Tartars and Arabs in Poland
I found a translation of an article in the Polish magazine Rzeczpospolita (meaning Republic) on a blog belonging to a Norwegian called Bjorn Staerk. The article is about a conflict between two groups of Muslims – immigrants and natives, the latter mostly of Tatar ancestry. Unfortunately the story being played out there seems to be much the same as the conflict facing Muslims in other parts of the western world.
The “Arab” and “fundamentalist” Muslims referred to in this piece seem to be Wahhabis, or people of Wahhabi tendency. For example, they insist that Muslims not join in their non-Muslim neighbours’ festivities or even give them greetings (I’m not talking about worship here; there is no disagreement that joining in that part is forbidden). The article also notes that young Polish converts tend towards the “Arab” Islam, believing that the Tatars’ practice “isn’t really entirely Islamic”.
This conflict isn’t limited to Poland. In the UK convert communities, particularly in inner-city areas, appear to have fallen prey to Wahhabi propaganda. I suspect that the sect’s popularity among the ethnic groups concerned have more to do with the tendency of people to “flock together” with those similar to them than with any appeal the sect itself might have. That said, people converting to Islam rightly see the religion as a belief system, not as Pakistani or other local custom, and may well have difficulty fitting into the established community, particularly if they do not speak their language – and more so if that is a foreign language.
The article draws attention to a another problem faced by Muslims in western as well as eastern Europe: the tendency to talk of minorities in ethnic rather than religious terms:
Bohoniki and Kryszyniany [villages in eastern Poland which have ancient mosques] come alive during Moslem holidays – bajrams [j is pronounced like y]. But there are fewer and fewer Tartars. They feel weaker and weaker. In the census, most declare themselves to be ethnic Poles, paradoxically, this deprives them of (government) funding because the budget (only) gives money to ethnic minorities, not religious ones.
I have personally been told by someone who ran an “Asian” youth session in west London that his scheme had to be “Asian” and not “Muslim”, because the local council would not give funding to a religiously-based minority. (He himself is an Afro-Carribean convert whose origins are in St Lucia!) I don’t suspect this to be a conspiracy against Islam or the Muslims, but it is perverse that the government lumps people together with those who share accidents of birth (ethnicity) rather than beliefs.
Some of the suggestions made by the Arabs are legitimate, such as for Muslim women to wear veils. Then again, it was traditional for women in eastern Europe to wear headscarves more or less identical to ours, although they may be referring to the black veils and robes. The latter is, of course, foreign to Poland, but there are ways of covering Islamically that do not look intimidating to others. It’s also a mistake to associate the black veil with Wahhabism – it’s traditional in many parts of the Muslim world where Wahhabism is not dominant, such as southern Yemen and parts of India and east Africa. But the superficial piety one can observe, the black veils and high trouser-legs, does not excuse the trouble and division (fitna, as the Arabs call it) in the community, setting youths against their own parents, and causing ructions on university campuses. I have heard reports of people having nervous breakdowns and having to drop out because of these people’s activities.
