| They inhabit self-imposed ghettoes, subject to derision | | | | a Muslim Council.Both Vladimir Putin, Russia's president |
| and worse, the perennial targets of far-right thugs and | | | | and Yuri Luzhkov, Moscow's mayor, now take the |
| populist politicians of all persuasions. They are mostly | | | | trouble to greet the capital's one million Muslims on the |
| confined to menial jobs. They are accused of | | | | occasion of their Feast of Sacrifice. They also actively |
| spreading crime, terrorism and disease, of being | | | | solicit the votes of the nationalist and elitist Muslims of |
| backward and violent, of refusing to fit in.Their religion, | | | | the industrialized Volga - mainly the Tatars, Bashkirs |
| atavistic and rigid, insists on ritual slaughter and male | | | | and Chuvash. Even the impoverished, much-detested |
| circumcision. They rarely mingle socially or inter-marry. | | | | and powerless Muslims of the northern Caucasus - |
| Most of them - though born in European countries - | | | | Chechens, Circassians and Dagestanis - have |
| are not allowed to vote. Brown-skinned and with a | | | | benefited from this newfound awareness of their |
| marked foreign accent, they are subject to police | | | | electoral power.Though divided by their common creed |
| profiling and harassment and all manner of racial | | | | - Shiites vs. Sunnites vs. Wahabbites and so on - the |
| discrimination.They are the new Jews of Europe - its | | | | Muslims of Europe are united in supporting the |
| Muslim minorities.Muslims - especially Arab youths from | | | | Palestinian cause and in opposing the Iraq war. This - |
| North Africa - are, indeed, disproportionately | | | | and post-colonial guilt feelings, especially manifest in |
| represented in crime, including hate crime, mainly | | | | France and Britain - go a long way toward explaining |
| against the Jews. Exclusively Muslim al-Qaida cells | | | | Germany's re-discovered pacifistic spine and France's |
| have been discovered in many West European | | | | anti-Israeli (not to say anti-Semitic) tilt.Moreover, the |
| countries. But this can be safely attributed to ubiquitous | | | | Muslims have been playing an important economic role |
| and trenchant long-term unemployment and to stunted | | | | in the continent since the early 1960s. Europe's |
| upward mobility, both social and economic due largely | | | | postwar miracle was founded on these cheap, plentiful |
| to latent or expressed racism.Moreover, the | | | | and oft-replenished Gastarbeiter - "guest workers". |
| stereotype is wrong. The incidence of higher education | | | | Objective studies have consistently shown that |
| and skills is greater among Muslim immigrants than in | | | | immigrants contribute more to their host economies - |
| the general population - a phenomenon known as | | | | as consumers, investors and workers - than they ever |
| "brain drain". Europe attracts the best and the brightest | | | | claw back in social services and public goods. This is |
| - students, scholars, scientists, engineers and | | | | especially true in Europe, where an ageing population |
| intellectuals - away from their destitute, politically | | | | of early retirees has been relying on the uninterrupted |
| dysfunctional and backward homelands.The Economist | | | | flow of pension contributions by younger laborers, |
| surveys the landscape of friction and | | | | many of them immigrants.Business has been paying |
| withdrawal:"Indifference to Islam has turned first to | | | | attention to this emerging market. British financial |
| disdain, then to suspicion and more recently to hostility ... | | | | intermediaries - such as the West Bromwich Building |
| (due to images of) petro-powered sheikhs, Palestinian | | | | Society - have recently introduced "Islamic" |
| terrorists, Iranian ayatollahs, mass immigration and then | | | | (interest-free) mortgages. According to market |
| the attacks of September 11th, executed if not planned | | | | research firm, Datamonitor, gross advances in the UK |
| by western-based Muslims and succored by an odious | | | | alone could reach $7 billion in 2006 - up from $60 million |
| regime in Afghanistan ... Muslims tend to come from | | | | today. The Bank of England is in the throes of |
| poor, rural areas; most are ill-educated, many are | | | | preparing regulations to accommodate the pent-up |
| brown. They often encounter xenophobia and | | | | demand.Yet, their very integration, however hesitant |
| discrimination, sometimes made worse by racist | | | | and gradual, renders the Muslims in Europe vulnerable |
| politicians. They speak the language of the wider | | | | to the kind of treatment the old continent meted out to |
| society either poorly or not at all, so they find it hard to | | | | its Jews before the holocaust. Growing Muslim |
| get jobs. Their children struggle at school. They huddle | | | | presence in stagnating job markets within recessionary |
| in poor districts, often in state-supplied housing ... They | | | | economies inevitably generated a backlash, often |
| tend to withdraw into their own world, (forming a) | | | | cloaked in terms of Samuel Huntington's 1993 essay in |
| self-sufficient, self-contained community."This | | | | Foreign Affairs, "Clash of Civilizations".Even tolerant |
| self-imposed segregation has multiple dimensions. | | | | Italy was affected. Last year, the Bologna archbishop, |
| Clannish behavior persists for decades. Marriages are | | | | Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, cast Islam as incompatible with |
| still arranged - reluctant brides and grooms are | | | | Italian culture. The country's prime minister suggested, in |
| imported from the motherland to wed immigrants from | | | | a visit to Berlin two years ago, that Islam is an |
| the same region or village. The "parallel society", in the | | | | inherently inferior civilization.Oriana Fallaci, a prominent |
| words of a British government report following the | | | | journalist, published last year an inane and foul-mouthed |
| Oldham riots two years ago, extends to cultural habits, | | | | diatribe titled "The Rage and the Pride" in which she |
| religious practices and social norms.Assimilation and | | | | accused Muslims of "breeding like rats", "shitting and |
| integration has many enemies.Remittances from | | | | pissing" (sic!) everywhere and supporting Osama |
| abroad are an important part of the gross national | | | | bin-Laden indiscriminately.Young Muslims reacted - by |
| product and budgetary revenues of countries such as | | | | further radicalizing and by refusing to assimilate - to |
| Bangladesh and Pakistan. Hence their frantic efforts to | | | | both escalating anti-Islamic rhetoric in Europe and the |
| maintain the cohesive national and cultural identity of | | | | "triumphs" of Islam elsewhere, such as the revolution in |
| the expats. DITIB is an arm of the Turkish | | | | Iran in 1979. Tutored by preachers trained in the most |
| government's office for religious affairs. It discourages | | | | militant Islamist climates in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, |
| the assimilation or social integration of Turks in | | | | Somalia, Pakistan and Iran, praying in mosques |
| Germany. Turkish businesses - newspapers, satellite | | | | financed by shady Islamic charities - these youngsters |
| TV, foods, clothing, travel agents, publishers - thrive on | | | | are amenable to recruiters from every fanatical |
| ghettoization.There is a tacit confluence of interests | | | | grouping.The United Kingdom suffered some of the |
| between national governments, exporters and Islamic | | | | worst race riots in half a century in the past two |
| organizations. All three want Turks in Germany to | | | | years. France is terrorized by an unprecedented crime |
| remain as Turkish as possible. The more nostalgic and | | | | wave emanating from the banlieux - the decrepit, |
| homebound the expatriate - the larger and more | | | | predominantly Muslim, housing estates in suburbia. |
| frequent his remittances, the higher his consumption of | | | | September 11 only accelerated the inevitable conflict |
| Turkish goods and services and the more prone he is | | | | between an alienated minority and hostile authorities |
| to resort to religion as a determinant of his besieged | | | | throughout the continent. Recent changes in European |
| and fracturing identity.Muslim numbers are not negligible. | | | | - notably British - legislation openly profile and target |
| Two European countries have Muslim majorities - | | | | Muslims.This is a remarkable turnaround. Europe |
| Bosnia-Herzegovina and Albania. Others - in both Old | | | | supported the Muslim Bosnian cause against the Serbs, |
| Europe and its post-communist east - harbor sizable | | | | Islamic Chechnya against Russia, the Palestinians |
| and growing Islamic minorities. Waves of immigration | | | | against the Israelis and Muslim Albanian insurgents |
| and birth rates three times as high as the indigenous | | | | against both Serbs and Macedonians. Nor was this |
| population increase their share of the population in | | | | consistent pro-Islamic orientation a novelty.Britain's |
| virtually every European polity - from Russia to | | | | Commission for Racial Equality which caters mainly to |
| Macedonia and from Bulgaria to Britain. One in seven | | | | the needs of Muslims, was formed 37 years ago. Its |
| Russians is Muslim - over 20 million people.According to | | | | Foreign Office has never wavered from its pro-Arab |
| the March-April issue of Foreign Policy, the non-Muslim | | | | bias. Germany established a Central Council for |
| part of Europe will shrink by 3.5 percent by 2015 while | | | | Muslims. Both anti-Americanism and the more veteran |
| the Muslim populace will likely double. There are 3 million | | | | anti-Israeli streak helped sustain Europe's empathy with |
| Turks in Germany and another 12 million Muslims - | | | | Muslim refugees and "freedom fighters" throughout the |
| Algerians, Moroccans, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, | | | | 1960s, 70s and 80s.September 11 put paid to this amity. |
| Egyptians, Senegalese, Malis, or Tunisians - in the rest | | | | The danger is that the brand of "Euro-Islam" that has |
| of the European Union.This is two and one half times | | | | begun to emerge lately may be decimated by this |
| the number of Muslims in the United States. Even | | | | pervasive and sudden mistrust. Time Magazine |
| assuming - wrongly - that all of them occupy the | | | | described this blend as "the traditional Koran-based |
| lowest decile of income, their combined annual | | | | religion with its prohibitions against alcohol and |
| purchasing power would amount to a whopping $150 | | | | interest-bearing loans now indelibly marked by the |
| billion. Furthermore, recent retroactive changes to | | | | 'Western' values of tolerance, democracy and civil |
| German law have naturalized over a million immigrants | | | | liberties."Such "enlightened" Muslims can serve as an |
| and automatically granted its much-coveted citizenship | | | | invaluable bridge between Europe and Russia, the |
| to the 160,000 Muslims born in Germany every | | | | Middle East, Asia, including China and other places with |
| year.Between 2-3 million Muslims in France - half their | | | | massive Muslim majorities or minorities. As most world |
| number - are eligible to vote. Another million - one out | | | | conflicts today involve Islamist militants, global peace |
| of two - cast ballots in Britain. These numbers count at | | | | and a functioning "new order" critically depend on the |
| the polls and are not offset by the concerted efforts | | | | goodwill and communication skills of Muslims.Such a |
| of a potent Jewish lobby - there are barely a million | | | | benign amalgam is the only realistic hope for |
| Jews in Western Europe.Muslims are becoming a | | | | reconciliation. Europe is ageing and stagnating and can |
| well-courted swing vote. They may have decided the | | | | be reinvigorated only by embracing youthful, dynamic, |
| last election in Germany, for instance. Recognizing their | | | | driven immigrants, most of whom are bound to be |
| growing centrality, France established - though not | | | | Muslim. Co-existence is possible and the clash of |
| without vote-rigging - a French Council of the Islamic | | | | civilization not an inevitability unless Huntington's |
| Faith, the equivalent of Napoleon's Jewish Consistory. | | | | dystopic vision becomes the basic policy document of |
| Two French cabinet members are Muslims. Britain has | | | | the West. |