ITALIANITÀ AND THE MUSLIM OTHER:
ISLAM, IDENTITY AND THE POLITICS OF INCLUSION IN ITALY
By
Raffaella Tardioli, B.A.
A Major Research Project
Submitted to the MA Program in Cultural Studies and Critical Theory
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree
Masters of Arts
McMaster University
© Copyright by Raffaella Tardioli, January 2008
Italianità and the Muslim Other:
Islam, Identity and the Politics of Inclusion in Italy
Contents:
I.
Introduction: Islam in Italy — Framing the Debate
1-6
II.
Europe’s Guardians:
The “Clash of Civilizations” Revisited
6-12
Italy and the Discourse of Immigration —
The Lega Nord and Extracommunitari
12-17
IV.
The Hijāb Debate in Europe: Islam in the Popular Imagination
17-22
V.
Muslim Women and the Niqāb in Italy: Crime or Culture?
23-27
VI.
The Crucifix Controversy: Islam and Social Recognition
28-33
VII.
Minarets in the Piazza — The Italian Mosque Debate
33-38
VIII.
Islam, Inclusion and Popular Television
38-44
IX.
Islam and (Italian) Identity —
Situating Italian Multiculturalism(s)
44-48
Conclusion: Towards a New Expression of Italianità?
Possibilities for Trans-Cultural Citizenship
49-52
XI.
Bibliography
53-58
XII.
Appendix
59-60
III.
X.
Tardioli
1
Italianità and the Muslim Other:
Islam, Identity and the Politics of Inclusion in Italy
“Neither the term Orient nor the concept of the West has any
ontological stability; each is made up of human effort, partly
affirmation, partly identification of the Other.”
~ Edward Said1
I.
Introduction: Islam in Italy — Framing the Debate
The relationship between the West and the Islamic world has been marked by recurrent
episodes of political unrest and cultural dissonance. Islam has historically been regarded
by Europeans as a sinister force lurking in dangerous proximity, threatening the territorial
integrity and spiritual cohesion of the Christian West. Despite an ebb and flow in actual
periods of armed conflict, this tenuous history has perpetuated a pronounced climate of
mutual distrust and apprehension. Following the events of September 11th 2001, Islam
and Muslims have once again been designated as the enemy par excellence of the
Western world. Not only have “Muslim” and “terrorist” become virtually coterminous
within popular discourse, but this erroneous association is underscored by the labeling of
the Islamic faith as an alien value system intrinsically irreconcilable with Western mores
and civilization.
Yet such tensions cannot be treated as a mere resurfacing of a centuries old
conflict between two distinct geo-political players; the “Islamic World” is no longer an
external entity, sealed off from the cordon sanitaire of Western jurisdiction. Islam, its
followers and its institutions have become a visible and active contingent in most
European states. As such, the future of Europe has become inextricably linked with that
1
Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1978) xvii.
Tardioli
2
of its Muslim populations, who now constitute a substantial cultural, political and social
presence.
The rise in immigration from the Middle-East, North-Africa and South-Asia has
increased the numbers of Muslims settling in European countries each year. Although
Pakistanis and Maghrebins have established significant communities in England and
France respectively as ex-colonials since their nations gained independence in the latter
half of the twentieth century, the influx of Muslims into Italy and other countries with a
less extensive colonial history is a more recent phenomenon. Host to migrant workers
and refugees from a variety of national and religious backgrounds, the increase in
foreigners throughout the past two decades has ignited an impassioned response from
many Italians who claim that their country, values and resources are being undermined by
waves of disruptive aliens who are steadily contributing to the social decline of the
nation.
What sets apart the Islamic community from other immigrant groups is not just its
steady numerical increase, but also the profound challenge Islam poses to the core of
Italian identity and culture. Muslims have rapidly come to constitute more than half of
Italy’s entire immigrant population, becoming the largest religious group after Roman
Catholics. Their presence has questioned existent legislation surrounding Catholic
instruction in public schools, and called for the formulation of new laws to address the
creation of prayer spaces for the devout, Islamic cemeteries, and greater political
representation.2 This paper will focus primarily on the cultural and legal implications
presented by the growing number of Muslims in Italy, arguing that a re-articulation of
Jonathan Laurence, “Knocking on Europe’s Door: Islam in Italy,” The Brookings Institution: Center on
the United States and Europe (2006): 5.
2
Tardioli
3
Italian identity may offer a first step towards the integration and acceptance of Muslims
and Islam in Italian society. Section II briefly examines the historical context that
informs contemporary relations between Europe and the Muslim world, arguing that the
stringent demarcations once separating these two “geo-political” bodies are not
applicable within a post-modern context of “belonging” in which cultural identity is
increasingly variable. Section III looks at Italy’s shifting demographic patterns,
observing that a conflation of Islam with immigration within the national political
rhetoric has relegated Muslims to the status of perpetual outsiders.
Inherent in the move towards greater cultural integration, have been questions regarding
the place of Islamic customs within a cultural tradition that has only accepted Christianity
or Secularism as legitimate forms of national expression. Over the past decade, the
question of hijāb in Italy has grown from a matter of marginal political consequence into
a full-fledged public debate. Section IV provides a brief over-view of the long-running
debate in France, as well as the emergent discourse surrounding the hijāb in Italy, arguing
that it has become the leading depository for discriminatory rhetoric towards the Muslim
“Other.”
One of the most controversial aspects of Italy’s relationship with its Muslim
minority lies in the nation’s legal stance towards the veiling of the face, or niqāb. Laws
dating back to the Mussolini era prohibiting the covering of faces in public have been
resurrected, and conservative factions have been increasingly calling for more stringent
legislation to vigorously enforce the ban through heavy fines and prison terms for
“offenders.” Several Italian politicians have been vocal about the conspicuous presence
of veiled women throughout Italy, saying that their insistence on continuing this practice
Tardioli
4
is a marked rejection of the Italian values they should be embracing in order to
successfully integrate and assimilate into their adopted nation.3 Section V looks at the
reception of the niqāb in Italian society, as well as the inclusion of Muslim women within
everyday Italian life, arguing that the Muslim veil has ultimately become a portentous site
of national discord, polarizing public opinion, and mobilizing conservative political
rhetoric calling for a reaffirmation of “traditional” Italian values. Section VI will
examine the “crucifix controversy” as a potential gauge for the friction between secular
and Christian values in Italy, arguing that Italy necessitates a reassessment of its own
tenuous position vis-à-vis its Catholic legacy before excluding Islam as a legitimate part
of the national identity. In this vein, this section will also look at the important matter of
political representation, examining the implications inherent in the recent creation of the
national Islamic Council which will serve as an interlocutor between the Islamic
community and the Italian State.
Section VII covers the growing physical presence of Islam as a distinct religious
entity, evinced by the growing number of mosques being built to meet the needs of the
increase in Muslim believers. The public debate prompted by this marked change within
the Italian social landscape has been amplified by what is viewed by many as a
provocative challenge to the nation’s Catholic conventions. This shift in public
consciousness is also reflected in the heightened attention Islam is being given by
national print and electronic mediums, with passionate deliberations between politicians
and religious leaders captivating increasingly larger audiences. Section VIII analyzes the
rhetoric of exclusion and sensationalism which has characterized Muslim representation
3
“Fatwa Against Daniela Santanchè,” YouTube 2006, 28 Jan. 2007. Please refer to appendix for URL.
Tardioli
5
in some of Italy’s prominent televised political commentaries by examining video clips
from the Italian news-talk shows Porta a Porta and Controcorrente accessed from
YouTube, a website which is increasingly becoming a prime tool for the exchange of
political and cultural discourse.
Notwithstanding the heightened influx of Muslim migrants into Italy, the debate
surrounding the presence of Islam in this country cannot be relegated to the sphere of
immigration. Efforts made to paint Islam as a completely foreign phenomenon belie the
fact that Italy is home to a 50,000-strong devoted community of Italian converts which
constitute the most vocal and politically active constituent of its Muslim population.4 In
considering this reality, this paper aims to disrupt the citizen/foreigner binary that often
permeates discussions concerning Islam, political representation and cultural inclusion.
While significant scholarly attention has been paid to Muslim immigrants and their
entitlement to Italian citizenship, I argue that the scope of this question should be
widened to include the role of Islam itself as a viable aspect of Italian cultural expression.
I propose that only through the re-articulation of Italian national identity can the
emergent voices within the Italian cultural mosaic be accounted for and accepted.
This acceptance might begin with the recognition of not just an “Islam in Italy,”
but an actual Italian Islam, a notion which calls for a veritable paradigm shift in
conceptualizations of integration, identity and belonging, concepts laden with numerous
conflicting connotations informed by a prolonged absence of dialogue between Muslims
and other elements of the Italian public. Sections IX and X conclude by providing a
potential point of convergence in the writings of intellectual figures such as Tariq
4
Laurence, “Knocking on Europe’s Door,” 3.
Tardioli
6
Ramadan, whose examination of the role of Islam in Europe may provide some of the
theoretical basis for the inclusion of Muslims in Italy. These sections will also challenge
the hegemonic myth of Italianità, a term referring to the exclusive “essence” of the
Italian national character which Islam has been regarded as disrupting. The widening of
the debate to include Islam and Muslims as a dynamic aspect of Italian life and identity
may not only begin to provide the theoretical insights for greater integration, but also
furnish the practical tools with which to help pave the road towards peaceful coexistence.
II.
Europe’s Guardians: The “Clash of Civilizations” Revisited
In recent years, Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” theory has resurfaced as a
primary tool for the examination of everything from international terrorism to resurgent
ethnic loyalties. By contending that the post-Cold War climate is one in which “cultural
identity is the central factor shaping a country’s associations and antagonisms,”5
Huntington divides the world into what he identifies as eight distinct socio-cultural
groupings, or “civilizations,” forecasting their interactions with one another based on
intrinsic attributes each possesses. Within this static formula, Western “arrogance” and
Islamic “intolerance”6 are presented as the key factors that will lock both civilizations in
perpetual economic, religious and cultural struggle. Accordingly, the West, with its
legacy of individualism and Rule of Law entrenched in a Christian-Humanistic tradition,
will be challenged by what he has termed the “Islamic Resurgence,” a “mainstream
5
Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon &
Schuster Paperbacks, 1996) 126.
6
Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations, 183.
Tardioli
7
rededication”7 to Islam, brought about through the gradual replacement of national
loyalties by an all-encompassing sense of religious identity. I propose that the “Clash of
Civilizations” theory, while perhaps able to explain the dynamics of the historical
interaction between Islam and the West, does not lend itself to applicability within a
present-day European framework.
Despite political rivalries heightened by religious zeal acting as a source of
periodic contention, the contact between Islam and Christendom has also been
characterized by a rich legacy of economic, intellectual and cultural exchange, 8 and
should therefore not be erroneously reduced to the sensationalized narratives of crusades
and conquests. Linked by a complex network of trade and pilgrimage routes, and united
through Arabic, the lingua franca of the Islamic empire, the first few centuries following
Islam’s inception witnessed the birth of a vibrant society which “enjoyed a rich and
diverse culture, vast lands and resources…a complex and flourishing economy…and, for
awhile, one polity, joined in faith and allegiance”9 under the auspices of an all-powerful
Caliphate. Prior to the cultural and scientific rebirth which took place in the EarlyModern Era, “non-Byzantine” Europe, which had yet to even establish a cohesive
continental identity as such, was regarded with a mix of condescension and curiosity by
Muslim travelers and scholars, who viewed its people as coarse, backward and steeped in
petty internecine conflicts. 10
Contrary to the Western “mythology” of a pristine Christian landscape besieged
by hordes of Islamic barbarians, Muslim incursions into European territory were not only
7
Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations, 110.
For a classic examination of the influence of Islamic thought and culture on the West, see T. Cuyler
Young, “The Cultural Contributions of Islam to Christendom,” The Muslim World 35.2 (1945): 89-110.
9
Bernard Lewis, Islam and the West (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993) 8.
10
Lewis, Islam and the West, 14.
8
Tardioli
8
aimed at converting souls, but were also viewed as civilizing campaigns meant to bring a
culturally inferior people into the refinement and sophistication of Islamic society.
Whether compelled by religious fervor, intellectual inquisitiveness or mere geographic
immediacy, the people of what has come to be referred to as the West, and those of the
Islamic world have been “rubbing shoulders,” so to speak, for over a millennium.
Regardless of this interchange, the existence of a marked cultural and linguistic
difference and an allegiance to two different religions, have, among other factors,
perpetuated the distance, though often more perceived than actual, between these two
“worlds.” It would then be accurate to say that “Islam” and the “West,” were, until
recently, two separate entities, two contrasting “civilizations,” thriving, clashing and
existing in relative distinction.
While Huntington’s thesis may then be feasible, though not absolute, within the
aforementioned historical context, such a cookie-cutter theorem is incompatible with the
dynamics of our current post-modern reality, in which cultural identity no longer
occupies a distinct, immutable niche. In his discussion of primary and secondary
identities, political theorist Étienne Balibar has observed that “an individual is never
‘one’ but ‘many in one,’”11 composed of a “multiplicity” of identifications and
allegiances. Conversely, if civilizations are, in Huntington’s words, “the biggest ‘we’,”12
this ultimate level of collective identification is also neither homogenous nor invariable.
The quasi-Manichean world-view inherent in Huntington’s argument does not account
for the fact that the structural characteristics of civilizations are not unchanging, and that
there is often not a clear-cut line between the end of one “world” and the beginning of
11
Etienne Balibar, We, the People of Europe? Reflections on Transnational Citizenship (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2004) 26.
12
Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations, 43.
Tardioli
9
another— “structure has never stopped transforming itself, differentiating itself from what
it was at the moment it began to produce its effects.”13
The unparalleled surge in immigration, itinerant labour, and other population
displacements of the late twentieth century have led to the creation of new identities
stemming from the interaction between two or more previously separate “civilizations.”
This has resulted in what can be viewed as a twenty-first century syncretism between
formerly disparate cultural worlds. Post-modernity’s ever-fluid social milieu clearly
necessitates a re-articulation in the way in which culture, identity and belonging are
conceived; this reality is markedly pertinent when examining the dynamics of the
present-day intercourse between the Islamic and Western civilizations. While contact
between the two, is, as already explained, certainly not a new phenomenon, the nature of
the contact which is currently taking place is unprecedented.
At the height of Islam’s political ascendancy, the world as seen through the eyes
of Islamic jurisprudence was divided into two parts. The Dar al-Islam, or House of
Islam, were territories in which populations were under the full jurisdiction of Islamic
government and law, and the Dar al-Harb, or House of War, were areas in which nonMuslim rulers still maintained power. 14 The legal status of limited numbers of Muslims
living in the Dar al-Harb does have historical precedent, namely through instances of
new converts still residing in non-Muslim territory, captives, merchants, political envoys
to non-Muslim lands, or inhabitants of an Islamic nation conquered by non-Muslims.15
13
Balibar, We, the People of Europe, 21.
Yet even within the House of Islam, there existed significant non-Muslim communities which resisted
assimilation and were allowed to maintain their respective customs under a degree of autonomy as
officially recognized minorities, or dhimmis, whose rights and obligations are extensively outlined in a
number of Islamic legal texts (Lewis, Islam and the West, 47).
15
Lewis, Islam and the West, 56.
14
Tardioli 10
On the other hand, the contemporary development of mass, voluntary migration into the
West is not only a completely unique phenomenon, but was also unconceivable by classic
Islamic jurists, and as such, it is only recently that scholars have begun to examine the
circumstances of the modern Muslim ex-patriot from a perspective of Islamic law.
In this vein, Muslims living in the West today should not be regarded as passive
automata, caught between two contending world-views. Many Muslims in nations such
as France, England and Italy are increasingly becoming active participants in the forging
of a hybrid identity16 that encompasses both Islamic and European values and practices.
This is particularly true of newcomers to Islam, who, as will be examined in the case of
Italian converts, are as persistent in their sense of national allegiance as they are in their
devotion to their new faith. This scenario further disrupts the stringent dichotomy
presented by the “Clash of Civilizations” theory, in which culture, or “civilization,” is
seen as a monochromatic corpus of pre-ordained specifications. Yet cultural identity
should not be removed from the everyday practices of the human authors who are living
it, and in so doing, are constantly reinventing the parameters of their “civilization.”
Unfortunately, a recourse to the Huntingtonian model is an increasingly recurrent
feature in the rhetoric of conservative politicians, authors, and other public figures, ever
more bent on perpetuating an “us” versus “them” outlook in which “the representation of
‘Europe’ takes the form of a narrative, one of whose effects is to exclude Islam.”17 In
Italy, the late journalist and activist Oriana Fallaci, arguably one of the most notorious
Tariq Modood, “Introduction: The Politics of Multiculturalism in the New Europe,” The Politics of
Multiculturalism in the New Europe: Racism Identity and Community, ed. Tariq Modood and Pnina
Werbner (London: Zed Books, 1997) 10.
17
Talal Asad, “Muslims and European Identity: Can Europe Represent Islam?” in The Idea of Europe:
From Antiquity to the European Union, ed. Anthony Pagden (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2002) 214.
16
Tardioli 11
exponents of a defensive stance in the face of what she termed an insidious Islamic
offensive, has been immortalized by the Conservative Right since her death in 2006 as
the iconic defender of Italy against the onslaught of “Islamic expansionism.”18 Her
polemical position casts Muslim immigration as an ominous phenomenon, a calculated
effort, which “far from being a normal migratory flow … [is] part of a specific strategy.
Meaning a design based on gradual penetration rather than brutal and sudden
aggression.”19
This alarmist view entirely discounts the fact that a growing number of Italy’s
Muslims are Italian converts, and reinforces popular stereotypes prevalent among a
generally un-informed Italian public of Islam as an alien, menacing and colonizing force.
Additionally, Fallaci’s writings are typified by vivid imagery set in an accusatory and
aggressive tone, channeling a one-dimensional view that does not account for any of the
myriad economic and political factors, often far removed from any religious motivation,
that may compel Muslims to leave their home lands and enter the unfamiliar and hostile
environment of the West. While Fallaci’s frequently racist and insulting writings may be
dismissed by some as exaggerated rants of no substantial political consequence, her
invocation of Italian cultural identity as a fortress besieged by an external enemy is
dangerous primarily because it reduces the essence of being Italian and European to a
fragile and vulnerable cultural state, the loss of which will be tantamount to the erasure of
the very “soul”20 of Europe. Within this framework, the presence of the unknown
18
Oriana Fallaci, The Force of Reason (New York: Rizzoli International, 2004) 51.
Fallaci, The Force of Reason, 126.
20
Gabriele Marranci, “Multiculturalism, Islam and the Clash of Civilizations Theory: Rethinking
Islamophobia,” Culture and Religion 5.1 (2004): 108.
19
Tardioli 12
Muslim “Other” is seen as disruptive and dangerous, and the duty of “true” Italians
becomes to resist the perceived threat presented by Islam.
In a persuasive critique of Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” theory,
cultural critic Gabriele Marranci states that:
“Letting the ‘other’ express himself/herself through culture means every
time challenging our cultural position and asking ‘Who am I?” and
“Why am I so?” Huntington’s clash of civilizations may be seen as a
theory stemmed from the will to resist these challenging questions by
opposing a Western supremacy rooted in a (more imagined than real)
Judeo-Christian heritage.”21
The real challenge of the twenty-first century for Italy and Italians should
therefore not be seen as a mere attempt at the desisting of this supposed “intercivilizational” clash; it rather lies within efforts aimed at bridging the gap between the
“West” and “Islam” by broadening the scope of Italian identity towards the creation of a
more inclusive cultural paradigm.
III.
Italy and the Discourse of Immigration —
The Lega Nord and Extracommunitari
Public opinion towards Islam and Muslims in Italy is increasingly tainted by tensions
surrounding the subject of immigration, a topic which has received considerable attention
within the national political agenda. Any theoretical insight proposing a potential reconceptualization of Italian “cultural identity” must therefore first account for the
profound demographic shift that contemporary Italian society is undergoing. Until the
late 1970’s, Italy was primarily a country of emigration, exporting a steady supply of
labor to the Americas and hosting only a limited number of foreign residents. Unlike the
21
Marranci, “Multiculturalism, Islam and the Clash of Civilizations Theory,”115.
Tardioli 13
extensive recruitment efforts spearheaded by France and England to attract temporary
workers from among their ex-colonial holdings, the sudden rise in immigration witnessed
by Italy throughout the past two decades was an unforeseen trend.22 By 2003 alone, Italy
was officially host to a projected 1.5 million immigrants, a figure which did not include
the thousands of undocumented men, women and children entering the country through
unofficial channels.23 It is estimated that Muslims constitute approximately 40% of this
foreign population.24
Lacking a centralized state-sanctioned initiative for the social integration of
newcomers,25 Italy has frequently been unable to absorb such an unprecedented flow of
extracommunitari, a term used to denote people from outside the European Union.26
Consequently, many migrants are often relegated to urban slums and forced to live under
conditions of stark economic marginalization. Notwithstanding the state’s various
logistical and organizational shortcomings, the greatest deterrent to the acceptance and
integration of immigrants within Italian society is the negative attitudes held by many
government officials and members of the public alike. Immigrants are attacked by
conservative politicians for placing undue pressure on Italy’s economic resources and
robbing “native” Italians of scarce employment opportunities, an erroneous claim
Laurence, “Knocking on Europe’s Door,” 2.
Asale Angel-Ajani, “The Racial Economies of Criminalization, Immigration, and Policing in Italy,”
Social Justice 30. 3 (2003): 49.
24
Laurence, “Knocking on Europe’s Door: Islam in Italy,” 2.
25
Stefano Allievi, “Sociology of a Newcomer, Muslim Migration to Italy–Religious Visibility, Cultural and
Political Reactions,” Immigrants and Minorities 22.2 (2003): 148. Many programs devoted to the reception
of immigrants are initiatives run by NGOs or charitable organizations such as the Caritas Network, see
“Introducing Caritas Europa,” Caritas Europa 26 Nov. 2007 http://www.caritaseuropa.org/code/EN/abou.asp?Page=413#
26
Umberto Melotti, “International Migration in Europe: Social Projects and Political Cultures,” in The
Politics of Multiculturalism in the New Europe: Racism Identity and Community, ed. Tariq Modood and
Pnina Werbner (London: Zed Books, 1997) 87.
22
23
Tardioli 14
considering close to two thirds of legal immigrants are themselves underemployed.27
Immigrants are also perceived by many as being the perpetrators of most of the country’s
criminal activity,28 an unsubstantiated conjecture which is bolstered by the
sensationalized media coverage of even the smallest offense committed by any “nonItalian.”29
In addition to the obstacles met by other minorities, Muslim immigrants bear a
double-burden as members of a religious tradition which has historically been viewed
with hostility, fear and suspicion. While Christian immigrants are begrudgingly tolerated
by Italians as co-religionists with greater prospects of cultural assimilation, Islam
continues to be seen as incompatible with and inadaptable to a secular European
environment.30 Such attitudes are reinforced by a virulent political rhetoric which casts
Islam as an external force removed from the natural course of authentic Italian reality.
Though what exactly defines this reality is at times highly contested, there has been no
shortage of political factions claiming to know the answer; among these is the Lega Nord
(Northern League), a radical movement with separatist leanings and a right-wing agenda
whose growing influence is rooted in claims to representing the needs of Italy’s Northern
populace.
A most vocal opponent of immigrants, particularly those from Islamic nations, the
Lega Nord has built its platform upon the creation of an imagined community based on
ethno-cultural and religious symbolism.31 The party first gained notoriety through its
Melotti, “International Migration in Europe,” 87.
Angel-Ajani, “The Racial Economies of Criminalization, Immigration, and Policing in Italy,” 54.
29
Duncan McDonnell, “A Week-end in Padania: Regionalist Populism and the Lega Nord,” Politics
26.2(2006): 129-130.
30
Allievi, “Sociology of a Newcomer,” 150.
31
Benito Giordano, “A Place Called Padania? The Lega Nord and the Political Representation of Northern
Italy,” European Urban and Regional Studies 6 (1999): 223.
27
28
Tardioli 15
rejection of the Italian federalist state, referring to the northernmost regions of the Italian
peninsula as “Padania,” home to an ethnically distinct people whose values and history
they view as having been undermined by the central authority in Rome. Although
Padania is in effect a constructed entity with no geographic or historical basis,32 the Lega
Nord nonetheless continues to call for greater “regional” autonomy, even advocating
secession from Italy and the creation of a Padanian Republic.33 These claims are often
accompanied by a pronounced anti-South prejudice which blames Italy’s problems on the
degeneracy and corruption of the nation’s Southern inhabitants, who are seen as inferior
to the “pure” and “virtuous” people of the Italian North.34
Following the events of September 11th, the Northern League has been
particularly vocal in its opposition to Muslim immigrants; with the presence of this new
“menace” the anti-Islamic movement has become the new dominant theme within the
party’s political repertoire. In towns with a strong Lega Nord municipal presence, this
has resulted in campaigns to close down Muslim prayer spaces, as well as attempts to
institute measures as extreme as forbidding “non-Catholics” from drawing nearer than
fifteen meters of churches.35 Though the Lega Nord’s actions have not been officially
sanctioned by the Vatican, certain elements of the Catholic Church have openly
supported the party’s policies, a move which has reaffirmed the Italian/ Catholic versus
foreign/Muslim binary within the public imagination.
The Lega Nord’s stance has been viewed by social theorists as echoing the logic
of “selective exclusion” under which “certain groups cannot be integrated into society
McDonnell, “A Weekend in Padania: Regionalist Populism and the Lega Nord,” 128.
Giordano, “A Place Called Padania?” 215.
34
McDonnell, “A Weekend in Padania: Regionalist Populism and the Lega Nord,” 127-128.
35
The Lega Nord mayor of the town of Rovato stated that this was in “response” to the ban on nonMuslims entering mosques in certain Muslim countries (Allievi, “Sociology of a Newcomer,” 151).
32
33
Tardioli 16
and therefore represent a fundamental threat to the values, way of life and cultural
integrity of the ‘indigenous’ people.”36 This ethic is a simplistic and dangerous recourse
to what cultural theorist Zygmunt Bauman has termed the discourse of “friends” and
“enemies,” within which “identities” and “counter-identities” are informed by the “weness” of friends and the “they-ness” of enemies.37 In considering the prevalence of such
a dichotomy within the Italian collective consciousness, the aim of this paper is not to
denounce the status quo, but rather to offer the theoretical tools with which it may be
constructively and systematically challenged. Consequently, this paper does not blindly
dismiss the concerns of Italians in response to the heightened presence of Muslims in
Italy; it instead attempts to address them in the hopes of forging a voluntary and sincere
acceptance of the Muslim “Other.”
The first step towards this acceptance may lie in the demystification of Islam as
an alien and unknown entity. As observed by Italian sociologist Stefano Allievi, while a
generation ago it may have been accurate to speak of “Islam and the West” or even
“Islam in the West,” Italy’s contemporary socio-cultural landscape clearly requires the
examination of what has now undoubtedly grown into an “Islam of Europe.”38
Unfortunately, the biggest obstacle to the recognition of Islam as a legitimate aspect of
Italy’s demographic reality is its continuous and restricted association with immigrants
and immigration, a tendency which overlooks the many ways in which Islam is becoming
“naturalized” through second generation adherents, mixed marriages, and Italian
Hans-Georg Betz and Carol Johnson, “Against the Current–Stemming the Tide: The Nostalgic Ideology
of the contemporary Radical Populist Right,” Journal of Political Ideologies 9 (2004): 318 as quoted in
McDonnell, “A Weekend in Padania: Regionalist Populism and the Lega Nord,” 129.
37
Zigmunt Bauman, “Soil, Blood and Identity,” The Sociological Review 40.4 (1992): 678.
38
Stefano Allievi, “Islam in Italy,” Islam, Europe’s Second Religion: The New Social, Cultural and
Political Landscape, ed. Shireen T. Hunter (Westport: Praeger Publishers, 2002) 77.
36
Tardioli 17
conversions.39 Muslims no longer constitute a “transitory phenomenon that can
eventually be sent back ‘home’”;40 the proposal to accept Islam as a legitimate
component of Italian identity must therefore not be regarded as a utopian lip-service to
the discourse of multiculturalism; it is simply the recognition of the fact that a country’s
“national culture” must be reflective and inclusive of all aspects of its social reality,
however novel and embryonic such elements may be.
IV.
The Hijāb Debate in Europe: Islam in the Popular Imagination
At the heart of the debates surrounding the inclusion of Muslims in Italy are national
discourses that have increasingly coalesced around the Islamic practice of “veiling.”
Historically, the hijāb has embodied a multitude of often contradictory connotations in
relation to the nature of Islamic culture, sexuality, politics and religious beliefs. Though
the Western world’s preoccupation with veiling is not an exclusively contemporary
phenomenon, the post- 9/11 climate has witnessed a re-articulation of the debate
surrounding hijāb, once again rendering it one of the most contested sites of cultural and
political discord. While “hijāb” often implies any form of Muslim dress within the
Arabo-Islamic lexicon,41 this section refers specifically to the female practice of covering
the head and neck.
The hijāb is believed by many Muslims as being an indispensable aspect of their
faith. The Qur’ān enjoins the female believers to “not display their beauty and
ornaments except what must ordinarily appear thereof; and that they should draw their
Allievi, “Sociology of a Newcomer,” 150.
Allievi, “Islam in Italy,” 77.
41
“Hijāb,” The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, 1995 ed.
39
40
Tardioli 18
veils over their bosoms.”42 A number of recorded traditions, or hadith, attributed to the
Prophet Mohammed further substantiate this Qur’ānic verse by citing instances in which
he instructed women having reached physical maturity to cover everything other than
their hands and faces when in the presence of men who are not blood-relatives.43 While
certain more recent interpretations of Islamic writ have begun to examine whether the
hijāb is indeed a religious obligation or a cultural artifact,44 the practice of veiling is
nonetheless entrenched within the Islamic frame of reference as a significant feature of
Muslim identity; as such it has also become the locus of what is increasingly being
misrepresented as a “face-off” between “Islamic” and “Western” values.
The latest episodes of opposition to the hijāb in Europe have taken a number of
ideological dimensions. A particularly prevalent view has been that as a symbol of
religious affiliation, the hijāb is an archaic manifestation of sectarian partisanship
incompatible with the religious neutrality of the secular State. This is one of the central
arguments in France, a nation whose constitution enshrines the principle of Laicité
(secularism and religious neutrality), as the fundamental essence of French identity.
Under this ethic, followers of any faith group are granted freedom of worship, as long as
Surah XXIV, verse 31, reproduced in Abdullah Yusuf Ali, The Qur’an–Text, Translation and
Commentary (Maryland: Amana Corporation, 1983) 904-905.
43
Yusuf al-Qaradawi, The Lawful and the Permitted in Islam, trans. Kamal El-Helbawy, M. Moinudin and
Seyed Shukry (Kuwait: International Islamic Federation of Student Organizations, 1993) 157. As cited in
Katherine Bullock, Rethinking Muslim Women and the Veil: Challenging Historical & Modern Stereotypes
(Herndon: The International Institute on Islamic Thought, 2003) 157.
44
For a contemporary examination of the hijāb please see David Siddhartha Patel, “Concealing to Reveal,
the Changing Informational Role of Islamic Dress,” Working Paper, 22 Jan. 2006, 10 Dec. 2007
http://comparativepolitics.stanford.edu/Papers2,05-06/Patel_27_Feb_06.pdf, and Sarah Eltantawi, “To
Wear the Hijab or Not,” Counterpunch 14 Feb. 2004, 10 Dec. 2007
http://www.counterpunch.org/eltantawi02162004.html
42
Tardioli 19
any expression of religious allegiance is kept separate from the “public sphere,” a
demarcation that is seen to encompass the realms of civil affairs and public education.45
In his latest study on the hijāb and human rights in Europe, Dominick
McGoldrick observes that while this logic may be easily applicable within a context of
strict separation between Church and State, it does not account for the fact that certain
faiths do not make a distinction between public and private space, and consider religious
laws to be universally valid under all circumstances.46 In the past decade, tensions
between the stringent Republican values espoused by the French government and the
religious commitments of French citizens were materialized in the much publicized Affair
des foulards (“affair of Islamic veils”), which reached its climax in 2004, when new
legislation was passed banning all “ostentatious religious symbols in schools.”47
While the law was presumably not aimed at Muslims in particular, allusions made
by prominent policy makers to “immigrants” and “integration” served to single out the
Islamic community as the very embodiment of anti-Republicanism.48 It has been
suggested by cultural critics that against such a backdrop of contested “loyalties,”
secularism is actually being employed as “an ideology to oppose Islam and its public
recognition”49 under the guise of impartiality and equality. A tragic outcome of the ban
45
Dominic McGoldrick, Human Rights and Religion: the Islamic Headscarf Debate in Europe (Oxford:
Hart Publishing, 2006) 39.
46
McGoldrick, Human Rights and Religion, 103.
47
Jane Freedman, “Women, Islam and Rights in Europe: Beyond a Universalist/Culturalist Dichotomy,”
Review of International Studies 33 (2007): 29-44.
48
McGoldrick, Human Rights and Religion, 44-45.
49
Tariq Modood and Riva Kastoryano, “Secularism and the Accommodation of Muslims in Europe,” in
Multiculturalism, Muslims and Citizenship: A European Approach, ed. Tariq Modood, Anna
Triandafyllidou, and Ricard Zapata-Barrero (Routledge: London, 2006) 176.
Tardioli 20
has been the further isolation of many young Muslim females, who are being forced to
choose between their beliefs and their education.50
Ironically, despite the obvious discrimination and oppression inherent in measures
that curtail a Muslim woman’s right to religious expression, a most salient component of
opposition to the hijāb in France and other European nations has been the increasing
recourse to this very rhetoric of “oppression,” with the insistence on veiling as a symbol
of female subjugation that should not be permitted within a modern, Western
environment. One of the foremost expositors of this argument in Italy is centre-right
politician Daniela Santanchè, who has often spoken against the hijāb as what she
considers the material symbol of the acute system of male dominance present within
Muslim immigrant enclaves.51 A book she has recently written entitled La donna negata
(2006), which can be roughly translated as “The Woman Denied,” chronicles the lives of
four Muslim women living in Italy. Santanchè pays particular attention to the hardships
they endure within the stifling “patriarchal order” of their Islamic households in which
they are removed from the “rights and responsibilities attributed to Western civic life.”52
Though many newcomers to Italy often endure conditions of cultural isolation and
financial strain, Santanchè expounds a simplistic reasoning that reduces the reality of
Muslim females in Italy to one of hegemonic subordination caused entirely by the Islamic
framework within which they are “trapped.” To begin with, her invariable focus on the
immigrant constituent of Italian Islam completely disregards the thousands of “native”
50
While some Muslims have opted to send their daughters to private educational institutions where the
hijāb ban does not apply, this is not an option for the majority of French Muslims, many of whom live in
economically precarious conditions, and can only afford to attend public schools (McGoldrick, Human
Rights and Religion, 81).
51
“Fatwa Against Daniela Santanche,” YouTube 2006, 28 Jan. 2007.
52
Flavia Perina, “Musulmane in Italia: così vicine, così lontane,” Secolo d’Italia 8 Feb. 2006, 15 Sept.
2007 http://www.danielaSantanchè.com/upload/secoloitalia8_02.pdf
Tardioli 21
Italian women who independently convert and actively choose to don a form of hijāb in
adherence to the tenets of their new-found faith.53 Not only does Santanchè rob Muslim
women of the very agency she claims their religion denies them, but she appears to
reduce the practice of veiling in Italy to two opposing grounds: one is that of
victimization, in which women are masochistically complicit with the repression
sanctioned by the religious and cultural context they have unwillingly imported into Italy,
the other is one of defiant rejection of the Italian societal norms which should be obeyed
in order to become truly integrated.
Interestingly enough, Daniela Santachè’s definitions of integration and freedom
seem to be heavily dependent on the hijāb as a type of “litmus test”54 for social
acculturation. This equation would then deduce that Muslim women who appear to be
completely culturally “integrated” judging by their adoption of Western attire are all at a
reduced risk of being oppressed; a clearly fallacious inference. The “women’s rights”
discourse that Santanchè employs therefore “reproduces an ethnocentric and Western
model of rights which supports the idea of Western cultural superiority.”55 It also
neglects the fact that Italian Muslim women are not passive agents, but are constantly
engaged in a “negotiation of and reflection upon diverse cultural models and practices.”56
Not only has the image of the veiled woman been made into a veritable
interlocutor for the oppressive/oppressed nature of the entire Muslim world, but the hijāb
is also the locus of an endemic conflation of Islam with terrorism. Women who wear the
Peter Popham, “After French Law on Muslim Headscarves, Italian Village Bans the Burqa,”
ProHijab.net 26 Sept. 2004, 17 Jun. 2007 http://www.prohijab.net/english/italy-hijab-news3.htm
54
Bullock, Rethinking Muslim Women and the Veil, 36.
55
Freedman,“Women, Islam and Rights in Europe,” 32.
56
Ruba Salih, “Confronting Modernities: Muslim Women in Italy,” International Institute for the Study of
Islam in the Modern World Mar 2001: 1+32 http://www.isim.nl/files/newsl_7.pdf
53
Tardioli 22
hijāb are often represented as agents of religious extremism with the veil becoming
“shorthand for all these horrors of Islamic fundamentalism.”57 Even in the most sedate of
representations, the veil is at the very least used as a metaphor for the social separation
that Muslim women are effecting by continuing to dress so differently from the
mainstream. Yet far from accepting this verdict, many female members of Italy’s
Muslim community have actually challenged the criticism they are met with by observing
that Catholic nuns, who continue to have a ubiquitous presence throughout the country,
also publicly don a veil as part of their religious duties;58 as such, condemning the
wearing of the hijāb as an unfamiliar custom is not only implausible within the Italian
frame of reference, but points to a narrow conceptualization of rights and duties under
which Italian identity is reduced to a “symptom of anxieties about non-Europeans.”59
In her study of Muslim immigrant women in Northern Italy, Ruba Salih observes
that “certain Islamic symbols may be actively chosen or imposed as crucial markers of
cultural difference.”60 The hijāb is clearly the bona fide mark of the Muslim “Other.” Its
misappropriation as a signifier for the Islamic repression of women, Islamic terrorism,
and Islamic incompatibility with Western values is shaped by what Edward Said has
referred to as a strategy of European “flexible positional superiority”61 vis-à-vis the
Muslim world. Thus Islam becomes an object which Europeans can deconstruct and
reinvent with impunity. Separating fact from fiction and ridding the Islamic hijāb of the
negative and erroneous connotations that it is persistently associated with will be a key
step in any attempts at cultural rapprochement between Islam and Italian society.
57
Bullock, Rethinking Muslim Women and the Veil, 126.
“Islam Italia: hijab e niqab. Controcorrente, Parte 1.” YouTube. 2007. 5 Mar. 2007.
59
Asad, “Muslims and European Identity: Can Europe Represent Islam,” 211.
60
Salih, “Confronting Modernities,” 1.
61
Said, Orientalism, 7.
58
Tardioli 23
V.
Muslim Women and the Niqāb in Italy: Crime or Culture?
In his examination of Islam and European identity, Sociologist Sami Zemni observes that
“the production of an identity is only possible in relation to an Other.”62 Conversely, the
presence of the “Other” may also engender deep seated anxieties about the ideological
and material danger posed to the existent cultural and social norms. Accordingly, the
physical presence of Muslims in Italy often poses the greatest challenge to the totalizing
discourse of Italian identity, and the furor which has arisen surrounding the Islamic niqāb
is a case in point. The niqāb is a form of female Islamic dress that covers the face,
allowing only the eyes to be seen, it is often also referred to as the burqa. 63 Though most
Islamic scholars agree that the niqāb is not a religious obligation,64 many Muslim women
wear it as a testament to their strict devotion to Muslim laws. While the hijāb is indeed a
significant component of the debate surrounding Muslim inclusion in Italy, it is the niqāb
which has constituted one of the debate’s most controversial features.
The storm clouds began to gather in 2004, when Sabrina Varroni, an Italian
convert to Islam from the small Northern town of Drezzo, was fined for failing to
uncover her face upon the request of a police officer. Authorities justified their actions
by referring to an obscure edict imposed under the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini in
1931, under which Italians were forbidden to “mask themselves in public,”65 as well as a
Sami Zemni, “Islam, European Identity and the Limits of Multiculturalism,” in Religious Freedom and
The Neutrality of the State: The Position of the European Union, ed. W. Shadid and P. Van Koningsveld
(Leuven: Peeters, 2002) 160.
63
Though the terms niqāb and burqa are often used interchangeably in the West, the niqāb “covers the
entire face except for eye slits” (“Hijāb,” The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, 1995 ed.)
while the burqa completely covers the face including the eyes with a mesh like material that allows the
wearer to see without being seen. Within the Italian context, both have been objectionable for concealing
the wearer’s identity.
64
“Islam Italia: hijab e niqab. Controcorrente, Parte 4,” YouTube 2007, 5 Mar. 2007.
65
Stephan Weeke, “Italians Clash over Burqa: Small Town Resists Islamic Dress, Sets Stage for Court
62
Tardioli 24
law passed in 1975 at the height of the Red Brigades66 episode prohibiting “the wearing
of items that disguise a person’s identity.”67 According to Angelo Biasio, the mayor of
Biassono, a small town on the outskirts of Milan, the main reasons for opposition are
fears over the security of Italians in the face of increased Islamic hostility word-wide.
Townspeople are convinced that a “burqa ban” will “control potential terrorists,” and
many affirm that Italians need to see the faces of Muslims “for security and for cultural
reasons.”68 It is markedly ironic that a law enforced by a dictator whose rule was
characterized by the repression of the Italian populace in the name of “security,” is now
being revived to once again punish an Italian citizen in the name of “public safety”—a
most spurious logic employed in the “defense” of Italian identity.69
Yet the ultimate problem with the niqāb lies in its potency as a conspicuous sign
of the Muslim Others’ presence, which runs counter to Italy’s “hegemonic discourse of
self-definition” as a Christian and Western nation.70 Most importantly, it should be noted
that the growing wave of opposition has affected the lives of many Muslim women who
are afraid to leave their homes for fear that they or their children will be harassed or
Battle,” MSNBC.com 21 Sept. 2004, 4 Aug. 2007 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6062862/
66
The Red Brigades (Brigate Rosse) is a militant Italian Marxist group formed in 1969. Its primary
objective is “to create a revolutionary state through armed struggle and to separate Italy from the Western
Alliance” (McGoldrick, Human Rights and Religion, 208).
67
Peter Popham, “After French Law on Muslim Headscarves, Italian Village Bans
the Burqa,” ProHijab.net 26 Sept. 2004, 17 Jun. 2007 http://www.prohijab.net/english/italy-hijabnews3.htm
68
Tamsin Smith, “Italy’s Muslims Under Pressure,” BBC News 28 Sept. 2004, 29 Jul. 2007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3696802.stm
69
In duly considering this argument, if any form of concealment of the face is prohibited for reasons of
collective security, then would not the celebration of Carnivale, during which millions of Italians
participate in several days of festivities characterized by the wearing of elaborate facial masks and
costumes, be in contravention to the law?
70
Zemni, “Islam, European Identity and the Limits of Multiculturalism,” 162.
Tardioli 25
insulted, or simply due to the discomfort associated with being the constant object of
public scrutiny because they choose to cover themselves.71
Even the moderate pro-immigration Prime Minister Romano Prodi, who replaced
Silvio Berlusconi’s right wing government, has expressed concerns over the niqāb. In
October 2006, Prodi stated that immigrant Muslim women should not be “completely
‘hidden’ behind full veils” if they wished to become integrated in Italian society and “be
part of Italy’s future.”72 Yet what disrupts attempts at explaining the niqāb question
solely by recourse to the rhetoric of immigration is the fact that Varroni, the woman
ticketed for covering her face, is not an “alien” newcomer, but a “native” Italian, raised in
the very town that is now criminalizing her chosen religious practice. The fact that
policy-makers are reluctant in recognizing the nascent elements of this “Italian Islam”
and incorporating them within the national political dialogue speaks to a deep-seated
dichotomist mindset within which Islamic culture, religion and identity are without end
seen as foreign and aberrant. Cultural critics have observed that this is part of a “broader
climate of the ‘ethnicization’ of Islam, resulting from the conflation of culture and
religion.”73
Though the incident involving Sabrina Varroni’s refusal to remove her niqāb
when asked by Drezzo’s police officer has been painted by the Italian media as
Stephen Brown, “UPDATE 1–Italian PM: Muslims Should Not ‘Hide’ Behind Veil,” Reuters 17 Oct.
2006, 10 Jun. 2007
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlebusiness.aspx?type=tnBusinessNews&storyID=nL17853569&from=b
usiness
72
Stephen Brown, “UPDATE 1–Italian PM: Muslims Should Not ‘Hide’ Behind Veil,” Reuters 17 Oct.
2006, 10 Jun. 2007
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlebusiness.aspx?type=tnBusinessNews&storyID=nL17853569&from=b
usiness
73
Olivier Roy, L’Islam mondialisé (Paris: Seuil, 2001) page not specified. As cited in Valerie Amiraux,
“Discrimination and Claims for Equal Rights amongst Muslims in Europe,” European Muslims and the
Secular State, ed. Jocelyne Cesari and Séan McLoughlin (Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2005)
32.
71
Tardioli 26
suggestive of Islamic intransigence, Varroni herself has stated that she would have been
more than compliant had the officer been a woman.74 It would perhaps then be expedient
for municipal authorities to supplement the town’s only male police officer with a female
one, a small step towards the accommodation of a woman, and many like her, who
represent a growing element within the Italian demographic.
As the most visible members of the Islamic community, the muhājjibāt (women
who wear the hijāb) are often the most disadvantaged in the face of policies that either
completely ignore their existence, or regard them as a problematic nuisance. For
example, in 2006, Muslim residents of Imperia, a North-Western Italian town, asked the
management of the local swimming pool to open one hour earlier on Sundays in order to
facilitate the use of the swimming amenities during a women-only time frame, as per the
modesty requirements of their faith. Though the Muslim community was only asking for
a small concession, the pool’s director expressed that the logistical requirements of
instituting such a change, even for a short time period, would be impossible to
implement. Work schedules would certainly have to be revised in order to ensure the
presence of all-female life guards, and the glass windows might even have to be covered
in order to prevent male-passersby from peeking in.75
Although the proposal could very well have been feasible with some co-operation
and ingenuity, it was quickly brushed off, and Muslim women were asked to yet again
choose between their religion and participation in a public leisure activity. The
unfairness inherent in this incident is further apparent when considering a similar
scenario which was handled in a completely different way. When faced with an increase
Stephan Weeke, “Italians Clash over Burqa: Small Town Resists Islamic Dress, Sets Stage for Court
Battle,” MSNBC.com 21 Sept. 2004, 4 Aug. 2007 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6062862/
75
“Should the swimming pool open early for Muslim women?” YouTube 2007. 15 Apr. 2007.
74
Tardioli 27
in wealthy female tourists from Arab countries needing unlimited access to a woman’s
only beach, the city Council of Riccione, a bustling seaside resort on Italy’s Adriatic
coast, was quick to approve a one thousand square meters large stretch of secluded
shoreline, with plans to expand even further in the future.76 Attilio Cenni, the owner of
an upscale hotel, and the man behind the proposal, has stated that “any problem could be
solved with common sense and sensitivity […] we want to make a beach where these
ladies will be free.”77
While the affluent Muslim tourists were quickly appeased and provided with an
entire beach for their personal use, all for the ostensible sake of “common sense” and
“freedom,” the Muslim women who requested a small compromise within the community
where they are residents were essentially told that they should re-examine their
priorities.78 The contrasting ways in which the Imperia swimming pool and the Riccione
beach incidents were each received by “native” Italians points to an intrinsically
inconsistent and biased reasoning in which “acceptance” is selective, conditional and
motivated by the market logic. However disconcerting their existence may be within
quotidian Italian civic society, Islam and its followers become tolerable, even welcomed,
when their presence can be controlled in the name of economic interests.
David Ariel, “Italy Opens Beach for Muslim Women,” The Sydney Morning Herald 11 Aug. 2006, 8
Jun. 2007 http://www.smh.com.au/news/italy/italy-opens-beach-for-muslim
women/2006/08/11/1154803064177.html
77
David Ariel, “Italy Opens Beach for Muslim Women,” The Sydney Morning Herald 11 Aug. 2006, 8
Jun. 2007 http://www.smh.com.au/news/italy/italy-opens-beach-for-muslim
women/2006/08/11/1154803064177.html
78
“Should the swimming pool open early for Muslim women?” YouTube 2007, 15 Apr. 2007.
76
Tardioli 28
VI.
The Italian Crucifix Controversy: Islam and Social Recognition
The public fallout in Italy over the hijāb and niqāb is in many ways symptomatic of the
growing indictment of Islam and its followers by a government whose policies towards
its Muslim constituency have, until recently, been either nonexistent or structurally
deficient. The tendency to cast every point of contact between Islam and Italian society
as a clash between contending ideologies, rather than as an opportunity for dialogue, not
only continues to pathologize Islam as a socially deviant entity, but also precludes the
mutual understanding needed for acceptance and cultural integration. An incident that
has, perhaps more than any other, challenged the already precarious relationship between
Italy and its Muslim population is the uproar which followed a court order to remove
crucifixes from public primary schools in the central Italian town of Ofena.
In October of 2003, Adel Smith, a Scottish convert who has called Italy home for
most of his life, took his grievances to court when the school his children attended
refused his request to display a Muslim symbol alongside the crucifix hanging at the front
of their classroom. Smith, leader of the Italian Union of Muslims, one of the country’s
several Islamic organizations, stated that his children are “still Italian, so why should they
feel inferior to the others because the symbol of their religion is not nailed on the wall
[…].”79 A month later, an Appeal Court revoked the ruling, and in December of 2004, the
Constitutional Court affirmed that the 1928 Royal Decree which required crucifixes to be
hung in state schools was still lawful “based on a technicality.”80 The public debate
underway since 2003 has polarized Italians between those who view Adel Smith’s
Tamsin Smith, “Italian Muslims Fear Crucifix Fallout,” BBC News 28 Oct. 2003, 5 Aug. 2007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3219551.stm
80
McGoldrick, Human Rights and Religion, 209.
79
Tardioli 29
position as an insult to their cultural traditions, and others who agree that displaying a
single religious symbol in every school is incompatible with what should in fact be the
“secular character of education.”81 Far from providing Smith with unanimous support,
Italy’s Muslims have expressed the most regret over the situation; few, if any, see it as a
positive venture on his part, fearing that his actions are heightening tensions between
them and other Italians and further isolating their community.82
The “crucifix controversy” underscores the veritable need to initiate multiple sites
of dialogue in which the often overlapping spheres of religion, culture and identity must
be approached as possessing indefinite parameters. Accordingly, a most pressing topic
has proven to be Italy’s own elusive relationship with its Christian legacy. Catholicism
has not been the state religion since 1984, yet unlike France’s strict “separatist” system,
Italy follows a “concordatarian” model, under which “representative religious
hierarchies” sign agreements with the State.83 To this end, the Catholic Church exerts
more influence—albeit “unofficially”—on Italian society and politics due to its historical
preeminence in the region. This influence has been criticized by many Italians who feel
that Catholicism’s continued symbolic ascendancy undermines the secular nature of the
Italian state. For instance, Judge Luigi Tosti refused to hold court in the town of
Camerino because of the proliferation of crucifixes in the courtroom; he argued that
religious symbols did not belong in a court of law, and substantiated his claims under the
Tamsin Smith, “Italian Muslims Fear Crucifix Fallout,” BBC News 28 Oct. 2003, 5 Aug. 2007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3219551.stm
82
Tamsin Smith, “Italian Muslims Fear Crucifix Fallout,” BBC News 28 Oct. 2003, 5 Aug. 2007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3219551.stm
83
Valerie, “Discrimination and Claims for Equal Rights Amongst Muslims in Europe,” 26.
81
Tardioli 30
nation’s constitutional human rights code. After months of abstention, Tosti was
sentenced to seven months in prison for “failing to carry out his official duties.”84
This revealing incident stands contrary to claims made by conservative Italians
that it is only immigrants and religious minorities who are posing a disruptive challenge
to the country’s Catholic heritage. The nation appears instead to be in the midst of an
“identity crisis” of sorts which undoubtedly has also involved “native” Italian citizens
and institutions, based on the growing disillusionment with a cultural paradigm that many
view as obsolete and irrelevant.
Though Muslims have long been excluded from the right to have an official
political voice, recent years have seen the beginning of bilateral efforts made by both the
Islamic community and the Italian State to grant Islam legal recognition in Italy. In 2003,
the Interior Minister began plans for the creation of an Islamic Consultative Council that
would include representatives from various Muslim groups, including “‘lay’ civil society
leaders.”85 What resulted in 2005 was the formation of the Consulta per l’Islam italiano,
or Islamic Council of Italy.86
The Manifesto dell’Islam d’Italia, a written proposal promulgating the Council’s
social platform was viewed by many as a positive stride towards the official recognition
of Islam, and the distancing of the Islamic community from the radical and
fundamentalist elements which are often incorrectly portrayed by the Western media as
representing all Muslims. The Manifesto categorically rejects any form of extremism and
84
McGoldrick, Human Rights and Religion, 209.
Laurence, “Knocking on Europe’s Door: Islam in Italy,” 5.
86
The Consulta unites an ethnically mixed membership of 16 delegates from several organizations,
including COREIS, the Islamic Religious Community of Italy, and UCOII, the Union of Islamic
Organizations and Communities in Italy. The founding board counted, among others, a religious leader,
several journalists, and a professor as members, “reflecting the wide range of Muslim civil society in Italy
without any pretense of ‘representing’ Muslims in Italy” (Laurence, “Knocking on Europe’s Door: Islam in
Italy,” 6).
85
Tardioli 31
violence committed in the name of religion, and affirms the Muslim community’s
intention to operate in full respect of Italian laws, with the desire to be an integral part of
the “founding values of the collective national Italian identity.”87 The document conveys
the Council’s desire to promote “a culture of citizenship, tolerance and secularism within
a process of integration […] valuing the universal principles of the Muslim faith.”88 It
also affirms the need for newcomers to be socially integrated through the knowledge of
Italian language and values; in turn asking that the rich cultural accomplishments and
historic heritage of the Islamic world be fairly incorporated into the curriculum of both
public schools and universities nation-wide.
Additionally, in calling for the right to religious assembly in mosques and other
prayer spaces, the Council has also asked for all Islamic institutions to be completely
transparent in their financial endeavors, and for religious sermons to be conducted in
Italian, clearly asserting the community’s wish to be trusted as a legitimate part of Italy’s
future.89 Yet the creation of this Consulta should not be viewed as an ultimate victory in
Islam’s ongoing struggle for official recognition. For instance, it must be noted that the
Council is a “non-traditional formula” conceived by the Interior Ministry as a result of its
decision that the “Muslim population is not ripe for formal representation via the existing
state-church mechanism, called an Intesa,”90 a formal accord that has been used with
All translations unless otherwise indicated are by the author. “Manifesto dell’Islam d’Italia,” Consulta
islamica d’Italia 7 Mar. 2006, 10 Nov. 2007
http://www.olir.it/areetematiche/pagine/documents/News_0622_MANIFESTO.pdf
88
“Manifesto dell’Islam d’Italia,” Consulta islamica d’Italia 7 Mar. 2006, 10 Nov. 2007
http://www.olir.it/areetematiche/pagine/documents/News_0622_MANIFESTO.pdf
89
Its boldest move is without a doubt the recognition of Israel’s right to co-exist in “reciprocal peace and
security” next to an independent Palestinian state (“Manifesto dell’Islam d’Italia,” Consulta islamica
d’Italia 7 Mar. 2006, 10 Nov. 2007
http://www.olir.it/areetematiche/pagine/documents/News_0622_MANIFESTO.pdf).
90
Laurence, “Knocking on Europe’s Door: Islam in Italy,” 6.
87
Tardioli 32
various Jewish and Christian minority communities, and which can only be signed “with
Italian citizens.”91
Furthermore, it has been observed by social critics that while other religious
denominations have been granted individual voices, the state has been somewhat
“inflexible” in forcing Sunni, Shi‘a, Ismaeli and other Islamic groups to form a plan for
“unitary representation,” 92 overlooking the specific exigencies that each one may have.
For example, though the Manifesto was approved by 70% of the presiding Council
members, Dr. Nouri Dachan, one of the absenters, presented a separate proposal for
review 93 in which he included suggestions that were not well received by the rest of the
Council. This internal disagreement is the understandable outcome of asking a diverse
group of Muslims to come up with a single static formula for representation, something
that would be a formidable feat for any group comprised of such a heterogeneous
assemblage of people.
Unfortunately, this multifaceted character of Islam in Europe, as attested to by the
different opinions expressed within the Consulta per l’Islam, is often masked by a
homogenizing discourse in which “it is not Muslims who produce their history but Islam
that conditions the behavior and identity of Muslims. In the end a Muslim is reduced to
an automaton, endlessly perpetuating the religious prescriptions of Islam.”94 However,
just as not all Italian Catholics espouse the same political or even religious views, there is
Laurence, “Knocking on Europe’s Door: Islam in Italy,” 6.
Silvio Ferrari, “The Secularity of the State and the Shaping of Muslim Representative Organizations in
Western Europe,” in European Muslims and the Secular State, ed. by Jocelyne Cesari and Séan
McLoughlin (Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2005) 13.
93
Nouri Dachan asked for, among other things, an official “pause” in the work day to allow for Muslim
Friday prayers, the creation of separate Muslim financial institutions, and a clear indication on all packaged
foods stating their preparation according to Islamic dietary laws (Nouri Dachan, “Documento presentato da
Nour Dachan alla riunione della consulta islamica del 7 Marzo 2006,” 7 Mar. 2006, 8 Nov. 2007
http//www.olir.it/areetematiche/pagine/documents/News_0622_DOCUMENTO%20DACHAN.pdf).
94
Zemni, “Islam, European Identity and the Limits of Multiculturalism,” 166.
91
92
Tardioli 33
also an urgent need to institute policies that will account for the polyphonic nature of
Italy’s Muslim community, and thus attempt to meet its diverse needs.
VII.
Minarets in the Piazza — The Italian Mosque Debate
The ongoing resistance that Muslims have met in Italy, as discussed in the foregoing
sections of this paper, can in many respects be considered a rejection of Islam “as distinct
from its human carriers.”95 While the Muslim subject alone does present a challenge to
Italy’s “mono-cultural”96 self-definition, it is his or her assertion of a distinctive Islamic
identity that has proven to be most problematic. In short, Muslims may be granted a
nominal place within Italian society, as long as they relinquish any discernible ties to
Islam within the public domain, where Catholicism, secularism, and other “authentically”
Italian cultural norms must reign supreme. This logic has become a staple within
European Liberal rhetoric, where the attack appears to not be on Islamic orthodoxy per
se, but rather on Islamic orthopraxy, and the difficulty lies not in the acceptance of
Muslims, rather in the Muslims’ assertion of an identity that “defies” the country’s
established national character through a continued attachment to the hijāb, and other
“extraneous” practices.
It is perhaps for this reason then, that the growing number of mosques and prayer
spaces in Italy has caused such public uproar. As observed by social critics Saint
Blancant and Schmidt di Friedberg, “building a mosque means, first of all, visibility,”97 a
Asad, “Muslims and European Identity: Can Europe Represent Islam,” 210.
Anna Triandafyllidou, “Religious Diversity and Multiculturalism in Southern Europe: The Italian
Mosque Debate,” Multiculturalism, Muslims and Citizenship: A European Approach, ed. Tariq Modood,
Anna Triandafyllidou, and Ricard Zapata-Barrero (Routledge: London, 2006) 125.
95
96
Tardioli 34
visibility that not only unequivocally affirms the presence of the Muslim “Other” within
the Italian social and physical landscape, but also his continued ties to the cultural and
religious infrastructure of the Islamic world.
Given the increasing number of Muslim foreigners residing in Italy for
educational or diplomatic purposes, several larger Italian cities have had well-established
mosques for some years now.98 These urban ventures have usually been hosted by
foreign governments99 as short-term amenities for what once was a transient Muslim
presence, and have more recently been unable to meet the needs of the steadily growing
number of Muslim immigrants entering the country in the past ten years.
Within the traditional Islamic context, the mosque, or masjid, often acts as the
centre for collective social and religious identity, where believers congregate not only to
worship, but also to cultivate political, cultural and economic ties with the Muslim
ummah, or community. Consequently, Islamic centers in Italy also serve as a valuable
tool in the reception of recent immigrants,100 often assisting Muslim newcomers by
providing them with Italian language classes and other services that municipal
governments may be logistically unprepared to offer. As such, mosques, halal butchers
and other distinctly Islamic landmarks are part of what is in effect a natural “spontaneous
expression” 101 of local community building resulting from the numerical increase of
Muslims in Italy. Yet to some Italian authorities, and many members of the Italian
Chantal Saint-Blancant and Ottavia Schmidt di Friedberg, “Why are Mosques a Problem? Local
Politics and Fear of Islam in Northern Italy,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 31.6 (2005): 1083.
98
Rome’s “Mosque-Cathedral” was inaugurated in 1995, and the cities of Milan in the North and Catania
in Sicily also have had sizeable Islamic centers used for communal prayer space since the 1980s (SaintBlancant and Schmidt di Friedberg,“Why are Mosques a Problem,” 1084).
99
The Great Mosque in Rome and Catania’s Omar Mosque were financed by Saudi Arabia and Libya
respectively (Saint-Blancant and Schmidt di Friedberg, “Why are Mosques a Problem,” 1084).
100
“Mosque Plans Bring Controversy to Tuscan Town.” YouTube 2006, 22 Mar. 2007.
101
Saint-Blancant and Schmidt di Friedberg. “Why are Mosques a Problem,” 1085.
97
Tardioli 35
public, the unofficial network of prayer spaces and cultural centers that have perforce
sprung up in warehouses, apartment buildings and Muslim owned shops are elements of a
clandestine and “underground” Islam that has no place within Italian civic life.
On the other hand, attempts made by Muslim community leaders to construct
official and accountable Islamic centers under the auspices of municipal authorities have
also been met with considerable objections. In the fall of 2000, a Muslim representative
from the town of Lodi, a small suburb of Milan, approached the Town Council to consult
regarding the Muslim community’s wish to build a larger Islamic center accessible to
local believers and those from nearby districts. In January 2001, the Lodi commune
approved plans to build a 500 meters squared Centre for Islamic culture, which would
also house a prayer room.102 Despite this peaceful transaction between the Muslim
community and the town authorities, local residents soon began to express sporadic
complaints, many fearing that the value of their land would depreciate due to the
presence of a mosque in such proximity.103
The complaints gradually grew into a full-fledged campaign of opposition
spearheaded by the local Lega Nord branch; what ensued was a barrage of public
demonstrations, petitions, and even calls for a referendum to halt construction of the
proposed Islamic Centre.104 The conflict soon began to take on symbolic dimensions,
and the mosque proposal, which had been intended as an unobtrusive and modest edifice,
was soon appropriated by conservative Italian factions as the microcosm for the larger
102
The land would remain municipal property, and the Muslim population would be responsible for the
construction costs and upkeep of the centre, paying a nominal fee to the commune each year
(Anna Triandafyllidou, “Religious Diversity and Multiculturalism in Southern Europe: The Italian
Mosque Debate,” Multiculturalism, Muslims and Citizenship: A European Approach, ed. Tariq Modood,
Anna Triandafyllidou, and Ricard Zapata-Barrero (Routledge: London, 2006) 123).
103
Saint-Blancant and Schmidt di Friedberg. “Why are Mosques a Problem,” 1087.
104
Triandafyllidou, “Religious Diversity and Multiculturalism in Southern Europe,” 130.
Tardioli 36
danger presented by an “Islamic invasion,”105 in which the “purity”106 of Italian culture
and identity were at risk of being diluted.
A similar scenario was repeated in 2006 in the Tuscan town of Colle di Val
D’Elsa, when the local mayor Paolo Brogioni approved plans to build an Islamic Cultural
Centre on local land. Brogioni observed that the town’s Muslims were citizens and
members of the community, and that isolating them would only cause more friction.
Local objectors to his plans actually went as far as branding the Town Council’s decision
as “undemocratic” for what they saw as a move to place the needs of the immigrant
Muslim minority before those of the “native” majority.107 As aptly summarized by
Chantal Saint Blancant and Fabio Perocco, “whichever strategy Muslims adopt,
withdrawal or public visibility, they are accused of being “external” to and
“incompatible” with Italian society.”108
Fear of public safety was also a particularly recurrent theme among Colle di Val
D’Elsa’s protestors; one local resident explicitly expressed her distrust of mosques as a
breeding ground for potential terrorists, and stated that in light of the attacks of 9/11 and
the London Subway Bombings of 2005, it was “only human” to be afraid of Muslims.109
Such attitudes are perpetuated by the endemic depiction of mosques as a veritable “den of
wolves” by the Italian media. For example, Magdi Allam, an Egyptian journalist raised
in Italy, has branded the move to build more prayer spaces as a superfluous “mosquemania.” Citing instances of “normal” Muslim men roused into acts of violent
Saint-Blancant and Schmidt di Friedberg. “Why are Mosques a Problem,” 1089.
Triandafyllidou, “Religious Diversity and Multiculturalism in Southern Europe,” 130.
107
“Mosque Plans Bring Controversy to Tuscan Town,” YouTube 2006, 22 Mar. 2007.
108
Chantal Saint-Blancant and Fabio Perocco, “New Modes of Social Interaction in Italy: Muslim Leaders
and Local Society in Tuscany and Venetia,” European Muslims and the Secular State, ed. Jocelyne Cesari
and Séan McLoughlin (Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2005) 101.
109
“Mosque Plans Bring Controversy to Tuscan Town,” YouTube 2006, 22 Mar. 2007.
105
106
Tardioli 37
martyrdom, Allam warns that “it is a fact that inside some mosques there is brainwashing
occurring which transforms humans into robots of death.”110 Such ominous statements
merely feed into the existing moral panic surrounding Islam by recourse to a “logic of
suspicion”111 in which all Muslims are branded as potential terrorists in need of
quarantine and control.
An additional argument against mosques is that their proliferation is in fact a
misplaced priority on the part of Italian authorities and the Muslim community alike; as
many Muslims barely speak Italian, are unfamiliar with the nation’s culture, and know
nothing about the “founding values of Italian society,” the emphasis should be placed on
education and integration rather than on the creation of new prayer spaces.112 This
narrow conclusion not only strikingly ignores the presence of Italian converts who are
also entitled to a place of worship, it also disregards the pivotal role that Islamic cultural
centers can play in the social and cultural integration of immigrants. Instead of
dismissing mosques as sites of dangerous dissent, Italians should perhaps attempt to join
in partnership with local Muslim community leaders to fully harness the mosque’s
potential as “a place of dialogue and an opportunity for intercultural exchange within a
tolerant, democratic and respectful environment.113
Unfortunately, a most problematic attitude is the continuous association of
mosques with radical Islam and fundamentalist violence, a stereotype which is bolstered
at the highest levels of government. For example, in 2005, the Interior Ministry stated
Magdi Allam, “Moschea-mania, serve uno stop,” Corriere della sera.it 29 Sept. 2005, 8 Nov. 2007
http://www.corriere.it/Primo_Piano/Cronache/2005/09_Settembre/29/moschee.shtml
111
Stuart Hall, Representation: Cultural Representation and Signifying Practices (London: Sage, 1997)
page not specified. As cited in Saint-Blancant and Perocco,“New Modes of Social Interaction in Italy:
Muslim Leaders and Local Society in Tuscany and Venetia,” 101.
112
Magdi Allam, “Moschea-mania, serve uno stop,” Corriere della sera.it 29 Sept. 2005, 8 Nov. 2007
http://www.corriere.it/Primo_Piano/Cronache/2005/09_Settembre/29/moschee.shtml
113
“Mosque Plans Bring Controversy to Tuscan Town,” YouTube 2006, 22 Mar. 2007.
110
Tardioli 38
that the newly created Islamic Council was aimed at “moderate Muslims who attend
neither mosques, nor madrassas nor Islamic Cultural Centers, and who only came to our
countries to improve their living conditions and with the sincere intention to respect our
law and order.”114 This statement alone alludes to an unsound and narrow logic, under
which moderate or “good” Muslims do not frequent mosques, and Muslims who attend
mosques do not respect the nation’s laws. Unfortunately, such judgments will persist as
long as the Italian State neglects to adopt an “interactive […] two way process” of
integration, and continues its circumscribed imposition of cultural assimilation.115
The ongoing debate surrounding the role of mosques in Italian society is
undoubtedly part of a larger concern over the legitimate and rightful place of the Islamic
tradition in the West. Yet this debate has also created an unprecedented challenge for
Italians: that of reconsidering the place that “should be given to ‘Otherness’ without
alienating the ‘Self,’”116 a question whose potential answers are proving to be far from
clear cut as the very notions of identity and belonging, in fact, the very concepts of “Self”
and “Other” continue to shift, evolve and even merge.
VIII. Islam, Inclusion and Popular Television
As technological advances continue to bring people from disparate cultural and economic
backgrounds into contact, the Internet has most certainly become a playing field in which
national identities and political allegiances are simultaneously reaffirmed and challenged.
In recent years, the YouTube website has emerged as a veritable “public forum” for
Laurence, “Knocking on Europe’s Door: Islam in Italy,” 6.
Modood, “Introduction: The Politics of Multiculturalism in the New Europe,” 24.
116
Amiraux, “Discrimination and Claims for Equal Rights amongst Muslims in Europe,” 28.
114
115
Tardioli 39
popular access to cultural and political discourse, 117 yet as a novel online phenomenon,
its full implications as a site for social engagement have yet to be mined by cultural
critics. In less than a few years since its inception, YouTube has provided the diaspora
Italian population, as well as other ethnic, religious and political groups, with a hitherto
inaccessible exposure to current national political dialogue, transcending limitations of
distance by creating an online “community of concern” and facilitating an exchange of
information and ideas on topics that are socially pertinent to Italy and Italians, a
testament to the fundamental role that the New Media is playing within the post-modern
cultural milieu.
Yet, in connecting Italian ex-patriots or descendants living abroad to the sociopolitical scene in Italy, the unchecked transaction of cultural and intellectual capital that
occurs through YouTube also serves to transmit and perpetuate many of the prejudices
and misconceptions that permeate the Italian social context, particularly in relation to
Islam and Muslims. It is for this reason that examining video clips from Italian news-talk
shows which have been uploaded onto YouTube is essential for identifying the manner
through which sensationalized headlines are exploited to create a rhetoric of exclusion,
and most importantly, how the hitherto localized ideas about the “Islamic menace” in
Italy are now being disseminated on a transnational scale through the online community.
The first series of YouTube clips which will be examined are from a segment of
the political commentary Controcorrente entitled “Islam Italia: Hijab and Niqab.”118
This episode is intended as an “undercover” look at life behind the veil in Italy. A hidden
The “YouTube Debate” held by American Democratic Congressmen in 2007 was the first official large
scale initiative to engage voters through the Internet medium (“US Democrats hold YouTube Debate,” BBC
News 24 Jul. 2007, 8 Aug. 2007 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6912406.stm).
118
Titles translated from the Italian. Please refer to the Appendix for the full URLs for all YouTube video
clips.
117
Tardioli 40
camera follows a Somali woman accompanied by an Iraqi man who pretends to be her
husband; their identities are not revealed. Viewers are told that the woman does not
usually veil, she is donning the full niqāb in public to record the reactions of everyday
Italians. The report begins with a quick flash of opinion from an Italian woman stating,
“If they come to Italy, they have to follow our laws.” Her words are quickly juxtaposed
with those of a Muslim man who diligently says that “it’s not the Italian law, but the law
of Allah” which presumably matters.119 The opening scene thus immediately sets the
mood as one of conflict between an Italian public assailed by intransigent Muslim
foreigners.
Along with the “undercover” footage, a reporter intermittently solicits the
opinions of passersby. For the most part, attitudes range from pity to outright dislike; a
young Italian woman claims she would run away if she were forced to live “without an
identity,” and an older woman states that Muslims need to remove their veil if they want
to integrate.120 The woman wearing the niqāb meets a number of obstacles due to her
conspicuously Islamic attire: she is falsely told that a housing tenement has no vacancies,
and alerted by a police officer that her concealed face will be a problem were she to enter
a government building. The reporter then approaches a group of Muslim men on the
topic of hijāb. The general mood is presented as being one of defiance; one man angrily
states his contempt for Italy’s scantily clad females, and asserts that the hijāb should be
worn by all women.121 Save for a few brief instances,122 the Islamic community in Italy
“Islam Italia: hijab e niqab. Controcorrente, Parte 1.”
“Controcorrente, Parte 1.”
121
“Controcorrente, Parte 2.”
122
A “moderate” Imam visited by the Muslim “couple” advises them that the full niqāb may be too much
for Italian society to handle, and should therefore not be worn for the sake of integration (“Controcorrente,
Parte 4”).
119
120
Tardioli 41
is generally presented in the same way—a contingent of irrational, cloistered and
unyielding immigrants, whose existence is marked by the desire to assert their cultural
and religious superiority by resisting integration.
The second half of the program is dedicated to two guest commentators, politician
Gabriela Santanchè, who, as already covered in Section IV of this paper, is strictly
opposed to what she views as the hijāb’s oppressive nature, and sociologist Dr. Stefano
Allievi, who accurately observes that the Islam captured on camera is not representative
of Italy’s diverse Muslim population, and that the West’s preoccupation with the veil
does not account for the diversity of Islamic practices and beliefs.123 Allievi points out
that many women personally choose to don a form of veil; attempts by non-Muslims to
determine whether the hijāb and niqāb are legitimate religious symbols actually
constitute a violation of the Muslim woman’s right to practice her faith.124 In contrast,
Santanchè firmly stands by her conviction that the veil is a symbol of the impurity and
inferiority of women, and at the base of the endemic human rights violations that occur in
the Islamic world, calling for “an Islam that is moderate, reformed and accepting” in
which women have the “intellectual opportunity to choose.”125
It is ironic that, although Daniela Santanchè ostensibly wants to furnish Muslim
women with the power to choose or reject the veil, she is ultimately limiting them by a
series of a priori judgments; veiling is a practice which she denounces as categorically
backward and incompatible with Italian culture and civility. For a segment that claims to
shed light upon the situation of Muslims in Italy, the Islamic actor is remarkably
“Controcorrente, Parte 4.”
“Controcorrente, Parte 5.”
125
“Controcorrente, Parte 5.”
123
124
Tardioli 42
underrepresented in this episode of Controcorrente; other than the “undercover” couple
and the mostly nameless faces captured on camera, not a single Muslim intellectual,
Italian convert, or other member of Italy’s diverse Muslim lay community appears to
have been in any way consulted. While Dr. Stefano Allievi attempts to provide an
alternative voice to Santanchè’s polemic, his observations are eclipsed by the
sensationalized footage the show began with, one which does little to alleviate the
pervasive fear of Islam and Muslims as uncompromising, hostile and alien.
The second series of YouTube clips are from an episode of the political talk show
Porta a Porta, entitled “Islam, Stoning, Hijab and Apostasy.” Host Bruno Vespa
mediates a panel of commentators comprised of various political, religious and leading
intellectual figures. At the centre of the debate is Sarah Orabi, a nineteen year old girl of
Egyptian parentage studying to become a doctor. Sarah wears the hijāb, and states that
the veil is “her identity,” her protection; she does not recognize herself without it.126 In
contrast to Sarah, and as proof that Muslims can indeed integrate without the socially
stifling weight of the veil, the audience is introduced to former Miss Italia contestant
Dunya, a girl of Moroccan descent who is the same age as Sarah. Dunya does not veil,
and while she respects females that choose to do so, she does not believe that the hijāb
brings security. Despite her education and fluent Italian, elements which should point to
an active membership in Italian civic society, Sarah is not viewed as “integrated” because
of her attachment to the “oppressive” practice of veiling. Aside from her few initial
comments, Dunya does not speak much throughout the rest of the show, but the message
her presence relates is clear enough: she is an exemplary and well adjusted Muslim
within a formula that reduces integration to a bare head and tight jeans.
126
“Porta a Porta: Islam, lapidazione, hijab e apostasia, Parte 1,” YouTube 2006, 12 Mar. 2007.
Tardioli 43
Thus is the veil quickly assigned its usual role as the author of all wrongs;
notwithstanding panelist Imam Dr. Ali Abu Shwaima’s clear opposition to parents who
force the hijāb on their daughters, journalist Carlo Panella describes the veiled woman as
an “eternal minor” who is unable to “manage her sexuality.”127 When challenged on the
topic of stoning, Sarah attempts to indicate that this punishment also existed within the
Biblical tradition, a fact that most Italians are not aware of.128 Despite her attempts to
indicate that certain practices currently abandoned by secular Europe were originally
present within all the Abrahamic faiths, Sarah’s observations are either derided or
dismissed, and her defense of Islam is cast as a symptom of fear, not true conviction.
The debate quickly turns to the tragic murder of Hina Salem, a Pakistani girl living in
Italy who was killed by her father for rebelling against the hijāb and dating an Italian
man. While Dr. Abu Shwaima condemns this horrible act of vigilante violence, Hina’s
murder is cast as manifest proof of all that is flawed with Islamic culture and mentality.
Within the show’s trajectory of narration, the veil becomes the fons et origo of all such
acts of extremism, implying that “everything from veiling to murder is an expression of
just one thing: male violence against women”129 under Islamic law.
For all its preoccupation with the rights of Muslim females, this segment of Porta
a Porta, and others like it, does not address any of the systemic logistical problems that
often prevent immigrant Muslim women from participating in Italian society, such as a
lack of mobility in immigrant enclaves where transportation amenities are not up to
“Porta a Porta: Parte 2.”
“Porta a Porta: Parte 4.”
129
Freedman,“Women, Islam and Rights in Europe,” 43.
127
128
Tardioli 44
par,130 the lack of venues for the fostering of “mutual knowledge,”131 and most
importantly, the deeply ingrained fallacy which equates “practicing Muslims” with
“fundamentalists hostile to the host society.”132
What this episode of Porta a Porta fails to convey is that any co-operation
between Muslims and other Italians will only be fruitful if the lines of communication are
freed from prejudices and presuppositions, and if all elements of the Islamic community
are welcomed into the debate. The fact that the vibrant circle of Italian converts is never
included in such television programs speaks to the desire of maintaining a onedimensional representation of Islam in which all those defending it are foreign faces; an
exclusion which only promotes fear, misunderstanding and division, and ultimately
undermines any potential for reciprocal consideration and partnership.
IX.
Islam and (Italian) Identity — Situating Italian Multiculturalism(s)
In recent years, the debate surrounding Islam and Europe has by and large become a
veritable “ideological battlefield,”133 often dominated by absolutist and essentialist
currents. As examined in the previous section, imagery and rhetoric propagated via print
and electronic mediums have perpetuated the bipolar worldview of humanity locked in an
eternal confrontation between the forces of civilization and barbarity, with a renewed
emphasis placed on safeguarding the cultural integrity of Western existence against its
Giuliana Candia, “Recognition of Islam in European Municipalities: Islam and Social Participation in
Rome,” Migration Letters 2.3 (2005): 357.
131
Candia, “Recognition of Islam in European Municipalities,” 357.
132
Candia, “Recognition of Islam in European Municipalities,” 357.
133
Zemni, “Islam, European Identity and the Limits of Multiculturalism,” 1
130
Tardioli 45
Islamic “enemy.” The eye of the storm is occupied by the very notion of “identity,” a
subject which continues to both unite and divide people in its defense.
While the elusive nature of “identity” has often rendered its classification
difficult, social theorists have attempted to transcend this ambiguity with tentative
definitions. Cultural critic Stuart Hall observes that within the classical sociological
model, identity is seen as “formed in the ‘interaction’ between self and society.”134 This
transaction between the “inside” and the “outside” was disrupted by the structural
changes which occurred in late modernity; as such, for the post-modern subject, the
“process of identification has become open-ended, variable and problematic.”135 As a
function of identity, “culture” is an equally nebulous concept, possessing an “infinite
plasticity”136 with no definitive boundaries.
In the twenty-first century, the nation state remains one of the foremost
depositories for “cultural identity.” Yet this allegiance is not borne of an innate unity; it
is instead based primarily on a constructed reality which has been viewed as a “narrative
of the nation,” a series of shared “histories […] symbols and […] experiences” which
represents the collective national memory.137 Within the Italian context, this national
“essence” is often referred to as Italianità—“Italian-ness” or “Italianity”—an “ethos”138
which is seen as binding Italians to one common and preordained polity, religion and
culture. To this end, the concept of Italianità also lends itself to a totalizing discourse
Stuart Hall, “The Question of Cultural Identity,” Modernity and its Futures, ed. Stuart Hall,
David Held and Tony McGrew (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992) 276.
135
Hall, “The Question of Cultural Identity,” 277.
136
S. Ayse Caglar, “Hyphenated Identities and the Limits of Culture,” The Politics of Multiculturalism in
the New Europe: Racism Identity and Community, ed. Tariq Modood and Pnina Werbner (London: Zed
Books, 1997) 179.
137
Hall, “The Question of Cultural Identity,” 293.
138
Nicola Mai, “Myths and Moral Panics: Italian Identities and the Media Representation of Albanian
Immigration,” The Politics of Recognizing Difference: Multiculturalism Italian Style, ed. Ralph Grillo and
Jeff Pratt (Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2002) 92.
134
Tardioli 46
through which Italy’s “evolving and fractured”139 trajectory is masked by the mythical
façade of the Italian State.
In his examination of the Risorgimento,140 Jeff Pratt observes that prior to Italian
unification in 1861, the term “Italy” was barely considered a distinct “geographical
expression” by many European political and intellectual figures. The famous phrase
“Now we have made Italy, we need to make Italians,”141 is a testament to the
heterogeneity of the Italian peninsula, a territory inhabited by people with numerous
linguistic and cultural traditions, whose primary allegiance was to local kinship ties rather
than to any central national authority. The formation of a specific “Italian cultural
identity” was an exogenous process that arguably occurred within the Italian diaspora in
the twentieth century, and was actually introduced to Italy by returning migrants.142
Italy’s (self)-identification as an autonomous socio-political and cultural entity is
therefore a relatively new conception.
The question of Italianità also continues to be informed by the nation’s
longstanding North/South divide; the regions South of Rome have long been regarded as
culturally and politically inferior by Northerners.143 Ralph Grillo points out that Italy’s
current rejection of immigrants from the “global South” can in many respects be
compared to this historic disavowal of Southern Italians by the North,144 a perpetual
exclusion of both the internal and the external “Other” from the narrative of Italian
Jeff Pratt, “Italy: Political Unity and Cultural Diversity,” The Politics of Recognizing Difference:
Multiculturalism Italian Style, ed. Ralph Grillo and Jeff Pratt (Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing Limited,
2002) 25.
140
The Risorgimento or “Resurgence” was a nineteenth century movement for Italian unification.
141
Massimo D’Azeglio, quoted in Pratt, “Italy: Political Unity and Cultural Diversity,” 26.
142
Ralph Grillo, “Immigration and the Politics of Recognizing Difference in Italy,” The Politics of
Recognizing Difference: Multiculturalism Italian Style, ed. Ralph Grillo and Jeff Pratt (Hampshire: Ashgate
Publishing Limited, 2002) 11.
143
Mai, “Myths and Moral Panics,” 91.
144
Grillo,“Immigration and the Politics of Recognizing Difference in Italy,” 11.
139
Tardioli 47
purity. In this vein, the illusion of Italianità may have engendered “a sort of collective
amnesia [which] has swallowed up the knowledge of the complexity of the society itself.
The residual imagery serves only to create boundaries between newcomers and the host
society.”145 Within the paradigm of “Italian-ness,” the “identity of nationals is defined
against the otherness of foreigners,”146 thus materializing a “cultural anxiety”147 in which
national identity has to be constantly proven and protected.
As a country forged through the political union of several disparate ethnic groups,
Italy is certainly a bona fide example of the fact that “modern nations are all cultural
hybrids.”148 As such, in considering the multidimensional reality of Italian customs and
practices, I contend that immigrants cannot be seen as disrupting a cultural standard
which has always been in the process of reinvention, a tradition which has never actually
possessed a uniform expression. Conversely, the Muslim presence is particularly
problematic to the Italian subconscious because it interrupts the illusory and precarious
foundation of homogeneity upon which the centralized Italian State has been built. At
present, the limited discourse of Italianità has been appropriated by conservative factions
to “legitimize certain discriminatory practices,”149 and “deny multicultural citizenship
rights for immigrant communities.”150 How well these rights can actually be safeguarded
Vanessa Maher, “Immigration and Social Identities,” Italian Cultural Studies: an Introduction, ed. D.
Forgacs and R. Lumley (Oxgord, Oxford University Press, 1996) 168.
146
Balibar, “We, the People of Europe,” 50.
147
Grillo, “Immigration and the Politics of Recognizing Difference in Italy,” 23.
148
Hall, “The Question of Cultural Identity,” 297.
149
Sami Zemni and Christopher Parker, “Islam, the European Union, and the Challenge of
Multiculturalism,” Islam, Europe’s Second Religion: The New Social, Cultural and Political Landscape,
ed. Shireen T. Hunter (Westport. Praeger Publishers, 2002) 236.
150
Anna Triandafyllidou, Tariq Modood and Ricard Zapata-Barrero, “European Challenges to
Multicultural Citizenship: Muslims, Secularism and Beyond,” Multiculturalism, Muslims and
Citizenship: A European Approach, ed. Tariq Modood, Anna Triandafyllidou, and Ricard Zapata-Barrero
(Routledge: London, 2006) 13.
145
Tardioli 48
within the framework of “multiculturalism” has also been the subject of increasing
debate.
In recent years, social critics have pointed to a striking disconnect between
“multicultural theory” and its actual relevance within our “globalized” world. A major
criticism is that multiculturalism “fails to problematise the grounds on which different
collectivities are recognized.”151 Though long tagged as a panacea for all the woes of the
new cosmopolitan society, social theorists have argued that the “difference
multiculturalism” prevailing in past years served to reify “cultures as separate entities by
overemphasizing their boundedness and mutual distinctness.”152 What Italian society is
in need of are social policies inspired by a form of “critical multiculturalism,” under
which culture “becomes dynamic and open instead of the fixed property of particular
ethnic groups.”153
Regardless, until the chasm between theory and praxis is bridged, the integral
distinctions between “difference” and “critical” multiculturalism will remain little more
than a matter of semantics. It is hoped that the years to come will witness the creation of
“alternative public spheres,”154 in which culture and identity will be recognized for what
they are: “always […] incomplete […] always ‘in process’ […] always ‘being
formed.’”155
Caglar, “Hyphenated Identities and the Limits of Culture,” 178.
Terence Turner, “Anthropology and Multiculturalism: What is Anthropology that Multiculturalists
Should be Mindful of It?” Cultural Anthropology 8.4 (1993): 412.
153
Turner, “Anthropology and Multiculturalism,”419.
154
Triandafyllidou at al. “European Challenges to Multicultural Citizenship,”13.
155
Hall, “The Question of Cultural Identity,” 287.
151
152
Tardioli 49
X.
Conclusion: Towards a New Expression of Italianità?
Possibilities for Trans-Cultural Citizenship
If the relationship between the State and its citizens can be discussed in terms of a
contractual agreement, then the construction of Italianità as a predestined marker for
cultural legitimacy has locked all Italians into a “cultural contract” of sorts “whose terms
[they] can never negotiate for themselves.”156 As previously discussed, Italianità has
become a rubric against which the cultural authenticity of the “Other” is arbitrarily
measured; “Italian-ness” is now the confined stage upon which all immigrants are forced
to perform. Yet this “identity dilemma” is not only the concern of the
extracommunitario, or foreigner; the “autochthonous” Italian subject is also forced to
maneuver around the limitations imposed on him by such a restrictive archetype.
Within an environment of such entrenched religious and social conventions, the
term “Italian Muslim” may appear to be somewhat of an oxymoron. However, in recent
years, the country’s “native” converts have not only become proactive agents in the
redefinition of what it means to be Italian, but are also serving as a much needed
interlocutor between the immigrant Muslim community and the general public.
Now in his late fifties, Roberto Hamza Piccardo has been an active member of the
Islamic community in Italy since the 1970’s. After a long tenure as secretary of the
UCOII,157 Piccardo continues to blend his Muslim faith with social activism by protesting
against the American occupation of Iraq, and calling for the Italian State and Muslims
alike to work towards the integration of Islam within Italian society.158 Far from giving
Balibar, “We, the People of Europe,” 40.
For a brief description of UCOII see footnote 85.
158
“Intrevista a Roberto Hamza Piccardo, segretario nazionale dell’UCOII,” PeaceReporter.net 7 Feb.
2005, 29 Jul. 2007 http://www.peacereporter.net/dettaglio_articolo.php?idart=1272
156
157
Tardioli 50
credence to stereotypes which paint Islam as a separatist force, Piccardo espouses the
firm belief that “religion should be lived in a communitarian manner: not only practiced
with one’s own group, but also developing an equal pathway with others.”159 To
Picccardo, the perceived incompatibility between Islam and Italianità is nonexistent: “I
am strongly Italian and strongly Muslim. I have an Italian culture and an Islamic faith.”160
Davide Santoro began to research Islam and its teachings through the Tavolo
interreligioso di Roma.161 After several years of study, the teenager converted
independently, a decision based on his acceptance of Islamic thought and practice. A
regular at Rome’s Centocelle Mosque, Davide has already begun to raise awareness
about his newfound faith by translating Islamic pamphlets from English into Italian, and
to assist in the development of community life by reciting parts of the Italian sermon
during Friday Prayers. His active role within the Muslim ummah has landed him the
sobriquet Piccolo Imam, or “Small Imam.”162
As Italians who have chosen the path of Islam, Hamza Piccardo and Davide
Santoro are rejecting the “negative characteristics of essentialism, closure and conflict”
inherent within a “‘rooted’ identity based on ethnicity and nationalism.”163 By refusing
to see their religious adherence as undermining their national allegiance, they are
“Integrazione: Roberto Hamza Piccardo,” Citta di Torino: Servizio Telematico Pubblico 2005, 5 Aug.
2007 http://www.comune.torino.it/treguaolimpica/youngwords/contenuti/contributi/int_piccardo.pdf
160
“Io sono fortemente italiano e fortemente mussulmano. Ho una cultura italiana e una fede islamica.”
(“Islam Italia Albenga,” YouTube 2006, 22 Mar. 2007).
161
The Tavolo interreligioso di Roma, or “Inter-religious Roundtable of Rome,” is an educational initiative
spearheaded by the City of Rome to encourage dialogue and awareness between various faith-groups
(“Tavolo Interreligioso,” Città Educativa di Roma 10 Aug. 2007
http://www.cittaeducativa.roma.it/ce/archivio/religione-arte-letteratura-lingue/religione/tavolointerreligioso).
162
“Small Imam/Piccolo Imam,” YouTube 2007, 22 May 2007.
163
Stephen May, Tariq Modood and Judith Squires, “Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Minority Rights:
Charting the Disciplinary Debates,” Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Minority Rights, ed. Stephen May, Tariq
Modood and Judith Squires (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004) 10.
159
Tardioli 51
asserting a revolutionary “trans-cultural citizenship,” and rewriting the very definition of
Italianità.164
In addition, Italian Muslims are also actively involved in what Swiss Islamic
theologian Tariq Ramadan has termed as the “Europeanization of Islam,”165 a process
whereby a new Euro-Islamic culture may be forged based on the “universal values” of
both parties.166 Consistent with this theory is his belief that integration should not just
occur on a social level, but also on the “philosophical”167 plane, owing to the moral
vision of justice and democracy that essentially unites all humanity.168 Unfortunately, as
the Muslim subaltern continues to occupy the role of scapegoat for the failures of the
international political establishment, so too is Islam itself “reduced to a penal code,
stripped of its humanism, aesthetics, intellectual quests and spiritual devotion.”169
While current political conflicts may appear to be a repetition of the age-old
patterns of confrontation between Islam and the West, we have undoubtedly arrived at a
critical juncture in the history of Islamic/Western relations. Though some may wish to
continue ostracizing Muslims from involvement in Italian civic life, they cannot do so
without the realization that the line between “Muslim” and “Italian” has been irrevocably
164
While this paper has generally focused on Muslims who are actively devout, it should be remembered
that up to 30% of Italy’s Islamic population identifies as “non-practicing,” and only 50% attends a mosque
regularly (Daniel Williams, “Immigrants Keep Islam- Italian Style,” Washington Post 24 Jul. 2004, 29 Jun.
2007 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10096-2004Jul23.html). For them, following the
Pillars of Islam is not a daily concern, just as the Sacraments are not entirely relevant for most of Italy’s
“non-practicing” Catholics.
165
The “Europeanization of Islam” should not be confused with the “Islamization of Europe,” a prospect
which is used by the media and conservative factions to incite fear and hatred of Islam.
166
Tariq Ramadan, “Europeanization of Islam or Islamization of Europe?” Islam, Europe’s Second
Religion: The New Social, Cultural and Political Landscape, ed. Shireen T. Hunter (Westport. Praeger
Publishers, 2002) 209, 213.
167
Ramadan, “Europeanization of Islam or Islamization of Europe,” 212.
168
“Integrazione: Tariq Ramadan, docente di filosofia e islamologia,” Citta di Torino: Servizio Telematico
Pubblico 2005, 5 Aug. 2007
http://www.comune.torino.it/treguaolimpica/youngwords/contenuti/contributi/int_ramadan.pdf
169
Edward Said, “The Clash of Ignorance,” The Nation 22 Oct 2001, 15 Dec. 2007
http://www.thenation.com/doc/200111022/said
Tardioli 52
blurred. To this end, it will not be enough to simply “allocate a space for the ‘other,’” we
must also “accept the transformations that the cultural contacts and cultural interchanges
with the ‘other’ may cause.”170
The re-articulation of Italian identity which this paper has called for is therefore
not a mere theoretical proposal; it is the awareness of a tangible actuality which is already
occurring, and which needs to be accounted for as we “reflect, examine, sort out what we
are dealing with in reality, the interconnectedness of innumerable lives, ‘ours’ as well as
‘theirs.’”171
Marranci, “Multiculturalism, Islam and the Clash of Civilizations Theory,” 116.
Edward Said, “The Clash of Ignorance,” The Nation 22 Oct 2001, 15 Dec. 2007
http://www.thenation.com/doc/200111022/said
170
171
Tardioli 53
Bibliography
Al-Qaradawi, Yusuf. The Lawful and the Permitted in Islam. Trans. Kamal El-Helbawy,
M. Moinudin and Seyed Shukry. Kuwait: International Islamic Federation of
Student Organizations, 1993.
Allam, Magdi. “Moschea-mania, serve uno stop.” Corriere della sera.it 29 Sept. 2005.
8 Nov. 2007
http://www.corriere.it/Primo_Piano/Cronache/2005/09_Settembre/29/moschee.shtml
Allievi, Stefano. “Islam in Italy.” Islam, Europe’s Second Religion: the New Social,
Cultural and Political Landscape. Ed. Shireen T. Hunter. Westport: Praeger
Publishers, 2002. 77-95.
---, Stefano. “Sociology of a Newcomer, Muslim Migration to Italy – Religious
Visibility, Cultural and Political Reactions.” Immigrants and Minorities 22.2
(2003): 141-154.
Amiraux, Valerie. “Discrimination and Claims for Equal Rights amongst Muslims in
Europe,” European Muslims and the Secular State. Ed. Jocelyne Cesari and Séan
McLoughlin. Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2005. 25-38.
Angel-Ajani, Asale. “The Racial Economies of Criminalization, Immigration, and
Policing in Italy.” Social Justice 30.3 (2003): 48-62.
Ariel, David. “Italy Opens Beach for Muslim Women.” The Sydney Morning Herald 11
Aug. 2006. 8 Jun. 2007 http://www.smh.com.au/news/italy/italy-opens-beachfor-muslim-women/2006/08/11/1154803064177.html
Asad, Talal. “Muslims and European Identity: Can Europe Represent Islam?” The
Idea of Europe: From Antiquity to the European Union. Ed. Anthony Pagden.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 209-227.
Balibar, Etienne. We, the People of Europe: Reflections on Transnational Citizenship.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004.
Bauman, Zigmunt. “Soil, Blood and Identity.” The Sociological Review 40.4 (1992): 675701.
Betz, Hans-Georg and Carol Johnson. “Against the Current – Stemming the Tide: The
Nostalgic Ideology of the contemporary Radical Populist Right.” Journal of
Political Ideologies 9 (2004): 311-327.
Brown, Stephen. “UPDATE 1 – Italian PM: Muslims Should Not ‘Hide’ Behind Veil.”
Reuters 17 Oct. 2006. 10 Jun. 2007
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlebusiness.aspx?type=tnBusinessNews&storyI
D=nL17853569&from=business
Tardioli 54
Bullock, Katherine. Rethinking Muslim Women and the Veil: Challenging Historical &
Modern Stereotypes. Herndon: The International Institute on Islamic Thought,
2003.
Caglar, Ayse S. “Hyphenated Identities and the Limits of Culture.” The Politics
of Multiculturalism in the New Europe: Racism Identity and Community. Ed.
Tariq Modood and Pnina Werbner. London: Zed Books, 1997. 169-185.
Candia, Giuliana. “Recognition of Islam in European Municipalities: Islam and Social
Participation in Rome.” Migration Letters 2.3 (2005): 345-365.
Dachan, Nouri. “Documento presentato da Nour Dachan alla riunione della consulta
islamica del 7 Marzo 2006.” 7 Mar. 2006. 8 Nov. 2007
http://www.olir.it/areetematiche/pagine/documents/News_0622_DOCUMENTO
%20DACHAN.pdf
El Gundi, Fadwa. “Hijāb.” The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World. Ed.
John L. Esposito. 4 Vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Eltantawi, Sarah. “To Wear the Hijab or Not.” Counterpunch 14 Feb. 2004. 10 Dec.
2007 http://www.counterpunch.org/eltantawi02162004.html
Fallaci, Oriana. The Force of Reason. New York: Rizzoli International, 2004.
Ferrari, Silvio. “The Secularity of the State and the Shaping of Muslim Representative
Organizations in Western Europe.” European Muslims and the Secular State.
Ed. Jocelyne Cesari and Séan McLoughlin. Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing
Company, 2005. 11-23.
Freedman, Jane. “Women, Islam and Rights in Europe: Beyond a Universalist/Culturalist
Dichotomy.” Review of International Studies 33 (2007): 29-44.
Giordano, Benito. “A Place Called Padania? The Lega Nord and the Political
Representation of Northern Italy.” European Urban and Regional Studies 6
(1999): 215-230.
Grillo, Ralph. “Immigration and the Politics of Recognizing Difference in Italy.” The
Politics of Recognizing Difference: Multiculturalism Italian Style. Ed. Ralph
Grillo and Jeff Pratt. Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2002. 1-24.
Hall, Stuart. Represenation: Cultural Representation and Signifying Practices. London:
Sage, 1997.
---, Stuart. “The Question of Cultural Identity.” Modernity and its Futures. Ed.
Stuart Hall, David Held and Tony McGrew. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992. 273316.
Tardioli 55
Huntington, Samuel. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New
York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 1996.
“Integrazione: Roberto Hamza Piccardo.” Citta di Torino: Servizio Telematico Pubblico
2005. 5 Aug. 2007.
http://www.comune.torino.it/treguaolimpica/youngwords/contenuti/contributi/int_
piccardo.pdf
“Integrazione: Tariq Ramadan, docente di filosofia e islamologia.” Citta di Torino:
Servizio Telematico Pubblico 2005. 5 Aug. 2007
http://www.comune.torino.it/treguaolimpica/youngwords/contenuti/contributi/int_
ramadan.pdf
“Intrevista a Roberto Hamza Piccardo, segretario nazionale dell’UCOII.”
PeaceReporter.net 7 Feb. 2005. 29 Jul. 2007
http://www.peacereporter.net/dettaglio_articolo.php?idart=1272
“Introducing Caritas Europa.” Caritas Europa 26 Nov. 2007
http://www.caritas-europa.org/code/EN/abou.asp?Page=413#
Laurence, Jonathan. “Knocking on Europe’s Door: Islam in Italy.” The Brookings
Institution: Center on the United States and Europe (2006): 1-9.
Lewis, Bernard. Islam and the West. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Mai, Nicola. “Myths and Moral Panics: Italian Identities and the Media Representation of
Albanian Immigration.” The Politics of Recognizing Difference: Multiculturalism
Italian Style. Ed. Ralph Grillo and Jeff Pratt. Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing
Limited, 2002. 77-94.
Maher, Vanessa. “Immigration and Social Identities.” Italian Cultural Studies: An
Introduction. Ed. D. Forgacs and R. Lumley. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1996. 160-177.
“Manifesto dell’Islam d’Italia.” Consulta islamica d’Italia 7 Mar. 2006. 10 Nov. 2007
http://www.olir.it/areetematiche/pagine/documents/News_0622_MANIFESTO.pd
f
Marranci, Gabriele. “Multiculturalism, Islam and the Clash of Civilizations Theory:
Rethinking Islamophobia.” Culture and Religion 5.1 (2004): 105-117.
May, Stephen, Tariq Modood and Judith Squires. “Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Minority
Rights: Charting the Disciplinary Debates.” Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Minority
Rights. Ed. Stephen May, Tariq Modood and Judith Squires. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2004. 1-22.
Tardioli 56
McDonnell, Duncan. “A Weekend in Padania: Regionalist Populism and the Lega
Nord.” Politics 26.2 (2006): 126-132.
McGoldrick, Dominic. Human Rights and Religion: the Islamic Headscarf Debate in
Europe. Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2006.
Melotti, Umberto. “International Migration in Europe: Social Projects and Political
Cultures.” The Politics of Multiculturalism in the New Europe: Racism Identity
and Community. Ed. Tariq Modood and Pnina Werbner. London: Zed Books,
1997. 72-92.
Modood, Tariq. “Introduction: The Politics of Multiculturalism in the New Europe.”
The Politics of Multiculturalism in the New Europe: Racism Identity and
Community. Ed. Tariq Modood and Pnina Werbner. London: Zed Books, 1997.
1-25.
Modood, Tariq and Riva Kastoryano. “Secularism and the Accommodation of Muslims
in Europe.” Multiculturalism, Muslims and Citizenship: A European Approach.
Ed. Modood, Tariq, Anna Triandafyllidou, and Ricard Zapata-Barrero.
Routledge: London, 2006. 163-178.
Patel, David Siddhartha. “Concealing to Reveal, the Changing Informational Role of
Islamic Dress.” Working Paper, 22 Jan. 2006. 10 Dec. 2007
http://comparativepolitics.stanford.edu/Papers2005-06/Patel_27_Feb_06.pdf,
Perina, Flavia. “Musulmane in Italia: così vicine, così lontane.” Secolo d’Italia 8
Feb. 2006. 15 Sept. 2007
http://www.danielaSantanchè.com/upload/secoloitalia8_02.pdf
Popham, Peter. “After French Law on Muslim Headscarves, Italian Village Bans
the Burqa.” ProHijab.net 26 Sept. 2004. 17 Jun. 2007
http://www.prohijab.net/english/italy-hijab-news3.htm
Pratt, Jeff. “Italy: Political Unity and Cultural Diversity.” The Politics of Recognizing
Difference: Multiculturalism Italian Style. Ed. Ralph Grillo and Jeff Pratt.
Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2002. 25-39.
Ramadan, Tariq. “Europeanization of Islam or Islamization of Europe?” Islam,
Europe’s Second Religion: the New Social, Cultural and Political Landscape.
Ed. Shireen T. Hunter. Westport. Praeger Publishers, 2002. 207-218.
Roy, Olivier. L’Islam mondialisé. Paris: Seuil, 2001.
Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books, 1978.
Tardioli 57
---. “The Clash of Ignorance.” The Nation 22 Oct. 2001. 15 Dec. 2007
http://www.thenation.com/doc/200111022/said
Saint-Blancant, Chantal and Fabio Perocco. “New Modes of Social Interaction in Italy:
Muslim Leaders and Local Society in Tuscany and Venetia.” European Muslims
and the Secular State. Ed. Jocelyne Cesari and Séan McLoughlin. Hampshire:
Ashgate Publishing Company, 2005. 99-112.
Saint-Blancant, Chantal and Ottavia Schmidt di Friedberg. “Why are Mosques a
Problem? Local Politics and Fear of Islam in Northern Italy.” Journal of Ethnic
and Migration Studies 31.6 (2005):1083-1104.
Salih, Ruba. “Confronting Modernities: Muslim Women in Italy.” International Institute
for the Study of Islam in the Modern World Mar 2001: 1+32
http://www.isim.nl/files/newsl_7.pdf
Smith, Tamsin. “Italy’s Muslims Under Pressure.” BBC News 28 Sept. 2004. 29 Jul.
2007 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3696802.stm
---. “Italian Muslims Fear Crucifix Fallout.” BBC News 28 Oct. 2003. 5 Aug. 2007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3219551.stm
“Tavolo interreligioso.” Città Educativa di Roma 10 Aug. 2007
http://www.cittaeducativa.roma.it/ce/archivio/religione-arte-letteraturalingue/religione/tavolo-interreligioso
Triandafyllidou Anna, Tariq Modood and Ricard Zapata-Barrero. “European Challenges
to Multicultural Citizenship: Muslims, Secularism and Beyond.”
Multiculturalism, Muslims and Citizenship: A European Approach. Ed. Modood,
Tariq, Anna Triandafyllidou, and Ricard Zapata-Barrer. Routledge: London,
2006. 1-22.
Triandafyllidou, Anna. “Religious Diversity and Multiculturalism in Southern Europe:
The Italian Mosque Debate.” Multiculturalism, Muslims and Citizenship: A
European Approach. Ed. Modood, Tariq, Anna Triandafyllidou, and Ricard
Zapata-Barrero. Routledge: London, 2006. 117-142.
“US Democrats hold YouTube Debate.” BBC News 24 Jul. 2007. 8 Aug. 2007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6912406.stm
Turner, Terence. “Anthropology and Multiculturalism: What is Anthropology that
Multiculturalists Should be Mindful of It? Cultural Anthropology 8.4 (1993): 411429.
Yusuf Ali, Abdullah. The Qur’an—Text, Translation and Commentary. Maryland:
Amana Corporation, 1983.
Tardioli 58
Williams, Daniel. “Immigrants Keep Islam—Italian Style.” Washington Post 24 Jul.
2004. 29 Jun. 2007 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A100962004Jul23.html
Weeke, Stephan. “Italians Clash over Burqa: Small Town Resists Islamic Dress, Sets
Stage for Court Battle.” MSNBC.com 21 Sept. 2004. 4 Aug. 2007
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6062862/
Young, T. Cuyler. “The Cultural Contributions of Islam to Christendom.” The Muslim
World 35.2 (1945): 89-110.
Zemni, Sami and Christopher Parker. “Islam, the European Union, and the Challenge of
Multiculturalism.” Islam, Europe’s Second Religion: the New Social, Cultural
and Political Landscape. Ed. Shireen T. Hunter. Westport. Praeger Publishers,
2002. 231-244.
Zemni, Sami. “Islam, European Identity and the Limits of Multiculturalism.” Religious
Freedom and the Neutrality of the State: The Position of the European Union.
Ed. W. Shadid and P. Van Koningsveld. Leuven: Peeters, 2002. 158-173.
Tardioli 59
Appendix
“Fatwa Against Daniela Santanchè.” YouTube 2006. 28 Jan. 2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TdnDKdg5TA
“Islam Italia: hijab e niqab. Controcorrente, Parte 1.” YouTube 2007. 5 Mar. 2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSz_e0d0qtA
“Islam Italia: hijab e niqab. Controcorrente, Parte 2.” YouTube 2007. 5 Mar. 2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6uVgKVajQo
“Islam Italia: hijab e niqab. Controcorrente, Parte 3.”* YouTube 2007. 5 Mar. 2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4RHZdo1EQo
“Islam Italia: hijab e niqab. Controcorrente, Parte 4.” YouTube 2007. 5 Mar. 2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SMrH4schXc
“Islam Italia: hijab e niqab. Controcorrente, Parte 5.” YouTube 2007. 5 Mar. 2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnFB01bDzig
“Islam Italia: hijab e niqab. Controcorrente, Parte 6.” YouTube 2007. 5 Mar. 2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2vLc9_zLUc
“Islam Italia Albenga.” YouTube 2006. 22 Mar. 2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPCdS0umnOo
“Mosque Plans Bring Controversy to Tuscan Town.” YouTube 2006. 22 Mar. 2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGKUPlVp_lM
“Porta a Porta: Islam, lapidazione, hijab e apostasia, Parte 1.” YouTube 2006. 12 Mar.
2007 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISZk1EcDjmA&mode=related&search=
“Porta a Porta: Islam, lapidazione, hijab e apostasia, Parte 2.” YouTube 2006. 12 Mar.
2007 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSi4ThF9ETg&mode=related&search=
“Porta a Porta: Islam, lapidazione, hijab e apostasia, Parte 3.” YouTube 2006. 12 Mar.
2007 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_Y2t-m-E4s
“Porta a Porta: Islam, lapidazione, hijab e apostasia, Parte 4.” YouTube 2006. 12 Mar.
2007 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DchJGO8CvYs&mode=related&search=
“Porta a Porta: Islam, lapidazione, hijab e apostasia, Parte 5.” YouTube 2006. 12 Mar.
2007 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ye9uQ70aAUg&mode=related&search=
“Porta a Porta: Islam, lapidazione, hijab e apostasia, Parte 6.” YouTube 2006. 12 Mar.
2007 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxYEhYx7HIo&mode=related&search=
Tardioli 60
“Should the swimming pool open early for Muslim women?” YouTube 2007. 15 Apr.
2007 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZEQ1afD3Ao
“Small Imam/Piccolo Imam.” YouTube 2007. 22 May 2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZh1vT04oDs
* Part 2 of the Controcorrente segment overlaps with Part 3