On "modern" Europe

"As a result of announcing her parliamentary candidacy earlier this month, the young Muslim and Danish citizen has been thrust to the centre of a debate tormenting Denmark and the rest of western Europe - on the place and values of Islam in modern Europe and the treatment of large Muslim minorities."

For myself, the question has and always will be when 'modern' Europe and the 'West' will be able to acknowledge the other and accomodate different beliefs, not the other way around. The historical balance sheet against this particularly feisty and historically aggressive part of the world is in the red. At the risk of being extremely one sided, here is the list I could think of:

The Inquisition, check!
The Crusades, check!
Ethnic cleansing of south east Europe and Spain in the Middle Ages, check!
Ethnic cleansing and conquestion of North and South America, check!
Forcing China to allow the import and consumption of opium on a mass level, check!
Conquest and subjugation of the Aborigines in Australia, check!
Destroying Africa, check!
Slavery on an almost industrial level, check!
The Holocaust, check!
Two devastasting world wars check!
Colonialism and imperialism, check!
Inventing and using Weapons of Mass destruction check!
Biggest weapons proliferators in the world check!
The original instigators of global warming and environmental degradation, check!
Finally, Eurovision, check!

It seems to me Europe should be grateful it now has large ethnic minorities forcing it to do all this soul searching, it is Europe that most needs saving, from itself. Ghandi, when once asked what he thought about Western civilisation answered, "I think it would be a good idea". I agree with the man.