September 1, 2006
MULTI AS IN NONE:
Incoherent on cohesion: Multiculturalism is fatally flawed, and the debate around it is poisoned by Islamophobia (Faisal Bodi, September 1, 2006, The Guardian)
Many people blame multiculturalism for encouraging a sparseness of common reference points and values, leading to conflict and segregation. They say the answer is to reorient our policy towards creating a society where people of different racial and religious backgrounds mix more and celebrate more what they have in common than what divides them. But beyond that limited consensus the suggestions vary from near-total assimilation to a multiculturalist integration that does not efface cultural difference but sublimates it to a shared national ethic.I have some sympathy with the latter view. Multiculturalism is fatally flawed, and not only because it encourages minorities to subdivide without placing a corresponding emphasis on cooperation and integration. Groups use funding to retreat into ghettoes and accentuate their specificity without contributing anything more meaningful than curries and carnivals to our national culture.
Multiculturalism is also a markedly secularising project. [...]
[I]slamophobic discourse has also infected the debate about multiculturalism, manifested in the assumption that Muslims cannot be loyal citizens. This belies the facts. A recent survey by the Islamic Human Rights Commission found that over 80% of Muslims saw no contradiction between their faith and being a good British citizen. And many of these cited religion as the main reason for their loyalty, suggesting that instead of excluding Islamic values, policymakers should be harnessing their potential for promoting social cohesion.
In fact, you can only be a good citizen if you adhere to a culture. Multiculturalism opposes culture. Posted by Orrin Judd at September 1, 2006 8:21 AM
Ain't it amusing to see Islamists embracing a term obviously modeled on the success multi-culti homosexuals have had with "homophobia?"
A better term would be something more like "misislamia", which builds upon the Greek word "misos", used in "misanthrope" and "misogynist", for example. Because it's not fear that drives people's attitudes, but a growing hatred for how Islam behaves.
So-called "Isamophobia" occurs when people get to know Islam for what it is and how its used, and how its adherents behave when they must make choices in which their Islamic beliefs are called into question or conflict with others beliefs. (For example, the deafening silence over the recent forced conversions by what is portrayed as a "crack-pot" fringe. In any other religion, such behavior in the name of the religion, if not loudly condemned by orthodox co-religionist, would be considered tacit endorsement.)
No, it's just a phobia, like folks beating dachsunds on the street or destroying their own when the US entered WWI. It takes a surpassing lack of self-awareness to imagine you're different than those who wanted the Nips rounded up and sent to concentration camps.
Posted by: oj at September 1, 2006 11:41 AM"... it's just a phobia, like folks beating dachsunds on the street or destroying their own when the US entered WWI."
Or folks burning witches, glorifyng train travel and demonizing regional jets.
JP
People believe in witchcraft.
Dachsunds aren't loyal to the Kaiser.
Posted by: oj at September 1, 2006 12:24 PM"Dachsunds aren't loyal to the Kaiser."
Nor anyone else. At least the dachsunds I've known. I'm a Boxer guy myself.
Um, the dog I mean. This doesn't need to degenerate into an underwear thread.
JP
Posted by: jefferson park at September 1, 2006 12:32 PMoj,
More than any other subject, you and I really part company on the Islamic issue.
As I've posited before, should you be able to go & ask every practicing Muslim on the planet "Allah has a word which, if spoken by a true believer, will cause Israel, and every Jew there, to cease to exist, do you want this word?", more than 95% would want to know the word!
Of course the French, probably 80%+, would want the word to pass on to the Muslims, as would at least 50% of today's Democrat Party.
There's absolutely nothing in Islam's 1,300 year history, nor it's current embodiment anywhere on the planet, that would lead one to believe there is anything approaching the individual freedom encompassed by Judeo-Christian thinking.
Mike
More than 95% of every group would want the word. The individual freedom of the West is catastrophic and anti-Christian.
Posted by: oj at September 1, 2006 10:32 PM