Islamophobia article - does it annoy?

I read this article and felt annoyed. just the way I do when i read stuff from democrats. Perhaps I am wrong. is anyone else annoyed by this type of journalism.


ATHENS, Greece - Muslims across Europe are confronting a rise in "Islamophobia" ranging from violent attacks to discrimination in job and housing markets, a wide-ranging
European Union report indicated Monday.
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The study, compiled by the European Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia, urged European authorities to strengthen policies on integration. But it also noted that Muslims need to do more to counter negative perceptions driven by terrorism and upheavals such as the backlash to cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

The 117-page survey details the many divides between the EU mainstream and the estimated 13 million Muslims — now at least 3.5 percent of the 25-nation bloc's population — and seeks to offer a street-level view of the complexities blocking efforts to bridge the differences.

"The disadvantaged position of Muslim minorities, evidence of a rise in Islamophobia and concern over processes of alienation and radicalization have triggered an intense debate in the European Union," said Beate Winkler, director of the Vienna-based group.

The report reinforces the growing urgency of tackling religious tensions and suspicions in Europe.

During a trip to Turkey earlier this month,
Pope Benedict XVI appealed for greater understanding between Christianity and Islam and sought to ease Muslim outrage over his remarks in September that cited a medieval emperor speaking about violence and Muhammad's teachings.

Last week, British Prime Minister
Tony Blair called tolerance one of the "essential values" of his nation and denounced "hatemongers, whatever their race, religion or creed."

The report cited hundreds of reported cases of violence or threats against Muslims in the EU since 2004, including vandalism against mosques and Islamic centers, abuse against women wearing Islamic headscarves and attacks, such as a Somali family in Denmark assaulted by a gang carrying baseball bats emblazoned with swastikas and racist slogans.

The report, however, noted that "data on religiously aggravated incidents is collected on a limited scale." It noted that only Britain publishes a hate-crime list that specifically identifies acts against Muslims.

"Muslims feel that acceptance by society is increasingly premised on 'assimilation' and the assumption that they should lose their Muslim identity," Winkler said. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, many Muslims feel "they have been put under a general suspicion of terrorism."

Islamophobic incidents shot up 500 percent in Britain in the weeks after the July 2005 bombings of London's transit system, but decreased dramatically after authorities and religious leaders worked together to ease tensions, Winkler said.

"The key word is 'respect,'" she said. "People need to feel respected and included."

The report urged EU nations to develop more clear legal frameworks for Muslim cultural and religious institutions, including ways to make more public funds available to Islamic community groups and help train local imams.

The report also said Europe's Muslims are "often disproportionately represented" in poor housing conditions, unemployment statistics and in lower education levels.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061218/ap_on_re_eu/europe_muslims

 

You probably won't like this one either:


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/get-ready-for-segregation_b_36602.html


Get Ready for Segregation -- Again (13 comments )
READ MORE: Iraq, New York Times, Tennessee Senate Race, Supreme Court, John Roberts, George W. Bush
The recent elections made it hopeful that the heyday of right-wing reaction is over. But elections don't affect the Supreme Court, and while the country was rising up against the Iraq war, the court quietly began to enact its own agenda. The results could be ominous.

The first case to indicate a seismic shift in the court, which now has a five-member conservative majority, involves school desegregation.

Seattle and Louisville have had difficulties achieving racial balance in their school systems (Louisville's desegregation efforts were under court control for 25 years). Both cities devised a plan that involved admitting or denying children admission based on race. At times this meant allowing a black child to attend a certain school while keeping out a white child based entirely on race.

Was this fair? Every lower court has said that the end justifies the means. The great problem in this country is de facto segregation, the division of cities according to where whites and blacks live. Integration is meaningless as law if the reality is separation by neighborhood. In the fifty years since Brown versus the Board of Education, the Supreme Court has agreed with this principle.

Until now. After a heated debate behind closed doors over whether to hear the Seattle and Louisville cases (the Supreme Court almost never takes a case when the lower courts are in total agreement), the conservatives showed their hand. They intend to legislate from the bench without check, the very thing they rail against. Justices Scalia and Thomas have a track record of wanting to overturn law far greater than any liberal justice. The Roberts court seems to want to follow suit.

Observers during the oral arguments felt a palpable change in the court's tone (as reported by Linda Greenhouse of the New York Times). It was obvious from the justices' comments which way these two cases will go. The two desegregation plans will be ruled unconstitutional, and in the wake of this decision, we can expect many others to be outlawed as well. Of course we don't know the details yet. School systems may still be allowed a measure of choice in placing black and white students in various schools. That will depend on how hard the moderate-liberal majority fights when the decision is drafted.

We will just have to wait. Getting rid of desegregation has been a not-so-secret part of the conservative agenda for decades. The right wing rose to power by inviting in bigots with open arms. No one speaks openly about this, but the racial political ads in the Tennessee senate race, which implied that the black candidate was sexually interested in white women, pulled the lowest punch quite effectively.

It will be a sad day when America gives up on integration. Conservatives will call it an experiment that failed or something of the sort. But morality tells us that the end really does justify the means here. You can't get racial integration without looking at individual students according to race. To claim otherwise because of some legal loophole justifies a great wrong. It's not that far from the doctrine of separate but equal (a creation of the Supreme Court now looked upon as shameful), because in both cases a mythical fairness that exists on paper ignores a gross and very real injustice. Just as Bush and his Republican predecessors intended, an immoral agenda can best be achieved by packing the courts.

 

I'm nominating the following comment on the above column for the "comment of the year from an avowed liberal" award:


(and liberals call Republicans "fascists")............


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This is a false argument. While I consider myself a rabid liberal, I disagree with forced desegregation completely. I believe NO school should be allowed to keep a kid OUT based on race but not forced to attend a school miles away for some moron who has no idea of the damage this causes.

When my son was 13 we were informed that he would no longer be allowed to go to school that was 3 blocks from our house because he was going to be bussed to downtown South L.A. So, being the liberals we are we went to the school to see what he would be in.

We figured it would be good for him to see a different part of life.

GOOD GOD BUT WERE WE WRONG!

You think anyone would send their kid into a school where they have guards, gangs roam the halls, the bathrooms are filthy, and white kids are routinely picked on?

We didn't, we informed the school they didn't have the right to force our son to attend a violent racist school(yes racist, the white kids there were told to either join gangs or be beaten all the time). The school informed us that if we didn't send him we would be charged with a crime unless we enrolled him in a private school, which as hard as it was on us, we decided to do.

Under the idiotic bussing plan our son would have had to be up by FIVE IN THE MORNING to catch a bus at Six in the FREAKING MORNING for an hour and a half ride to a school in South L.A.

Oh yeah, that makes perfect fucking sense to me. I was so angry after being told I had no choice as to where to send my son I was ready to spit fire.

You want to believe the crap that all the schools are the same and that the only reason is to expose kids to other races?

You are a fool of the first order if you believe that idiocy.
By: Libsrule on December 18, 2006 at 12:57pm

 

I wouldn't necessarily call the article annoying so much as unintentionally instructive. Basically, euro's are finding that as muslims reach a certain point in the population, they feel emboldened not to have to fit in but start clamoring to be "respected." They start to resent pressures to assimilate and equate it with discrimination. All of this is of course right out of the multiculturalist playbook.

By the way, I'm not trying to condemn muslims for this behavior. It is perfectly normal. Americans and Brits do the same thing when they live in a foreign culture, say the middle east. The problem that has arisen in the last few years however is that muslims have gone beyond resentment to violence. Criticize their religion and your life is suddenly in real danger. If a political or religious leader says something to upset them, they don't write letters to the editor. They riot. It's done in the name of religion, so it is natural for people to link islam with violence. It doesn't help that their religious leaders not only do little or nothing to condemn violence but often seem to encourage it.

Western societies have two choices. They can acknowledge that assimilation has broken down and resolve to stop muslim immigration in an attempt to preserve their cultures. Or they can accept the religious balkanization of their countries and try to accommodate it.

 

Hey busing is great unless your a kid going to school.

Nothing like getting mugged three times in seventh grade to have your parents decide to flee the city and move to greenwich.

good points aaa. I just want to make sure you feel respected and included because that way elitetrade will be a better place and we can all make money in the markets.