Dave Sidhu at the great blog DNSI has a very illustrative example of what stinks in the ethnic ghettos of Europe in my opinion.  It turns out that Muslims that have the munchies can now satiate their cravings at their own Beurger King Muslim (BKM).  The BBC reports:

Parisian Muslims can now enjoy halal meals in an atmosphere that mimics US fast-food joints after BKM, or Beurger King Muslim, opened its doors.

BKM has set up in the northern Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois, where many locals are first or second generation Muslims from former French colonies.

And half of the suburb’s population of 28,000 are aged under 25, the Agence France Presse news agency reported.

Beur is slang for a second generation North African living in France.

So let me understand this.  It mimics the atmosphere of the U.S. by essentially being a segregated establishment?  I’m torn.  I HATE this idea because all it does is serve to further segregate a community whose children sometimes seem to turn fanatical because they feel segregated against.  At the same time however it helps fight the poverty that leads to and maintains the segregation:

For most of BKM’s employees, the restaurant had “ended a long period of unemployment”, Mr Benhamid said.

One BKM worker called Hakim explained that “young people in these suburbs have trouble finding work and this restaurant will allow the hiring of young people who have no diplomas or are looking for apartments”. 

Dave was also kind enough to point me to a related article in today’s Christian Science Monitor about the growing objections in Britain to the concept of a multicultural society (where you let immigrant populations just do their own thing):

Those who want a more robust response to terrorism argue that multiculturalism fosters an aloofness dangerous to social cohesion that has ultimately led young men from ethnic minorities to turn on their own society.

“Britain has a proud history of tolerance towards people of different views, faiths and backgrounds,” opined David Davis, the senior opposition Conservative member of Parliament (MP), Wednesday. “But we should not flinch from demanding the same tolerance and respect for the British way of life.” Another MP, Gerald Howarth, said if some Muslims “don’t like our way of life, there is a simple remedy: go to another country, get out.”

But even as government officials Tuesday began their campaign to reach out to Britain’s sizeable Muslim community, those who believe in the multicultural dream say it is already being eroded by the response to the attacks.

I wish I was seeing more articles right now comparing U.S. and European immigration policies.  It seems (at the surface at least) to be pretty clear that the U.S. admits immigrants who are more likely to succeed and assimilate than Europe does.  Part of this of course stems from the collapse of European empires in the twenty century, which often required giving citizenship to former subjects.  If Turkey had a problem being admited to the EU before, I think the events of the last month are not going to do anything to help their ambitions.

Other European countries such as France expect greater assimilation from their newcomers. Britain has taken a more hands-off approach, and its ethnic communities tend to be highly segregated, as a demographic map of London shows: Indians in northwest London; Caribbeans in Brixton; Koreans in New Malden; and whites in the suburbs.

Some community leaders insist that multiculturalism still works, that it has nothing to do with terrorism.

At its best, they say, it enables immigrants to settle more comfortably, retaining customs and culture while obeying British law. And it celebrates the diversity of Britain’s population.