British Council - Our Shared Europe

The Muslim contribution to contemporary European culture and society stretches back over 1,300 years with more than 120 million Muslims now living in Europe. As populations continue to change, some citizens are becoming increasingly sceptical, with a growing minority becoming more concerned and even hostile to the changing nature of societies. The British Councils Our Shared Europe project aims to create more understanding and awareness of the many contributions that Muslims have made throughout history and continue to make in present-day Europe. By doing so, Our Shared Europe seeks to strengthen the bonds of mutual knowledge and trust between Muslims and other majority and minority communities in Europe.
[Video project managed by the British Council team in the Netherlands.]
Find out more on www.oursharedeurope.org

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Nonprofits & Activism

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• British Council
• Our Shared Europe
• intercultural
• dialogue
• Muslims

[KumarZimmerman08]

What is this? More bullshit propaganda. Europe is for Europeans. Islam has no place in the West. It is a plague. By contribution you must mean raping, killing and enslaving our ancestors? The natives welcoming their own genocide.

[PalestineCitizen2009]

Why is some people seeing muslims as a problem when the root problem is the hate that is directed towards muslims from the balkan war to the iraq invasion, Muslims have been victim to a spate of crimes both in wars and stigma from the media against them and this has lead muslims to be more skeptical. What needs to change is the hate that is being endorsed and to be investigated what makes people hate muslims and why is this being allowed. Muslims have right to defend and speak against the hate.

[shorberm]

It's not about someone dying so someone else can wear a headscarf in public. That may be a bridge too far. In my mind, secularism is about making sure no one can make you wear or not wear, practise or not practise, anything to do with religion in a private sphere. A large part of that is achieved by keeping it out of the public sphere. Otherwise, based on your thinking, no community can make nudity or sexual acts (or anything else) unacceptable in the public sphere.

[shorberm]

Of course, there are some activities that are illegal even in private, but society does make a distinction between many activities that are acceptable in private but not in private. These include, but are not limited to, nudity, sexual acts, the consumption of alcohol and being drunk. They do this because there are certain community standards, which some people may or may not agree with. Anyway, religion of any sort should be a purely private matter also. (Cont.)

[shorberm]

@aseke50: It is about letting people think and worship what they want in a private sphere. The idea of public secularism can be interpreted in at least two ways. One is that it's a free-for-all and religions can do as they like in the public sphere. Another is that the public sphere is a religion-free space, which doesn't mean people can't do what they want in private. (Cont.)

[aseke50]

@shorberm I did not understand what you say, you fought to let people think and worship what they want and now you talk about banning headscarves etc. So when you say people you don't mean Muslims.

[shorberm]

Sorry, I shouldn't have written ascendency. They're not there yet. I meant that now that the numbers are moving more in their direction.

[shorberm]

People immediately talk about secularism because the Netherlands came out of the 80 Years' War (of which the broader European 30 Years' War was a part) precisely so people could think and worship what they want.

There's some irony (not to mention incredible historical ignorance) in Muslims in the Netherlands questioning why secularism is necessary since they have enjoyed its protection as a minority. Now that they are in the ascendency, it's not so important to them.

[shorberm]

Could they have got a more inarticulate and historically ignorant defender of secularism and the separation of church and state than Jasper de Jong? Seriously? Do they hand pick these people for their ineptitude?