Cartoon dispute - the views of Muslims living in the West

Abdennour Bidar, a philosophy professor in Nice, shares his views on "the profound democratic changes to Islam" in Europe brought about "by the daily reality of Muslims living there". "The shift is characterised by what I call a 'self-Islam', that is to say, a culture of autonomy and personal choice, thus a culture based on diversity and differentiated identity - an Islam of individuals, and not of the community! ... 'Self-Islam' is, in fact, the expression of a culture that has radically mutated beyond its original authoritarian form, and which has become democratised via a process through which each European Muslim, looking to his conscience, has appropriated the question his own identity. Let's acknowledge this change and adjust our understanding of European Islam by working to deconstruct this 'community' fantasy."

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