Main focus of Thursday, July 6, 2006

Muslims in Europe

On the eve of the first anniversary of the July 7, 2005 attacks in London, European Muslims are condemning the tendency to confuse Islam and terrorism. How can they achieve full integration in Western society?

The Independent - United Kingdom

Tariq Ramadan, a professor of Islamic Studies at Oxford University, says Western Muslims "have clear-cut alternatives faced with the new reality [in Western societies]: they can adopt the attitude of the aggrieved victim or they can confront their difficulties. Nothing will change until they accept full responsibility for themselves, become constructively critical, and self-critical; until they respond to the creeping 'evolution of fear' with a firmly grounded 'revolution of trust'." ... Instead of withdrawing into isolation, Muslims in Britain and other European countries must make themselves heard, step out of their religious and social ghettos. ... But all of us, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, have a duty to address the flawed discourse that perpetuates the notion of 'us' and 'them'. Our societies are awaiting the emergence of a new 'we'." (06/07/2006)

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Die Zeit - Germany

At a conference held in Istanbul, leading religious and intellectual figures of the Sunni world ratified a declaration of principles which, among other things, refers to terrorism as a "cancer". Jörg Lau hails the declaration as a "Sensation": "This event provided a platform for eminent figures of the Islam world who would not have been welcome in the west - people like Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi of Quatar, who condoned the 'martyr operations' in Israel and Iraq. In Istanbul he sat patiently in the audience and watched while European speakers took it in turns to brand suicide attacks as intolerable and un-Islamic." (06/07/2006)

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Knack - Belgium

Rik Coolsaet, a professor of international relations at the University of Gand, believes it is erroneous to speak of "Muslim" terrorism. "The terrorists are a smattering of amateurs ... who take up arms in the name of their coreligionists. But the latter do not approve of them. I did not use the terms 'Islam' or 'Muslim'. Religion plays only a secondary role in such cases. The driving dynamic in modern terrorism is similar to what we saw with the Belgian leftist extremists, the Red Army Faction or the anarchist terrorists of the 19th century. ... Only a small number of anarchists were terrorists. The violent extremists were a fringe minority of the left in the 1980s. Why do we refer today to 'Muslim terrorism' and regard European Muslims as a fifth column?" (06/07/2006)

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Diario Sur - Spain

The Spanish daily worries about a poll showing that 13% of British Muslims consider the suicide bombers of the July 7, 2005 attacks in London to be martyrs. "This proves that education and aid programs are not enough to achieve proper integration. ... In many European countries, assimilation policies have not worked. Their failure became blatant when the second generation was confronted with an economic crisis that prevented its members from getting a good job, thus taking advantage of the 'theoretical' rights proper to democratic societies. However, we must avoid the pitfall of multiculturalism, which risks giving rise to segregation and resentment. It is a difficult subject, but it is time that we tackled it with a long-term vision." (06/07/2006)

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