Building Bridges Between Majority and Muslim Communities in Western Europe

Travel Report
Prepared by Dagmar Kusa

Terrorism has changed the way European municipal leaders approached their minority populations.  Starting with Septmber 11, some of those leaders say, cities slipped into “defense mode.” And not without reason: Dutch society bristled at the murder of Theo Van Gogh; London and Madrid were shocked by major bombings; Paris was rocked by riots in its suburbs; and the Danish cartoon controversy exacerbated relations with Muslims in every Western country.  Meanwhile, urban immigrant populations had been steadily growing.

Europe's municipal leaders found themselves on the front lines of parallel battles, fighting on the one hand to keep their domestic populations safe, and on the other to collect intelligence for national and international use, and to route out terror cells or other groups bent on targeting Westerners both locally and abroad.  The goal was to prevent violence and curb the radicalization of immigrant Muslims. 

But the conversation between municipal leaders from across Europe, facilitated by the ICfC at the request of the Mayor of Amsterdam, revealed a desire to take a different approach.  More than security and intelligence, these leaders decided, Europe needs inclusion of and cooperation with its Muslim populations.  It needs, in the words of some of the participants, “a European version of the American dream.”

ICfC played a leading role in helping them take that first step.  At the Mayor's invitation, the ICfC and the Amsterdam City Hall organized a series of workshops focused on the social integration of Muslims and other non-European immigrants and citizens.  The series included the European Expert Meeting on Social Cohesion, which brought experts from municipal governments of six major European cities—Essen, Germany; Antwerp, Belgium; Madrid, Spain; Amsterdam, Holland; Copenhagen, Denmark; and Birmingham, England—together to collaborate on strategies for social cohesion in diverse populations.  A second ICfC workshop, designed for high-ranking municipal officials in Amsterdam, shared strategies for leveraging history and memory for positive, collaborative community relations.  Additionally, the ICfC offered advice to Amsterdam's Jewish-Moroccan network, an association of interested professionals and community leaders.  ICfC also met with the impressive group of young Jewish and Moroccan peer educators who jointly teach history lessons on the Holocaust and the Middle East.

 European Experts Meeting on Social Cohesion, June 16 - 19

City Profiles:  Prior to the Experts meeting, attendees were asked to fill out a detailed questionnaire on the situation of immigrant minorities and issues related to integration and social cohesion in their cities and related issues they confront in their work.  During the three-day meeting, each city presented the most pressing cases from his or her work and took questions from the participants.  These presentations proved to be a valuable learning experience for participants.  Many indicated an interest in field visits and other forms of exchange to improve their own programs through learning about the approaches their colleagues are implementing there.
It was also a valuable learning experience for the ICfC.  The shared information has provided a fruitful foundation from which the Center can prepare materials for future workshops in Amsterdam as well as in other cities. It is also a useful background for initiating cooperation with individual city governments. City representatives at the European Experts meeting told the ICfC they would like to continue such meetings and eventually involve additional cities.

The Roundtable Discussion brought two Muslim Amsterdam government officials and two representatives from Muslim Youth Amsterdam (MYA) into the Experts Meeting to discuss the life experiences of young people of foreign ethnic heritage.  These four Muslim leaders offered stories from their own lives that illustrated the very social issues the ICfC had come to Amsterdam to work on: the feelings of humiliation and isolation latent in young Muslim society, emotions which, without acknowledgement or intervention, risk radicalizing the youth.  The youth representatives also shared their thoughts on the difficulties they have responding as faithful Muslims to events that become political touchstones, like September 11.

Cihan T. of the MYA grew up in Amsterdam, angry and resentful of Western societies – especially the United States – for their response to 9/11.  The sense of exclusion from the society he felt made typical teenage angst about identity all the more sharp. He felt, before anything, Muslim, but he knew very little about Islam, and his motivation for the choice was primarily political: He would pick and choose religious slogans and ideas according to their convenience, mixing into protests at his college or on the streets. Only later in life did he actually study Islam, learning to separate the religious from the political, and to accept the complexity of identities in his life.  Now in his 20s, he has decided to contribute to a better life for Muslims in the Western Europe through constructive engagement in the larger Dutch community. Cihan told the experts that the radicalization of youth follows a similar pattern for most youngsters. The way in which Islam is often dismissed or vilified in our societies contributes towards the political radicalization of the young Muslims.
      Cihan's story and those of the other three young Muslim leaders introduced an important question to the Experts Meeting: How do we approach religion in our societies? What use can we make of it to bring about positive change and greater social and cultural inclusion? The experts recognized the need to tackle this issue, often very politically sensitive, and to identify creative ways in which to balance the use of religion as a positive force for social cohesion against the principle of the separation of church and state that is viewed as untouchable in many European countries.

The High School Field trip: The participants of the Experts Meeting were invited to a "black" high school in Amsterdam (the word is used in Amsterdam to denote schools where the majority of students are immigrants).  The experts sat down with the students for an hour to talk about their lives, studies, and dreams of future. The students represent the second or third generation of immigrant groups: Their parents were from Morocco, Turkey or Surinam, but they were born here.  They are full citizens of the Netherlands, and yet, they said, they feel they do not belong.  Seventeen-year-old Ibrahim told the experts that his greatest wish is to bring his parents back to their native Morocco to live.  He related the sense of alienation they’ve experienced ever since they moved to Holland. The contrast between their current lives and their memories is painful to Ibrahim, who said he feels frustrated watching his parents work hard and receive little in return. Ibrahim feels he and others like him have much less of a chance to “make it” in the Dutch society than their Dutch peers. 
         Other students expressed a similar sense of divided loyalties, especially when parents or elder siblings are routinely turned down for jobs.  Some also expressed feeling humiliation that their parents or relatives receive government handouts.  They felt as if the rest of Dutch society were looking down on them; one student said she felt other people looked at her as if she were “a parasite.” Even being a student is difficult for these young people: they expressed a feeling of disconnect from their school curricula, especially their history lessons, most of which include little or nothing about their parents’ native countries and the relations of those countries to the Netherlands.  Nor is there discussion about the history of immigration to the Netherlands, or the relationships between Holland’s newest Dutch citizens and those whose families have been there much longer.
            The experts used these conversations as the foundation of later deliberations about policies and strategies for fostering real inclusion of immigrant youth into society.  In the course of these discussions, one expert put the problem this way: "The immigrant youngsters in the Netherlands today lack a Dutch version of the “American dream” – a vision of a prosperous future for themselves and their families".

Compiling the concluding Recommendations: On the last day, the municipal experts sifted through experiences and learned lessons that had been shared during the workshops. Participants summarized impressions that stood out from the presentations by other city leaders, and from the three and a half days they spent together in discussions and meetings. From long lists, they have compiled recommendations for action on the issues of security (protection), inclusion and dialogue (prevention). These recommendations were further developed by the ICfC and the City of Amsterdam into a formal policy paper that is being circulated to the mayors and relevant municipal staff of other cities, as well as to experts and the lay public to further spread the results of the meeting and encourage wider involvement from around Europe. The experts presented a report of recommendations to the Mayor of Amsterdam Job Cohen at the Mayor’s residence on Tuesday, June 19th, 2007.  During this meeting, the experts picked those points that were of particular relevance to the City of Amsterdam. The Mayor has devoted a significant chunk of his scarce time to discuss the recommendations with the experts, asking specific questions pressing in Amsterdam at the moment, including how to use religion to promote social cohesion while maintaining the separation of church and state. He was also interested in ‘street mediation’ practices that take place in Madrid and Essen. The talks continued over an informal dinner with the Alderwoman Hennah Buyne, and the Director of Social Cohesion of the City of Amsterdam Arthur Verdellen.

Jewish-Moroccan network and peer educators
In between the two large, the ICfC staff met with several community leaders, activists and groups from various walks of life that try to do their part in building a more integrated society in Amsterdam. ICfC met a number of times with the representatives of the Jewish and Moroccan communities in order to aid the official launch of their network, which should come to fruition in the coming weeks.  College students of Moroccan and Jewish background also know the importance of networking. A group of them (numbering more than 100 students at the moment) set out to teach history in pairs, one Jewish and one Moroccan student teacher working together to educate to their peers, combining the lessons on Holocaust with the history of the Middle East. The program has met with much success and there was an explosion of interest from secondary schools asking the peer educators to come talk to their students. Yet the student-teachers struggle with problems that emerge in the classrooms, including selective histories, their own relations to the ethnic identities of the students, and with handling emotions. The ICfC methodology and tool-kit designed to tackle these very issues thus met with receptive audience and will enable the young role models to do their work even more effectively. 
The ICfC also met with the Social Cohesion program staff at City Hall to share the basic premises of its’ approach and relating them to the findings following from the European Experts Meeting on Social Cohesion. The City Hall appreciates the increasing need of a comprehensive and nuanced approach to social integration and is talking with ICfC about the possibility of offering training to their employees on an ongoing basis.

Workshop for Municipal Officials
On Saturday, the ICfC and the City of Amsterdam co-facilitators were joined by the Aldermen and vice-alderman of six of Amsterdam’s boroughs with significant immigrant communities. These municipal officials were invited by the Mayor to join the interactive workshop aimed at making them more effective in the work they are doing.

Because the participants knew each other well from their daily encounters, many concrete issues from their daily work were placed on the table. Prevention of -- not only protection from -- radicalization of young Muslims was a dominant theme of interest. These municipal workers, self-selected due to their interest in the topic of social cohesion, have their hands full on any given day.  They work directly with the community by intervening in conflicts, mediating, and moderating meetings, yet the situation in Amsterdam is not improving. The ICfC introduced in an interactive session the concept of historical conciliation as a foundation for their work. The session targeted two primary issues: the sensitivity of dealing with emotions that historical memory often brings out during the process of solving identity-based community conflicts, and the need for a government official to maintain neutrality at the same time.

Chassia Chomsky-Porat and Jabir Asaqla, impressive ICfC- trained facilitators who joined us from Israel, lead the participants in a role play focusing on the sustained dialogue approach of resolving identity-based conflicts, using the case of a dispute between the Israeli village of Yaad (Chassia’s home) and descendants of a ruined Israeli Arab village of Miaar (one of whom is Jabir). The municipal officials learned from this experience that needs, fears, concerns and hopes can be coincidental, similar or same on both sides of the conflict once people engage in a serious dialogue about the common future of their society. This can be done without it leading to a changing of well-established general rules of the game. Dialogue should be action oriented, and built on the ‘common ground’ – on those of the needs, fears, hopes, and concerns that the groups share.

When a conflict begins as an interest-based squabble, it can often escalate into an identity-based conflict. Such was the case of a primary school in Zeeburg, presented by one of the participants to the others for analysis and suggestions. In this primary school, a conflict between a Muslim mother of a child and the principal of the school (revolving around a letter sent by the principal to the mother about the child skipping school) grew to include much of the neighborhood and resulted in the removal of the child from the school and the resignation of the principal. The municipal officials looked at the case through the lens of historical conciliation, identifying approaches that could have helped to arrive at a better solution for the whole community.
This introductory workshop centered on many ideas and concepts of genuine concern to the municipal officials.  They have expressed a wish for in-depth workshops to learn practical skills for utilizing history and memory in preventing and resolving identity-based conflict.

Next  steps
The conflict between Muslim immigrants and the majority populations Western Europe nations is usually described in social and economical terms - as a conflict caused by material deprivation and unequal status. Yet when one listens to stories of Cihan or Ibrahim or of many others, it becomes apparent that the trigger that moves people towards resentment and anger is just as often emotional: They come to West Europe in pursuit of a better life only to find they must struggle for recognition; in reaction, they idealize their homeland.  Given the ICfC’s focus on historical memory in conflict and its resolution and prevention, working with municipal officials and community leaders on building more comprehensive and nuanced approaches to social cohesion in Western Europe is thus a natural match for ICfC.

In the near future, the ICfC will work with individual cities represented at the European Experts Meeting on Social Cohesion on developing future programs together.  After learning about the approaches that some of the cities implement first-hand, the ICfC will develop curricula focused on practical skills for future trainings in Europe. The City of Amsterdam wants to continue working with the ICfC on continuing education for their municipal officials, including workshops, seminars, best practices and models of engagement for conflict resolution.

There is much that people outside of Europe can learn from the situation there and from the approaches that are being developed to address it. The ICfC mission is to bring such learning to those who will benefit from it in their work. In October, the ICfC will bring three of the municipal experts that gathered in Amsterdam to Boston for the ICfC Henry Everett Workshop for professionals working in the field of conflict, peace, and justice (in Boston, October 19-21, 2007). They will also talk to select audiences in Boston and New York.

The ICfC is disseminating the Recommendations from the European Expert Meeting on Social Cohesion and its own observations from the Municipal Workshop to the Board of Directors and associates of ICfC.  The key conclusions will be conveyed to the public through our online and print publication.

The trip to Amsterdam is a beginning of a long-term ICfC involvement in Western Europe. It aims at aiding in the resolution of conflicts which, in minds of many involved, reaches back hundreds of years to the Ottoman invasions of Europe or to Europe’s colonization endeavors. Even when unarticulated, the memories that we carry and that shape us complicate current relations between various ethnic groups. The ICfC approach, which highlights and then deliberately addresses these issues, brings a focus to the social cohesion programs, helping to find parts of the solution that rest deep under the surface of the conflict, and opening the search for peace to include people’s own feelings and memories of their complex life experiences.