A mosque and a republic

During the general election campaign, Robert Abela and Alex Borg were asked whether the country needs a new mosque. Both gave a flat no.

Abela told Muslim voters that Labour was their natural home – although, evidently, not enough of a home to entertain discussion of new mosques.

Borg went further. At the Times of Malta/Każin debate, he was asked if his position was based on any expert study. The question was predictable, and Borg could have replied that he was opposed precisely because a proper study was first needed.

Such an answer would have safeguarded votes (in the immediate circumstances) as well as his reputation with that part of the Nationalist Party (PN) electorate that is uncomfortable with Borg’s stated affinity with the ultra-conservative leader, Giorgia Meloni. 

Instead, Borg replied he opposed the building of a new mosque on principle – as a Christian Democrat. 

What principle? The founders of Christian Democracy after World War II did not set out to preserve a Christian monopoly over public life. They sought to preserve something different: the place of religion within a democratic society.

Their concern was not that citizens should all believe the same thing. It was that citizenship should not require people to act as if they believed nothing at all.

The tradition associated with De Gasperi, Adenauer and Schuman rests on human dignity, freedom of conscience, pluralism and constitutional government. It rejects militant secularism. It also rejects the idea that political community is defined by religious cultural uniformity.

Indeed, Christian Democracy has historically been more comfortable with religious diversity than many of its liberal and socialist rivals. It tends to regard religious belief as a social resource rather than an embarrassment.

If one believes religion can strengthen civic responsibility when practised by Christians, one must explain why the same principle ceases to operate when the believer happens to be Muslim. Otherwise, the PN risks sounding like Maltese Muslims do not quite belong – either in the party or in the country.

European Christian Democracy’s record tells a different story. In the countries where it has governed – Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands – mosque construction proceeded wherever planning requirements were satisfied. There is no founding text, no canonical thinker within this tradition that makes refusing mosque permits a matter of principle.

As on the continent, the issue in Malta is practical. The mosque in Paola serves a Muslim population that has grown far beyond its capacity. Whether the answer is one new mosque, two, or a different arrangement altogether is a question for planners and policymakers. 

The question then becomes one of good sense. Here, the objections usually fall into three categories.

The first is cultural. The mosque becomes a symbol of encroachment, a marker of a foreign civilisation advancing across Europe.

Yet, much of this argument consists of imported anxieties. The vocabulary of “Islamisation”, “replacement” and “Eurabia” was not produced by Maltese experience. It emerged elsewhere and was imported through pipelines of social media, where distant fears arrive stripped of context and presented as prophecy. The people most concerned with defending national sovereignty often outsource their imagination to foreign culture wars. 

A mature state is capable of both hospitality and vigilance. Both Christian and social democracy can work with that principle- Ranier Fsadni

In Malta, meanwhile, the two translations of the Quran into Maltese are both by Catholic clerics, while parish priests have sometimes allowed Muslims to use Church premises for worship.

The question is not whether problems exist elsewhere. Some do. The question is whether Malta should formulate policy according to its own circumstances or according to stories accumulated from other people’s circumstances.

A Christian Democrat, of all people, should appreciate this point. The principle of subsidiarity requires problems to be approached at the level where they actually exist. One begins with realities, not abstractions. 

How many Muslims live in Malta? What are the planning implications? What integration policies serve the common good?

Those are Maltese questions. They deserve Maltese answers – from all political parties.

A related objection is aesthetic: the Maltese skyline should not be disfigured by minarets; neighbourhoods should not be disturbed by calls to prayer. 

That is an interesting argument if our government and planners accept it. An administrative class that has spent decades tolerating architectural atrocities and noise pollution now wishes to rediscover beauty and silence. 

In any case, the objection is misplaced. Mosques do not require minarets or loudspeakers. They do not require imitation Middle Eastern architecture. A mosque need not resemble a postcard from Cairo any more than a Maltese church must resemble St Peter’s Basilica.

The third objection concerns security. Islamist terrorism is real. States have obligations that begin with the protection of their citizens.

Yet, it does not follow that a shortage of mosques produces security. The record suggests the opposite.

People will gather for worship regardless. The choice is between visible institutions and informal arrangements; between recognised leadership and opaque networks; between engagement and isolation.

The history of jihadist violence in Europe offers little support for the idea that ordinary worshippers in established mosques suddenly reveal a repressed desire for holy war. More often, the path runs through social marginality, criminal networks, online radicalisation and the recruitment of young people searching for identity and purpose.

A state that knows where communities gather is in a stronger position than one that prefers not to know. Italy understood this long before Meloni. Successive governments combined engagement with Muslim communities and firm action against suspected radicals and inflammatory preachers.

A mature state is capable of both hospitality and vigilance. Both Christian and social democracy can work with that principle.

The problem, one suspects, is not principle. It is a fear of the crowd.