Jihad in Europe

In less than a month Jihadists hit three continents, leaving hundreds dead.

Bogdan Matei, 04.12.2015, 13:28

Sharm el-Sheikh, Beirut, Paris and Bamako
– in less than a month Jihadists hit three continents, leaving hundreds dead.
Brussels, the administrative capital of
the EU and host to the NATO headquarters, was for days paralyzed by the
fear of similar attacks. The press in neighboring countries accused the Belgian
authorities of allowing the development of what journalists called a real
Jihadist neighborhood in Brussels. The murderous fanatics are already in the
heart of Europe. Late last year, Kremlin adviser Andrei Ilarionov, since then
fallen out of Putin’s favor, warned of the risks of an ‘Islamic Spring’ in
Western Europe, which he said was more vulnerable than ever. The EU does not
have the capacity to mobilize and solve the crises it faces, as professor
Vasile Puscas, former head negotiator with Brussels, said. In an interview with
Radio Romania, he talked about the lack of a coordinated reaction to the
refugee crisis and a lack of a common plan for combating terrorism:

This is a formula that didn’t work even in the
international financial crisis; it is well known that decisions were late in
coming and uninspired in the EU, and now, with the refugee crisis, we see the
inability to apply the European legislation. There were measures taken as early
as 2007 by European institutions for states to react to such a case. No one got
prepared, no one applied decisions that keep changing as the crisis deepens. We
are now in another crisis, that of international terrorism, and once again we
are faced with the issue of a decision to cover not just one state or region,
but the whole of the EU.

It is obvious that the Jihad has spread all over the continent. No
matter how much they dislike this, the
promoters of political correctness are starting to agree that the seeds are in
the numerous Muslim communities on the continent. In 2010, there were 44
million Muslims, accounting for 6% of the population, and 19 million in EU
member states alone, which is almost 4% of the total. If the pace of migration
and natural population growth stay the same, in 2050 there will be 60 million,
which means one in ten EU citizens will be of Islamic faith.

Spanish experts
quoted by Radio Romania said that the Paris attack could be followed by others
of similar size, and that the phenomenon of recruiting people who commit
similar acts has undergone a transformation. If, until recently, this happened
mainly through mosques, the on-line environment has become the main means of
radicalization. 45% of people arrested in Spain suspected of terrorism have
Spanish citizenship, and 40% are born there. The experts call this ‘local
terrorism’. The study emphasizes the age of the terrorists, who are younger and
younger, between 15 and 29 years of age, and points out to the rising number of
Islamic converts, who have become radicalized in a short time to legitimize
their belonging to the group. Against the background of debates in Bucharest on
quotas of refugees from the Middle East and North Africa, which may allow
Jihadists to slip through, President Klaus Iohannis underlined the fact that
Romania, as a Central and East- European country, is not a favored destination
for them.

As the president said, terrorism only works if it foments fear: If we let fear penetrate the social fabric of our
countries, then the terrorists have reached their true aim, and we cannot allow
anything like this to happen. We cannot allow xenophobia, ultra nationalism and
chauvinism to become relevant in our societies. Under no circumstances may we
let this fear lead to stigmatizing an entire religious community, who is at no
fault in this regard.

Out of respect for religious and ethnic minorities, Romania’s Muslim
population will not be target to special measures. The new minister of justice
in Romania, Raluca Pruna, has stated that Romania will not hesitate to
contribute to the efforts made in the rest of the EU to prosecute terrorism.
Most Muslims in Romania are ethnic Turks and Tatars who reside mainly in Dobrogea,
in the south east of Romania, a region that was for centuries a part of the
Ottoman Empire before its demise. They are around 70,000 people, and are a
model of integration and loyalty in the Romanian state. Both communities are
represented by law in the lower chamber of the Romanian parliament.

In the
early 2000s, when the Romanian army had contingents in Afghanistan and Iraq,
the spokesperson for the Ministry of Defense was a very popular officer of
Turkish descent. The head of the Muslim denomination in Romania is Mufti Murat
Iusuf, who has firmly condemned the
acts of cruelty committed in Paris, as well as the perpetrators of such
attacks. It is a crime against humanity with no connection to the Muslim faith,
said the Mufti, who recalled the verse in the Koran according to which if one
kills one person, he kills a whole community.