Yes I read it, but I wonder if you did (it has two pages btw, I linked the second one by mistake). Taking one paragraph from it to construe “those darn evil white racists” narrative is very simplistic.
I’m more concerned about people such as yourself who support authoritarians than I am about some loser(s) who decide to randomly kill people for whatever reason. Despite the terrorist attacks it suffered recently, France is still the prosperous liberal democracy it has been for a long time. Hungary on the other hand has basically no free press and a deeply corrupt party that controls all levels of government. It is slowly devolving back to how it was pre `89, is that price worth rejecting a bunch of Muslims?
Sure it is. But unlike, say, death by lightning, this is the sort of threat that grows over time. If you go back fifteen years the chance of dying in Western Europe to Islamic terrorism was zero. Then the Madrid bombings happened and the chance of dying has been rising at an accelerating pace ever since. That the absolute chance is still tiny at the moment is meaningless if the trend continues.
Ah yes. The “it’s our own fault” argument used by Western moderates for the past two decades. You know what the problem with this argument is? It’s not that it isn’t true. Xenophobia certainly doesn’t help integration. However, it’s always used in such a manner that it absolves the target group of any responsibility to their situation.
It most certainly isn’t. Here’s the thing though. If you’re someone who has problems with Islamic culture, moderate and leftist political parties are closed to you because they either remain mum on the subject or call you a terrible racist regardless of what your reasons are. So where do you end up? With the populist right who seems to be the only one taking your seriously on that subject and you quickly slide down the slope to full-blown xenophobia.
In principle I agree with this. But how can you state with certainty that a woman wearing a niqab does so voluntarily, when she barely speaks the host language and never interacts with natives because she lives sequestered in a neighborhood that is a carbon copy of her original Islamic culture?
Own free choice or cultural pressure? My money is on the second option being the culprit.
Because Islamic radicalization has been slowly growing over the past decades. It only relatively recently gotten to the point where it has become noticeable.
The original batch of Muslim immigrants in the 70s actually had the best chances of properly integrating in their host nations. But thanks to multiculturalism and similar ideas these people where basically left to their own devices and as a result they retained most of their original culture. Their kids thus were raised in their parent’s culture which strongly conflicted with the culture of the nation they lives in. Friction appears on both sides.
Now this sort of friction would eventually have resolved itself if it hadn’t been for certain outside influences. Which leads me to the following.
It’s not equal to say that. Muslims (in Europe) aren’t assimilating like other immigrant groups because their nations of origin go to great lengths to ensure they don’t.
Nations like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia funnel millions into shady Islamic organizations and mosques in Europe and it’s not to promote ‘moderate’ Islam because there’s zero reason for them to promote such a thing.
Let’s take Turkey for example with glorious leader Erdogan and his AKP.
Like so many other nations they exert their influence through mosques. They even created nice and efficient organizations for it like this.
Imans in attached mosques are all Turkey certified and thus everything they say will be pro AKP, which, by extension, means they are pro Islamist. It’s just a means for Erdogan to exert his control over foreign populations of Turks.
This isn’t a secret conspiracy. Erdogan and several members of his government have been open and up front about this for years now. As far as Erdogan is concerned, every person of Turkish descent in Europe is a Turk first (and thus his subject) and everything else second. And there are a lot of Turks who believe that as well. When there was the vote back in 2017 that made him the legal dictator of Turkey a majority of Dutch Turks (63%) voted in favor of this. And these are people who lived in a democratic nation all their lives, yet they still voted in favor of a dictator because of Turkish nationalism.
Wait you say? ‘Foreign’ Turks get to vote? Why yes they do. You see if you are born to a single parent who is Turkish you get a Turkish passport, no questions asked. At the same time, renouncing Turkish nationality is nigh impossible because you have to—wait for it—receive permission from the Turkish government to do so. If they don’t want you to leave, you don’t.
To further add to the fun, those same ‘foreign’ Turks are required to serve in the Turkish military. Citizens of a democratic nation that are required to serve for a time in the military of a Islamic dictatorship. Not problematic at all, right? Right?
In summation, the threat of Islam isn’t the religion. It isn’t terrorism or even immigration. It’s the Islamic culture zones that continue to exist with Europe combined with politicians either unwilling to do something about it or going way overboard with it, going into the Poland/Hungary direction.
It’s not a bright future.
The original batch of Muslim immigrants in the 70s actually had the best chances of properly integrating in their host nations. But thanks to multiculturalism and similar ideas these people where basically left to their own devices and as a result they retained most of their original culture. Their kids thus were raised in their parent’s culture which strongly conflicted with the culture of the nation they lives in. Friction appears on both sides.
Left to their own devices? As opposed to what? Forced indoctrination of Western values?
Also, you’re rambling about Islamism and Turkish nationalism despite them being different issues. In fact, Turkish nationalism is an ideology close to that of Putin/Orban/Western far right, it has nothing to do with Islamism.
If by forced indoctrination you mean having them abandon things like child marriage, honor killings, male/female segregation, etc. then yes.
Then why are they using mosques to push their brand of nationalism? The Islamist part may be subservient to the nationalist part, but ‘nothing do do’ is sheer nonsense.
Assimilation has never been a strong suite of Western Europe. Think of all the resentment Western Europe has for the cheap labor coming from places like Poland and other eastern European countries. It seems like Poland was one of the driving forces behind Brexit.
Child marriage, honor killings etc. in Western Europe? The rambling continues…
I repeat, Islamism (and the acts of terror it sometimes leads to) is not Turkish nationalism, you are simply wrong so go educate yourself on the these topics before attempting to debate them.
In 2014 there were 500 reported instances of honor related violence in the Netherlands, twenty of which led to fatalities. The rambling continues indeed.
I see we moved from ‘nothing to do with each other’ to ‘not the same thing’.
You said: thanks to multiculturalism and similar ideas these people where basically left to their own devices and as a result they retained most of their original culture. , which implies that practices such as honor violence is allowed/tolerated in Western Europe. I’m not an expert in Dutch law but I would guess those things are illegal so please explain what you meant.
Islamism and Turkish nationalism have nothing to do with each other, they are two completely different things. One has lead to acts of terror in Europe, the other has not. Turkish nationalism is similar to Hungarian nationalism, just like the Turks in Western Europe support Ergodan, Orban is strongly supported by Hungarians in Romania, for example.
No. It implies that cultures who are okay with honor violence have retained a particular group of people who never abandoned these practices despite living in a nation where such things are indeed illegal.
And yes, multiculturalism is indirectly to blame for that. If a host nation takes a hands-off approach to cultural identity there will be people from that culture who will retain undesirable aspects of that identity. Especially if you allow said groups to form… let’s call them cultural enclaves for lack of a better term. If a person can live their live almost completely sequestered within such an enclave then it also becomes much easier to retain identity aspects that the rest of the nation would frown upon.
If honor violence happens yet nobody in such an enclave talks about it, then it being illegal is immaterial because the police will never hear about it. In fact, most of the honor killings that happen here are discovered to be such after the fact. This is what happens if you don’t invest in integration as a host nation.
Different, yes. Unrelated, no.
But you know what? It doesn’t matter even if they were completely unrelated. As I stated, Islam isn’t the problem. The problem is culture being injected in host cultures that have clashing values. The culture in question being Islamic or Turkey’s brand of nationalism is irrelevant as both clash with Western values.
I don’t support authoritarians. I was explaining why people are willing to vote for a guy like that, and that it’s not because they are all racist white supremacists. Hungary has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the EU (my own country is lowest) and no islamic terrorist attacks. According to global peace index it is 15th safest country on Earth, climbing upwards. All that while Orbán is in power. I am not surprised they vote for him, that’s all.
The one thing I am sympathetic with… well, let me say not so much sympathetic but find understandable… is this insistence that countries have to accept immigration. What if a country doesn’t want to accept immigration? In modern post-national progressivism, this doesn’t seem like an option up for debate.
The problem these debates have is that progressive say that you have to accept multiculturism because you have to accept immigration because it’s not up to you to control or restrict immigration. And therefore you have to accept all the negatives that go with immigration with a smile.
Pretty clearly this isn’t a universally shared view.
Japan makes it very hard for immigrants, don’t they? They’re having their own problems, somewhat made worse by this.
Yes, although I would say that their policies are probably one of the looser ones within the Asian countries.
But you did have the biggest Nazi rally since WWII.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/worldviews/wp/2017/11/12/pray-for-an-islamic-holocaust-tens-of-thousands-from-europes-far-right-march-in-poland/
Sixty thousand Nazis calling for genocide against immigrants and Muslims.
Fascist nationalism destroyed your continent, and led to the deaths of millions of people. Muslim immigrants didn’t do that. Angry white dudes obsessed with a misguided notion of purity did.
And the moment we forget that, it’s going to happen again.
You cited an article saying that 300 people have been killed by Islamic terrorists since 2014. That seems like a lot, right? But in 2015, alone, in Germany, alone, far right nationalist groups committed 612 acts of violence. Hell, Anders Brevik killed 77 people by himself.
There are lots of bad people who are Muslims, just like every other group of humans. But you guys are letting them be used as a scapegoat, to focus fear and anxiety, and justify terrible things. You’ve been down that road before, less than 100 years ago. It didn’t end well.
The idea that every nationalist in eastern europe is a neo-Nazi is classic Putinist propaganda.
The problem (of Eastern European nationalism) is fucking bad enough without you making it sound worse and helping Putin into the bargain.
Nah man, when you have literally thousands of nationalists chanting to exterminate other people? You are Nazis.
It doesn’t matter whether they are literally members of the Nazi party. They embody the evil that was the Nazi movement.
Minor point of order but may I challenge the received wisdom that somehow the west or Bush or Obama or heck even Trump are to blame for ISIS? The only people to blame for it are the evil men who formed it, supported it and took part in its evil. We could have a different thread on it as its a big topic, but yeah.
That really is the big question. Is 300 a lot, compared to other forms of murder or homicide?
Remember, Timex, there are good people on both sides. Works in Poland too, apparently.