The Myth of the Muslim Tide
Do Immigrants Threaten the West?
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- 13,99 €
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- 13,99 €
Publisher Description
Even among people who would never subscribe to its more dramatic claims, the "Eurabia" movement has popularized a set of seemingly common-sense assumptions about Muslim immigrants to the West: that they are disloyal, that they have a political agenda driven by their faith, that their nhigh reproduction rates will soon make them a majority. These beliefs are poisoning politics and community relations in Europe and North America--and have led to mass murder in Norway. Rarely challenged, these claims have even slipped into the margins of mainstream politics.
Doug Saunders believes it's time to debunk the myth that immigrants from Muslim countries are wildly different and pose a threat to the West. Drawing on voluminous demographic, statistical, scholarly and historical documentation, Saunders examines the real lives and circumstances of Muslim immigrants in the West: their politics, their beliefs, their observances and their degrees of assimilation. In the process he shatters the core claims that have built a murderous ideology and draws haunting historical parallels showing how the same myths stuck to earlier groups, such as Jews and Roman Catholics. His work will become a vital handbook in the culture wars that threaten to dominate North American and European elections and media discussions in 2012 and afterwards, and will provoke considerable debate over the actual nature of our polyglot societies.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Alarmed by the uptick in anti-Muslim sentiment in the Western world (as horrifically evidenced by Anders Breivik's shootings in Norway in 2011), Saunders, the European bureau chief of The Globe and Mail, sets out to correct the rumors and misinformation that plague the world's second largest religious group. Acknowledging that xenophobia is nothing new (much of the same rhetoric has been lobbied at some point against Catholics, Jews, and other groups), Saunders blames much of the pernicious propaganda on "a large group of writers and political leaders who should have known better," namely Bruce Bawer, Newt Gingrich, Bat Ye'or, and the Financial Times' Christopher Caldwell, whose inflammatory remarks and falsehoods have spread like wildfire, and with significant consequences Breivik cited Bawer's work as being influential to his beliefs. Saunders (Arrival City) proceeds to systematically denounce numerous alleged "facts" or perceived trends (e.g., the rate of Muslim immigration will increase; Muslims are guided by an ideology rather than a faith; terrorism is inherent in fundamentalist Islam; etc.), and then offers some solutions. Rather than vilifying immigrants, he argues, Western societies should work to ease their integration into society and embrace multiculturalism rather than merely paying lip service to it. Saunders is quick to admit that the vilification of Muslims is a complex problem requiring many big- and small-picture changes, but his argument is nevertheless cogent and timely.
