Time Magazine runs a few comparisons about the fate of immigrants in Germany, The Netherlands and Britain in an article entitled Outside Looking In. The problem with these assessments is that no national situation is alike. There is a vast difference between for instance a Turkish immigrant hailing from an urban center like Istanbul who has made Berlin his home and a Moroccan from the Rif mountains whose journey in a time machine ended in Amsterdam. And in the case of France, its colonial past in the Maghreb plays an important factor in evaluating the suburban war that is currently raging. Different ethnic backgrounds, and thus different outcomes.

Media and bloggers from both the left and the right have over the past few weeks been unable to define Europe’s troubles in terms that go beyond “governments have failed” or “it’s a well-organized jihad”, and if they’re in between, they’re scrambling for an answer. Consequently the list of suggestions to find a way out of this mess is very limited. And belated security measures combined with opening up the checkbook for help – like the EU just did for France – are symptomatic of the naïve approach taken to date. Why don’t we start to look at ways so that “markets can work better” because if they don’t “a well-organized jihad may soon be a fact of life”?

One way to do this may be for the media to start differentiating between the success stories – like this blogger of Moroccan origin who at one point was part of the Amsterdam police force – and the unintegrated undercurrent that has failed to connect with mainstream society. It’s time to understand and report successful immigration better and to engage accomplished Muslims and ask them to contribute to a process of integration and finding market-driven solutions. Individual countries should be able to find such ways to solve problems while at the same time stepping up security and implement hard-line approaches to deviant elements. My fear is that the solutions offered up so far center around “government can probably fix it” and “in doing that we’ll probably avoid a potential jihad”. That are two assumptions too many. Time to start thinking outside the box.