Muslims in Europe: Notes, Comments, Questions

This book probes questions and gives provocative answers for one of the crucial issues of our time. Are two cultures ever incompatible in one society? In a series of essays spanning more than a decade, Manfred Wolf examines the topic of Muslims in Europe, exploring various aspects of the subject, including cultural affinities or their absence; several approaches to handling immigration; the roots of radicalization and terrorism; and the assimilation of Muslims in Europe versus the United States. From "Elusive Affinities": "Assimilation is always hardest when the culture of origin differs radically from the culture of the new society. Arab cultures of the Middle East and North Africa revolve around a kind of Islam-induced authoritarianism, an absolutist impulse, which the new country sets itself against. Certain standards—deference to parents, obedience to government, respect for force—are in those parts of the world accepted almost without question, while European cultures encourage their citizens to question them. "The newcomer, especially if he’s young, mistakes this seeming laxness for total permissiveness, an absence of all standards, and is almost surprised when the host culture clamps down and jails him for a criminal offense. European culture seems amorphous, without clear values and beliefs. Freedom looks like the absence of morality. Since so few absolute standards obtain, why shouldn’t you grope and fondle women at a public celebration—especially when they’re so provocatively dressed? "This disaffinity between the two cultures makes assimilation extraordinarily difficult, especially since assimilation entails accepting the morals, the norms, the mores, of the new culture. Genuine multiculturalism is an abstraction; one culture has to dominate."