1. Supervisors: Prof. Claire Firth
Dr. Jaroslav Miller
Student: Narine Hakobyan

2. Muslims in Europe: Clash of Civilizations?
Samuel Huntington (1993) Foreign Affairs Magazine
´The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural.
Clashes between Cultures define geopolitical conflicts or political/ideological wars replaced
by culture
Francis VS Samuel The End VS Clash of
Fukuyama Huntington of History Civilizations
Thesis argument: Whether Huntington’s theory is correct within the specific context of Muslim
immigration to Europe.

3. Huntington´s assumptions
Decline of Christianity vs Rise of Islam
Islam-threat for the West
Immigration change demographics
Islam´s bloody borders
European antipathy towards Muslims- a clash of
civilizations ?

4. Critique of ´´Clash of Civilizations´´
Incompatability of islamic and western civilizations is
not about democracy,but sex
Ali Mazrui three fault lines
Factual fallacy, Temporal fallacy, conceptual
Paul Berman criticism
Amartya Sen

5. Alternative approaches
 Francis Fukuyama -Liberal demoracy ideology
Dialogue among civilizations -Giandomenicco Picco
Western and Islamic civilizations are not in conflict
Alliance of Civilizations-Jose Zapatero, Recep Tayyip
Erdogan

6. Historical Interaction between the European and Muslim
Civilizations within Europe
Reconquista 8-13
Crusades 11-13
Principal Nature of conflicts-Religious
Benign interaction:
cultural,scientific, geo-political spheres
trade and cultural exchanges
political alliances
millet-religious concept

7. Immigration Identities and Value Conflicts
The modeate Muslim-Tariq Ramadan
 Euro-Islam-Islam compatible in EU if adapted in its context
 One can be both a Muslim and a European
 Islam nothing to do with its culture of origin- culture and religion different
 There is no ´´Us´´ versus ´´Them´´
Propagator of Euro-Islam- Bassam Tibi
 Islam should not be reformed, but Westernised
Ayaan Hirsi Ali-an apostate of Islam
 Advocate of total assimilation through rejecting Islam

8. Germany Netherlands
Angela Merkel Pim Fortuyn,
Thilo Sarrazin Geert Wilders
Cem Ozdemir Ayaan Hirsi Ali

9. Muslims in Germany
Immigre 1950-60ss
2010 -3.5 Million Muslims
Islam second largest religion
Anti-Immigration parties
German Republican party(RED)
German People´s Union(DVV)
National Democaratic party (NPD)

10. Thilo Sarrazin anti-Muslim Ideology
 ´´Germany abolishes itself´´(2010)
 Muslims - economic and cultural threat to Germany
 Western Assimilation, not Integration,
 Language and host culture adaptation
 Islam incompatible in Europe-´´Little-headscarf girls´´
 Muslim resisstance to intermarriages-fear of assimilation?
 Contra -Muslim women clothing and headdress
 Muslim-inferior and lacking intellect
There exists a clash between civilizations.

11. Angela Merkel-Islam a part of Europe?
German identity-Judeo-Christian memory
Multi-culti failure in Germany
Immigrants to obey the local laws
Immigrants to be integrated , not accomodated
Integration not to be limited to cultural assimilation
Germany´s integration is not forced assimilation

12. Cem Ozdemir-Euro-Turk
Pro-Integration, pro-European
Spirit of linguistic and cultural adaptabilities
Acculturation-respect of differences
Assimilation through relinquishment of foreign identity
Rightous interpretation of Islam in accordance with EU values

13. Muslims in Netherlands
 Muslim Immigre 1980-1990
 Dutch -more socially conservative
 Social inclusion and acculturation -part of Multicultural Europe
 Linguistic adaptability of immigrants in the host population
Dutch anti-Muslim Parties
 Centre Democrats –either repatriation or assimilation
 LPF (‘Pim Fortuyn List) –closing borders for Muslim immigration
 Party for Freedom(PVV)Geert Wilders- either assimilation or deportation

14. Applicability of the Clash of Civilizations Paradigm
 Do civilizations differ?
e.g. christians, atheists and secularists share Western Civilization (ancient Greece
and Rome, the Middle Ages,the Enlightenment) and Sunni and Shi’a, Sufi, Druze,
Alawite-Islamic civilization (the Abbassids, the Ottoman Empire)
 Are they in conflict?
EU value upon free speech versus Islamic Lese majeste concerning Mohammed
Western Monogamy vs Islamic Polygamy
Free style clothing vs Women headdress
Greatest inapplicability- Sharia law conflict

15. Integration of Muslim Immigrants
Integration-Muslim immigrants are not required to totally relinquish their
original identities but rather to adapt and blend those identities with the new
identity and culture of the European country to which they immigrate.
Assimilation, by contrast, requires abandonment of the original Identity and
the adoption of the new identity. This entails little or no compromise by the
host population and places culture as a requirement for citizenship.

16. Contrasting points?
Serbia, Greece and Austria-Christian identity
Hostility towards Muslim immigrants and Islam derives more directly from historical and recent
memories of wars with Muslims (e.g. – Austrian opposition to Turkish EU membership and the
‘gates of Vienna’ dictum).
Islam contradicts the Christian faith?
Geert Wilders-agnostic, Ayaan Hirsi Ali -atheist, Thilo Sarrazin’s religious beliefs – unknown,
whereas Marine le Pen-- Roman Catholic.
Yet all believe that Muslim immigrants should be required to conform to ‘Western’
culture.

17. Assimilation of immigrants
 EU lifestyle contradicts the Islamic values and culture
 total abandonment of the Islamic identity in favour of European identity
 E.g forbids Muslim men from marrying non-Muslim women and Muslim women from marrying men who were not born
Muslims.
 Apostates condemned to hell and Muslims are said to have a duty to kill apostates (e.g. – the Khomeini fatwa against Salman
Rushdie or the case of Abdul Rahman, an Afghan convert to Christianity, who was disowned by his parents and reported by his
own family to the police and sentenced to death for apostasy in 2006 but later granted asylum by Italy.
 Inter-marriage, as noted by Sarrazin, is one of the key hallmarks of assimilation and is one which Muslims have particular
difficulty accepting.
 anti-Muslim prejudice, Muslim poverty, Muslim failures to learn the host language and culture and generally the ghettoisation
of Muslim immigrant communities (e.g. – the banlieues in France or the Turkish ghettos in Germany).
 Ayaan Hirsi Ali apostate This reinforces the sense of Muslims being under pressure or
 siege, which makes them less willing to even integrate – let alone assimilate. This leads to
 a vicious cycle in which the host population perceives Muslims more negatively
 for their demands for accommodation.
 Muslims tend to seek a physical presence in Europe but no accommodation with European society.
 Tibi argues that racism is a European invention, and that Europeans must overcome what he calls "Euro-arrogance" and
xenophobia to integrate immigrants.
 it requires Muslims to renounce all of their original identity that is based upon Islam.
 Someone who wears the hijab, goes to pray in a mosque,
 pays the zakat or keeps a Qu’ran has clearly not assimilated. Muslims who refuse to
 inter-marry with non-Muslims cannot be ‘Europeans’. In short, Muslims who
 remain Muslims culturally cannot be Europeans.

18.  Thank you for the attention