From Europe’s Angry Muslims:
Where Muslim identity was most widely tolerated or embraced, in Britain, Muslims felt most alienated! Where Muslim identification was viewed negatively, as in France, there actually was less conflict.
And there’s more:
It would seem that there is actually less conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims in the European country least tolerant of Muslim identification, than in highly tolerant multiculturalist Britain.
What is your explanation for this?
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My explanation would be that if you define yourself primarily negatively (that is, instead of “I am Y” you say “I am not X”) then acceptance and tolerance is going to drive you crazy and force you into a search for stronger ways to make it clear just how not X you are.
Call it “identity inflation”, you need more and more identity to prove it to yourself.
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Perhaps the least conflict in France, and many European countries, as a result of so many (Muslim-only), no-go areas there – parallel societies, which is not the case in the UK.
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How are they defining conflict between groups and self reported alienation? I think people have more time to report on conflict and self reported alienation when they have space to breathe.
If your religious identity is oppositional in nature and you have this vein of “my people are martyrs”, you need to define yourself against other people, so I could see people feeling that they don’t have a strong identity in a multicultural, pluralistic melting pot. Some Christians in America complain about feeling oppressed because of the ACA; Christians in Nigeria don’t have time to answer surveys about alienation because they are in the middle of a war.
But nobody really says this about Sikhs; and they have a long history of martyrdom.
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Yeah, his argument here is weaksauce. Cherry-picking his data, vague definitions, gross generalizations, etc. Reminds me of the quote about some people using statistics the way a drunk uses a lamp post; not for illumination, but for support.
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In an area in which ancient history matters, recent history does as well.
Now just why might Muslims be less than enthusiastic toward UK?
Britain’s role a/the major colonial power in the Middle East. (The French as a colonial power were largely limited to Lebanon; UK was everywhere else.)
Britain’s role in the partition of the Middle East into the modern states and the partition of Shiite and Sunni areas of influence.
The Balfour Declaration.
Treatment of Muslims during the partition of India.
Inconsistent and perhaps even somewhat delusional policy. (Remember the assumption by key players in the UK Foreign Office that radical Arabs and Zionists would join forces to overthrow the colonial powers after WWI?)
Now, UK may have no recall of these events. Imams seem to have long memories.
With this near term legacy, any surprise that Muslims would be less than warm toward UK?
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“With this near term legacy, any surprise that Muslims would be less than warm toward UK?”
As for colonialism, both Spain and Germany – countries with a lesser engagement in colonial adventures in the Middle East – are closer, in terms of the levels of discontent of their Muslim immigrants to Britain than to France.
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I grew up in a state in the US where multi-generational family feuds are famous (google Hatfields v. McCoys). The illiterate grunts in ISIS don’t know this history. It just takes a few trusted opinion leaders (imams) to keep hatred alive.
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The majority of Muslims in Britain are of south Asian* origin or heritage (Pakistan, Bangladesh, India in that order). Most of those issues are not tremendously important to them beyond lip service.
*In Britain the bare adjective “Asian” referring to people almost always refers to the Indian sub-continent
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FYI: Immigration statistics, UK, Q3 2014
Region Total applications Granted Percent
2014 Q3 *Total 838887 771,113 88.3%
2014 Q3 Asia East 174601 178,171 96.9%
2014 Q3 Asia South 177130 150,670 82.5%
2014 Q3 Middle East 109831 100,484 91.8%
2014 Q3 Asia South East 63970 63,875 93.3%
2014 Q3 Africa North 31474 24,822 75.5%
2014 Q3 Asia Central 8264 6,944 83.9%
2014 Q3 Oceania 7086 6,869 94.7%
2014 Q3 EU 14 4 2 66.7%
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Sorry, couldn’t get the formatting on the table to copy
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What about Algeria? That where a lot of the French Muslims are from, and a former French colony.
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Exactly. The reason why I like this author is that he’s avoiding both the “Islam is to blame” and “colonialism is to blame” narratives. Both have been advanced too many times and never lead anywhere.
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
Clarissa's Blog 
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