A European solution for Europe's problems

After studying in France for several years my friend's sister has to return to Morocco to get a job. While most of her other classmates ? some other international students included ? were able to find work, she could not. I'd like to write it up as a fluke, just some bad luck but I can't.

I can't say that it has nothing to do with what she looks like and where she is from. Because it's hard to ignore that her own experience the mirrors the experiences of countless others from the Middle East and North Africa living in Europe. And she has it relatively easy since she can return to Morocco and feel at home whereas those born in Europe are considered "strange" in either place. Discrimination and large unemployment rates certainly don't help Muslim Europeans sense of belonging. Unfortunately, this feeling of strangeness, of alienation combined with a sense of discrimination is pervasive throughout Europe's Muslim community.

And so, I can't exactly agree with the latest popular theory on how to fight Islamic extremism. Following the London bombings, many clamored in the media for the solution to this "Muslim problem" to come from within the Muslim community at large. I do think that the fatwa issued yesterday by two British imams condemning the practice of suicide bombing is a sure step in the right direction. (After all, Osama Bin Laden has been issuing fatwas encouraging such attacks for years while completely ignoring the requirement of having to be an imam to issue a fatwa. Some devout muslim.)

But to say that the solution to Islamic extremism can only come from the Muslim community points directly to the much larger problem that all Europeans will eventually have to face. (And at this point it seems pretty hard to ignore.) Such sentiments about a "Muslim solution" place Europe's Muslim communities in isolation as if they exist in some sort of vacuum ? and they don't. We know too well that the problems of Europe's Muslim communities, manifested in acts of terrorism, effect all Europeans and so they all must search for an answer.

I think a clue may be the issue of assimilation. In American culture the question is how, if we assign equal value to all cultures, can we accept a culture which defines itself by rejecting our own. This is our stumbling block and Europe's may be the opposite. Its downfall may come as the result of its own attempts to protect its culture by rejecting assimilation all together. In the past 50 years, even 20 years, the demography of all of Europe has altered radically and it's time for Europeans to recognize and finally accept it as a permanent change. These "un-European" people have European citizenship it's doubtful that they will all just go away eventually given enough time and xenophobia.

And so the solution may be to change the very definition of what exactly constitutes European culture. Not to completely redefine it but instead find some sort of middle ground. And this is certainly something that members of all communities can take part in.

Of course, I'm not saying that assimilation and altering the notion of what is European will solve all of Europe's problems and put an end to terrorism. But it can only help. Consider how difficult it would be to go from one culture to another which seeks to destroy the former. Here in America, we've had only one John Walker Lindh. Unfortunately, it seems that the British citizens who carried out the London attacks were just the first of many. It's quite obvious that these men never assimilated at all.

The problem of terrorism and Islamic extremism is one everyone knows will not be going away anytime soon. However, Europe's integration of its Muslim communities into is larger culture may expedite the matter. And I think we can agree that the last thing anyone in Europe needs is a threat from within doubling the threat from the outside.

Amara Rockar is a sophomore political science major from St. Louis. Out of Range appears on Fridays.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.