Radical Islam and multiculturalism

In our apologetics class at church, we discussed Islam last week. We focused on the beliefs of this faith as well as ways to approach Muslims with the good news of Jesus and Christianity. Of course, the issue of sharia law and other features of radical Islam came up, but we didn’t want to get bogged down exploring the political and cultural landscape that changed so drastically after 9-11.

However, an article that recently appeared in The Wall Street Journal entitled “Cameron’s Multicultural Wake-up Call” made me think about the folly of the Western world over the past 10-20 years that has a tie-in with radical Islam. During that time period we have had educators, political activists, media stars, and others tell us that we needed to embrace all cultures. Now, in general that sounds fine, exploring the good things from people all over the world. But the real message from these multicultural supporters was to denigrate the Western culture and to suggest all cultures were the same. Those who disagreed were branded racists.

Just the other day, a major Western politician discovered how stupid this view was. 'Multiculturalism has failed," said British Prime Minister David Cameron last weekend in Munich. He was echoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who had said the same thing a few months ago. Finally, Europe's mainstream party leaders seem to be realizing what others have long noticed: Multiculturalism has been the most pernicious and divisive policy pursued by Western governments since World War II.

State-sponsored multiculturalism in Europe ended up Balkanizing the Western nations that bought into the theory. It judged that the state should not "impose" rules and values on newcomers. Rather, it should bend over backwards to accommodate the demands of immigrants. The resultant policy was that states treated and judged people by the criteria of whatever "community" they found themselves born into. This led to some bizarre situations. In 1984, a British school principal named Ray Honeyford politely suggested in an article in the Salisbury Review that it might be a good idea if students at his state-funded school were able to speak English and did not disappear to Pakistan for months at a time. The result was a rash of accusations of "racism," which willfully ignored his arguments and precipitated the end of his career.

The multicultural model may have continued a lot longer if it hadn't been for radical Islam. The terrorist assaults and plots across Britain and Europe—often from home-grown extremists—provided a breaking point that few intelligent people could ignore. The fact is that Britain, Germany, Holland and many other European countries have nurtured more than one generation of citizens who seem to feel no loyalty toward their country and who, on the contrary, often seem to despise it.

This should be a wake-up call for those of us in the United States. We must reject mindless babbling about the joys of other cultures and how much better they are than our own Western variety. We can’t allow groups living within our borders to stay within their cultural walls and refuse to blend into our society. Please read my blogs on The Grand Jihad, which illustrates examples of this happening right here in our country. We have to defend the strengths and virtues of what we have here.