police and courts are more racist than their Dutch counterparts is doubtful. A study by the Comité P showed that just 16.4% of the complaints lodged against the Belgian police for racism between 2005 and the end of 2008, were founded. And the only study about possible discrimination in the detention of Moroccans – the study by Dr. Walter De Pauw from the Department for Criminal Policy about the handling of drug crimes – showed that there was no discrimination.

The scientific study of the link ethnicity-crime is still unexplored terrain in Belgium. TVC explains the big difference between Belgium and the Netherlands by the ‘tendency of the government to keep the crime problem in relationship to migrants out of the discussion’. TVC moreover thinks that ‘The Belgian migration debate threatens to be reduced to a debate about Islam. That debate drives apart supporters and opponents and doesn’t only disturb the social dialog between population groups, but also the climate in which scientific research is done.’

But the Belgian attitude is more the rule than the exception in the West. According to TVC, the crime-migration relationship can only be spoken of in England if it’s brought up as a question of selective policing, racism and deprivation. Germany is very cautious about studies about people’s ethnic background since WWII, and in France there are only French, no Frenchmen with another ethnic origin.

However wants to have a crime policy, both preventive and repressive, must abandon these taboos. The fact that the Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism is now asking for ethnic registration (specifically to research the social evolution of regularized illegals) is a positive sign.

See: TIJDSCHRIFT VOOR CRIMINOLOGIE, Criminaliteit, migratie en etniciteit, 2010, (52)2, Boom Juridische Uitgevers, Den Haag

Source: John De Wit, GvA (Dutch)