Europe and Islamic Fundamentalism

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Europe and Islamic Fundamentalism

• Challenge to the European Dream

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The Fundamentalist Wedge

• According to the Times Islamic fundamentalism is
  causing a 'clash of civilisations' between
  liberal democracies and Muslims
• Increasingly, since 9/11, Islamic Fundamentalism
  (Islamism) viewed as incompatible with European
  values
• Challenge to European value of multiculturalism
• Compounded by lack of assimilationist ideology
• There is no French, Dutch or other European
  dream. You emigrate here to escape poverty and
  nothing more.
• Fundamental extremism fuels intolerance across
  Europe

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Muslims in Europe

• Thought to be around 12-13 million practicing
  Muslims in Europe today
• Europes naturally declining demography is
  creating a need for migrant labor
• EU needs at least 1.2 million new immigrants each
  year to preserve its demographic balance.
• Immigration from Algeria (France), Morocco (Spain
  and France), Pakistan, Egypt and Palestine (UK),
  Turkey (Germany)
• Fuels fear of loss of European culture and
  values to Islamic Fundamentalism

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France
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Germany
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The Case of the Missing Imams

• Imams across Europe have come under increasing
  scrutiny
• Netherlands, Free University in Amsterdam to
  train Imams on Dutch society, government and
  culture
• Fueled by murder of Dutch film-maker Theo van
  Gogh in Nov, 2004
• France, foreign-born Imams must attend classes in
  French language, government and culture and must
  preach in French
• Fueled by honor killings and outspoken pro-al
  Qaeda clerics
• French have deported Imams for justifying
  intolerance (wife-beating, honor killings)

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The Mood in Holland
Dutch viewpoints after slaying of van
Gogh http//news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/399
4539.stm
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In France . . .

• Institute for Human Sciences (IESH)
• Est. in 1990 in la France profonde
• "Here a generation has grown up with French as
  its mother tongue. These people need imams to
  pass on the religious values of their parents.
  Leaders from elsewhere cannot do it because they
  do not under-stand the language or the customs
  and habits that prevail here. They have to come
  from inside." -- Zuhair Mahmoud, IESH's founder
  and director

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Multiculturalism, Fear and Integration

• Study Intolerance and Discrimination against
  Muslims in the EU, by International Helsinki
  Federation for Human Rights (IHF), covering 11 EU
  members states found
• Widespread negative attitudes towards Muslims
• Seen as an enemy within
• In Germany, 80 of respondents associated Islam
  with terrorism and oppression of women
• We are concerned that these developments
  threaten to undermine positive efforts at
  integration and further increase the
  vulnerability of Muslims to human rights
  violations and marginalisation --Aaron Rhodes,
  IHF executive director
• In part accounts for French hostility and general
  EU wariness about Turkeys application