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Abstract
Europe and its leaders, though they may not fully comprehend the significance of the events that are rapidly unfolding, and whether they like it or not, are key players in the historical process that will shape the geopolitics of the Middle East and Islam's response to the challenge of modernity. This is not say that Europe has it in its power to determine the choices that Iran and the Arab world will make, nor indeed should it attempt to do so. On the other hand, it does have a margin of manoeuvre which, depending on the way it is exercised, may tilt the balance in favour either of the politics of coexistence and cooperation or the politics of confrontation. European choices and capacities will revolve around four questions: How will European policies and attitudes position themselves vis-à-vis the Orientalist tendencies of the past? What steps might be taken to clear the backlog of unresolved geopolitical tensions and misunderstandings? Can Europe develop a programmatic approach to regional and international governance which accepts cultural plurality as its foundation stone, even if this should create tensions in the transatlantic relationship? Is Europe disposed to forge a new social compact that accepts Muslims in Europe as European citizens fully engaged in the task of European construction? The article argues that these are not four unrelated questions, each with its own separate logic and modus operandi, but four mutually constitutive policydilemmas that will in large measure reflect and in part shape European efforts to fashion a new identityand sense of place in the world.
Notes
1 See Marshall G.S. Hodgson, Rethinking World History: Essays on Europe, Islam, and World History, ed. Edmund Burke III (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 3–28.
2 See Immanuel Wallerstein, The Decline of American Power (New York: New Press, 2003), 14.
3 Among the many accounts of the consolidation of US preponderance in Western Europe, the following are especially illuminating: John Lewis Gaddis. Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982); John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History (New York:Penguin Press, 2005); Melvyn Leffler, A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration and the Cold War (1992).
4 Marja Gastelaars and Arie de Ruijter, ‘Ambivalences and Complexities in European Identity Formation’ and Dirk Jacobs and Robert Maier, ‘European Identity: Construct, Fact and Fiction’, in A United Europe—The Quest for a Multifaceted Identity, Maastricht, ed. Marja Gastelaars and Arie de Ruijter (Shaker, 1998), 1–12.
5 See David Abulafia, ed., The Mediterranean in History (London: Thames & Hudson, 2003).
6 Silvo Devetak, ‘The Mediterranean Basin—between the Glorious Past and the Uncertain Future’, Journal of Mediterranean Studies 11, no. 1 (2001).
7 Ilya V. Gaiduk, The Great Confrontation Europe and Islam through the Centuries (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2003), 16–17.
8 See Timothy M. Savage, ‘Europe and Islam: Crescent Waxing, Cultures Clashing’, Washington Quarterly 27, no. 3 (2004): 25–50.
9 Of particular interest here is the Barcelona process launched by the Barcelona Declaration (adopted at the Euro-Mediterranean Conference, 27–28 November 1995, <http://ec.europa.eu/external_relations/euromed/bd.htm> (accessed 12 October 2007). More recent statements have included: European Commission, ‘Wider Europe–Neighbourhood: A New Framework for Relations with Our Eastern and Southern Neighbours’, Brussels, 11 March 2003; and ‘A Secure Europe in a Better World—European Security Strategy’, Brussels, 12 December 2003, 7–8, <http://consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cmsUpload/78367.pdf> (accessed 10 October 2007).
10 One of the clearest expositions of the modernity dilemma facing the Muslim world is provided by Ziauddin Sardar (see Islam, Postmodernism and Other Futures: A Reader, ed. by Sohail Inayatullah and Gail Boxwell (London: Pluto Press, 2003).
11 For a general overview of the role of Muslim minorities in Europe see Shireen T. Hunter, ed., Islam, Europe's Second Religion (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002).
12 Ahmed Akbar, Postmodernism and Islam: Predicament and Promise (London: Routledge, 1992), 182.
13 Majid Anouar, Unveiling Traditions: Postcolonial Islam in a Polycentric World (Durham, NC/London: Duke University Press, 2000), 71.
14 Ibid., 67.
15 Gabriele Marranci, ‘Multiculturalism, Islam and the Clash of Civilisations Theory: Rethinking Islamophobia’, Culture and Religion 5, no. 1, 105–17.
16 In France (where Muslims account for 7% of the population), Germany and Austria, public opposition to Turkey's EU accession is said to range between 60% and 75%. See ‘Analysis: EU Views on Turkish Bid’, BBC News, 30 September 2005, <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4298408.stm> (11 October 2007). Public attitudes on this issue reflect a marked rise in anti-immigrant sentiment directed primarily against Muslim workers and residents from North Africa and Turkey.
17 See Stephanie Flechtner, ‘European Security and Defense Policy: Between “Offensive Defense” and “Human Security”’, International Political Analysis Unit, November 2006, <http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/id/04139.pdf> (accessed 5 September 2007).
18 Graham E. Fuller and Ian O. Lesser, A Sense of Siege: The Geopolitics of Islam and the West (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995), 63.
19 See Michael A. Sells, ‘The Construction of Serbian Religious Mythology and Its Consequences’, in Islam and Bosnia: Conflict Resolution and Foreign Policy in Multi-ethnic Societies, ed. Maya Shatzmiller (Montreal: McGill–Queen's University Press, 2002), 56–85.
20 Sous La direction de Charlotte Nordmann, Le foulard Islamique en questions, Paris: Editions Amsterdam, 2004.
21 An illuminating survey of responses to the controversy appearing in the European press is provided in ‘The Twelve Muhammad Cartoons’, Signandsight.com, <http://www.signandsight.com/features/590.html> (accessed 15 September 2007).
22 Zeyno Baran, ‘The Battle within Islam’, Foreign Affairs 84, no. 6 (2005).
23 For a useful profile of Muslim minorities in European countries and cities, see Euro-Islam.Info, Country Profiles, <http://www.euro-islam.info/spip/article.php3?id_article = 29> (15 October 2007).
24 Timothy M. Savage, “Europe and Islam: Crescent Waxing, Cultures Clashing', Washington Quarterly (Summer 2004): 29.
25 Jocelyne Cesari, ‘Muslim Minorities in Europe: The Silent Revolution’, in Modernizing Islam: Religion in the Public Sphere in the Middle East and in Europe, ed. John Esposito and François Burgat (Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2003), 251–69.
26 Ilya V.Gaiduk, The Great Confrontation Europe and Islam through the Centuries (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2003), 179–83.
27 European Union, A Secure Europe in a Better World: European Security Strategy (Brussels, 2003).
28 See John Moore, ‘The Evolution of Islamic Terrorism: An Overview’, PBS Frontline, Target America, <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/target/> (accessed 15 September 2007); also Peter Warren Singer, ‘America, Islam, and the 9–11 War’, Current History (December 2006), 415–22.
29 One of the more insightful analyses of the meaning of September 11 is developed in ‘Fundamentalism and Terror: A Dialogue with Jürgen Habermas’, in Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida, by Giovanna Borradori (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003).
30 See US White House, ‘National Strategy for Combating Terrorism’, February 2003, <http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/counter_terrorism/counter_terrorism_strategy.pdf> (accessed 11 September 2007).
31 There has been a tendency in much of the literature to emphasise Islamic resurgence primarily in term of the growth of Islamic radicalism, and religious zeal more generally. See, for example, Muslim World, Special Issue on Globalization and Religious Resurgence: Asian Responses, 97, no. 3 (2007); also Ismael Hossein-Zadeh, ‘The Muslim World and the West: The Roots of Conflict’, Arab Studies Quarterly (Summer 2005):<http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2501/is_3_27/ai_n15795979> (accessed 10 September 2007). But there is another important dimension, which has to do with the increasing awareness of the Muslim world's importance in strategic and energy terms.
32 Michel Chossudovsky, ‘The “Demonization” of Muslims and the Battle for Oil’, 4 January 2007, <http://www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId = 4347> (accessed 15 September 2007).
33 See Fred Halliday, ‘Transnational Paranoia and International Relations The Case of the “West versus Islam”’, in The New Agenda for International Relations: From Polarization to Globalization in World Politics?, ed. Stephanie Lawson (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2002), 37–53.
34 The possible transformation of OPEC into a cartel that would damage US energy interests has been a constant preoccupation of US policy. See James Richard, ‘New Cohesion in OPEC's Cartel?: Pricing and Politics’, Middle East Review of International Affairs 3, no. 2 (1999).
35 In July 2006, the survey results released by the Pew Global Attitudes Project indicated that this trend applied even to close allies of the United States. In Turkey, just 12% held a positive opinion of the United States, down from as high as 52% in 2000. Similarly, only 15% in Jordan and 27% in Pakistan had a positive view of the United States. Perceptions of the American people were only moderately more favourable than opinions of the US government generally in the Middle East and among Muslims in Asia and Africa. See Remarks of Andrew Kohut to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing ‘Islam and the West: Searching for Common Ground’, 18 July 2006, <http://pewglobal.org/commentary/display.php?AnalysisID = 1009>(15October 2007).
36 ‘Muslim Anger Builds over Pope's Speech’, The Guardian, 15 September 2006.
37 Tuomas Forsberg and Graeme P. Herd, ‘Divided West: European Security and the Transatlantic Relationship’, Chatham House Papers (June 2006).
38 Article 5 commits NATO member states to treat an armed attack against any one of them as an attack against them all, and to take action, individually and in concert with others, ‘to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area’.
39 Christopher Layne, ‘Iraq and Beyond: “Old Europe” and the End of the U.S. Hegemony’, Significant Issues 26, no. 3 (2004).
40 Speech delivered by Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates to the Conference of European Armies, Heidelberg, 25 October 2007, <http://www.defenselink.mil/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid = 1188> (accessed 17 November 2007).
41 William Shawcross, Allies: The U.S., Britain, Europe, and the War in Iraq (New York: Public Affairs, 2004).
42 International Herald Tribune, 7 February 2006.
43 See Madeleine Albright, ‘Building a Bipartisan Foreign Policy’, address delivered at Rice Memorial Center, Rice University, Houston, 7 February 1997, <http://gos.sbc.edu/a/albright8.html> (accessed 28 November 2007).
44 ‘New Era of Discord for Russia and West’, BBC News, 8 June 2007, <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6717927.stm> (accessed 15 September 2007).
45 United States Department of Defense, News Transcript, 12 February 2002, <http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2002/t02122002_t212sdv2.html> (accessed 25 June 2004).
46 Paul Virilio, ‘L’état d'urgence permanent', Le Nouvel Observateur, no. 2051 (2004):<http://www.nouvelobs.com/articles/p2051/a233909.html> (accessed 20 June 2004).
47 In addition to the rising number of casualties, the financial cost of the war has risen to previously unimaginably proportions. According to one study, the costs, assuming a continuing US military presence at least until 2010, are likely to be as high as US$2 trillion compared with the US administration's original estimate of US$50–60 billion (see Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz, ‘The Economic Costs of the Iraq War: An Appraisal Three Years after the Beginning of the Conflict’, National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 12054, February 2006, <http://www.nber.org/papers/w12054> (accessed 16 September 2007).
48 Pew Global Attitudes Project, ‘American Character Gets Mixed Reviews: U.S. IMAGE UP SLIGHTLY, BUT STILL NEGATIVE’, 23 June 2005.
49 New York Times, 28 April 2006.