Why Europe has a Muslim Problem? With Mehreen Khan

The Thinking Muslim

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Is the European Union a model for Muslim unity? Can the often fractious and politically weak Muslim world improve its regional strength and international standing by pooling economic and even political sovereignty and creating a zone of prosperity that harnesses talents and halts a brain drain to the West? Until 1924, the Muslim world came under a caliphate; many calling for a modern unity cite the EU as a model.

But is the EU really something to aspire to? What binds the EU states is their unity, which is fracturing under the weight of what my guest today calls Euro Whiteness. Today, many Muslims are being marginalised not just by EU nation states but in a larger sense by an EU that observes itself to be a paradise, protecting its borders from Eastern barbarians – the jungle, as Joseph Borel referred to the world outside.

To help us understand the EU, what it is, and what its failings are, I have the pleasure of speaking today to Mehreen Khan. Mehreen is the economics editor of the Times and she spent five years with the Financial Times as their Brussels Correspondent.

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Timestamps:

0:00 – Introduction

2:24 – Euro whiteness

8:42 – Neutrality and Hijab ban

18:29 – European Islam?

20:35 – Secularism – France’s religion

23:38 – What is EU?

27:16 - EU Ideology

31:17 – The Left

34:44 – EU Success

38:05 – Binding structures

44:48 – Europeanness vs Muslimness

47:40 – EU on Gaza

50:03 – Media on Gaza

54:32 – Islamophobia and Optimism

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