KARACHI, May 21: Arguing that the number of radicalised European Muslims was quite small, scholar Dr Yunas Samad said that primarily discrimination and lack of opportunities were pushing some young European Muslims towards radicalism and the issues responsible for this must be addressed.

“Discrimination is a swamp that breeds terrorism. It produces angry young men but doesn’t necessarily turn them into terrorists. For that they often head to the home countries of their elders. Many go straight to Iraq. What happens in Pakistan affects what happens in Europe. The swamp where these elements emerge from must be drained,” said Dr Samad at the launch of a book he has edited titled Islam in the European Union: Transnationalism, Youth and the War on Terror along with Kasturi Sen, at the Goethe-Institut here on Wednesday.

He was delivering a lecture titled ‘Muslim youth and the war on terror,’ along with another academic, Dr Jamal Malik, who spoke on ‘Demanded identity – formation and education of values: the process of shaping a new Islam in Germany.’

Dr Samad, who is the Director of the Ethnicity Research Centre at Bradford University and Deputy-Director of the Centre for South Asian Studies in Geneva, delivered a well-rounded, informed lecture on the topic of ‘terrorism,’ specially in the context of Europe.

He warned against simplifying the problem into a case of Islam versus the West, observing that there is not a homogenous West.

“Within the West, in Europe and America there are divisions. Germany and France did not enter the (Iraq) war. There were more protests (against the war) in Europe than in the Islamic countries,” he said. He added that there was a difference in perception regarding the latest Afghan and Iraq wars, as there was some support for the Afghan war following the September 11 attacks.

He observed that George W. Bush’s ‘Axis of Evil’ included North Korea (a decidedly non-Muslim country), adding that the war on terror was a blunt instrument which saw things in black and white and that it needed to be more surgical as a strategy. “There is a need to deconstruct the West,” he claimed.

As for European Muslims, he said the European Union was home to about 10-15 million Muslims – and this was before the expansion of the union. He added that Muslims were the largest religious minority in the EU with a youthful population.

“Many people consider certain European values such as the idea of the welfare state and democracy as Islamic values. Many second and third generation European Muslims are losing the language of their parents. Young people have stronger bonds with their local European homes than with the home countries of their parents. Young people are also getting political influence, with many becoming councillors, members of parliament and ministers,” he said.

As for Islamophobia, he said the phenomenon was a result of cultural racism and became prominent in the 1990s when minorities started using culture and religion as markers. He said an “irrational fear of Islam” was coupled with the neo-conservative agenda.

Dr Samad said radicalism existed within the communities but the numbers were small. “There are some radical Imams, who came from the (anti-Soviet) Afghan ‘Jihad,’ but their access is limited. Iran has had a radicalising element.”Yet he added that Muslims in the United Kingdom had helped identify terrorists and suggested that the problem was blown out of proportion, pointing out that at the height of the Irish Republican Army’s campaign against the British state, between three and six operations were active in a year, while the number of current suspected Muslim radical operations in the UK was one or two.

In reply to a question he stated that “terrorism is political blowback.”

Earlier, talking about the German Muslim experience with specific reference to the state-supported German Islamic Conference, Dr Malik, who is Chairperson of Religious Studies/Islamic Studies at the University of Erfurt, Germany, said the state wanted a “moderate, compatible Islam and officials saw the need for reform within the Muslim community.”

He added that there was particular criticism of Imams in Germany and that Islamic studies taught in German schoolbooks appeared to be “purist.” He said a serious reconsideration was required as the official policy seemed to be out of touch with the Muslim reality and that “things could not be forced from above.”

In reply to a question, he said Islam is not a ‘churchified’ religion and is in fact quite pluralistic. —QAM