Liberals frame Muslim presence in Europe through Enlightenment universalism versus romantic nativism

Evidence

Admittedly, there is no shortage of voices that respond to such anxieties with characteristic liberal optimism. They speak of the diverse linguistic and ethnic origins of Muslim immigrants and of the considerable variation in individual attachments to old traditions. There is little to fear from most immigrants—liberals say—and much more from the consequences of the higher unemployment and greater prejudice to which they are subjected. Muslims in Europe can be assimilated into Western society. Liberals maintain that it is only the extreme right for whom the presence of Muslims and Islam in Europe represents a potential cultural disaster, and that right-wing xenophobia is rooted in the romantic nativism it espouses, and consequently in its rejection of the universalist principles of the Enlightenment. In this as in other matters liberals stand for tolerance and an open society. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 773

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Liberal tolerance of reformed Islam coexists with nativist demands to end Islam itself — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 303