An even more complex challenge confronts us: radical Islam and the likelihood of even greater terrorist threats and a potential for escalating political, cultural and religious tension between the West on the one hand and the Muslim world on the other.

The dream of transforming the entire region by getting rid of Saddam Hussein and creating democracy through elections has turned out to be elusive. In Iraq, Iran, Egypt and the Palestinian territories, recent elections have actually tended to strengthen radical political groups. While the very holding of elections in Iraq and the Palestinian territories is a success, these developments have so far not contributed to regional stability -- on the contrary.

In short, there is more than enough fuel available in the region to further stoke the radical fire. What is new is that the battleground of this emerging larger conflict will most likely not be in the continental United States, as was the case on Sept. 11, but rather in the European-Mediterranean space: Europe, or Europe's back yard. What is also new is the element of personal fear beginning to descend upon Europeans -- as it descended upon Americans on Sept. 11. This is the fear inspired not only by terrorist train bombings in London and Madrid but by political assassinations in the Netherlands and, more recently, the dramatic escalation of the cartoon controversy in Denmark.

"It's long been predicted that France's simmering cauldron of lawless Muslim ghettoes would someday combust," contends Duncan Currie in his article called "Over There, Over here" in the rightwing magazine The Weekly Standard.

Along with the chronic troubles in Iraq, the 7/7 bombings in London, and last year's murder of Theo van Gogh in Holland, the French riots pose one of the central geopolitical questions of our age: Does democracy quell ideological fanaticism?  President Bush thinks so, and he's based his long-range anti-terrorism strategy on spreading liberal institutions and decent governance in the Middle East. 

Shortly before the London bombings, Robert S. Leiken, Fellow at the Brookings Institution, argued in Foreign Affairs that the European nations have not integrated their Muslim citizens as well as the US has.

Radical Islam is spreading across Europe among descendants of Muslim immigrants. Disenfranchised and disillusioned by the failure of integration, some European Muslims have taken up jihad against the West.

(...) The growing nightmare of officials at the Department of Homeland Security is passport-carrying, visa-exempt mujahideen coming from the United States' western European allies.

(...) Unlike their U.S. counterparts, who entered a gigantic country built on immigration, most Muslim newcomers to western Europe started arriving only after World War II, crowding into small, culturally homogenous nations. Their influx was a new phenomenon for many host states and often unwelcome. Meanwhile, North African immigrants retained powerful attachments to their native cultures.

This banner links to a collection of photos to "show the world that we are not afraid of what happened in London, and that the world is a better place without fear." Fear leads to anger (and less integration, weakening of civil liberties and of checks and balances), anger to hate, and hate to... Besides, the psychatrist Michael Brody, who heads the Television & Media Committee of the American Academy of Childhood and Adolescent Psychiatry, warns in the Baltimore Sun about "the harmful effects" of the American TV coverage of the London bombings, because they are "constantly hyping things up" in contrast to the BBC.

Updated November 14, 2005

The Atlantic Review focuses on transatlantic relations and US foreign policy. Therefore the blogroll on our front-page is limited to blogs dealing with similar topics.

We have created this page for noteworthy blogs that do not cover transatlantic relations, but make a difference and deserve your attention.

Please send additional links and feedback to editors@atlanticreview.org or leave a comment at the end of the post. The Atlantic Review is primarily interested in great blogs that are not (yet) well-known and that deal with underreported humanitarian issues and work on making this world a better place.

 
Darfur:

Sleepless in Sudan is "an aid worker diary from Darfur, Sudan: real stories, random observations and occasional rants on the lives of Darfur’s two million displaced people and the somewhat bewildered humanitarian agencies who are trying to help them. Sleepless in Sudan is just another website on just another violent conflict in Africa – but uncensored, direct and without the sugar-coating that the tightly controlled and highly politicized environment demands from the official sources."

Darfur Daily News is "a reliable source of daily news, articles, press statements and valuable information about what is going on in Darfur at the moment."

Strengthen The Good is "the nexus of a network of bloggers committed to raising awareness for small charities around the world. Every so often this space highlights a new "micro-charity"—a small, inspiring charity, one with a real face and where $1 makes a difference—and the bloggers in the network link to that post, sending traffic, and awareness, the charity’s way."

 
What you can do:

So what can I do? is a very popular "public service weblog promoting ethics in action. - My friends and I are often frustrated with the way society works. Soon we're all riled up and one of us will ask, "So what can I do?" This blog is a response to that question. Together, we'll explore ways to enact social change. We each can do and should do something to make our world a better place. Here are some ways to get started."

Security:

We Are Not Afraid "is an outlet for the global community to speak out against the acts of terror that have struck London, Madrid, New York, Baghdad, Basra, Tikrit, Gaza, Tel-Aviv, Afghanistan, Bali, and against the atrocities occurring in cities around the world each and every day. It is a worldwide action for people not willing to be cowed by terrorism and fear mongering. The historical response to these types of attacks has been a show of deadly force; we believe that there is a better way. We refuse to respond to aggression and hatred in kind. Instead, we who are not afraid will continue to live our lives the best way we know how. We will work, we will play, we will laugh, we will live. We will not waste one moment, nor sacrifice one bit of our freedom, because of fear."