Europe’s New Normal – The New York Times

Sylvie Kauffmann, the editorial director and a former editor in chief of Le Monde, on the challenges in Europe:

Soul-searching is not the order of the day; liberal intellectuals have been incensed by recent remarks by Prime Minister Manuel Valls, who equals “explaining” jihadism with “wanting to find ways to excuse it.”

The Germans are equally torn. Since the ghastly New Year’s Eve in Cologne, the celebrated Wilkommenskultur toward refugees has given way to serious doubts about how to integrate mass male migration, and to serious accusations against the police and the media. The cultural gap between a liberal, wealthy, secular Europe and a patriarchal, conservative, Muslim society has widened to an ocean. How long will it take to bridge it? How do you ensure that hard-won women’s rights and freedom are not endangered? How do you teach cultural norms?

These are difficult questions — and they are being asked all over Europe. There are no easy answers, only a few predictions: Jihadism will not be defeated in 2016, and war and misery in the Middle East and Africa will send ever more people across the Mediterranean — around 2,000 still arrive in Europe by sea every day.

So we’d better work together, set up common policies to secure our borders, fight terrorism, relocate refugees, and promote daring ideas for integration that will avoid ghettoization. The only response has to be a joint one: working separately would be foolish. If a 28-member European Union can’t do it, then let’s set up smaller groups. There is no more time to waste.

Source: Europe’s New Normal – The New York Times