Rigid Laicism Has Been Rejected

Italy is concerned to show tolerance towards Muslims. Even in state schools, the Muslim headscarf is allowed. But at the same time there's considerable scepticism about Islam. The government wants an "Italian" Islam. Nikos Tzermias reports

photo: AP
Great Mosque of Rome

​​About a million Muslims live in Italy, and in the last few years there's been a sometimes lively discussion about the "challenge of Islam." When the debate began, the main issue was the fear of being swamped economically and culturally, but since the 11th September 2001, the issue of Islamic fanaticism has taken the foreground.

So far there have been no serious acts of terrorism or "executions" in Italy, as there have been in Spain or most recently in the Netherlands. But twenty radical Muslims, some of whom had contacts to Al-Qaeda, have been found guilty in the courts of terrorist offences. Extremists have been using the mosque in Milan and its attached Islamic centre as a recruiting ground and logistic base.

In schools the headscarf is tolerated

The Italian interior ministry and the Milan prosecutor keep emphasising that only a small proportion of Muslims living in Italy tend towards integralism (the complete Islamisation of society) or even terrorism. In fact, only five percent of Muslims even go to the mosque or other places of prayer on a regular basis.

Magdi Allam, Islam expert with the newspaper "Corriere della Sera" emphasises that fact, but he points out in his new book "Kamikaze made in Europe" that Islamist terror is a serious danger even on the old continent, comparable to that of the Red Brigades.

The Italian government's official policy is one of tolerance towards moderate Muslims and toughness towards extremists. It points out with evident satisfaction that a rigid laicism, as in France, has been rejected in Italy, and that the Islamic headscarf is tolerated even in state schools.

There are even a few teachers who teach wearing a headscarf. The interior minister, Giuseppe Pisanu, has repeatedly expressed his acceptance of this state of affairs by referring to the fact that his mother in Sardinia always used to wear a scarf.

At the same time, within the governing coalition, the right-wing populist Lega Nord openly makes propaganda against Muslim immigrants. The party, which is the fourth largest in the centre-right coalition, opposes Turkish entry into the European Union, insists that a referendum must be held before a mosque can be built, supports the closure of suspicious institutions and wants to ban the burka (which covers the face) from all public places.

Ban for wearing a burka

In a town near Como, a Lega Nord mayor twice imposed a fine last autumn on a woman who wore a burka. Both times the fine had to be lifted by the head of the local prefecture. The Lega Nord quotes a royal decree of 1931 which has never been repealed, under which wearing a full-face mask is forbidden in public places for security reasons, except in "necessary exceptional cases."

Although the Lega Nord is in a minority within the governing coalition, there are several other representatives of the government who have repeatedly shown considerable mistrust of Islam.

The prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, may have withdrawn his statement about the superiority of western civilisation and may support Turkish entry into the EU, but a few weeks ago, the president of the Senate, Marcello Pera, who is a professor of philosophy at the University of Pisa and a member of Berlusconi's Forza Italia, published an exchange of letters with the influential Vatican cardinal, Joseph Ratzinger. In the book, entitled "Senza Radici" ("Without Roots"), Pera wrote that the same wind was blowing as in "Munich in 1938."

Is the West too tolerant?

The free western world risks giving up its basic values under the guise of a fashionable relativism, he wrote, and it tends to close its eyes to the fact that radical Islamism had declared war on it. He quoted the catholic Father Piero Gheddo, who complained that in no Muslim country were Christians as free as Muslims were in the West. The Muslims, he said, required a test of conscience in respect of their collective behaviour.

It's true that the president of the senate was pointing to grave problems in "real existing Islam." Pera also calls for the greatest possible tolerance and the continuation of a serious inter-religious dialogue and he's said that Islam and democracy are not incompatible, but the Italian president, Carlo Ciampi, felt obliged to point out in response to Pera's book that a "conflict between the civilisations is by no means unavoidable."

Some experts on Islam add that Pera is promoting a dangerously undifferentiated hostile image of Muslims, and that he's suggesting that there is such a thing as the Umma, the Islamic nation, and that it has indeed declared war on the west.

Magdi Allam from "Corriere della Sera" warns that this is a mistaken and dangerous idea which plays into the hands of the Muslim integralists. The history of Islam as well as the real-life experience of Muslims is rather characterised by a powerful pluralism.

Few representative organisations

Within the Berlusconi government, Interior Minister Pisanu has been trying to take account of the complexity of Islam. Before he joined Forza Italia he was a member of the Christian Democrats. In the seventies he founded with a fellow-Christian Democrat the "Associazione dei parlamentari euro-arabi" (Association of European and Arab parliamentarians"). To the continual annoyance of the Lega Nord he regards continued legal immigration as an economic necessity.

Pisanu is also a firm backer of the Mediterranean dialogue and vehemently supports moderate Islam. In this he's been supported by Ciampi. But Pisanu, who's often described as "too soft" by the Lega Nord, has no hesitation in ruthlessly prosecuting radical Islamists.

Last year he employed diplomatic pressure to get rid of an Egyptian imam at the Great Mosque in Rome after the imam issued a call for holy war in response to the killing of the Hamas leader Sheikh Yassin. A few months later he had a Senegalese imam deported after he called for suicide attacks.

Pisanu seeks dialogue with moderate Muslims. But how? The answer is hard to find, since Islamic life in Italy is particularly varied and there are scarcely any representative and trustworthy organisations.

As Andrea Pacini, an expert in religious affairs with the Agnelli Foundation, said recently in a lecture, the Muslim population of Italy has different characteristics from those of the communities in other leading European countries. Muslim immigrants started to arrive in Italy several decades later, and the Muslim minority is much more heterogeneous.

Mostly guest workers

At a million, the Muslim population of Italy is relatively small. In Britain, it's estimated that there are two million Muslims, in France five million. And in Italy few of the Muslims have become citizens, while the process of uniting family members is only just starting.

Seventy percent of the Muslims in Italy are male; they are mostly guest workers who are poorly integrated, whereas in France, for example, half the Muslims hold French citizenship and several Muslims are in prominent positions in social and political life, especially in the world of sports.

There are indeed many Islamic organisations and religious or spiritual brotherhoods in Italy. But there are serious doubts about what they stand for and how representative they are. In addition, there's considerable rivalry between the groups.

The "Unione delle Comunità e delle organizzazioni islamiche in Italia" ("Union of the Muslim community and its organisations in Italy") claims to be the leading organisation in the country. It says that 80% of mosques and prayer-houses are members—but what does that mean, when 95% of Muslims don't visit such places?

There's also some concern that the organisation is inspired by the integralist Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, which distances itself from violence but aims at the Islamisation of society from below, by working through the institutions of state.

A more moderate organisation is the "Communità religiosa islamica" (Muslim religious community"), whose members—many of them Italian converts—are linked to the mystical Sufi movement, and the organisation remains an outsider in the Islamic context. By their nature, the many smaller religious brotherhoods which have turned away from codified Islam and emphasise spirituality are poorly organised.

All religions are equal before the law

The government does not consider that the Great Mosque in Rome and its "Centro culturale islamico d'Italia" ("Islamic cultural centre of Italy") can be seen as a reliable partner, even though the Centre is official recognised by the state as a "moral" corporation. The Centre's board is made up mainly of the ambassadors to the Vatican of Muslim countries.

Saudi Arabia has always seemed to play a predominant role, and that has often annoyed other Muslim states—leading Morocco, for example, to organise the religious care of its citizens directly.

The Centre is largely financed by Saudis, not least through the Mecca-based Muslim World League. The idea of building a mosque in Rome came in 1973 during a visit by King Faisal. The mosque is said to be the largest in Europe, was built on 30,000 square metres donated by the city of Rome and opened in 1995.

All religions are equal before the law

According to Article 8 of the Italian constitution, all religions are equal before the law; they should enter into agreements with the state to regulate their relationship. Such an "Intesa" which would define the rights and duties of a religious community has not yet come about in the case of the Muslims.

The blame is put on the inadequate representation of the country's Muslims and the rivalry between their organisations. Such an agreement would give the Muslims the right to part of the voluntary 8% church tax, which makes the matter more difficult.

Attempts to bring together a "Consiglio islamico d'Italia" ("Islamic council of Italy") in order to enter into an agreement with the state have so far fallen foul of squabbles over policy and personal animosities.

Interior Minister Pisanu wants a provisional solution under which he would call a consultative council made up of moderate Muslim personalities and trusted figures. They would not only have to be fluent in Italian, but also reliable democrats with evidence of their institutional loyalty. Pisanu insists this "Consulta islamica" ("Islamic consultative council") would not have a representative function. It would be a consultative body, with members chosen by the interior minister himself.

A difficult tightrope act

The Council would advise Pisanu on a wide range of issues, from school and employment issues to the religious care of people in hospitals and prisons. Another issue for Pisanu is the training of imams, which currently is entirely unregulated and unstandardised. In future, imams should not only speak Italian, they should also guarantee total respect for "our national identity and Italian law."

Pisanu is certainly aware that he's started a walk along a tricky tightrope. He recently told a conference in Orvieto that the road would be long, uncertain and tough. His aim is an "Italian Islam," not just an "Islam in Italy." Instead of a potentially hostile community closed in on itself, Muslims must be part of an open and integrated community of Italian citizens, living in a society in which religious and cultural difference is respected.

Nikos Tzermias

© Qantara.de 2005

Translation from German: Michael Lawton

This article was previously published by the Swiss daily Neue Zürcher Zeitung