Even if media and politicians in Europe and, in particular in Italy, stress sometimes the risk of Islamization and Islamic terrorism, especially after the proclamation of the so-called Islamic State in 2014 and the attacks carried out by ISIS supporters in Europe, it is incorrect
18 K. Hailbronner, European Immigration and Asylum Law. A Commentary (Oxford: Beck/Hart, 2010), pp. 7ff, 16ff.
19 I. Honohan, The Theory and Politics of Ius soli. EUDO Citizenship Ob-servatory (Firenze: EUI, 2010).
20 See D. Scuto, Luxembourg: Country Report. EUDO Citizenship Obser-vatory (Firenze: EUI, 2010) and D. Scuto, Luxembourg Publishes Statistics on the 2009 Nationality Law. EUDO Citizenship Observatory (Firenze: EUI, 2010).
21 D. Christopoulos, Greece: Comprehensive Citizenship Reform Passed in Parliament on 11 March. EUDO Citizenship Observatory, (Firenze: EUI, 2010).
22 D. Çinar, Austria: Country Report. EUDO Citizenship Observatory (Firenze: EUI, 2010).
23 I. Honohan, The Theory and Politics of Ius soli, EUDO Citizenship Ob-servatory (Firenze: EUI, 2010).
to speak of an ‘Islamic invasion’: according to an updated survey at the end of 2017 of the Pew Research Center, in fact, there are about 25.7 million Muslims registered in Europe: 4.9% of a population of over 740 million people, with highest percentage in France (5.7 mil-lion, 8.8% of the population) and Germany (about 4.9 milmil-lion, 5.5% of residents). Between 2010 and 2016 there was a growth of about one percentage point, from 3.8% to 4.9% (from 19.5 million to 25.8 mil-lion). The numbers could double by 2050, however, reaching a max-imum of 11.2 percent. In other words, an average of an Islamic EU citizen every 10, just above the current standards of the French popu-lation.
In Italy, according to data estimates by IDOS,24Christians con-stitute 53.8% of the immigrant population, Muslims 32.2%, the 4% of the whole Italian population. In 2017 among immigrants, Muslims were over 1.5 million while the majority were Orthodox Christians to whom we need to add up another million of Catholics.25
Given these data, however, the perception is totally different as showed by an Ipsos Mori survey26 that measured the gap between public perception and reality in 40 countries in 2016 and found that in Italy actual Muslim population was 3.7% while the perception was 20%. But this was not only the case for Italy, the average French es-timate was that 31% of the population was Muslim –almost one in three residents while they were 7.5%. And also German and Belgian respondents all guessed that more than a fifth of the resident popula-tion was Muslim, while in reality the figure ranges from 5% in Ger-many to 7% in Belgium.
As we said citizenship means not only rights but also political participation. This was truly especially for immigrants in Italy and for religious immigrant groups. In this regard, it is interesting to see the differences between the first and second generation of Muslims and their forms of political participation and active citizenship. For the parents' generation, the cognitive frame within which the relationship with the institutions is placed is that of immigration, which relies on the dialectics within a community that put its cultural-value roots in a
24 IDOS, Dossier Statistico Immigrazione (Roma: IDOS, 2015).
25 IDOS, Dossier Statistico Immigrazione (Roma: IDOS, 2017).
26 Ipsos Mori, Perils of perception 2016.
place that has a plurality of origins but a single religious reference and sometimes adverse context.
For the children, the reference to immigration and diversity must be abandoned: the relationship is between (almost) citizens, among residents who are committed to the common good of the com-munity and the city where they live.
However, it is not only the type of relationship with the Italian context that distinguishes the way in which parents and children show and live their religious belonging and their social and political parti-cipation: young Muslims do not see Islam as the reproduction of the religious practices of the country of origin of their parents in a new context.27 As the research entitled “Young Muslims in Italy. Parma and Verona” by Della Porta and Bosi28shows, the Islam of the second generations is shaped more as a way of life resulting from a choice that helps them to understand themselves and feel to be part of a com-munity.
Very often identification with Islam is felt more sharply than identification with a particular ethnic or national group. The Giovani Musulmani d'Italia (GMI) association is an example: it is a nationally based association, but Italy is the reference, and is a religious organization, made up of young second generations whose parents have different national origins. Among them, in fact, there are Moroc-cans, Egyptians, Tunisians, as well as Somalis and Pakistanis.
The association's goal is not just to claim rights for their own group, but actively to participate in the society. After having defined
‘who they are’, the association tries to answer the question ‘what they can do in and for the society where they live’.29
Moreover, Internet and the social networks, in particular, have been an important channel of participation for these young people, es-pecially due to their excellent level of Italian language and civic skills
27 V. Premazzi, R. Ricucci, “Between national mass media and the local di-mension: Muslims and Islamophobia in Italy”, Forum for Arab and International Relations (ed.), Islamophobia (Doha, 2017), pp. 63ff.
28 D. della Porta, L. Bosi, Young Muslims in Italy Parma and Verona (Den-mark: The Denmark School, CIR, Aarhus University, 2010).
29 V. Premazzi, R. Ricucci, “Between national mass media and the local di-mension: Muslims and Islamophobia in Italy”, Forum for Arab and International Relations (ed.), Islamophobia (Doha: 2017), pp. 63ff.
their. These young people (or now young adults) are turning more into representatives, trying to outline the birth of an Italian Islam free from the constraints of tradition and the contexts and the influence of their parents' countries of origin.30
Some Italian cities, such as Milan and Turin, have developed in their policies specific attention to the second generations, considering them important players in building and strengthening social cohesion processes. This, as R. Ricucci31 has shown, has taken place “[…] es-pecially in areas where interactions between natives and immigrants may be more difficult and where controversies on cultural and reli-gious diversity happen year after year, stimulated by increased visibil-ity, an increase in the number of citizenship grants, the increase of stu-dents in schools and the demands of Muslim associations”.
This choice results in supporting the associations and their lead-ership, with a view to the promotion and growth of the idea of active citizenship, while also finding a space for the religious dimension.
At local level the main objectives of first-generation Muslims regarded basic needs such as the allocation of spaces devoted to places of worship and some form of cultural recognition and rights. The Muslim associations were therefore dedicated to essential requests for observance of Islamic practices (e.g. authorization for the opening of halal butchers, the allocation of building land for the construction of mosques and places of worship, areas dedicated to the burial of Muslim dead, Halal food in public canteens, religious assistance in hospitals, army and prisons etc.). In this process, the associations were an important reference for both the community and for the local insti-tutions.32
30 V. Premazzi, R. Ricucci, “Religious belonging in the Facebook era:
Muslims on line, young people off line”, D. Enstdet, G. Larsson, V. Pace (eds.), Reli-gion and Internet. Annual Review of the Sociology of ReliReli-gion (Leiden: Brill, 2015), vol. 6, pp. 147ff.
31 R. Ricucci, Cittadini senza cittadinanza. Immigrati, seconde e altre gen-erazioni: pratiche quotidiane tra inclusione ed estraneità (Torino: Edizioni SEB27, 2015), p. 56.
32 V. Premazzi, “Secolarizzazione e nuove forme di protagonismo e religios-ità della seconda generazione musulmana in Italia”, G. Salmeri, M. Díez (eds.), Troppa religione o troppo poca?: Cristiani e musulmani alla prova della secolarizza-zione (Padova: Marsilio, 2015).
Compared with the first generations, for the younger, second generations, the relationship with the public institutions moves to-wards participation: they are more prepared both linguistically and with regard to civic skills acquired about the role and functions of public administrations and they aim to be recognized as partners and representatives. They want to be present and active in the city's social and cultural events, to participate wherever possible in the decision-making process, too, especially with regard to young people of Muslim faith, to strengthen the view that Islam is compatible with cit-izens' activism marked by pluralism and democracy. As yet, Ricucci33 highlights: “The purpose has not been so much the recognition tout court of their specificities, but their right to diversity and the promo-tion of intercultural policies where religious difference is one of the elements of the city and not a reason of conflict”.
A number of studies have also shown that the local community, more than the national one, is a strong identity reference for immig-rants and, in particular, for Muslim immigimmig-rants in Europe. A study on the Muslim community in Waltham Forest, one of the London 2012 Olympic districts, for example, revealed an attachment to their neigh-bourhood stronger than that felt towards the UK. On the opposite, non-Muslims of the same neighbourhood showed greater loyalty to the UK.34
In Europe, and in Italy in particular, Muslim organizations are highly evolved at the local level, thanks to the vast possibilities offered by legislation on associations, whereas it is much more diffi-cult for Muslim organizations to manage relationships at the national level with the central institutions of the State, because the lack of a na-tional agreement (Intesa) with the State and of the internal fragmenta-tion of the Muslim community in Italy, often generating fierce com-petition dynamics and preventing the expression of a stable and reli-able unified representation.35
33 Ibid., p. 76.
34 J. Cesari, Religion and Diasporas: Challenges of the Emigration Coun-tries. INTERACT Research Report 2013/01, p. 5.
35 A. Pacini, “I Musulmani in Italia”, paper presented at the University of Padua's Political Sciences Faculty during the seminar on Islam in Europe and in the World, organized by GRIM, 2001, p. 7.