Western Muslim citizens may have long believed that it was sufficient to respect the law and to learn the language of the country to become full-fledged citizens. Over time, they have come to understand that this was not enough. Within the framework of the nation-state, they were expected—justly, in the event—to integrate into the legal structure of the state, and to adopt the “cultural” bottom line, which consisted of knowing the national language. Generations of Western Muslim citizens respect the secular law of the land and now speak the language of their countries as well as their fellow-citizens. They have often been asked to demonstrate their loyalty to their respective countries, which they have sometimes done to excess (wishing to please and to satisfy whatever the price) or in a naturally critical manner (civil loyalty must always be critical in nature, supporting one’s country when it is in the right, and being vigilant with regard to questionable political decisions). Here we may apply the three “L’s” that I have identified as the first step to acquiring citizenship and a sense of belonging: respect for the Law, mastering the Language, and being Loyal to the country. But with every passing day it becomes clearer that this is only a first step, and that we must go farther.
The challenge is not simply to belong to the state, to accept its legal framework or merely to speak the national language. What is essential is to belong to the nation, to the common narrative that binds women and men to a shared history, culture, to a collective psychology and to a future to be built together. Western Muslim citizens may well have attained citizenship and the rights that accompany it, but they are not yet a part of the “Nation”, of that reference at once formal and informal that feeds into and shapes the deep-seated sense of belonging, of confidence in one’s self and in others (of the same nation), and acquisition of its explicit and implicit codes of behavior. The rights and the power that the state devolves upon its citizens are both real and effective, but the recognition and the power of being, and of being “one of us” that underlies belonging to the “Nation” are no less real and effective. Today, in the West, Muslims are citizens of the State, but foreigners with regard to the Nation.
The coming years will be critical. All the debates over secularism, visibility and the wrong-headed “Islamization” of socio-economic issues (schools, unemployment, the formation of communitarian or ethnic ghettos, violence, etc.) are nothing but pretexts for avoiding a single, fundamental question: is Islam a Western religion or is it not, and as such do Muslims have a role in the future of this civilization? In the West, the question demands full introspection into the questions of history, of identity and evolution toward a new, fully acknowledged pluralism. We must develop, in full confidence, a new, critical view toward ourselves, a new definition of self that is more open and broader, and that takes full account of the meaning of history, that turns its back on diffidence and fear. A new philosophy and a new content must be found for the meaning of the Nation for now its history must be assumed in its entirety: the proud and the shameful experiences of the past, and the objective and irreversible development of the future. Time will be needed for Muslim citizens to “integrate” themselves into the common narrative of the Nation in the various Western countries. Inductively, during the next two generations, their intellectual, social, cultural, political and economic contributions will be able to deconstruct the reductive perceptions of the “Nation” which they are still excluded. Indeed, they face a paradox: the populists and the Islamophobes insist that they disappear in order to “be accepted” while they must be positively visible in order to be respected, recognized and, ultimately, become subjects and actors in the shared narrative of the Nation. To respond to Western fears by disappearing, as the expressed opinion of a majority of their fellow citizens suggests, would be an extremely grave historical error.
Instead, they must both learn history and learn it, be constructively critical of the selective constructions of Western memory (particularly, but not only, with regard to Islam); study their philosophers, their social dynamics and their policies while stepping into the world of culture, the arts and sports. Such is the appropriate response to the dilemma of the day: bring about an intellectual revolution, turn our back on false debates and defensive attitudes, define ourselves as Western subjects, as actors in the evolution of our societies by assuming their values and their practices and, finally, as agents of a full-fledged pluralism and of social peace shaped by justice, respect and by the struggle against all forms of racism. The challenge is great, one that calls for a multi-dimensional commitment. Not a strictly intellectual, political or social commitment, for in human history art, culture, sport and humor have also played a vital, and at least complementary role in helping mentalities to evolve. The path is long and arduous, as is everything that touches on human relations, the struggle for power to fraternity, friendship to rejection, racism and hatred. The destiny of the West, as does that of all civilizations, can be found at the heart of this risk-fraught equation: the objective unity of a single humanity, enriched by a celebrated human diversity.
