Too large to see.
By Paul J Cella Posted in dhimmitude | Immigration | the Jihad | War — Comments (11) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
There is a famous crack by Chesterton to the effect that it is possible for things to be too large to see. The huge and obvious becomes invisible under certain pressures. Take, for instance, this very useful, if dispiriting catalog of capitulation, presented ably by Mr. Bruce Bawer in City Journal. His thesis is simple enough: “Motivated variously, and doubtless sometimes simultaneously, by fear, misguided sympathy, and multicultural ideology,” he writes, “people at every level of Western society, but especially elites, have allowed concerns about what fundamentalist Muslims will feel, think, or do to influence their actions and expressions.” Dhimmitude. “Westerners have begun, in other words, to internalize the strictures of sharia, and thus implicitly to accept the deferential status of dhimmis — infidels living in Muslim societies.” Bawer goes on to detail at length the many ways in which Liberalism is capitulating to an armed doctrine that, in most of its specifics, is implacably hostile to Liberalism.
Well and good. Mr. Bawer has proven himself in many respects a careful and daring observer. He is several steps ahead of most people in his appraisal of the problem. Yet the curiosity, the frustration, is how blind he is to some elementary observations. In this he is hardly alone. There is in fact a whole cottage industry of writing like this, where the huge and obvious has become invisible.
In the course of a 4000-word essay, Mr. Bawer makes use of variations on the word “immigration” exactly twice, by my count; and both times it is used descriptively, rather than analytically. It seems that this whole surrender of the West to the rigid code of sharia, this forfeiture of our freedom to an alien tyranny, is going on, right under our noses, in perfect innocence of Western immigration policy. Islam is a kind of force of nature, against which Liberalism, lacking certain qualities of heroism, is impotent. Jihad is not so much an armed doctrine, held or freely adopted by living men, as a contagion.
What is huge and obvious is that our immigration policy exposes us to the Jihad. What is huge and obvious is that continuing to increase the number of Muslims entering our country, and other Western nations, will increase our exposure to this armed doctrine; will increase the strength of those whose position is already strong enough to impose upon our Leftists and Liberals the surrender that Bawer describes so vividly.
Not The Image We Need — Comments (42) »
Too large to see. 11 Comments (0 topical, 11 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
My post has nothing to do with Hispanic immigrants. It has everything to do with Muslim immigrants. My proposal is that we stop them from coming here.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
When illegal immigration is mentioned everyone thinks of the fence and Latinos coming up through Mexico. Proposals to fix immigration generally revolve around this same issue.
In Texas I don't see a problem with massive quantities of Muslims. I don't even really see a problem with Latinos, they work hard and are generally morally upstanding people; it's the second and third generation poor that become problematic, but this isn't restricted to illegal immigrants, it's an American problem in general.
In short, we don't have a Muslim problem, Europe does. We could potentially, but I'd guess that the percentage of Americans identifying as Muslim isn't increasing from immigration.
I would encourage you to read the Bawer essay in response to your assertion that "we don't have a Muslim problem."
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
The Bawer essay focuses too much on other countries, it isn't necessarily applicable to the states. Others below point out that America might have no problem due to the fact that we assimilate better than other cultures.
And your cite mentions some 90,000 legal immigrants, and I doubt there are very many illegal Muslim immigrants. This web page says that there were over 1.2 million immigrants in 2004. Whites could be a minority by 2050 at these rates, but it won't be because of Muslims. Also, last time I checked Mormonism was the fastest growing religion in the States.
But hey, don't let facts stop you from being scared of having Sharia law imposed in the United States - and this when atheists, another growing segment of the population, are so damned vocal about separation of church and state.
Yup. If you think this particular tolerant agnostic has a problem with religious encroachment by American christians, you ain't seen anything. Not that it'd ever happen, but I'd take up arms to prevent the imposition of sharia.
I see a large [GIGANTIC] problem with illegals coming over the border (where would we even start, but let's toss out 'swamped health care system' for a starter), and I see, in DFW, a disconcerting amount of influence exerted on behalf of traditional Islam (most of it by PC wusses, i.e., dhimmies).
Open your eyes. It's there. It's insidious. It's growing.
Kill the terrorists
Protect the borders
Punch the hippies -- Frank J
I have seen far more anecdotal evidence that American muslims are assimilating than I have seen evidence that they are not. Western Europe is having a very hard time digesting their immigrants because they are significantly less welcome to immigrants PERIOD. Setting aside their willingness to take refugees that we often won't, Western Europeans have a lousy track record when it comes to how they treat immigrants who are culturally different from the locals.
One of the greatest assets this country has is its ability to take in all kinds of people and bring them together more than it leaves them apart. Have faith in America. It's handled immigrants of all stripes for ages, and it will continue to do so.
Muslims writ large aren't the problem. Muslims who choose to cling to that identity because they are unable to find purchase in their new home, THAT'S the problem. A handful of extremists will get in sure, but frankly that's apt to happen anyway. The real problem is whether or not that virulent strain of hate spreads throughout the immigrant community. It has *not* happened yet. If we treat these new Americans as Americans first and foremost, they never will succumb.
We don't have banlieu's (or however the hell the French spell it). We haven't imported a Turkish or Moroccan underclass to do our dirty work for us. Most of the muslim immigrants I have known are educated professionals. Not at all the same, and fearmongering begets more fearmongering.
I cannot countenance keeping out thousands, tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of good prospective Americans because of a handful. Screen better, sure, but excluding a group based on their religion is absolutely the wrong approach. It only feeds the belief that we are wholly opposed to them because of their faith.
This kind of fearmongering is EXACTLY what the terrorists want. As soon as you lump all "those" people together, the terrorists become the ones fighting against this oppression. Could you imagine if we said we didn't want anymore evangelicals coming into this country because a tiny handful subscribe to the radical notion that we should blow up abortion clinics? Can you imagine if we said we should stop allowing Mormon's in because a few subscribe to the idea that we should build massive desert ranches and have insestious relations? NO because that would be absurd.
It's that kind of talk, that all Muslims, if theyre devout, must be terrorists that is CAUSING more terrorism. If Muslims feel unaccepted by the majority they'll turn inwards and more towards radicalization than they otherwise would have. THAT is the problem in Europe. Don't play into their hands and peddle that trash.
Whatever your race, creed, color, gender, sexual orientation, economic status, whatever are- if you want a grievance, they will help you find one, and get us to pay for it.
Well that was profound and on point. I can certainly understand the muslim immigration issue far better for having read it.
First of all, I don't know what our "immigration policy" is--can you define it? I'm assuming you mean the tolerance of large numbers of Latin Americans coming into America to work, who are not American citizens. If so, then it might actually be the right policy to encourage this to continue.
Why? Demographics.
The Islamic "jihad," as you call it, isn't coming from that direction. The terrorists have streamed into our country from the north, from Canada, or through the international airports of major U.S. cities. Yet nobody is demanding a fence be built there.
The radical Muslims we have in America either have visas, courtesy of our visa waiver program with Saudi Arabia, or else they're even American citizens, like the American Muslims in Dearborn Michigan who openly support Hezbollah.
One of the strongest weapons of the "soft jihad" is population. Muslims have been breeding rapidly, and in countries where they have become a sufficiently large minority (as in several countries of Europe), they are so militant as to terrify their host country into submission. They get to be a large minority because the host population is relatively static.
We shouldn't make that mistake. To put it crudely, it's nowhere near as bad to have Christian illegal aliens from Latin America, as it is for Europe to have Muslim illegal aliens from Pakistan.
MI-5 would gladly trade THEIR Muslim immigrants for OUR Hispanic immigrants any day. OUR Hispanic immigrants don't go around preaching the overthrow of the British and U.S. Governments. They don't quote Sura 9 of the Quran to justify violent jihad. All they want is employment, even at low wages.