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Article: Tolerating intolerance: the challenge of fundamentalist Islam in Western Europe.
- Article from:
- Partisan Review
- Article date:
- June 22, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Partisan Review, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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I GREW UP IN NEW YORK, the world's most multicultural city, and for some time lived only a few blocks from the imposing Islamic Center on Third Avenue between 96th and 97th Streets. But it wasn't until I moved to western Europe in 1998--living first in Amsterdam, then in Oslo--that fundamentalist Islam became a daily reality for me.
The reason this took so long seems pretty clear. Owing partly to different immigration patterns, but partly also to America's genius for turning immigrants into proudly integrated citizens with realigned loyalties, Muslims in America tend to be more affluent, more assimilated, and more religiously moderate than their co-religionists in ...