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Notes -
I am not as hopeless as Sam. The existence of ex-muslims in western nations, many of whom stand firm in their beliefs despite risk of ostracisation/decapitation at hands of their family, friends and wider community gives me some hope.
The main problem is that young people originating from a muslim background in Europe face both internal pressures from their own community to behave and act a certain way, and external pressure from the white lumpen majority who perceive them to be encroaching on their territory. In addition, many are poor as they come from very religious, very poor rural stock, compared to the middle class educated types that the US gets, and so are more susceptible to extremist views than otherwise. Moreover, the god-is-dead post industrial society gives you no greater aspirations to work towards, since deciding that something is a greater aspiration necessarily privileges one thing other another, and doing is in contravention of the "everyone's a winner" mentality of the modern day.
Between these problems, it is not suprising that many young people go balls deep into their religious heritage: they feel have no other choice. Given the behaviours of states during the pandemic, I would say that they are completely capable of of crushing theist behaviours and thought underfoot by drowning them with Starlink, Steam deck, dirt cheap halal KFC and Chil Fil-A, etc. Our lawmakers don't even try.
I think there is another reason this pushes them towards their religious heritage - they have been told class doesn't matter, so what else explains why we Muslims are poor and these westerners are rich if they aren't oppressing us? And then they see Muslims make money and subsequently tone down their rhetoric and naturally conclude that the West has corrupted them. So their identity develops poor and backwards as a marker of faith. It's a constant issue for groups made up of the poor and disenfranchised, you see a similar dynamic with the right these days.
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