Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses the little-noted difficulties involved in integrating Muslim populations in Western countries:
On an NPR station I heard a very smooth-talking Muslim from Holland, like Hirsi Ali only in that she is, apparently, also a member of the Dutch Parliament, speak about how there is "fear on both sides" -- Dutch and Muslim -- and that Muslims who feel problems of "identity" embrace "Islamism" because, she said, they simply cannot go back to Turkey or Morocco (why not?) because they are now "Dutch."In what sense, exactly, are they Dutch? What is it about the Dutch laws, customs, manners, or history that they comprehend and fully identify with? Anything? Or is their "Dutchness" merely a matter of where they are, geographic happenstance -- and then also a matter of knowing Dutch, or possibly a bastardized form of it, which will not do as a definition of "Dutchness" that should satisfy any of the Dutch themselves, even if at one time it seemed to?
She did not explain this, this plausible sounding lady, who spoke excellent English and who no doubt would welcome the "integration" of other Muslims -- that is, their being well-versed in the local languages of whatever Infidel country they happen to have settled in, and well-versed enough in the way the locals think to better appeal to them, better conduct propaganda and apologetics, either to deflect any criticism of Islam and Muslims, or to actively conduct Da'wa among the Infidels.
And the height of absurdity was reached -- though apparently the interviewer, on a program called "The World," did not find it absurd – when the lady said that the poor Muslims were being asked to choose between their Dutch identity and their Muslim identity. This, she insisted, was like asking someone to choose between his mother and his father. But the analogy is false. In this case, Islam is not the loyal wedded spouse of Holland and the Dutch. Islam, rather, is an alien creed. To be sure, plenty of Believers in exotic creeds alien or new to the West have managed to fit in perfectly well, and be friendly neighbors and loyal citizens, even if they came from Vietnam or India or China. Only one group, only one belief-system, distinguishes itself by appearing incapable of fitting in. And that is Muslims, and Islam. For their belief-system does not envision a Holland, an Italy, an England, a France. Islam does not distinguish between the various components of one single unit, the Dar al-Harb, the regions of the world were Islam does not yet reign and Muslims do not yet dominate. The analogy, while it may have fooled some and won sympathy for local Muslims in Holland who are "forced to choose between their mother and their father," is ridiculous.Now there is a problem in France. Will government-funded monitored mosques, language teaching, and affirmative-action programs for Muslims (but not for all those non-troublemaking Vietnamese, and Chinese, and non-Muslim blacks from sub-Saharan Africa or the Caribbean, Hindus and Sikhs, since these people can integrate, and so there is no need to do special favors for them) solve the problem? It will not.
"Integration" will only lead to a loss of precious time. It will continue to hold out hope, when there is no hope for real integration. What is in the Qur'an, the Hadith, and the Sira, though it may not always be fully comprehended or distributed, remains, cannot be changed, and can always be appealed to by any Muslim who wishes. There is no way that those so-called, very slippery "moderate" Muslims can suggest that no, it is the "extremists" who are untrue to Islam. They aren't untrue. They are perfectly loyal Muslims, good and righteous followers of that exemplar Muhammad. No Muslim can contend otherwise, although of course that is what many Muslims are doing -- attempting to make Infidels believe that there is no problem, or that the problem can somehow be fixed. Yet they never tell us exactly how they are going to change those texts, those passages in the Qur'an, the Hadith, the Sira. And they cannot explain, and will not discuss, the real history of Muslim conquest and mistreatment of non-Muslims. For that matter, they will not explain, nor discuss, the treatment of Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, Zoroastrians (yes, about 150,000 remain in Iran), and all other non-Muslims. Why won't they? Because they can't.
If integration can't work, except to benefit Muslims and keep the day of Infidel comprehension from arriving in time, and if non-integration can't work, what then?
At this point some will prefer -- since there is no solution that we find "thinkable" -- not to think about anything, and to go back to the previous state of denial. Just pretend that somehow things will work out. Pretend that Islam is not what it is. Pretend that the spicy lamb with cumin you were served at a Mosque Outreach Iftar is all ye know about Islam, and all ye need to know. Umm, the food. Umm, Muslims can be so nice, so soft-spoken, so hospitable. And that chicken with pita! No, there will have to be something a bit more substantive about the tenets of Islam. But if one really knew what Islam contained, as not all Muslims born or raised in the West may quite realize, then how could any decent person remain a Muslim? Hard to explain the hold of this belief-system on so many who cannot, out of some kind of diseased loyalty, insist on standing up for it. They needn't.
The solution is to stop all Muslim migration to the Lands of the Infidels, and wherever possible, to reverse it. This can be done by taking care to ruthlessly enforce the immigration laws when it comes to those who, by virtue of their beliefs, are not unreasonably deemed to constitute a group that supports, actively or passively, those who do not wish this or any Infidel country well, in its laws, customs, manners, understandings, and will work, are required as a duty to work, for the triumph of Islam --and hence for changing those laws, those customs, those manners, those understandings.
And along with it, in ways little and big, the country can be Islam-proofed the way a house is child-proofed. Instead of letting the Saudis buy land and build mosques, and paying for the upkeep and the staffing of those mosques, let them be monitored so that no foreign money, or any money judged tainted, can be used to pay for mosques or madrasas. Monitor what is said in khutbas. At the first sign of hate-preaching, do not merely be satisfied if a congregation removes the current imam. Close the mosque. Put everyone on notice that this kind of thing cannot go on. Nor can it be allowed in any of the textbooks used in madrasas. Close any madrasa that makes allusion to smiting the Unbelievers. Since the division between Believer and Infidel is so central to Islam, and since the Jihad is a virtual "sixth pillar" of Islam, it should not be hard to find ways to limit the spread or practice of Islam. And if in addition to whatever local, state and federal government officials do, private parties simply conduct their own boycott of goods and services offered by Muslims, in the same way that they would have refused to buy, in 1938, a German Voigtlander camera, or in 1953, to buy Baltic amber from the Soviet government's official trading-with-the-West ministry, Vneshtorg or something like it. Why should one buy an oriental rug, or dates, or curry powder, from people whose presence, in merely swelling Muslim ranks, will inevitably swell Muslim political power -- which, in turn, makes the lives of Infidels, in the end, more insecure?
If people born into Islam are at long last free to investigate fully what Islam is all about, and having done so, they still insist on remaining loyal to Islam, there is no reason for Infidels to support or indulge them on some specious theory that Islam cannot really teach what it teaches, and that adherents of Islam cannot possibly want what they are taught, according to Islam, to want: the spread of Islam, and the submission of all non-Muslims to, at best, the status assigned them in Islam of dhimmi.
Why should we tolerate this? On what theory? On what grounds?
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"Why should we tolerate this? On what theory? On what grounds?"
Mainly because of our pathological need to see ourselves as modern, progressive and tolerant I'd say. Not to mention the billions invested in the pretense that Islam has something more to offer us than just terrorism, rioting, the death of free speech and artistic expression, homophobia, Jew-hatred, female genital mutilation, limb amputation, gang rape, stoning to death for victims of gang rape, hanging underage girls from cranes in public parks etc.