May 7th 2009
From The Economist print edition

WHETHER strong religious identity, and the ethical views that go with it, necessarily undercut national identity has long furrowed brows, especially in Western secular democracies with heavy immigration. Terrorist attacks in London and Madrid, and racial unrest in France, have made the debate more urgent. What makes for national cohesion? A study put out on May 7th by Gallup, a polling organisation, casts new light on the matter.

Few would be amazed to learn that European Muslims are much more conservative socially than their non-Muslim compatriots. What is surprising is how wide the gap is in Britain. Gallup looked at attitudes in France, Germany and Britain on some key issues of personal morality among adherents of Islam and the public in general. The gap between Muslims and others on the acceptability of homosexuality, abortion and premarital sex was wider in Britain than in either Germany or France (see chart 1), even though British non-Muslims professed themselves more strait-laced than their continental counterparts on most issues.

But what really divides British Muslims from their co-religionists elsewhere, according to Gallup, is not so much their attitudes as their dissatisfaction with life. Using a broad measure of economic and personal well-being, only 7% of British Muslims called themselves “thriving” compared with 56% of the British public. In France a much higher proportion of Muslims were thriving, and in Germany Muslims were more apt than the general public to say they were doing well.

The unhappiness of British Muslims is easy enough to explain: their living standards tend to be low and relatively few of the women work. They are also less likely than Muslims elsewhere, Gallup found, to see learning the local language, finding a job or getting a better education as a precondition for integration. That may be because they are remarkably unambitious; but it could reflect Britain’s official tradition of encouraging cultural diversity.

Yet these differences, however marked, do not mean that British Muslims identify less with their country of residence than Muslims in France or Germany—or, indeed, than non-Muslim Britons (see chart 2). Dalia Mogahed, Gallup’s chief researcher on Muslim affairs and member of a panel that advises President Barack Obama, thinks integration in Europe will prove difficult only if non-Muslims expect adherents of Islam to share the ethical positions of the rest of European society, instead of, as now, holding views more characteristic of the American Bible Belt.

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