An hysterical backlash against another European mosque.
Saturday, March 27, 2010 at 9:23PM Interestingly I picked this clip up today which makes my point from yesterdays blog perfectly (no I did not plan it, its just a coincidence).
This Mosque recently built in Austria by Turkish Muslims is funded and managed locally. Despite this there is huge community opposition of the usual kind. The American anchor of the show then gets hysterical claiming that just as there was an Islamic strategy to conqueror Europe by force in the Middle Ages, today the strategy is to breed out European culture. He informs us that this has been "announced" but who has made the announcement he is not so explicit on - I guess he means all Muslims in Europe, or maybe the Koran.
They pull a one line quote from an hour long lecture given by the the Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan about assimilation being a violation of ones human rights and therefore Turks should not assimilate. Although they lift this line to make him mean something sinister; what he in fact said was that it was right for Turkish immigrants to learn German and other languages so they could integrate, but wrong for them to abondon their Turkish heretiage and assimilate. It is forcing immigrants to assimilate not simply integrate that Erdogan is calling "a crime against humanity."
Reader Comments (1)
Just as an update to my thoughts on this...
We must remember that Turkey is a secular country and many Turks are not Muslim, or even religious. Edogan's comments must therefore be understood in the context of all Turkish people, not simply Muslim ones. Any attempt to suggest that he really means "Muslims should not assimilate" is simply slander. If Obama said the same thing of Americans living in other countries or Cameron said it of British ones, would we have disagreed? probably not. Had they said, "when you live in another country, don't be British, or don't be American" there would have been an outcry.
Who wants their national heritage obliterated when moving to another nation? Integrate yes, speak the language and learn the customs, of course, but don't loose your heritage. Thats all Erdogan is saying here and it is simply fear of Muslims in Europe that has made some commentators interpret it in such a crass, Islamophobic way.