The laughable “Muslim Demographics” scare video that purports to show “empirical evidence” of Muslims demographically taking over Europe was debunked by the BBC and other sites back in 2009. For some reason Cardinal Peter Turkson thought it was a good idea to screen it at an international gathering of bishops on Monday.:

Cardinal causes uproar with ‘Muslim scare’ video at Vatican

A Roman Catholic cardinal has caused an uproar at the Vatican by screening a spurious YouTube video that makes alarmist predictions about the growth of Islam in Europe.

The seven-minute clip, called “Muslim Demographics,” was the talk of an international gathering of bishops on Monday, two days after Cardinal Peter Turkson screened it during a free discussion period.

Turkson, a Ghanaian who is based in the Vatican and is president of its Council for Justice and Peace, sparked consternation among his fellow bishops over the clip.

“As we were arriving this morning I was asked several times ‘Who planned it? Whose was it? Who is behind it?” Father Thomas Rosica said at a briefing for journalists, who are not allowed to attend the synod sessions, the first since the screening.

He said the clip had sparked “the most animated” discussion so far at the three-week conference, and one bishop said he would rebut Turkson by presenting a report with contrary data. The clip has brought Islam to the top of the agenda at the synod, attended by 262 bishops. “Islam is the buzzword,” Rosica said.

Turkson could not be reached for comment on why he chose to screen the video during the Vatican meeting, where the bishops are discussing ways of winning back lapsed Roman Catholics in developed countries.

The clip, which has been viewed over 13 million times on YouTube since it was uploaded by an anonymous user in 2009, combines dramatic music with skewed population statistics to make claims about various European countries such as “In just 39 years France will be an Islamic republic.”

Critics have pointed out that the fertility figures used in the video, which claim French women have an average of 1.8 children while French Muslim women have 8.1 children, cannot be genuine as France does not collect statistics by religion.

Reuters, 15 October 2012

A timely new book that should be required reading all across the looniverse.

10 Myths About Muslims in the West

by  Doug Saunders, Huffington Post

In my new book The Myth of the Muslim Tide, I chronicle the widespread misunderstanding of Muslim immigration to the West. As with Jews and Catholics before, I discuss that Muslims are being seen as an impossible-to-integrate, fast-reproducing invasion force who follow a religion that’s more an ideology of conquest than a faith. Using the latest facts and figures, I illustrate the far less alarming truth about these new arrivals.

Here are 10 common myths about Muslims in the West:

1. Muslims have a higher birth rate than other religions, and will take over the world by population

Two generations ago, it seemed as if Islamic countries were destined for out-of-control population growth. People spoke of an “Islamic fertility rate” – - more than 5 children per family, on average – - and predicted minaret spires foresting the Earth. Today, it is readily apparent that Islam is not connected with population growth. Just look at Iran, the world’s only Islamic theocracy, where the average family had around 7 children in the 1980s – - and has 1.7 today, a lower rate than France or Britain. Or look at the United Arab Emirates, with 1.9 children per family. Or Turkey, ruled by an elected party of devout Muslims for a decade, which now has 2.15 children per family. Or Lebanon, where, despite Hezbollah’s rise, has only 1.86 children per family (so that its population will be shrinking). Around the world, the average Muslim family size has fallen from 4.3 children per family in 1995 to 2.9 in 2010, and is expected to fall below the population-growth rate, and converge with Western family sizes, by mid-century. This is a crucial sign that Muslim societies are undergoing a major modernizing, secularizing wave – - even if they elect Islamist parties while doing so.

2. Immigrants from Muslim countries are going to swamp us

People look at the huge families of many new Muslim immigrants and imagine them multiplying at exponential rates. But this is a bit of an illusion – -as are many of the figures suggesting that Muslim immigrants have fertility rates higher than in their homelands. This is because most new immigrants have most of their children in the years immediately after their arrival. The way we calculate Total Fertility Rate – - the measure of average family size – - is by taking the total number of births a woman has had and extrapolating it across her fertile life. As a result, immigrants appear to have more children than they really do. In reality, the family sizes of Muslim immigrant groups are converging fast with those of average Westerners – - faster, it seems, than either Jewish or Catholic immigrants did in their time. Muslims in France and Germany are now having only 2.2 children per family, barely above the national average. And while Pakistani immigrants in Britain have 3.5 children each, their British-born daughers have only 2.5. Across Europe, the difference between the Muslim and non-Muslim fertility rate has fallen from 0.7 to 0.4, and is headed toward a continent-wide convergence.

3. Muslims will become a majority in European countries

In fact, we now have several large-scale projections based on population-growth trends and immigration rates which show that the Muslim populations of Europe are growing increasingly slowly and that by the middle of this century – - even if immigration rates are not reduced – - the proportion of Muslims in Europe will probably peak somewhere short of 10% (it is currently around 7%). By that point, Muslims will have family sizes and age profiles not that different from Europe in general.

4. Muslims will become a dominant group of cultural outsiders in the United States

Despite the hysterical rhetoric coming from Newt Gingrich, Michelle Bachmann and their ilk, Muslims there are not only a very tiny group, but they are also one of the most integrated groups in the country – - especially if you consider that 69% of American Muslims are first-generation immigrants, and 71% of those immigrants arrived after 1990. There are only 2.6 million Muslims in the United States today. By 2030, that number is likely to rise to 6.2 million (because Muslims are young and fertile) – - at which point Muslim will be 1.7% of the population, almost as numerous as Jews and Episcopalians. Even though they’re new, American Muslims tend to be economically successful and highly educated. With 40% of them holding a college degree, they’re the second most educated group after Jews – - and far more educated than Americans in general, only 29% of whom have a degree.

5. Muslim immigrants in the West hold the same backward views that Muslims do in the Middle East and Pakistan

Actually, Muslims change their cultural views dramatically when they emigrate. For example, 62% of American Muslims say that “a way can be found for the state of Israel to exist so that the rights of Palestinians are addressed” – - a rate barely lower than that of average Americans (67%), and vastly ahead of the miniscule response among Middle Eastern Muslims – - for whom between 20% and 40% agreed with that statement. Similarly, 39% of American Muslims and 47% of German Muslims say they tolerate homosexuality, compared to single-figure responses in most Islamic countries – and those rates are rising with each immigrant generation. On these important questions, Muslim immigrants are converging with Western values fast.

6. Muslims in America are more loyal to their faith than their country

True, 49% of Americans from Muslim backgrounds say they consider themselves “Muslim first and American second” and 47% claim to attend a mosque on Friday. But you have to compare that to American Christians, 46% of whom say they identify themselves as “Christian first and American second” (that number rises to 70% among Evangelicals). And 45% of American Christians attend a church service every Sunday. In other words, Muslims have adopted exactly the same rate of religious observance as the people around them in their host country. We see this just as strongly in France, where a fifth of Muslims are atheist and only 5% attend a mosque regularly – almost the same rate as French Christians.

7. Poor Muslims are flooding out of overpopulated countries into the West

In fact, the poorest most overpopulated Muslim countries are producing the least emigration – - and very little of it is to the West. Immigration tends to come from the countries with the lowest population-growth rates, and it’s rarely to the closest countries. Muslims are far from the largest immigrant group – - even in countries that immediately adjoin the Islamic world. In Spain, which lies across a narrow state from poor Arab countries, only 13% of immigrants are Muslim: Most have come from Spanish-speaking countries across the Atlantic. In Britain, only 28% of immigrants are Muslim. And those numbers do not seem poised to increase.

8. Muslim immigrants are angry at the society around them

In fact, Muslim immigrants appear to be MORE satisfied with the world around them, and its secular institutions, than the general population. Muslim immigrants in the United States are more likely to say they are “satisfied with their lives” (84%) than average Americans are (75%) – - and that number rises to 90% for American-born Muslims. Even among Muslims in neighourhoods where the community mosque has been vandalized – - an increasingly frequent occurrence – - fully 76% say that their community is an “excellent” or “good” place to live. This usually extends into pride in national institutions. For example, 83% of British Muslims say they are “proud to be a British citizen,” versus only 79% of Britons in general – - and only 31% of Muslims agree that “Britain’s best days are behind her,” versus 45% of Britons in general.

9. Muslims in the West cheer for terrorist violence

While it might seem chilling to learn that 8% of American Muslims feel that violence against civilian targets is “often or sometimes justified” if the cause is right, you have to compare that to the response given by non-Muslim Americans, 24% of whom said that such attacks are “often or sometimes justified.” This is reflected in most major surveys. When a large-scale survey asked if “attacks on civilians are morally justified,” 1% of the French public, 1% of the German public and 3% of the British public answered yes; among Muslims, the responses were 2%, 0.5%, and 2%. Asked if it is “justifiable to use violence for a noble cause,” 7% of the French public agreed, along with 8% of French Muslims; 10% of the German public and fewer than 2% of German Muslims; 10% of the British public and 8% of British Muslims. This may well be because 85% of the victims of Islamic terrorism are Muslims.

10. Muslims have become so populous that the most common baby name in Britain is now Mohammed.

This is true – - but it means far less than you’d think. In 2010, if you combined all 12 spelling variants of the Islamic prophet’s name, “Mohammed” was more popular than any other name given to new babies. But that’s more a consequence of naming trends than anything else. In a great many Muslim cultures, ALL male babies are given “Mohammed” as an official first name. But among many Westerners – especially white Anglo-Saxons and black Christians – - there has been an explosion in unorthodox baby names – - as of 2011, these groups are 50% more likely than they were a generation ago to give their children uncommon baby names. As a result, Mohammed manages to reach the Number 1 spot without being all that common – - when combined, babies named after the Islamic prophet made up only 1% of British newborns in 2010.

Follow Doug Saunders on Twitter: www.twitter.com/DougSaunders

Stockholm, 8/4/12: US Islamophobes, Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller proudly stand shoulder-to-shoulder with co-founder and EDL thug, Stephen Lennon, aka Tommy Robinson.

by Emperor

Did you see the warriors and defenders of Western Civilization, dressed up in their super hero costumes, marching down Stockholm streets, saving Westerners from the pillaging Eurabic Mooslims?

No you say? Well, it’s not your fault. The  grandiosely titled “First Worldwide Counter-Jihad Action” day demonstration can be counted as another abysmal failure in a long list of failures for the trans-Atlantic Islamophobia movement. When it comes to demonstrations, the anti-Fascists and anti-Racist groups generally outnumber these hate-mongers 10-1.

It’s worth noting that this so-called “First Counter-Jihad Action” demo really wasn’t the first “action” as Islamophobes billed it, that title can likely go to their ideological kin and fellow “counter-Jihad” Crusader, the terrorist Anders Behring Breivik.

The demonstration was put together by Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, Anders Gravers, the EDL, the local SDL and other affiliate organizations, and drew, according to our Swedish sources, roughly 50 demonstrators, though Reuteurs gave a favorable estimate of under 200.

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – A Stockholm rally by European and U.S. far-right groups seeking to create a global “counter-jihad” movement attracted fewer than 200 people on Saturday who were outnumbered by anti-racist protesters.

Personally I believe the real motive of this counter-jihad demo must have been an opportunity for the Islamophobes to vacation in Stockholm, which is very nice this time of the year.

Swedish Loonwatcher, Anton Widebäck Ullerstam was at the event and sent us this photo of the so-called “counter-jihadists” demo, noting that amongst the Islamophobic demonstrators in this picture are included cameramen and journalists:

Anton, for his part couldn’t contain his laughter, exclaiming further,

Those who protested against the “counter-jihad movement” on their “biggest event this year” were about 1000 people. How many did Spencer, Geller and Robinson manage to gather from all over the world (as they intended)? Hehe…take a look (at the above picture)

As Anton mentioned, anti-Fascist counter-protesters far outnumbered the Islamophobes:

The message of many of the counter-protesters was “heart against hate,” with a few also flipping the bird at Islamophobes:

Of course, such a paltry show of “force” on behalf of the “counter-jihadists” has to be spun positively; as the m.o. goes with Islamophobes, never concede failure, blame someone else. The task for this spin job was left to the queen bee of hyperbolic verbal diarrhea, Pamela Geller, who wrote yesterday,

Today heralded the dawning of a new era of cooperation between pro-freedom groups in Europe, the United States, Australia and elsewhere.

This has been a pretty lengthy “dawn.” We’ve been witnessing claims of a “new era” for quite some time now, and clearly such cooperation between hate groups is already extensive.

Geller, desperate to spin anything into a sensational conspiracy transformed a “firecracker” into a possible “bomb,” writing,

police at one point found a suspicious package from the Leftists, and examined it out of concern that it was a bomb. It turned out to be a large firecracker

Imagine her disappointment!

Geller, gives her reason for why the numbers were so low,

First of all, we were “outnumbered” because we had to conduct our rally surrounded by police vans and police in riot gear…Many people told us they were afraid to come, or they’d get fired if they came. Some told us afterward that they wanted to come but couldn’t get through the leftist hooligans and the police.

Pathetic, isn’t it? It’s the police’s fault, seemingly the protection they provided the “freedom defenders” wasn’t good enough because too many “counter-jihadists” were “afraid,” and oh yeah, don’t forget that the “leftists” are at fault too! It’s a shock anyone made it through to this “world-wide counter-jihad action” demo the way Geller spins events!

Let’s not let the Islamophobes steal the spotlight however, because yesterday rationality, freedom and respect for the “other” won out over the bigotry, thuggery and intimidation of the EDL, SDL, SIOE, Geller and Spencer.

Thank you to all those who peacefully and forcefully protested against the Islamophobia movement’s “demonstration” of hate! It is through your vigilance, your peaceful yet jubilant assembly countering hate that the light of truth will always expose the hate-mongerers dark schemes.

Is this meeting one of convenience?

Here is the money quote,

Israel’s embassies in Berlin and Vienna have warned against such contacts. “Even if this is an alleged attempt to create an anti-Islamic European front, some of these elements seek to obtain an Israeli seal of approval without altering their anti-Semitic views,” an Israeli state official said.

The deputy minister said he was unaware of Brinkmann’s problematic connections with Germany’s neo-Nazi far-right movement, claiming this was “irrelevant.”

So it would have been OK if there was an “anti-Islamic European front” as long as they toned down their anti-Semitism? (via. Europeans Against Islamophobia)

Israeli deputy minister meets German neo-Nazi millionaire

Deputy Minister Ayoob Kara met with Swedish-German millionaire Patrik Brinkmann who has ties with German neo-Nazi groups in Berlin over the weekend,Yedioth Ahronoth reported.

Brinkmann, who is trying to establish a far-right anti-Islamic party in Germany claims he is not an anti-Semite, however his previous close contacts with the German neo-Nazi party (NPD) and his past membership in another neo-Nazi party raise questions regarding his ideology.

Brinkmann, 44, made his fortune in the Swedish real estate business in the 1980s before becoming mixed in tax problems in his home country. As legal battles were going on he used the majority of his finances for the establishment of two research foundations which became closely affiliated with far-right and neo-Nazi elements in Germany.

The millionaire later began supporting the Pro NRW movement, Germany’s far-right and anti-Islamic party. He declared he fears that Sharia law will be introduced in the country and has pledged to establish a strong German right-wing party. He left the party last year in protest of its anti-Semitism, but resumed membership earlier this year. He now heads the party’s Berlin branch.

Brinkman visited Israel several months ago where he met Kara and announced his intention to promote one of his foundations in Israel. He met the deputy minister again in Berlin over the weekend as part of Kara’s private visit to the city’s World Culture Festival. Several months ago, Kara met with Austrian Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache who was once active in neo-Nazi groups.

Israel’s embassies in Berlin and Vienna have warned against such contacts. ”Even if this is an alleged attempt to create an anti-Islamic European front, some of these elements seek to obtain an Israeli seal of approval without altering their anti-Semitic views,” an Israeli state official said.

The deputy minister said he was unaware of Brinkmann’s problematic connections with Germany’s neo-Nazi far-right movement, claiming this was “irrelevant.”

Ynetnews, 4 July 2011

See also Ayoob Kara’s meeting last month with Filip Dewinter of the Belgian far-right party Vlaams Belang.

Geert Wilders in Nashville at the Cornerstone Church

Geert “ban the Quran” Wilders has been on a recent North American tour. Bringing his hateful anti-Muslim rhetoric to our shores. Just a few days ago we received exclusive footage of Wilders’ speech at Cornerstone Church, a mega church in Tennessee. (hat tip: Rob)

In the following shocking footage Geert Wilders reveals where he grabs his “facts” from. Enjoy!:

We will be following up this video with an exclusive feature piece on Geert Wilders’ maniacal anti-Muslim diatribe and the crazy response from a massive zealous Christian crowd applauding his anti-Freedom agenda.

It makes you wonder who the real enemies are to our Constitution, values and principles?

Robert Irwin wrote an excellent review of Martin Gilbert’s recent book on a history of Jews in Muslim lands. Martin Gilbert you may remember was a pundit on Obsession: Radical Islam’s War against the West (debunked by the website Obsession for Hate) which essentially claimed Islam was the same as Nazism.

Irwin mentions that Gilbert cites Bat Ye’or favorably a number of times even though she is thoroughly discredited on all fronts and he cites Loonwatch as a source exposing her loonieness and shoddy scholarship, referring particularly to our piece, “Bat Ye’or: Anti-Muslim Loon with a Crazy Conspiracy Theory Named “Eurabia.”

The House of Ishmael: A history Of The Jews In Muslim Land, By Martin Gilbert

by Robert Irwin

The subtitle to Martin Gilbert’s new book (his 81st?) is a little misleading. This is not really a general account of the fortunes and misfortunes of Jews under Muslim rule from the seventh century until the present day. The early centuries are rushed through and, although Gilbert is aware of the magnificent and fabulously detailed account of Jewish lifein medieval Egypt provided by SD Goitein’s five-volume A Mediterranean Society, he makes little use of it.

Similarly, though Gilbert quotes Bernard Lewis once, he has made surprisingly scant use of Lewis’s brilliant articles on the Jews under Turkish rule, which drew both on Hebrew sources and the Ottoman archives. Lewis’s The Jews of Islam (1984) remains the best, most balanced and accessible account of the Jews under Muslim rule.

By contrast In the House of Ishmael reads more like a bill of indictment than a history. It is overwhelmingly focused on the sufferings of the Jews in the Islamic lands in the 20th and 21st centuries in the wake of the foundation of the Zionist movement, the establishment of Israel and the successive victories of Israel over Arab armies. The indictment is damning indeed.

From Afghanistan to Morocco, Jews were made to suffer for the successes of Zionism. They were humiliated, robbed, raped, imprisoned, tortured and killed. In Iraq and elsewhere there were mass hangings of innocent Jews. For one Iraqi Jew driven out by pogroms of the 1940s this was “a tragedy which turned out to be a blessing in disguise – it got us out of that dreadful country and away from its destructive, treacherous and savage people”.

Gilbert makes use of copious anecdotal evidence and statistics to chronicle a shameful side of Arab and Islamic history. In the aftermath of the creation of Israel, 726,000 Palestinian Arabs were made refugees, while 850,000 Jews had to abandon their homes in the Arab lands. With some difficulty, Israel succeeded in assimilating most of the Jewish refugees. By contrast, the Palestinian refugees still languish in crowded camps. The paradox is that violent Arab racism and paranoia helped populate Israel.

Gilbert has so much material and such a strong case that it should not have been necessary to stack the deck. Yet it seems to me that he has done so and his use of sources is sometimes questionable. For his account of how the Jews in 13th-century Basra were forced to wear clothing that marked their lower status he cites a Jewish traveller, Jacob of Ancona, who allegedly travelled from Italy to China. But when in 1997 the purported narrative of Jacob’s travels was published by David Selbourne as The City of Light, the Sinologists Jonathan Spence and Tim Barrett, the Jewish historians David and Bernard Wasserstein and myself all challenged the authenticity of the text. Since then no original manuscript has turned up. It would have been safer to have relied on Goitein’s material.

Gilbert’s notes cite Bat Ye’or with approval several times. When, in 2002, her book Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide appeared, I reviewed it and then threw the book away. Bat Ye’or is not an academic and her books are poorly ordered assemblages of facts, real or alleged, that relentlessly show Islam and Arabs in an unfavourable light.

She believes that there is an Islamic conspiracy to turn Europe into something she calls “Eurabia”. Those interested to get a fuller sense of the dementedly Islamophobic polemics of this woman should consult the website www.loonwatch.com.

When Gilbert discusses what was happening in Palestine during the British mandate, he quotes Joan Peters’s From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over Palestine to back up his assertion that more Arabs than Jews entered Palestine as immigrants in the 1930s. But when that book was published in 1984, critics swiftly demonstrated that its use of archives and statistics was seriously flawed and substantially misleading. Yehoshua Porath, professor of Middle East History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, denounced the book as “sheer forgery”.

Israel can be seen as the salvation of the Jews of the Middle East, but it can also be seen as their curse. One Iraqi Jewish woman confessed that she “nursed a grudge. I felt that all the horrible things that were happening to us were because of Israel, because of your dream and your wars. You celebrated the victories, and we paid the price of those wars. Now I can see that we were saved because of the existence and efforts of Israel”.

In the House of Ishmael, full of vivid accounts of Jewish sufferings in the Middle East, did not need the testimony of false friends to pad its grim story out. Its account of the slow-burning tragedy of the extinction of Jewish communities in the Arab world is moving and important. It should be read.

Robert Irwin’s ‘For Lust of Knowing: The Orientalists and Their Enemies’ is published by Penguin

French Immigration Minister, Eric Besson

What is going on in Europe? Some have postulated that Europe is going through an identity crisis that challenges the core universal values that it trumpets, while others like the more conservative populists warn of a transformation of Europe at the hands of barbaric Muslim hordes remaking Europe into a Eurabia.

The dialogue has gotten heated, and we have seen a rise in neo-fascist and Euro-supremacist groups who are leading Europe into a dangerous direction of greater Islamophobia. This dialogue has a way of polluting reality which then effects mainstream parties who see this rise in anti-Muslim sentiment and for political gain drop their universal values and resort to cheap populist rhetoric.

At the same time that Muslims across Europe are integrated into their countries and identify with their nations to a greater extent than their fellow citizens, it seems their fellow citizens view them increasingly with suspicion (with the exception of Britain). This has lead to initiatives that are truly shocking to anyone who believes in Democracy, such as the recent ban on minarets in Switzerland which has echoed across Europe, from Italy to Denmark with parties such as the Northern League and Geert Wilders saying they will follow suit.

Recently France has been the scene of some of the most strident Islamophobia, and moves that from the perspective of an outsider smack of an attack on Democracy. We have heard of the desecration’s of Mosques and Muslim graves, but this has all happened in light of statements like this from French junior minister Nadine Morano,

In one of the many local debates scheduled to be held as part of the nationwide discussion on what it means to be French, the junior minister for families, Nadine Morano, suggested Tuesday to a young Muslim that he should change his behaviour. “What I want of a young Muslim is that he loves France when he lives here, finds work and does not speak in slang. And that he doesn’t wear his cap back to front.”

This discussion follows an earlier discussion around the niqab, or full face veil that a small minority of Muslim women wear in France. If you recall, Nicholas Sarkozy inaugurated the first presidential address to France’s parliament in decades with a call to ban the niqab.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s party, the UMP, says it will push for a law banning the full-face Islamic veil, according to its parliamentary leader Jean-François Copé.

“The issue is not how many women wear the burqa,” Copé wrote in an article in the right-wing newspaper Le Figaro. “There are principles at stake: extremists are putting the republic to the test by promoting a practice that they know is contrary to the basic principles of our country.”

It seems the principles of the French Republic do not include women choosing to wear what they want. Banning the niqab is not enough, just yesterday the French Immigration minister Eric Besson said that he wants to make it law that women who wear the face veil be denied citizenship and residency cards.

France’s immigration minister said Wednesday that he wants the wearing of Muslim veils that cover the face and body to be grounds for denying citizenship and long-term residence.

Eric Besson said he planned to take “concrete measures” regarding such veils, which are worn by a small minority of women in France but have become the object of a parliamentary inquiry into whether a ban should be imposed. Besson spoke during a hearing before the panel of lawmakers as their nearly six-month inquiry draws to a close.

Besson said he believed a formal ban on veils that cover the face and body seemed to him “unavoidable,” with a ban in public services as a minimum step. Whether such veils are banned or not, he said he intends to personally move forward to ensure that women wearing such veils and seeking French nationality or residence cards are denied.

“I want the wearing of the full veil to be systematically considered as proof of insufficient integration into French society, creating an obstacle to gaining (French) nationality,” he said. He said he would advise prefects, the highest state representative in the various French regions, that the wearing of such veils is a motive for not delivering 10-year residence cards.

Besson said he was prepared to put the measures before parliament to make them law. In November, Besson ordered a nationwide debate on the French identity, to conclude by the end of January with possible measures.

This raises a whole number of questions: what about those French women who were born in France, whether descended from immigrants or indigenous who have taken up the veil, will they have their citizenship revoked? What if a woman immigrated to France but didn’t wear a veil but decided to wear one since, will she be denied citizenship?

These anti-Democratic measures have opened a pandora’s box of bigotry and racism that is leading Europe into an essentialized discourse that doesn’t bode very well for the future, as one French Law maker said, “This brings back the ethnic vision of the nation, the one that took place at (the pro-Nazi puppet government of) Vichy.”

The Muslim Demographic threat conspiracy theory takes another hit in Europe with a new Gallup poll that came out recently revealing that Muslims in Britain, Germany and France are well integrated into their communities. (Hat tip: Syed) The report by Gallup and the Coexist Foundation says 77% of British Muslims identified with the UK, compared with 50% of the general public. There was a similar finding in Germany, the survey says.

Survey Reveals Muslim Attitudes

European Muslims have much more loyalty to the countries they live in than is generally believed, a survey says.

The report by Gallup and the Coexist Foundation says 77% of British Muslims identified with the UK, compared with 50% of the general public.

There was a similar finding in Germany, the survey says.

The authors say their report counters a commonly-held view that measures to combat Islamic militancy may have alienated many European Muslims.

“This research shows that many of the assumptions about Muslims and integration are wide of the mark,” said Dalia Mogahed of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies and co-author of the report.

“European Muslims want to be part of the wider community and contribute even more to society,” she said.

The findings of the report are surprising, because since the 11 September attacks in the US commentators have repeatedly questioned the loyalties of European Muslims to the countries they live in, the BBC’s Rob Broomby says.

The research – which focused mainly on European Muslims in Britain, France and Germany – polled around 500 Muslims and 1,000 members of the general public in each country.

‘Isolated’

In Britain, the report found that more than three-quarters of Muslims identified with the country and its institutions – far more even than the general population did.

But whereas the vast majority of British Muslims (82%) felt Muslims were loyal citizens, the general public remained suspicious of them.

In Germany, 40% of Muslims identified with the country against 32% of the wider public.

German Muslims were also found far more likely than the general public to have confidence in the judicial system, financial institutions and the honesty of elections.

They had higher levels of confidence in their national government than society as a whole, but much less faith in the media.

In France, 52% of Muslims identified with the country, compared with 55% of the general public.

However, the report found that French Muslims had much less confidence in the nation’s institutions, including police.

The survey also said that European Muslims felt far more isolated than those living in the United States and Canada.

So much for Democracy and Freedom of Religious expression.

Swiss voters have supported a referendum proposal to ban the building of minarets, official results show.

More than 57% of voters and 22 out of 26 cantons – or provinces – voted in favour of the ban.

The proposal had been put forward by the Swiss People’s Party, (SVP), the largest party in parliament, which says minarets are a sign of Islamisation.

The government opposed the ban, saying it would harm Switzerland’s image, particularly in the Muslim world.

The BBC’s Imogen Foulkes, in Bern, says the surprise result is very bad news for the Swiss government which also fears unrest among the Muslim community.

Our correspondent says voters worried about rising immigration – and with it the rise of Islam – have ignored the government’s advice.

“The Federal Council (government) respects this decision. Consequently the construction of new minarets in Switzerland is no longer permitted,” said the government in a statement, quoted by the AFP news agency.

Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf said the result reflected fear of Islamic fundamentalism.

“These concerns have to be taken seriously. However, the Federal Council takes the view that a ban on the construction of new minarets is not a feasible means of countering extremist tendencies,” she said.

She sought to reassure Swiss Muslims, saying the decision was “not a rejection of the Muslim community, religion or culture”.

Switzerland is home to some 400,000 Muslims and has just four minarets.

After Christianity, Islam is the most widespread religion in Switzerland, but it remains relatively hidden.

There are unofficial Muslim prayer rooms, and planning applications for new minarets are almost always refused.

Supporters of a ban claimed that allowing minarets would represent the growth of an ideology and a legal system – Sharia law – which are incompatible with Swiss democracy.

But others say the referendum campaign incited hatred. On Thursday the Geneva mosque was vandalised for the third time during the campaign, according to local media.

Before the vote, Amnesty International warned that the ban would violate Switzerland’s obligations to freedom of religious expression.

‘Political symbol’

The president of Zurich’s Association of Muslim Organisations, Tamir Hadjipolu, told the BBC that if the ban was implemented, Switzerland’s Muslim community would live in fear.

“This will cause major problems because during this campaign in the last two weeks different mosques were attacked, which we never experienced in 40 years in Switzerland.

“So with the campaign… the Islamaphobia has increased very intensively.”

Sunday’s referendum was held after the People’s party collected 100,000 signatures from eligible voters within 18 months calling for a vote.

SVP member of parliament Ulrich Schluer said the campaign had helped integration by encouraging debate. He rejected the charge of discrimination.

In recent years many countries in Europe have been debating their relationship with Islam, and how best to integrate their Muslim populations.

France focused on the headscarf, while in Germany there was controversy over plans to build one of Europe’s largest mosques in Cologne.

The Islamophobes reaction is one of jubilation. Robert Spencer comments, “Swiss apparently vote to ban minarets, Because they symbolize a “political-religious claim to power” — which, of course, they do.”

Of course Pamela Geller wouldn’t be outdone by Spencer, she writes in a post titled Victory! Swiss Ban Mosque Minarets in a Landslide Vote,

HAMMER THEIR HELMETS! BLUNT THEIR BAYONETS! (metaphorical reference to no more mosques)The Swiss have hand enough. They actually had the spine to take back their country.

Further Reading on the story: Minaret Ban Wins Swiss Support

Stephen Colbert

Christopher Caldwell, author of Reflections on the Revolution in Europe, a book which flirts with the Eurabia conspiracy theory appeared on the Colbert Report to discuss his book. Colbert was in full form and in his usual satirical and humorous way made short shrift of Caldwell.