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发帖数: 29846 | 1 Back in the day, when I was a newspaper columnist in Denver, representatives
of the local chapter of the Anti-Defamation League paid a visit. Over
coffee, they told the opinion editor and me that they had a program, “A
World of Difference,” that “celebrates America’s diversity.” They asked
for our editorial support. The editor and I had the same reaction: Would it
not be better to celebrate all the things we have in common, all the things
that unite Americans of whatever ethnic or religious backgrounds? Our
friends left the meeting mightily miffed.
At the time, I viewed such initiatives (the ADL was hardly alone) as well-
intentioned if somewhat ham-handed efforts to combat prejudice. I later
realized this was part of a larger campaign to promote multiculturalism,
which seemed like a fairly harmless attempt to encourage appreciation of
varying styles of art, dress, and cuisine by pretending that all have equal
merit. (But is there anyone who seriously believes that German cuisine is on
a par with Chinese, French, or Indian?) Only years later did I come to
realize: Multiculturalism is an ideology with far-reaching — and damaging
— consequences.
This was forcefully driven home to me by a book probably not featured at
your local book store: Delectable Lie: A Liberal Repudiation of
Multiculturalism, by Salim Mansur, a professor of political science at the
University of Ontario. Mansur recounts that back in the 1970s, Canada became
the first Western nation to embrace multiculturalism on an official level,
“sponsored by the state, supported by taxpayers, and monitored and enforced
by thought-police (human rights commissions).” He makes a compelling case
that adoption of this ideology has damaged Canada, and not only Canada:
Multiculturalism, he writes, has been “destructive of the West’s liberal
democratic heritage, tradition, and values based on individual rights and
freedoms.”
Mansur observes that “freedom is the distinguishing feature of the West,”
a core value that came under ferocious attack in the 20th century from
fascism and Communism. In the current era, “the West is confronted with a
new, or third, challenge of totalitarianism in the form of Islamism and its
asymmetrical assault on liberal democracy, increasingly since the terrorist
attacks of September 11, 2001, against the United States.”
Multiculturalism insists that all cultures are equal and equally deserving
of respect and celebration. It ignores the fact that freedom emerged and
flowered in the West because of, Mansur writes, the “unique transmutation
of Western culture and civilization brought about by the Enlightenment and
the new scientific method pioneered by Galileo.” These influences “
subjected religion to the scrutiny of reason.”
In the lands of Islam, it is generally the other way around: Reason is
subject to the scrutiny of faith. Multiculturalism makes believe that the
conflict between these two schools of thought is inconsequential. Worse, by
emphasizing collective identities and group rights, and by pushing for
equality of results rather than equality of opportunity, multiculturalism
undermines individual freedom and devalues the Western cultures that have
nurtured and defended it.
In Canada, the U.S., and other countries that accept a continuing stream of
immigrants from non-Western societies, multiculturalism also inhibits the
process of integration and assimilation. Instead, Mansur writes, it empowers
new citizens “to demand that their host country adapt” to their cultural
requirements while relieving them of any responsibility to weave themselves
and their children into the cultural fabric of their adopted homeland. In
this and other ways, multiculturalism is a “slippery slope” that “
imperils” liberal democracies.
Mansur’s insights stem from experience as well as academic study. Born an
Indian Muslim in Calcutta, he is Canadian by choice and conviction. His self
-identification as a “dissident Muslim” undergirds his strong defense of
Western values. “Faith does not take precedence over my duties . . . to
Canada and its constitution, which I embrace freely,” he writes. You may
not be surprised to learn that his statements have resulted in two fatwas
calling for his execution.
Those whose religious and cultural beliefs lead them to the conclusion that
Mansur deserves death also want to destroy Canada, America, Israel, and
other “infidel” nations. That represents diversity — but should we really
celebrate it?
Unable to answer that question, multiculturalists instead maintain the
fiction that those who declare themselves enemies of the West are merely
addressing “grievances” over such historical “crimes” as colonialism and
imperialism, ignoring the fact that Islamists promote Islamic colonialism
and seek to revive Islamic imperialism. Multiculturalists also decry the
inequities of the global economic system, although their funds are derived
from wealth created by Western agriculture and industry, and exchanged for
Middle Eastern oil.
Mansur makes clear that Islamists are motivated by a fierce will to power
and a deep antipathy for the West’s “civic culture, its freedom and
democracy.” And Islamists, he adds, “find that multiculturalism
increasingly in the post-9/11 world works in tandem with their interests to
weaken the West politically and culturally from the inside.”
Most of those who advocate multiculturalism no doubt mean well. But their
intellectual myopia is striking. The truth is, some cultures value freedom
of religion; others see no virtue in granting free rein to what they regard
as false religions. Some cultures prize free speech; others believe it is
dangerous to permit open discourse and opt instead to censor many ideas.
Some cultures believe that women and minorities should have the same rights
as the majority; others consider that a blasphemous notion. Some cultures
are willing to compromise to achieve peace; others are willing to fight and
die for conquest and victory.
But the big trap of multiculturalism is simply this: If all cultures are
equal, why defend your own? The culture that replaces it will be just as
good, won’t it?
— Clifford D. May is president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies
, a policy institute focusing on terrorism and Islamism. |
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