From a Net-friend (26.07.02): http://www.bu.edu/partisanreview/archive/2002/3/bawer.html this is worth reading right through, but here are some snippets: Yet many Muslim youngsters in the Netherlands attend private Islamic academies (many of which receive subsidies from the Dutch state as well as from the governments of one or more Islamic countries). These schools reinforce the Koran-based sexual morality learned at home-one that allows polygamy (for men), that prescribes severe penalties for female adulterers and rape victims (though not necessarily for rapists), and that (in the fundamentalist reading, anyway) demands that homosexuals be put to death. If fundamentalist Muslims in Europe do not carry out these punishments, it is not because they've advanced beyond such thinking, but because they don't have the power. in September 2001 (only five days, in fact, before the destruction of the World Trade Center), the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet reported that 65 percent of rapes of Norwegian women were performed by "non-Western" immigrants-a category that, in Norway, consists mostly of Muslims. The article quoted a professor of social anthropology at the University of Oslo (who was described as having "lived for many years in Muslim countries") as saying that "Norwegian women must take their share of responsibility for these rapes" because Muslim men found their manner of dress provocative. One reason for the high number of rapes by Muslims, explained the professor, was that in their native countries "rape is scarcely punished," since Muslims "believe that it is women who are responsible for rape." The professor's conclusion was not that Muslim men living in the West needed to adjust to Western norms, but the exact opposite: "Norwegian women must realize that we live in a multicultural society and adapt themselves to it." It is in such ways that freedoms begin to erode. If the only permitted way of talking about the topic is to reiterate insipid clichés in support of "the multicultural society," Europe is doomed. The notion that a foreigner-especially a dark-skinned foreigner-can become a Norwegian, a Dane, or a Dutchman, quite simply taxes the imaginations of many people in these countries. However liberal they may be, their pre-existing mental categories don't allow for it. For all the racial and ethnic hatreds that fill the pages of American history, Americans, even bigoted Americans, tend to be better at this than northern Europeans are; we are accustomed to the idea that a person from anywhere can become an American. This is, to be sure, not a virtue on our part, but simply an idea we are used to. ... It was, at long last, a stunning-and welcome-affirmation of the Dutch people's basic commitment to democratic values and to true integration. And it signaled that the Dutch, perhaps the most liberal people on the planet, have finally faced a crucially important fact: that there is nothing at all liberal about allowing one's reluctance to criticize another person's religion to trump one's dedication to individual liberty, human dignity, and equal rights. Tolerance for intolerance is not tolerance at all. Fundamentalist Islam is not a race or an ethnicity; it is an ideology. Its critics are not racists, any more than critics of Nazi or Stalinist ideology are racists. And as an ideology, furthermore, Islamic fundamentalism is something that people can be drawn away from. Fundamentalist Islam is not a race or an ethnicity; it is an ideology. Its critics are not racists, any more than critics of Nazi or Stalinist ideology are racists. And as an ideology, furthermore, Islamic fundamentalism is something that people can be drawn away from. Some of those who arrive in Europe as fundamentalist Muslims do indeed change their stripes, shedding narrow dogma and dangerous prejudices and learning to value tolerance and practice pluralism. It does not seem excessive to suggest that Western European immigration authorities (who have a superfluity of potential immigrants to choose from, and who are already in the habit of weeding out candidates on economic and other grounds) should begin to concentrate on screening for adaptability, accepting only those who seem likely to make an effort to fit in-and admitting them only tentatively, on the condition that they indeed adapt to democratic ways both outwardly and inwardly. This adaptation should be encouraged in every way possible. Muslim immigrants should not only be taught the language of their adopted country; they should be comprehensively educated in the ways of democracy. They must learn-no small order-to think for themselves, to read critically, to question. Most important, they must learn to question those things they have been taught to regard as most sacred. And they must be encouraged to see themselves as free individuals in a free land rather than as members of a straitjacketing subculture whose religion obliges them to take their marching orders from autocratic community leaders. Finally, these immigrants must be thought of-and must be encouraged to think of themselves-as full and equal members of the societies in which they live. European natives must appreciate what an accomplishment it is for people to become functioning members of societies radically different from the ones in which they were born. Those who do make the adjustment successfully deserve the utmost respect. To persist in calling them immigrants after they have been living and working in a country for years (and, even more outrageously, to use the same word to describe their European-born children and grandchildren) is not only offensive and insulting but staggeringly counterproductive.
top of page