Is it Islamophobic to say that Europe would be overrun by Muslims?
This article was written by Aijaz Zaka Syed, a journalist from Dubai. Less than 20% of the people living in Dubai have citizenship, and the foreign workers, who make up the overwhelming majority, can forget about settling down. So why doesn't Aijaz Zaka Syed think that Europe should treat its foreign workers the same way? What's wrong with Dubai becoming Asian?
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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.
This article was prepared by the Islam in Europe blog - islamineurope.blogspot.com
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.”
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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.”
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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.
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Source: Arab News (English), h/t The LibertyPhile
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