By Alfredo Maiolese
President of the European Muslims League (EML)
In recent years, accusations and demands have increasingly emerged claiming that Muslims should “do more” to integrate with the Christian and Western world. At the same time, narratives have spread suggesting that Muslims want to impose their way of life, remove Christian symbols from schools, Islamize Europe, or obtain special privileges.
These issues must be addressed seriously, rationally, and above all through concrete facts, avoiding both Islamist extremism and ideological Islamophobia fueled by propaganda, extremist websites, and misinformation.
Italy is no longer the country it was in the 1980s or 1990s. Since 1990, the country has experienced strong migration flows mainly from North Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa. The overwhelming majority of these people did not arrive in Italy to conquer the country, but to seek work, security, dignity, and a better future for their children.
Many immigrants who arrived in Italy came from poor environments with low levels of education. Some integrated rapidly, while others faced greater difficulties. However, it is profoundly unfair to identify immigration as a whole with criminality or to automatically associate every Muslim with radicalism.
There is a fundamental distinction that is too often ignored: there are immigrants who respect the law, work, pay taxes, raise their children in respect of Italian institutions, and simply seek a dignified life; and there are individuals involved in crime, drug dealing, or violence, who must be prosecuted and punished without hesitation.
Those who commit crimes do not represent Islam.
Those who traffic drugs, exploit minors, live through violence, or participate in organized crime cannot be considered authentic believers. Religion cannot be used as a shield to justify behavior contrary to the law and to human dignity.
At the same time, it would be naïve to deny the existence of real problems connected to uncontrolled immigration. In Italy, as in other European countries, there are phenomena of illegality, exploitation, and social marginalization. But it is equally true that Italian organized crime often uses vulnerable immigrants, sometimes even minors, as instruments for drug trafficking, prostitution, and other illegal activities. Behind many criminal phenomena there is not a “religious invasion,” but rather the business interests of criminal organizations.
It is therefore necessary to separate the issue of criminality from the issue of religion.
It is often claimed that “Muslims want to impose mosques. Here too, clarity is necessary. “Contrary to what is often claimed by Islamophobic propaganda, there is no evidence that the Italian State has financed the construction of mosques on the national territory. The vast majority of Islamic centers and Muslim places of worship are established and economically maintained by local communities through private funds and voluntary contributions.
Muslim communities pay rent, purchase properties, and independently support their expenses, often under difficult conditions and facing enormous bureaucratic obstacles.
A distorted narrative is also spread regarding halal food. A Muslim who requests halal food does not want to impose anything on others. He or she simply asks for the possibility to respect personal religious conscience, exactly as Jewish communities request kosher food or as many people follow vegetarian, vegan, or medically required diets.
No one forces Italians to eat halal food.
Religious freedom applies to everyone.
The same principle applies to Muslim religious celebrations. When a Muslim community requests the use of a public square or park to celebrate Eid al-Adha or the end of Ramadan, it does so through formal requests to institutions, police authorities, and municipalities, in full compliance with Italian law and legal authorization procedures. These are not “illegal occupations,” but the exercise of rights guaranteed within a democratic State.
Anyone – Italian or foreign, Christian or Muslim – who violates the law must be prosecuted. There should be no ambiguity on this point.
Many Italian citizens claim that immigrants are only an economic burden. This statement also fails to withstand a serious demographic and economic analysis. Italy is one of the oldest countries in the world, with declining birth rates and a progressively aging population. Entire sectors such as agriculture, construction, elderly care, logistics, restaurants, and services increasingly depend on foreign workers.
Without immigration, the Italian pension system would face even more severe consequences. Fewer young people mean fewer contributions paid into the national pension system, less workforce availability, and less economic support for future generations.
This does not mean supporting uncontrolled immigration.
Every State has the right and the duty to control its borders, combat illegal immigration, and demand respect for laws and constitutional values. Anyone arriving in Italy must respect institutions, legality, women’s dignity, civil coexistence, and the democratic order.
At the same time, however, Italian society must stop considering every Muslim as a threat.
Coexistence cannot be built through fear or propaganda, but through mutual respect, knowledge, and justice.
Muslims are not asking for privileges. They are asking to live with dignity, work honestly, educate their children, and practice their faith while respecting Italian law.
The real conflict today is not between Christians and Muslims.
The real conflict is between those who want to build a balanced society and those who fuel hatred, division, and fear for political or ideological interests.
Christians and Muslims share fundamental values: the centrality of family, respect for God, solidarity, human dignity, and the rejection of gratuitous violence.
The challenges facing modern Europe – economic crisis, demographic decline, social fragmentation, drugs, youth violence, and the loss of moral values – will not be solved by creating artificial religious wars.
What is needed instead is responsibility, legality, genuine integration, and the courage to tell the truth, even when it is uncomfortable.
The European Muslims League will continue to support dialogue, legality, institutional cooperation, and mutual respect among religious communities, while opposing both Islamist extremism and every form of anti-Muslim hatred.
Because social peace is not born from propaganda, but from justice and truth.
