The vast majority of muslims living in the UK today are second or third generation descendents of migrant workers who came over from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. These workers were mostly uneducated. Uneducated in terms of a secular education and a religious education. The muslims europe is now having a 'problem' with are the children and grand children of those migrant workers. This generation had the value of education instilled in them by their parents who never had similar life opportunities. At the same time these parents would generally scare their children into obedience with religion, and concepts of bad and evil always being punished. Most of the parents had a warped understanding of Islam themselves and would force their daughters to marry against their will, a tradition adopted from the Hindu culture of the subcontinent they had evolved under. I think the new found religiosity of young muslims actually came about in order to put an end to the frankly unislamic customs being forced on them by their parents. Had these young muslims found that Islam was truly oppressive and backward they would have abandoned their faith like many young Hindu's, Sikhs, jews and Christians have, (by abandoned i do mean non practice) today we see an increase in 'mixed marriages' of Hindus and non hindus and sikh and non sikh etc as these groups couldn't find a justification for the backward practices of their religion and embraced western modernity. However the young muslims are continually finding that they actually know more about islam than their parents do. So backward Pakistani(and other) fathers using islam as an excuse to force their daughters to stay indoors and forfeit an education just for being born female could actually be confronted by Islam itself and be forced to accept the female right to education. Hence an increase in young girls wearing islamic dress and increasingly closing in on the educational attainment gap between them and White or Indian girls. Now that they have learnt the truth about their religion they realize the incompatibility with secular western society. A problem their parents who brought them here never had and never thought they might have to face. Most of what I have written comes from my own experiences and that of friends and family. I do believe it is just plain difficult to practice Islam in Europe, not because of any restrictions, but because of the misconceptions, it is therefore better in my opinion to be amongst kindred spirits. Nobody should have to justify their existence, and it seems like that is what is expected of us increasingly, so rather than pissing and moaning about it, we ought to consider emigration, or returning home. I believe this policy should be encouraged (as voluntary) as often as possible lest a time come when it becomes mandatory. I believe it is best for all muslims who want to practice their faith fully to be repatriated with their country of origin especially if it is a developing, predominantly muslim nation that needs a more representative government, We are in a good position to help, If we can change the way our own parents thought we might be able to help our nations by removing the brutal, corrupt, puppet regimes.

kjhf ahhh..ahfhd!!! lest we alkf sf lkhfa and of course hhlahkjf plus al;kfaf and dont forget alkjfaja...ummm and then there is kafjakjdklja;fds!! that about sums it up for me. i hope u all agree and that that wasnt too offensive.

I think there may be a generational conflict and ethnic one as religion is also part of ones culture. So if your religion is mixed up in culture to celebrate one is to celebrate the other and to downplay one is to downplay the other. Young people growing up as a minority often like to explore their background and emphasise it. What I've found is that people in veils etc aren't necessarily religious they may just be conservative (in terms of family), or interested in belonging to a group or using religiosity to gain advantage (not in a bad way but in the way that me and my friends used to go to the church youth club as our parents were OK with this but that didn't mean that I had any interest in religion in fact far from it), there is also teen acting out as the muslim population is mainly youthful (ie the way there were so many teen rastas years ago but they got bored and wiccas and skinhead. but they also grew out of it) of course there is also genuine religious interest. To me the fact that young muslims are rebelling and exploring religion and politics is a sign that they are very much British as it is mainly in the west that you can afford to disagree with your parents and be radical when young before settling down. In many other countries people are too busy surviving to do this.