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World

Islam Issue

Europe struggles with Muslim identity crisis.

Dinah A. Spritzer
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

culture that does not really accept them:'
he said.
"This is true for all immigrants, but the
key difference is that there is no ideology
for Hindus, for instance, saying that the
West is at war with your religion and that
there are Zionists and crusaders who want
to kill you."
Neumann argues that until Europe
embraces its Muslims, they will remain
perennial outsiders and, sometimes, radicals.
"The problem of radicalization will only
subside when Muslims are integrated into
European societies:' Neumann said. "That
will take a generation!'

Bradford, England

I

shtiaq Ahmed, who works as a
spokesman for the Bradford Council
for Mosques, lives with three genera-
tions of his family in a luxurious British
home built by his father, a successful
Pakistani-born businessman.
After the July 7, 2005, public transit
bombings in London, which killed 52 peo-
ple, Ahmed woke up, looked around his
neighborhood and was troubled by what
he saw. Three of the four bombers were
from nearby Leeds and, like him, they had
Pakistani backgrounds.
"There is a growing section of Muslim
young people 16 to 25 who are increas-
ingly becoming alienated, disillusioned
and angry about a host of issues, such as
unemployment, racism and British foreign
policy," Ahmed said. Many of these young
people, he said, believe the British govern-
ment is against them.
"They see the government is willing to
spend millions of dollars fighting Muslims
in Iraq but not help them with their
problems at home Ahmed said. That can
make them ripe for recruitment by Islamic
extremists.
Even if only an estimated 3-4 percent of
Muslim youth become extremists, Ahmed
said, "that is still far, far too many"
The London bombings, like the Madrid
train bombings in March 2004 and foiled
terrorist plots elsewhere in Europe since,
have forced Europe to focus on home-
grown Islamic radicalism. Beyond imple-
menting security measures needed to
prevent terrorist attacks, Europe is trying
to understand the sense of fury and alien-
ation many Muslims feel that in a few rare
cases might lead them to try to murder
their neighbors.

Few Terrorists
To be sure, the number of European
Muslims engaged in terrorism is minus-
cule compared with their overall numbers.
Of the roughly 17 million Muslims liv-
ing in the 27-country European Union,
242 were charged with terrorism-related
crimes from 2001 to 2006, according to
a study by the Netherlands Institute for
International Relations.
Support for terrorist attacks, how-

A protest in London on Jan. 3 against Israel's operation in Gaza.

ever, appears to be far more widespread.
Roughly one in seven Muslims in France,
Spain and Britain believes suicide bomb-
ings against civilian targets can be justi-
fied at times to defend Islam against its
enemies, a 2006 Pew Research Center
survey showed.
And with the Iraq war, the Afghanistan
campaign and Israel's recent war in Gaza,
experts say Al Qaida's notion that Islam is
under attack by the West is gaining cur-
rency among Muslims in Europe.
A 2008 survey by the market research
agency YouGov found that 32 percent of
British Muslim university students believe
killing is justifiable either "to preserve and
promote" religion or "if that religion was
under attack."
Another survey of British Muslims, by
Populus in 2007, found that 13 percent of
Muslims aged 16 to 24 "admire organiza-

tions like Al Qaida that are prepared to
fight the West." The survey also found that
37 percent of Muslims in that age group
say they would prefer to live under Islamic
law rather than British law.
In Britain, the government and some
Muslim groups are trying to counter the
threat of extremism with tougher law
enforcement and the implementation of
an unprecedented number of de-radical-
ization programs. It will be years, if not
decades, before their success can be mea-
sured with any accuracy.
Peter Neumann, director of the
International Center for the Study of
Radicalization and Political Violence at
King's College in London, says an identity
crisis among Europe's Muslims is at the
crux of the problem. "European Muslims
feel torn between the culture of their par-
ents they do not identify with and Western

Fewer Citizens
Traditionally much more ethnically homo-
geneous than the United States, Europeans
have been slower to accept the estimated
17 million Muslim immigrants in their
midst. In Switzerland, some second-,
third- and even fourth-generation immi-
grants do not hold citizenship. Unlike the
United States, not all European countries
automatically grant citizenship to natural-
born residents.
Up to 50 percent of Europe's Muslims
are not actually citizens of E.U. countries,
analysts estimate. With Muslims now
roughly 5 percent of Europe's population
and demographers predicting their pro-
portion to double over the next 20 years
due to birth rates that are two to three
times the European average, the conti-
nent's Muslim population is playing an
increasingly significant role in European
politics.
In some cases, politicians are catering
to Muslim interests and concerns with
an eye toward winning votes. In others,
anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant political
parties are capitalizing on Muslim demo-
graphic growth and fears of terrorism,
painting Muslims as an alien group that
threatens the European way of life.
In 2007, the Swiss People's Party cam-
paigned with posters showing veiled
Muslim women and the question, "Where
are we living, Baden or Baghdad?"
Complaining about Muslims has
become a common and acceptable part
of public discourse. According to numer-
ous European government studies,
Islamophobia — the fear, hatred, dis-
crimination or negative stereotyping of
Muslims — has become a leading form of
xenophobia in Europe.

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February 26 • 2009

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