exploring muslim identities in europe & north america

A few days ago, the Sun carried a story based around remarks made on Premier Christian Radio by Alison Ruoff, an evangelical member of the Church of England's General Synod, in which she called for British Muslims to be prevented from building any more mosques in the UK. "No more mosques in the UK. We are constantly building new mosques, which are paid for by the money that comes from oil states. We have only in this country as far as we know, 3.5 to four million Muslims. There are enough mosques for Muslims in this country, they don't need any more. We don't need to have sharia law which would come with more mosques imposed upon our nation, if we don't watch out, that would happen. "If we want to become an Islamic state, this is the way to go. You build a mosque and then what happens? You have Muslim people moving into that area, all the shops will then become Islamic, all the housing will then become Islamic and as the Bishop of Rochester has so wisely poi...

Tariq Ramadan's piece in the Guardian raises important issues that far exceed the debate on Islam and Muslims in Europe. His remarks raise issues about the quality of western democracies, the process of agenda setting and the ability of right wing populist parties to diffuse their values and issues without necessarily winning elections. What is needed more than ever today is an effective resistance to the antidemocratic and racist onslought of the populist extreme right. Denying them the right to define who is an insider and who is an outsider and engagement instead of complacency. Spyros Sofos   By refusing to debate with extreme rightwing parties, we have let their populist policies win the day guardian.co.uk , Tuesday 24 February 2009 10.00 GMT I have been criticised in recent years for agreeing to debate with representatives of extreme rightwing political parties: in France, when I confronted Je...