Not All Muslims Want To Integrate

from the November 17, 2005 _Christian Science Monitor_

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1117/p09s02-coop.html

[Opinion]

Not all Muslims want to integrate

By Bruce Bawer

OSLO - The recent rioting in Paris suburbs and elsewhere in Europe should
not have surprised anyone. Europe's Muslim communities are powder kegs,
brimming with an alienation born of both an assiduously inculcated
antagonism toward infidel society and an infidel society whose integration
policies - which should actually be called segregation policies - have
perversely encouraged this ire.

I first noticed the problem when I lived in Amsterdam in 1999. A visitor to
that city might imagine that not one Muslim lived there. But to venture just
a few blocks beyond the tourist-crowded streets was to learn otherwise. In
my neighborhood, the sidewalks were crowded with hijab-clad women pushing
baby carriages. There were as many signs in Arabic as in Dutch. Outside the
"neighborhood center" waved a large Turkish flag.

Such districts, I learned, could be found across Europe. Muslims were a
huge, rapidly growing - and highly segregated - minority. In city after
city, downtown areas were almost 100 percent European, the outskirts
increasingly Muslim.

Americans know about ghettos. For many of our families, they've been a stage
in the transition from immigrant to native. Many ghetto residents are still,
essentially, foreigners; integration takes place largely in the next
generation, as the children of immigrants go to school, find jobs, and leave
the ghetto behind.

Not in Europe. Officially, to be sure, France is less multicultural than
most European countries - witness its rejection of religious labels in
public documents and its ban on hijabs in schools. But enduring segregation
is a fact of life in France as it is elsewhere on the continent. Millions of
"French Muslims" don't consider themselves French. A government report
leaked last March depicted an increasingly two-track educational system:
More and more Muslim students refuse to sing, dance, participate in sports,
sketch a face, or play an instrument. They won't draw a right angle (it
looks like part of the Christian cross). They won't read Voltaire and
Rousseau (too antireligion), Cyrano de Bergerac (too racy), Madame Bovary
(too pro-women), or Chrétien de Troyes (too chrétien). One school has
separate toilets for "Muslims" and "Frenchmen"; another obeyed a Muslim
leader's call for separate locker rooms because "the circumcised should not
have to undress alongside the impure."

Many Muslims, wanting to enjoy Western prosperity but repelled by Western
ways, travel regularly back to their homelands. From Oslo, where I live,
there are more direct flights every week to Islamabad than to the US. A
recent Norwegian report noted that among young Norwegians of Pakistani
descent, family honor depends largely on "not being perceived as Norwegian -
as integrated."

For many Muslims in Europe, self-segregation has come naturally. What's
tragic is that European authorities have supported it. Rejecting the
American approach - namely, encouraging immigrants to work and integrate -
they've instead helped newcomers to maintain distinct communities and
provided benefits that have made it easy for them to stay unemployed. Why
did these authorities prefer segregation? Supposedly they were enlightened
"multiculturalists" who respected differences; for many, the real reason was
a profound discomfort with the idea of "them" becoming "us." Naively, they
imagined they could preserve their nations' cultural homogeneity while
letting in millions of foreigners and smiling on their preservation and
perpetuation of values drastically different from their own.

What they've reaped, alas, is a generation of Muslims, many of whom view
their neighborhoods as colonies amid enemy territory - and who demand this
autonomy be recognized. In Britain, imams have pressed the government to
designate part of Bradford as being under Muslim law. In Belgium, Muslims in
the Brussels neighborhood of Sint-Jans-Molenbeek consider it to be under
Islamic jurisdiction. In Denmark, Muslim leaders have sought similar control
over parts of Copenhagen. In France, an official met with an imam at the
edge of Roubaix's Muslim district out of respect for his declaration that it
was Islamic territory. In many cities, police have stopped patrolling
certain enclaves, the authorities having effectively ceded control to local
religious leaders.

No surprise, then, that a Muslim rioter in Arhus, Denmark, the other day
cried out: "This area belongs to us!" Amir Taheri, editor of Politique
Internationale, noted that the main reason for the French riots is not that
two youths died hiding from cops in a transformer station; it's that the
state responded to the initial unrest by sending police into an area that
many locals saw as their own inviolate domain. These riots, in short, are
early battles in a continent-wide turf war.

It's a war authorities can't afford to lose. By accepting separatism, Europe
is becoming a house divided against itself. Governments must take a firm,
aggressive, integration- oriented line - must, among other things, end
separate treatment in schools and turn welfare recipients into workers.
Above all, they must stand alongside Muslims who wish to integrate - not
those who seek to colonize. And they must hope - and pray - that it isn't
already too late.

.. Bruce Bawer's book, "While Europe Slept," will be published by Doubleday
in February. A native New Yorker, he now lives in Oslo.

/

not all Americans want to integrate

Following up to Gregory Morrow

The recent rioting in Paris suburbs and elsewhere in Europe should
not have surprised anyone. Europe's Muslim communities are powder kegs,
brimming with an alienation born of both an assiduously inculcated
antagonism toward infidel society and an infidel society whose integration
policies - which should actually be called segregation policies - have
perversely encouraged this ire.

Interestingly an investigative journalist has been looking at the
background of one of the London bombers. He was integrated, with
many white friends, didnt go to the Mosque often and wanted to
emigrate to the US. He then fell in with a group of radicals
during outdoor pursuits trips who influenced him with videos of
Moslems being killed in Palestine and Iraq.
--
Mike Reid
Walk-eat-UK "http://www.fellwalk.co.uk" -- you can email us@ this site
Walk-eat-Spain "http://www.fell-walker.co.uk" -- dontuse@ all, it's a spamtrap
Photos of both "http://www.lawn-mower-man.co.uk"

On Thu, 17 Nov 2005 10:21:52 GMT, "Gregory Morrow"
gregorymorrowEMERGENCYCANCELLATIONARCHIMEDES@eart hlink.net wrote:



from the November 17, 2005 _Christian Science Monitor_

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1117/p09s02-coop.html

[Opinion]

Not all Muslims want to integrate

By Bruce Bawer

OSLO - The recent rioting in Paris suburbs and elsewhere in Europe should
not have surprised anyone. Europe's Muslim communities are powder kegs,
brimming with an alienation born of both an assiduously inculcated
antagonism toward infidel society and an infidel society whose integration
policies - which should actually be called segregation policies - have
perversely encouraged this ire.

Blah blah blah, it's all wordy bull**** in this regard. These idiots
have moved to Europe knowing that life is better here, and then start
screeeching about how ****ty the whole material aspect of the culture
is. Yeah, many of us might agree with that to a certain degree, but we
can find better, more creative ways of taking it out on the 'system'
than blowing stuff up or setting fire to something.

My sympathy for these idiots is as low as it deserves to be.
--
---
DFM - http://www.deepfriedmars.com
---
--

DDT Filled Mormons wrote:
On Thu, 17 Nov 2005 10:21:52 GMT, "Gregory Morrow"
gregorymorrowEMERGENCYCANCELLATIONARCHIMEDES@eart hlink.net wrote:



from the November 17, 2005 _Christian Science Monitor_

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1117/p09s02-coop.html

[Opinion]

Not all Muslims want to integrate

By Bruce Bawer

OSLO - The recent rioting in Paris suburbs and elsewhere in Europe should
not have surprised anyone. Europe's Muslim communities are powder kegs,
brimming with an alienation born of both an assiduously inculcated
antagonism toward infidel society and an infidel society whose integration
policies - which should actually be called segregation policies - have
perversely encouraged this ire.

Blah blah blah, it's all wordy bull**** in this regard. These idiots
have moved to Europe knowing that life is better here, and then start
screeeching about how ****ty the whole material aspect of the culture
is. Yeah, many of us might agree with that to a certain degree, but we
can find better, more creative ways of taking it out on the 'system'
than blowing stuff up or setting fire to something.

My sympathy for these idiots is as low as it deserves to be.
--
---
DFM - http://www.deepfriedmars.com
---
--

they should take some tips from Berlusconi

In article ,
The Reid wrote:

Following up to Gregory Morrow

The recent rioting in Paris suburbs and elsewhere in Europe should
not have surprised anyone. Europe's Muslim communities are powder kegs,
brimming with an alienation born of both an assiduously inculcated
antagonism toward infidel society and an infidel society whose integration
policies - which should actually be called segregation policies - have
perversely encouraged this ire.

Interestingly an investigative journalist has been looking at the
background of one of the London bombers. He was integrated, with
many white friends, didnt go to the Mosque often and wanted to
emigrate to the US. He then fell in with a group of radicals
during outdoor pursuits trips who influenced him with videos of
Moslems being killed in Palestine and Iraq.

See that paragraph from the article reflects the neocon mentality, that
they hate us for who we are, not what we may have done.

So because of this innate hate, we have to put them down, there is no
accommodation to be reached with these people.

That is the neocon plan for the Middle East, to shove "democracy" down
their throats. Of course, Iraq could vote to become a quasi-theocracy
tied to Iran but that's when the neocons probably will claim Iraq isn't
a democracy.

One of the code words the neocons use is "islamofascism." Bush has used
it a couple of times lately, as he gets more desperate to defend the
war. Then some Missiouri senator used it as well, accusing Al Qaeda of
aiming to establish an "islamofascist caliphate."

Lexicon courtesy of the American Enterprise Institute and other
right-wing think tanks.

Nice, verbally aligning "Islam" with "fascism."

Following up to poldy

That is the neocon plan for the Middle East, to shove "democracy" down
their throats. Of course, Iraq could vote to become a quasi-theocracy

it probably will at some point.
--
Mike Reid
Walk-eat-UK "http://www.fellwalk.co.uk" -- you can email us@ this site
Walk-eat-Spain "http://www.fell-walker.co.uk" -- dontuse@ all, it's a spamtrap
Photos of both "http://www.lawn-mower-man.co.uk"

On Sat, 19 Nov 2005 11:49:49 +0000, The Reid
wrote:

Following up to poldy

That is the neocon plan for the Middle East, to shove "democracy" down
their throats. Of course, Iraq could vote to become a quasi-theocracy

it probably will at some point.

Right now that would be preferable to the anarchy they have. I can't
think of any theorcracy that's in worse shape than Iraq at the moment.
--
---
DFM - http://www.deepfriedmars.com
---
--

Following up to DDT Filled Mormons

Right now that would be preferable to the anarchy they have. I can't
think of any theorcracy that's in worse shape than Iraq at the moment.

not much of a test, how many countries run on any or no system
are in worse shape?
--
Mike Reid
Walk-eat-photos UK "http://www.fellwalk.co.uk" -- you can email us@ this site
Walk-eat-photos Spain "http://www.fell-walker.co.uk" -- dontuse@ all, it's a spamtrap

On Fri, 18 Nov 2005 21:40:47 -0800, poldy wrote:

One of the code words the neocons use is "islamofascism."....
Nice, verbally aligning "Islam" with "fascism."

IIRC, "Islamofascism" actually refers to Islamic extremists, as
opposed to the more moderate majority.

Also, in the past, President Bush has extended Ramadan greetings to
the Islamic Society of North America, which has a condmenation of
terrorism on their web site (
http://www.isna.net/index.php?id=35&backPID=1&tt_news=4 ). Back in
September, Karen Hughs represented President Bush at one of their
conferences (
http://www.isna.net/index.php?id=35&...&tt_news=30 6
).

So it looks like things *may* be a little bit more complicated than
that.



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