“France has a serious mosque problem. There are not enough of them to go around.”
Wow, this article starts off so badly and then it gets worse.
It’s entire starting premise is wrong. The proper starting point would acknowledge:
France has a serious extremism problem among its Muslim residents
Many of France’s mosques have been ideologically captured by the Muslim Brotherhood, Salafists, and/or Wahabbists
France has a problem with anti-Christian hatred and attacks against churches
France has a problem with antisemitic hatred and violence against Jews
France has too many radicalised islamists for the government to monitor
French prisons are a breeding ground for islamist extremism
France has a serious immigration problem
Many with no legal entitlement enter/leave France with impunity
this includes French citizens who have been able to return from jihad in Syria
Many immigrant communities are not well-integrated (hence the need for the Separatism Law)
Immigrants (from countries such as Pakistan and Tunisia) have been responsible for major terror attacks in France
France has a major problem with Islamist terrorism
This has been especially bad since 2012 and there were six extensions of the state of emergency since 2015
Instead, this article is nothing but victim blaming. Blame France. Blame laïcité. Blah blah blah.
Please bring back Liam Duffy because he understands the issues and understands France!
Your bullet points are valid but I don’t see them as a reason to deny people a place to worship. Extremists deny others freedom of religion and it seems that you are doing the same. Surely you want freedom from extremists rather than freedom from Muslims?
Denied a place to worship? Their project is not about having a place to worship. They plan to build the biggest mosque in Europe, bigger than the cathedral of their city. This is a supremacist political project and they are aligned with a foreign government.
My interest is in France not Muslims. My attention to extremism is entirely contingent on the current circumstances which have obliged me to learn far more about Islam than I ever wanted to know. With that said, where exactly should I start when discussing Islam or Muslims? And, if I should stray from these recommendations, what are the consequences? A fatwa? Please, do tell.
Jon Redman
2 years ago
As a matter of interest, can anyone think of any country Muslims have gone where they have not rapidly become a serious problem?
There must be one country in world history where Muslims arrived and everything got better. I’m not a historian so perhaps that’s why I can’t think of one.
This may surprise, but I would nominate the US. The September 11 attacks were perpetrated by Muslims in the country by subterfuge with the intent to commit terrorism. There have certainly been terrorist attacks since that were perpetrated by Muslims living in the US–San Bernardino, the Boston Marathon bombing–but Muslims hardly have a corner on mass violence in the country. I live in Philadelphia and rarely walk downtown or take public transport without seeing Muslims, who can be identified only by dress. That means primarily women wearing some form of traditional attire. Many are black Americans who practice within the Nation of Islam and often dress very conservatively–hijab or even niqab for women along with black skullcaps and orange-tinted beards for men. Others are presumably immigrants and often wear more varied traditional clothing. It’s routine to see Muslim bus drivers, Muslim clerks in grocery stores or banks, Muslim mothers with children and strollers. When I taught at the city’s community college, I had many Muslim students, black Americans and immigrants. I have never seen any reaction on the part of anyone else, no odd looks, much less overt prejudice. The city has many mosques, mostly small, store-front houses of worship which are often thriving parts of their wider community. Of course there is anti-Islamic prejudice in the US, and that could generate Muslim anger and reaction, but the reality is more complex. A friend who used to work with refugees recently told me of seven Syrian families who had been resettled in Allentown, a small city in Pennsylvania, and were welcomed with open arms. As she commented, “This is the kind of news we don’t hear.” So did Muslims arrive and everything get better? Of course not. But did Muslims arrive and not rapidly become a serious problem? Yes. Most American Muslims are fully functioning, productive members of the society and practice their religion in peace.
Muslim population in the US is about 1%, in France it is about 10%. It is projected that Muslim population (as proportion of population overall) in the US will double every 25-30 years. Just give it time, you might face the same problems as France one day.
Sadly, no. I really wish that I could offer a positive example or some existing model that offers hope.
Peter LR
2 years ago
I didn’t find the author’s use of islamophobia very helpful or certainly accurate. It’s become a useless slur of a word.
I’m just listening to Douglas Murray’s “The Strange Death of Europe” again; and it is disturbing especially seeing such continuing ongoing problems of integration of Muslim values into Western society. It does seem like secular hubris has backfired assuming that the West had “outgrown” the need for religion and that the millions invited in would also do the same. Unlike other faiths that have managed to integrate smoothly, Islam does have a political foundation through its adherence to Sharia law and concepts of ‘Caliphate’.
The problem isn’t too few mosques; the problem is too many fanatics. And we are producing more fanatics than ever. We import foreign fanatics but we also create new fanatics amongst us. Douglas Murray understands this. Any honest person who has opened their eyes and seen the absolute state of Europe knows this. I work with young people and I see this problem getting much worse. The violence we are seeing is likely to intensify. Denialism won’t help. Liberal delusions are as dangerous as religious fanaticism. Lichfield, and this entire mindset, are part of the problem.
The real issue is that France’s constitution on which its laws are derived is outdated. The forefathers of the Revolution never conceived a world where France would host millions of Muslims. France is witnessing the emergence of what can be best described as multi-civilizationism where different communities with radically different norms and ways of life coexist more or less peacefully on the same soil.
When I go to visit my father who lives in the working-class suburbs of Lyon, I am shocked by the number of veiled women who barely speak a word of French, yet have been granted residency thanks to criminally lax immigration laws. The ethnic replacement of the French proletariat – a process set in motion in the 1960s by the French captains of industry – is almost complete, at least in France’s large metropolises.
France is a victim of its own brand of universalism and its refusal to face an uncomfortable truth.
I say that as the son of a Tunisian immigrant who worked in North Africa, but the reason why France is struggling to culturally integrate Muslim communities is that Islam is simply not part of France’s DNA, it never was and never will. As we say in French: la greffe n’a pas pris (the graft did not take).
If France wants to avoid a destructive civil war, it will need to draft a new constitution based on a more exclusive definition of the Nation and what constitutes Frenchness.
“France has a serious mosque problem. There are not enough of them to go around.”
Wow, this article starts off so badly and then it gets worse.
It’s entire starting premise is wrong. The proper starting point would acknowledge:
Instead, this article is nothing but victim blaming. Blame France. Blame laïcité. Blah blah blah.
Please bring back Liam Duffy because he understands the issues and understands France!
Your bullet points are valid but I don’t see them as a reason to deny people a place to worship. Extremists deny others freedom of religion and it seems that you are doing the same. Surely you want freedom from extremists rather than freedom from Muslims?
Denied a place to worship? Their project is not about having a place to worship. They plan to build the biggest mosque in Europe, bigger than the cathedral of their city. This is a supremacist political project and they are aligned with a foreign government.
When discussing Muslims, it is a terrible idea to start off with Islamic extremism.
My interest is in France not Muslims. My attention to extremism is entirely contingent on the current circumstances which have obliged me to learn far more about Islam than I ever wanted to know. With that said, where exactly should I start when discussing Islam or Muslims? And, if I should stray from these recommendations, what are the consequences? A fatwa? Please, do tell.
As a matter of interest, can anyone think of any country Muslims have gone where they have not rapidly become a serious problem?
There must be one country in world history where Muslims arrived and everything got better. I’m not a historian so perhaps that’s why I can’t think of one.
This may surprise, but I would nominate the US. The September 11 attacks were perpetrated by Muslims in the country by subterfuge with the intent to commit terrorism. There have certainly been terrorist attacks since that were perpetrated by Muslims living in the US–San Bernardino, the Boston Marathon bombing–but Muslims hardly have a corner on mass violence in the country. I live in Philadelphia and rarely walk downtown or take public transport without seeing Muslims, who can be identified only by dress. That means primarily women wearing some form of traditional attire. Many are black Americans who practice within the Nation of Islam and often dress very conservatively–hijab or even niqab for women along with black skullcaps and orange-tinted beards for men. Others are presumably immigrants and often wear more varied traditional clothing. It’s routine to see Muslim bus drivers, Muslim clerks in grocery stores or banks, Muslim mothers with children and strollers. When I taught at the city’s community college, I had many Muslim students, black Americans and immigrants. I have never seen any reaction on the part of anyone else, no odd looks, much less overt prejudice. The city has many mosques, mostly small, store-front houses of worship which are often thriving parts of their wider community. Of course there is anti-Islamic prejudice in the US, and that could generate Muslim anger and reaction, but the reality is more complex. A friend who used to work with refugees recently told me of seven Syrian families who had been resettled in Allentown, a small city in Pennsylvania, and were welcomed with open arms. As she commented, “This is the kind of news we don’t hear.” So did Muslims arrive and everything get better? Of course not. But did Muslims arrive and not rapidly become a serious problem? Yes. Most American Muslims are fully functioning, productive members of the society and practice their religion in peace.
Muslim population in the US is about 1%, in France it is about 10%. It is projected that Muslim population (as proportion of population overall) in the US will double every 25-30 years. Just give it time, you might face the same problems as France one day.
Sadly, no. I really wish that I could offer a positive example or some existing model that offers hope.
I didn’t find the author’s use of islamophobia very helpful or certainly accurate. It’s become a useless slur of a word.
I’m just listening to Douglas Murray’s “The Strange Death of Europe” again; and it is disturbing especially seeing such continuing ongoing problems of integration of Muslim values into Western society. It does seem like secular hubris has backfired assuming that the West had “outgrown” the need for religion and that the millions invited in would also do the same. Unlike other faiths that have managed to integrate smoothly, Islam does have a political foundation through its adherence to Sharia law and concepts of ‘Caliphate’.
The problem isn’t too few mosques; the problem is too many fanatics. And we are producing more fanatics than ever. We import foreign fanatics but we also create new fanatics amongst us. Douglas Murray understands this. Any honest person who has opened their eyes and seen the absolute state of Europe knows this. I work with young people and I see this problem getting much worse. The violence we are seeing is likely to intensify. Denialism won’t help. Liberal delusions are as dangerous as religious fanaticism. Lichfield, and this entire mindset, are part of the problem.
Couldn’t agree more.
The real issue is that France’s constitution on which its laws are derived is outdated. The forefathers of the Revolution never conceived a world where France would host millions of Muslims. France is witnessing the emergence of what can be best described as multi-civilizationism where different communities with radically different norms and ways of life coexist more or less peacefully on the same soil.
When I go to visit my father who lives in the working-class suburbs of Lyon, I am shocked by the number of veiled women who barely speak a word of French, yet have been granted residency thanks to criminally lax immigration laws. The ethnic replacement of the French proletariat – a process set in motion in the 1960s by the French captains of industry – is almost complete, at least in France’s large metropolises.
France is a victim of its own brand of universalism and its refusal to face an uncomfortable truth.
I say that as the son of a Tunisian immigrant who worked in North Africa, but the reason why France is struggling to culturally integrate Muslim communities is that Islam is simply not part of France’s DNA, it never was and never will. As we say in French: la greffe n’a pas pris (the graft did not take).
If France wants to avoid a destructive civil war, it will need to draft a new constitution based on a more exclusive definition of the Nation and what constitutes Frenchness.