The Globe and Mail
"Across Europe, and possibly in North America, the new Mohamed Attas are coming not from immigrant enclaves, not from people raised in Muslim countries where religious extremism is part of the political culture. They are native-born citizens of their host countries, fluent in its language and culture, usually from families that are neither impoverished nor religious. As the popularity of radical Islam has declined dramatically in Muslim countries—not a single international terrorist figure has emerged from Iraq, Afghanistan or Palestine in the past four years—it is becoming a fully European force in France, Britain, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands, forged in the bland concrete housing projects that ring the cities of Europe. ‘It's not the ones from religious families who are turning into jihadists,' said Rosa Tandjaoui, the daughter of Algerian and Tunisian parents who owns a bookstore here in the 19th district [of Paris] and whose children attend the same schools as the French suicide bombers. ‘It's people from families like mine—secular, patriotic French, educated. I worry about my son a lot—I hope he doesn't become religious, and I will never let him go to prayers by himself. I've seen what happens to them'." ("Radical Islam sows its seed in Europe's fertile soil," The Globe and Mail, September 10. 2005)
"Across Europe, and possibly in North America, the new Mohamed Attas are coming not from immigrant enclaves, not from people raised in Muslim countries where religious extremism is part of the political culture. They are native-born citizens of their host countries, fluent in its language and culture, usually from families that are neither impoverished nor religious. As the popularity of radical Islam has declined dramatically in Muslim countries—not a single international terrorist figure has emerged from Iraq, Afghanistan or Palestine in the past four years—it is becoming a fully European force in France, Britain, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands, forged in the bland concrete housing projects that ring the cities of Europe. ‘It's not the ones from religious families who are turning into jihadists,' said Rosa Tandjaoui, the daughter of Algerian and Tunisian parents who owns a bookstore here in the 19th district [of Paris] and whose children attend the same schools as the French suicide bombers. ‘It's people from families like mine—secular, patriotic French, educated. I worry about my son a lot—I hope he doesn't become religious, and I will never let him go to prayers by himself. I've seen what happens to them'." ("Radical Islam sows its seed in Europe's fertile soil," The Globe and Mail, September 10. 2005)
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