Activation of Islamist terrorism in Europe: should there be a limit to tolerance?

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Recently, police in Belgium, while pursuing a 39-year-old Algerian who had supplied weapons to terrorists, had to kill him. The once calm life in Europe is turning more and more into a nightmare. The activation of Islamist terrorism in Muslim countries has already nearly turned into a routine. But Islamist terrorists are also becoming more and more active in Europe, and the authorities of European countries seem to be at loss about what to do about this.


Moreover, the UK’s Foreign Ministry is predicting that very soon, the number of people who confess radical Islamism in Europe will be counted in the hundreds.

Islamists in Europe are obviously inspired by the so-called “Arab Spring”. However, if Islamists in Arab countries overthrow totalitarian, although secular, regimes, in Europe, they may soon start overthrowing democratic secular regimes.

Analysts say that, as a rule, the current antiterrorist laws and the current state of antiterrorist services in European countries are not effective enough to fight against the challenge that radical Islamism is presenting now.

An expert in security in Europe Dmitry Danilov says:

“At present, a large-scale war against terrorism is taking place in Mali. At the first glance, it may look quite successful – Mali’s government army, together with forces from several other African countries and from France, have already freed a considerable part of the country’s territories that were earlier controlled by Islamists. However, it would be probably too early to celebrate a victory. Many of these Islamists have not been killed – they have fled to other countries, including European ones.”

“A lesson that the world should draw from this is that fighting against Islamist terrorism in one separate country is of little help,” Mr. Danilov concludes. “A worldwide program of fighting against this evil is needed.”

Experts have also noticed another alarming threat. Ideas of radical Islamism are gaining more and more popularity even among young Muslims who were born and have always lived in Europe, who grew up in secular and well-educated families, and who seem to have no reasons to become radical Islamists. A question arises – why so?

Some experts explain this by mistakes that certain European leaders made several decades ago. After the end of WWII, European leaders decided to do everything not to let the misanthropic ideas of Nazism revive again. In their striving for tolerance towards any nation, religion or ideology, European authorities have become tolerant even to those who, in their turn, do not want to be tolerant towards other people.

“Of course, this policy presents a large amount of risk,” Dmitry Danilov says.

“The mistake of European authorities is that they, if it can be said like that, adhere to double standards. They fight against terrorism in other countries – and, at the same time, they are tolerant towards Islamists in their own countries (or, at least, they had been tolerant towards them until recent). However, as practice shows, Islamist terrorism recognizes no borders.”

Tragic as it may sound, to a certain extent, Europe is itself to blame for its problems. Tolerance is good, but it also should have some limits. Tolerance towards those who, in their turn, don’t want to be tolerant to other people can hardly be justified.

Source http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_04_03/Should-there-be-a-limit-to-tolerance/