Who were the people staring at you Fishman? If they were muslims, then they're stupid, if not well thats not suprising. The moment you look like the 'other', your bound to get stares, especially if you live in an area where it's not very racially and culturally mixed. You get used to it after a while though.
Anyways as for england and living in here as a muslim, its okay. To be honest i never personally had any problems here, not untill 9/11. After that, everything got a bit weird and suddenly people would act all funny around me and yea you get the odd verbal agro but despite that i still think england is proabably the best country for muslims compared to the rest of europe.
I've been to:
France
Germany
Sweden
Finland
and i've got close family and friends who are citizens of:
Holland
Switzerland
Denmark
Belgium
but are now living in england and trust me, england is heaven for muslims compared to these nations, including the ones i visited. Most of these countries are very xenophobic and racist (with the expection of sweden). Despite their claims of being very tolerant, in particlar Holland which has always claimed this lie (and this is long BEFORE the murder of theo van gogh and all that saga with ayan hersi ali), its almost impossiable for muslim and non white citzens in general, regardless of religion, to move up and progess in these socities. You can spend 20 years in their country, learn the language, go through in the education system (like my uncle), have your kids born and raised in the country and still find yourself living in the ghetto slums, in the poorest districts of the country. You cant get into top positions in jobs, if any decent jobs at all, because of the districts you live in your kids cant go to better schools (as in france) and as a muslim, expect yourself to find getting a job difficult especially if you wear hijab or have a long beard or have a muslim/african/arab/turkish name. And you can forget about even trying to get mosques open or islamic schools as regulation on muslims is tight. Although you do find masjids in them countries, you might only get a very small amount and planning regulations etc.. are made very difficult, especially since 9/11, war in afghanistan, iraq, madrid bombings, 7/7.
alhamdualiah the situitaion in england is a million times better, so i dont think us muslims over in the u.k should get worked up, because relaity is, our brothers and sisters in the rest of europe, who are more then us in number, are finding life much harder over there as muslims.
