Ralph Peters, Mark Steyn, and A Future Muslim Europe?

Ralph Peters, a columnist I have often read in the New York Post, in an interview with Front Page in reposnse to America Alone, a book by Mark Steyn, that has been reposted on the blog The Sophistry, talks about the growing fear of “Eurabia” from many in the West who are feeling threatened by the growth of Islam in Europe and the notion that Europe will turn into a Muslim Continent, which many including myself, have predicted will occur without the emergence of a new form of national socialism or a return to traditional values in Europe which would lead to people having more children thus reducing the need for immigrants and warm bodies to join a future fight whether it be cultural or violent in nature. Peters, who is kind of a conservative pro-war insider, has a different take:

South St. Louis County Locals Try to Block New Masjid and Some Lessons for Muslims

A group of Bosnian Muslims in St. Louis who spent a significant amount of money have recently been denied a rezoning permit for the mosque and school they seek to build in the south St. Louis suburb of Lemay.

The Courage of a Muslim and Getting F*****

It is one thing to get f***** and to accept it as something that happens in life and there will be times when all are on the losing in of situations and another thing for someone to get f***** and for them to like it and sit back and grin ( as most do).Part of my initial attraction to Islam, and the Islamic teachings that sustained me as a young Muslim, was the fact that we were taught that the Muslim does not fear any man or any government and does not fear death and only has fear for Allah.

Oh British Muslims!

If there was any doubt that I would be travelling to Great Britain later this year it has been confirmed by events that have happened over the last couple of days and my need to get some answers to some things that are on my mind.

We all know what has happened with the recent attempted bombings whose failure the British media are attributing to luck, but we as Muslims should recognize as the Qadr of Allah, and of the arrests that have occurred.

Whatever anyone will say about me, and if they love me or hate me, I think that most will recognize that I have a pretty good understanding of the situation of Muslims in America even if people do not always agree with my conclusions, but the situation of Muslims in Britain is something I still do not have a good grasp on and I feel that most British Muslims I have spoken too are not speaking to the heart of the matter or have a hard time communicating their feelings to outsiders.

Clearly there is something going on with some Muslims in Britain, and how many Muslims violent extremism has attracted I do not know, but I think Muslims look pretty foolish when they say that no such problem exists when it clearly does.

I guess it was in the late 90′s that I first got exposed to this when I group of young lunatics from London travelled to the US and I met them in Virginia. I had seen nutty American brothers, but not to the extent of these brothers, and I am pretty sure they were the first to begin distributing the cassettes of Sheikh Faisal.

Faisal was beyond the point of being nuts and he was to the point where I questioned his sanity and was amazed to find out that he actually had a following in Britain and I could not imagine this in America. Couple this with that guy with the hook in his arm and some of the other more eccentric figures in Britain and it seems that you have a movement  across the pond that has some degree of popularity that there is no equivalent to here in the US.

Why is this? Allah knows best, but an analogy I can draw is that amongst the second-generation Latinos and beyond in America there has developed a gang-culture as a form of rebellion or admission to their non-acceptance into the greater society, and maybe this jihadi movement is the gang movement of Desis and other Muslim immigrants who by their nature are not prone to organized criminality in a  way that many from Latin America are, and see themselves as not being accepted in the place they grew up.

I also have to feel that the “culture of victimization” that so many Muslims who have been influenced by modern thinkers of the left buy into has a role to play here. Instead of embracing empowerment the new waves want to be recognized as the new oppressed minority living amongst the evil white British and therefore they cannot be held accountable for anything they do and if a terrorist attack does occur the victims become, not those who died, but the Muslim community who then has to face the wrath of white British society. I also have to blame the new British Male in “cool Britannia” who puts up with this nonesense because I doubt these young jihadi wanna-bes are hanging in front of pubs in working class Manchester egging on the likes of Ricky Hatton with their rhetoric and are sticking to pissing off the Anglo-French crowd and I cant think of where in America these guys would not get thier butts kicked outisde of yuppie areas that also look to the European elite as a model.

There should be a degree of maturity here from British Muslims and a recognition that the police may have to step on a few toes in their investigations in order to prevent massive deaths and we should pray that they succeed in their efforts insha’Allah. This does not mean you should forget about your rights and let yourselves be trampled and act like second-class citizens, it simply means you should live in the real world. After all, does anyone seriously think that the Saudi police would exercise much restraint of a Filipino movement using terror emerged in the kingdom or a Chinese one emerged in Indonesia?

What the Muslim community in Britain needs to do is to dismiss the PR gimmicks and the whitewashing and try and look at some of the problems they have in a serious way and do this without selling out as many have done in the past along with the British people looking at the problem in a mature way and seeing if they can meet reasonable Muslims half way on some issues. There is a middle way.