We have to nail down the definition of the problem. There is no general failure to integrate. In the U.K., for example, we are not talking about Chinese or Indians. We are not talking about blacks and Asians. This is a particular problem. It is about the failure of one part of the Muslim community to resolve and create an identity that is both British and Muslim. The well-meaning reluctance to “stigmatise” Muslims in general results in precisely that stigmatisation taking place, but below the surface: When we talk about this in general terms, without precision, for fear of “stigmatizing” Muslims, we alienate public opinion and isolate the majority of Muslims who are integrating and want to be as much part of our society as any other group. Then, because we won’t identify the problem as it is, a subterranean debate takes the place of an open one, and that debate lumps all Muslims together. So in the interest of “defending” the Muslim community, we actually segregate it by refusing to have an honest debate about what is happening. The right approach, he says, is to distinguish clearly and carefully between the common space, shared by all citizens, and the space where we can be different … Some citizens will genuinely and properly not like some of the more liberal tendencies of Western life. We can differ over this. But there has to be a shared acceptance that some things we believe in and we do together: obedience to certain values like democracy, rule of law, equality between men and women; respect for national institutions; and speaking the national language. This common space cannot be left to chance or individual decision. It has to be accepted as mandatory. He describes Islamist extremism as a global ideology that must be confronted. He has said it before, and many people have been reluctant to assent to it because it sounds too simplistic, too clash-of-civilisations apocalyptic. But it is not wrong, and here is its clearest expression: We will not defeat extremism … until we defeat its narrative. This narrative is Islam as a victim of the West, locked in an inevitable cultural conflict with it. This narrative links justifiable sentiments (whether you agree with them or not)—anxiety about injustice to Palestinians, dissent over military action in Afghanistan or Iraq, anger about Kashmir or Chechnya, opposition to regimes supported by the West—with an unjustifiable narrative that defines Islam in a way that is contrary to its true teaching … This narrative is global. Its ideology is global. It has to be confronted as such. But we are nowhere near doing that. It is funding websites, training its adherents, spreading its message. It is conducting a campaign, occasionally by violence, often by propaganda. The first step in fighting back is to recognize the nature of the struggle. That is why what is happening in Europe today is not some random eruption of anti-immigrant sentiment that will subside as fast as it has arisen. We have seen many of those before. This is different: deeper, more dangerous than any in recent years, and ultimately connected to what is building in the rest of the world. It is time to wake up.Blair and the Problem of Muslim Integration
Wednesday, 10 November 2010
Tony Blair’s article in the Wall Street Journal today takes further the bluntness that is evident in his memoir, A Journey, itself a revelation. First he direct about the problem of integration:
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