In today's ever-changing and often uncertain world, encouraging healthy dialogue between all cultures and religions is vital. In Beyond the Clash of Civilizations, Mohamed Wa Baile carefully explores how Muslims and people of other faiths can achieve a peaceful coexistence instead of being victims of conflict. Wa Baile, a follower and practitioner of Islamic religion, has had the privilege of unconditional access to study Muslim communities in Switzerland. There, for the past ten years, he has examined the interactions between Muslims and the complex, introspective issues that often plague both individuals and families. Through attending hundreds of congregational prayers and interviews with Muslim leaders, Wa Baile shares his thoughtful observations as he seeks new meanings and alternative ways of thinking that will help all Muslims understand and assess the real challenges that lie ahead. It is up to the current generation to seek practical solutions and peaceful resolutions, rather than insist on the narrative of one insular side or the other. Beyond the Clash of Civilizations encourages a new respect for Islam with the hope of changing long-held perceptions of both Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

Beyond the Clash of Civilizations

A New Cultural Synthesis for Muslims in the WestBy Mohamed Wa Baile

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2011 Mohamed Wa Baile
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4620-3420-8

Contents

Acknowledgments......................................................................ixIntroduction.........................................................................xiiiPART I: Clash or Domination?.........................................................1- 1 - Who Are the Muslims of Switzerland?............................................3- 2 - In the Name of Civilization: "Islam and the West"..............................11- 3 - Is Islam Antipathetic to Peaceful Coexistence?.................................23PART II Islam in the West............................................................31- 4 - Getting Our History Straight: Islam Is Part of Europe..........................33- 5 - Four Pivotal Events............................................................45PART III Muslims of Western Europe...................................................53- 6 - France, Germany, and the United Kingdom........................................55- 7 - Switzerland....................................................................59- 8 - Caught in the Crossfire........................................................73- 9 - Toward a Helvetius Muslim Identity.............................................79PART IV A Way Forward................................................................87- 10 - Elements of Internal Muslim Dialogue..........................................89- 11 - From Multiple Views of Islam to Universal Islam...............................98- 12 - Nurturing a Swiss Muslim Tradition: `Amal Ahl al-Helvetia.....................112PART V Tribulations of the Swiss.....................................................119- 13 - The Reformist Voices of Muslims...............................................121- 14 - What Is Wrong with Switzerland?...............................................128- 15 - Switzerland's Dilemma.........................................................136Conclusion One Country, Different Peoples............................................143Bibliography.........................................................................161

Chapter One

Who Are the Muslims of Switzerland?

The first large wave of Muslim migration into Switzerland, Germany, and other West European countries began in the early years of the post-World War II period with predominantly Yugoslav and Turkish Gastarbeiter (guest workers). This is no longer the case. Today Muslims from around the world take up residence in Switzerland and other Western European countries for a variety of reasons.

Numbering around 400,000, Muslims make up a significant, if diverse, part of modern Switzerland. Some mosques attract worshippers of close to a hundred different nationalities. A Bedouin Yemenite will pray next to a Yoruba Nigerian; the next line finds a Swahili-speaker from Kenya standing shoulder to shoulder with a Turkish Kurd, Malay, Saudi, Chechnyan, Swiss, or an American. And on top of their national origin, significant ethno-cultural differences separate them, not to mention differing affiliations based on the madhhab (religious tradition).

Muslims have generally come to accept an unfamiliar reality, to which they have had to adjust, where their fellow Muslims act and even pray differently from them. As accustomed as they have grown to differences inside the mosque, however, they have met with hostility from the outside because collectively they are distinct from it. This hostility has crystallized into a surge of public opinion favoring the ban on minaret construction (approved by 57.5 percent of Swiss voters in a November 2009 referendum), and may lead to a ban on headscarves in schools and face veils inside public institutions.

This atmosphere has profited the Schweizerische Volkspartei (SVP, or Swiss People's Party). In a spirit of corps d'élite, many Swiss politicians have taken it upon themselves to denounce the "Islamization" of Switzerland, accusing Muslims of harboring a dangerous desire to apply and enforce the Shari'ah.

Does crisis of intolerance prove the "clash theory"?

Huntington's thesis of the "clash of civilizations" identifies cultural and religious differences as the primary source of conflict after the fall of Soviet Communism. This view became a compelling narrative after a group of shadowy al-Qaeda terrorists attacked New York's World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. The attack, which has been widely viewed as a vindication of the "clash" theory, no doubt triggered an instance of macro-level clash, which then ramified into a series of micro-, intrastate events in Europe such as the November 2010 ban on the construction of minarets. The advocates of Huntington's thesis inferred from this that Islam must be incompatible with Western life.

Although religion, as a belief system, is only one aspect of civilization, Huntington takes it as the main active component of collective identity. Following his logic, the social problems besetting immigrant communities—criminality, domestic violence, and unemployment—begin to look like problems rooted in religion. They have, in effect, become "Islamized," thereby conflating terrorist acts (themselves committed for a variety of reasons) with the problems of honor killings and

What does it matter which part of the world any of these abominations happen to originate from? Islam is the common thread, and it is Islam that has to be dealt with through strict legal measures and law enforcement. After all, this is a question of security.

My thesis: From victims to victors

Huntington's thesis propounds a lopsided view of the world and of Islam that will not stand the test of time. Muslims are now a permanent part of Swiss society, and no amount of collective self-exculpation for the ills created by long decades of misguided domestic policies will change that. But rather than succumb to the core assumptions of this view, Muslims have to change their outlook from that of victims of conflict to the victors of peace.

The best way to achieve this, however, is by practicing their religion properly attuned to its time and social context. Practicing Islam in a Swiss-European context and behaving like Swiss-European Muslims are not pipe dreams. There is precedent. Islam has been "Western" nearly as long as Christianity has been "Eastern."

Many reform-minded Muslims have tried to work out an Islamic framework for the Western context in which they live. Based on my studies of their works, I demonstrate to Switzerland's Muslims how to be Helvetia Muslims. Not unlike Christians and followers of most other religions, Muslims exhibit a broad diversity of practices and interpretations of their faith. Islam has a tremendous capacity for adaptation to new settings—it has acquired an Asian face as readily as it did an African or Arab one. Why not a Western face?

In Western Europe and North America, Muslims are equally capable as Asians and Africans of shaping their practices and interpretations for their particular conditions. Indeed it is already happening. Young people have wasted no time in redefining their identity. Nothing in Islam prevents them from doing this. Combining Islamic and ethnic values with elements from the host culture is both positive and permitted by the highest traditions of Islamic...