Europe -Moderates Question Islam's Compatibility with European Values

[Frodo]

I'm glad to see they are finally waking up:

Across Europe, Worries on Islam Spread to Center

By DAN BILEFSKY and IAN FISHER
Published: October 11, 2006

BRUSSELS, Oct. 10 — Europe appears to be crossing an invisible line regarding its Muslim minorities: more people in the political mainstream are arguing that Islam cannot be reconciled with European values.

“You saw what happened with the pope,” said Patrick Gonman, 43, the owner of Raga, a funky wine bar in downtown Antwerp, 25 miles from here. “He said Islam is an aggressive religion. And the next day they kill a nun somewhere and make his point.

“Rationality is gone.”

Mr. Gonman is hardly an extremist. In fact, he organized a protest last week in which 20 bars and restaurants closed on the night when a far-right party with an anti-Muslim message held a rally nearby.

His worry is shared by centrists across Europe angry at terror attacks in the name of religion on a continent that has largely abandoned it, and disturbed that any criticism of Islam or Muslim immigration provokes threats of violence.

For years those who raised their voices were mostly on the far right. Now those normally seen as moderates — ordinary people as well as politicians — are asking whether once unquestioned values of tolerance and multiculturalism should have limits.

Former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw of Britain, a prominent Labor politician, seemed to sum up the moment when he wrote last week that he felt uncomfortable addressing women whose faces were covered with a veil. The veil, he wrote, is a “visible statement of separation and difference.”

When Pope Benedict XVI made the speech last month that included a quotation calling aspects of Islam “evil and inhuman,” it seemed to unleash such feelings. Muslims berated him for stigmatizing their culture, while non-Muslims applauded him for bravely speaking a hard truth.

The line between open criticism of another group or religion and bigotry can be a thin one, and many Muslims worry that it is being crossed more and more.

Whatever the motivations, “the reality is that views on both sides are becoming more extreme,” said Imam Wahid Pedersen, a prominent Dane who is a convert to Islam. “It has become politically correct to attack Islam, and this is making it hard for moderates on both sides to remain reasonable.” Mr. Pedersen fears that onetime moderates are baiting Muslims, the very people they say should integrate into Europe.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I understand that it used to be fairly common to question whether or not Judaism was compatible with "European Values".

Anyone who seriously believes that Islam is not "compatible" with "European Values" doesn't know as much about either of them as they like to think that they do.
Although I don't think that Muslims have ever waged a total war of almost complete destruction over ideology, murdered millions of people, in the space of a few short years, on an industrial scale just because of their religion, built industrial networks of slave and death camps across an illegally invaded country, been willing to sacrifice the lives of thousands of teenage conscripts just to gain a foot of muddy ground, divided a continent for almost half a century because of ideology... and so on and so forth.
Now do I think that such things are entirely representative of "European Values"? No. They aren't. But equally 9/11 does not = Islam.

Btw, Jack Straw is really being taken out of context there. For the record he's also a strong support of the right of Muslim women to wear headscarves (has been for two decades actually) and represents a town with one of the highest % of Muslims in the U.K. And it should also be pointed out that the main Islamic organisation in the U.K (which tends to be more (small "c") conservative than most British Muslims) actually said that he had a point... but let's ignore that in favour of yet more sensationalist tripe about a "Class of Civilizations" or related bullsh*t.