Part 1 of Dr. Ramadan’s talk in Austria on Islam as a European Religion, at the Salzburg Seminar. The session was entitled “Immigration and Inclusion: Rethinking National Identity
I’m sorry not being able to speak in German. I studied six years in Switzerland and my first PhD was on Nietzsche’s philosophy, and I lost everything.
So this is the first thing to take which is not my example of forgetting a language that you have studied at school, and unfortunately I’m obliged to speak in English.
More by Dr. Tariq Ramadan
- Historical Responsibility: Democracy Now
- 7 C’s of Seeking Knowledge
- Lessons from Ramadan
- Freedom Fridays
- Doha Center Spreads Islamic Ethics
I was asked to speak about a certain topic. Do we have to speak about being European Muslims or being Muslims in Europe?
And I think it’s not by accident, 15 years ago when I first wrote a book to be a European Muslim I got some reactions from my fellow Muslims saying: “No you have to say being a Muslim in Europe”.
I say “No I’m European by culture, and I’m a Muslim by religion so I’m a European Muslim”. So it’s not to be a Muslim somewhere else. This is home for me, and this is home for you, and this is home for us.
Integration is a Word of the Past
As an introduction, I think it’s really important to face the reality of being Muslims or European Muslims in our countries. And I heard of course that your situation in Austria may be better than others in other European societies. Still, if you look at what is going on now in the mainstream media around the world and especially in Europe, what we have to say is that the coverage of Islam and Muslims is mainly negative. So the perception the people around have about Islam and Muslims is negative, and we are facing this everyday. Just arriving here, reading in a UK newspaper, The Times, an article saying the problem is not with radical Muslims, the problem is with Islam itself because radical Muslims are in fact following the true message of Islam.
What the Muslims should do is to refuse the victim mentality. It’s not a question to be liked or not to be liked. It’s a question of rights
You know that we have far-right parties and something which has been normalizing the discourse in Europe about this. So the Muslims have two choices: the first one is to say “OK, look, the people around us don’t like Muslims and they don’t like Islam” and to nurture something which is the victim mentality: “They don’t like us, they don’t like Islam, let us be among ourselves, to withdraw among ourselves and to be Muslims far from the society”. This is the wrong answer. This is exactly what far-right parties want in our European societies.
What the Muslims should do is to refuse the victim mentality. It’s not a question to be liked or not to be liked. It’s a question of rights, it’s a question of understanding, it’s a question of self-respect. It’s to stand up for our responsibilities as citizens and as Muslims and to say “Look, we are not going to accept you to target us and promote racism. It’s now time to live together, to respect each other and to know each other”. So to stand up for our responsibilities is the only right Islamic and positive answer that Muslims should promote and not the victim mentality which is sometimes around in the Muslim communities in Europe.
The second point is that what we have now normalized in the discourse is people coming to you and saying you Muslims and us as Europeans. This “us” vs. “them” is not acceptable. I’m part of this new “us”, I’m not outside Europe. It’s “us” as Europeans and us as Europeans, Muslims, atheists, Jews, Christians and whatever you want to be, you are European.
So the problem here is to say “Look, it’s a question of common values and common citizenship”, and be careful because till now even though you are less advanced as to the history of the Muslim presence in Austria as for example in France or in other countries in Europe with decades of Muslim presence, we still have people say “You have to integrate”.
I think we have to be cautious with the concept of integration, because people are nurturing this “You have to integrate, you have to integrate” and nurturing in their own minds and in our minds that to be integrated still means that you are not part of us, so we are waiting for you to be part of us. What we have to say is “We are sorry. We are already integrated. Our main concern today is not to be integrated, it’s to contribute to the future of our society”.
So it’s different now. Integration is a word of the past. The word of the future and the word of the present is contribution; what could we give as Austrian citizens, European citizens to our country. Stop talking about integration. Talk about living together, acting together, and contributing together for the sake of our common future.
So the last point is really something that we have to say. Maybe some people don’t want to listen to this: Islam is a European religion. Islam is part of the European landscape. By the way, it’s not new. For all the people who are now building a new past to Europe and saying “We want to talk to you as people coming from outside” we have to tell them “Look, you have to revisit your own past, because it’s not true that the European history is only based on Greek or Roman and Judeo-Christian legacy. It’s wrong. The past of Europe is Judeo-Christian-Islamic, and we are part of Europe for a long time. So what we are trying to do by our presence is to reconcile yourself with your own past, because by having a selective approach of your past you are building a selective present.
What do we have to say to ourselves to move from a victim mentality to our responsibilities as Austrian Muslims and European Muslims?
So this is something which is really important and this is our business to come to something which should be important in our curriculum in the schools. We have to integrate this past as part of the European legacy. If you put us outside your past it means that you have difficulties to consider us as part of your present. So we have to take this as something which is a deep challenge.
What I want to say is now not only to speak about our fellow-citizens, but as we are here as a very impressive gathering of the Muslim community, the Austrian Muslim community, is to come to something which is from within. What do we have to say to ourselves to move from a victim mentality to our responsibilities as Austrian Muslims and European Muslims?
The Seven Cs
I want to share with you the promotion of 7 Cs.
The first one which is really important is confidence. The second one is criticism; the critical mind. The third one is communication. The fourth one is contribution. … The sixth one is citizenship and the last one is creativity.
Let me go very quickly through all this, and share with the Muslims here, the young and the not so young Muslims, something which should be heard by our fellow-Europeans, your fellow-Austrian citizens, in order to build a future together.
The first one which is really important: If now you don’t get this confidence that you are at the same time fully Muslim and fully Austrian and there is no contradiction between being a Muslim and being an Austrian, and you are at peace with yourself you will not spread peace around you. Faqid alshai’a la yo`utih as we say in Arabic (If you don’t get something you can’t give it)
So the point here is to be confident with our own values…
Watch Dr. Tariq Ramadan’s Talk