Walled off...

[DQ]

MM OCD is contagious. And Pray may I ask what is his definition of not integration. Once he defines It let him place each of the locations against his definition and come up with some logical / technical or whatever arguement instead of his usual Ghori / Ghaznavi Rant.

[CtrlAltDel]

oh no! not another debate on "integration" please...

[lonewolf]

oh no! not another debate on "integration" please...

He's not replying. I think his boss caught him watching porn.

[Mayavi Morpheus]

Here I am again, the so-called-RV (TM) with my 'baja'(TM)

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. [b]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.[/v]

No surprise, then, that a Muslim rioter in Århus, 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.

From CSmonitor.

[DQ]

The other side of the Coin.



La resistance: French riots about race, not religion

By Jason Rhode/Columnist



November 15, 2005



Paris is burning. Why?



You'll hear talk from both sides. From the left about how these riots are a justified outpouring of justifiable rage and frustration with bigotry, fight the power, etc.



From the right about how the children and grandchildren of African and Middle Eastern immigrants, mostly Muslim, are a generation of vipers - terrorist cells of the New Europe.



This is so much bunk. This isn't religious in nature. And rioting sure as hell is never justified.



What you are seeing here is something simpler:



French society is not an immigrant's society. Americans have gotten so good at bringing new people in from the cold, we've forgotten how hard it is for everyone else. Especially if you are like France, which, for being an enlightened Western country, is really, really bad at making any kind of real change.



Here, an American is an American if he/she believes in American ideals. A Frenchman ... is, well, French. Hence the problem. And the French don't only like their Frenchness - which is hard to reconcile with being an immigrant, or Muslim - but they like the institutions they have come to recognize as being French, such as a hideously inefficient and bloated welfare state.



It is instructive, perhaps, instead of asking what has happened, asking what hasn't happened. What hasn't happened? France hasn't helped employment. Since the 1970s, The Wall Street Journal reports, the U.S. has created 57 million new jobs. Europe, only four million - most of those, in government. France hasn't cut government spending and stagnation.



The outpourings of the Fifth Republic are responsible for about half of the GDP, contrasted with 36 percent in America. Because let's face it: It's hard to get a job in France (especially with a dusky skin tone), but easy to stay in it with a mandatory short workweek and early retirement. Which is why everybody is so reluctant to create new jobs, and hesitant to do away with any new ones.



Even if the French were predisposed to hire someone of Algerian heritage over a guy who looked just like them, there wouldn't be enough chairs to go around. France hasn't employed its people: The latest youth jobless rate is 23 percent (Europe's near-worst). The overall jobless rate is 10 percent. In the "sensitive urban zones" where the majority of the rioters are living and currently burning, unemployment nears 40 percent.



France hasn't mended her cities. The festering suburbs of Paris are a kind of apartheid beyond the dreams of the American inner-city. Look down on a map of the City of Light, and what do you see? Where are the hotbeds of violence? Clichy-sous-Bois. Montfermeil. Torcy. Le Queue-en-Brie. Noisy-le-Grand. All are on the outside of the Paris. As if an invisible wall girded the city.



Why didn't the French try to pierce that wall? They can't. Because France doesn't encourage the kind of small business, the kind of entrepreneurship that not only creates the majority of an economy's jobs, but is essential to immigrant integration into civil society.



So France needs a more conservative economic policy. But she also needs a liberal social policy; France has no real equivalent to our affirmative action, which can be decried today because it's been so successful in the past. Compared to the United States or United Kingdom. foreign faces are rare in not only in French government, but also in the boardroom and national news media.



Our Supreme Court, the least democratic of our branches, is staffed with Catholics, Jews, and Americans of the Irish, Italian and African persuasion - all groups that at one time or another large segments of the populace wanted booted out of the country.



We attack any notion of hyphenated Americanism, but we forget what an inspired compromise that is.



Here, you are able to balance fear of losing your ancestral ways with your pride at being a part of this country, to keep the old world with the new.



France has no equivalent linguistic middle ground for the French-born descendants of the "newcomers." You're either "French" or an "immigrant." No hyphen. An awkward valley, to be sure - especially if, say, your population consists of 5 million to 6 million people of North African origin, or 10 percent of the Fifth Republic.



If the idea of an upward push for dark-colored faces up the socioeconomic ladder is a saber rattle in the face of proper Gallic identity, I suggest it is time for their notions to change, and soon.



America assumes France is to the left of them on everything. Amnesia. In the States, we recognize that our identity as a country is continually up for grabs.



France has an old-fashioned view of what being French is: the official culture is very top-down, very homogenizing. Here, it took blood-drenched decades of Haymarket and Draft riots to help us decide what constituted a citizen of this country. We fought a Civil War about it.



As freedom spreads through the world, societies, as a necessity, must become more open. Open markets, open minds - and of course, open gates. Immigration is necessary and highly beneficial to every great nation that's embraced it; but, you can't have it both ways.



You can't bring in foreign workers to do your dirty work and not give their offspring a slice of what they made. You can't have generations of workers kept from jobs and from recognition because your economy's too immobile; your self-identity's too narrow.



Grow up.



What is happening to the Republic of France is shocking and unnecessary, but it is, I think, natural. The sooner they make their peace with the Open World, the better. The times, they are a changin'.

[DQ]

Another for the Baja walas.





French riots reflect societal ambivalence

By Christopher Skeet

Published: Monday, November 14, 2005

Article Tools: Page 1 of 1



It appears that the predictions of CNN's talking heads, the warnings of Arab dictators, and the overt desires of the editors of LeMonde have finally borne fruit. The Arab street has exploded.



Except, it's not exactly the streets of Baghdad, Beirut, or Ramallah that are overflowing with the furious downtrodden. It's Paris, Toulouse, and Nantes that are burning, and this time nobody around can pin the blame on that mean ol' Zionist neocon cowboy from Crawford.



The riots France has been witnessing aren't about two electrocuted teenagers. They're about a political system that ignores the wishes and aspirations of its own citizens. Socialism and multiculturalism in and of themselves have proven failures. But to mix them together and force them on gullible citizen is recipe for disaster. Remember the 2003 heatwave that cooked 10,000 French senior citizens? Yawn. President Chirac felt no need to cut his vacation short to deal with grocery store freezers-turned-morgue. Remember the EU constitution that the French voters rejected via referendum? Sigh. The French government announced their intention to hold the vote over and over again until it gets approved.



Anyone bothered by France's double-digit unemployment rate? Hey now, the French government has far greater threats to its economy. You know, like the sudden removal of it's Oil-for-Francs slush fund.



So in all fairness, the Arab immigrant community in France shouldn't be surprised to find themselves on the back burner of the socialist stovetop that neglects even it's own homegrown alphas. But that community has been the gas leaking out of that oven for over 50 years now, and all it took was a tiny spark to ignite them. And as socialism neatly divides people into certain rights, privileges, and punishments based not on the individual but on the group, it's no surprise that the neglected group now moves as one unit against the perceived oppression.



No doubt this will be spun as evidence of "Muslims"' inability to integrate into Western society.

No doubt Muslim headscarves will become an even bigger threat to French national security than before. But these riots have nothing to do with Islam. Look around the United States. How many Arab Muslims do you see living on street corners? Five? Ten? How come our Arab immigrant communities are composed of doctors, professors, and business owners? Are they successful because of their skin color, religion, or past history? Or because they live in a system that encourages innovation and progress based on individual ambition over surface-dressing ethnic hyphenations?



Nor is this about French/Arab grudges from the former French colonization of North Africa. Look at our Vietnamese communities. From a country we fought with for decades, in who's jungles Americans and Vietnamese slaughtered each other by the thousands, comes an ethnicity of people who within a generation have completely integrated and succeeded in our society. The Vietnamese can succeed because they enjoy the same rights and social standing as any other American, not because he has different rights or a skin color that needs government protection and societal favor.



France was the pioneer in socialist multiculturalism, so we cannot blame them for failing to see the storm on the horizon. But we have no excuse.



Those same riots and worse could happen here in a couple decades if we keep drifting towards the idea that every race of people must be divided into very unequal rights, assumptions, and collective rewards/punishments.

[DQ]

French Muslims face job discrimination

Days of rioting in the bleaker suburbs of Paris have highlighted discontent among many French youths of North African origin.
As part of a series on French Muslims, the BBC News website's Henri Astier looks at the issue of discrimination, a leading source of frustration in France's unemployment-riddled ghettos.


Sadek recently quit his job delivering groceries near Saint-Denis, just north of Paris. He was tired of climbing stairs with heavy bags.


Unemployment is high in estates which are home to many Muslims
Sadek, 31, has a secondary school education and aspires to something better. But he knows his options are limited: "With a name like mine, I can't have a sales job."

Telemarketing could be a possibility - his Arab roots safely hidden from view. Of course, he would have to work under an assumed name.

Sadek's story sums up the job prospects of the children and grandchildren of Muslim immigrants.

They may be French on paper - but they know that Ali and Rachid are much less likely to get ahead than Alain or Richard.

Racial discrimination is banned in France. But a quick look at the people working in any shop or office suggests the practice is widespread.

The impression is confirmed by official statistics.

Unemployment among people of French origin is 9.2%. Among those of foreign origin, the figure is 14% - even after adjusting for educational qualifications.

Closed doors

The pressure group SOS Racisme regularly highlights cases of employers discarding applicants with foreign names.

It says such discrimination is particularly rife in the retail and hospitality industries - but also for jobs involving no contact with the public.

"Some companies believe that to be responsible for marketing you must have roots in mainland France over several generations to understand the French consumer attitudes," according to a recent SOS Racisme report.

You feel you will never make it because you are Arab


French Muslims speak out
"Doors are closed when you are an Arab," says Yazid Sabeg, a businessman and writer.

For many young people, the first time they notice the closed door is when they try to go clubbing.

"The first time the guy at the entrance says: 'You're not coming in', you accept it," says Nadir Dendoune, a journalist from Saint-Denis.

"But after two or three times, you go home carrying a bag of hatred on your shoulders."

And when you can't find a job, Mr Dendoune adds, despondency turns to paranoia.

"Every rejection - even those that may not be racially motivated - undermines your self-confidence. You feel you will never make it because you are Arab."

Failed approach

France has countless bodies dedicated to helping immigrants - a High Council for Integration, a Directorate for Populations and Migrations, several regional commissions for the insertion of immigrants, and so on.


Samia Amara questions the need to "integrate" French Muslims
Despite this, France's integration policy has failed, the Court of Accounts, a government watchdog, concluded last year.

The situation could lead to "serious social and racial tensions", the court warned prophetically.

According to some, the concept of "integration" itself is flawed.

"People always talk of the need to 'integrate' Muslims. But the youths are French. Why should they need integrating?" asks Samia Amara, 23, a youth worker near Paris.

Mr Sabeg agrees that "integration" is just hot air. "What does it mean? Are some French people supposed to integrate and others to be integrated?"

Some politicians argue that France should admit this failure and try something new.

UNEMPLOYMENT WOES
9.2% unemployment rate for people of French origin
14% unemployment for people of foreign origin (adjusted for education)
5% overall unemployment for university graduates
26.5% unemployment for "North African" university graduates
Source: Insee
Manuel Valls, an MP and mayor of Evry, a town south of Paris where half the population have foreign roots, says France "cannot lecture Britain or the US" on immigration issues.

His country, he points out, has no black or Arab TV presenters, and all MPs from mainland France are white.

Mr Valls is a firm believer in "positive discrimination" - a very un-French concept that is beginning to gain acceptance.

The broad idea is extra help based on geographical and social - but not racial - criteria. Mr Valls points to an example of such action in his own constituency.

The Lycee Robert Doisneau is a secondary school surrounded by some of the country's worst housing estates, with unemployment in excess of 30%.


The Lycee Robert Doisneau offers students a shot at success
About 70% of pupils have foreign parents or grandparents.

Despite such a challenging intake, the school offers a way out of the ghetto.

"The students come here to study and to succeed," says head teacher Genevieve Piniau.

She has pioneered partnerships with elite schools, whose high-fliers groom local pupils to develop their aspirations.

The school also takes part in a scheme run by Paris' Political Sciences Institute, providing special access for students from deprived areas.

The result is 89% success in school leaving exams - well above the national average - and a record of success at university level for former students.

Distant dream

Of course, youths from poor suburbs need more than an education - they need jobs.

Efforts are being made to encourage employers to take them on. Unlike the failed legislative approach, the emphasis is now on voluntary pledges by employers.

Mr Sabeg is among the sponsors of a new "diversity charter" encouraging companies to "reflect the diversity of French society" by hiring qualified non-whites.

It remains to be seen how this will be implemented.

Mr Sabeg is looking across the Channel for inspiration, noting that the head of Vodafone, one of Europe's largest companies, is an Indian, Arun Sarin.

"When this happens here, we will know France has changed," he says.

Meanwhile in Saint-Denis, Sadek would settle for a temp job at the post office - but that remains a distant dream.

[CtrlAltDel]

the racial situation described above by DQ exists not only in France but also in most European countries. in fact, thats what differentiates US and Europe in integrting minorities...

[Akshay]

Just to continue the marathon of quoting and highlighting others' opinions:

COUNTERPOINT
Beyond Apologists
Time to unconditionally reject the apologists for those engaged in hideous crimes. Yes, there is discrimination and injustice in the liberal democracies of the world, but they also offer greater scope for redress than any other societies, and, indeed, than has been available at any other point in history.

In Europe today, Muslim youth are rioting in the wake of an incident in Paris in which the police could hardly be faulted for their conduct: Three youth, asked to show their identity papers by the police, fled and jumped a wall surrounding a high voltage electric transformer, and were electrocuted - two died and the third was seriously injured.

Protests began in Paris shortly thereafter, with hundreds of young Muslims, overwhelmingly drawn from immigrant communities from France's erstwhile colonies in North Africa, taking to the streets, destroying public and private property, and engaging in violent confrontations with the Police. The rioting and arson spread rapidly to other French cities, and then, to towns in Germany and Belgium.

Immediately, the Islamist apologetics commenced, vigorously supported by liberal sympathisers. The riots were unhesitatingly attributed to discrimination against the Muslim minorities in France (and more generally in Europe), and the failure of French (European) society to adequately 'integrate' this particular minority within the larger community.

It is useful to recall, however, that several European communities have spoken of integration in the past, but their proposals were attacked by precisely these constituencies - the Islamists and their liberal sympathisers - on the grounds that this was an assault on the unique identities of the minorities and a violation of their 'rights'. Recollect, in France itself, the shrill protests when the display of any prominent religious symbols was banned in educational and other public institutions.

The regulation was interpreted as a particular attack on the hijab, the wearing of veils by Muslim women and girls, but actually imposed non-discriminatory restrictions on people of all faiths, including the majority Christian community, and did cause offense to certain other minorities as well, including the minuscule population of Sikhs. The truth is whenever assimilation is advocated in times of peace, there is a virulent backlash against such advocacy on the grounds that this constitutes an assault on the identity and practices of other faiths, particularly Islam; but whenever there is violence by minorities, this is blamed on the failure to assimilate these communities. It is important, now, to determine whether assimilation is, in fact, a good thing; or are we to divide our world into religious ghettoes?

The question and crisis is not unique to France or contemporary Europe. The same pattern of arguments, the same muddle-headedness, afflicts the 'intellectuals', 'liberals' and 'secularists' of India as well - which is quite unsurprising, since there is little original thinking in this country today, and most of their ideas are picked up out of some foreign newspaper, magazine or tome. Thus, over a decade and a half of Islamist terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir - explicitly engineered and supported by Pakistan - is blamed on the failure to 'assimilate' the Kashmiri Muslim into the 'national mainstream', and to discriminatory policies that resulted in 'poverty' and 'unemployment' in the state - and the fact that Jammu and Kashmir was far from the poorest region in the country has had no bearing on these arguments.

Nor did the fact that much of the failure of assimilation was the result of special constitutional, political and administrative provisions that were intended to protect the 'unique identity and status' of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.


The same pattern of discourse applied to Punjab through the 1980s and early 1990s, when the Khalistani terrorism - again backed by Pakistan - was attributed to supposed 'discrimination' against a community that was unique in the extraordinary honour and prominence that had been conferred upon it, in its exceptional achievements, and in its comparative wealth within the Indian context. None of this, however, deterred extremists of the faith from claiming discrimination and 'injustice'; nor did it ever cause their liberal and 'secular' apologists to review the manifest absurdity of their positions.

What has secularism really come to stand for today? Throughout a long career with the Indian Police and thereafter, I have always considered the protection of minorities, no matter who or where they happen to be, the prime concern of law enforcement agencies. But it is my equally firm conviction that you cannot tailor policies and development to suit the needs of any one caste or community. It is all or nothing, and attempts to selectively target particular communities for benefits or concessions have not only failed - and will continue to fail - but have consistently proven counter-productive.

Further, it is now imperative that we clearly recognise the enormous harm that organised religions have inflicted on humanity through history, and abandon the enterprise of looking for justifications or refutations for the excesses of extremists and zealots in the religious texts of these various faiths. It matters little what the 'real teachings' of a particular faith are - these will always be subject to conflicting interpretations and can lend themselves to any ideological position. Recall that, for centuries, the Christian world engaged in cruel wars of aggression - the crusades - and in the most extraordinary tortures and excesses - the inquisition - in the name of a man who spoke of non-violence and exhorted his followers to 'turn the other cheek'. There can be no reasoning with the extremist mindset. It is, moreover, a fact that some religious texts and doctrines have more of 'hatred content' than others, and their followers unabashedly proclaim and propagate such content, feeding the fires of communal violence and terror.

That is why it becomes so necessary for each community to directly confront and challenge its lunatic fringe. Every institution, however large or small, however tightly or loosely organised, must accept responsibility for its aberrant members - and organised faiths cannot evade or deny this responsibility. If we see ourselves as members of a community, we accept responsibility for the actions of other members - and where these actions are odious and unacceptable, it is incumbent upon us to explicitly distance these actions and their perpetrators from the larger community. As a police officer, it was my duty to fight the terrorists in Punjab; but prior to that, as a Sikh, it was my greater duty to repudiate and speak out against the gross distortion of the faith that had spawned the terror.

And yet, there were large numbers of 'moderate Sikhs' who certainly chose silence in the wake of some of the worst terrorist atrocities, and at least some of whom vicariously celebrated these pitiless 'victories' of terrorism. And this is true of large sections of the Muslim community across the world today, as it reserves its condemnation of terrorist actions, or qualifies criticism with elaborate apologetics about 'root causes' and conspiracy theories that discover in everything the alleged and unique targeting of members of their faith.Crucially, so much of this apologia, and the critique of the injustices of liberal democracies, comes from countries and communities that deny any right whatsoever to their own minorities - if any have, in fact, survived - and even to the larger mass of their own citizens.

It is time that the apologists for those engaged in these hideous crimes were unconditionally rejected. Of course, there is discrimination and injustice in the liberal democracies of the world - but these offer greater scope for redress and opportunities for advancement to their citizens, including their minorities, than any other societies, and, indeed, than has been available at any other point in history. It should be possible for communities within liberal democratic societies to settle their grievances and dissensions without recourse to arms, murder, terrorism and communal rioting. It is crucial, if we are to overcome the widening sphere of communal polarisation, extremism, violence and terror, to recognise and correct the distortions and abuses that increasingly masquerade under the garb of 'religious freedom', 'minority rights' and 'secularism'.

[Akshay]

Just to continue the marathon of quoting and highlighting others' opinions:

COUNTERPOINT
Beyond Apologists
Time to unconditionally reject the apologists for those engaged in hideous crimes. Yes, there is discrimination and injustice in the liberal democracies of the world, but they also offer greater scope for redress than any other societies, and, indeed, than has been available at any other point in history.

In Europe today, Muslim youth are rioting in the wake of an incident in Paris in which the police could hardly be faulted for their conduct: Three youth, asked to show their identity papers by the police, fled and jumped a wall surrounding a high voltage electric transformer, and were electrocuted - two died and the third was seriously injured.

Protests began in Paris shortly thereafter, with hundreds of young Muslims, overwhelmingly drawn from immigrant communities from France's erstwhile colonies in North Africa, taking to the streets, destroying public and private property, and engaging in violent confrontations with the Police. The rioting and arson spread rapidly to other French cities, and then, to towns in Germany and Belgium.

Immediately, the Islamist apologetics commenced, vigorously supported by liberal sympathisers. The riots were unhesitatingly attributed to discrimination against the Muslim minorities in France (and more generally in Europe), and the failure of French (European) society to adequately 'integrate' this particular minority within the larger community.

It is useful to recall, however, that several European communities have spoken of integration in the past, but their proposals were attacked by precisely these constituencies - the Islamists and their liberal sympathisers - on the grounds that this was an assault on the unique identities of the minorities and a violation of their 'rights'. Recollect, in France itself, the shrill protests when the display of any prominent religious symbols was banned in educational and other public institutions.

The regulation was interpreted as a particular attack on the hijab, the wearing of veils by Muslim women and girls, but actually imposed non-discriminatory restrictions on people of all faiths, including the majority Christian community, and did cause offense to certain other minorities as well, including the minuscule population of Sikhs. The truth is whenever assimilation is advocated in times of peace, there is a virulent backlash against such advocacy on the grounds that this constitutes an assault on the identity and practices of other faiths, particularly Islam; but whenever there is violence by minorities, this is blamed on the failure to assimilate these communities. It is important, now, to determine whether assimilation is, in fact, a good thing; or are we to divide our world into religious ghettoes?

The question and crisis is not unique to France or contemporary Europe. The same pattern of arguments, the same muddle-headedness, afflicts the 'intellectuals', 'liberals' and 'secularists' of India as well - which is quite unsurprising, since there is little original thinking in this country today, and most of their ideas are picked up out of some foreign newspaper, magazine or tome. Thus, over a decade and a half of Islamist terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir - explicitly engineered and supported by Pakistan - is blamed on the failure to 'assimilate' the Kashmiri Muslim into the 'national mainstream', and to discriminatory policies that resulted in 'poverty' and 'unemployment' in the state - and the fact that Jammu and Kashmir was far from the poorest region in the country has had no bearing on these arguments.

Nor did the fact that much of the failure of assimilation was the result of special constitutional, political and administrative provisions that were intended to protect the 'unique identity and status' of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.


The same pattern of discourse applied to Punjab through the 1980s and early 1990s, when the Khalistani terrorism - again backed by Pakistan - was attributed to supposed 'discrimination' against a community that was unique in the extraordinary honour and prominence that had been conferred upon it, in its exceptional achievements, and in its comparative wealth within the Indian context. None of this, however, deterred extremists of the faith from claiming discrimination and 'injustice'; nor did it ever cause their liberal and 'secular' apologists to review the manifest absurdity of their positions.

What has secularism really come to stand for today? Throughout a long career with the Indian Police and thereafter, I have always considered the protection of minorities, no matter who or where they happen to be, the prime concern of law enforcement agencies. But it is my equally firm conviction that you cannot tailor policies and development to suit the needs of any one caste or community. It is all or nothing, and attempts to selectively target particular communities for benefits or concessions have not only failed - and will continue to fail - but have consistently proven counter-productive.

Further, it is now imperative that we clearly recognise the enormous harm that organised religions have inflicted on humanity through history, and abandon the enterprise of looking for justifications or refutations for the excesses of extremists and zealots in the religious texts of these various faiths. It matters little what the 'real teachings' of a particular faith are - these will always be subject to conflicting interpretations and can lend themselves to any ideological position. Recall that, for centuries, the Christian world engaged in cruel wars of aggression - the crusades - and in the most extraordinary tortures and excesses - the inquisition - in the name of a man who spoke of non-violence and exhorted his followers to 'turn the other cheek'. There can be no reasoning with the extremist mindset. It is, moreover, a fact that some religious texts and doctrines have more of 'hatred content' than others, and their followers unabashedly proclaim and propagate such content, feeding the fires of communal violence and terror.

That is why it becomes so necessary for each community to directly confront and challenge its lunatic fringe. Every institution, however large or small, however tightly or loosely organised, must accept responsibility for its aberrant members - and organised faiths cannot evade or deny this responsibility. If we see ourselves as members of a community, we accept responsibility for the actions of other members - and where these actions are odious and unacceptable, it is incumbent upon us to explicitly distance these actions and their perpetrators from the larger community. As a police officer, it was my duty to fight the terrorists in Punjab; but prior to that, as a Sikh, it was my greater duty to repudiate and speak out against the gross distortion of the faith that had spawned the terror.

And yet, there were large numbers of 'moderate Sikhs' who certainly chose silence in the wake of some of the worst terrorist atrocities, and at least some of whom vicariously celebrated these pitiless 'victories' of terrorism. And this is true of large sections of the Muslim community across the world today, as it reserves its condemnation of terrorist actions, or qualifies criticism with elaborate apologetics about 'root causes' and conspiracy theories that discover in everything the alleged and unique targeting of members of their faith.Crucially, so much of this apologia, and the critique of the injustices of liberal democracies, comes from countries and communities that deny any right whatsoever to their own minorities - if any have, in fact, survived - and even to the larger mass of their own citizens.

It is time that the apologists for those engaged in these hideous crimes were unconditionally rejected. Of course, there is discrimination and injustice in the liberal democracies of the world - but these offer greater scope for redress and opportunities for advancement to their citizens, including their minorities, than any other societies, and, indeed, than has been available at any other point in history. It should be possible for communities within liberal democratic societies to settle their grievances and dissensions without recourse to arms, murder, terrorism and communal rioting. It is crucial, if we are to overcome the widening sphere of communal polarisation, extremism, violence and terror, to recognise and correct the distortions and abuses that increasingly masquerade under the garb of 'religious freedom', 'minority rights' and 'secularism'.

[Akshay]

Sorry for the double

[Mayavi Morpheus]

Old habits die hard... continuing my propaganda and hate-islam campaign

Rooting for Sharia laws in Bradford

Hasan Suroor

It is one thing to demand the democratic right in an open and free society to practise one's faith, but to want to have a parallel religious legal system is quite another.

SHARIA LAWS in Britain? The idea might sound absurd but, according to a recent survey, 40 per cent of British Muslims "want" Sharia introduced in "predominantly" Muslim areas of the United Kingdom. One can question the motive behind such a survey especially as it was commissioned by The Daily Telegraph, a right-wing newspaper not particularly fond of Muslims. One can also speculate whether the newspaper would have splashed it on the front page if the findings had been different. For instance if 99 per cent Muslims had said that they were content living under Britain's secular laws — no thank you, no Sharia for us.

But that does not detract from the main issue, which is that four out of 10 British Muslims want the Sharia. This is a sizeable proportion and any community in which such a large chunk wants to be governed by a theocratic regime renders itself vulnerable to the charge of being at odds with the values of a modern western society in which it has chosen to settle.

It is one thing to demand the democratic right in an open and free society to practise one's faith, but to want to have a parallel religious legal system is quite another. Not surprisingly, the finding has served to reinforce the notion of Muslim "separatism." The head of the Racial Equality Commission, Trevor Philips, responded by saying that there was no place for such people in Britain and those who wanted to live under the Sharia were free to leave. Others raised the spectre of Britain becoming a "Londonistan" if such demands gained momentum, and at least one commentator warned that the day was not far off when predominantly Muslim British cities would come under Sharia laws.

"In a decade you will see parts of English cities which will be controlled by Muslim clerics and follow aspects of Sharia law," said Patrick Sookhdeo, director of the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity, and himself a Christian convert from Islam.

It is tempting to dismiss these views as an over-reaction from usual suspects and argue that, instead, we should look at the positive aspect of the survey, which is that a majority of Muslims do not want the Sharia. Indeed, many will say that is the real story — and at one level that is true. But can we wish away the 40 per cent pro-Sharia Muslims? Sadiq Khan, a Labour MP, admitted the findings were "alarming" and said it reflected the fact that a "vast number of Muslims feel disengaged and alienated from mainstream British society."

The question is: why are they "disengaged and alienated?" And would permitting Sharia laws make them less disengaged and alienated? Of course, Mr. Khan was not arguing in favour of Sharia (as a Labour MP he cannot do it publicly, anyway) but the moment one starts to find a rationale for such things it amounts to giving them legitimacy. It is saying: yes, these people may have a point.

The fact, however, is that they do not have a point and it is the responsibility of public figures like Mr. Khan who represents them in Parliament to sensitise them — and indeed help them overcome their "alienation" and "disengagement" rather than using it as an excuse to explain away patently regressive tendencies.

The honest-to-goodness truth is that it has nothing to do with alienation but everything to do with educational and social backwardness and the total failure of the so-called community leadership to show them the way forward. No doubt, Muslims — as to some extent all immigrant groups — feel alienated because of racial discrimination and the post-9/11 anti-Muslim backlash but the answer to that is not burying themselves deeper into their ghettos.

By all means, they should stand up and resist if they believe that their legitimate democratic rights, whether as a racial or a religious group, are under attack but any such struggle must remain secular and non-sectarian if it is to receive wider support. Demands such as those for separate faith laws are only likely to further inflame the anti-Muslim sentiment. "It's like showing the red rag to the bull in the present climate when conspiracy theories about Islam are floating all over Europe," said one Muslim analyst.

Larger stakes


But there are larger issues at stake here — issues to do with a Muslim mindset that refuses to detach itself from centuries-old ideas of progress, freedom, justice, and the role of religion in society. To oppose the demand for Sharia laws is not an attack on Islam. It is not even to suggest that these laws were not progressive in relation to the period when they were conceived. But the world has changed, and even some of the most progressive notions of that time have now become obsolete, and this applies as much to Islamic formulations as those prescribed by other faiths.

It is important here to make a distinction between religious practices, which however obsolete and obscurantist are a matter of individual choice, and religious laws relating to marriage, divorce, women's rights, property affairs, and criminal justice that affect the entire community. Laws are dynamic and need to be routinely reviewed and updated to respond better to the changing needs of a society as a whole — not just one group. Hence the importance of secular laws that apply to all irrespective of people's religious beliefs.

Even in Islamic societies where Sharia laws have been updated, they remain problematic as the current controversy in Malaysia shows. Marina Mahathir, daughter of the former Malaysian Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamed, who did much to modernise Islamic laws, has said that Muslim women in her country are being discriminated against to a degree that they are facing a virtual "apartheid."

[/b]In an article, which has created a furore in Malaysia, she said polygamy was still allowed for Muslims and, under Islamic family law, the father continued to be regarded as the primary guardian of children whereas in other religious groups both parents shared the guardianship of their children. "Non-Muslim Malaysian women have benefited from more progressive laws over the years while the opposite has happened for Muslim women," she wrote in the Star. [/b]

One does not have to accept everything that Ms. Marina says at face value to see the problem. Malaysia is regarded as one of the most progressive Muslim states, which has seen some genuine reforms. Yet it has not been able to resolve satisfactorily the conflict inherent in running a modern and culturally diverse country with the help of laws that have their roots in a tribal society of 1,400 years ago.

[/b]If a reform-minded and forward-looking government has not been able to manage the conflict, it is not difficult to imagine what would happen if the uneducated and reforms-resistant mullahs of Bradford were allowed to operate Sharia laws! [/b]

[/b]In a recent interview to The Hindu , Ziauddin Sardar, one of Europe's leading Muslim scholars, urged Muslims to "rethink and reformulate Islam as a contemporary worldview." This did not mean that they needed to compromise on basic Islamic notions but to use them to develop a more contemporary outlook. "Indeed, in my opinion serious rethinking with Islam is overdue. Muslims have been comfortably relying, or rather falling back, on age-old interpretations for much too long," he said. And Muslims living in Europe, he argued, had a particular responsibility. [/b]

"I think that rigidity and narrow-mindedness of certain quarters amongst Muslims in Europe is fuelling the rise of extreme right-wing extremism. So, European Muslims have a great burden on their shoulders — they need to develop a dynamic European Islam, underpinning European Muslim identities as an urgent social and cultural project," Mr. Sardar said.

Indeed, as he pointed out, there is a great tradition of the Muslim diaspora playing an important role in shaping and renewing Islam. There is a growing support for the view that favours Islam adapting itself to the local conditions — as it did in India, and parts of South-East Asia. The future belongs to an Islam with national characteristics (much like socialism with national characteristics), which will allow Muslims, wherever they live, to learn to co-exist with the social, cultural, and religious diversity around them.

Ironically, among the British Muslims who want the Sharia there are many who have forsaken the Islamic regimes of their own native countries and consciously chosen to settle in a non-Islamic country. Whatever may have prompted or compelled them to do it, they must now make a further — mental — leap forward and embrace the secular values to which they owe their place in Britain in the first place.

http://www.hindu.com/2006/03/14/stories/2006031403570800.htm

[Mayavi Morpheus]

Old habits die hard... continuing my propaganda and hate-islam campaign

Rooting for Sharia laws in Bradford

Hasan Suroor

It is one thing to demand the democratic right in an open and free society to practise one's faith, but to want to have a parallel religious legal system is quite another.

SHARIA LAWS in Britain? The idea might sound absurd but, according to a recent survey, 40 per cent of British Muslims "want" Sharia introduced in "predominantly" Muslim areas of the United Kingdom. One can question the motive behind such a survey especially as it was commissioned by The Daily Telegraph, a right-wing newspaper not particularly fond of Muslims. One can also speculate whether the newspaper would have splashed it on the front page if the findings had been different. For instance if 99 per cent Muslims had said that they were content living under Britain's secular laws — no thank you, no Sharia for us.

But that does not detract from the main issue, which is that four out of 10 British Muslims want the Sharia. This is a sizeable proportion and any community in which such a large chunk wants to be governed by a theocratic regime renders itself vulnerable to the charge of being at odds with the values of a modern western society in which it has chosen to settle.

It is one thing to demand the democratic right in an open and free society to practise one's faith, but to want to have a parallel religious legal system is quite another. Not surprisingly, the finding has served to reinforce the notion of Muslim "separatism." The head of the Racial Equality Commission, Trevor Philips, responded by saying that there was no place for such people in Britain and those who wanted to live under the Sharia were free to leave. Others raised the spectre of Britain becoming a "Londonistan" if such demands gained momentum, and at least one commentator warned that the day was not far off when predominantly Muslim British cities would come under Sharia laws.

"In a decade you will see parts of English cities which will be controlled by Muslim clerics and follow aspects of Sharia law," said Patrick Sookhdeo, director of the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity, and himself a Christian convert from Islam.

It is tempting to dismiss these views as an over-reaction from usual suspects and argue that, instead, we should look at the positive aspect of the survey, which is that a majority of Muslims do not want the Sharia. Indeed, many will say that is the real story — and at one level that is true. But can we wish away the 40 per cent pro-Sharia Muslims? Sadiq Khan, a Labour MP, admitted the findings were "alarming" and said it reflected the fact that a "vast number of Muslims feel disengaged and alienated from mainstream British society."

The question is: why are they "disengaged and alienated?" And would permitting Sharia laws make them less disengaged and alienated? Of course, Mr. Khan was not arguing in favour of Sharia (as a Labour MP he cannot do it publicly, anyway) but the moment one starts to find a rationale for such things it amounts to giving them legitimacy. It is saying: yes, these people may have a point.

The fact, however, is that they do not have a point and it is the responsibility of public figures like Mr. Khan who represents them in Parliament to sensitise them — and indeed help them overcome their "alienation" and "disengagement" rather than using it as an excuse to explain away patently regressive tendencies.

The honest-to-goodness truth is that it has nothing to do with alienation but everything to do with educational and social backwardness and the total failure of the so-called community leadership to show them the way forward. No doubt, Muslims — as to some extent all immigrant groups — feel alienated because of racial discrimination and the post-9/11 anti-Muslim backlash but the answer to that is not burying themselves deeper into their ghettos.

By all means, they should stand up and resist if they believe that their legitimate democratic rights, whether as a racial or a religious group, are under attack but any such struggle must remain secular and non-sectarian if it is to receive wider support. Demands such as those for separate faith laws are only likely to further inflame the anti-Muslim sentiment. "It's like showing the red rag to the bull in the present climate when conspiracy theories about Islam are floating all over Europe," said one Muslim analyst.

Larger stakes


But there are larger issues at stake here — issues to do with a Muslim mindset that refuses to detach itself from centuries-old ideas of progress, freedom, justice, and the role of religion in society. To oppose the demand for Sharia laws is not an attack on Islam. It is not even to suggest that these laws were not progressive in relation to the period when they were conceived. But the world has changed, and even some of the most progressive notions of that time have now become obsolete, and this applies as much to Islamic formulations as those prescribed by other faiths.

It is important here to make a distinction between religious practices, which however obsolete and obscurantist are a matter of individual choice, and religious laws relating to marriage, divorce, women's rights, property affairs, and criminal justice that affect the entire community. Laws are dynamic and need to be routinely reviewed and updated to respond better to the changing needs of a society as a whole — not just one group. Hence the importance of secular laws that apply to all irrespective of people's religious beliefs.

Even in Islamic societies where Sharia laws have been updated, they remain problematic as the current controversy in Malaysia shows. Marina Mahathir, daughter of the former Malaysian Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamed, who did much to modernise Islamic laws, has said that Muslim women in her country are being discriminated against to a degree that they are facing a virtual "apartheid."

[/b]In an article, which has created a furore in Malaysia, she said polygamy was still allowed for Muslims and, under Islamic family law, the father continued to be regarded as the primary guardian of children whereas in other religious groups both parents shared the guardianship of their children. "Non-Muslim Malaysian women have benefited from more progressive laws over the years while the opposite has happened for Muslim women," she wrote in the Star. [/b]

One does not have to accept everything that Ms. Marina says at face value to see the problem. Malaysia is regarded as one of the most progressive Muslim states, which has seen some genuine reforms. Yet it has not been able to resolve satisfactorily the conflict inherent in running a modern and culturally diverse country with the help of laws that have their roots in a tribal society of 1,400 years ago.

[/b]If a reform-minded and forward-looking government has not been able to manage the conflict, it is not difficult to imagine what would happen if the uneducated and reforms-resistant mullahs of Bradford were allowed to operate Sharia laws! [/b]

[/b]In a recent interview to The Hindu , Ziauddin Sardar, one of Europe's leading Muslim scholars, urged Muslims to "rethink and reformulate Islam as a contemporary worldview." This did not mean that they needed to compromise on basic Islamic notions but to use them to develop a more contemporary outlook. "Indeed, in my opinion serious rethinking with Islam is overdue. Muslims have been comfortably relying, or rather falling back, on age-old interpretations for much too long," he said. And Muslims living in Europe, he argued, had a particular responsibility. [/b]

"I think that rigidity and narrow-mindedness of certain quarters amongst Muslims in Europe is fuelling the rise of extreme right-wing extremism. So, European Muslims have a great burden on their shoulders — they need to develop a dynamic European Islam, underpinning European Muslim identities as an urgent social and cultural project," Mr. Sardar said.

Indeed, as he pointed out, there is a great tradition of the Muslim diaspora playing an important role in shaping and renewing Islam. There is a growing support for the view that favours Islam adapting itself to the local conditions — as it did in India, and parts of South-East Asia. The future belongs to an Islam with national characteristics (much like socialism with national characteristics), which will allow Muslims, wherever they live, to learn to co-exist with the social, cultural, and religious diversity around them.

Ironically, among the British Muslims who want the Sharia there are many who have forsaken the Islamic regimes of their own native countries and consciously chosen to settle in a non-Islamic country. Whatever may have prompted or compelled them to do it, they must now make a further — mental — leap forward and embrace the secular values to which they owe their place in Britain in the first place.

http://www.hindu.com/2006/03/14/stories/2006031403570800.htm

[parinda]

Old habits die hard... continuing my propaganda and hate-islam campaign

One can question the motive behind such a survey especially as it was commissioned by The Daily Telegraph, a right-wing newspaper not particularly fond of Muslims. One can also speculate whether the newspaper would have splashed it on the front page if the findings had been different. For instance if 99 per cent Muslims had said that they were content living under Britain's secular laws — no thank you, no Sharia for us.

How can we be sure that the newspaper is not "continuing propaganda and hate Islam campaign ", how can we be sure about the authenticity of the results , how can we be sure about what question was asked and what answers were given, how can we be sure that those interviewed were Muslims..its all B.S and its for the RSS and other Hardcore fundamntalist Hindutva following and not Hinduism following fundamentalists like you...

[Mayavi Morpheus]

Well, it is a valid point... anything coming out of kufr-news sourcesis questionable! This one may be a yehudi-yindoo conspiracy to defame muslims and say what the news paper is THE HINDU!!! Must be a RSS mouthpiece.

[parinda]

Well, it is a valid point... anything coming out of kufr-news sourcesis questionable! This one may be a yehudi-yindoo conspiracy to defame muslims and say what the news paper is THE HINDU!!! Must be a RSS mouthpiece.

Well guess what I had quoted from what you had posted ....

[Mayavi Morpheus]

Yes sire, I am supporting you onlee. Like I said in one of the other threads, if one is a muslim one is innocent, period. Why? because allah said so!

[parinda]

Yes sire, I am supporting you onlee. Like I said in one of the other threads, if one is a muslim one is innocent, period. Why? because allah said so!

Did god talk to you , well its news to me , anywayz it seems like one of those illusions you live in , that you are continuing a hate Islam campaign to support fundamentalist Hinduism aka Hindutva ...

[Mayavi Morpheus]

Did god talk to you , well its news to me

Yeah he did and he told me that I am the new prophet.