March 7, 2006

• Sometimes I wonder.....I really do.  At BBC there's a story entitled Europe's angry young Muslims:  "Europe is home to a new generation of alienated young Muslims whose anger may turn to radicalism..."

  I don't intend to offend the AYM, but doesn't it occur to them the reason they feel alienated is because, basically, they are?

  A Muslim, particularly one of Arab extraction, is simply guaranteed to feel out of place and alienated in France or Holland or England, for crying out loud.  I'm not telling them to get out of Dodge  -  or Lyons  -  but to acknowledge France's history, culture and societal mores are not their history, culture and societal mores, and to expect anything else is foolish.

  Trust me, dump me in Morroco and I'll feel alienated as all get out, but hope I wouldn't be angry about it.  Put me down in China, ditto.  And why?  Because I don't belong in those countries.  Doesn't mean I can't move there, but I trust I wouldn't be silly enough to resent feeling like a "stranger in a strange land."  My race is different, my religion is different, my worldview is different.  Put it together and it spells A.L.I.E.N.

  Granted many of the AYM were born in Europe, but that doesn't really help much, not if the local culture and society in which they were raised is alien to the host nation's.  I've an online friend who was born and raised in Boston, and is still there, but is so at odds with the prevailing culture he doesn't fit in at all.
  

  • 11:29 am
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