Monday, July 11, 2005

foreign affairs: genesis of terrorism is europe's angry muslims

jul 11th

i think this is more of the same old liberal wine in new bottles: how the social conditions of europe, lack of integration and lack of opportunity are radicalizing a bunch of young european-born muslims.

therefore they turn to terrorism, or so goes the argument. this has been made ad nauseam about palestinians vs. the israelis and it's hard to fully buy this argument.

why doesn't this alienation happen with the offspring of immigrants who belong to other discriminated-against religions such as hinduism and sikhism? nobody has an answer for that.

therefore this outsider status is not the only, and perhaps not even the primary, reason.

a lot of the lack of integration is because of voluntary ghettoization of muslims, as many of them prefer to live in religiously-cleansed mini-pakistans wherever they go. they also prefer not to integrate into the education systems of host countries. if at the end of all this they are low-achievers, it's hard to know whom to blame.

of course the leftists blame the system, and give a carte blanche to the muslims. but it really is a two-way street. muslims should *want* to integrate and become part of the host countries' systems. if they keep aloof based on a historical sense of -- superiority or inferiority or apartness, i don't know which -- then it is inevitable that they will be left behind in the economic race.

http://www.cfr.org/publication.php?id=8218




No comments: