Muslims in Europe are largely peaceful, yes, of course but that's not the issue

An article in the Guardian (UK) says Muslim radicalism stagnates or is on the wane in previous European hotspots like the UK and the Netherlands. Citing various surveys and intellegence sources the newspaper paints a picture where the radical fundamentalists and terror wannabes are fewer and less prominent. The vast majority of European Muslims is a peaceful lot.

The newspaper is probably correct. Threath levels may be lower than a few years ago. The article however suggests that some have exaggerated the dangers and that the problems of Islam in Europe, even in multicultural peak areas, are therefore manageble. That is something entirely different. The problem of Islam in Europe is not manageble at all; and whether the vast majority of them opposes violence is not really changing the face of the two major challenges Islam in Europe pose: The transformation of Europe as we konw it, and the Islamic terror and fundamentalism.

The scale of the challenge and the uncertainties are of historic proportions. We have put ourselves in a massiv social, cultural and politial experiment based on the assumption that integration would work. Gradually it dawns upon us that it doesn't. Together with the demographic developments, terrorism and fundamentalism the stakes are suddenly getting uncomfortably high.

Given how Europe is used to societal engineering down to every nuts and bolts it is mindboggling that we seem to be on track in a transformation that: 1) we are still not able to manage (immigration legal or illegal, muhammed cartoons and Hijabs), 2) we have not really deliberated in public (there is certainly no popular assent), 3) with regard to its basic integrationist strategy, multiculturalism, it fails the test of the real world.

It is not surprising that the vast majority of Muslims in Europe are relatively docile and content and not prone to extremism. Most of them are given economic opportunities and a level of personal freedom that their home countries certainly did not. So why should they be aggressive? The question is, how important is that in predicting violence and terror, and in predicting other problems of integration like changing European values, culture and societies? Not very.

The article in the Guardian seems to subscribe to the myth that islamic fundamentalism is a grassroot movement, that it feeds on the arab and muslim street etc. Although there are important relationships between them, the fact is that the dynamic is top down rather than bottom up. bin Laden was not propelled forward by popular consent but by his own and his fellows political ambitions. Changes in the population as such will not predict level of future political violence.

It is ironic that at a time when brave reformers in Muslim countries are battling the forces of fundamentalism, hatred, secterianism and suppression in a quest for more freedom, equality and humanity, we in Europe are unable to see our mission in the world as providing leadership and a haven for those noble ambitions but instead to be obsessed with making compromises in the name of ... well freedom, equality and humanity.