Main focus of Tuesday, August 15, 2006

The malaise of Britain's Muslims

The United Kingdom last week announced it had foiled a series of terrorist attacks. Those suspected of plotting them are British citizens of the Muslim faith. How can their resentment against the United Kingdom be explained? Some blame Tony Blair's foreign policy, while others point to the failure of multicutural policies.One of the

The Guardian - United Kingdom

Columnist Polly Toynbee backs the 36 British Muslim groups which on Friday August 11 signed an open letter printed in different newspapers, calling on the prime minister to rethink his foreign policy. "British foreign policy has helped foment murderous extremism among British Muslims. The London bombings a year ago might not have happened had Labour taken the French stand [over Iraq] ... Every minister hotly denying this obvious truth sounds absurd - but makes the wrong point altogether. The point is that a democratically elected government's foreign policy can't be moulded by threats from murdering religious maniacs. There are 1,001 good reasons why we should never have supported, let alone joined, the war in Iraq. But the one truly bad reason would have been fear of terrorism." (15/08/2006)

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taz - Germany

Martin Riexinger, an expert on Islam, examines whether Islamic organisations are right to claim that Tony Blair's policies are actually promoting terrorism: "It's true that Great Britain became a target for radical Islamists because the government backed the policies of the Bush Administration. However, claims that this led to the radicalisation of British Muslims are simply false. Government support of US policy is certainly responsible for the fact that radical British Muslims who were once content to simply despise their own government and society in silence are now prepared to commit acts of terrorism. But even before the war in Iraq there was a considerable minority of mostly young Muslims in the UK who regarded violence against the 'infidels' as legitimate." According to Riexinger, this was mainly the result of religious influences from Pakistan. (15/08/2006)

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Diário de Notícias - Portugal

In a commentary Portuguese academic Diogo Pires Aurelio points out that the suspects in the alleged London foiled terrrorist attack are British, a factor that accentuates the complexity of the fight against terrorism. "Until now talk has been of a possible clash of civilisations. Alternatively, to avoid the notion of crusade to which Al-Qaida refers and so as not to antagonise Muslim nations, we have accused extremists of using religion to launch unprecedented attacks on the Western world. In both cases we focus on the international nature of the problem, taking action through diplomatic or military channels. However, we now realize that it is just as urgent to act within the societies of every Western country to regulate coexistence between people of different cultures living in the same city, enjoying the same freedoms, and using the same facilities and amenities." (15/08/2006)

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All available articles from » Diogo Pires Aurélio

ABC - Spain

The daily believes "the debate over multiculturalism that has been opened in the United Kingdom is a foretaste of what the Spanish can expect, insofar as the British are arguing over their models of religious and cultural tolerance for the first time in centuries." The paper points out that "most of the children of Muslim immigrants living in the UK are more radical about their beliefs than their parents. So what is happening? Is it the [British] model that is not working or have mistakes been made at other levels? The issues raised by these questions concerns all Europeans and of course the Spanish. Many things depend on the way we approach the integration question. The first is doubtless security. Another, which appears even more essential, is the survival of our model of freedom." (15/08/2006)

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More from the press review on the subject » Religion, » Integration, » Weltanschauung, » United Kingdom, » Europe

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