A Place at the Table

Europe was the springboard for the Sept. 11 attacks. The terrorists may have been Middle Eastern, but Europe was their base camp. Since Sept. 11, European authorities have acted decisively, arresting more than 200 suspected terrorists. Although the radical networks remain well ensconced, sustained police work will make another major attack much tougher to execute. But that's not good enough. Radical Islamists value Europe not only because it offered a safe haven for them but because they look to it as a breeding ground for the next generation of terrorists.

For all the achievements of their democracies, most European states still lack the knack for pluralism. The Continent's immigrant Muslim communities grew up, to a large extent, from guest workers and postcolonial émigrés grateful for the stability and prosperity of postwar Europe. Too many of their children, though, nourish the wounds of social and economic exclusion. For them, militant Islam provides an identity and an explanation for their inferior status; it gives a powerful voice to their resentment, and defines a proud and confrontational response.

In the U.K., where the Muslim prison population has doubled in the last decade, some polls found a near majority of young Muslims unwilling to fight for Britain, but willing to take up arms for Osama bin Laden. Britain's security service estimates that at least 3,000 British Muslim youths migrated to Afghanistan for training and religious indoctrination during the 1990s. Other European countries have not released figures, but the French and German presence among detainees at Guantanamo Bay confirms that British jihadis were not the only Europeans gravitating to the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

A reformation of sorts is under way in the Islamic world and, much as in the European one five centuries ago, a militant puritanism is on the rise. Europe has not been spared. A sterner form of the religion — one that demands universal application of Shari'a, asserts the superiority of Islam and rejects assimilation with non-Muslim societies — is supplanting the more flexible faith that long prevailed in the diaspora. Fueled by Wahhabi funds from the Persian Gulf and a radical interpretation of the Koran, Muslim preachers insist that their European congregants are living in dar al-harb, the realm of war. They seek to reshape European Muslim communities into virtual ghettos. By mirroring the de facto separatism fostered by European attitudes, radical imams have created fertile ground for the recruitment and protection of terrorists.

Throughout Europe, Muslims suffer high unemployment, poor health and low literacy rates. Nowhere do they enjoy proportional representation in parliaments. With job shortages worsening, there is little prospect of opportunity trickling down to young Muslims. As bin Ladenism proliferates through mosques and websites, the conditions that contribute to the appeal of radical Islam in Europe are showing signs of permanence. And theological expressions of discontent are turning secular complaints into non-negotiable religious causes.

There is a challenge here for Europeans and their leaders, too many of whom are in denial about the irrevocable heterogeneity of their societies. What can be done? As a first step, European countries should develop their own versions of affirmative action, the effort that the U.S. has for decades pressed to provide minorities with better access to education, jobs and housing. The American experience has been far from perfect, but the overall results have been impressive. A vigorous move in this direction would help reduce Muslim alienation. European countries should do more to underwrite state-affiliated mosques and integrate Islamic instruction into schools. Only governments can match the largesse of wealthy Wahhabi mosque builders and provide the schools, houses of worship and clerics to compete with the radicals.

Perhaps the most dramatic way to show European Muslims that their world is an inclusive one is to set a date for the start of E.U. accession talks for Turkey, which could happen at this week's E.U. summit. Turkey has made most of the legislative changes required by the E.U. — albeit with some significant loopholes — and its new Islamist government has pledged itself to European ideals of pluralism and tolerance. If Europe wishes to take a major step toward embracing its Muslims — and preempting the clash of civilizations that al-Qaeda seeks — it will set the process in motion.