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Muslims Offered Italian Values

Sep 25, 2006 8:04 am By Robert Spencer

A step toward anti-dhimmitude from Italian Interior Minister Giuliano Amato, analyzed by Federico Bordonaro in IPS (thanks to Designnut):

ROME, Sep 25 (IPS) – Interior Minister Giuliano Amato proposed in August that Muslim organisations in Italy will need to subscribe to a Charter of Values to signal their readiness to be fully integrated into Italian society and its political culture.

Rome is facing a huge challenge: it cannot fail to integrate its increasingly numerous Muslim immigrant population, but since integration policies in Europe are regarded as less than successful, it is forced to seek new solutions….

Less than successful? They’ve been non-existent, due to demands from Muslim leaders that they not be undertaken. Cf. Eurabia by Bat Ye’or; Abou Jahjah’s notorious statement that “assimilation is cultural rape,” etc.

After the Madrid and London terror attacks in 2004 and 2005, the Danish cartoon controversy, and last summer’s so-called honour killing in northern Italy where a Pakistani immigrant killed his daughter, worries about Muslim integration in Italy have increased.

In particular, public debate among Italian intellectuals and specialists highlights the worry that in Muslim countries only a minority of intellectuals have criticised the call for retaliation issued by religious and extremist political leaders, while conciliatory words pronounced by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad after the Pope explained that his speech was “not intended to hurt Muslim feelings” have been cautiously received.

“…only a minority of intellectuals…” Indeed: funny how the Tiny Minority of Extremists never seems to behave like a minority at all.

One thing is sure, though, and it is the heart of the matter: Rome cannot afford to fail to integrate Italian Muslims and to enhance their attachment to national democratic and constitutional values if it is to avoid a bitter political and social conflict..

Since both assimilation-oriented policies and multiculturalism are considered unsatisfying models for effective integration strategies, Italy faces inner divisions among policy-makers and within the public about the right way to address the question. Muslim communities are rapidly becoming necessary interlocutors for shaping new political courses.

Compared with Britain, the Netherlands or Germany, Italy still has a relatively small Muslim population (less than one million in a total of 57 million) and, furthermore, its Muslim communities are politically less integrated than in these other European countries.

In late August, after an anti-Israel advertisement by the Union of Italian Islamic Communities (UCOII), which was widely condemned for being anti-Semitic (it compared Israel’s military actions to Nazi brutalities), Amato proposed the draft of a Charter of Values whose details are now being studied. The Charter would set out Italy’s basic democratic, constitutional rights and obligations, and provide for acceptance among Muslim communities of republican, liberal-democratic values.

Members of the right-of-centre opposition have sharply criticised the government for “too soft” an approach, and vociferously called for the ban of UCOII. Former ministers like Maurizio Gasparri and Roberto Castelli said Rome should disband and outlaw UCOII, or at least suspend it from the recognised Muslim organisations. The government has said such a move would be unrealistic since UCOII is by far the most important Muslim association, although it is rapidly becoming the most controversial as well.

More importantly, UCOII leaders themselves have adopted a flexible approach to the government’s proposal. “Our organisation unanimously recognised the mistake made in the communication form (chosen for the advertisement), which was used by many to lambaste us”, UCOII said in a statement Sep. 3. “Our religion forbids us to express any racial discrimination and obliges us to respect Christians and Jews alike.”

In past centuries, UCOII added, “Islamic jurisprudence provided the framework for religious tolerance and harmony in the East, in Sicily, in North Africa and Turkey.”

Sure, plenty of tolerance and harmony as long as Christians and Jews knew their place.

UCOII then agreed to openly discuss Amato’s proposal. Such a choice appears in line with recent attempts made both by Rome and by Muslim communities to define a broad framework for the creation of an Italian Islam, an issue considered particularly delicate and important….

The biggest challenge for Rome is to rapidly find a just and effective solution, combining adequate education offers, political participation, and rules to be respected — a goal that will be reached only if extremist factions on both sides are successfully marginalised.

…which will not happen as long as no one, Muslim or non-Muslim, confronts the jihad ideology.

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