Resistance and Readiness

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Sep 27, 2012
by Louise Hallman and Marty Gecek
Resistance and Readiness

Four-day symposium in American Studies considers Immigration, Nativism and the Challenge of Ethnic and Religious Diversity in the US and Europe Today


In 2002, in a world still reeling from the recent terrorist attacks of September 11 2001, Americanists from all over the world came to Schloss Leopoldskron, Austria to address “The Continuing Challenge of America's Ethnic Pluralism”.  Ten years on, the Salzburg Seminar American Studies Association will again tackle the issues of race and ethnicity in the US and Europe. That earlier symposium focused mainly on general issues of race and ethnicity, the impact of then-recent immigrants and refugees in the US, and concern about mounting xenophobia in the USA in the immediate wake of “9/11.” On both sides of the Atlantic, tensions between Muslim and non-Muslim groups have grown in the past ten years since the cataclysmic Twin Towers attacks in regard to issues of migration, integration, and what some have called “the limits of tolerance.” Two major wars; further terrorist attacks in Madrid, London and Texas – all purportedly perpetrated by local or home-grown Islamic extremists; increasing legislation against the wearing of religious symbols such as the burqa, niqab, and hijab (traditional Muslim women’s full face veils and headscarf) in Belgium and France; and the use of planning laws to halt the building of mosques in the USA and Switzerland, have all contributed to a sense of uneasiness and distrust for some on both sides of the religious and ethnic divides. But it is not only anti-Muslim sentiment that has grown.  Over the past decade, Europe has seen not only a growth in immigration numbers from asylum seekers – most notable in places such as the controversial Sangatte refugee camp near Calais, France – but also with the increased migration within the EU since Directive 2004/38/EC on the right to move and reside freely was introduced; statistics from the American organization, Migration Policy Institute indicate that in 2010 there were 850,000 eastern Europeans living in the UK alone.  Although these economic migrants are European, their arrival in their new European homes has been met with hostility in some areas, with the Roma community particularly affected; Roma have been expelled from towns and cities in France and Northern Ireland, driven out either by the local authorities or, in the worst incidents, angry mobs. In the US too, there have been increases in legislation to curb immigration and to root out illegal immigrants already living in the country.  Controversial new laws have been proposed and enacted, most notably the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act in Arizona. Supporters of the law claim the Arizona measure simply allows police to question legal residency only after a person has been stopped on reasonable suspicion of another crime.  Its detractors have called it “an unconstitutional and costly measure that will violate the civil rights of all Arizonans,” with accusations of racial profiling and deliberate targeting of the local Latino community. It is against this backdrop of rising racial tensions that the ninth symposium held by the Salzburg Seminar American Studies Association on September 27-October 1, 2012 will again discuss these hot topics of race and ethnicity, but this time from a much more comparative perspective, looking at both the European and American experiences of immigration, nativism and the challenge of ethnic and religious diversity. Europe is threatened by a number of risks, claims a 2011 report by the Group of Eminent Persons of the Council of Europe.  ‘Living Together: Combing Diversity and Freedom in 21st Century Europe’ states rising intolerance and support for xenophobic and populist parties, along with discrimination, the development of parallel societies, and Islamic extremism, coupled with the loss of democratic freedoms and civil liberties – long held precious across liberal Western societies now in fear of “being swamped by an uncontrolled influx of immigrants and/or massacred by Islamic terrorists” – and a possible clash between “religious freedom” and freedom of expression have resulted from a growing sense of insecurity brought in part because of immigration, magnified by the distorted image of minorities and harmful stereotypes propagated in the media, and a crisis of leadership. Over the course of the four-day session, Fellows from across Europe and the US will discuss this paper – the threats and their proposed responses – together with a faculty including Farid Hafez, researcher and lecturer at the University of Vienna’s Department of Oriental Studies; Rob Kroes, former president of the European Association of American Studies; Berndt Ostendorf, Professor Emeritus of North American Cultural History at the America Institute of Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich; Rubén G. Rumbaut, Professor of Sociology at University of California – Irvine; noted local Americanist and Professor of Modern History at the University of Salzburg Reinhold Wagnleitner; as well as the report’s author, Salzburg Global Seminar’s Senior Program Adviser, Edward Mortimer. Salzburg Global Seminar is an apt place to hold such a session, not only for its own long tradition of bringing scholars of both the US and Europe together, but also for its location – an Austrian palace built by a Protestant-expelling Catholic Prince-Archbishop and once owned by the exiled Jewish theater director Max Reinhardt before being seized by the local Nazi Gauleiter – a stark reminder of the levels of religious intolerance once present in Europe. A living testament to such intolerance, faculty member Hedwig Rose will recount Fellows with her personal history as a “hidden child” in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands during her talk on “The Scourge of Scapegoating.” Chaired by Peter Rose, Sophia Smith Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Anthropology and Senior Fellow of the Kahn Liberal Arts Institute, Smith College, and former director, American Studies Diploma Program, Smith College, participants will take part in plenary sessions, panels, and discussion groups looking at such topics as the push and pull factors for migration; the dichotomies between “natives” and “newcomers” and their significance in the US and various parts of Europe; identities and distinctions between “they” and “we” as expressed in politics and in the art and literature of marginality; patterns of adaptation, integration and isolation; and the varied meanings of “tolerance.” Not only will the symposium look back at the last decade, it will also conclude by looking forward – what does the future hold for ethnic and religious relations in the US and Europe? The Council of Europe report suggests that improvements will need the co-operation of a great many actors: educators, mass media, trade unions, civil society, churches and religious groups, celebrities and so-called “role models”, as well as municipal, national, regional and international institutions. But true to the 65-year history of the formerly-named Salzburg Seminar in American Studies, now Salzburg Global Seminar, and the words of first-session faculty member, the acclaimed anthropologist Margaret Mead, the symposium will start its work with a small group of committed people, and that should never be underestimated.