‘European Muslims Transform’
Klausen said the subjects of her study are living in Germany, France, Britain, the Netherlands, Denmark and Switzerland. At a conference on Tuesday (November 30), Klausen said "The organizational influences of Muslims on countries they immigrated to have decreased gradually. We should look for the root of an attempt towards radicalism among Muslims in Europe."
Second-generation immigrant Muslims are searching for a "conscious Islam," says Klausen, "Second generation Muslims adopt a ‘pure belief’ Islamic understanding that is distant to rituals and purified from ethnic doctrines." Klausen says the attitudes of European Muslims will feed a "spiritual reformation" that will be unique to Europe and added: "European Muslims hate radicalism and they are afraid of the influences of mullahs. Muslims that demand that Islam should also receive financial aid from the government by earning an institutional identity like Christianity reject an Islamic understanding that is unloaded and breaks down the preconceptions of Westerners by pressure from European states.
The Professor also addressed the attitudes of Muslim parents towards their children’s education in her research and determined that Muslim parents have two concerns: The first is that their children may become imprisoned for committing a crime and the second is that they may become involved in radical political movements that spread hatred in the name of Islam." Understanding the political attitude of the Muslim elites before 1990 at the time of US-Russia bipolarity in terms of classic rightist/leftist labels is impossible. Klausen claims that it is wrong to apply classic labels to current political ideologies since Muslims started being political after 1989. Many Muslims do not participate in the political process because of their religious beliefs and do not become members of political parties. Muslims who were interested in politics found themselves more aligned with leftist political movements because they were more open to immigrant groups. However, it should not be forgotten that those leftist movements are the political movements who were traditionally opposed to religion.
Muslims’ Islamic interpretation developed under European circumstances will not just be the basis of a spiritual reformation, but will also lead to certain social movements, Klausen says. "It is possible for many parallel developments to take place in the following years," she said. A Muslim human rights movement independent from any ethnic identity, a citizenship rights movement in fact, may be among them. A student movement that voices Western opposition and anti-globalization using political Islamic discourse may also emerge according to Klausen.
