2/13/2008

Eurabia Watch

Authorities arrest three Muslim immigrants plotting to murder Kurt Westergaard, the Dutch cartoonist responsible for creating the now infamous Muhammad-in-a-turban cartoon. To celebrate, the newspaper reprints Westergaard's work. Right on.

Meanwhile, the Turkish Prime Minister declares Muslim assimilation in Europe is "tantamount to a crime against humanity."

Also, Dutch Catholics "rebrand" Lent as "Christian Ramadan."

"The image of the Catholic Lent must be polished. The fact that we use a Muslim term is related to the fact that Ramadan is a better-known concept among young people than Lent," said Vastenaktie Director, Martin Van der Kuil.

At the same time, Muslims in Oxford are pressing -- not so vainly -- to have daily prayers broadcast via megaphone from the minaret of a major mosque, despite the surrounding community being predominately non-Islamic.

And, last but certainly not least, 17,000 women in Britain are now being subjected to so-called "honor" violence every year. Read it and weep, Western society:

Up to 17,000 women in Britain are being subjected to "honour" related violence, including murder, every year, according to police chiefs.

And official figures on forced marriages are the tip of the iceberg, says the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO).

It warns that the number of girls falling victim to forced marriages, kidnappings, sexual assaults, beatings and even murder by relatives intent on upholding the "honour" of their family is up to 35 times higher than official figures suggest.

Ah, but don't worry about any of this, it's just a few rotten apples. Right, Jeff? Clash of civilizations wha'??

5 comments:

Jeff Hudecek said...

Ahha! I've been called out by name!

I have never defended such traditions and never will. I simply think it's unfair to ignore the Muslim moderates of the US when you characterize the religion. This belief comes simply from having known Muslims who are excellent people.

Jeff Hudecek said...

I should also add that I feel you and I have a disagreement about how to handle this type of thing.

My belief is that we solve such problems through education and leading by example. It's worked in the US, which has relatively no home grown Islamic extremism (almost all of the radicals here come from other countries).

Your solution seems to be "Islam bad rabble rabble rabble culture war war war." This is the stance taken by many in Europe, and if you haven't noticed, it tends to feed extremist propaganda and make the problem worse.

Integration > Isolation.

Philip Primeau said...

Yes indeed, integration does trump isolation. The thing is, it's the Muslim communities that are primarily responsible for their own exclusion. Many -- most? -- exhibit absolutely zero desire to abandon their medievalism and ethno-religious chauvinism. You can't assimilate unless you embrace the social norms of your new host culture, yet too few Islamic people truly understand this. They don't seem to realize that modern Western civilization is built on human dignity, on limitless inquiry, on intellectual and philosophical freedom, on civil liberties and social rights. Those are the very principles responsible for unleashing the great power of the West. And we didn't claim them easily -- plenty of barbarous pagans and Christians (and atheists !!-- hello Robespierre!) were slain to secure our free commonwealth. But now that we've made these great strides, they must be vigorously protected. That means rejecting folks who come here looking to undermine them. Period, end of story.

Philip Primeau said...

Yes indeed, integration does trump isolation. The thing is, it's the Muslim communities that are primarily responsible for their own exclusion. Many -- most? -- exhibit absolutely zero desire to abandon their medievalism and ethno-religious chauvinism. You can't assimilate unless you embrace the social norms of your new host culture, yet too few Islamic people truly understand this. They don't seem to realize that modern Western civilization is built on human dignity, on limitless inquiry, on intellectual and philosophical freedom, on civil liberties and social rights. Those are the very principles responsible for unleashing the great power of the West. And we didn't claim them easily -- plenty of barbarous pagans and Christians (and atheists !!-- hello Robespierre!) were slain to secure our free and democratic commonwealth. But now that we've made these great strides, they must be vigorously protected. That means rejecting folks who come here looking to undermine them. Period, end of story.

Jeff Hudecek said...

But the American Muslim community HAS integrated quite well. There's even a Muslim member of Congress for goodness sake.

I feel you're right about some blame for failing European integration falling in the hands of Muslim communities, but I disagree that it's exclusively their fault.

Culturally, many European nations are much more homogenous than the US. They basically aren't used to dealing with all the trials and tribulations that come with multiculturalism, whereas we've been going through such trails for centuries. Their response is typically to shut out outsiders, not hiring them or allowing them a chance at climbing the economic ladder (see: France and its Islamic community).

I don't think that approach works. It just drives the wedge in farther and increases the desire for Muslims to move towards radicalism simply as a measure of being overly defensive as is often the case when cultural minorities feel attacked.

In the US, Muslims do not typically find themselves the brunt of public or institutional racism (though there is some, don't get me wrong). This, in my view, is the model that should be followed by countries in Europe. They need to begin the complicated task of making Muslims feel like they have a place in their society.