Selective Population Increase

"These findings clearly contradict the often-heard claim that Islamic religious fundamentalism is a marginal phenomenon in Western Europe or that it does not differ from the extent of fundamentalism among the Christian majority. Both claims are blatantly false, as almost half of European Muslims agree that Muslims should return to the roots of Islam, that there is only one interpretation of the Koran, and that the rules laid down in it are more important than secular laws. Among native Christians, less than one in 25 can be characterized as fundamentalist in this sense. Religious fundamentalism is moreover not an innocent form of strict religiosity, as its strong relationship—among both Christians and Muslims—to hostility towards out-groups demonstrates.
"Both the extent of Islamic religious fundamentalism and its correlates—homophobia, anti-Semitism and "Occidentophobia"—should be serious causes of concern for policy makers as well as Muslim community leaders. Of course, religious fundamentalism should not be equated with the willingness to support, or even to engage in religiously motivated violence. But given its strong relationship to out-group hostility, religious fundamentalism is very likely to provide a nourishing environment for radicalization."                                      Dutch sociologist Ruud Koopmans

Months ago the Government of Canada agreed that it would accept 1,300 Syrian refugees. The United Nations is urging that Syrian refugees be given haven in Western countries to relieve the stress being experienced by Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan with the floodgates opened to Syrian civilians coming into their countries for humanitarian relief. Millions have fled Syria, many more millions remain within Syria's borders as internally displaced refugees.

Billions in relief funds are being sought by the United Nations for humanitarian support for these refugees lacking potable water, medical attention and drugs, ample food and shelter. Winter has made an early, disastrous approach in the Middle East, complicating the already miserable situation for people trying to survive in dreadful conditions. And while the United Nations appeals to the international community for relief, one's eyes swivel to the immense wealth of the Gulf States.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, are sitting on untold riches, their treasuries bulging with oil wealth. Saudi Arabia and Qatar had loosened their treasury to arm the Sunni rebels battling the Syrian regime. The billions that the UN is seeking to supplement what has already been pledged and received in part from the international community could be supplied by the Arab Gulf States without blinking their eyes or diminishing their wealth.

They could also open their hospitality to extend refuge to Syrians desperate to escape the horrendous conflict and existential conditions they are subject to in Syria. Don't Syrian Arabs have far more in common with their Gulf Arab brethren than they do with those non-Muslims resident in Western countries? The evidence of recent decades has demonstrated that Muslims do not lend themselves to accepting Western laws and values.

With their numbers increasing in Europe and North America they have become assertive, insisting that Sharia be recognized, that their religious laws should have equal status with the indigenous laws and customs of the prevailing majority culture whose heritage they have unsettled by their presence and their demands; they are not given lightly to integration. And succeeding generations do not appear to be any likelier to submit to integration; Islam forbids it.

It is most certainly not in the long-term interests of Western liberal democracies to continue opening their doors in friendly, empathetic accommodation to the needs of a migrating population whose entire lifestyle is wholly integrated and revolves around a fundamentalist religion that does not recognize the primacy of another social milieu, another culture, other traditions, and certainly other religious devotion.

UNICEF ministers to Syrian refugees streaming into Iraq and other neighbouring countries.
Photo Credit: UNICEF/Iraq 2013/Marshall Tuck

"A large number of Arabs and Turks in this city [...] have no productive function except for the fruit and vegetable trade [...] The proportion of births among Arabs and Turks is two to three times higher than their corresponding proportion of the population. Large parts [of this population] are neither willing to integrate nor capable of integrating. The solution to this problem can only be to stop letting people in [...] except for highly qualified individuals and not provide social welfare for immigrants anymore [...]."
"Integration is an effort of people who integrate themselves. I do not have to accept someone who does nothing. I do not have to accept anyone who lives from the state, rejects this state, does not reasonably provide education for his children and constantly produces new little girls in headscarves. This applies to 70% of the Turkish and 90% of the Arab population in Berlin. Many of them do not want integration."                                                                                        Thilo Sarrazin

Thilo Sarrazin, a prominent German banker, has criticized the refusal of Muslim immigrants to integrate into German society. (Image source: Franz Johann Morgenbesser)

What Europe is discovering is an increasingly demanding Muslim population, insistent on imposing upon the countries giving them haven from the dysfunction and oppressive conditions of their native Muslim-majority countries, problems that have erupted with disproportionately high crime rates among Muslim youth, concerns that Muslim youth are being persuaded to join international jihad presenting as a threat to their own countries and those at large, and ungovernable social upheavals leaving native populations the short end of the stick.

As politically incorrect as it is to disown the popularly held belief that pluralistic multiculturalism enriches a society's fabric, the unfortunate truth is that it does not necessarily do so at all. In former times when migrants have made their way to new countries where opportunities for personal advancement have beckoned, there has been integration, with the immigrants fully immersing themselves into the new society and accepting its values as their own.

This has been entirely upended with the Muslim migration into non-Muslim countries. And Canada has no need to embrace the urging of those who claim it is a humanitarian requirement that its own values and priorities be sacrificed to further the interests of those who will enter the country, take advantage of all the privileges of citizenship, yet disdain to accept the expectation that they have an obligation to the country that has offered haven, to become good citizens reflecting Canada's values.