Muslims in Europe; caught between a rock and a hard place

[Ansar]

Great article; I actually managed to read it all!

 

[Brighteye]

I agreed with you up to this point. America is as individualistic as it gets. If you make an assload of money in the US nobody cares what your surname is. In America upper class is an income band.

And yet I hear all about WASPs and the country is ruled by dynasties. And I disagree with your interpretation of what individualistic means. I'm not talking about class, but about the pressure to conform. You can be of any class in any country and still conform to social standards or not. The two are very different scales, and America is nowhere near as individualistic as many European countries, including Britain.
The first signs of individualism can be seen with Pelagius, over a millenium ago. It's made the British boisterous and given the people a reputation of being unruly, even amongst other Europeans.
Even if we do talk about class, there may have been such divisions, but the idea that 'Jack's as good as his neighbour' was key to the peasants' revolt and hasn't died since. People may be unable to escape their class and the social habits that mark class, but far more people actually care a lot less about their class, or have inverted class snobbery.

I'm passionately in favour of multiculturalism, but unless we rid ourselves once and for all of the notion that among those cultures there exists a 'them' and an 'us' we're going to continue to see alienated people who don't feel included in society. The Americans have solved it by replacing both 'them' and 'us' with 'I'. Europe isn't going to go down that road, but we've got to work something out. There's some barriers that need tearing down.

With more than one culture, there always will be 'them' and 'us'. We need to forget official tolerance of other cultures, and label one's old culture as a personal quirk that's as bad as my personal habit of never wearing jumpers or sweatshirts.
If my personal habit was to take extra time off work in a peaceful place, I'd be expected to find a job that naturally catered for such a strange preference. When a Muslim wants to pray we're told that it's his right in whatever job he chooses. That's multiculturalism, and it won't work.
I'm happy to accept that people have other backgrounds, but not that their background justifies special treatment or special allowances.

Multiculturalism as an ideology which aims to create a divided society is what I oppose.

I agree entirely

Yes, you truly do not understand. Nationalism is widespread across the world. And where it is weaker it is often replaced by other forms of identity that can become even more dangerous - can I mention what's happening in Kenya now?

Some Europeans, however, would also claim the same: we don't see the any problem, provided muslims don't expect different treatment; they do, therefore they are the ones causing the problem. I really don't know about this, I've never had a chance to watch this kind of issue happening.

I find this insightful. America is a very nationalistic country, whereas nationalism is scorned in European cultures because it's apparently insulting to immigrants. That's multiculturalism again, and it appears that no-one's thinkign about whether I'm being insulted because my culture is scorned.