"Islamophobia" in Europe (TA)

BBC Radio 4 - Thinking Allowed, Islamophobia and Anti-Semitism; Sociology of Sleep

Laurie Taylor: I've also been looking at some figures and there are some alarming statistics for the growth of anti-Muslim feeling within... Europe, for example.

Isn't there a possibility that what is happening now with the increasing numbers of people who appear to resent the presence of Muslims in their community. Isn't there a possibility of this developing into something not on the scale, of course, of The Holocaust, but into something which might in many terms be paralleling that in terms of hostility towards a particular group

Rumy Hasan: I think the parallels are false.

In fact I looked at statistics which show that hostility towards the Irish during the IRA bombings of the 70s and 80s is if anything greater hostility to Muslims, okay?

I'll give you a interesting statistic.

Between the census of 2001 and 2011. Let's call it the Islamophobic Decade. The population of England and Wales of Muslims increased from 3% to 4.8%. That's a 60% increase.

Now if there was rampant Islamophobia, you'd have thought people would be leaving the country.

And the same is true in Europe. They would be leaving Europe.

No, in fact the reverse is the case. Countless numbers of Muslims from these 57 OIC countries are trying to get into the so-called Islamophobic Europe.

So the facts don't add up.

Europe has changed enormously, and they don't want very significant levels of religion being injected into society.