European Muslim politics ranges from Arab-pride militancy to secular feminism

Evidence

Therearealsomilitant‘Arabpride’organisationssuchastheBelgiumbased Arab European League (AEL), modelled on the American civil rights movement and the Black Panthers, whose leader Dyab Abou Jahjah has condemned advocates of Muslim integration as ‘Uncle Toms’ while nevertheless maintaining: ‘We’re a civil rights movement, not a club of fundamentalist fanatics who want to blow things up’. In France, there were Muslims who supported the French government’s ban on headscarves and those who opposed it. There are feminist organisations such as Ni Putes Ni Soumises (Neither Whore Nor Submissive), formed in the French banlieues to protest the practice of gang rapes known as tournantes. There are French rap groups influenced by African-American ghetto culture, such as Ideal J, a French-Haitian Muslim convert who accused the September 11 attackers of ‘dishonouring the faith’. — Matt Carr, You Are Now Entering Eurabia, 65

Categorization

• CANDY: ‘Uncle Toms’ flung at integrationists by a leader who insists his movement isn’t fundamentalist is a genuinely striking inversion.
• SEED: Angle: the American civil-rights template exported to Europe — Black Panther aesthetics in Belgian banlieues.