Columnist-Europe's Identity Crisis Fuels Rising Anti-Muslim Sentiment

[Kevin23]

http://www.aolnews.com/world/article...iment/19670466

I just got finished reading this article on AOL. Personally, I find some disagreement with the article as a whole. Because the European Far-Right despite some of it's recent successes electorally with some of it's rhetoric isn't a really great force in most European countries.

Secondly, from personal experience on a long-term visit to the UK in the summer of 2008. I observed attitudes and opinions towards Britain's immigrant communities(including the Muslim one) to be low-tension and nowhere near the media sensationalism seen in the US. With issues between England and other region's within the UK like Scotland and Northern Ireland being much higher in terms of what I observed, read, and heard. Even though since then the BNP has gained some seats on the local/European level. However, I haven't been back to Britain in over 2 years and I can't vouch for attitudes and relations in other European countries like France, Netherlands, Spain, or Italy.

Therefore, perhaps some of the members more familiar with this issue can provide some insight?

[Starbuck]

It seems to vary by country. Switzerland recently banned the construction of minarets.

[Tukhachevskii]

Secondly, from personal experience on a long-term visit to the UK in the summer of 2008.

Unless you visted the entire country and stayed in the UK for at least 6 months per location (major cities, larger towns and rural areas of EACH county then I can't see how you could make a sweeping statement like that one above. OTOH if you stayed in London for that peruiod then I can easily see why you'd think the tension has been "hyped". Your definition of "long term" (i.,e the Summer of 2008) makes me scratch my head...what would short term be ....10 minutes?.

[davidbfpo]

The AOL article is quite good and cites several commentators whose views I listen to, notably Chris Allen.

Yes Europe is changing, some of it due to demography, notably the declining birth rate in Southern Europe - which pre-dates the arrival of significant Muslim numbers, for example Italy. There have been some strange political decisions, such as the claim Europe (or X nation) needs a supply of cheap labour; often without realising families come too and the relaxation of immigration / asylum rules.

In many places, invariably the urban conurbations, new immigrant communities have arrived, gained employment, sought family access and re-uniting and for a host of reasons - sometimes prejudice - have failed to disperse and sustain education and economic opportunities. In part of one English city, in the inner city the youth unemployment rate before the current economic situation was 54%.

Most of those were young males, who did not seek education, employment or training. Often their aspirations were too high, for example no longer being willing to work long hours (in restaurants) or in traditional places (family shop). Young South Asian girls are very keen on education in contrast, but appear to disappear from the labour market by twenty-one.

Being a Muslim does not mean you are anti-British. There was some polling earlier this year, in London, that found Muslim loyalty and confidence in our national institutions was higher than amongst the indigenous population.

The "radical" and "extremist" tiny factions within the European Muslim communities want to see a gap, no a gulf, between Muslims and non-Muslims. Many Muslims recognise this, all too many prefer the quiet life and say quiet.

Un-quiet Muslims acknowledge that for a Muslim many places, not all, in Europe provide a far better home for them and advocate obeying the law. Mutually adjusting to each others traditions, culture and more takes time.

Is there an identity crisis in Europe? Yes, for many reasons, the reaction to a larger Muslim presence is one, which is pandered to by the extremists and some who should know better - often the political "moderates". There is a growing gulf IMHO between the public and political institutions, particularly at the European level - which are remote, difficult to follow, reject and want to do more not less.

That is quite enough for a Sunday afternoon.

[Bob's World]

Its all about the perception of the populace in question. How they feel about their situation rather than how the government, or the larger populace thinks they feel or should feel.

I ran across this polling product that compares how the general populace feels on some of the issues we relate to recent violence and instability associated with groups employing Islamist Ideologies. Not a perfect product, but it does highlight the divergence on virtually every issue, and some insights are there to be drawn as well.

I have no idea what the politics of the group producing this product are, and don't endorse their findings, merely post them to share as one piece of a complex puzzle.

(For example, Germany is the largest European provider of foreign fighters to AFPAK; an Germany also stands out with the greatest disparities between the general populace and the Muslim populace on most issues as well).

http://pewglobal.org/2006/07/06/musl...ural-identity/

Worth a review. I'd be interested if there are other similar products out there as well. Such subjective insights into how people think and feel are far more valuable than external assessments focused on objective metrics.

Bob

"Notes1The principal countries surveyed for this report were Great Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Pakistan, Turkey, Nigeria, India, Russia, and the United States, with most of the findings coming from the four western European countries. In addition, a few findings are presented from China and Japan."

"About the Pew Global Attitudes Project
The Pew Global Attitudes Project is a series of worldwide public opinion surveys encompassing a broad array of subjects ranging from people’s assessments of their own lives to their views about the current state of the world and important issues of the day. The Pew Global Attitudes Project is co-chaired by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, currently principal, the Albright Group LLC, and by former Senator John C. Danforth, currently partner, Bryan Cave LLP. The project is directed by Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan “fact tank” in Washington, DC, that provides information on the issues, attitudes, and trends shaping America and the world. The Pew Global Attitudes Project is principally funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts. The surveys of European Muslims were conducted in partnership with the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, another project of the Pew Research Center, which works to promote a deeper understanding of issues at the intersection of religion and public affairs."

[Bob's World]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101017...ionimmigration

Then this today from the German Chancellor.

Learn the language? Good COIN, keeps people from falling into enclaves that feel excluded due to their inability to communicate with society as a whole, and are thus more likely to perceive dangerous discrimination.

Learn the culture? Also good COIN. The more homogeneous a society the more stable.

Abandon your religion and and become Christian? I think this is too much. We attribute too much to ideology that is really much more related to the other two factors above. IMO if you do one and two, three is unnecessary for the stability of a society.

[Fuchs]

This is not COIN, but domestic policy.

City development planning sucked in some cities and some PC holy cows protected the topic against being addressed by policy.
It's a very German problem and not dramatic.


The Merkel government isn't going to do more than create noise and symbolic policy on this issue simply because that's all that they can do in general. The CDU hasn't been governing for two decades, but at most administrating when in charge of the government.*

The really relevant question is therefore not what the chancellor says, but what Gabriel (social democrat) and the greens do. The conservatives were never really multiculture-interested, but at most disinterested.
The greens are the epicentre of multiculture ideology in Germany, and the SPD is their only realistic coalition partner. The SPD seems to move on the topic of how to address the past failures on immigrant integration and it's decisive whether they can exert enough influence on the greens or not.

So far the greens didn't push themselves into the focus of attention in this topic because they enjoy the extremely good poll results which are based on the Stuttgart 21 conflict (a kinda multi-billion bridge to nowhere project that sparked a huge local civil resistance movement).



*:
There's only one "but". Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, has embarrassed German politicians a while ago by visiting Germany and a huge Turkish event in Germany and agitating there against integration, promoting Turkish nationalism. He did recently a U-turn and this might be a result of German foreign policy efforts. Maybe we'll learn about this strange episode in a few years.