From the author of prize-winning Arrival City, a controversial and long-overdue rejoinder to the excessive fears of an Islamic threat that have spread throughout America and Europe and threaten our basic values.
Since September 11, 2001, a growing chorus has warned that Western society and values are at risk of being overrun by a tide of Islamic immigrants. These sentiments reached their most extreme expression in July 2011, with Anders Breivik’s shooting spree in Norway. Breivik left behind a 1500 page manifesto denouncing the impact of Islam on the West, which showed how his thinking had been shaped by anti-immigrant writings that had appeared widely in books and respectable publications. In The Myth of the Muslim Tide, Doug Saunders offers a brave challenge to these ideas, debunking popular misconceptions about Muslims and their effect on the communities in which they live. He demonstrates how modern Islamophobia echoes historical responses to earlier immigrant groups, especially Jews and Catholics. Above all, he provides a set of concrete proposals to help absorb these newcomers and make immigration work. The most important trend of the twenty-first century will be a massive global migration to cities and across international borders. Rather than responding to our new religious-minority neighbours with fear and resentment, this book shows us how we can make this change work to our advantage.
About Doug Sanders
Doug Saunders is the European bureau chief of The Globe and Mail. He is the author of Arrival City, which won or was a finalist for several prizes and was published in eight languages around the world.
Editorial Review
The author takes a nuanced, informative look at the alarm that has greeted the latest wave of Muslim immigrants to Western countries and explains, with admirable precision, why this response is unjustified. In a methodical, point-by-point approach, Saunders analyzes the myths from which Western fears of a “Muslim takeover” have sprung, as well as the actual facts surrounding Muslim immigration patterns and population trends—e.g., birth rates are actually falling in many Muslim immigrant communities. The author argues that early-21st-century Muslim sentiment in the West is nearly identical in origin to the anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish fervor that swept the same region when immigration from those communities increased in the early-20th century. Few Americans today recall Paul Blanshard’s 1949 book American Freedom and Catholic Power, but it was a massively popular bestseller in which the author warned—in terms strikingly similar to those employed by the authors of contemporary books about the threat of Muslim immigration—that fast-breeding Catholics, left unchecked, would eventually seek to gain control of the American presidency and implement a “Catholic plan for America.” In the last section, Saunders provides a sober reflection on “the genuine problems and challenges of immigration” (as opposed to the trumped-up, hysterical anti-Muslim myths the author so effectively eviscerates in earlier sections). Saunders’ approach is refreshingly levelheaded and fact-based; he reproaches those who have allowed fear and anger to overwhelm reason, while acknowledging that terrorism and religious extremism pose real dangers to Muslims and non-Muslims alike. – Kirkus Reviews
Debunking The ‘Myth Of The Muslim Tide’
NPR book Review – September 19, 2012 (Excerpt)
The violent protests that erupted in North Africa and the Middle East over a video insulting the Prophet Muhammad were in part a reflection of conflicting values — Islamic strictures on images of the prophet versus the Western principle of respect for free speech.
But journalist Doug Saunders says that the video itself reflects a troubling current in Western political discourse — an irrational fear of Muslim communities in Europe and the United States.
“The guy who made it was a bit obscure, but the people who’ve promoted it and circulated it are part of a very well-organized and very, very well-funded network of activists who’ve received funding from mainstream conservative foundations,” Saunders tells Fresh Air’s Dave Davies.
In his new book, The Myth of the Muslim Tide, Saunders says an increasingly influential group of writers and activists believes immigration and high birth rates will make Muslims a majority in Europe in coming decades — and that their hostility to Western values makes them a threat to Western culture, democracy and security. [Read the full article...]
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THE BLEEDING HILLS A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss
I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my course,
I have kept the faith. - 2 Timothy iv. 7
The Irish War is officially a part of history, but not for Finnean Whelan, an IRA veteran of almost 40 years. British Intelligence has produced evidence that he is the mastermind behind a conspiracy to assassinate the First Minister of Northern Ireland. For Whelan this is not only a mission of revenge, but marks the beginning of a journey into the past and the return to the one true love: Ireland. [More...]
We are the only country that makes guns, including military-style assault weapons, available to anyone who wants to buy them. This is not freedom. It is a tyranny of death and destruction — a tyranny of which the National Rifle Association is proud. The Washington Post
THE BLEEDING HILLS
