Irish here (to give a context for a long time this place was synonymous with terrorism)
Quite a lot of Europeans scoffed at Americans in early 00s pointing (rightly) at the overreaction that followed such as {invading Iraq|Patriot Act|TSA crap|Further rise of the military industrial complex} for highly questionable reasons was.
It took much smaller (yet equally as appalling attacks as 9/11) in Spain, UK and France for most of European countries to go down similar paths as US when it comes to surveillance and the rise of the police states.
It seems to me that Islamic Extremism (while highly dangerous to everyone including Muslims themselves as ISIS have illustrated) is being used by politicians as:
1. A way to grab more power over the population
2. Not to appear as "weak"
So nutcase authoritarians following middle age teachings and stupidity are leading to rise of police/surveillance states which could be easily co-opted once the infrastructure is in place to result in what essentially is fascist / Orwellian places to live.
Ouch :(
An analogy would be a virus leading to an overreaction from white cells weakening/killing the host.
edit: What solution might I present to Islamism? Given an educated population the choice between living in prosperous and free countries and medieval backwater is a nobrainer. So the answer lies with education, economics and freedom. Quite alot of Muslims already go to great lengths to live in Europe/USA tho unfortunately the extremists pray on segregation and race and economic inequalities to drive their wedge and spread their virus.
I doubt it has nothing to do with Islam.
The real problem is that this is power for "free". They can do this because the population (except a few hackers, pirates and other freaks) doesn't care..
And I can't think in any way to change that. In fact, it's easy to see how it's going to grow worse.
Quite a lot of Europeans scoffed at Americans in early 00s pointing (rightly) at the overreaction that followed such as {invading Iraq|Patriot Act|TSA crap|Further rise of the military industrial complex} for highly questionable reasons was.
It took much smaller (yet equally as appalling attacks as 9/11) in Spain, UK and France for most of European countries to go down similar paths as US when it comes to surveillance and the rise of the police states.
It seems to me that Islamic Extremism (while highly dangerous to everyone including Muslims themselves as ISIS have illustrated) is being used by politicians as:
1. A way to grab more power over the population
2. Not to appear as "weak"
So nutcase authoritarians following middle age teachings and stupidity are leading to rise of police/surveillance states which could be easily co-opted once the infrastructure is in place to result in what essentially is fascist / Orwellian places to live.
Ouch :(
An analogy would be a virus leading to an overreaction from white cells weakening/killing the host.
edit: What solution might I present to Islamism? Given an educated population the choice between living in prosperous and free countries and medieval backwater is a nobrainer. So the answer lies with education, economics and freedom. Quite alot of Muslims already go to great lengths to live in Europe/USA tho unfortunately the extremists pray on segregation and race and economic inequalities to drive their wedge and spread their virus.