I’m sitting here watching Walid Phares speak on Fox News about the terror attack in Belgium. At least 26 reported dead and many more injured. Phares was one of the first people to be called when 9/11 happened over 15 years ago.
His 2005 book Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies Against America made predictions that are now coming true. Those who wanted to destroy Western thinking would do it over a long duration of time by expanding methodically into our religious and educational institutions, research communities, law and legal systems, mass media, industry and civil societies and non-government organizations for starters. All the while public trust is eroded while terrorists strike and the idea of what Jihad actually means is diffused by ignorant and fearful politicians and academics not wanting to be perceived as racists or loons.
Phares notes:
“The first time I read about jihad was in middle school, in my native Beirut, Lebanon. I attended classes in more than one school in different parts of that small multiethnic country. At the time, there was no major media debate about jihad, as everyone had just one understanding of what it was. It was part of history, part of the dominant culture, and so it was never questioned. Decades later, after I relocated to the United States in 1990, I had my second encounter with the word. But this time it was in the center of a public debate and the object of much intellectual and academic wrestling. In the sophisticated elite establishment of America, the term “jihad” brought unease, even before September 11, 2001. But the concern was not about what jihad might mean for the future. High-profile professors, respected journalists, and political activists were trying to diffuse the tension surrounding the word and deflect its historical sense. In most literature, scholarly articles, public lectures, and lobbying and social efforts related to Middle East politics, as well as religious studies and interfaith activities, there was a constant attempt to portray jihad as a spiritual phenomenon that could be and was abused by extremist ideologies and radical political factions who were making it into something it really was not. In the early 1990s, I was stunned to read and hear the western establishment making these tremendous efforts to convince audiences and readers of the benign character of jihad; in the Middle East, for the most part, the term retained its age-old, unreconstructed meanings. Jihad is not benign, and the West’s denial of that fact was terribly ironic. By instinct and as a result of my personal and professional background, I realized the enormity of what was happening: The United States was paving the way for its own defeat, by blurring its vision, confusing its mind, and moderating its reactions to the early danger signs, not to mention the terrorist strikes to come. It was clear that the nation turned a blind eye to the historical definition of jihad, the one that would really come to matter.” –pg. 18
Any hard look at Brussels today will tell you that multiculturalism in Europe has failed and the attempt to spoon feed Islam to a disaffected public has proven equally deadly to those who did and did not welcome it. Sadly, many Europeans asked for it, got it, and the Jihadists delivered it but upon Europe’s leaders deaf ears. The innocent are murdered because of the stupidity of those who fail to see the truth.
Let’s be clear here-the idea of an inclusive, diverse society is a dream that cannot exist without some kind of structure in place to keep it from going southwards. Great ideas exist in the minds of dreamers but reality needs pragmatists with realistic yet noteworthy goals. Jihad upon the world, as imagined by a peasant mindset, is not one of them. Sadly, it is the intellectual moron (smart people who fall for dumb ideas) who are equally to blame for this mess we’re in.
Dictionary.com defines multiculturalism as “the preservation of different cultures or cultural identities within a unified society, as a state or nation.” Multiculturalism is a beautiful theory but it doesn’t work if the society doesn’t require the culture to integrate at some level and become unified. Our national motto is translated from the Latin E Pluribus Unum, to “out of many, one.” The multiculturalist might seem to think, “Out of one, many.” Someone has gotten it bass-ackwards.
Rome understood immigration and so too did ancient Babylon. Oh, but they would pay. There were a few choices that could be made when one culture abutted another; destroy the other culture, leave it alone, or integrate with the culture. In the end Babylon and Rome both fell. Any short term experience gained by their integration proved untenable. Babylon fell to the Medes and Rome fell to everyone else. There were various reasons for this but largely it was diversity overpowering unification.
Excessive immigration without demanding enough integration erodes all social cohesion. A national identity in Britain, Germany or France and everywhere else is undermined because multiculturalism increasingly encourages inter-group segregation. But let’s not state that it’s everyone one failing to launch-it is those dedicated to Islam so much so that they do not dedicate themselves to walking in anyone else’s shoes. A society will never be unified if it preserves the culture of one at the expense of all others.
There is a great reluctance, no there is a complete refusal, to conform to local norms and this has led to a stubborn isolation on the part of the Islamists. Violence is their way of making others conform. Not all Muslims are terrorists, to be sure, but large numbers of radical Islamists are willing to kill in order to impose Sharia Law upon the world.
The damage is being done.
President Nicholas Sarkozy once said of multiculturalism. “The truth is that, in all our democracies, we’ve been too concerned about the identity of the new arrivals and not enough about the identity of the country receiving them. This raises the issue of Islam and our Muslim compatriots,” he said.
“Our Muslim compatriots should be able to live and practice their religion like anyone else … but it can only be a French Islam and not just an Islam in France.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared that multiculturalism in Germany has “utterly failed.”
British Prime Minister David Cameron warned once that multiculturalism is directly contributing to homegrown Islamic terrorism and it fosters extremist ideology. In his Feb 5th, 2011 speech to the Munich Security Conference, Cameron said: “Under the doctrine of state multiculturalism, we have encouraged different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each other and apart from the mainstream. We have failed to provide a vision of society to which they feel they want to belong. We have even tolerated these segregated communities behaving in ways that run completely counter to our values.”
But none of these liberal minded politicians have provided sensible alternatives to the failures they brought in over the last 50 years of the multicultural experiment. Why won’t they change their thinking?
Because for the leftist, a forced cultural integration is a key part of destroying traditional cultures in order to gain global control of everyone with an opinion.
Liberal minded Denmark prided itself on an exceptionally open culture and look at the damage occurring there. How about it Rotherham, South Yorkshire England where it has emerged that more than 1,400 girls were brutally attacked and raped by mostly Muslim men. No one spoke up because they didn’t want to appear to be racists.
We are seeing news reports of jihadists travelling back and forth between Europe and the Middle East to plot out attacks on civilians. Multiculturalism has not yet done the damage in the U.S. that it has in western European countries but it’s coming here by the thousands. Millions of Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Mormons, Jews and Muslims can find peace here but they integrate.
Those who are adherents to those major faiths and are from different cultures do not have to adopt our Western Judeo-Christian values but they understand the idea of Americanism- the qualities regarded as definitive of America or Americans.
America does not expect them to fully integrate. They only have to give respect to what others believe. To find the excellence of any culture or faith is to investigate whether it values life and acknowledges the supremacy of love over hate. But let’s be clear, if our politicians and nation doesn’t put some serious controls on reckless immigration, prudent immersion and respect for America then I say, “you can keep your multiculturalism and I’ll keep the things that protect me.”
Multiculturalism creates a divided society with no common beliefs or values. It is not a better social model than assimilation and you can keep it. Belgium it is time to wake up.