The Incomprehensible Folly of Multiculturalism

In keeping with President Bush's constant, fawning praise of Islam, the Pentagon puts on a spectacle guaranteed to make every member of Al Qaeda double over in laughter.

Navy imam Chaplain Abuhena M. Saifulislam lifted his voice to God as he called to prayer more than 100 Department of Defense employees Monday at a celebration of Ramadan at the Pentagon.

“God is most great,” sang the lieutenant commander and Islamic leader, in Arabic, as iftar — the end of the daily fast began.

Uniformed military personnel, civilians and family members faced Mecca and knelt on adorned prayer rugs chanting their prayers in quiet invocation to Allah.

“We do all we can to help meet the religious needs of our soldiers,” said Deputy Pentagon Chaplain Army Maj. Alan Pomaville, a Christian, who attended the iftar alongside the Muslim chaplains. “The leadership in the [Defense Department] wants to care for the body of the whole soldier.”

As the Pentagon celebrated Ramadan, the White House is in preparations for an iftar feast tomorrow, said Lt. Cmdr. Saifulislam, who will be participating at the White House events.

“President and Mrs. Bush host an iftar dinner every year because they want people around the world to know how much they respect Islam and the many Muslims living in the U.S. who are free to worship as they want, and are an integral part of our society," said Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the White House National Security Council.

Just over six years ago, Muslims launched the most vicious attack on the U.S. in its history, killing thousands of innocent civilians in New York and Pennsylvania, and scores of American servicemen in the Pentagon itself. The terrorists who attacked America did so explicitly in the name of Islam. Now, at the very building where American soldiers and civilians were burned alive by an airplane-turned-missile by Muslims, the American government prostrates itself toward the enemy religion.

While the American government contorts itself to appease the estimated 2.35 million Muslims living in the U.S. (less than one percent of the U.S. population - though the Bush administration is doing every possible to increase that percentage), Muslims in Toronto are demonstrating that multiculturalism is a one-way street.

TORONTO - A Toronto mosque is telling Muslims not to say "Happy Thanksgiving" or invite friends into their homes for turkey dinner on the holiday weekend.

The Khalid Bin Al-Walid Mosque says to "avoid participating" in dinners, parties or greetings on Thanksgiving because it is a kuffaar, or non-Muslim, celebration.

A two-part article on the mosque Web site says Muslims should also "stay completely away" from "Halloween trick-and treat nonsense," Christmas, New Year's, anniversaries, birthdays and Earth Day.

"How can we bring ourselves to congratulate or wish people well for their disobedience to Allah? Thus expressions such as:Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Birthday, Happy New Year, etc, are completely out," it says.

This is not the first time this mosque has dispensed such advice.

In 2003, the Khalid mosque, which mainly serves the Toronto Somali-Canadian community, apologized for a newsletter that compared wishing someone a Merry Christmas to congratulating a murderer.

At the time, a junior employee was blamed for the slight, but the mosque's Web site has since posted similar edicts covering not only Christmas but also virtually every other Western celebration.

Muslims who participate in the holidays are termed ignorant and hypocritical.

While not all are religious holidays, the Internet site says Muslims are required to be different from non-Muslims "in matters which are representative of them or are characteristic of their identity."

Also banned, it says, are: watching sports or soap operas, walking dogs, family photos, wedding bands, Western hats, mingling and shaking hands with the opposite sex.

"Allah and his messenger have warned us against following or imitating non-Muslims in things which are characteristic of their religion or beliefs. This is more emphasized in the case of their eids [festivals] or occasions, which always hold some religious or ideological non-Islamic meanings, and on which the kuffaar indulge in many evil practices."

The mosque's honesty is refreshing. No ofuscation, no fake appeals to tolerance - a simple and logical statement of truth. Muslims should remain Muslim and not be assimilated by the surrounding culture. There is nothing wrong with this idea. Non-Muslim culture and traditions are alien to the Muslim way of life; so they are rightly to be avoided in order to remain truly Muslim. If Muslims truly value their religion and its traditions - and it is clear that most do - then maintaining that religious and cultural identity is something one can reasonably expect Muslims to do.

None of this presents any problem for Muslims. The problem is for non-Muslims in non-Muslim nations who have permitted large numbers of Muslims to immigrate into their societies. It is particularly a problem in Western nations, for two reasons. First, Islam and its cultural practices and outlook are diametrically opposed to the central ideas of Western civilization. Islam is alien to the West and is, by necessity of its ideology, antagonistic toward the Western mindset. Placing large numbers of Muslim inside Western nations necessarily sets the stage for cultural conflict, since Muslims, being so different, cannot be expected to assimilate and will only grow more estranged and resentful of the surrounding Western culture. If the numbers of Muslims are relatively small, this might be little more than an irritant. However, as the numbers of Muslims grow, their confidence and willingness to strike back at the surrounding Western culture will only rise. Greater numbers breed increasing boldness. Western Europe now finds itself precisely in this situation, where second and third generation European Muslims in Britain, Germany, Holland, Belgium and France, now feel completely secure in vocally calling for the destruction of the West and the Islamification of the countries in which they reside.

The second danger of permitting Muslims (or other religiously or culturally different aliens) into the West springs from the current intellectual climate existing within the West, specifically that of multiculturalism. The West has lost its civilizational confidence, largely at the hands of leftist intellectuals who have declared the West to be the epicenter of all evil in the world. The same intellectuals, in what may be history's greatest example of an intellectual Trojan Horse, have convinced most of the West's population that the only way they can atone for their civilization's crimes in an unending tolerance of non-Western cultures. To that end, anything that is not Western - and certainly not European - is to be celebrated and endorsed, while traditional Western customs and culture are to be denigrated and redacted in favor of "tolerance" for other (more worthy) cultures. This, of course, is not simply to be applied to Western cultural artifacts, but to the population that created them as well. The deliberate denigration and negation of Western culture and Western peoples is packaged as diversity - an eternal good beyond any questioning - and under this rubric, the doors to Western nations have been flown open to admit tens of millions of non-Westerners, many of whom have no intention of assimilating to the West, and likely could never do so even if they wanted to. Multiculturalism is simply the intellectual sugar-coating of an movement whose primary (and often openly avowed) goal is the end of Western Civilization and the people who created it.

Poisoned by this ideology, the West finds itself unable to respond properly to the alien threats now facing it - and within it. Muslims have perceived this weakness and boldly use it to their advantage.

They are not unclear about their goals, though they recognize the value of disguising them from non-Muslims.

The Web site also has a question-and-answer section, which advises that Muslims can join political parties only if they are "able to exert some influence on the direction of the party so that it will take an Islamic direction."

Elsewhere in the Q&A section, it says that, "with strong determination and patience, the world will God-willing be under the Muslims' control."

Relect on the mosque's honest statement for a minute, then consider the final paragraphs of the Washington Times' account of the Pentagon's Ramadan celebration.

For the Pentagon, as with the rest of the country, the process of mending fences since the September 11 attacks has not always been easy but necessary, he added.

"I think there is a misconception at times," said Cmdr. Saifulislam. "I have attended many funerals of American Muslims who have died in Iraq. If you take the time to get to know somebody, your attitude toward them changes."

The first Muslim U.S. congressman — Rep. Keith Ellison, Minnesota Democrat — also attended the iftar, along with Imam Sheik Rashid Lamptey, executive director of the Muslim Association of Virginia. Sheik Lamptey also served as the deputy imam of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society in Virginia.

As the night's festivities concluded, Col. Oldenburg [a Muslim] presented Sheik Lamptey with an American flag that flew over the Pentagon on Sept. 7.

This is how President Bush and the American government fights "the war on terror" and the ideology that attacked the U.S. on September 11, 2001. This is why neither the president nor the U.S. government is taken seriously by the terrorists, or should be by anyone else.

Mass Immigration Erodes American Culture

What happens when you admit millions of immigrants from cultures entirely alien to your own? Social disaster for your own culture, that's what. Combine that immigration with the ideologies of multiculturalism and political correctness, and you have created the recipe for your own culture's extinction>.

(CBS) OAK LAWN, Ill. A southwest suburban school district has taken action, responding to the concerns of a Muslim parent.

But now, as CBS 2's Suzanne Le Mignot reports, other parents are angry that traditional school holidays will be renamed or even eliminated.

"That does not represent all the Muslims, all of the Arabs at that school," said Qais Nofel, the father of a student in Ridgeland School District 122.

There was some heated discussion between parents outside Columbus Manor Elementary School in Oak Lawn on Friday. The thought of no more traditional holiday celebrations has many parents really upset.

For now, children in Ridgeland School District 122 will celebrate fall festival instead of Halloween and winter festival instead of Christmas.

Brenda Elvidge said, "It's not fair to our kids. This is America and that's an American tradition."

Ms. Elvidge is plainly laboring under the misapprehension that because she is an American living in America, her values and desires are more important than those of the Arab immigrants who wish to impose their culture on her. She couldn't be further from the truth. As the article makes clear, not all Arabs want the changes the school is making, but since public officials in America have adopted multiculturalism as the new religion of the public square, if even one Arab immigrant is upset, American culture must be sent tumbling into the waste basket to make room for something more "inclusive" and bland. American educators - indoctrinated in the mysteries of political correctness and multiculturalism at colleges of education - are all too happy to help destroy a culture they have been told is evil, racist and imperialist.

The true source of the problem - and the real threat to American culture lies in the next few paragraphs.

The district has a 30 percent Arab-American population, many of whom practice Islam. The superintendent says the reason for the change in tradition comes after one parent wanted Ramadan decorations put up inside Columbus Manor Elementary. They were taken down.

Superintendent Tom Smyth said, "I go back to our policy which says that public schools are to remain neutral in this respect."

Ridgeland School District 122 has called for an emergency meeting on the issue, to be held on Tuesday.

Meantime, Muslim children are being allowed to pray during what's being called their own time, that's lunch time, during Ramadan.

Parent June Quigley said, "They get to pray in our schools. That is religion in a public school."

Yes, Ms. Quigley, that is religion in the public school. But because it isn't Christianity or anything Western - in fact, because it is a religion that is actively and demonstrably hostile to the West - it is not only tolerated, but celebrated in a manner almost calculated to rub your face in it.

There would be no problem in Oak Lawn, and no threat to American culture emanating from there if there was not a significant Muslim community there. The presence of such a community is the direct result of the nation-destroying immigration policies the U.S. has practiced since 1965. After September 11, 2001, one might have expected Americans to wake up to the danger of importing Muslims, at the very least. But President Bush has gone out of his way to increase immigration to America from the Islamic world, proving that he is wasting American lives and treasure in Iraq only to ensure - by his own hand - that we will have to fight the terrorists here, too.

Zimbabwe's Bitter Harvest

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe's "anti-colonialism" program of taking farmland away from white owners and dispensing the land to his henchmen political supports (you know, returning it to "the people") continues to bear rich fruit for the people of his nation.

Reports from Zimbabwe say bakeries have run out of flour and there will be no bread in the foreseeable future.
The Agriculture Ministry has confirmed that this year's wheat harvest yield of 145,000 tonnes is only one third of the country's requirements.

Agriculture Minister Rugare Gumbo is quoted as blaming the shortages on the failings of what he called the "new farmers" created by the land reforms.

Last week, the government announced it would import 100,000 tonnes of wheat.

But even that would still leave Zimbabwe short of its 400,000 tonne target for this year.

And it appears that a shortage of hard currency has already stranded a shipment of 35,000 tonnes of imported wheat at the Mozambican port of Beira.

Last week, Zimbabwe's main bread producer Lobels Bread said it had scaled back its operations by 80% and had only two days' supply of flour left.

The AP news agency says stores across Zimbabwe are now telling customers that bread will not be available until further notice.

Facing another year of agricultural disaster, even ministers of the Mugabe government realize that the new "farmers" were not quite as good as the old ones.

The Sunday Mail newspaper in Zimbabwe reported that this year's production was badly affected by erratic power supplies that resulted in some farmers completely abandoning their crop at germination levels because of the failure to irrigate.

Other reports quoted the agriculture minister as pinning the blame on farmers.


This year's maize harvest is expected to be dire

Speaking last Thursday at the Zimbabwe Farmers' Union (ZFU) national congress in Masvingo Minister Gumbo said: "I am disappointed that our new farmers have proved to be failures since the start of the land reform programme in 2000."

"In spite of all the support government has been pouring into the agricultural sector, productivity and under-utilisation of land remain issues of concern," he added.

And he admitted that he was "painfully aware of the widespread theft of stock, farm produce, irrigation equipment and the general vandalism of infrastructure by our new farmers".

Naturally, Minister Gumbo did not extend his criticism to his own government, which caused this disaster in the first place, but at least he is keeping the blame in Zimbabwe. President Mugabe has alternately denied that a crisis existed or blamed a foreign conspiracy for causing it.

Fresh from the exhilerating success of his agricultural programs, Mugabe - who recently receive a standing ovation from other African heads of state at the African Union meeting - had introduced new economic reforms, mandating that foreign companies operating in Zimbabwe must transfer majority control of their operations to Zimbabweans (Mugabe's henchmen and supporters) or leave the country. The result will, of course, be the flight of any remaining foreign investment - save those by Chinese companies, which will somehow be exempted from the rules - and the further collapse of Zimbabwe's economy.

In Ecuador, President Rafael Correa has won yet another electoral victory, clearing the way to bring his nation into the shining future promised by "21st Century Socialism."

Rafael Correa, Ecuador’s president, claimed a strong majority after Sunday’s election for an assembly he says must rewrite the constitution and dissolve the Congress that has battled to resist his leftist proposals.

A powerful mandate in the 130-member national assembly would allow Mr Correa to shore up legislative control and push his proposals for “21st Century” socialism and a tighter state grip on the economy, which have spooked Wall Street investors.

Attacking the old guard as a mafia, Mr Correa wants the assembly to introduce sweeping reforms but foes fear he seeks to amass power and follow Hugo Chavez, Venezuelan president, by steering his poor Andean country on anti-free market tack.

“We have won the mother of all battles,” Mr Correa told hundreds of supporters waving flags outside his party headquarters in Quito, where he danced and sang with bands and victorious candidates on an outdoor stage.

The official tally may take weeks to complete but Mr Correa said his Alianza Pais party could have won 80 assembly seats -- far more than the 66-seat majority needed to control the constituent body.

An exit poll conducted by a government-linked pollster said its results showed Mr Correa’s party had won 77 to 80 seats while an independent quick count put his party at 52 seats with 32 per cent of its samples counted.

Mr Correa, a popular former economy minister who swept into office in January, is seeking to purge the influence of traditional political parties, which are widely blamed for the instability that has ousted three presidents in a decade.

Ecuador's political leadership prior to Mr. Correa was hardly an exemplar of good governance; however, there are few political schemes capable of making a bad situation worse than socialism. Slapping the "21st century" label on it merely paints a thin patina of lipstick on what is otherwise a most decidedly ugly pig. Nonetheless, this is what the people of Ecuador want - just as Hugo Chavez's blustering-to-incoherent bravado is what a majority of Venezuelans desire. Both men were swept into power by the ballot box and enjoy the strong support of the masses. And both men stand as important corrective examples to George Bush's fantasy that democracy will always produce more freedom and create American allies. The people of nations not a thousand miles from America's southern border have raptuously voted for men who spit in America's face and embraced an ideology of economic and political ruin - an ideology that was stunningly unmasked as a fraud on the world stage not twenty years ago. And yet, in Caracus and Quito, the red banners are unfurling while Mr. Chavez makes pilgramages to Cuba to genuflect before his idol, Fidel Castro, and marvel at the ruin of the Cuban people.

If democracy produces this result in the Western Hemisphere, what are the chances that it will produce anything more to America's liking in the Middle East among a people whose temperament and culture is a thousand times more alien that those of Venezuelans or Ecuadorians? Around the Islamic world, wherever democracy is tried, it is the Islamists who benefit. From Turkey to Indonesia to Cairo to the West Bank, it is the Islamists who hope for free and fair elections, since they know they will win.

Of course, the march of socialism in South America is not without some help from the U.S. After all, you might wonder where Mr. Correa learned his devotion to a massive discredited economic and political theory:

A US-educated former college professor, Mr Correa stepped into the political spotlight more than a year ago when he captured attention with a vow to challenge old elites.

Is anyone surprised? American college campuses - the last redoubt of socialism, ruining not only America's youth (most of whom are too hung-over to soak up the propaganda), but entire nations continents away.