06/01: The Future of Multi-Cultural Societies
Category: American Culture
Posted by: an okie gardener
When a society abandons faith and confidence in its own worth, and ceases to demand a reasonable level of social integration and assimilation, the result is a mulitiplicity of enclaves who happen to share national borders.
Such a future is coming into being in Great Britain. One result is that it is increasingly dangerous for non-Muslims to live and work in Muslim dominated areas of Britain, so says Michael Nazir-Ali, the Pakistani-born convert from Islam who now is a Bishop in the Church of England. Story here from the Telegraph, link from Jihadwatch.
Some excerpts:
The Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester and the Church's only Asian bishop, says that people of a different race or faith face physical attack if they live or work in communities dominated by a strict Muslim ideology.
. . .
Bishop Nazir-Ali, who was born in Pakistan, gives warning that attempts are being made to give Britain an increasingly Islamic character by introducing the call to prayer and wider use of sharia law, a legal system based on the Koran.
In an attack on the Government's response to immigration and the influx of "people of other faiths to these shores", he blames its "novel philosophy of multiculturalism" for allowing society to become deeply divided, and accuses ministers of lacking a "moral and spiritual vision".
Echoing Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Commission for Equalities and Human Rights, who has said that the country is "sleepwalking into segregation", the bishop argues that multiculturalism has led to deep divisions.
David Davis, the shadow home secretary, has accused Muslims of promoting a kind of "voluntary apartheid" by shutting themselves in closed societies and demanding immunity from criticism.
. . .
The Rt Rev Nicholas Reade, the Bishop of Blackburn, which has a large Muslim community, said that it was increasingly difficult for Christians to share their faith in areas where there was a high proportion of immigrants of other faiths.
Will this become the situation in the United States? Will our abandonment of a "national narrative", our loss of a sense of shared history and identity, our disavowal of assimilation, lead to a collection of cultures who happen to share national borders?
Such a future is coming into being in Great Britain. One result is that it is increasingly dangerous for non-Muslims to live and work in Muslim dominated areas of Britain, so says Michael Nazir-Ali, the Pakistani-born convert from Islam who now is a Bishop in the Church of England. Story here from the Telegraph, link from Jihadwatch.
Some excerpts:
The Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester and the Church's only Asian bishop, says that people of a different race or faith face physical attack if they live or work in communities dominated by a strict Muslim ideology.
. . .
Bishop Nazir-Ali, who was born in Pakistan, gives warning that attempts are being made to give Britain an increasingly Islamic character by introducing the call to prayer and wider use of sharia law, a legal system based on the Koran.
In an attack on the Government's response to immigration and the influx of "people of other faiths to these shores", he blames its "novel philosophy of multiculturalism" for allowing society to become deeply divided, and accuses ministers of lacking a "moral and spiritual vision".
Echoing Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Commission for Equalities and Human Rights, who has said that the country is "sleepwalking into segregation", the bishop argues that multiculturalism has led to deep divisions.
David Davis, the shadow home secretary, has accused Muslims of promoting a kind of "voluntary apartheid" by shutting themselves in closed societies and demanding immunity from criticism.
. . .
The Rt Rev Nicholas Reade, the Bishop of Blackburn, which has a large Muslim community, said that it was increasingly difficult for Christians to share their faith in areas where there was a high proportion of immigrants of other faiths.
Will this become the situation in the United States? Will our abandonment of a "national narrative", our loss of a sense of shared history and identity, our disavowal of assimilation, lead to a collection of cultures who happen to share national borders?
