The Promise of Integration

Bismillahirahmanirahim.

I thought a lot about this issue before writing about it. It is really tricky and would open a whole new can of worms, which I might not be willing to open so I will keep this relatively short. I want to start by saying that I won't try to find any answers to the problems I will be pointing out here as it is not really my job to do so.

As many of you might know starting on Oct. 27 there was a big civil unrest in France which lasted for around 20 days. According to the estimates, there were around 9,000 vehicles torched and the total number of arrests came close to 3,000. More than a 100 policemen were injured during these riots. Of course the Western media (US media and Fox News specifically) didn't hesitate to turn this into a religious issue and put all blame on Islam once again. The people who torched the vehicles and fought the police in these riots were mostly immigrants from North Africa, and yes happen to be Muslims. Let's leave all the prejudices aside and just look at the numbers though. According to BBC,in France, unemployment rate for people of foreign origin is 1.5 times higher than that for people of French origin, after adjusting for educational qualifications. An unemployment rate of 5% for French university graduates can be compared to the unemployment rate of 26.5% for university graduates of north African origin. Exactly how would you blame Islam instead of the racist practices of the French government and French people for the failed integration of these immigrant communities to the bigger society in France? Why do we choose to disregard the oppressive practices of the French government against Muslims in recent years, the killing of two Muslim youth which ignited the riots and Interior Minister Sarkozy's ridicilous statements(calling the protesters "scum") right before the riots reached their peak?

These people are forced to lose their religion to be able to pursue France's false promise of "integration". Why would a young Muslim women have to remove her hijab so she can go to a French university? Why exactly should a brown/black skinned Muslim man should assimilate to the White Christian men's dream that is deemed the "European ideal", which doesn't even give him a job to feed his family? How can the Muslim minority feel secure and trust "their" government while they have to go through ID checks constantly? How are they expected to assimilate? At what cost?

EU has to redefine the European Identity if it is to integrate any of her minorities. Just education and employment won't solve this "problem". What the majority thinks is not always right and Europe certainly has a good experience about that. The European society has to admit their faults and bring this discussion to their mainstream if they are hoping for any kind of solution in the future.


Peace.