Assimilation will mean concessions - A changing Europe

EVERY terror attack by Islamic extremists provokes anger and the incomprehension religious fanaticism generates in a largely pluralist, liberal, and increasingly irreligious Western world.

That incomprehension is exacerbated by the indifference those terrorists show towards their survival. It is as if their death is a longed-for honour if their attack can achieve maximum carnage, mayhem, and publicity. It is as if they imagine themselves contemporary, urban Kamikaze rather than deluded bigots driven by hatred in pursuit of the impossible — establishing a medieval caliphate in Europe.

That is our angry response but then, hopefully, the more reflective side of our nature tries to rationalise how young men and women, often born in Europe, feel so very alienated and unable to build a worthwhile life that they leave suburbs like Molenbeek, Schaerbeek, St Denis, Tower Hamlets or, say, Tallaght to join barbarians waging jihad in Syria. We struggle to see how that choice, no matter how difficult Europe might be, could ever be a more appealing option.

We also try to rationalise how some Muslim hardliners living in Europe imagine it is possible, for even a moment, to replace the laws and mores of European society with Sharia law and the dehumanising hatreds that Dark Ages’ code encourages. We recoil from Islamic protests asserting religious predominance over our civil laws.

We recoil too from the hard-right groups, often fascist, organised to oppose these delusions. But what can we do to ensure that our way of life is made accessible and attractive to those who might otherwise be corrupted, that angry, poor, and isolated young Muslims cannot see themselves as the victims of western colonialism and injustice and seek comfort in the arms of IS?

This is a good society if you are Irish, white, and happy to play along with some of the set pieces we regard as sacrosanct. But, imagine for a moment, if you were a Muslim or a Buddhist or a non-religious emigrant with a child or children in a national school where one ethos dominates to the extent that all others are set aside if not demeaned? Can we honestly argue this is not a barrier to the kind of social assimilation Europe must work towards?

How many Muslim teachers work in our national or secondary schools? If Catholic teachers can teach Muslim children, why can’t Muslim teachers teach Catholic children? Though our health service would collapse without Muslim nurses or doctors, how many Muslims are gardaí or civil servants? How many were elected the Dáil? How many play inter-county football or hurling?

The 2011 Irish census found about 50,000 Muslims live in Ireland. This is a small number but it will grow and we must work towards assimilation and policies that will neutralise extremism and support the moderate and ambitious new Irish. We may have to make concessions some will regard as excessive. We may have to reconsider the pre-eminence given to Catholicism and even if that seems a very heavy price for some, it seems better than having a Molenbeek, Schaerbeek, St Denis or a Tower Hamlets festering in our cities producing marginalised people whose only ambition is our destruction.