Britain Struggles With Questions Of Identity

by Rob Gifford
NPR
April 13, 2009

http://www.islamist-watch.org/1612/britain-struggles-with-questions-of-identity

Excerpt:

The whole concept of what it means to be British has come into question in recent years, as immigration has increased and as the pillars of the old identity that united the kingdom — empire, monarchy, the Church of England — have been eroded.

Many communities have now withdrawn into a kind of tribal loyalty to their own groups. Rightly or wrongly, the spotlight has fallen on the Muslim community, and a journey across the British landscape in many ways has to begin with them.

The first steps of the journey to Canterbury lead across the River Thames from Southwark to Brick Lane, the heart of London's Muslim community. There, Maajid Nawaz, a former Islamist who spent 13 years trying to radicalize young British Muslims and who has since given up his extremist views, works to prevent Britain's Muslim youth from following that path.

"I think there is an identity crisis in mainstream Europe and Britain in particular," he says.

Looking back on his confused childhood, not knowing whether he was Muslim or British or both, Nawaz says Britain has tried too hard to accommodate immigrants.

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