> The EU charter of fundamental rights, the centerpiece of the new EU
> constitution, is a beacon of humanity in these barbarous times.
As the history of the US since 9-11 shows, formal constitutional rights are no guarantee of anything. And someone in Tahiti or one of the other remaining French colonies -- which are legally as much a part of France as Normandy --- would probably look (A) blank (B) angry or (C) amused, if you told them that the EU is a beacon of human rights.
> The EU invests more as a % of GDP than the US, runs
> big trade surpluses with the US, and has no real need for US capital. But
the
> US is very dependent on inflows of Euro/Asian capital.
Which is why the EU looms as a bigger imperialist threat in the long term.
> Calling these folks Muslim minorities makes about as much sense as
> labelling all Spanish-speaking immigrants in the US Catholic minorities or
all
> Asian immigrants as Confucian minorities -- namely, none whatsoever. The
new
> immigrant communities are Kurdish and Turkish and Tunisian and Senegalese
and
> Moroccan etc.
I lived in London in 1990-92 and I've heard Europeans talking about "Muslims", in exactly the same way that they would about "Pakistanis", even though there is an overlap. And as someone who has studied the history of Islam, I can assure you that "Muslim" is almost always a stronger identity for Muslims than is "Arab", "Turk", "Indonesian", etc. There is in fact an "Islamic nationalism", distinct from Islamism _per se_ and from Arab nationalism etc. (By the same cultural logic, indigenous "christians" have distinct identities within Islamic countries.)
Regards,
Grant.