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Does
Europe Have No-go Zones?
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Comments by Steven
Emerson on Fox News have prompted a heated debate
over whether predominantly Muslim "no-go" zones exist in
Europe. On Jan. 11, Emerson said they "exist throughout Europe …
they're places where the governments like France, Britain, Sweden,
Germany don't exercise any sovereignty. .. you basically have zones where
Shariah courts were set up, where Muslim density is very intense, where
the police don't go in, and where it's basically a separate country
almost, a country within a country."
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Steven Emerson
spoke on Fox News Channel on Jan. 11 about Muslim-dominated areas of
Europe.
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Although Emerson, whom I admire for his moral courage and
investigative skills, immediately apologized for his "terrible
error" of saying that cities like Birmingham, England, "are
totally Muslim where non-Muslims just simply don't go," he did not
address the larger question of whether no-go zones, in fact, do
"exist throughout Europe" and are places where governments
"don't exercise any sovereignty."
Is he right about this?
In a 2006
weblog entry, I called Muslim enclaves in Europe no-go zones
as a non-euphemistic equivalent for the French phrase Zones Urbaines
Sensibles, or Sensitive Urban Zones. No-go zones subsequently
became standard in English to describe Muslim-majority areas in West
Europe.
After spending time in the banlieues (suburbs) of Paris in
January 2013, as well as in their counterparts in Athens, Berlin,
Brussels, Copenhagen, Malmö, and Stockholm, however, I have had second
thoughts. I found that those areas "are not full-fledged no-go
zones" --- meaning places where the government had lost control of
territory. No war lords dominate; Shari'a is not the law of the land. I
expressed regret back then for having used the term no-go zones.
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A travel agency
in Berlin in October 2010.
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So, what are these places? A unique and as-yet un-named mix.
On the one hand, West European states can intervene anywhere and at
any time in their sovereign territory. As the shoot-out in Verviers and
the subsequent raids in Belgium
suggest, their overwhelming advantage in force – including military,
intelligence, and police – means they have not ceded control.
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After a
terrorist attack in May 2014, police were out in force in the Jewish
area of Antwerp, Belgium.
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On the other hand, governments often choose not to impose their will
on Muslim-majority areas, allowing them considerable autonomy, including
in some cases the Shariah
courts that Emerson mentioned. Alcohol and pork are effectively
banned in these districts, polygamy and burqas commonplace, police enter
only warily and in force, and Muslims get away with offences illegal for
the rest of population.
The Rotherham, England, child sex scandal offers a powerful example.
An official inquiry
found that for sixteen years, 1997-2013, a ring of Muslim men sexually
exploited – through abduction, rape, gang rape, trafficking,
prostitution, torture – at least 1,400 non-Muslim girls as young as 11.
The police received voluminous complaints from the girls' parents but did
nothing; they could have acted, but chose not to.
According to the inquiry, "the Police gave no priority to CSE
[child sexual exploitation], regarding many child victims with contempt
and failing to act on their abuse as a crime." Even more alarming,
in some cases, "fathers tracked down their daughters and tried to
remove them from houses where they were being abused, only to be arrested
themselves when police were called to the scene." Worse, the girls
"were arrested for offences such as breach of the peace or being
drunk and disorderly, with no action taken against the perpetrators of
rape and sexual assault against children."
Another example, also British, was the so-called Operation Trojan
Horse that flourished from 2007 until 2014, in which (again, according to
an official inquiry),
a group of school functionaries developed "a strategy to take over a
number of schools in Birmingham and run them on strict Islamic
principles."
What does one call Rotherham and Birmingham? They are not no-go zones,
neither in terms of geography or sovereignty. This is where we – Emerson,
others (such as Louisiana Gov. Bobby
Jindal), and I stumbled. The English language lacks a
readily-available term for this. And for good reason: I know of no
historical parallel, in which a majority population accepts the customs
and even the criminality of a poorer and weaker immigrant community. The
world has never seen anything comparable to the contemporary West's blend
of achievement, timidity, and guilt, of hugely superior power matched by
a deep reluctance to use it.
Instead of no-go zones, I propose semi-autonomous sectors,
a term that emphasizes their indistinct and non-geographic nature – thus
permitting a more accurate discussion of what is, arguably, West Europe's
most acute problem.
Mr. Pipes (DanielPipes.org,
@DanielPipes) is president of the Middle East Forum. © 2015 by Daniel
Pipes. All rights reserved.
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text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an
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