Modern Segregation Has an Islamist Face

by David J. Rusin  •  Feb 11, 2009 at 11:45 am

http://www.islamist-watch.org/blog/2009/02/modern-segregation-has-an-islamist-face

In the twentieth century, minority groups such as African-Americans struggled and sacrificed to achieve integration with the societies that had excluded them. In the twenty-first century, some Muslims hope to run history in reverse, demanding separation from their Western neighbors. Three news items highlight different stages and aspects of this phenomenon.

First, it has been revealed that a primary school in Sheffield, England, holds weekly Muslim-only assemblies. The arrangement became known due to the head mistress being forced out after she insisted on mixed gatherings instead:

A teacher, who asked not to be named, said: "The head inherited the separate assemblies and she took careful advice on what to do.

"But when she tried to stop them, she was accused of being a racist. She wanted to hold assemblies for all the pupils. That is what happens in most schools but some parents wanted things to stay as they were."

Accommodating separatism only serves to encourage the adherents of Islam described in the second article. Based on a new poll, many UK Muslims "want to create their own communities and remain segregated from British society," with 44% believing that "they should be free to develop along separate lines." The numbers are similar to those of previous surveys indicating that four in ten British Muslims would prefer to be governed by Shari'a law.

Responding to the revelation, English Democrats' chairman Robin Tilbrook said, "If people don't want to integrate, they shouldn't be here. It's not at all right to have what's really a sort of ghetto situation developing — it's going to lead to trouble."

The third story illustrates the "trouble" stemming from one such "ghetto situation." Specifically, a study has found that "radical Islamists have a stranglehold" on a section of Malmö, Sweden:

"Families who have just moved into the neighborhood and who have never been particularly religious or traditional claim that they led freer lives in their home country than in Rosengaard," the report said.

Muslim women who did not wear the veil in their home country were, for example, obliged to don it, according to the study.

The authors also singled out "cellar mosques" whose members serve as a kind of "thought police."

Abraham Lincoln warned that "a house divided against itself cannot stand." A century and a half later, the West must relearn this lesson — or risk similarly catastrophic results.

Related Topics:  David J. Rusin receive the latest by email: subscribe to the free islamist watch mailing list This text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral whole with complete information provided about its author, date, place of publication, and original URL.