GLEEDEN is a French website that promises “a secret little foray into infidelity”. Even in a sexually liberated country like France, advertisements for the site have drawn criticism, and some of them have been removed, causing the Gleeden management to complain about censorship.

While based in France, the site connects men and women seeking encounters and relationships around the world. Many married men and women have signed on for extramarital affairs, much to the fury of French clerics as well as conservatives. Interestingly but unsurprisingly, in the countries listed on the Gleeden website, most Muslim countries are missing: in many of them, infidelity is punishable by death.

This open, relaxed attitude towards sex is one of many aspects of Western society that most Muslim immigrants find deeply deplorable. Films, TV and online adult content all contain explicit scenes of sex that repel Muslims who have settled in the West. At least that’s the public image; behind closed doors, it’s a different story. As we have seen in several incidents in the United Kingdom, Muslim immigrants — mostly of Pakistani origin — have raped and sexually exploited young girls in a series of shocking episodes.

Clearly, there is a lot of hypocrisy in Muslim sexual attitudes, and the open acceptance of such way of thinking in the West contrasts sharply with the deeply conservative outlook displayed by Muslim migrants. This is only one aspect of life in the West that divides the host community from its Muslim neighbours.

Another is the consumption of alcohol. This is a widely accepted custom that cuts through class barriers and age differences. In fact, the working class generally drink more than the professional and upper classes. Drinking together at pubs, clubs and family occasions is a convivial activity that brings people together. Barred by their faith from indulging, few Muslim migrants join their Western friends and colleagues at pubs. The ones that do imbibe do so secretly in order to get high.

But perhaps the biggest no-no for Muslims is pork and its by-products like bacon, ham and sausages. While many break the taboo on alcohol, hardly any would allow the haram meat of a pig to pass their lips. So much so that many Muslims do not even eat at establishments that serve pork to ensure that the food they have ordered has not been contaminated by being cooked in the same utensils as pork. This occasionally causes them to give offence to Western hosts when they refuse to accept cooked dishes.

Attitudes towards pets, and specially dogs, are another contributing factor to the great divide between Muslim migrants and the host community in the West. Europeans and Americans are deeply attached to their pets, and are infuriated by any unkindness displayed towards animals. In fact, a couple of years ago, a young Arab migrant to France was jailed when a video of him kicking a cat repeatedly went viral.

In England, I have seen migrants who seemed Muslims flinch in fear from Puffin, our small, friendly Jack Russell terrier. The English are specially dog barmy and cannot understand the deep fear and loathing most Muslims display around their beloved canines.

Increasingly, Europeans are losing their religious beliefs while Muslims seem to be clinging more fiercely to theirs. In fact, the Muslim migrants of this generation often insist on a public display of their faith in their attire and their behaviour in a way their parents did not. This places them under suspicion of supporting the extremist violence we are witnessing across the Middle East today. Surveys have been tracking this ambiguous attitude of young Muslims towards political Islam, and have raised question marks about their loyalty to the Western countries they were born and raised in.

So when Western politicians and journalists ask why Muslims are not integrating into their societies, they need to look at the deep social and religious differences between their respective worldviews. Apart from simply refusing to shed their traditions and mores, Muslims also tend to be highly critical and openly judgemental about what they see as the moral degradation of Western society.

“Kuffar” is a pejorative word commonly used to describe their hosts, and in their own languages, Muslims sneer at local customs and habits beginning with what they describe as “loose women” to public drunkenness. Of course there is much that’s wrong in the West, but millions of Muslims have chosen to make it their home without being forced in any way by their hosts. In fact, many in the West now regret having been so welcoming and generous to migrants generally, and to Muslims in particular.

Non-Muslim immigrants have taken to Western ways much more easily without shedding their own faith. Hindus have done particularly well, and are accepted in their new homes in a way Muslims no longer are.

In normal times, this prickly desire to assert their identity would have been shrugged off as a primitive reflex. But these are not normal times: as radicalised young Muslims head to join the self-styled Islamic State to battle the West and behead Westerners, the entire community is coming under increasing suspicion and scrutiny.

Many sociologists attribute Muslim radicalisation to poverty and unemployment. But in several cases at least, volunteers to the IS cause have been from middle class families. In France, however, young descendants of Arab migrants feel shut up in ghettos and have not acquired any aspects of their French identity except for language.

Whatever the causes of this deep gulf between Muslim migrants and the West, it is clear that it won’t be bridged any time soon.

Published in Dawn, March 16th, 2015

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