Putting Tolerance to the Test: The Rise of Islam in
Europe

By Dale Hurd
CBN News Sr. Reporter

March 22, 2004

http://www.cbn.com/CBNNews/News/040322a.asp

There is no exaggerating Arab and Muslim anger and
resentment. Most Arab immigrants live in slums, with
four to five times the unemployment rate of native
Europeans.


CBN.com – (CBN News) - The most common name for baby
boys in Brussels is Mohammed. There are as many as 15
million Arabs and Muslims living in Europe. Europe
needs babies and immigrants, because its birthrate has
imploded, but Europe's not sure it wants these
immigrants, because it fears the rise of Islam.
The political temperature is rising in Europe. Arabs
and Muslims already felt like outsiders before France
banned the headscarves in schools. The Dutch
parliament voted to expel 26,000 asylum seekers, many
of them from the Third World. Some are wondering if it
is the beginning of an anti-immigrant backlash.

Many Europeans are nervous. They like to think that
they are more enlightened and tolerant than the rest
of the world, but that tolerance is being tested by a
wave of immigration that could change the face of
Europe.

Anti-immigrant far-right parties are growing all
across the continent. In Austria, The Freedom Party;
In Italy, the Northern League; in Switzerland, The
People's Party; In France, The National Front; In
Belgium, The Flemish Block; In Denmark, the People's
Party, In Norway, The Progress Party.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, of France's far-right political
party National Front, told CBN News that the cause of
most of France's problems are immigrants from Africa
and Asia, and his slogan is "France for the French."

Frank Vanhecke is leader of the Vlaams Blok, or
Flemish Block, in Belgium. The party is strong in
Belgium's Dutch-speaking North, and is poised to take
over the Antwerp city government. Vanhecke is worried
about the growth of what he says is a radical Islamic
sub-culture that refuses to assimilate, and which has
begun demanding that Arabic become an official
language of Belgium.

Vanhecke said, "This is the kind of people we are
dealing with - people who do not come to our country
to adapt, to make a new life, to start again, to make
a living, to be thankful for the country that accepts
them. We are talking about people who, in fact, come
to us as rulers, who want to become masters in our
country. And I personally think, I fear, that this is
a part of the Islamic religion."

His party's platform calls for all immigrants who
refuse to adapt to the values and language of Belgium
to be returned to their home countries.

Gareth Harding, UPI Bureau Chief in Brussels,
commented, "I think, incontestably, the far right is
on the march." And those marching with it, he said,
are the angry.

Harding added, "I think that they feel, by talking to
them there, betrayed by these mainstream parties who
have simply refused to deal with common concerns about
immigration, and about crime and falling standards of
living."

German policy analyst Mirjam Dittrich thinks the right
wing threat is overblown. He said, "I think there is
xenophobia in Europe. And, of course, there are right
wing parties that are exploiting existing fears and
are playing on those fears. But I think at the same
time we shouldn't exaggerate the threat of these right
wing parties."

But there is no exaggerating Arab and Muslim anger and
resentment. Most Arab immigrants live in slums, with
four to five times the unemployment rate of native
Europeans. They feel like outsiders, and many are
turning to radical Arab leaders like Diyab Abou
JahJah. JahJah's been called the Belgian Malcolm X.
He's the head of the Arab European League in Antwerp.
And he says White Europe doesn't want to face reality.

JahJah said, "It doesn't want to adapt to the fact
that this society is multicultural now. It still
behaves and acts as if we were like 50 years ago, when
everybody here was white and Catholic and talking
Dutch."

But JahJah, who leads those who feel like outsiders,
doesn't want Arab and Muslim culture to be assimilated
into Europe. And that is exactly what the right wing
fears.

"We do not want to debate integration or assimilation,
" says JahJah, "because we don't believe in that kind
of debate. We believe in a debate about how a country
should treat its own citizens, because we are not
foreigners."

There may now be as many as seven Arabs for every Jew
in Europe, and some believe that is the major reason
that anti-Semitism has returned to Europe. A poll last
year showed that most Europeans now think Israel is
the biggest threat to world peace. Attacks on
synagogues, schools, cemeteries and Jews are
reminiscent of the 1930's.

Jewish student Eli Mamane said, "I've had people call
me dirty jew, stinking jew, smelly jew. They've said,
'You Jews are [the] world's problem at the moment.' "

Michael Whine of the Jewish Community Security Trust,
said, "Anti-Semitism now comes from Islamists, from
the Middle East, from the Arab media, and there's an
overspill, both of tension in the Middle East and the
anti-Semitism that's being promoted within the Arab
states itself."

But unlike most Arabs in the Middle East, Arabs in
Europe can vote. And as their political clout grows,
Europe is likely to become more anti-Semitic, more
anti-Israel, more anti-American. A clash of
civilizations is looming in Europe. France tried to
strike a blow to Islamic separatism when it banned
headscarves on Muslim schoolgirls. Muslim leaders warn
the ban will backfire.

But after the headscarf ban, Dr. Dalil Boubakeur, the
leading moderate Muslim spokesman in France, told a
newspaper that French Muslims had become social
pariahs, and he predicted violence in the streets.
Even before the headscarf ban it was not uncommon for
Arab demonstrations to end in riots. And as
anti-immigrant parties convince more Europeans that
Islam is a threat to European civilization, their
power will grow.

Vlaams Blok's Vanhecke said, "The Islamic religion is
a religion of force, which despises non-Islamic
peoples. I think this may sound hard, but I think it's
the truth."

With immigrants having babies three times faster than
native Europeans, Europe's future is going to be
multi-cultural. But it may not be peaceful.






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