Muslims Communities in Europe: Winning the Battle Against Radicalization

I jumped at the opportunity to speak on the very important subject of Muslim radicalization. I hope whatever I can say will move the ball forward. But before we get going, let me quickly add that I am doubly honored to be asked to speak to the Henry Jackson Society.

Scoop Jackson was a unique individual. I say this not just in praise of him, but, yes, also as somewhat of a sad observation of the times in which we live. The void he left after his untimely death in 1983 has never been quite filled. A Democrat, he never wavered in his support for strong national security and for freedom for all mankind.

Were he still around today, Senator Jackson would have no problem affirming that Violent Islamic Extremism is a threat to both security and freedom. But he wouldn’t stop at just talking about it; he would try to do something to counter the influence of violence in our societies.

Scoop Jackson was not a demagogue. In fact, he opposed Joe McCarthy precisely because he thought that the Wisconsin Senator was tainting an important cause, anti-Communism.

Jackson, in a word, was an anti-demagogue. That is important, because that’s what we should all seek to be today as we counter this new threat to liberal, open society.

The National Security threat presented by violent extremists is being dealt with at the moment by our soldiers. What I will speak about today is a threat represented by a violent ideology that is radicalizing Muslims in our societies. During the Cold War we had NATO and its military strategies and we also had the Voice of America and its communications strategies. No analogy is ever perfect, but this one serves our purposes.

The Soviet communications strategy consisted of spreading lies about the nature of capitalism, democracy, the West in general and the United States in particular. Its propaganda was heavy handed, ham-fisted and crude. Behind the Iron curtain, this propaganda was underpinned by repression. Anyone who publicly disagreed with state propaganda quickly found himself or herself in an isolation cell in the Gulag.

We should not forget, however, that Soviet propaganda was successful with some people outside the Iron curtain, where fear of retribution played a lesser role. Communists in Western Europe were usually a small minority, but in some countries and at some times—like France and Italy in the 40s and 50s—they were an electoral force to reckon with.

Propaganda, in other words, succeeded with certain segments of the disaffected.

We may not be living in Scoop Jackson’s world today, but the similarities are strong. Today, violent Islamic extremists target the weak, the alienated and the vulnerable in immigrant communities in Europe. They feast on them.

Now, before I start, let me take note of some very important caveats. Let’s recognize right away that alienation is by no means the natural state of all European Muslims. Disaffection is not the default position. Many Muslims have successfully integrated and become productive members of society who contribute to their communities and take care of their families. And the majority of European Muslims are peace-loving people who do not engage in or condone terrorist activity.

It is, however, to those who haven’t found their niche in the different countries of Europe that we turn our thoughts today. We are talking about a subset of European Muslims. Just like a newspaper that does not report on the hundreds of thousands of planes that land safely every day, but on the single one that malfunctions, because of the inherent threat of loss of life, we are here to consider those who have fallen through the cracks. Many Muslims have successfully integrated in Europe, but there remains a lot to do in this process.

Why some immigrants haven’t assimilated is more than just an academic question. The answers are complex, but need not be convoluted.

Many are caught between two worlds. They have left the regulating influences of the traditional village, city or extended family and no longer have to live within strictures where much of daily life is a routine established generations before. But at the same time, they have not entered into the different compacts that establish behavior in modern European societies. Some react by attempting to reconstruct their past traditions in a modern urban setting, which as we know can have dire consequences, others try to find ways to compromise on their past traditions and adopt new ones that honor their past. Navigating through these questions and others is a major issue in Europe today.

It does not help assimilation that immigrants may seldom interact with people from their new country. Mutual ambivalence between the immigrants and members of the host communities sometimes results in the fact that some neighborhoods in modern European cities are Muslim-majority areas. I know that the UK knows this phenomenon. Many Muslim Britons, Germans, and Frenchmen do not just pray only with their coreligionists, but also study, play sports, and socialize only with their coreligionists.

And let’s admit that the welcome mat hasn’t always been rolled out. In some parts of Europe, immigration is not always welcomed. Shared history, religion, and culture—and let’s face it, DNA—have sometimes trumped other values. Xenophobes everywhere have seized on differences and have made matters worse.

Lest I am misunderstood, I should add that the answer does not lie in simply finding excuses for why immigrants have not integrated. There is also a need to turn a critical eye to those immigrants who have made little or no effort to contribute to their communities, who for whatever reason have refused to compromise with the host society.

So for multiple resons, some Muslim immigrants have not fully integrated into their new societies, and feel alienated from it.

Al-Qaeda and its proxies look at this situation and see a vast opportunity for recruitment.

Their fringe view distorts a great religion, to be sure, but we must understand that their violent ideology offers many things these vulnerable people are seeking.

For the alienated, the radicals offer a sense of belonging; for the bored, meaning and excitement; for the unemployed, a new means of sustenance; for those with a limited knowledge of Islam, salvation.

The ideology of intolerance, violence and religious chauvinism can be tempting to the uprooted, to those who have become too far removed from the country of their birth—or their parents’ birth—but not yet sunk deep emotional roots in their new society.

The promise that you will belong to something greater than yourself, that you will never be alone again, that no one will victimize you again, is a powerful elixir. Think about it: it has been a formula used over and over again, the preferred message of totalitarians from Hitler through Stalin to Milosevic.

How successful are the violent extremists at taking advantage of this situation? Just last month, the Head of the British Intelligence Service MI5, Jonathan Evans, gave a chilling speech on just this matter. He said there “remains a steady flow of new recruits to the extremist cause,” with more than 4,000 being suspected of involvement in terrorist activities and more than 2,000 posing “a direct threat to national security.”

And the recruits are getting younger and younger, some as young as 15. Extremists, Mr. Evans said, are “radicalizing, indoctrinating, and grooming young, vulnerable people to carry out acts of terrorism.” One of the most powerful places to recruit these youngsters, said Mr. Evans, was the Internet.

Now, I am an American and an Administration official to boot, and matters of integration are first and foremost internal issues, so I think it bears explaining what our interest is on the matter.

The entire world, not just my country and government, has an interest in what is happening in Muslim communities in Europe. The entire world has a stake.

Violent Islamic extremism is a global phenomenon, but the nature of the problem in Western Europe is distinct–both in its character and in its potential to threaten the United States. It is on this part of the world, too, that America has the greatest concentration of treaty allies.

Muslims, too, are a group caught up in the wave of extremist violence aimed at the U.S. and other industrialized societies here in Europe. The September 11 attacks were partly hatched right here in Europe, and its masterminds lived in Europe.

The United States, in short, cannot have a sound counterterrorism strategy or one that is truly global without tackling the complex issues of violent extremism and terrorist recruitment in Europe.

These movements have a deep hatred of who Americans are, of the freedoms and choices we enjoy. Combine this ideology with the relative freedom of movement across the Atlantic and you have a dangerously volatile mix.

So a big part of my job is to travel to Europe to meet with audiences, share our experience, tell the story of how American Muslims -- who number in the millions and come from more than 80 different ethnic back grounds – have navigated through these identity questions. The questions that I hear in Europe from Muslim Europeans are often the questions I experienced and heard in America among Muslims in the 1970s. How are we going to make a life here as a minority population? How will our kids get educated in both Islam, our traditional cultural history, and also be a vibrant part of our new communities in America.

As I meet with Muslims in Europe I hear these questions, too – how can I be both Muslim and German, Spanish, Swedish, Italian? Kids want to know how to balance their identity and in many cases, want to learn from experiences from others so they know that it can be done, so that they can have a future. They want role models; they want tools to push back against the voices that tell them they can’t ever be British or Norwegian or Swiss.

In my role, I have linked up European Muslims with each other – those that have similar issues and want to learn what is working, what civil society is doing, what community centers are doing about day to day issues. The learning curve is steep.

We are also trying to reach out to Muslims all over Europe to tell it as it is – that is – to push back against the perception that Muslims in America are second class citizens, or that we don’t honor Islam, that America is not a place where any person of faith can practice their religion freely.

We also introduce American Muslims to Muslim communities in Europe through various programs – every day Americans who don’t work for the government and may not even like aspects of our domestic or foreign policy. One such program is called the Citizen Dialogue program and it has provided a vehicle for American Muslims to reach out and share experiences and talk about Islam in America. The Citizen Dialogue program will hit 14 countries in Europe by the end of 2008.

Having opportunities to talk in roundtables, town halls, community centers, and mosques has been rewarding. We will not be able to convince everyone, we know that. But we will strive to make sure that, at least, the problem is not one of communication. If people still have differences with us after seeing our side of the argument, at least they are informed. What we cannot allow is hatred that results from misinformation, from an intentional misrepresentation of U.S. policies or practice.

But maybe at this point I should quickly offer a disclaimer, especially for those of you who have been patiently waiting for one: I know the U.S. hasn’t always done everything right with regards to immigration. Far from it.

If you read our history you find that it is one of taking in waves of immigrants from places like Ireland, the rest of Europe, Asia, and Latin America—and then going through attendant backlashes against these incomers.

Currently, we are in the midst of a debate over immigration in the United States. It has at times turned ugly. Sometimes one gets the feeling that the people whose voices are loudest in this debate have not read our own history—that they are unaware of the animosity that was shown to the Scots-Irish, the Irish, the Germans, the Chinese, the Jews and so forth. Sometimes the people debating today behave like this is the first time we have discussed these issues and the first time we are having a fight about it.

None of what I have just said should, in the least, obscure the reality that America is a resounding immigration success story. This success is predicated on many elements that are unique to our country. Being a new country—in the sense of not being tied to a “blood and soil” sense of identity that is known in some parts of Europe—has aided the American immigrant experience.

There are other aspects that travel better, however, elements that we can share with others. One thing American immigrants eventually learn is how to find a balance between their country of origin and their adopted country, between their past and their future. And it’s not just immigrants, but also people who have been in my country for several generations. Wearing a “Kiss Me, I’m Irish” T-shirt on St. Patrick’s Day is not an act of treason.

In fact, this often leads to misunderstandings on this side of the Pond. Europeans sometimes say, “but she’s not Irish” or “he’s not Italian—he’s American.” But on the other side, we all know that when someone says she’s Polish in a Chicago accent, she doesn’t really mean she is from Warsaw. We know she’s a very American person with maybe one grandmother, the one with the greatest influence in her life, who came from Poland.

This balance between a person’s identity and their “Americanness,” for lack of a better word, has to be right for each individual, but it must also fall within the parameters of what’s comfortable for the larger society. And I would posit that this is what the American immigrant experience has gotten more or less right.

We think we can play a positive role here in Europe by sharing this experience, and part of my job is doing just that. If we all talk together, and share our experiences, we can discuss what best global practices are. I know there are HUGE differences too – and I hear often about the futility of American even trying to talk to European Muslims, when it is apples and oranges.

Education levels, economic status, colonial history, the social environment of the European countries etc. make American Muslims different. I get it. But on this issue of navigating identity or working with civil society – we all can learn from each other.

As a Muslim American who immigrated to New England as a baby, I know a little bit about these issues. This is one of the reasons my government asked me to take up the post of Senior Advisor on Muslim Engagement issues at the State Department’s Bureau of European Affairs. I know from personal experience about the issues of balance and identity many Muslim American immigrants have confronted. I also know that we must bring over people who know the religion of Islam well and who know our process well.

So we bring American imams, for example, who can sit with Muslims here and understand their worries and their questions. Can they be truly Muslim and sit at a table where someone is enjoying a glass of wine? Or, more to the point, can one be a Muslim and be a participant in the democratic political process, one that inherently requires compromise, acceptance of different opinions and demands that we give in to the constitutional decisions of the majority?

We need to ask, for example, what practices truly are essential to religious observance and which are ancillary? Which are due to true Koranic injunctions, and which are merely cultural, derived from the pre-Islamic habits of South Asia, the Maghreb, or the Arab Peninsula?

An important example is the constraints on women’s freedoms, especially of movement, dress, and action. These often either have a cultural root that has nothing to do with Islam or stem from a misunderstanding of what the Koran says. Importantly, these constraints on the freedom of women cannot be squared with societal norms in Europe or America, and indeed in many cases with the law. Women must be able to read the Quran by themselves.

In Europe, there are very few imams who speak the local languages, are hip enough to connect with youth, and get the identity issues facing Muslim youth.

Korans are donated to mosques with very little attention to who has completed the translation. This is a troublesome issue. How does one seek to fix these problems?

It is especially those within the Muslim faith who need to pose probing questions. One way I look ay my job is to empower Muslim voices, especially those Muslim voices that spurn Al Qaeda’s message, that want to work against the radicalization of their communities. And we are.

We must learn to use technology. The other side certainly does. How can we help Muslim tech entrepreneurs do more to get into the youth space, and thereby to provide help to young Muslims in Europe who have questions, who want to belong?

It might be counterintuitive, but technology, usually a liberating agent in society, a facilitator of communication, may have paradoxically contributed in some instances to the alienation of immigrant groups.

Whereas the first wave of immigrants to places like Austria, Belgium, and Switzerland had no choice but to watch the television stations of those countries—and thereby became acculturated without noticing it—satellite and cable technology have enabled their children and grandchildren to watch TV stations from the Maghreb or South Asia, or pan-Arab channels.

It is an electronic pipeline to the world people left behind, and it may induce tunnel vision. We must strive to make technology part of our solution. We have seen, for example, how electronic social networks—from LinkedIn to Facebook to Myspace —can become support structures. We must make the web a place for young, modern Muslims looking for others like themselves.

Take AltMuslim.com or Oumma.com or WebIslam.com – all sites that are trying to get alternative, modern, European views into the tech space or the dozens of individuals and NGOs that are finding ways to reach into the local communities in Europe to fight this violent ideology.

I am seeing that taking place in many cities that I have visited over the last six months.

This brings me to another point I often make when I travel here, and that is that government can only do so much. This may be an odd statement for a government official to make, but we must know our limitations. The top-to-bottom, one-size fits-all approach will not work.

I’m encouraged by local efforts across the board. Take, for example, the initiative many Muslims in this country have put forward to develop guidelines to root out extremism, or the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board. It is important to see efforts take place. While not everything is perfect yet, such open discussions and the willingness to try is key. Muslims want to do more and they should be supported.

We need to engage business and civil society, the other two parts of the three-legged stool. Business works for profit, while civil society—entities like NGOs, universities, think tanks and so forth—have other goals that go beyond the bottom line.

What they have in common is that they are voluntary organizations that are almost always more versatile than the state. They make up the private sector or the non-state sector at least.

And private individuals can provide answers where governments can not. European Muslims must act, find solutions by themselves. Government can be too overbearing and non-credible.

What can we do to help those that want to play a role?

We can do more to encourage innovations from bright, young, motivated Muslim entrepreneurs who have an interest in building stronger communities and getting young European Muslims into a frame of mind that encourages them rather than tells them they don't have a future.

Government, business and civil society should explore how to help youth use programs that have worked in other parts of the world to make them feel less marginalized.

We should give help to publishers in e-form and in traditional print that can help kids to expand their minds, rather than the insanity available in pamphlet form in corner book shops that tell Muslims the best way to beat their wives, or that all Jews are pigs, or how to isolate themselves from the rest of the world. I was in Leicester a few weeks back and bought several texts that took my breath away. In English….printed in cities not very far from here.

We need – more mainstream voices that can talk with credibility. Sometimes the other side appears to have more legitimacy than the mainstream voices. We should also work in a more robust fashion with entertainment, the media, and pop culture icons. Giving space to those who want to destroy rather than build will only create havoc in the society in which the media aims to prosper. How can these groups be leveraged?

In addition to all the work that can and is and will take place from others, much more must come, above all, from Europeans Muslims themselves. I know a lot is taking place globally and Muslims are trying to isolate the violent extremist voices. But we all – and certainly governments – must find ways to help those who ask for assistance in building platforms to speak out.

The overwhelming majority of the victims of violent Islamic extremism are Muslims themselves. This is an interesting data point because the vast majority of Muslims reject violence.

I’ve given you a pretty good overview of how we see the situation here in Europe and how we have shaped our thinking in terms of opening dialogue and connecting voices. We are aware that different countries have different views of integration, and that assimilation is to some a dirty word, denoting loss of ancestral language, family legacy and cultural patrimony.

I know, as well, that the immigration model here is very different from the one across the Chanel in France for example.

I also know that we did not invent the wheel in America. This Sceptred Isle has seen wave upon wave of newcomers: Celts, Romans, Saxons, Normans, Asians, West Indians and so forth, all of whom make up the Britons I am addressing today.

We’re not butting into a domestic debate, but becoming participants in a global one.

Let me end by quoting—not for the first time I’m sure in this institution—the words of a great Briton, Edmund Burke, who was of course an Irishman. Burke said that "all that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing." I would only amend that to add "good men and women."

Thank you for your attention, and I am ready of course to answer your questions.