This article puts forth the thesis that the cartoon riots are forcing the Dutch (and the rest of Europe) to come to grips with the limits of liberal multiculturalist attitudes when some mutli-cultural values and European values collide. The point is that these riots are forcing Europeans to choose between competing values and reject the thesis that all cultural perspectives are equally valid and worthwhile.
It’s a straw man; how many Europeans have ever really believed in some sort of absolute tolerance ? How many, say, would tolerate Aztec style mass human sacrifice ? How many are tolerant of neo-Nazis ? If Mengele showed up alive and claimed his depredations were OK, because experimenting on prisoners was toleated in his culture, do you really think the average European would shrug his shoulders and say, "Well, I guess you’re off the hook "?
Oh, sure, I’m sure there are some loonies like that; there are in America, after all. I doubt it’s anywhere near a majority, however. The question is, are the Europeans going to decide that Islamic culture is now on the list of things they won’t tolerate.
They may have wider limits than America, but they’re there.
It’s easy to hold hands and speak about the merits of multi-culturalism so long as we limit it to the difference of quaint little customs, clothing. language, religion, etc. Multi-culturalism becomes a more difficult pill to swallow when it includes having to accept philosophies you may find morally abhorrent.
“Multiculturalism doesn’t work” has become a mantra, used as a disguise for Islamaphobia. Nobody complains about being unable to accomodate Sikhs, or Jews, or black Americans. It’s only about Muslims and Arabs.
This is a meaningless statement, given that the vast majority of Muslims find it perfectly possible for their religion to sit happily within European society.
As I cited in another similar thread. The most recent poll of Muslim attitudes in the UK found 40% wanted Sharia Law in predominantly muslim areas. That is not ‘sitting happily.’
Sharia Law is a fundamental part of Islam. There is no ‘secular’ and ‘religious’. Islam obligates Muslims to strive for an Islamic society. The fact that Canada has accepted sharia law in some spheres, albiet heavily circumscribed, does disturb me.
In this respect I’m afraid there is a fundamental mismatch between core western values and Islam as manifested in Sharia Law. This is where multi-culturalism is faced with a problem and I think in europe there is a change going on. I’m writing this from a liberal perspective too.
Nothing wrong with learning about each other’s cultures but I draw the line at Sharia Law and the associated social customs active in the Muslim community. Particularly regarding women. I’ve snuck through Birmingham with a Muslim girl who’d run away from her family and knew if her brothers spotted us they would kill us.
Sure - some day someone might spin a ‘reformed’ Islam but at the moment we deal with the ones we have. Which in terms of the politics of the Middle East and the spillover into domestic politics, is not all Enlightenment cuddly.
Somehow multiculturalism has to both support and encourage integration of minorities into our society, but also defend core values such as freedom of speech from a significantly unreformed fundamentalist ideology that wants no truck with such things. And deal with social practices we find unacceptable in ways other than turning a blind eye.
IMHO the government of the UK is dealing with this issue in the wrong way; by compromising free speech by making ‘hate speak’ a broadly defined crime and extending the influence of religion in schools. And the Iraq war has hugely set back integration - making a young generation choose as they see it, between being British and a Muslim.
A mutual agreement to use Sharia law in decisions such as divorces sounds reasonable to me. That survey was atrocious because it did not define Sharia. It was about as meaningful as asking Christians “Should society be based around Christian beliefs?”
No. Sharia Law, in whatever main school, is a highly developed legal code in no way as woolly a ‘christian beliefs’. It’s as unwooly as specifying the conditions under which you can beat your wife, and how thick the rod can be.
And you may be happy with sharia law in Canada but I see the thin end of the wedge. I also ask myself how ‘voluntary’ agreement can be in a community whose beliefs grant women only a secondary and subservient position.
I don’t need one. This one is perfectly suited. It’s the people who believe Islam is somehow akin to the Anglican Church that need a broader one. There is no liberal way to define Sharia Law and no influential liberal interpretation and you can be damn certain that when those surveyed were thinking of sharia law they were not thinking of some mythical liberal friendly variant. They were thinking ‘women as property,’ Islamic restrictions on free speech and savage punishments for gays.
And as the head of the Commision for Racial Equality said recently in response to the survey. That 40% are free to decant themselves to a more suitable country forthwith.
Tolerance is one thing. Even the most arch-conservatives I’ve ever met (and I’ve met some which make Pat Buchanon look like Ted Kennedy) have Tolerance for many things they don’t agree with. We all agree to be tolerant to some degree or another.
I do not think a moral society ought to be tolerant of things it believes are evil. Which should include violence, repression, etc.
Multiculturalism, as it is used today, has some serious negative issues. It tends to get conflated (in the minds of its proponents, even) not with tolerance but with moral relativity, to the degree that we have right to talk or criticize something we are not a part of. (To which I would note that the very people who promote this idea do not practice what they preach.)
This relates to Edward Said’s influential but intellectually bankrupt moral positions, which sought to criticize western superiority complexes over the “east.” Though Said had a point, he extended it way, way too far and came to conclusions which were philosophically and morally untenable. And of course, his evidence was actually rather thing. The end result of his doctrine is that no one can ever really criticize anyone else, under any circumstances.
Europe’s issue today is multi-culti versus tolerance. The two are not the same at all.
Good points. My position is that western societies need to defend secular liberal values against fundamentalism of any ilk. In the UK the problem is with Islam’s claim that religion sits at the heart of politics, society and law. This is fundamental to Islam and IMO completely incompatible with my values.
Imperialist that I am I believe secular liberal values are superior to Islam as delineated by its major schools and as practiced in every society it holds sway.
And I don’t think liberal societies should compromise one inch on this. I’m sick and tired of the UK Govt’s attempts to mollify Muslim opinion by restricting freedom of speech and opening the education system to even more religious influence.
While I am not usually all that happy about modern Islam in any form (even my relatively liberal [classic sense] Muslim friends tend to be overly fundamentalist), I will state that the problem is not primarily Islam per se, but Arab and South Asian islam. Both of these forms are aggresssive, murderously so, and given to totalitarian forms of repression.
Indeed, even other Muslims tend to despise Arabs (although admittedly, this may go back to older animosities; Arabs are not so well respected in the Middle East as you may think, and are supposedly stereotyped as barbaric, stupid, and arrogant). Muslims in Europe are schizophrenic, caught between extreme secularizing and religious poles. Because of problems with money, many are poor and angry. These are, while pathetic and sometimes violent, not as dangerous as those who turn toward radical Islam (often funded by Arabs) for solace.
For me it’s an issue of numbers. It’s hard enough to be accepting and tolerant of others when they are a very small minority. It becomes near impossible when they start becoming a larger, more powerful group.
It really comes down to how accepting should a country or culture be? That is, should they be so accepting that their very own culture and way of life is absorbed or destroyed by another group?
Put another way, will Europe only be considered “tolerant” after they have all converted to Islam and adopted Sharia law? An absurd example to be sure but it’s indicative of the current notion of “tolerance”. At the moment it’s clearly a one-way street. That is, tolerance is only being demanded of Western countries and their peoples.
My take on it is thus, while it is important to be respectful and tolerant of other peoples and cultures it is not so important such that you sacrifice basic core values of your own society. If those values are under threat due to the movement of large numbers of people who do not accept your cultural values then immigration should be curtailed or eliminated.
I believe multi-culturalism can work but only when there is generational assimilation (meaning several generations of little or no immigration) as well as constant support for a home or core culture even if such culture is at odds with the beliefs or cultures of those immigrating into that country.
If one views what is happening 9in Western europe0, as an islam colonization of the continent, a lot of things become clear. first; the colonists import their customs, mores, and ways of life 9e.g. “sharia”). next, the colonists adapt the native economy toward supplying thier needs 9this means building mosques, changing local laws to allow for muezzin calls, making fridays a "holy’ day. Third, the colonists begin to displace the native inhabitants (look at the relative birth rates of native swedes vs. muslim immigrants). the last stage of colonization will be when the native inhabitants are a minority, and have their laws , customs, and mores removed by the imported ones. I suspect that Europe will enter this phase in about 30-50 years.
That’s a rather scary prospect Ralph124c and one that I have heard expoused before. It’s one of the reasons why I think we need to limit or place a moratorium on immigration into Europe from certain Islamic countries. This would allow both cultures to grow and adapt generationally. Would it really be a good thing if a country like Denmark became majority Muslim?
