Conflict, Cultures and Religions: Islam in Europe as a Sign and Symbol of Change in European Societies

In this chapter I attempt to analyze some key-concepts (such as multiculturalism, globalization, identity, community, and pluralism) using the presence of Islam in the European public space as a case-study. Pluralism, or rather pluralization, is a determining concept in defining the new Europe being built: on the social, cultural and religious level plurality is no longer pathology, but physiology. To the point that the very idea of Nation-State that we have inherited seems no longer either explicative or representative, and perhaps not even descriptive of the social and institutional landscape of the various European countries. In this framework a kaleidoscope of cultures is taking shape, whose pieces (identities and cultural communities) are in continual movement and transformation, and of which European Islam is an important element, from both the statistical and symbolic point of view. This is however a presence with peculiar characteristics in respect to the Islam of the countries of origin: in particular because being a minority becomes a constitutive and transformational element. In this situation of ever greater pluralization and hence of inevitable confrontation, reactive identities and conflicts are developing to play a determining role in the designing of the map of European Islam, but also of Europe itself.