The development of television and the internet has often accelerated
the assimilation of minority groups into the broader society. However, the
programs and information being accessed by the troubled immigrant communities
discussed earlier appears to be assimilating non-Europeans into the cultural of
“globalized Islam” rather than Western society. Muslims in Europe remain
focused on issues of their homelands and other Muslim countries. They are
increasingly identifying more with Muslims fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan
than their fellow European citizens. Caldwell describes Islam as a “hyper-identity,”
overshadowing all other loyalties and forging a sense of solidarity between
Muslims around the world.
The problem
with this is the danger of dual-loyalties for European Muslims. Caldwell cites
reports of 150 British nationals who were fighting as insurgents two years into
the Iraq war. Skip forward several years and the current situation in the
Middle East is now witnessing over 3,000 individuals from Europe joining ISIS
in its Jihad as of late September, 2014. This demonstrates the problem of the
radicalization of Muslims even after they have moved to Europe. Now fear of a
terrorist attack in the United States and Europe is mounting and the disturbing
number of volunteers ISIS is receiving from Europe is not doing much to improve
relations between native Europeans and immigrant populations.
Caldwell
goes on to address the issue of differentiating extremists views on Islam and ‘real
Islam.’ He states that “one reads about ‘poorly trained, mostly foreign imams’
who incite young men to terrorist or ‘poorly trained judges’ on sharia courts.
The blame never falls on Islam itself but always on something aberrant, adventitious,
exogenous, atypical, something imposed on it by an unrepresentative handful of
nutcases, misinterpreters, Svengalis, and secret agents. The public is
generally unconvinced.” Caldwell asks “what
religion requires expertise – even ‘training’- to keep it from being dangerous
in the hands of its practitioners.” Although the native masses were skeptical
of Islam, voicing these concerns was rarely done in public.
In the
spirit of secular government, European governments approached policies
concerning religion using a system of trade-offs. Preventing students from wearing
veils in public schools was achieved by a ban on displaying crosses on campuses
as well. Tony Blair’s attempt to close down known radical Mosques was abandoned.
Caldwell comments “no doubt it could have been arranged if the government had
been able to find a few churches radical enough to close, too.” He makes a further
point that “since atheists, agnostics, and Christians don’t use freedom of
religion in Europe nowadays, freedom of religion comes to mean freedom of
Islam.” Caldwell criticizes Western liberals for hoping Islam will modernize
while “their regime of tolerance has erected a wall around Islam that protects
it from all the external pressures that beset Christianity between the
sixteenth and nineteenth centuries.” European politicians also attempt to
equate criticism of Islam with racism and xenophobia. Furthermore, those who do
ridicule Islam are confronted or at least threatened with physical violence in
a way that criticism of Christianity could not match. This point was emphasized
by the different responses to the controversy over a Danish newspapers
publishing of cartoons depicting Mohammed in 2005. Muslims rioted, kidnaped,
boycotted and created signs reading, “Massacre Those Who Insult Islam.” Western
Europeans saw the controversy as an issue of Muslim intolerance while Muslims
felt the issue was about Western disrespect.
“The price
for managing Islam would be paid in rights.” This is a point Caldwell makes
several times. In order to secure social order, European governments must
sacrifice the rights and traditions of its native citizens. One western value
that Europe may refuse to concede to Islam is the equality of the sexes. Gender
equality, as Caldwell puts it, “is the one area where Europeans retain both a
deep suspicion of Muslim ways and a confidence in their own institutions that
is free of self-doubt.” Still, Europe is having to pay a price to protect its
young girls from backward traditions its immigrants have brought with them.
Female genital mutilation has made defensible possible policies that would have
previously been detestable to even consider. Policies requiring government
supervised gynecological inspections of little girls have been brought forward,
and subsequently rejected, as a measure to prevent forced mutilation. It seems that in order to maintain a
multicultural society, a nation must sacrifice the rights of its citizens to
maintain social order.
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