Le Monde published video footage on its official Web site about the incident. In the footage, Hortefeux was standing next to a young party member of North African descent and who wanted to pose with the minister for a photo. The crowd around them began making jokes about "integration" and a woman from the party, referring to the young Amine Benalia-Brouch, says, "He's our little Arab." Another person tells the minister that he eats pork and drinks beer, and Hortefeux responds: “Ah, well that's no good then, he doesn't fit the stereotype at all, then. Not at all like that. All the better. You should always have one. When there's one of them, that's OK. It's when there's lots of them that you get problems. OK, good luck…” (Milliyet, Sept. 12, 2009).There was a similar incident in Austria in June. Interior Minister Maria Fekter had said: "All refugees in the country should be kept under control in a camp and they should be banned from leaving the boundaries set for them. Otherwise, they commit crimes.” (Radikal, June 22, 2009).
While the reactions of the French and Austrian interior ministers may seem different, they are essentially the same. The French minister's reaction is "cultural" while the Austrian minister's is "criminologic." Yet, both ministers imply that the problems they are referring to are basically caused by the failure of foreigners who came to Europe from outside -- these include those coming from colonies, immigrant workers and refugees -- to integrate with the Western society in addition to their behavior, which disturbs this society.
The cultures of societies consist of value judgments, the reference framework they adopt and their historical experiences. In this process, religion plays a major role. According to a study conducted on Turkish workers in Germany, the first thing that made the Turkish workers who went to this country in the 1960s become aware of their own identities was their encounter with pork. When they saw meals made from pork, they remembered that they were Muslims, and whether devout or not, they refrained from eating pork. Here we observe the important role played by religion.
Of course, societies influence each other, a natural and expected phenomenon. The current status of some African clans, which seem primitive to us, is mostly attributed to their isolation from the external world. There are several reasons for this. Sometimes extreme self-confidence or a sense of self-sufficiency may cause societies to sever their ties with the external world.
There are important reasons behind tension Europe is experiencing with foreigners. Some relate to historical and religious factors while others are connected to the level of socioeconomic welfare. Political and military factors that cause conflict and tension, too, can be added to this list. Yet there is a plain truth: In the past, European countries failed to develop multi-religious, multi-ethnic political structures -- contrary to what Muslim states did. When Protestantism emerged as an interpretation of Christianity different from Catholicism, wars and massacres followed. One-third of the continent's population lost its life in this process. During that time, there existed not only different sects of Islam, but also different religions under the rule of Muslim states. In a sense, what gave Islam its dynamism in history was its ability to develop multi-religious, multi-ethnic social models.
Today, there are two major problems facing the West: First, the West is extremely self-confident of its culture -- therefore enjoying the false belief that there is nothing it can learn from other societies; and second, the West does not care for the problems, famine or poverty other parts of the world as its tries to preserve its standard of life. Europe and more generally the West have responsibilities toward to non-Western world. They have to fulfill these responsibilities by opening to the external world and treating it as their equals.
