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

**Bob's World** · 10-17-2010

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** · 10-17-2010

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** · 10-17-2010

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.

**Bob's World** · 10-18-2010

Domestic Policy is COIN. The Governments that are the best at COIN rarely see organized resistance to their governace coming out of their populace. Be it "an ounce of prevention" or "a stitch in time."

I would advise the Chancellor that she just pushed her country closer to such challenges by her moves that were intended to have an opposite effect.

**davidbfpo** · 10-22-2010

A good analysis of the situation in some European nations IMHO:http://www.opendemocracy.net/cas-mud...ce-of-tolerant

Opens with:

The advance of populist anti-Islamic forces in the liberal bastions of northern Europe - Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden - appears to reflect a betrayal of these societies’ renowned social tolerance. But there is a more subtle logic at work, says Cas Mudde.

Ends with and can be read as a summary:

The implication is that the recent rise of anti-Islam sentiment in northern Europe is proof neither of the end of tolerance in Europe nor the Europeanisation of ethnic nationalism. It is instead an outpouring of the intolerance of the tolerant, long (self-)censored by a political culture of anti-nationalism and conformity. The fact that (orthodox) Muslims can be opposed with a liberal-democratic discourse - rather than an ethnic-nationalist one - makes it at last politically acceptable (and increasingly politically correct) to express ethnic prejudice in these countries.

**Tukhachevskii** · 10-22-2010

Originally Posted by davidbfpo

A good analysis of the situation in some European nations IMHO:http://www.opendemocracy.net/cas-mud...ce-of-tolerant

Opens with:

Ends with and can be read as a summary:

accompanied by the preceding paragraph...

The argument is twofold. First, after decades of secularisation, Islam is a (rapidly) growing religion that threatens the secular consensus by bringing religious issues back onto the public agenda. Second, (orthodox) Islam - and vocal Muslims - openly challenge local beliefs on gender equality and gay rights, which are regarded as fundamental aspects of liberal democracy in these countries. Hence, it is the tolerant liberal democrats who oppose the intolerant Muslims.

There is so much wrong with that article that I don't know where to start.

1. Is Islam and being a Muslim an "ethnicity" as it is understood today? (That particular question is a sore/sensitive point with me in particular given most people in my own country would classify me as a foreigner).

2. Does the article's final summarising paragrpah therefore propose that ethnci-nationalists and not liberals, should be opposing Islam?

3. Is being anti-Islamic tantamount to racism? What about Nazism? (In which case I'm a racist)

1 & 3. The problem with the descriptor "ethnicity" is that is has been appropriated by the Left, Liberals and other fifth columnists who use it in a manner that apporahces epsitemological "essentialism". When I was taught about Nationalism at University we used Anthony D. Smith's definition which descirbes ethnicity as a set of shared beliefs, cultural mores, language, symbols (mythomoteur) and a territory (not the supposed "race" one apparently belongs to). It has nothing to do with race. In fact Race itself is logically, epistemologically & scientifically false ( the UK police force or government now use "ethnicity" as a PC replacement for "race" but don't, for the life of you, try and tell them how wrong they are). One of the earliest uses of the word race was spanish wherein it denoted (and here's a something compatarive linguists and linguistic anthropologists will recognise) breeding (like its French cognate) and one could change ones race by changin one's religion. It was not an essentialist attribute. What the hell does that have to do with Islam? Are they born genetically predisposed to violence and domination or is it their system of belief? The same question was asked by people about Nazism (i.e., whether it was specifically a German disease). The attempt to muzzle any and all opposition to Islam/ism by labelling it racist merely helps our opponents cause. Why is it that we have to pussy foot around Muslims (which of course simply reinforces their own sense of superiority and infallibility).

2. Following from the above the fact that liberals rather than "nationalists" (another politically loaded term and in which camp I situate myself) have taken up the cause is precisely to undermine the banner being rasied by racist groups. Lets make it clear at the outset, Islam/ism is something that concerns a lot of people (and for very good reasons). The fact that politicians are tackling it should not detract from that fact. By that standard the "peace party" was more liberal than Churchill's war party (or course the analogy doesn't hold if you don't equate Nazism and Islam/ism as identical ...and you play the fiddle). Let me phrase it differently...is being anti-Nazi being anti-German/racist (assuming that Germans comprise a "race")? Is being anti-BNP racism against my fellow fairer skinned compatriots? Is being anti-Islamic the equivalent of racism against people with tan complexions (like myself) or dark skin? (notice how the descriptors "tan" and "dark" refer to aesthetic qualities rather than supposed racial/ethnic-as used by UK gov- essenntialist attributes). It is? Well, now then, how does one go about applying for political asylum?! (Where is another question altogether!

**Fuchs** · 10-22-2010

Originally Posted by Bob's World

Domestic Policy is COIN.

That's something which moderators certainly don't want me to mention here. Let's just say I rate the truth content at 0%.

By the way, can someone explain this "identity crisis" thing to me? I'm European and I have no clue what identity crisis is meant.

**Dayuhan** · 10-23-2010

Originally Posted by Fuchs

That's something which moderators certainly don't want me to mention here. Let's just say I rate the truth content at 0%.

I think the idea is that good domestic policy keeps people happy, and happy people don't insurge, so domestic policy is preventive COIN. Of course keeping everybody happy in a multicultural society isn't always easy, and the desire for tolerance in some European societies is and will continue to be tested by the question of how much intolerance they are prepared to tolerate in the name of tolerance.