> http://arabnews.com/opinion/columns/article50861.ece
>
> The Muslims are coming!
> No matter what Europeans think of Muslims and other recent
> arrivals, the continent badly needs new blood and ideas
> Step out of Brussels South and you step back in time —
> into a different world that looks exotic in this part of the
> world but not out of place. This is the main train station
> that connects Belgium's capital with Paris, London —
> thanks to Eurorail — and the rest of Europe.
> During a visit to the European Union headquarters a couple
> of years back, one was pleasantly surprised to see all those
> restaurants offering "halal" food and elderly Arab and
> Turkish gentlemen enjoying their cuppa of heady Turkish
> coffee and even an occasional shisha by the roadside cafe.
> This is the heart of Europe, the seat of European
> Parliament and perhaps the capital of coming United States
> of Europe. With Arabs and Muslims living and working in this
> quintessentially European city, Brussels increasingly looks
> like Beirut, Istanbul or any other great city of the Middle
> East.
> With its rich multicultural society and growing Arab and
> Muslim population — most of them arrived in the 1950's
> and 60's to work in its mines — Brussels is perhaps one
> of the finest examples of European multiculturalism and
> tolerance for diversity.
> And it is not just Brussels. Scenes like these are
> increasingly familiar all across Europe — from London to
> Paris and from Berlin to Copenhagen to Amsterdam. Lately,
> things are changing though and changing fast. Belgian
> lawmakers recently voted to ban the Islamic veil even as
> their counterparts in neighboring France and Italy are
> working on their own measures to "tackle Islam."
> Sarkozy's France already has a ban on the scarf schools
> in place and is now threatening to detain and punish those
> who "make women" wear hijab. Some months ago,
> Switzerland, the Alpine paradise that Hemingway chose as the
> backdrop of his achingly beautiful love story, A Farewell to
> Arms, stunned the world by imposing a blanket ban on
> minarets that some groups vilified as "missiles." What
> is going on? Whatever is happening to the continent that
> swears by human rights, religious freedom and an
> individual's right to do his/her own thing and live as he
> or she pleases?
> Three years ago when those cheap caricatures appeared in
> Denmark, we persuaded ourselves this is just a crazy
> cartoonist taking his creative license too far. We
> told ourselves this is not how the rest of liberal and
> all-embracing multicultural Europe thinks and conducts
> itself. But there are growing signs that it's not just a
> tiny, lunatic fringe that is obsessing over the coming
> threat of Eurabia.
> The hypocrisy of this whole veil debate is breathtaking.
> While the highbrow pundits of the establishment and media
> shrug off the stark nudity on the streets and sex on the
> beach in the name of art and individual freedom, a woman is
> condemned as a "clear and present danger" to society if
> she decides to cover her head or face.
> Some years ago, Australian women's soccer team, the
> Matildas, created their own imaginative calendar that left
> nothing to the imagination selling it like hot cakes for $20
> each. It was of course taken in "true sporting spirit"
> by the magnanimous Aussies and rest of the world.
> Every now and then, some of Europe's most celebrated
> photographers and artists take time off to shoot and paint
> crowds of men and women in their birthday suit all in the
> name of some social cause or the other. All across the
> continent you can buy and sell sex like candy — across the
> counter without raising any sensitive eyebrows.
> This is why one finds these growing European restrictions
> and "dress code" for Muslim women a little hard to
> digest and reeking of duplicity. But more than cultural
> imperialism — which is what this is — I believe this
> phenomenon has more to do with the growing Islamophobia in
> the West and bigotry of Eurabia mongers, as Pankaj Mishra
> called them in an incisive essay in the Guardian last year.
> Of late, the European media has been buzzing with the talk
> of "Muslims are coming" and the "demographic
> time-bomb" that could turn Europe into Arabia or Eurabia.
> In the past couple of years, there has been a flood of
> books howling about the coming "specter of Islam" which
> they claim will change Europe into an Islamic
> caliphate. Some of them even suggest the solution:
> Keep Muslims out of Europe — at any cost!
> Check out this chilling suggestion from Canadian author
> Mark Steyn in his book, America Alone: The End of the World
> as We Know It: "In a democratic age, you can't buck
> demography — except through civil war. The Serbs figured
> that out — as other Continentals will in the years ahead;
> if you can't outbreed the enemy, cull 'em."
> US conservative pundit Christopher Caldwell in his
> Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Can Europe be the
> Same with Different People in it? likens the Muslim threat
> to Europe to the situation in Russia on the eve of the 1917
> Bolshevik Revolution. "If anything, there were probably
> fewer Bolsheviks in Russia in 1917 than there are Islamists
> in Europe today," Caldwell writes, warning Europe against
> losing out to Muslims in what he terms "a clash of
> civilizations."
> What is truly alarming is the fact that this toxic,
> anti-Muslim vitriolic is not just the brew offered by the
> neocon and White supremacist fruitcakes anymore, but is fast
> becoming the view and discourse of the mainstream on both
> sides of the Atlantic.
> This worldview sees every Arab and Muslim as a "terrorist
> enemy" or potential terrorist enemy. The US wars in
> Iraq and Afghanistan-Pakistan and the persecution of
> Palestinians fuelling Muslim anger around the world aren't
> helping either.
> But no matter what wonks like Mark Steyn, Christopher
> Caldwell and Bruce Bawer, whose new book Surrender:
> Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom has been recommended by
> the New York Times as the essential "wake-up call" for
> the West, might like to do with Europe's 53 million
> Muslims, or those of the United States, they aren't going
> to go away anytime soon.
> In fact, in years to come they could only grow in numbers
> coming as they do in droves from around the world from the
> impoverished parts of Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Like
> them or hate them, Europe has to learn to live with its
> Muslims. Ditto for Muslims who must present the real, humane
> face of their faith before the world.
> However European leaders wish, they cannot wish their
> immigrants and new arrivals away. Especially when the aging
> continent with its dwindling population badly needs new
> blood, new skills and ideas.
> In fact, Europe needs and is attracting young bodies with
> young minds from everywhere to renew and rejuvenate itself.
> Else the continent that has dominated the world for the past
> five or six centuries faces a bleak and uncertain future.
> Besides, there's some sort of poetic justice or delicious
> irony of history, if you will, in all of this.
> Most of those invading or coming to invade Europe,
> transforming its profile forever, are from the lands and
> countries that had been colonized, plundered and brutalized
> by colonial powers till the last century. Clearly, the
> empire's chickens have come home to roost. Europe's past
> is catching up with its present and
> future.
> — Aijaz Zaka Syed is a Dubai-based journalist and
> commentator. Write to him at mailaijaz@aol.com
> Posted by
> AIJAZ ZAKA SYED | ARAB NEWS
> May 7, 2010 00:14
>
>
>
>
------------------------------------
[Disclaimer: ALOCHONA Management is not liable for information contained in this message. The author takes full responsibility.]
To unsubscribe/subscribe, send request to alochona-owner@egroups.comYahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/alochona/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/alochona/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
alochona-digest@yahoogroups.com
alochona-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
alochona-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/