Do you consider Islam a threat?

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Here in the Netherlands, but also in the rest of Europe, there are many people who have great concernes regarding Islam and islamization, which is the process in which Islam gains more and more influence and power in a society/country. Juridically, socially, and in many other ways. You maybe have heard of Geert Wilders, the Dutch politician, and his political party the PVV which is from the right wing, conservative and anti-Islam. Wilders had a huge success in the elections for the European Parliament and is very popular in the opinion polls and is the second main party in the Netherlands, the first after the Christian Democrats. Even though they often don't want to admit it, many people in Holland fear Islam gaining strength and they claim to be fed up with the criminal immigrants from mainly Morocco and Turkey in the suburbs who don't want to integrate and build their own little Morocco in for example Amsterdam.

Many Dutch people are afraid of the process of Islamization, which occurs in several ways, they believe. The first way is demography. We, in Holland, have 16 million people, and 1 million of them are Muslim. In 2050 there will be 2 million Muslims and in twenty years the majority of the four main cities in our country will be allochtonous. The Muslim population is growing very rapidly, but the Dutch population is declining. People think since the non-Muslim -Muslim ratio will change Islam will get more influence in our country politacally but also legally. They fear Muslims will vote for pro-Muslim parties, which eventually be of great influence.

The second way is, they think, a conspiracy of the EU with the Muslim world to let Islam into Europe in exchange for oil- the theory says this all started with the oil crisis in 1973. People who believe this theory think that ''we were sold for oil''. The theory says that the leaders agreed to let Islam into Europe by letting millions of Muslim immigrants into European countries, forbidding harsh and explicit criticism and mocking of the Qur'an and Islam, giving Muslim immigrants many opportunities to express their religious views and convince non-Muslims of the validity of Islam, letting immigrants not obey our laws and not integrate at all, but create ghettos in which they practically are back home in their home countries because they are filled with immigrants and Islamic values are prominently present. Many mosques in Holland and in the rest of Europe are being financed by Islamic organizations and governments, who want, some people believe, get more power for themselves and Islam in Europe this way.

The way mentioned above is only what some people believe, there are also people who think it wasn't a deliberate conspiracy, but just a chain of political mistakes, for example by letting millions of Muslims into Europe and not demanding them to integrate and embrace our culture and moral and political beliefs. Another mistake is according to this theory the fact we accepted their culture too much, and didn't do enough or even permitted the abuse of women, agression, antisemitism, homophobia and hatred against unbelievers, renegades and democracy. For the sake of cultural diversity and the ''enrichment of our Western civilisation'' we have, according to anti-Islamists, let them practice their own cultural habits and values too much and as a result of that they ended very high in the criminal statistics and surpressed and abused gays and women.

Many people here think that Muslims want Shari'a in Europe, a view that is intensified and confirmed by opinion polls under Muslims, which showed many Muslims want to have Shari'a law in European countries (I don't have statistics on that, I forgot some numbers, but to many people they definetely were alarming. I think about 30% in Britain wanted Islamic law for every citizen).


Next to the process of Islamization, there is of course terrorism, but that fear isn't very vivid amongst Dutch. The main fear is the loss of our freedoms, culture, political freedom, cultural values, gay rights and women's rights.

So, wherever you're from, do you think Islam is a threat for the Western civilisation? Or do you think it's just nonsense and there isn't such a thing as islamization?

Islam is a mental disease which is what makes it a threat. It turns otherwise normal people into crazies..

See:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4l4ISfnY5WQ

ruveyn

When religion becomes a threat topic

The politicization of any religion renders it threatening to me.

A good book on the topic of Islamization is Chasing A Mirage: the tragic illusion of an islamic state by Tarek Fatah, published in 2009. Interesting read.

Well, the problem is that Islam doesn't have a model for living in a non-Muslim world. Originally, the idea was that you conquered territories through fire and sword, and became the majority. I think they learned that one from us...

Islam is a religion, and not a political party; there's no 'green menace' like there was a 'red menace' back in the day. They're proud of their religion, but in a multicultural world with freedom of religion, there have to be accomodations.

I don't really see France actually accepting everything, they're battling over headscarves and other trappings. You couldn't do that in the US (I see women in everything from a simple scarf, to the whole route).

I think most of them want to get along. We both think the other is going to hell, but we can at least live with each other.

the evangelicals on tv are now saying that the ant-christ is gonna come out of the islamic world and the nwo is gonna be runned by the sharia law or whatever its called. i personally find this facinating and a little ok alot hilarious. i mean hey i dont have a problem with religion but the possibility of islamic law running the entire globe is scary. although religion sares me anyways so why am i not suprised?

Feh, in a secular society their religion is kind of harmless. I'm more worried about those nazi groups popping up all over Europe...

i had to think about this one for a while before i came back to it. short answer: NO. i don't consider any one religion or another to be a threat--and i have an especially strong tendency to want to defend Islam. (i still have living relatives who were interned simply for Breathing While Asian. the round-ups, Gitmo, detention-without-trial has been a real hot-button topic for me. i believe it's incredibly unjust.)

i understand some of the concern over fundamentalist Islam. (in this country, fundamentalist Christians frequently get some pretty regressive agenda passed.) still in all--i don't think it's a given that people of one religion or that one will become fundamentalist. in other words: i don't think one religion or another is more prone to it as a matter of principles. i think fundamentalism is a matter of reactive fear.

in this country, relatively poor whites are pitted against people of color--it's a form of divide-and-conquer. we fail to see we have more in common that not; instead of fighting for mutually advantageous changes overall, we--well, we fight.

many poor whites have been made to feel very afraid of losing perceived advantages. i think this is one of the spurs for fundamentalism here. it really is about fear of change and fear of "the other." thus, you see more fundamentalism among relatively poor whites.

in Muslim fundamentalism--my opinion? this is a people under siege. aside from Saudi Arabia, for example (which has forged a certain alliance with the US gov.'t) many predominantly Muslim countries are waiting for the invasion to come (or dealing now with the one already there.) we don't live in a climate in which so-called "developing" countries have much autonomy. the large powers are in a constant bid for their resources. if you are small and must fight, it might be advantageous to have fundamentalist "passion" on your side. (not saying this "good"--only that it's a reaction.) the all-or-nothing answers of fundamentalism also seem to come much easier and make more sense to those in chronic fear, upheaval.

i think as Western policy changes (esp. US policy)--i mean, assuming it does---fundamentalism will gradually recede.

in the mean time: there are so many beautiful things about Muslim culture. have you ever listened to oud music? the improvisational part (the Taqsim) is considered a form of prayer.
there's a beauty and passion to this music that's hard to describe: so is the love for it.

maybe if you educate yourself about it in ways you enjoy, you'll find you have less fear overall.

good luck to you; hugs.

Nah, i don't believe they're a threat that much, they're kind of nice once you get to know them. Once knew an iranian girl in college, she was nice enough, and totally not into religion much (she still was pretty interested in israel-palestine stuff).

I think the problem must comming from ghettotisation of the islamics communities. In Europe muslims got a hard timr finding a job and are excluded from the social life. In consequence they live in ghettos and do not integrates the values of the rest of the society. If the society will welcome them, the muslims will integrate the values of the western society and they will be less extremists. The best way to allow them integration is to offer them jobs trough positive discrimination. which will also allow them to get a social life.

If not effort is made to integrate the muslims, the division will deepening trough the islamic religion for the muslims, and the extreme rights wings political movement for the natives europeans. Which in the end could become bloody confrontations.

(By the way, the rise of some extreme right wings movements trough Europa and the exclusions of some ethnics groups (like gypsies) in Italia is quite worrisome. Some gypsies say is like prior the WWII )

You know I just finished putting up a video on YouTube on Saudi Christians http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncLMhT_7 ... annel_page

Yes there is an increase in Islam going on in the Netherlands but along with the Islamization of Europe is a shift in the Persian Gulf States becoming more multireligious. This multicultural thing is not necessarily one-sided. In Saudi Arabia for example it is estimated that Saudi Christians (Yes you read that correctly) number in the tens of thousands keeping their Christianity a closely guarded secret from the government.