Berkley Center

Brussels is well-known throughout Europe as being one of the most multicultural capitol cities on the continent. I can use my own apartment of five tenants as a perfect “micro” example. I share my apartment with a man from Belgium, a man from Morocco, a student from Spain, and another student from Austria. Interestingly enough, there is no real common language between us as half can speak only French and no English, while the other half can only speak English as a second language.

This multiculturalism has defined Brussels as a safe-haven city for many different groups of people as a welcoming and diverse metropolitan center. But this openness has been replaced recently by a fear of the growing Muslim population in the European capitol—especially those following the tenants of Islamic extremism.

Brussels has experienced an unprecedented population boom over the past half-century exacerbated by its foundation as one of the de facto capitals of Europe. As a result, it has become a haven for job opportunities, religious tolerance, and cultural diversity. A majority of the individuals moving to Brussels have been Muslims from North Africa seeking these promising opportunities and the start of a new life.

Fear mongers have started saying that Brussels could easily be a Muslim majority in 15 to 20 years. The Brussels government does not collect demographic statistics based on ethnicity, but private estimates puts the Muslim population at somewhere between 15 and 20 percent in 2005. Many doubts have been cast on even these estimates, saying that the Moroccan population alone is approximately 17 percent, which doesn’t include other major Muslim groups such as the Turks, who are also prevalent in the city. An anthropologist named Olivier Servais, head of the Laboratory for Prospective Anthropology at UCL, fanned the flames in 2008 claiming that closer estimates put the Muslim population at 33.5 percent of Brussels residents, even claiming that a majority could be a real possibility in 15 to 20 years. Although none of these figures can be proven, it also forgets to take into account the level of practice among those considered. This, in the past two decades, has become the real problem associated with Muslims and the spread of militarized Islam in Brussels.

In 2006, Hind Fraihi, a young Flemish-Muslim journalist, wrote a book entitled Undercover in Klein-Marokko, Achter De Gesloten Deuren Van De Radicale Islam translated as Undercover in Little Morocco, Behind the Closed Doors of Radical Islam. In her book, Fraihi retells her experience undercover in the Muslim neighborhood Molenbeek. She entered the neighborhood disguised as a sociology student to experience first-hand the life of a Muslim woman in one of the areas of Brussels most known for the presence of extremist Islam groups. She was shocked to find that the movement was primarily among the younger generations who felt subjected and persecuted by Belgian law. The older generations even referred to their younger counterparts as the “lost generation.” Fraihi described the lifestyle in Molenbeek as extremely violent in nature with many Muslims feeling as though Islamic law, especially those of the extremist persuasion, was superior to the law of the state.

Although it is unfair to depict an entire ethnic group by a small neighborhood sample, her work did shed some light on the impact growing radical Islam has had on certain neighborhoods in Brussels. The Molenbeek neighborhood is almost completely inhabited by Muslim Moroccans, and there is little police interference with the violence there because of its dangerous reputation. Several police officers have been attacked and killed, being considered a threat to the reign of Islam in the area.

The issue of the growing Muslim population in Brussels is difficult to comment on because many don’t see it as a problem at all. Brussels prides itself on its open nature, but it has seen an increase in crime rates and violence in the neighborhoods typically considered “Muslim.” The state has done a lot of work to attempt to remediate some of the issue through outreach programs and education reforms, but these alone cannot solve everything.

It is unclear whether the Muslim population will continue to increase, and to what extent this highly militarized youth will affect life in the European capitol. It is clear though that further outreach in these neighborhoods by the government is necessary before the situation gets any worse. Unfortunately, this is difficult to do in country that cannot agree on its own separate interior cultural agenda enough to even support a functioning government—passing its one year anniversary without a government just yesterday.