If you listen there is a debate going on: Is Islam a mainstream religion with millions of peace loving believers, or, is it a violent political movement determined to rule the world under Sharia law?
Some say the religion has been hijacked by extremists. Some say that, regardless, the core values preach, even demand, spreading Islamic beliefs at all costs in any way possible.
Some suggest that simply through immigration Europe will continue to absorb an ever-growing Muslim population who choose not to integrate into the host societies and even lobby for Sharia rule rather than host-nation rule in their isolated communities.
It is estimated that there are upwards of 13 million Muslims in the European Union: 5 million in France, 3 million in Germany, 1.6 million in the UK and 1 million in Spain. Some individual cities in these countries have a 20% Muslim population-Marseilles, France and Rotterdam.
All, by the way, invited or allowed in as workers to do the jobs the indigenous people no longer wish to do. There is a more cynical view as to how and why the populations are growing in Europe which Bruce Bawer explains in his book, While Europe Slept.
While this may sound similar to the U.S undocumented worker problem, those folks hope to be documented and to become a part of the American dream.
Most countries, including the U.S., are very cautious less any one is offended in dealing with religious and cultural issues around Islam. Interesting to see the NY Times, the BBC as well as other main stream media carefully choose words and opinions that are Politically Correct, non-racist, multi culture prone and often leave the reader or listener wondering why is the tail wagging the dog here?
If Muslim assimilation into host cultures, where religion is kept out of government, is not acceptable or contrary to Islamic doctrine, the question is whether the spread of Islam and Sharia law by peaceful means(immigration) undermines the cultures of Europe and the U.S.
I have recommended in past blogs that we each do our own research in many areas to determine fact from fiction.
In this case I suggest it is imperative that one understand what is going on and whether we are threatened. I recommend two books by Bruce Bawer: While Europe Slept and his latest, Surrender. There are several books written by current Islamic scholars: Malise Ruthven, Christopher Caldwell and Tariq Ramadan to name a few that I am reading to get the Islamic's side of this story. I shall recommend them in a later blog after I have read them.
Mean time, you may wish to Google these writers to begin your own research.
OP-ED COLUMNIST
America vs. The Narrative
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: November 28, 2009
What should we make of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who apparently killed 13 innocent people at Fort Hood?
Here’s my take: Major Hasan may have been mentally unbalanced — I assume anyone who shoots up innocent people is. But the more you read about his support for Muslim suicide bombers, about how he showed up at a public-health seminar with a PowerPoint presentation titled “Why the War on Terror Is a War on Islam,” and about his contacts with Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemeni cleric famous for using the Web to support jihadist violence against America — the more it seems that Major Hasan was just another angry jihadist spurred to action by “The Narrative.”
What is scary is that even though he was born, raised and educated in America, The Narrative still got to him.
The Narrative is the cocktail of half-truths, propaganda and outright lies about America that have taken hold in the Arab-Muslim world since 9/11. Propagated by jihadist Web sites, mosque preachers, Arab intellectuals, satellite news stations and books — and tacitly endorsed by some Arab regimes — this narrative posits that America has declared war on Islam, as part of a grand “American-Crusader-Zionist conspiracy” to keep Muslims down.
Yes, after two decades in which U.S. foreign policy has been largely dedicated to rescuing Muslims or trying to help free them from tyranny — in Bosnia, Darfur, Kuwait, Somalia, Lebanon, Kurdistan, post-earthquake Pakistan, post-tsunami Indonesia, Iraq and Afghanistan — a narrative that says America is dedicated to keeping Muslims down is thriving.
Although most of the Muslims being killed today are being killed by jihadist suicide bombers in Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan and Indonesia, you’d never know it from listening to their world. The dominant narrative there is that 9/11 was a kind of fraud: America’s unprovoked onslaught on Islam is the real story, and the Muslims are the real victims — of U.S. perfidy.
Have no doubt: we punched a fist into the Arab/Muslim world after 9/11, partly to send a message of deterrence, but primarily to destroy two tyrannical regimes — the Taliban and the Baathists — and to work with Afghans and Iraqis to build a different kind of politics. In the process, we did some stupid and bad things. But for every Abu Ghraib, our soldiers and diplomats perpetrated a million acts of kindness aimed at giving Arabs and Muslims a better chance to succeed with modernity and to elect their own leaders.
The Narrative was concocted by jihadists to obscure that.
It’s working. As a Jordanian-born counterterrorism expert, who asked to remain anonymous, said to me: “This narrative is now omnipresent in Arab and Muslim communities in the region and in migrant communities around the world. These communities are bombarded with this narrative in huge doses and on a daily basis. [It says] the West, and right now mostly the U.S. and Israel, is single-handedly and completely responsible for all the grievances of the Arab and the Muslim worlds. Ironically, the vast majority of the media outlets targeting these communities are Arab-government owned — mostly from the Gulf.”
This narrative suits Arab governments. It allows them to deflect onto America all of their people’s grievances over why their countries are falling behind. And it suits Al Qaeda, which doesn’t need much organization anymore — just push out The Narrative over the Web and satellite TV, let it heat up humiliated, frustrated or socially alienated Muslim males, and one or two will open fire on their own. See: Major Hasan.
“Liberal Arabs like me are as angry as a terrorist and as determined to change the status quo,” said my Jordanian friend. The only difference “is that while we choose education, knowledge and success to bring about change, a terrorist, having bought into the narrative, has a sense of powerlessness and helplessness, which are inculcated in us from childhood, that lead him to believe that there is only one way, and that is violence.”
What to do? Many Arab Muslims know that what ails their societies is more than the West, and that The Narrative is just an escape from looking honestly at themselves. But none of their leaders dare or care to open that discussion. In his Cairo speech last June, President Obama effectively built a connection with the Muslim mainstream. Maybe he could spark the debate by asking that same audience this question:
“Whenever something like Fort Hood happens you say, ‘This is not Islam.’ I believe that. But you keep telling us what Islam isn’t. You need to tell us what it is and show us how its positive interpretations are being promoted in your schools and mosques. If this is not Islam, then why is it that a million Muslims will pour into the streets to protest Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, but not one will take to the streets to protest Muslim suicide bombers who blow up other Muslims, real people, created in the image of God? You need to explain that to us — and to yourselves.
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