Religious Diversity and Multiculturalism in Southern Europe: The Italian Mosque Debate

In southern European countries, where immigration is a recent phenomenon,cultural and religious diversity brought into the host societies by non-EUimmigrants has become an important public issue. The controversy over theconstruction of two new mosques in and around Milan, in October 2000, offers asuitable example for the study of attitudes and views on religious diversity inItaly, its recognition, acceptance or rejection. In the first part of the paper,I shall discuss briefly the size and composition of the immigrant community, thesocio-economic position of immigrants in the host society and the legalprovisions for naturalisation. In the second part of the paper, I shallconcentrate on the ‘mosque issue’ and the dubious emergence of views andpractices favouring a multicultural society and citizenship. The analysis isbased on material collected from four major newspapers with both a regional andnational circulation. The material will be analysed quantitatively with a viewof identifying the main ‘voices’ involved in the debate and the thematicdimensions that organise it. A qualitative methodology of discourse analysiswill be used to identify the prevailing discourse(s) and also how the differentpositions put forward by the dominant social and political actors are linkedwith specific features of the Italian political and party system. In theconcluding section, I will discuss critically the Italian version ofmulticulturalism emerging in the mosque debate.