More About Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Bruce Bawer in the Christian Science Monitor.

If there's anything in Europe today that's more alarming than the number of European Muslims who hold radically undemocratic views (40 percent of British Muslims would like to see Britain under sharia law), it's the feckless way in which government officials tend to respond to those views. Particularly if they include explosions of public complaints and protests.

More often than not, most officials choose appeasement over standing up for democratic values. The exceptions are rare. One of them is Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen - who, faced with the Muhammad cartoon riots, strongly reaffirmed Denmark's commitment to freedom of speech. Another is the Netherlands' Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the former Muslim turned outspoken critic of Islam. Ms. Hirsi Ali, who has been confronted with a relatively sudden and stunning challenge by her country's minister of immigration to her Dutch citizenship, resigned this week from her seat in the Dutch parliament.

I don't think the appeasement thing is working out very well at all. The illusion that is multiculturalism is a complete failure. Unification and assimilation requires common bonds, common goals and common understanding. Those things are not brought about by accentuating the differences among groups. yet that is exactly what multiculturalism does. It celebrates the differences instead of emphasizing the commonalities a nation needs to survive. 

I don't think the appeasement thing is working out very well at all. The illusion that is multiculturalism is a complete failure. Unification and assimilation requires common bonds, common goals and common understanding. Those things are not brought about by accentuating the differences among groups. yet that is exactly what multiculturalism does. It celebrates the differences instead of emphasizing the commonalities a nation needs to survive.