As it stands, the preamble to the proposed EU constitution states that Europe draws “inspiration from the cultural, religious, and humanist inheritance of Europe.” This phrasing has drawn complaints from the predominantly Catholic countries of the expanded EU who wonder why there is not a more specific reference to the Christian heritage of Europe. For nations such as France and Britain, the generality of the current wording both allows for the “secular” Europe they wish to create as well as diminishes potential conflict for their sizeable religious minorities, particularly Muslims.
It is possible to view this argument from multiple angles and I do not pretend to understand the all the geopolitical complexities of the current issue. What I do want to offer, in perhaps an idiosyncratic manner, is an historical perspective on the friction between Islam and Europe. I believe this tension, in many ways, is a question of identity, and that identity is formed antagonistically as often as it is formed productively. At the same time, to juxtapose Islam with Europe is both an artificial and cross-categorical effort – Islam and the West is perhaps better, “clash of civilizations” much worse. Islam and Christianity is the obvious terminological comparison, but raises the problem of “whose Christianity?” and, even more problematically, “whose Islam?” If France and Poland cannot agree on the role of Christianity for their collective identity, it would be even more difficult to decide on the relationship of this Christianity to Islam – do we mean the historical phenomenon, the cultural trappings, the militaristic conflicts, the personal devotion, or the experience of immigration?
