In the aftermath of the Berlin Wall’s collapse, Western Europe has been forced to rethink its identity. If in the recent past its conception of itself as a haven of democracy and civilization depended—in part—on a contrast to the evils of the Communist Empire, today an idea is being revived of Europe as “Christendom,” in contradistinction to “Islam.” Only this time, the Islam in question is not being held back at the frontier (Spain, the Balkans) but has penetrated Europe’s very core in the shape of new “minority” populations of Muslim background. Questions about the nature of European identity and the place of Muslim immigrants within it are now among the most contentious on the Continent (Morley and Robins). So acute is European anxiety about “foreigners” that many white Western Europeans increasingly feel that they are living under cultural and economic siege due to the presence of 10 to 12 million “immigrants” (Miller 33).
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