About the Other:
Ian Morrison is an Assistant Professor in the Sociology Department, Anthropology, Psychology and Egyptology in the American University of Cairo, and holds a PhD in sociology from the university of York Canada. In his research Ian Morrison mainly on the issues of Citizenship, religion, secularism and nationality.
The Main argument of Morison in his essay on “Christianity, Secularism and the Crisis of Europe”, is that the Identity of Europe cannot be determine absolutely, but also depends on specific factors that varies according to external. Therefore, the chapter tries to raise the question of the religious identity of Europe as it manifests in “apparent crisis of Europe engagement with two immanent others” – the Muslim migrants in Europe and Turkey in times of its attempts to …show more content…
In order to do so, he compares the different ways Europe identifies itself according to a ‘thin’ definition that includes rules, laws and principle in front of the Muslim immigrants, and according to a ‘thick’ that defines Europeans as having a common Christian history and culture in front of Turkey. In order to understand the two identities Morrison uses an analogy of Derrida that analyzes Europe as an organic body, that triggers off its immune system as a reaction to an external threat, but it is that same protection that harms Europe like an act of autoimmune disease and makes it a non-identity. However I believe that Identity always carry contradictions, moreover, the main characteristic of identity is that it’s never coherent and always tries to maintain a history, aspire to the future and present itself in a different way according to the object it relates