Why has al-Qaeda hit the U.K. and not the U.S.? And for that matter, why do there seem to be so many more terrorist cells on the continent? Newspapers are finally getting around to pondering these obvious questions. Predictible answers abound: more effective (non-politically correct) policing, a more genuine pluralism, etc. A front page story in the Post this morning inadvertently posits another theory to explain the relative paucity of cells here. The piece is about the growth of exurban mosques in the farthest reaches of the D.C. area. Why is this significant? The articles doesn’t say. But if Karl Rove and David Brooks have described the exurbs correctly, these are places where social interaction is hard to come by. It needs to be sought out. That’s why mega-churches and their insta-communities have had such great success in these areas. For Muslims, there’s a benefit to this geographic dispersion. After all, in Britain, especially Leeds, part of the problem seems to be the classic urban tension that arises when disparate social and ethnic groups get crammed together. Thanks to familiarity, they begin to resent one another with a passion. (White Brits resent the success of Muslim Brit strivers; Muslims, in turn, resent that their hard work hasn’t won them acceptance. And so on.) In the true Fredrick Jackson Turner spirit, the American frontier, or what passes for it today, may help prevent the rise of this kind of social tension. People aren’t in each others’ faces. (While the Post cites a few instances of anti-Muslim bigotry in the D.C. exurbs, they hardly compare to the race riots and beatings in Yorkshire.) At least, the exurbs may help explain why second-generation American Muslims aren’t nearly as pissed as their European counterparts.
posted by Frank.
The Dish 