I think it’s helpful to get the takes of European commenters on the attacks in Brussels. You might find Dutch writer Leon de Winter’s remarks at Politico interesting. Here’s his peroration and conclusion:
While about one in five natives can be considered as Islamophobic, the level of phobia against the West among Muslims — for which oddly enough there is no word; one might call it ‘Occidentophobia’ — is much higher still, with 54 percent believing that the West is out to destroy Islam.†Recorded rates of Christian hate toward Muslims hover around 10 percent.
“Occidentophobia†is an interesting term. It expresses a refusal to accept the essential concepts of life in the West. Young men like the perpetrators of the Brussels attacks have refused to embrace the social codes of Belgian life. They were raised on the idea that their religious ethics trump the ethics of the infidels (close to non-existent, in their eyes, in any case). Their second-rate socioeconomic status was therefore a humiliating affront, an indignity to be destroyed.
Muslim integration into Europe societies is successful when Muslims are willing to give up the mental confinement of their home countries — countries, let’s not forget, which they left in search of a better life. For as long as they refuse to adapt to a European state of mind, they will perpetuate resentment and a culture of violence.
What did “we†do to “them� We opened up our cities, our houses, our wallets. And in our secular temples of progress — our metro stations and airports and theaters — their sons are killing themselves, and taking our sons and daughters with them. There is nothing for which we need to apologize. “Occidentophobia†originated in the Muslim community. We need to demand they abandon it.
which seems to me to come out quite clearly on the side of ejection.
My own opinion is that there’s no inherent conflict between Islam and the West but there is an inherent conflict between traditional ways of life and modernity and, to the extent that Muslims from, for example, the Middle East or North Africa, conflate Islam with traditional ways of life there is an insuperable barrier not merely to assimilation but even to peaceful coexistence.
The effect of modern transportation and communication is to make the world smaller. That’s a truism. The implication is that the Middle East and North Africa are in Europe’s neighborhood right now and the safe neighborhood to which they’ve become accustomed has gotten a lot tougher.
If people can’t or won’t assimilate into an environment outside their own, can’t or won’t accept or even compromise issues, values in order to live in harmony with another culture — even another person — there will be problems.
Thank God for the Atlantic Ocean.
Query- Suppose the EU had gotten the Mexicans instead. Do you think they integrate them any better? I kind of think not, but maybe the consequences of not doing os would not have been so severe.
Steve
Jan:
You mean like southerners who can’t let go of the Confederate flag even though the culture thinks they’re racist loons? Or religious conservatives who need to be protected against making cupcakes for gays? Or home-schoolers who cannot accept the reality of evolution? Or gun nuts who stockpile weapons and ammo for some absurd armageddon?
Easier to see the mote in your neighbor’s eye than the log in your own, eh? We’ve been trying to get your party, Jan, to adapt to the modern reality and they’re only starting from 1950, not from the seventh century.
How do you dare to lecture European Muslims – about whom you (and I) know practically nothing – when you are part of a group, a party, an ideology that can get hysterical at the prospect of being asked to photograph a gay wedding? “They” should leap about 1400 years but your crowd can’t manage to move a couple of decades.
You know, to us atheists, all you people – Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus – all look like escaped mental patients. Christianity fetishizes its members who die over one obscure point of doctrine or another. Saints! Martyrs! Death before compromise! You people drink the blood and eat the skin of your dead god, for crying out loud. The only difference between Christians and Muslims from where I sit is that secular authority has managed to mostly stuff Christians into a box.
It’s called liberty, Michael.
Assimilation, compromise, and/or acceptance are the tools for people to use and implement if a major goal is to live together with a minimum of conflict or violence. This is applicable to large, diverse groupings of people, as well as simply two people living together.
Why you, Michael, need to take such an uncomplicated comment into the realm of Confederate Flags, cupcakes for gays, gun rights, evolution vs God etc., is, IMO, a left field rant sparked from your own reel of perceived social injustices constantly churning around in the echo chamber of your head.