Self-segregation means trouble

Six years ago Priscilla and I were a host family for a 16-year-old exchange student from a Northern Europe country. K just completed a week-long visit, leaving Monday.

Europe has changed in the last six years.

K said, “We now have segregated neighborhoods. We have never had segregated neighborhoods.” I asked if these were self-segregated. K said they were.

“And,” I said, “from what I’ve read, police don’t go into those neighborhoods.”

“No, they do not,” she said forcefully.

A friend of my wife’s said a number of Arabic-speaking men suddenly began attending her mosque.

“They say we do not speak good enough Arabic, so they should take over in preaching sermons and teaching the Koran,” N said.

That often is the first phase of radicalizing a congregation. New, Arabic-speaking men arrive, and soon the American and Americanized Muslims leave for another mosque, leaving the radicals to preach hatred.