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Europe planning to rein in imams
With concern growing about radical Islam in their midst, governments in western Europe are debating how to ensure that Muslim prayer leaders preach in the local language and spread messages of moderation rather than hate.
  • The killing two weeks ago of film-maker Theo van Gogh, an outspoken critic of Islam, has prompted Dutch parliamentarians to call for a ban on foreign imams in future and for the local training of preachers committed to Western ideals of tolerance.

  • In Belgium, Flemish Interior Minister Marino Keulen wants obligatory civics and language courses for foreign-born imams, who are the vast majority there - as elsewhere in Europe - and mostly preach in Arabic.

  • France, frontrunner in the drive to develop a European Islam immune to fundamentalist rhetoric from the Middle East, told its Muslim leaders on Tuesday to come up with a plan soon for educating new generations of Western-thinking imams locally.
Muslim leaders complain that the silent majority of peaceful believers is suspect because of a tiny radical fringe. But most support this effort both to reassure their governments and to guard against radicals trying to woo their flocks astray. This focus on imams reflects a recognition across Europe that officials have long ignored the faith of their marginalised underclass and the influence some preachers could have. But they do know most imams are poorly educated immigrants and that some are trained and funded by Arab states to preach an ultra-conservative Islam that clashes with Western concepts of tolerance, equality and justice.

Despite its strict separation of church and state, France is aiming at a hybrid curriculum with imams-to-be learning their theology in private Islamic institutes while studying French history and law at the Sorbonne or other state universities. After the Van Gogh murder, the Dutch cabinet proposed shutting down mosques that preach hate. Van Gogh angered Muslims with his film Submission criticising Islam for its treatment of women. Keulen said Muslims there had been "coddled too much" and their imams must "speak our language and know how our society works". Italy's Interior Minister Guiseppe Pisanu recently hailed moderate Muslims as "natural allies in the war on terrorism". The Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people last March prompted Spain and several other European countries to look more closely at what was being said in their mosques. In July, Britain's Home Secretary David Blunkett said imams would soon have to pass a basic English test before being able to preach. He also wanted a civics test for them in future.
Posted by: Fred 2004-11-18
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=49085