Troubled Communities: Combustive Vulnerability in Paris, Birmingham and Beyond

In the aftermath of the riots in France, policy makers and journalists asked themselves: what are the causes of the social turmoil in these neighbourhoods? To what extent do the underlying societal tensions concern the position of Muslim communities specifically? How do other countries compare?

But as the dust settled, the focus of many flitted on to the next hot-button issue to erupt: the uproar that gradually gained steam, and exploded in late January, over the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten had published.

In her feature article in this issue of the EUMAP Online Journal, Alphia Abdikeeva highlights the pattern:

Perhaps, in a few months few will remember that ethnic clashes in France took place. Just as probably few now recall that precisely one year before [..], serious anti-Muslim incidents took place in the Netherlands following the murder of a controversial filmmaker [or] that just a few years before that, ethnic clashes took place in the sleepy provincial town of El Ejido, in southern Spain.

Yet, despite the fact that violent ethnic clashes take place practically every year in one or another part of the European Union, policymakers seem to have learned few if any lessons for the future.

In the wake of the riot in Birmingham in October 2005 and those across France throughout much of November 2005, eumap.org aims to highlight the need to learn those lessons with this Online Journal theme page.

It brings together materials from the different sections of eumap.org that provide some of the salient information needed to do so - and adds new contributions on the issues at hand, featuring:

1. Two new featured articles, providing different perspectives on what the lessons are that should be learnt. Alphia Abdikeeva offers a Europe-wide perspective, while Willy Fautre contributes a national case study of how the French riots reverberate in a neighbouring country.
2. Relevant reports that EUMAP itself has published on the subject, with summary quotes.
3. Selected articles on the topic from past Online Journal issues.
4. Selected related documents from the eumap.org Library.
5. Selected media news stories from the eumap.org News section on:
   - the French riots and their aftermath;
   - the uproar over the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed;
   - the Birmingham riots, and the situation of respective minorities in the UK;
   - Muslims, minorities and the dilemmas of deprived neighbourhoods elsewhere in Europe.

You can contribute. This section will remain open for submissions. If you would like to contribute a feature to provide a perspective centring on another country or on a different angle, contact EUMAP at eumap@osi.hu after reviewing the eumap.org editorial policy on featured articles.

1. FEATURES

The EU’s troubled attitude to its troubled communities
Alphia Abdikeeva, EUMAP consultant

The recent events in France revealed more than the existence of troubled minority communities in that country. The ethnic clashes in France, like earlier ethnic clashes in the Netherlands, Britain, and elsewhere in Europe, once more revealed the incompetence of the EU and its member states to make equality and non-discrimination more than rhetorical values. The result: vulnerable communities become a combustible material ready to explode at the first spark.

It has rained in Paris but it has not drizzled in Brussels
Willy Fautré, Director, Human Rights Without Frontiers

"When it rains in Paris, it drizzles in Brussels," a Belgian proverb says. But the riots that ravaged French suburbs were not echoed in Belgium. Belgian authorities have applied a different political approach towards immigrants, and this article analyses the integration policies put in place in the political, social and religious spheres. It finds, however, little reason to be complacent. The fractures that run across Belgian society remain potentially dangerous and might also lead to social explosions if they persist, and if the populations concerned lose their last hopes.

2. RELATED EUMAP REPORTS

Muslims in the UK: Policies for Engaged Citizens (2004)
British Muslims and education, the labour market, the criminal justice system and discrimination, equality and community cohesion

Press Releases »
16 November 2004: Setting the Record Straight on British Muslims
22 July 2004: Muslims at disadvantage in British labour market

Since the first OSI report on Muslims in the UK, data on faith groups in the UK has become more widely collected and has provided a more accurate picture of the present situation of Muslims. In particular, however, this data has revealed the extent and nature of the deprivation and disadvantage faced by Muslim communities in the UK.

While policy is moving in the right direction with respect to meeting the needs of Muslims as a group, progress is still not enough to enable some of the real and rapid changes now required. This report makes a number of recommendations in the areas of equality and discrimination, education, employment and criminal justice. At the heart of these recommendations, however, is an underlying need for policy, as a whole, to become more responsive, sensitised and proactive with respect to engagement with Muslim communities.

Monitoring Minority Protection in EU Member States (2002)
Series of reports on the situation of Muslims in France, Italy and the UK, and Roma in Germany and Spain. Includes international overview.

The Situation of Muslims in the UK

Ethnic data reveal severe deprivation among Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslim communities in all aspects of life: education, employment, housing, healthcare, and access to justice. [..] Deprivation is compounded by feelings of fear and insecurity. One indirect effect of the disadvantage and discrimination experienced by Muslims is that they live in areas with the highest levels of crime and lack the means to protect themselves against crime.

For many Muslims, the need to integrate education about Islam into the general schooling process is the most urgent task for the Government in relation to young Muslims [..]. At present, young people complete their education knowing that they are Muslim but with little understanding of Islam. This creates a gap which groups with differing interpretations of Islam can fill. Without adequate education, young Muslims are ill-equipped to engage in debate and dialogue with such groups.

The Situation of Muslims in France

Underlying all these particular social and policy problems is the tension between an approach to laïcité that, while aiming to embody State neutrality, implicitly rests on assumptions of cultural Republicanism, and the legitimate and permanent presence, on French territory, of groups that claim public recognition for a religious component to their identity without contradiction to their political commitment as French citizens.

The Situation of Muslims in Italy

Many of the issues faced by Muslims in various areas of economic, political and social life are shared by immigrants in general. However, there are a number of problems that pertain to Muslims as a group, regardless of the extraordinary internal diversity of the Muslim community. In particular, public attitudes, media coverage and public discourse concerning Muslims indicate that members of this minority are among the least accepted in society.

As a State agreement has not yet been concluded with Muslims, their group rights are not fully [..] protected. Muslims have experienced difficulties establishing mosques and places of worship [and] observing religious holidays [..]. Lack of citizenship effectively prevents political participation for the overwhelming majority of immigrants, who do not have the right to vote in local elections.

3. SELECTED RELATED EUMAP.ORG ONLINE JOURNAL ARTICLES

August 2004: (Un)Freedom of Movement: Migration Issues in Europe
Is Ignorance Really Bliss? Germany’s Labour Migration Policy / Anna Turmann
And other articles

April 2003: Ethnic Data: Between Racial Profiling and Equal Opportunities
Collecting Ethnic Data: An Old Dilemma, The New Challenges / Katy Negrin

January 2002: The Limits of the Law
Minorities in Europe - the Divergence of Law and Policy / Libor Stepanek

4. SELECTED DOCUMENTS FROM THE EUMAP.ORG LIBRARY

Troubled Communities - Selected documents from the eumap.org library

Selected reports and documents by other organisations on the topics of Muslims, minorities and the dilemmas of deproved neighbourhoods in Europe.

5. SELECTED NEWS STORIES

Selected media news stories from the eumap.org News section:

>> Selected news stories on the 2005 French riots and their aftermath; and on the uproar over the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed

>> Selected news stories on the Birmingham riots, and the situation of minorities in the UK

>> More selected news stories: Muslims, minorities and the dilemmas of deprived neighbourhoods elsewhere in Europe