What Does Islamism Have To Do With It, Really?
I notice there has been a lot of finger pointing by the Right at Islamic Extremism as being the cause of so much strife in the Western world, but does that really have any basis in reality, or is it just a failure to acknowledge existing imperfections in our own Western democracies.
For instance, Europe has always been very nationalistic and unwelcoming of immigrants from Africa, etc - France in particular is known for its failure to integrate newcomers by essentially denying them citizenship and voting rights. And now it is having to face down the very real problem of a large and unruly and disenfranchised Muslim population expressing extreme dissatisfaction with its treatment at the hands of French authorities.
9/11 was carried out within the United States by terrorists living under the radar of both the FBI and CIA. Large disaffected groups of immigrants populate ghettoized-by-ethnicity sections of cities in the United States with non-citizens living and working completely outside the established parameters of native born Americans. Arabs in New Jersey, for instance, where supposedly many of the so-called terrorist cells involved in 9/11 operate, live practically autonomously of other non-Arab American citizens.
Here in Canada, Muslims, feeling beseiged by Rightwing commentary are able to lay complaints to Human Rights Commissions that effectively reveal us as having equivocating standards regarding Freedom of Speech (depending on who is doing the complaining) as well as unfair practices regarding which groups out of the whole are subject to ongoing biased commentary in national news publications - at a time when we should have a heightened awareness of bigoted propaganda being used to justify an amorphous beast like the American "War on Terror".
Now really, whose fault is it that Western democracies are facing these problems, and, are the examples above actually posing threats to democracy or are they more likely pointing to very real shortcomings and failures in our collective practice of it?
I dunno, but the word "Scapegoating" comes to mind, doesn't it.
