The death of multiculturalism

Many years ago when we toured Hawaii, Naomi and I visited a historical site
in the north east corner of the big island (I think it was called Kukii
Heiau). It consisted of a raised platform made of many stones, flattened on
top. The ranger explained that it had been one of the most important sites
for human sacrifice on the islands. Naomi asked him when they had stopped
making human sacrifices, and he said the 1700's. Whereupon she uttered the
terribly politically incorrect statement, "how primitive." The few people
present stared at her and there was an audible intaking of breath. She had
transgressed the limits of liberal western culture, in which after having
been the worst imperialists and murderers of "natives," one was now expected
to acknowledge the best in every culture, treating them all as equals, and
expressing guilt over past transgressions. I didn't point it out, but our
Jewish culture had stopped human sacrifice some 5,000 years before then.
This phase of multiculturalism in which all cultures are good and all are
equal, has reigned in the West since the 1960s, spurred on by the civil
right's movement in the US. Multiculturalism is defined as "participating
in the cultures of different countries, ethnic groups, or religions, and
supporting integration by advocating or encouraging the integration of
people of different countries, ethnic groups, and religions into all areas
of society." Now tell that to the Parisians! In many areas of Western
societies there are large minorities (10-30%) of Muslims, who not only do
not want to be integrated into Western culture, but want to destroy it. In
the face of this hostility and outright violence, the concept of
multiculturalism flies out of the window.
When we were living in the diaspora, growing up in England, the idea was to
keep your head down, don't make too much noise, don't embarrass yourself by
being a "loud" Jew. When I was in the US many years later, I did make a
nuisance of myself, demonstrating for Israel and for Soviet Jewry. But, the
idea that Jews would riot and burn cars and buildings was completely
foreign. There was an over-riding cultural imperative that we wanted to
integrate into our societies (to the point of assimilation) while at the
same time the society put up barriers against us. From the 60's onwards, as
Western society took down those barriers to integration of minorities, the
minorities became more assertive and less interested in assimilation.
Muslims see the world in black and white, no shades of gray, they divide the
world into two spheres, that of Islam and that of the infidel. If you are
not a Muslim you must be an infidel and therefore you are subject to
different laws and treatment. To Muslims the concept of human or civil
rights does not apply to infidels. Some of them have learned to live with
it in the West, and some have even adopted democratic norms themselves.
But, they are a small minority, a western-educated elite. When I was in
college I had an Iranian friend Sorejeh Magineh who was crazy about
classical music. She would queue up for hours to get tickets to the
Festival Hall, and was apparently assimilated into western culture (I wonder
what happened to her). But, any idea that the majority of western-educated
Muslims would integrate into western society was destroyed in the London
tube on 7/7 and in Paris this month.
When he was in power in Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini said that when a Muslim
meets a Jew, if he didn't accept Islam, the Muslim should kill the Jew to
take him out of his misery. This was the religious/spiritual leader of a
nation of 60 million people. Now that Pres. Ahmedinejad has continued that
policy of "wiping Israel off the map.." some people have been surprised.
But, we must not forget that the world view of devout Muslims is not liberal
like those of the rest of us. They want the opposite of multiculturalism,
they want their own culture and belief system to be dominant, and many of
them will do anything to achieve that.