The four keys to integration

Lafif Lakhdar, Tunisian journalist, based in Paris, in an interview with the daily newspaper ‘Il Foglio’, states that there are four areas to be addressed for the integration of immigrants into a country: the school, work, the labour union and religious faiths (1) . According to the Tunisian intellectual, France has failed in all four areas. In the suburban schools, the foreigners are in a greater number than those of the mother tongue; the immigrants, in general, do not have a professional specialization and many, therefore, are unemployed (2) .
The mosques are monopolized by the integralists, associated with and run by the Sunnite organizations of the Moslem brotherhood – present in Europe since the last century – which promote fatwe against the legitimacy of mixed marriages. There are more than twelve thousand cases of polygamy in France, which go unpunished by the law on the basis of France’s effort to respect ‘the culture of others’, rendering any possibility of integration even more difficult (3) .
Lakhdar, author of books on Islam and articles on scholastic preparation in the Arab world, specifies that since the 90’s, in the Parisian quarter of Noisy-Le-Grand, cars and elevators have been burned and gangs from different quarters have been fighting among themselves (4) . A good part of the children of the immigrants with French nationality do casual work and feel Maghreb (5) . They have coined the term ‘gauri’, originating from the Berber word meaning ‘infidel’, to refer to their compatriots, also defined as ‘pig-eaters’ (6) . According to Lakhdar, the Parisian rebels are a displaced youth caught up in an insuperable dilemma; they do not feel French; they speak Arabic badly,or not at all; they have lost the cultural roots of their parents and for this reason, they feel outcasts both in France and in their country of origin (7) . The Tunisian intellectual feels, however, that repression – albeit necessary to maintain law and order – is destined to failure if it is not accompanied by a workable policy of integration (8) .


Crisis of a community

According to Ahmed Al-Rabei, a Kuwaiti journalist and editorial writer of the independent Saudi-owned daily newspaper, ‘Asharq Al-Awsat’, based in London, “the explosion of anger in the now-forgotten Parisian ‘banlieue’ needs an attentive and detailed dialogue between the activists and the Arab community representatives in France. Al-Rabei feels that before one can talk about a social crisis in the whole French society, the Arab community must be supported in an effort to begin an examination of the internal crisis which they are facing (9) .
The Kuwaiti journalist also feels that there are no internal authorities within the French society which are capable of definitively calming and finding a solution to the situation. Neither are there institutions which can form or give incentive to public opinion within the Arab-Moslem minority. The French second-generation immigrants have not yet been able to gain sufficient weight within the French society which could enable them to play a more important role in the country (10) .

Al-Rabei, therefore, poses the question of why within the Maghreb minority, there exists such a contrast between their large number and their modest presence in the economic, cultural, academic and political life of the country (11) . Furthermore, the Kuwaiti intellectual affirms that the French of Arab origin have a duty to behave in every way as French citizens, in order to show all those belonging to this society that they are a fundamental part of it (12) .
Naturally, observes Al-Rabei, this requires, as an indispensable condition: the attainment of a larger role in the political and social life and a plan of government to better their conditions of living and education. However, Al-Rabei adds that the immigrants must start to free themselves from the “ghetto” complex and begin to participate in the civil and cultural life of the country. Therefore, they must take advantage of the democracy and its institutions in order to acquire a more concrete position in the society and to distance themselves from the image of a group in crisis which causes only acts of vandalism.
According to Al-Rabei, the first step to be taken is the recognition by the immigrants of the existence of their internal crisis (13) .


The integration failure

Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rashed, vice-director of the broadcasting station Al-Arabiya and an editorial writer for the daily newspaper “Asharq Al-Awsat”, says that the revolts in the Parisian suburbs were inevitable. “These people were like a box of matches ready to catch fire” (14) , he writes. The proof is in the ninety French cities which were victims of the clashes and vandalism. According to Al-Rashed, the incident which triggered the anger does not explain the outburst of violence, since the two youths who were accidentally electrocuted were not victims of the police, as was originally believed by the population (15) . But, notwithstanding a full explanation as to how the accident occurred, the protest against poverty and social exclusion continued and the “flames spread beyond the city districts directly involved” (16) .
The French Home Secretary, Nicolas Sarkozy, described those involved as ‘hooligans’ (17) , but “the exchange of insults will not solve the crisis, which will certainly re-occur after a momentary lull” (18) . According to the Saudi journalist, France has failed. It has not resolved the “age-old problem inherited from the end of colonialism” (19) : the improvement of the immigrant conditions. In fact, for Rashed, it is inconceivable that in “a free and democratic country” (20) , a parliament, which should represent the entire society, has no deputies from the great Arab minority. The major French political parties have not attempted to include within their ranks, representatives from the millions of Arab and Moslem citizens. Thus, failing to defend their rights.
“The banlieue, therefore, only needed an excuse to flare-up, to spread and challenge the whole society” (21) writes Al-Rashed. Undoubtedly, the rebels’ way of reacting could win them the description of “scum” (the term used by the French Home Secretary, Nicolas Sarkozy) , the Saudi journalist sustains, and those who lead the revolts are generally ‘hooligans’, only able to shout without seeing the consequences” (22) . However, one must separate the hooligans from the existing problems. It is unlikely that the rebels would have drawn so much support, notwithstanding their destructiveness and violence, if it had not been for the sense of injustice that many had suffered on numerous occasions.
Al-Rashed writes, “There is a problem which faces the European society: a problem which involves millions of citizens; a problem which cannot be ignored as if it existed in a far-away country” (23) . The immigrants’ problems are not unsolvable. It is, however, imperative to begin to include this youth in the academic and work structures of the country. If this is not done, these fringes of the poor and discriminated will continue to be the sparks which will, in any moment, ignite explosions of anger and destruction (24) .


The Ottoman system

According to Amir Taheri, an Iranian intellectual based in Europe, France is passing through an identity crisis (25) . At Clichy-sous-Bois, where the revolt started, more than 80% of the inhabitants are composed of prevalently African and Arabic Moslem immigrants. In other parts of the city, the percentage of foreigners oscillates between 30 and 60% (26) .
The rate of unemployment in this area is 30% – reported in the daily newspaper, “Il Foglio – while the percentage of young immigrants looking for work reaches 60% (27) . In these suburban areas, constructed in the 50’s, recalling to mind the Soviet housing of the Stalinist epoch, the immigrants live in miserable conditions, Taheri describes, and they see the “French way of life” only on the television (28) .
The Iranian analyst says that the wave of foreigners has changed the face of the country and France must confront this change of identity (29) . Furthermore, the repression and the technocracy are useless if not accompanied by a willingness for an immediate cultural debate, to find at least a minimal common denominator (30) .

Taheri underlines that the fundamentalists want to impose on the French Moslems the “millet” organizational system, which under the rule of the Ottoman Empire became a technical term to identify the organized and recognized political-religious community which enjoyed certain rights and autonomy (31) .
Furthermore, during the revolt, the fundamentalists continued to launch fatwe to obtain calm, as if they were controlling a territory ruled by a Caliph.



The problem as seen by Italy

To forestall the spread of the Parisian November phenomenon also to Italy, the institutive decree of the Islamic Council, c/o the Home Office, was signed at Viminale, the Italian Parliament House in Rome: it is a consultant body to favour the integration process of the Moslem community in Italy. The principle task of the Council is to express opinions and formulate proposals for the solution to the problems of the integration of the Islamic community, in full respect of the Laws and the Italian Constitution (32) .
This Council – the mass-media has reported – will furnish suggestions on questions such as religious assistance in hospitals, the areas of burial in the cemeteries in accordance with the Islamic dictates and also the protection of the Moslem workers in Italy (33) .
To expand the values of a liberal Islam, Lafif Lakhdar also proposes the institution of university courses to form imam that diffuse an Islam which is promoter of reform and equal rights for women (34) .
Among the proposals made in blog and in liberal-Moslem web sites, there is one for the creation of cultural centres next to the mosques to avoid that orators who are connected with the Moslem brotherhood and who receive remuneration from the Wahabita Kingdom, monopolize Italian Islam.