I think your point about reduced expectations is correct. I am reminded of the essay you posted in your Sharia and human rights essay

He probably thinks his "tolerance" for Shariah is progressive in light of the Islamophobia that mars parts of Europe today. But it is a tolerance that condones only the most conservative options for Muslims. It is at best a form of the racism of lower expectations - the cheapest bargaining chip of liberal guilt..............

That said, I have often been shocked at the level of ignorance from British elected representatives about even British current events. They seem to simply live in a bubble where all information is filtered unless it is directly relevant to the "issue of the moment" and they have so little contact with the real world that they have next to no chance of discovering any other view apart from the permitted one. I'm sure something similar happens in Brussels, so the EU rep you met would be typical.

Equally, I think that, reduced expectations notwithsatnding, there is a certain trepidation that muslim countries have internal undemocratic pressures which mean that any democracy, however flawed, is better than applying pressure that may end up being couter-productive.

There is, for instance, a significant strand within islamist thought that democracy is incompatible with islam. Now, while that is untrue, without considerable pushback from religious authorities this view is being propagated to the potential electorate and is causing problems for the very idea of democracy in certain countries. Quite how the muslim brotherhood square this one I don't know.

Europeans are confused by the differing attitudes of muslims to political processes and, knowing only that mistakes cause offence, seek to do as little as possible.


keep to the Fen Causeway