Islam in Europe: Object of Orientalism and Securitization

Europe as a relatively small area in comparison to other continent was never a homogenous place. European lands differed in culture, political establishment, and after the end of the Thirty Years’ War, officially even in religion. The new levels of globalization, however, cause a cultural blending Europe has never experienced before. At this time a faraway Islam of a modern history’s ‘orientalism’ became an every day’s reality present in all European countries. Irrespectively of this fact,
Islam is a word which among common Europeans evokes an imagination of something different. Islam is often seen as violent, aggressive, and unresponsive to change. Furthermore, Islam does not have values in common with other cultures, some would say. According to others Islam is thought of as irrational and primitive. Islam is simply too different. Thus, such misunderstanding depicts a clear example of the unsurpassed European orientalism which thereby makes from Islam a term of an empty semiotic meaning.

After the 9/11 this kind of Islamophobia gains yet another dimension. The dimension of security. In the Western conception, Islam almost overnight became responsible for support of terrorism. Whereas its religious role was exchanged for a political tool, this shift draws one’s attention to possible causes of such extrapolarity. In the European context, the question of identity – as a centre of poststructuralist discourse analysis – could present such possible cause. The fear about European identity based on the Christian cultural background is currently embodied in migration, namely of those coming from Islamic countries. The Muslim immigrants thereby became a targeted group of European securitization while being blamed for bringing barbaric customs into Europe and support for struggle against the European values. Moreover, securitization of Islam in Europe has both needed presumptions, the audience presented by European Christianity and Huntington’s clash of civilization, and the legality derived from the 9/11, and London or Madrid attacks. Hence, the change from the domain of ‘normal’ politics to ‘emergency’ politics presents a transparent example of Islam’s securitization. Therefore, both of the above discussed aspects, the persisting orientalism and relatively recently established Islam’s securitization, could offer an explanation of some European countries’ measures, such as Swiss ban of building minarets or French attitude toward women’s veiling.

This European fear of other culture’s influence might express a lack of own identity which, however, is not a consequent reaction on Muslim immigration’s increase or a cultural exchange, but a reaction on a decline of European values. Such decline might be incurred by globalization’s caused loss of personal identity, post-modern lifestyle’s declension of religiousness, and insufficient integration of European states which consequently miss a higher representation of common European identity. Thus, the European uncertainty leads to rallying around the ‘anti-Islam’ flag in the sense of European values’ defence. Leaving aside the economic aspects of immigration and following the line of cultural identity threat rhetoric, one has to consider whether Islam is being regarded this way just because it is not well understood and thus seems to be ‘different’.