Most European Muslims are no terrorists, but they keep their specific identity, which is hardly compatible with the West and which the majority society protects without showing interest in local Muslims’ views, David Rozanek wrote in Tuesday’s issue of Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD).
Whenever a terrorist attack occurs in London, Paris, Brussels, Nice, Berlin, Barcelona or elsewhere, politicians express sympathies to the families of the victims, condemn the attack as a cowardly act, and vow not to let themselves be deterred and to continue fighting against terrorism, Rozanek, a media analyst, writes.
In fact, politicians always repeat the same phrases to cover up the cruel truth that people should get accustomed to terrorism as nothing else can be done, Rozanek writes.
Anti-terror fight will never discourage terrorists. After all, the West has been fighting it for many years now, while Islamic terrorism seems to be rising along with the West’s rising efforts, Rozanek writes.
Something is wrong. Politicians have repeatedly decided to boost cooperation of secret services, reinforce the police and regulate various branches of life, most recently the firearms possession. However, neither the disarmament nor the armament of citizens can change anything about the problem. Barcelona is not the last in a series of Islamic attacks, of which further and undoubtedly even worse will come, Rozanek writes.
The asymmetry between the “cheap killing” and the cost-intensive defence is so large that attacks cannot be reliably prevented, not even if politicians did their utmost, Rozanek writes.
The problem of the roots of terrorism cannot be simplified, but it is undoubtedly connected with the large Muslim communities which refuse to integrate in their respective host countries, he writes.
Most Muslims in Europe are no terrorists, but they keep their own identity that is hardly compatible with the Western idea of a civil secular society, Rozanek continues.
On the one hand, the Western majority society protects its Muslims as a minority. On the other, people do not want to hear what local Muslims think about women, miscreants, Jews, adultery or Muslim renegades, he writes.
Amid the verbal artillery of politicians, Muslim organisations and personalities in Europe mostly keep silent. They consider Islamic terrorism a problem of non-Muslims, not of their own. Terrorism actually plays into their hands, since in the eyes of the European left, it is not the murderer but the victim who is guilty, Rozanek writes.
The radicalisation of a part of Muslims is thus to blame on an insufficiently accommodating approach by members of the majority society, discrimination on the labour market, insensitive attitude of authorities, schools and other state institutions, Rozanek writes.
Instead of integration, European nations are starting to speak of co-existence, which does not aim at the immigrants’ adaptation to the Western society at all, Rozanek writes.
Czech supporters of refugees and promoters of solidarity with the countries where refugees concentrate often argue that there are no refugees in the Czech Republic, and they wonder what some Czechs actually protest against. They probably want the protesters to wait until refugees enter the country, Rozanek writes.
However, it will be too late then, as it is in London, Paris, Berlin and Barcelona, he concludes.