Posted on 06/28/2006 9:15:10 AM PDT by FreeKeys
Demise of multiculturalism can help root out terrorism
Jonathan Alter - For the Journal-Constitution
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Multiculturalism, rest in peace. There may have been no obituary for the notion that every group and every belief in a multiethnic society is deserving of mutual respect and tolerance. But thanks to jihadism, multiculturalism and moral relativism --- its necessary counterpart --- are now 6 feet under.
Signs of multiculturalism's demise first began to appear in Holland, a nation that officially embraced its precepts in 1983. In theory, the Minderhedennota, or minorities policy, extended the Dutch tradition of tolerance to a growing population of minority groups --- largely from Islamic nations --- that had immigrated to Holland.
In practice, however, the recognition of group rights conflicted with the protection of cherished individual rights. Multiculturalism created a political morass in which a religious fundamentalist subculture that denied the equality of women and castigated homosexuality could challenge national secular law.
Controversial filmmaker Theo Van Gogh recognized this contradiction. And for raising the issue of individual rights in the 10-minute movie "Submission," Van Gogh was murdered in 2004 by an Islamic extremist who shot him eight times, slit his throat and then staked a rambling manifesto into his chest that predicted the destruction of Holland, all of Europe and the United States.
Britain indulged the same multicultural fantasies. Then Britons were shocked to learn the terrorists who carried out the July 7, 2005, bombings in London were homegrown lads.
Moral relativists had a plausible explanation for these acts of violence. Van Gogh was an acerbic critic who had attacked Muslims in offensive ways. And Holland and Britain were, after all, charter members of the coalition of the willing in Iraq. Like the bombings in Madrid on March 11, 2004, the attacks in London could be rationalized by terrorism fetishists as the asymmetrical response of an aggrieved party.
But the explanations become even more tendentious when applied to the plot to carry out a series of bombings in Canada --- the birthplace of multiculturalism --- storm Parliament and behead the Canadian prime minister. As in Britain, the plot appears to be significantly homegrown.
But the Canadian political and media classes have been vocal opponents of U.S. policy in Iraq and the broader war on terror, an amplification of traditional criticism against the powerful and often-despised giant on Canada's southern border.
If multiculturalism bit the dust this month in Ontario, then a court in Paris put nails in its coffin. No Western country has shown greater antipathy toward the United States and greater official sympathy for the alleged roots of terrorism than France under President Jacques Chirac. But on June 14, a French court sentenced 25 Muslim extremists for plotting to attack the Eiffel Tower and the Les Halles shopping complex, among other targets.
Multiculturalism has been the enabler of radical Islam in Western countries. The multiculturalist conceit makes it tragically possible for Islamic extremists to transplant the violence and oppression and backwardness that many Muslim immigrants to the West tried to escape.
Millions of them have come to Europe, Canada, Australia and the United States from the Islamic world in recent decades to improve their lives in ways that were inconceivable in their native countries. Most came for economic reasons. Some came for political or religious reasons. Yet a minority among those immigrants, succored by multiculturalism, has contrived to leech off the civil liberties of Western democracies and use their talents to plot the carnage of 9/11, 3/11, 7/7 and more.
Mutual respect for that kind of intolerance is nothing short of national suicide.
> Jonathan Gurwitz is a columnist for the San Antonio Express-News. His column appears occasionally.
Ohhh... the author is Jonathan Gurwitz, not Jonathan Alter as stated near the headline. (I read the article with my mouth agape shocked that Alter would ever write anything this conservative.)
You said it! That's a great quote...and nothing could be closer to the truth...
I saw that too. No effing way that smarmy, effete, hate-America, self-hating, Bush hating Alter could have written this piece. Alter bows at the altar of multiculturism. Its part of his liberal religion. Alter also cried when Algore was unable to steal the election.
Doh! I didn't catch that (it's at the very bottom even though the PAPER had Alter at the top)!
MODERATOR: PLEASE change the author named at the top to Jonathan Gurwitz.
Thanks,
FreeK
Oh, how I wish it were true.
Sounds too good to be true.
This from the Constipation?
"Jonathan Gurwitz is a columnist for the San Antonio Express-News. His column appears occasionally."
I read it the same as you...mouth open and hoping that a lefty had seen the light. I should have known better. I was all ready to ping a bunch of people with the good news that we are turning some of the America haters.
This article surely does nail it though...right on the head!!
They planned for islam to dominate...and instead it will be shown the door. Heh, heh.
Me too. Right now Alter is likely demanding a clarification under threat of suing the AJC.
"Jonathan Alter - For the Journal-Constitution
Wednesday, June 28, 2006"
Still there as of now. hehe.
"Multiculturalism is social poison. Toleration of intolerance isn't sophistication. It's suicide." -- Jack Kelly
“Civilizations die from suicide, not murder” -- Arnold Toynbee
"Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil." -- Thomas Mann
Barone's quote has a lot of truth to it.The problem is what culture in the world will be humble enough to ADMIT that it is morally inferior?
Answer-none.
Good ones! At the risk of sounding like an old lady - which I am, although a cool old lady - I don't like what I see going on...Ruth Bader Ginsgerg wants to lower the age of consent to 12?! As if first menses makes a girls brain fully functional!?
Seeing Alter's name attached to the article, I assumed that hell had frozen over.
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