Note: This is a good news item. The only small problem is the involvement of the imams. These snakes in the grass are never to be trusted, no matter how many european suits they wear. NEVER TO BE TRUSTED.
The ideas of proper integration contained in this article are good, no matter who utters them. Muslims in Australia would do well to read and reflect and take similar action.
European Imams Urge Better Opportunities.
April 9, 2006
By BRIAN MURPHY
VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Imams and Islamic leaders urged European governments on Sunday to launch affirmative action-style programs and streamline citizenship paths to help ease integration for the continent's 33 million Muslims.
The appeal was part of a declaration wrapping up two days of discussions on efforts to forge a European-focused identity for Muslims on the continent. But the document included a gloomy reality check: noting the growing public chill toward Islam, while small but vocal radical Muslim groups appear to mock European values.
"Muslims in general have come to symbolize the 'foreigner' who should be kept at a distance in these times of uncertainty," said the eight-page document produced after workshops and speeches by more than 150 European-based imams and top religious advisers. "Muslims are confronted with a strong need to justify themselves."
It also conceded that Muslims cannot transform their communities alone. The message carried undertones of a warning: European authorities must offer opportunities to Muslims or risk creating social time bombs such as last year's riots in France in poor and mostly Muslim suburbs.
"Integration is not a one-way street, but a mutual process," the declaration asserted.
It extended a wish list to European officials, including U.S.-style "affirmation action" employment programs for Muslims and initiatives for Muslim women to overcome cultural barriers that often prevent them from seeking jobs.
"Independence is closely linked to financial independence and employment, and politicians can create measures so that fathers and husbands don't always have to provide the primary source of income," the document said.
France and other nations have considered ideas to give Muslims job boosts - known here as "positive discrimination" - but the concept has not gained wide support across Europe. The 25-nation European Union, which has increased efforts at integration, has only limited power over national employment laws.
The statement also calls for more government support for language training and inter-religious contacts to help "erode racism and Islamophobia" at a time when fodder is plentiful - including the 2004 slaying of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, the anti-Western sermons of radical preachers such as London's Abu Hamza al-Masri and the deadly fallout from caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
The declaration by the European imams - including the top Shiite Muslim cleric in Germany - called for streamlined citizenship processes for Muslims and said "freedom of press and opinion is a general and essential good." But it noted that Europe's Islamic leaders still have not reached a common view on how to reconcile such openness with possible offenses to their faith.
The difficulties echoed the larger challenges of the conference, which built upon the first such gathering in Graz, Austria, in 2003. The goal is to develop a style of Islam that meshes with European culture while weakening the often conservative influence of homelands in Arab nations or South Asia.
Some imams stressed the need to fully re-examine Islamic law and traditions to accommodate the realities of being a minority living in the West, such as recognizing civil codes over religious rules. Others urged for European Muslims to fight "self-exclusion" and seek greater roles in politics and social organizations. Still others said it was vital to end practices such as arranged marriages and forcing women to remain homebound.
Abduljalil Sajid, chairman of Britain's Muslim Council for Religious and Racial Harmony said Muslims have no choice but to tackle the "plagues of Europe: hatred, bigotry, racism, extremism and terrorism."
"We can't live in parallel societies, one Muslim and the other 'European.' This is not good for the European Muslim and it's not good for Europe. Both will suffer," said Iyman Salwa Alzayed, a religious adviser to Muslim teachers in Austria.
Comment: These ideas are breaking out in Europe because they are the only viable options available to muslims in the West. Muslims in Australia will also need to set out on the same path. It is important to do this without any involvement of imams or such like Islamic clergy. The muslim communities in Australia need to do this work by their own efforts. Imams will poison their efforts and bring them to nought, which is why they must be avoided like the plague.
The various governments in Australia can help the muslims in Australia with strategic resources and political support for muslim modernisers and reformers. The first step is to totally blackball all the muslim clergy in Australia. None are to be trusted, not even the tame ones receiving government stipends under the table. Any time spent with these people is time wasted.
Spend all the time and resources on the locally born muslims who want to reform Islam in Australia so that they can, eventually, truely belong to the country where they were born.
Is anyone awake in Canberra?
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