2009-02-26 Economist: Britain and its Muslims - How the government lost the plot

[Samuli Salminen]

Suositeltavaa luettavaa:

http://www.economist.com/world/britain/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13186100

Katkelmia artikkelista:

"The Muslim population is in many ways diverging still more from the mainstream. With its large, young families, it is also growing much faster (see chart): there are 2.4m Muslims today, according to the Labour Force Survey; the census of 2001, a rather different measure, put it at 1.6m. The government is under fire from the political centre-right for being too soft on radical or reactionary Muslim groups who stop just short of endorsing violence. It is also attacked from the left (Muslim or otherwise) for using the fight against terrorism as an excuse for a general assault on Muslims and their cultural rights."

"But the failure of current policies aimed at fostering moderate Islam can hardly be overstated. After spending lavishly on a strategy called Prevent that was supposed to empower moderates—at least £80m ($116m) will have been dished out on such efforts by 2011—the very word "prevent" has become discredited in the strongholds of British Islam, which include east London, Birmingham and a string of northern industrial towns. At the Muslim grass roots, there is a sense that any group or person who enjoys official favour is a stooge."

"Nearly three years on, the government's biggest problem is that it is struggling with two big questions at once. One is the set of problems described under the catch-all term of "cohesion"—narrowing the social, economic and cultural gap between Muslims (especially in some poor urban areas of northern Britain) and the rest of society. The second is countering the threat from groups preparing to commit violence in Britain or elsewhere in the name of Islam."

[M.K.Korpela]

That system of trade-offs, the equivalent of the "beer and sandwiches" once used to woo trade unionists, had some big drawbacks. It gave hardline Muslims—generally male, old and new to Britain—disproportionate sway.

Tämä pehmeä kaljaa-ja-voileipää -politikka ei muuten toiminut ammattiliittojakaan vastaan joten mitä muka Labour oletti saavansa vastineeksi.

Yksinkertaisesti myönnytykset vain aina pahentavat tilannetta , montako kertaa tämä täytyy nähdä.

[Alumiinitaivas]

The Economistin jutussa annetaan ymmärtää, että Britannian ulkopolitiikka on usein radikalisoitumisen taustalla.

Miksi tälläisiä uutisia kuuluu vain Euroopasta muttei Yhdysvalloista? Siellä on kuitenkin (lähteestä riippuen) saman verran tai enemmän muslimeja kuin vaikkapa Britanniassa. Vai heitetäänkö ne kaikki Guantanamoon?

Tietysti syynä saattaa olla se oikeasti integroiva maahanmuuttopolitiikka, jossa on pakko löytää töitä kun elätiksi ei voi jäädä.