Islam in Europe: perception and reality

[Regina]

Here in the UK, the national statistic is "only" something like 4% - but that ignores how a large proportion of that "4%" tends to band together into Muslim-majority neighbourhoods.

How dare they, since every other neighbourhood would welcome them with open arms.

4 percent don't get larger because an unknown percentage tends to bend together. News for you,, jewish communities, at least the more religious ones, tend to do the same. It's only (rightfully) out of fashion to criticise them for doing it. That hate train has moved on to a different minority, who obviously can't do anything right in the eyes of the ones needing someone to despise or at the very least eye suspiciously.

Yes, they tend to move into certain neighbourhoods. But the reasons for doing so are many, if one feels the wish to look closer. It's often run down districts where rents are cheap, since they simply can't afford to move anywhere nice. Being an unskilled worker in todays world, and many of them are, doesn't earn you a fancy loft in garden city. It just happens.

You're right. I never said the 4% got "bigger".

It gets more concentrated. And when it gets more concentrated, it gets more visible and loud. It gets more organised.

I don't see many highly segregated "Jewish ghettos" around these days. But let's say even if there were, are Non-Israeli Jews screaming "I'm offended!" every time someone does something modern? Are Non-Israeli Jews (even if it's "not all Jews!") giving death threats and actually going through with them when people do something modern?

The vast majority of immigrants into Western Europe are "unskilled workers". Most manage to integrate fine, as I said earlier.

Islam as a whole body (not talking individuals, for the umpteenth time) comes into conflict wherever it meets people who are different; India, China, Russia, even with non-Muslims in The Middle East. If all these different groups don't seem to mesh well with Islam, it says something. You have to ask the question eventually, is everyone else paranoid, or wait, is it actually their problem? And I think it's just fashionable to throw out the one-sided "Islamophobia" argument. It's deeper than "The West picking on the little powerless brown man's religion". There's a pattern here.

And don't think I'm letting other cultures off the hook with that logic either. The USA is the same, conflict everywhere, it says something.