Recognizing their growing
centrality, France established - though not without vote-rigging - a
French Council of the Islamic Faith, the equivalent of Napoleon's
Jewish Consistory. Two French cabinet members are Muslims. Britain has
a Muslim Council.
Both Vladimir Putin, Russia's president and Yuri Luzhkov, Moscow's
mayor, now take the trouble to greet the capital's one million Muslims
on the occasion of their Feast of Sacrifice. They also actively solicit
the votes of the nationalist and elitist Muslims of the industrialized
Volga - mainly the Tatars, Bashkirs and Chuvash. Even the impoverished,
much-detested and powerless Muslims of the northern Caucasus -
Chechens, Circassians and Dagestanis - have benefited from this
newfound awareness of their electoral power.
Though divided by their common creed - Shiites vs. Sunnites vs.
Wahabbites and so on - the Muslims of Europe are united in supporting
the Palestinian cause and in opposing the Iraq war. This - and
post-colonial guilt feelings, especially manifest in France and Britain
- go a long way toward explaining Germany's re-discovered pacifistic
spine and France's anti-Israeli (not to say anti-Semitic) tilt.
Moreover, the Muslims have been playing an important economic role in
the continent since the early 1960s.
Pages:
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144