European Islamophobia

[derspiess]

Geert would look awesome with a Bismarck mustache.

[Josquius]

I actually think most Islamophobia in Europe is more about Europe's intrinsic racism and hatred of other cultures. Europe is a place where everyone desperately wanted (to the point of killing over it) to live in countries that are monocultures. I think that people that do things that are totally alien to that culture are naturally despised. For secular Europeans I think the actual practice of Islam is only the smallest part, I think it's much more that Muslims look different, speak different languages typically, wear different clothes, et cetera. They're becoming citizens of these European States, but have no interest in ever becoming Germans, or French, and I think the natural monocultural hatred of things that go against the monoculture are presenting to more casual observations as hatred of Islam. However, I don't think the typical secular European has nearly as much a problem with Islam as they do with these people that look different than them. But Europeans have been educated and hammered into their heads for generations that it's absolutely wrong to hate people just on the basis of things like that. So I think Europeans do not want to admit they hate this guy because he's brown, so instead they can say they hate that he's practicing radical Islam, and if they start doing things to deal with radical Islam, which is a violent threat, and if those things just happen to punish anyone not acting like an appropriate Frenchman, well, that's just an unintended side effect so not bad.

I can't tell you how many French politicians, when pressed on the French burqa ban fell back onto "this is France, these are our laws", what they're saying is "you can't dress that way and be French, so we outlawed it."

But in the UK Carribean people are the most integrated minority.
In a lot of other countries too blacks are very well integrated.
Its only really here in Switzerland that I've seen black people ranked lower than asians/arabs. And that's largely just down to the amount of newcomers there are and the minority that go into iffy business.

Indians too tend to look a lot more different than most muslims. They dress in traditional clothing far more often. But again you never really hear something against them.
Quite the opposite in fact. UKIP is actively trying to court the conservative Indian vote.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Speaking of Geert Wilders visiting other countries ...

... when he visited the Pegida folks in Dresden he met their leader Lutz Bachmann. For those who don't remember, Bachmann was the guy who thought it funny to post this image of himself on Facebook:

and given the funny connotations people make he was clearly correct