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The U.S. is definitely highly segregated and has serious racial problems, and of course there is Donald Trump huffing and puffing. That said, it has as part of its national ethos that it is an immigrant society. While there have been lots of bumps in the road, it has a pretty good track record of taking people from all over the world and turning them into full-fledged Americans.
If I were a Muslim person today looking for a new home, I am not sure I would choose a country in the EU over the U.S. simply because of the stupidities being thrown around by Donald Trump.
There is a lot more to it than that. As someone has already mentioned, it's illegal to wear a burqa while simply minding your own business walking down the street in a couple of EU countries (including France), and others like Germany are considering such a ban at the present time.
(BTW, before anyone reacts, people should know I am no fan of the burqa and I personally may not even think that France and the others have got this "wrong". But to a traditionalist Muslim family, not having your women be allowed to dress according to their faith is a huge deal. Much more than Trump's huffing and puffing. And regardless, a ban on burqas in *public* places is something you'd probably never see in the U.S.)
I know it's not part of the EU but Switzerland held a referendum to ban any new minarets which is basically an indirect way to prevent the construction of new mosques. The Yes side won and there has been tons of legal wrangling over this. Not sure of the outcome at this point.
I am not American but I would think that most Americans could not see how any religious group there could be banned (across the country or even in an entire state) from building their own place of worship with their own money.
I'm not denying its symbolic and highly divisive nature (as polls among French Muslims and the general populace show), but the practical implications of the burqa ban are very limited, as there is an estimated 2000 burqa wearers in France. I used to live in a working class suburb of Paris and have only ever seen burqas in posh Parisian locations attracting rich Middle Eastern tourists. Btw for the record I'm against the ban.
(BTW, before anyone reacts, people should know I am no fan of the burqa and I personally may not even think that France and the others have got this "wrong". But to a traditionalist Muslim family, not having your women be allowed to dress according to their faith is a huge deal. Much more than Trump's huffing and puffing. And regardless, a ban on burqas in *public* places is something you'd probably never see in the U.S.)
You're trying to prevent a reaction by saying you support a burqa ban?
I would strongly oppose a burqa ban. Besides being an infringement of personal liberty, what does it accomplish other than preventing non-Muslims from being subjected to burqa-clad women? It's not going to increase Muslim women's rights in a real way. In any case the % of Muslim women that wear burqas is small
You're trying to prevent a reaction by saying you support a burqa ban?
I would strongly oppose a burqa ban. Besides being an infringement of personal liberty, what does it accomplish other than preventing non-Muslims from being subjected to burqa-clad women? It's not going to increase Muslim women's rights in a real way. In any case the % of Muslim women that wear burqas is small
People on either side can react for all sorts of reasons to all sorts of things, what can I say. Just wanted to make things clear.
Generally speaking, even if I have a big issue with what the burqa represents (to be clear: we're talking about face coverings, not just head scarves), I am not in favour of it being banned when walking down the street. This goes way too far.
OTOH I don't think people in positions of authority like public school teachers or police officers should be allowed to wear it while doing their jobs.
A burka ban is stupid. Who cares what 0.1% of the population does. It's not like they're being troublesome or causing problems. And also, it's just clothing. And in 2017, there's much more important influences than what someone can or can't wear. And it's associated with their faith, they want to wear them, so why do we care? I don't like what the represent, but it doesn't mean we should ban them. Glad nothing like this has come up in America.
People who criticize de facto degradation should take a trip to one of the many urban ghettos in NJ and surrounding states. Of course people want to separate.
It may be true that there are no individual municipalities (communes) that are overwhelmingly Muslim or even over 50% Muslim, but that's simply a question of municipal boundaries.
For example, in France there are communes (municipalities) that have areas within them (large groups of tower blocks for example) where close to the entire population is Muslim. (Often of North African, Middle Eastern or Sub-Saharan African origins.) And where there are basically no "old stock French" residents.
These kinds of areas exist in other European countries as well, even if strictly speaking, sure... there may in fact be *zero* actual municipalities/suburbs/communes where Muslims are the majority.
Just because a suburb is only 25-30% Muslim doesn't mean it can't have specific areas within it with hundreds or a couple thousand people within it who are almost all Muslim.
This most definitely exists.
There are suburbs like this here in Melbourne too, ethnic enclaves have been a thing for god knows how long. Of course people of the same race tend to stick together, it is human nature.
This is the last place on C-D I want to turn into a "them librul yuropeans weak feminist gays inviting musulmun jihad terrorists who will take over the whole continent and become eurabia" battleground.
Read, visit and learn the truth. If you won't, I will.
What the right-wing media in the US tells about the situation in Europe it is so blatantly, ridiculously and stupidily false that I'm starting to think that you are an itellectually challenged nation. IE retards.
Who cares about the right-wing media.
Muslims have illiberal beliefs. Many, but not all, of them hold beliefs comparable to your redneck folks in the south. An alarming number of Muslims would want me killed just for preferring my own gender. Also, the majority of them are blatantly antisemitic that it's disgusting. Very naive to think that they're a harmless bunch of people, considering that their prophet is a pedophile warlord who raped a 9 year old girl.
There is no such as Islamophobia. Fear of a fascist ideology is rational. However, being afraid of regular, ordinary Muslims is a different story. Of course, there are moderate Muslims. But you shouldn't be mad when people have a perspective.
P.S. I really don't care about banning the burqa. I mean, it's ironic that we can forcefully tell what a woman should wear or not wear. Aren't we becoming like Saudi Arabia here? Kinda hypocritical.
Some years ago in the neighborhood of Kokkedal in Denmark (muslim majority) the neighborhood association of Kokkedal decided to not put in the Christmas of 2012 the traditional Christmas Tree.
Which only would cost 7.000 danish kroner, while on the Eid Al Adha festivity (end of the Ramadan) they spended 60.000 danish kroner, even if the neighborhood is 44% danish.
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