From the NYT Magazine, a lengthy piece that outlines the practical dangers of a multiculturalist social philosophy that pays too little attention to assimilation, and that refuses to pass decisive judgment on the Other:
Today, Britain has more than a million and a half Muslims. A million live in London, where they make up an eighth of the population. They are not just the refugees and tempest-tossed laborers of the developing world, large though those groups may be. London’s West End is full of Saudi princes and financiers, and journalists and politicians from around the Arab world; its East End is home to erudite theologians from the Indian subcontinent, along with some unhinged ones. In the 1980’s and 90’s, a hands-off government allowed London to become a haven for radicals and a center for calls to jihad. Culturally and politically (and theologically and gastronomically), London ranks among the capitals of the Muslim world and is certainly its chief point of contact with the United States and the rest of the West. Since last July 7, when four young British Muslims used backpack bombs to take their own lives and those of 52 others on London’s public-transport system, getting information out of the city’s various Muslim communities has become a desperate preoccupation of British law enforcement.
Lord Carlile of Berriew, a Welshman who is Britain’s independent reviewer of counterterrorism laws, has wide access to classified intelligence about terrorism plans. He is the last person you would expect to hype the dangers. For one thing, his party, the Liberal Democrats, has reaped electoral gains by opposing Tony Blair’s war on terror, particularly Blair’s belief that Iraq is a front in that war. For another, Lord Carlile has made a name for himself as a civil libertarian  a champion of legal underdogs from the terminally ill to the transsexual  and civil libertarians are the ones who have led the opposition to antiterror measures. “How serious is it?” he asked, sitting beside a conference-room table in his law chambers off the Strand on a sunny morning this spring. “Very. Complacency, tempting though it is, is the worst possible attitude. We’ve been fortunate we haven’t had more attacks. There will be more.”
British unease about terrorism has deepened in recent weeks. In early June, hundreds of London police officers, backed by chemical-weapons experts, raided a row house and shot a man in Forest Gate, a heavily South Asian neighborhood, reportedly acting on a tip that some kind of cyanide device was inside. They discovered nothing  aside from hostile neighbors and the outrage of several influential Muslim organizations.
Not long before, a report on last summer’s bombings, issued by the Home Office, which is in charge of national law enforcement, told a disturbing story of normal English Muslim kids turning into terrorists. Three of the bombers were Englishmen of Pakistani descent from Beeston, a neighborhood in Leeds. One was a Jamaican-born Muslim convert from nearby Huddersfield. A few years ago, all of them would have been considered part of the new, multicultural England branded “Cool Britannia” in the press and bragged about by government and citizens alike. Especially demoralizing was the posthumous video message of 30-year-old Mohammad Sidique Khan, the ringleader, which was broadcast on Al Jazeera two months after his death. His claims that Muslims were being mistreated throughout the world were familiar enough from other suicide-bomber videos. But Khan’s thick, native Yorkshire accent  like something that had strayed out of a film adaptation of a Brontë novel, or a documentary about striking miners  was disheartening to British viewers. By then, Khan’s white childhood friends had made it known that they had called him Sid and had been really fond of him. One told the BBC, “I just thought of him as a Beeston lad, and that’s what he was  a Beeston lad, born and bred.”
—Until he became a radicalized Muslim jihadist, that is. But then, such is the power of identity politics—and make no mistake, this is the natural drift of political activism in any country that adheres to model of the ethnic “quilt” (the postcolonial theorist’s multicultural model) rather than the national “melting pot” (the assimilationist model of the US, which has been under siege for years from within the academy)—that it both facilitates and reinforces balkanization, and promotes differences that can then be exploited by those looking to push a grievance agenda. And it is from just such a structural imperative that the all too easy jump is made from the identification of particularized, group-driven grievances to a defensive (and ultimately belligerent) us vs. them mentality. Once that leap is made—and its narrative bolstered by the religious and historical “mandates” preached by radical Islamists who establish themselves as guardians and teachers of the official Word—the separation from the host society is both complete and (perversely) justified.
Most disturbingly, in the case of radical Islamism, the acceptance of the official Islamist narrative by its newly acculturated adherents demands a repudiation of many of the laws of the host state. Which is how in Germany, for instance, a newly elected German-born chairman of the Moslem Central Council of German can come to say, “A constitution after the principle of the division of powers into the legislative, the executive and the judicial powers, is nowhere to be found in the Islamic theory of the State. From an Islamic viewpoint, this is obvious, since the laws—the laws of God—in the form of sharia, are already made and thus no legislative power is needed, in that sense of the word. Only Allah is the legislative power.”
And it is at this point that the multicultural model finds itself in a state of tension with the mandates of nationalism and a singular rule of law—something critics of multiculturalism had long warned against. That is, the kind of boutique multiculturalism that proponents of the multicultural social model found so progressive and chic (in England, “Cool Britannia”)—and which was always presumed to be tempered by western rationalism –inevitably finds itself at odds with the far more serious demands of a truly (strong) multicultural model. And having providing the philosophical grounds for allowing Otherness to determine acceptable cultural practices, it becomes difficult for adherents of the multicultural model then to draw consistent and coherent lines for what is and is not permissable. Or to put it more simply, boutique multiculturalism opens the door to the demands of strong multiculturalism—demands that a host country simply cannot meet without losing its own national identity.
Hence, schisms. And hence, Londonistan.
So far, the US has largely been able to withstand the pressures of cultural relativism—though any legal victory that gives identity groups special status under the law is always necessarily paving the way for potential challenges by other groups for equivalent special dispensations. This is why hate crime laws or “race”-based affirmative action are each so problematic—not for their intent, but for their practical legal impact: they establish precedents under which group-based grievance politics can both thrive and become institutionalized. And as I’ve pointed out here on many other occasions, there is great danger in any movement away from legal individualism—which is the precise aim of the so-called “diversity” movement.
Of course, that’s just my opinion. YMMV.
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update: With thanks to Dan Collins, related pieces from the Daily Ablution and David Thompson.
One of the great strengths of the United States (and to a slightly lesser extent all western democracies) is that we allow almost anyone to emigrate to our country.
One of the great weaknesses is that we no longer expect and encourage assimilation into our nation.
Far too many emigrants physically reside within our borders without joining the nation that exists there. Rather they seek to import their former nationality with them.
It has been clear to those of us who oppose multiculturalism that there is no benefit to encouraging this behavior, much less in endorsing it. Rather we see these behaviors as the threat to our nation that they are.
TW: certain as in multiculturalism is a certain path to destruction
I think it goes further to facilitate ghetto-ization…with all of the economic, political, and social impairment such a state brings about which only aggrivate the conditions that are highlighted by the “grievance culture”.
After all, part of this concept of multiculturalism is the need to stay “authentic” to one’s own cultural system…which cannot be accomplished without access to the systems, rituals, and “items” (a better word escapes me) of that culture. Nor can such authenticity be accomplished without an individual supplicating oneself to the very culture they are supposed to venerate.
Given these requirements, you end up with the cultural ghettos of the early 20th century- culturally isolated from their neighboring areas, forced to do business with each other due to the linguistic and cultural walls built up from the inside and outside…
Really, even from the perspective of a social progressive, such experiments are dangerous and almost certainly doomed to re-create the conditions they spent a century trying to combat.
Jeff & Company,
You may have missed the Guardian “interview” with Melanie Phillips. It played out amusingly on The Daily Ablution. If you get a chance, check out her comment below Scott’s post.
http://dailyablution.blogs.com/the_daily_ablution/2006/06/guardian_attack.html
That’s why the way we handle the illegal Mexican immigrant situation wis important: it has ramifications way beyond our relationship with Mexico.
Unlike the UK, the US has a very strong libertarian streak in it. Beyond a certain point, if Islamists are allowed to try to shred our legal fabric, I can see it coming to violence. A great portion of the American public will not come quietly.
You mean all the illegal mexica… oh , excuse me, “immagration legitimency challenged hispanic psudeo-americans” at the MSL game that wouldn’t stand for the “Star Spangled Banner” weren’t just tired.
I had just assumed that they were worn out for our obvious worker class explotation of cheap labor. I never knew it was because they just like our money, not our country.
Luckily, the left’s lunatic hatred of Christianity will most likely prevent any religion from being acceptable culturally. For now, anyway- until Islamists can show they are not as crazy as the Christians.
Oh they love our country, it’s our nation they reject.
“Ghetto” implies economic hardship. And Saudi princes and Arab intellectuals only live in ghettoes if they are ghettoes of their own making. I don’t think this is not an economic problem. Well, except insofar as welfare states allow some members of grievance groups the public financing to sit around and hatch terrorist plots while on the dole.
– From all evidence the Muslims, by their very nature, and certainly from the mandates of their religion, are commanded NOT too assimilate. Has anyone addressed that aspect of the “problem”?
– I seem to remember something about “all lands that have been tread upon, forever revert to the nation of Allah”, or something like that. Doesn’t sound like a recipe for “assimilation”.
hardly. If an excuse cannot be made on the pretext that “as a minority culture, we must embrace their beliefs or be seen as shunning them”, the acceptance of Islam will be done aestetically…
I struck out on “aestetically” with wordweb and Funk and Wagnalls.
If the intent was aesthetically, I miss the intrinsic beauty of misogeny, xenophobia and head chopping savagery. I’m sure it’s a personal defect or the comment was satire. Or maybe the Islamists are just misunderstood.
I’ll pretend to CAIR.
This is simply not true. Old cities, like those on the east coast or places like Chicago or St Louis, have certain areas that are ethnic from previous groups of immigrants (Irish, Polish, Italian, etc). The Hill in St Louis comes to mind where non-Italians are just not really able to buy a house.
What has changed is that un-assimilation is expected and encouraged. This idea is promoted by our elite-wannabes who imported it from Europe (our betters) who created it simply because it is not the American way.
The American way makes no requirements towards assimilation, but it cuts no breaks either. In the public sector anyway, ie, no multi-cultural/lingual voting, public schools, traffic signs, etc…
Given the realities of the world today, people are just going to have to accept living in multicultural societes.
Putting out what amounts to anti-immigrant, nativist claptrap is not going to change anything. In fact, it might make things worse, by discouraging assimilation.
My advice? Can the nativism. It won’t fly in this day an age….
Living in multi-ethnic societies and living in societies run on multiculturalist social philosophies are two very different things, Carl. Which you’d know, if you bothered to read.
Zing!
Firstly, I believe Ian Blair is manifestly incorrect in his approach and in his assertion that 99.9% of the Muslim community in Britain are law abiding ‘normal’ citizens. It has been demonstrated throughout history that freedom fighters, of whatever colour, need the support of their communities in order to operate. This support may be active, it may be passive, but they do require support. It is clear that these terrorists are receiving this support internationally.
Secondly, the circumstances we endure today of globalized terrorism, not localized freedom fighting, is in large part due to the widespread acceptance in the West of relative morality. Now, I’, not talking about whether you are a fundamentalist Christian or a relativist atheist. I’m talking about the tendency in the West to relativize everthing. We are perilously close to a situation in which everyone
. In other words relativism.
It is this attitude that allows journalists to glibly say, when a bomb goes off in a cafe in Israel, or a bus blows up on the streets of London, that one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter. There is little thought given to the issue that killing innocent people indiscriminately is simply wrong. It is now, somehow, excusable. Not necessarily because such-and-such a nation was abused by the Imperialist Western nations in the past, but simply because the perpetrators are freedom fighters.
Thirdly. This is a war. This is as much a war as the First and Second World Wars. The difference in this war is that it is being fought in our backyard, and we are imminently vulnerable.
People are dying, and will continue to die, as a consequence of this war. It is a shame that it is not being managed as a global conflict except by the leaders of the British and American nations. It is a greater shame that the liberal press seek to undermine the efforts of their leaders at every opportunity.
I’ve got to agree with jdm, but I sure am glad that the Japanese bend enough to use romanized signs for us gaijin.
Any evaluation of whether we’re encouraging assimilation probably has to be one that considers at least a couple of generations, since assimilation has traditionally taken two (generations, that is). We can take a snapshot at any time and make guesses about whether then prevailing policies or trends among immigrants or our society as a whole are likely to result in more or less assimilation than in previous generations, but for the most part, such snapshots are just incomplete compilations of anectdotal evidence, skewed to support one side or another’s viewpoint. If anyone has any data that suggests that second generation immigrants, whether or not their parents came here legally, have assimilated to degrees or at rates which differ significantly from previous generations, I’d like to see it.
So far, I haven’t heard of too many second-generation immigrants who identify with the impoverished homeland of their parents more than with their adopted American homeland. And I haven’t heard of any who come to the US in the hope of collecting a welfare check or otherwise surrendering to the independence-sapping plague of big-government largesse urged on us by the left. That’s probably the best reason to lean toward a pro-immigration position, and even seriously consider an amnesty for at least some who came here illegally. Not open borders, but let’s not ignore the merits of welcoming people who are willing to work hard for a living and eager to keep what they earn.
MarkD raises an interesting point – how assimilationist are the Japanese? My impression (and it’s purely that) is that they’re very open to incorporating any number of culturally-imported ideas, but that’s as far as it goes.
A number of you on here have time on the ground in Japan, either currently or in the past – is Japan a melting pot, or merely pragmatic in what it adopts and rejects from other cultures?
Former Dem,
I think that works with most cultures but with the religious element and Islamic law I’m not sure if this will work under that model.
And as Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, and Vermontâ€â€and the academy, and Hollywood, and the left-blogosphere, and the Dean campaign, and [etc.]â€â€amply demonstrate, the latter is a governing ideology only contingently (propagandistically) attached to the existence of any actual racial or ethnic variety.
Implications obvious.
Master Tang: From my observations of Japanese culture, I conclude that Japan is far more capable of assimilating foreign ideas (and all their consequences) than of assimilating actual foreigners; it is the inevitable result of being island-bound and isolated for the past 17 centuries.
Relevant link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arudou_Debito
Michael – many thanks. That was the impression I gathered from what little I’ve read on Japanese history and culture, that the meme or idea is embraced, the source of the meme or idea not so much so.
Michael is correct. My wife was born and raised in Japan but is now an American citizen, so therefore somewhat outside the norm. Acceptable, but barely.
I’m a foreigner, period. Our children are foreigners as well. Had they been born and raised in Japan, they’d still be foreigners. The word for foreigner, gaijin, literally means “outside person.”
Now being a foreigner isn’t all bad. The Japanese will make a lot of allowances for cultural gaffes because they know you don’t know any better. A decent attitude helps. As does being caucasian. As does knowing some of the language.
This could be a Hiroshima prefectural thing, but Koreans are looked down upon, as are other East Asians. That may be changing – I’m in my fifties, and much of what I know is generational. I don’t think my kid’s peers feel that way.
The relationship with the Chinese is a special case. There is at least an intellectual acknowledgement that much of the culture (and the Kanji used in writing) come from China. So there is a sort of inferiority complex, as well as a sort of sibling rivalry in play.
The Japanese are a very open minded and tolerant people. They willingly adapt products, ideas, and concepts from other countries and cultures. Immigrants, not so much.
I would offer the hypothesis that there is an esoteric and machiavellian core to the multicultist-prodiversity agitation; which has no love or respect for its minorities, and which would enthusiastically sacrifice every last one of them, in order to win the dictatorship.
On the outside they say equality, antiracism, tolerance and a dozen other slogans. To an inner core of a very few leading lights, who know what they’re doing and have no illusions, its about how to get power, in countries which have been resistant to despotism. In Japan and EEurope, there is no indulgence of this sort of multiculturalism.
The routes to power there would be more direct.