Can expanding global economic partnerships that reach beyond cultural divergences be enough to repair the damage caused by Islamophobia within the European outlook in the post 9/11 world? Significant changes underway in the halal food sector can explain some ways it can and already has.
Interest in food that is produced in accordance with Islamic rules has been increasing over the past few decades and notably so in Europe. Certainly, the climate of protectionism created by Islamophobia has contributed to this trend.
According to estimates released by the Halal World Expo, the world market share of foodstuff that is produced in accordance with Islamic customs and practices has reached up to 2 trillion dollars. In the current economic crisis this represents a lion's share opportunity for European firms. According to the Halal World Expo, which is the largest exhibition for the global halal industry in the Middle East, one out of three people consume food that is slaughtered, prepared, and even packaged and shipped according to Islamic food standards.
When consumption is this high, Western firms cannot afford to look away.
In remarks to the German nationwide weekly Die Zeit, Claus Schürmann, executive of the well-known German meat factory, Eggelbusch, recounts how his family run business began to introduce halal food to its product line 14 years ago. Schürmann explained that they got their start when a Turkish businessman in the food sector approached Eggelbusch to produce sucuk and sausages from white meat, insisting that product labels should carry the halal stamp and also be in Turkish. Schürmann's father welcomed the business venture and Eggelbusch introduced its first halal products after two years. Now, the Güttersloh-based firm produces "halal sucuk and sausages" for Turkish and German supermarkets.
At the beginning, the product was not successful because the name on the package read Schürtürk, and did not hit a chord with consumers who felt it was not a Turkish name and was later changed to Sultan.
Since July, Eggelbush helal products have begun to appear in the German supermarket chain Edeka. It is expected that other German markets will follow. Eggelbush purchases its meat from Sadia, a firm in southern Brazil. The firm, located in Santa Catarina, has been producing halal meat for more than 30 years. The South America Muslim Council inspects and certifies that the meat is prepared in accordance with Islamic rules. In addition, clergy from Saudi Arabia, Iran or Kuwait regularly inspects Sadia's facilities.
Baktat enjoys the largest biggest share of the Turkish foodstuff market in Germany. In addition to the German markets, Baktat also sells to Scandinavian countries, France, the United Kingdom, the United States and Asia. But whatever export market the firm targets, the consumer groups are identical: second and third generation immigrant Muslims, mostly young and relatively richer, who prefer Islam-friendly products, as part of a Muslim lifestyle they try to preserve anywhere in the West. The interest in the halal food sector, which has reached 600 billion dollars annually, is likely to follow its upward trend.
The Islamization of Europe
Despite finding a valuable commercial niche, the increasing visibility of the halal food market has also bred more prejudice against Muslims. The sometimes direct, mostly silent form of prejudice against the Muslim minority amidst non-Muslim majorities in Europe has put a great deal of pressure upon immigrant Muslim families over the years. As a result, most European Muslims opted for isolation rather than radicalization and began to seek modern ways to accommodate Western lifestyles with traditional rituals.
Most of them immigrated to war-torn Europe during the period of reconstruction after the devastation of the Second World War. Others came from the former colonies of the United Kingdom and France. They were treated as second-class citizens for years. They often had to endure humiliation. Although they worked as hard and for as long as the citizens of the countries they had moved to, they were forced to accept lower living standards. They were forced into Euro-style ghettos.
Second and third generation European Muslims, bolder in a globalized world, broke away from the life their parents knew. They studied in good schools, side-by-side with their Western peers. They made the painstaking jump from minimum wage laborer to white collar employee. Their investments have reached up to billions of Euros. But after 1991, the role they played in the reconstruction of Europe started to fade away from Europe's collective memory. Unemployment caused by the integration of Europe resulted in a brutal awakening of racism. Attacks against minority groups became more frequent and more violent in countries like Austria, Germany, Belgium, Holland and France. The houses of Muslims were set on fire. However, none of the demonstrations made in protest lent themselves to dangerous radicalization, except in France, where riots spread in ethnic neighborhoods in 2005 and thousands of cars were burned.
It is not so much the current population figures that show an increase in the number of Muslim Europeans, (around 20 million in the EU), but growth figures that disturb some Europeans ready to make dire predictions about the ‘end of Western Europe as we know it.' There has been concern for years that Muslim neighborhoods in the heart of Europe's cities, from Brussels to Amsterdam and Paris, would become incubators of tension and pent up frustration. The conventional line of argument insists that Europe is changing demographically because of high fertility rates among Muslims communities, who have become the engines of growth amidst an ailing, ageing Europe with a shrinking population base. But while lawmakers and politicians across the continent wrestle to come up with acceptable policies to diffuse any signs of tension; Muslim youth are eager to mold, fuse and adapt their parents' cultural identity with what the West has to offer in today's terms. The large proportion of young Muslims Youtube and Twitter, not burn tires or resort to violent dissidence, in order to reconcile with their adopted European communities.

Suffice it to say, Western investors have discovered the profit margin that the growing halal food market has to offer and tailor global marketing strategies to meet the demands of religious affinities among consumers. In 21st century terms, this is a case of multiculturalism meeting a line of high-end chocolates and halal sweets at Harrods at Waitrose stores all over the UK, just in time for Ramadan. Pharmaceutical companies like British Principle Healthcare and Canadian Duchesnay are now producing halal vitamins that do not contain cellophane and animal products. Malaysian Granulab is producing synthetic bone (gref) rather than animal bone and scientists from Malaysia and Cuba are working on the development of a halal meningitis vaccine.
Clearly, Europe's Muslims are not a monolithic bloc, showing important distinctions in their relationship and identification with the countries they live in, and with varying opinions on what is socially acceptable behavior, as well as the importance of religiosity in their daily lives. In its response to the influx of Muslims to Europe, the social projects adopted by each nation differed across the continent; ranging from policies as diverse as segregation in Germany to multiculturalism in the United Kingdom. Generalizations about the immigrant experience of European Muslims are therefore largely misplaced, although this is not to say that alarmist warnings vocalized by some observers that a silent and irrevocable social transformation is taking place in European capitals has not found throngs of anxious supporters.
But from a purely commercial point of view, no matter how diverse Muslim consumers can be in so far as their backgrounds and political orientation is concerned, they are unified in some areas, such as propensity for halal food and products and Islamic finance institutions which conform to the prohibition on payment of interest.
The Effect on the Economic Crisis
European Muslims refrain from religiously forbidden pork and alcohol, and buy their meat products from butchers, who prepare the products according to Islamic rules. According to Halal Journal, a Kuala Lumpur-based magazine, the halal food industry today has reached $632 billion annually. This equals 16% of the world food industry. Throw in the rapid growth in the Islamic finance sector, as well as other services and products, like cosmetics, real estate, hotels, fashion and insurance, and the worth of the breadth of sectors that are presented to consumers according to Islamic rules are estimated to in the trillions of dollars.
One of the reasons for the growth of halal economics is the prospering numbers of young Muslims, and 1.6 billion Muslims worldwide. It is estimated that the purchasing power of American Muslims is $170 billion.
At the same time, governments in Asia and the Middle East are making billion dollars investments in the competition to become regional halal centers, providing custom production centers and halal logistics. There are also increasing commercial opportunities in fashion, cosmetics and personal care products for modern Muslim women, such as the ‘Burquni' swimsuits that come in two sizes, modest and slim, and are produced by Ahiida, a Sydney based firm.
The Muslim world is arguably the most affected group from the great societal transformations that shaped the 2000s. Technological developments and the increase of the speed of communication triggered unprecedented change in Muslim-majority countries. An increasing number of women began to work outside the home. This explains at least part of the appeal of halal frozen and ready-made meals. The population of young Muslims increased more than what was witnessed in Western societies. Give population figures, the newly emerging market offers promising opportunities in the current economic crisis environment. With the holy month of Ramadan approaching in August, producers will likely step up advertising campaigns targeting the Muslim niche market, made more appealing with its young age profile. In the past, Coca-Cola ran several marketing campaigns during Ramadan, focusing on sharing food during 'iftar', the evening meal when Muslims break their daily fast, and proved extremely popular.
European Perestroika
European Muslim consumers represent a large and rapidly expanding market segment. The branching out of the halal market has spurred serious social networking and organization with it. The 2nd annual International Halal Food Conference is just one example. The declaration released at the conference, held on 25-26 April in Turkey, listed a number of joint industrial decisions, including amending "halal standards," preparing a list of acceptable halal additives, encouraging halal product sales (food, cosmetics, medical and cleaning agents) and halal commodities and to increase inter-institutional accreditation. A halal economic system was offered as a solution to the global economic crisis.
In the near future, the halal market may create its own "Halal D-8" or "Halal WTO". Maybe in such an environment, the necessary conditions for mutual co-existence could be reached. However, if the rigorous halal sector tries to impose its own style on the global market, we might experience an ever deeper global recession or even conflict as compared to the last couple of years. Europeans are coming to realize that they cannot overcome their fears, which peaked between 2004 and 2006, of an Islamic revolt in the heart of Europe or mushrooming parallel Muslim societies by threatening more witch hunts. It's time the West should think more about its own perestroika.

i Die Zeit, 9 July 2009