This Is What A European Muslim Sounds Like.

Note: This muslim author, Khalad Allam, is the deputy editor of a major Italian newspaper. He wrote this article to address the question of Europe and its Christian Roots. I am running this to give readers an example of what a successfully integrated muslim sounds like in Europe.

Clearly the way forward for muslims in the West is along a positive path similar to that followed by Mr. Allam. Australian muslims would not make a mistake by thinking long and hard about the example offered here of Khalad Allam.

Read on and have confidence in the future...



Europe and Its Christian Roots.
by Khaled Fouad Allam


While concerns about the decline of Europe are making themselves felt more keenly - drastic demographic contraction and the consequent dramatic aging of the population, economic stagnation, political paralysis, divisions among the European peoples, and intellectual skepticism - perhaps we have not considered what the new Europeans think of Europe; those who, like me, have perhaps lived here for over twenty years, and have embarked here in order to rebuild their lives and hope for a better life.

A Muslim brought up within Islam, I left the land that produced Saint Augustine, Albert Camus, and one of the greatest Islamic mystics, Sidi Abu Meddin. I learned to live within a witnessing Islam, capable of meeting confrontation and encountering others, and for this reason the question of the roots of Europe brings into question my being both European and Muslim. There are many complex and difficult questions at stake, but one of them is essential: the question of the foundations of European identity.

At this moment in history there are Europeans, but no Europe, and the call of John Paul II to consider the question of the Christian roots of the continent assumes a central importance and requires much more than a simple historical and cultural interpretation.

Certainly, many have argued against this approach: some fear that this call could be transformed into a means of infringing upon the principles of secularism; others, appealing to the juridical-constitutional sphere, assert that the task of a constitution is that of organizing relations among the different powers.

These arguments have always seemed feeble to me. What is being discussed is not a constitution, but a European convention, which means a pact that demands that we reconsider the reasons for our staying together and for our shared values, and in the end, that we question ourselves as to how the political arena taking shape can also be an arena of hope. The question the Holy Father asks makes us recognize the fact that political thought cannot be reduced to quantifiable expertise, and that it is always necessary to question politics in order to prevent it from becoming an instrument of manipulation or a cynical expression of power. In the case of the question of Christian roots, the political situation is inviting us to make interpretations, to seek out reasons in order to understand, construct, formulate hypotheses. I have often wondered why the topic of Christian roots still undergoes such sustained polemics, while the word "market," which resounds like a leitmotif throughout the text of the convention, has not provoked any reflection on the relationship between the market and the construction of Europe.

Certainly, at first glance it is possible to make an exclusivist interpretation of the phrase "Christian roots," but this is an incorrect reading, because it does not consider the context in which the question is posed: this question is an extension of the pope´s twenty-five years of activity all over the planet.

In reality, John Paul II´s insistence on the question of the Christian roots of Europe must not be separated from his many initiatives for dialogue: from the prayer meeting in Assisi in 1986 to his meeting with Rabbi Toaff in the synagogue of Rome; from his voyage to Israel to his meeting in the mosque of Damascus with the mufti of that mosque, and, even earlier, his meeting in Casablanca with young Moroccans in 1985. All these things have created a new outlook, a new interpretation of Christianity that the history of past centuries had impeded. And the building of Europe at the beginning of the twenty-first century is taking place in parallel with the shaping of this new Christianity that has broken free from its own history and has interiorized secularization. In effect, what can the Holy Father do other than renew constantly St. Francis´ travels to the sultans of the world, toward other cultures and religions?

The polemics over Christian roots lay bare our contradictions: the refusal to acknowledge these roots is the symptom of a fear, an inner block in regard to everything that European youth, now in their forties, learned on their school benches (crusades, religious wars, St. Bartholomew´s Night, etc.); but history demands a critical and honest distancing.

On cannot escape the fact that our modern political structures are rooted in Christianity: our law and institutions are the fruit of a complex elaboration that this civilization produced, apart from the fratricidal struggles that have marked it in past centuries.

But something even more profound has marked in an indelible way this continent, whose cultural boundaries are varied but in which we recognize a single essence, something that is difficult to elaborate rationally in a univocal way, but is present in the deepest heart of the European character. It is the passion for freedom - or rather democratic passions - and the sense of participating in a common history that have made Christianity the focal point around which Europe has defined itself. It is thus that we are moved by a Christ of Cimabue or find ourselves enchanted by Renaissance Madonnas, that we are carried away by listening to a motet by Bach or Mozart´s Requiem. None of this would have been possible without that debt. Europe is in debt to Christianity because, like it or not, that is what has given it its form, meaning, and values. Denying all of this means, for Europe, denying itself.

The question of Christian roots of Europe, at a moment in which everyone is talking about cultural diversity and multiethnicity, brings up other problems: how can one welcome the other while denying oneself? How can we seal a pact among the communities of the world if Europe refuses to recognize itself? Roots go down into the ground, where they meet, and will meet, other roots. The roots of Christianity are planted in Jewish and Greek soil, and now Christianity is facing Islam, while in the future it will encounter Asia and Africa.

This encounter is possible only if one is aware of one´s own roots. Considering the roots of Europe means considering possible, and sometimes unprecedented, extensions of the continent. Today America, China, and Africa are testing us, each with its own roots made of suffering and hope, while in Europe unease has already taken form, and is spreading. Europe, face to face with itself, is rich in wisdom but must still accept itself. To me, it represents the olive tree in the Koran, in verse 35 of the Sura of Light, which "is neither of the East nor of the West."







Comment: Consider how much better off muslims in Australia would be if they had access to the writings of this man every week. Proper integration into Australia does not require abandonment of one's cultural background, but it does require the absorption of the current Australian ethos and 'way of doing things'.

Most Muslims in Australia, I firmly believe, want to live properly in this country as ordinary Australians. They are stopped (many of them) by poisonous imams whose agenda does not include the welfare of Australia or its people.

Non muslim Australians have a duty to help muslims in Australia to get free from these low life imams. When they can do this they can develop an Australian Islam which addresses their real situation in Australia.

Muslims in Australia can all live here as properly integrated as is Mr. Khalad Allam in Italy. All it requires is the effort by muslims here to do so.