After days of rioting in Greece over a rumor of a Koran being desecrated Muslim leaders there do what Muslims do the best. They played the victim card and said that they are marginalized. The bottom line is that if Muslims are not allowed to dominate a country they will complain that they are marginalized or oppressed. My advice is for non-Muslims to live life as they know it, let them whine.
May 26, 2009
Greek muslims 'marginalised'
ATHENS - RELIGIOUS elders in Athens fear that the city's long-marginalised Muslims are a 'timebomb' waiting to explode after a sudden eruption of violence offered a glimpse at their sense of anger and frustration.
Two days of clashes late last week, which broke out during a rally by around 1,000 Muslims in the Greek capital, followed claims that a police officer had torn up an Iraqi migrant's pocket Koran excerpt during an identity check.
More than a dozen people were injured, scores of cars vandalised and a handful of shops had their windows smashed. Police made 46 arrests.
Although the lid was soon placed on the violence, Muslim leaders who condemned the unrest also warned the state must act quickly to reverse the sense of marginalisation.
Thousands of Muslims from Arab nations, Africa and the Indian subcontinent now live and work in Athens, often scraping by with meagre wages and in squalid accommodation.
A long-standing grievance is that despite years of promises the Greek state has provided no official prayer sites, forcing the faithful to set up makeshift mosques in rented flats and disused warehouses.
Naim El Gadour, chairman of the Muslim Union of Greece says there are over 100 unlicensed prayer sites in Athens and hundreds of thousands of Muslims, not counting Albanians and illegal migrants.
A staunchly Orthodox state with bitter memories of four centuries of Ottoman Turkish rule, Greece currently offers sanctioned Muslim religious sites only near its northeastern border with Turkey where a Muslim minority of Turkish origin lives.
All traces of Islam were eradicated in Athens in the early 19th century when Christianity was restored, and bureaucratic wrangling and opposition from church leaders and mayors have stalled plans for a mosque and cemetery.
'We see no mosque, we see no cemetery, basically they are making fools of us,' says Abu Mahmoud, a Moroccan who has lived in Greece since 1985. 'The situation in Athens is getting worse because of the economic crisis which is hitting foreigners the hardest, and the city centre has become a jungle as a result.' -- AFP
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