exploring muslim identities in europe & north america

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/riots-in-stokholm-continue-as-youth-vent-frustrations-a-901704.html By  Frauke Lüpke-Narberhaus For most people, Sweden is a place of prosperity and order. But this week, a different side of the country is showing itself. Many in Stockholm's suburbs are deeply frustrated and demanding to be heard. Those familiar with the capital's immigrant neighborhoods are not surprised. It hasn't taken long for such images to seem almost normal: In the Stockholm suburb of Husby, six cars stood in flames as some 400 people looked on when the fire department arrived to extinguish the fires on Thursday. "We are receiving reports that there are a lot of people there," a police spokesman told news agency TT as the situation developed. It was the fifth consecutive night that the Swedish capital has been wracked by rioting. Other suburbs, too, saw rampaging youth on Thursday night. Three cars were lit on fire in Norsborg wh...

An interesting article from the Sunday edition of the Greek newspaper, TO VIMA, traces the changes that one of the very few European societies that had a historical experience of coexistence with Islam is undergoing. Although Eastern Orthodox Christians living in the southern Balkans have lived side by side with Ottoman Muslims for over five centuries, today, Greeks are much more sceptical about the presence of Muslims and Islam in the country. According to some sources, there may be 830,000 to 1,000,000 Muslim residents and citizens in Greece. Whereas, in the past, the minority (Muslim citizens of Greece exempted from the Lausanne Treaty population exchange) were concentrated in Northeastern Greece, today the bulk of Greece's Muslims (primarily migrants from various Muslim countries, but also an increasing number of converts) live throughout the country but primarily in the Athens conurbation. Since the establishment of the Greek state in the 1830s, Orthodox Chr...