Tide Turns Against Muslim Immigration in Europe

By Dr. Rich Swier, August 18, 2011
Soeren Kern, in his Hudson New York column, "European Concerns Over Muslim Immigration Go Mainstream" paints a picture of a tsunami of push back against those immigrants who will not assimilate to European beliefs and values. Soeren looked at a series of polls taken recently across Europe asking about Muslim immigration and Muslim beliefs.
Soeren states, "A new opinion survey shows that more than half of all Europeans believe there are too many immigrants in their countries and that immigration is having a negative impact on their lives."
"The 'Global Views on Immigration' survey was conducted by the London-based Ipsos global research firm and published on August 4, [2011]. It polled citizens in nine European countries: Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Spain and Sweden." reports Soeren.
Here are a few of the key finding highlighted in Soeren's column:
1. [T]he poll finds that Belgians and Britons hold the most negative views on immigration; these countries also have some of the least integrated Muslim populations in Europe.
2. [M]ore than 56% of Europeans believe "there are too many immigrants" in their countries: Belgium (72%), Britain (71%), Italy (67%), Spain (67%), Germany (53%), France (52%), Hungary (50%), Sweden (46%) and Poland (29%).
3. A new report "Muslim-Western Tensions Persist" was published by the Washington, DC-based Pew Research Center on July 21. It shows that Europeans believe their relations with Muslims are bad: France (62%), Germany (61%), Spain (58%) and Britain (52%).
4. The Pew survey shows that almost 60% of Europeans believe Muslims are "fanatical," 50% believe they are "violent" and only 22% believe they are "respectful of women." In response to the question "Which religion is most violent?" 90% of French say Islam, as do 87% of Spaniards, 79% of Germans and 75% of Britons. The poll also shows that more than two-thirds of Germans (73%), Britons (70%), French (68%) and Spanish (61%) are worried about Islamic extremists in their countries.
5. In France, an Ifop poll published by the center-left Le Monde newspaper shows that 42% of French citizens consider the presence of a Muslim community in their country to be "a threat" to their national identity. Moreover, 68% of French say Muslims are "not well integrated in society." Out of these, 61% of the French blame this failure on the "refusal" by Muslims to integrate.
To read Soeren's full column please go here.
What is most interesting is this sea change is happening in Europe while President Obama is going in the opposite direction with his administration's Muslim outreach program. Terence P. Jeffrey from CNSNews.comreports, "Eighty percent of Muslim Americans approve of the way Barack Obama is handling his job as president, according to a newly released survey conducted by the Abu Dhabi Gallup Center, a partnership between Gallup and the Crown Prince Court of Abu Dhabi."
There appears to be another reason Europeans have lost faith and interest in President Obama. His Muslim roots are showing and Europeans seem to embrace their Western civilization roots.
As Dinesh D'Souza points out in his book "The Roots of Obama's Rage", this is to be expected. D'Souza explains, "What really motivates Barack Obama is an inherited rage - an often masked, but profound rage that comes from his African father: an anti-colonialist rage against Western dominance, and most especially against the wealth and the power of the very nation Barack Obama now leads."
President Obama has embraced the Muslim rage against the West as his own. They are now Muslim brothers in the truest sense of the words.