European Muslims urged to integrate, act, criticise - by Thomas Grove
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - One of Europe's best-known Muslim intellectuals called on Muslims on Saturday to become more involved in mainstream European society and to be more ready to criticise themselves. "We have to practise self-criticism for our own sake, not to criticise Islam, but to criticise our behaviours," Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss-born intellectual who teaches Islamic Studies at Oxford, told the Muslims of Europe conference. Ramadan said Muslims should think and behave as European citizens, not as members of a ghettoised minority.
Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, a Turkish academic and secretary of the Islamic Organisation Conference (IOC), said European governments should also give Muslims more rights to express their religion in public. He said governments and Muslim groups should work together to revise school textbooks to present a more balanced view of Islam and its role in history.Note EU-Digest: these are commendable suggestions, as long as every religious group keeps in mind that the EU is a secular society where the affairs of State and Religion are strictly separated. In this context we hope that the EU Constitution, when it finally gets realized, makes this very clear..
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