Now, Mr Lewis is certainly not an off the wall common tater. I doubt that he would add fuel to the fire, even to the Jerusalem Post, just for kicks.
[quote]Islam could soon be the dominant force in a Europe which, in the name of political correctness, has abdicated the battle for cultural and religious control, Prof. Bernard Lewis, the world-renowned Middle Eastern and Islamic scholar, said on Sunday.
The Muslims “seem to be about to take over Europe,” Lewis said at a special briefing with the editorial staff of The Jerusalem Post. Asked what this meant for the continent’s Jews, he responded, “The outlook for the Jewish communities of Europe is dim.” Soon, he warned, the only pertinent question regarding Europe’s future would be, “Will it be an Islamized Europe or Europeanized Islam?” The growing sway of Islam in Europe was of particular concern given the rising support within the Islamic world for extremist and terrorist movements, said Lewis.
Lewis, whose numerous books include the recent What Went Wrong?: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East, and The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror, would set no timetable for this drastic shift in Europe, instead focusing on the process, which he said would be assisted by “immigration and democracy.” Instead of fighting the threat, he elaborated, Europeans had given up.
“Europeans are losing their own loyalties and their own self-confidence," he said. “They have no respect for their own culture.” Europeans had “surrendered” on every issue with regard to Islam in a mood of “self-abasement,” “political correctness” and "multi-culturalism,” said Lewis, who was born in London to middle-class Jewish parents but has long lived in the United States. [/quote] jpost.com/servlet/Satellite? … 2FShowFull
So the Muslims are going to take over Europe are they? The Europeans have been trying to take it over for centuries. The quickest way to deal with any invasion will be to invite the rapscallion invaders to Brussels and bury them in paperwork. Then tie them up in red tape and throw them into a wine lake or bury them in a butter mountain.
Whether you think Islam is a threat or the Religion of Peace™ come to save us all, if birth and immigration rates in Europe remain constant, Islam will be the predominant force in most of Europe in the next 25-50 years. Several European cities along the Mediterranian coast will be majority Muslim in the next 5-10 years.
I agree with Lewis’ assessment of post-Christian Europe’s self-image. Self-abasement, multi-culturalism, and political correctness are Europe’s death tolls.
And let’s not forget the armies of Stanley knife-wielding “hoodies” maintaining racial law and order in Britain’s inner cities and outlying housing schemes. We’re quite safe, I think.
I think the experience of the secular Turkish government over the last 80 years demonstrates the separation of mosque and state is not a popular idea with the masses. Twice the military had to displace the weakened government in order to prevent Islamist uprisings.
Why do you believe this? Only a small number of immigrants are political refugees, and among those few there as many escaping from secular dictatorships (like Uzbekistan) as Sharia states (like Iran).
A former student of mine emigrated to the United States from Turkey because the Turkish government refused to let her wear her hijab in school. She was very religious and followed Islamic proscriptions and prescriptions to the letter. That’s ancedotal of course, but everything I’ve ever read on the subject leads me to believe that most Muslim immigrants are neither religious fanatics nor refugees. Most are simply looking to make better lives for themselves and their families. But as I have argued repeatedly, there is nothing in the Islamic scriptures akin to “give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, give unto God what is God’s”, nor is the division of religion and governance a common feature of Islamic culture or beliefs. Even in non-Sharia states such as Morocco, which a couple of years ago expanded women’s rights significantly, aspects of Islamic law are incorporated into its politico-legal system. Apostasy is punishable by a few years in prison, for instance, as opposed to death. Ditto for homosexual relations and blasphemy. In the West it is expected that our leaders will champion the division of church and state, even if they are personally religious. In fact there has long been an intellectual tradition in the West of disdaining openly pious individuals, particularly public figures. Religion is something most people think should be essentially private. In the Islamic world the concept of personalized religion is alien and nonsensical, as is the dichotomy of mosque and state. Whether or not Muslim immigrants in the West are going to adopt Western beliefs is still very much an open question. Significant minorities of Muslims in Britain and Holland favor Islamic rather than secular governance, and Islamism is on the rise throughout Europe.
However, it is still largely unacceptable to address these issues in our public discourse. Anybody who does so is immediately labeled an “Islamophobe” or some such rot and the debate ends. I’m interested to see how Lewis –vaunted in the Muslim world as a great scholar- will be treated after this recent revelation.
[quote=“gao_bo_han”]…as I have argued repeatedly, there is nothing in the Islamic scriptures akin to “give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, give unto God what is God’s”, nor is the division of religion and governance a common feature of Islamic culture or beliefs. Even in non-Sharia states such as Morocco, which a couple of years ago expanded women’s rights significantly, aspects of Islamic law are incorporated into its politico-legal system.
[…]
However, it is still largely unacceptable to address these issues in our public discourse. Anybody who does so is immediately labeled an “Islamophobe” or some such rot and the debate ends. I’m interested to see how Lewis –vaunted in the Muslim world as a great scholar- will be treated after this recent revelation.[/quote]
Funny, I heartily disagree with Lewis’s ‘class of civilizations’ thesis. I read his books and disagree with many of his interpretations, but I respect his research and scholarship. I don’t know if you’ve read his stuff, but even he disagrees with your take on the line (or lack thereof) between Islamic governance and religion. And once again, it’s a matter of how these things are put into practice.
[quote=“Jaboney”][quote=“gao_bo_han”]…as I have argued repeatedly, there is nothing in the Islamic scriptures akin to “give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, give unto God what is God’s”, nor is the division of religion and governance a common feature of Islamic culture or beliefs. Even in non-Sharia states such as Morocco, which a couple of years ago expanded women’s rights significantly, aspects of Islamic law are incorporated into its politico-legal system.
[…]
However, it is still largely unacceptable to address these issues in our public discourse. Anybody who does so is immediately labeled an “Islamophobe” or some such rot and the debate ends. I’m interested to see how Lewis –vaunted in the Muslim world as a great scholar- will be treated after this recent revelation.[/quote]
Funny, I heartily disagree with Lewis’s ‘class of civilizations’ thesis. I read his books and disagree with many of his interpretations, but I respect his research and scholarship. I don’t know if you’ve read his stuff, but even he disagrees with your take on the line (or lack thereof) between Islamic governance and religion. And once again, it’s a matter of how these things are put into practice.[/quote]
I read Lewis, and I too disagree with some of his interpretations, but not the same interpretations that you disagree with I’m sure
[quote]Islam could soon be the dominant force in a Europe which, in the name of political correctness, has abdicated the battle for cultural and religious control, Prof. Bernard Lewis, the world-renowned Middle Eastern and Islamic scholar, said on Sunday.[/quote]“Could” – forecasting; outside of very clear, short-term demographics, it’s notoriously difficult guesswork.
“in the name of political correctness, has abdicated the battle for cultural and religious control” – conservative reaction against pluralism. Society’s abdication of cultural and religious control is both part and parcel, and an extension of (lower case) liberalism. In Europe, there are societies which have to a greater extent embraced some sort of multiculturalism (UK) and those have favored integration (France). Each has problems. In North America, Canada has embraced multiculturalism, while the US has not, and both societies are better off vis e vis immigrant integration than their European counterparts. So, playing pin-the-tale on the multiculturalists doesn’t seem to be the route to go.
Not a great start, is it?
Tell you what. Here are a couple of relevant Fukuama essays. I disagree with him, but at least he’s being serious in wrestling with the issues. See what he has to say, and compare it to Lewis and Huntington’s theses. Identity Crisis Identity and migration
[quote=“Jaboney”] Identity Crisis
[/quote][quote]
If you want to see a real problem with cultural assimilation, look no further than European countries like France and Spain, who have discovered after Sept. 11 that they are host to angry second- and third-generation Muslims prone to terrorism and violence.[/quote]
I happen to think that the problem here has been a overly warm and fuzzy approach to multiculturalism. It’s like so cool that we are like so different…blahblahblah, and it has led to European Muslims in particular NOT assimilating because there is actually pressure from the host country to STAY in your little groups, and the implication is that it is because “We (host country) don’t want you in our group.”
It’s interesting that Funkyllama says the Mexican/Hispanic immigrants[quote]
… tend to be socially conservative, want to learn English and assimilate into the American mainstream, and were even supportive initially of California’s Proposition 187 (denying benefits to illegal immigrants) and 227 (ending bilingualism in public education).[/quote]
But nooooooooooooo, whitey don’t wanna hear that because if we can’t cattle prod them into “their” groups for their own good, then we don’t love them enough. Ya know, if immigrants weren’t willing to give up who they had been in their home country, they wouldn’t have left in the first place.
Oh, and bilingual education blows. It is as ruinous a program for immigrant children as affirmative action has been for Black wannabe lawyers. :raspberry:
Interesting articles. The first is a review of Huntington’s new book, I take it. I pretty much agree with his conclusion:
Assimilating Christians who largely share our values to begin with is going to be far easier than assimilating a people whose religion identifies us as offending God by our very existence.
But I also agree with this:
That is one of my objections to unchecked immigrations from Mexico. What the Mexicans failed to do by force in the 19th century they could accomplish peacefully in the 21st century: exerting hegemoney over its former Southwestern colonies.
The second article went on a little long and I didn’t read it all, but Fukuyama demonstrates the same unwillingess to address the tenets of Islam itself as do many other Western intellectuals. When he says,
he is right, but I disagree those countries are spending millions of dollars building fundamentalist madrassas and mosques all over the world, including in Canada and the US by the way, because of an identity crisis. They do it because they believe God has commanded them to spread Islam, and naturally they are spreading their literalist version, which they too believe to be the only true Islam. I think even you Jaboney would be alarmed by the typical Wahhabi rhetoric spewed in their mosques. Wahhabism has been the most prolific form of Islam in the past thirty years due to Saudi oil billions, and trust me when I tell you Wahhabism is hardly tolerant.
Fukuyama had a few factual errors which annoyed me:
I hardly think using the example of Cordoba-born Maimonides is a good example of Islamic tolerance. During Maimonides youth the Almohads crushed the the Almoravid caliphate and seized control of Andalucia. They declared the Jews in Cordoba as having broken the traditional the dhimmi contract (in fact, the Jews had merely sided with the Almoravids) and were thus presented with the following options, allowable under Islamic law:
Conversion to Islam.
Exile (this was a generosity on the part of al’Mumin actually, not part of Islamic law)
Death.
Most of the Jews chose exile or death, incidentally, to the great chagrin of Abd al-Mu’min (the successor to ibn Tumart who founded the Almohad caliphate). We know through his biographers that al-Mu’mim assumed most of the Spanish Jews would simply convert to Islam and choose to stay in Spain. He was furious when they metaphorically spat in his face. Anyways, Maimonides family left Cordoba along with hundreds of other Jewish families. The Jewish population of Cordoba was completely eradicated, and has never been restored.
The Jews in Baghdad reference likewise fails to take into account the pogroms of the late 14th and early 15th centuries, or the anti-Jewish riots in the 1940s. Today there are less than 50 Jews in Baghdad, and only one synagogue.
Having said that there were plenty of Jews who flourished brilliantly under Islamic rule. Ever read Lewis’ “The Jews of Islam”? He discusses the ups and downs of the Jewish communities in the Islamic world throughout history. Here’s a relevant quote on tolerance from the opening chapter of the book:
(warning, about to sound somewhat Fred Smithian here)
My tendancy is to think that successful assimilation is less about whether a country accepts some sort of social/philosophical multi-culturalism and more about whether the country lets them establish a home of their choosing, put food on the table, lets them go about their business as they see fit, and generally holds them to the same standards as they do anyone else. So far the U.S. and Canada have done that more effectively than Europe. Granted, part of it is that Muslims who make it to North America are more likely to be wealthy, educated, or ambitious, and part of it is sheer size. However, a lot of it is that the U.S. and Canada for the most part don’t have a lot of restrictions that keep people from putting down roots and becoming stakeholders in society.
