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Paper short abstract:

After 9/11 the Association of Young Italian Muslims entered the public sphere, trying to shift the discussion regarding Muslims in Italy from a safety issue to an issue based on citizenship. But what is the meaning of citizenship in their speeches and in their practices?

Paper long abstract:

Islamophobia precedes the tragic events of 9/11, but, as in many other countries, it was above all after this date that some opinion-makers and politicians have begun to depict Muslims who live in Italy as potentially dangerous. Faced with this difficult situation, the association of Young Italian Muslims (G.M.I.), an active minority of youths born and/or raised in Italy from infancy, entered the public sphere, participating in various enterprises on inter-religious and intercultural dialogue on a local and national level, thereby gradually gaining remarkable visibility on the media in a relatively short amount of time.

The main innovation lies in the fact that these youths did not limit themselves to reversing the stigma, that is to say denying the association of Islam to violence, declaring themselves to be Muslim pacifists. Their ambitious objective has been the idea of changing the framework and shifting the discussion regarding Muslims in Italy from the perspective of a safety issue to that of an issue based on citizenship.

But what is the meaning of citizenship in their speeches and in their practices? What are the outcomes of their demands within the public space? How have adult Islamic associations reacted to their protagonism? I will attempt to answer these questions, firstly introducing the Italian context where Muslims seem to serve as a screen against which some Italians project themselves as a unity, to later show how the Young Italian Muslims association has opposed this representation of Italian identity based on a common Catholic matrix, by declaring themselves as Italian citizen professing Islamic faith. I am moreover going to analyse their various forms of belonging and participation, showing that they are Muslim democrats, practicing an "ordinary citizenship" in their everyday life (specially on a local level) and that their main feature is their commitment to the legitimation of a public representation of Italy as a multicultural and multireligious country. Finally, I am going to illustrate how the new visibility of this youth association is challenging the "defensive logics" of the previous generation.