Pia Hansen: Religious integration takes work, but it’s possible

I‘ve followed the community conversation about the groundbreaking for a mosque in Spokane. I don’t agree with the letter writer last week who pointed out that we’ll lose our American culture (however that’s defined) to an influx of Muslim immigrants and that diversity will make us weak.

I’m impressed by the commitment of the Muslim congregations who persevere in building places of worship where their faith is a tiny minority.

Yet I can’t shake a strange feeling of déjÀ vu.

It’s like I’ve heard it all before: Islam is a religion of peace; a mosque is a community center; Muslims reach out to their neighbors regardless of religious or political affiliation; people are encouraged to ask questions; everyone is welcome at the gatherings at the mosque.

This is absolutely the way it should be; it’s how we can share ideas and learn to respect one another. I firmly believe that different religions can coexist only when they show the utmost respect and humility toward one another.

The reason for my sense of déjÀ vu is probably that I just spent three weeks in Denmark, where the clash between traditionalist Muslim immigrants and loose-hanging Lutheran Danes is causing quite a cultural controversy.

Hate speech dominates the public debate in my old country. On both sides, ignorant and narrow minds are fed by stereotyping and lack of knowledge. In most cases, the days of outreach and potlucks are long gone and any real commun- ication is over.

Yet there’s absolutely no reason to point to one mosque being built in Spokane as the prelude to ethnic clashes of the severity you see in London or Copenhagen.

European countries have a state church that sets the main religious tone, whether you are a member or not. Most Europeans are not used to the level of religious diversity Americans typically tolerate. Circumstances surrounding immigration history are vastly different in Europe.

In the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, immigrants from the Middle East arrived in Denmark as guest workers. Times were fat in the welfare state, and “guest workers” were hired to do the jobs the rest of us didn’t want to do.

During that time terrorists were from the Irish Republican Army or the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Osama bin Laden was not making headlines yet, so Danes really had nothing to hold against Muslims other than their differences.

Ghettos soon formed – in the mid-‘80s, when some Danish inner-city schools featured more immigrant children than Danish-speaking children, I remember thinking someone should have called the United States for a few hints on how to deal with the racism that soon sprang up.

My last apartment in Copenhagen was on Noerrebro, a stone’s throw from the Youth House that was torn down during riots this spring. The traditionally blue-collar neighborhood already featured many Middle Eastern shops and coffeehouses when I left in ‘91.

At the time, I figured everything was going to be OK; peaceful coexistence was within reach, some assimilation would happen and the Danes’ tolerance of “foreign workers” would grow with exposure.

I was wrong.

Today, the ghettos are stronger than ever and the bus to my old neighborhood has been nicknamed The Baghdad Express.

The integration of Middle Eastern immigrants and Muslims has pretty much failed. Many Muslim immigrants don’t want to be integrated or assimilated into a Danish culture they consider “lesser” than their own for reasons such as alcohol consumption and promiscuity – and many Danes don’t want to accommodate a culture and religion they consider harshly oppressive and misogynistic.

Add the recent arrest of eight Muslim men with alleged links to al-Qaida terrorists and the lines are drawn, leaving no room for tolerance.

But peaceful coexistence is not doomed to fail in Spokane – or anywhere else for that matter – just because it has widely failed in Europe.

Now would be an excellent time to figure out how we can do things differently here. Perhaps now would be a good time to place a few calls to Europe.