Lt. Colonel James Zumwalt, USMC (ret)
Several years ago, police discovered the body of a homeowner in a small, windowless basement bedroom stripped of all but basic furniture. Found huddled under a blanket, he appeared to have died from natural causes. Having no immediate family members, his disappearance went unreported for months. But the circumstances surrounding his death were odd. Owning a ranch in an isolated area with an upstairs master bedroom and magnificent view, the owner spent his last months living in a small basement room resembling a prison cell. A subsequent police investigation revealed the man had undergone a bizarre metamorphosis. After selling a successful business, he bought the ranch to retire. In need of help to maintain the property, he hired a handyman. The handyman was a religious proselytizer. As the relationship became friendlier, the owner invited the handyman and his wife to live in his home. The couple began preaching their extremist religious views to the owner, challenging him to embrace their teachings. Becoming his spiritual leaders, they not only took over running his household, but his life as well. Soon, they were occupying his master bedroom while he settled for more austere accommodations in the basement. Encouraged to repent his sins and cleanse his soul by eating less, the owner is believed eventually to have died of malnutrition. Even after his death, his spiritual leaders continued to enjoy the home, later making off with his savings. Suffering from “terminal” political correctness by opening his home to the couple while failing to understand their true motivation, the owner empowered his guests to impose their ideology upon him—successfully allowing them to effect a role reversal within his own household.
We can only shake our heads in disbelief at the homeowner’s gullibility. It is inconceivable to imagine opening one’s home to guests who then so completely impose their will upon the owner. But before dismissing this with “that could never happen to me,” consider the following: It is! What happened to this homeowner is happening on a much broader scale today in Western democracies. The most recent evidence is the response by some US lawmakers to last month’s burning of the Koran by Pastor Terry Jones.
Historically, as Western democracies have prospered and welcomed immigrants by opening their borders, they have become stronger via a melting pot process by which natives and non-natives blended together. Drawn to the host country by its prosperity, immigrants seeking a better way of life melded into a Western culture that not only accepted them as equals but provided them with the necessary environment to achieve such success themselves. They knew they had the right to hold on to their own culture and values as long as they did not run afoul of the host country’s laws. This process is one that usually resulted in immigrants voluntarily surrendering the more oppressive values instilled in them by their birth nation for the less oppressive ones found in the host nation.
The melting pot’s success stands on two critical legs: the host country’s acceptance of immigrants as equals and immigrants’ understanding that such equality is mutual, thus leading to assimilation. If one leg is missing, the melting pot collapses. Absence of the first bodes ill for immigrants; absence of the second does so for the natives. With the influx of Muslim immigrants to the West, absence of the latter has been altering the melting pot’s successful formula.
A totally different mindset motivates most Muslims immigrating to democratic countries. It is one that fails to embrace the concept of mutuality of equality, fostered by Islam’s official view of human right entitlements and its attitude towards assimilation in a host country.
Concerning human rights entitlements, in 1948, every member of the United Nations, including the Muslim nations, voted to support the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) providing for the equality of all human life. But, 42 years later, the 57 member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference renounced their support, issuing instead the declaration they only supported human rights as recognized by Islamic law. Shari’a law only grants equality to Muslim men: Muslim women hold a subservient role to them while non-Muslims are left either to convert to Islam or suffer the consequences. Thus, while non-Muslim countries recognize the equality of human life extends to 100% of the world’s population, Muslim countries limit it to “their own”—i.e., 8% of all humanity.
Assimilation is the process by which immigrant groups take on the cultural and other traits of the host nation “to become part of something greater.” But Muslim immigrants are told by their leaders, both moderate and extreme, not to assimilate. In 2008, during a visit to Cologne, Germany, “moderate” Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan made this clear, telling a group of 20,000 Turks living in Europe, “I understand very well that you are against assimilation. One cannot expect you to assimilate. Assimilation is a crime against humanity.” If Islam sees assimilation with non-Muslims as a crime against humanity, we can only imagine what fate awaits non-believers in their own country should they become a minority. Christians in Muslim majority countries can already attest to what is happening—at least those still living.
By failing to assimilate, Muslim immigrants infringe upon freedoms previously enjoyed by native populations. In several European countries, heavily populated Muslim immigrant communities intimidate or attack non-Muslims who dare pass through, thus creating “no-go zones” where not even the police now venture. This creeping “Islamization” of Western societies also occurs via Muslim intimidation applied outside their communities.
It has worked extremely well in England where Muslims have multiplied ten times faster than the rest of the population. It has resulted in consideration now being given to changing England’s national flag as it bears something offensive to Muslims—the Cross of St. George. The holocaust is no longer taught in some British schools as such historical teachings also offend Muslims. While permits for activities in public areas are required, none are sought or violations enforced when large Muslim groups pray in the streets, blocking all ingress/egress for local traffic.
The UK Muslim community has become so influential and the UK government so focused on political correctness that Islamic law can now be applied in some civil cases involving Muslims. This was authorized despite the fact such legal pluralism opens the door for imposing Shari’a law even further.
All this, and more, has been accomplished in a country where Muslims represent but 3% of the population!
As Muslim immigrant communities grow at rates that will outpace most host country native populations in Europe before the century’s end, one has the sense—due to the culturally suicidal application of political correctness we see in democracies such as the UK—it has already happened. Democracies have always sought to limit overreach—by the majority—of a minority’s freedoms. But political correctness gone wild seems to have blinded us to the concept of mutuality by which the minority also cannot be allowed to overreach the freedoms of the majority. Our failure to recognize this causes reverse assimilation by which Muslim culture eradicates that of Western democracies.
Reverse assimilation is occurring in the US as well. It was evidenced last year by a New Jersey judge’s decision to apply Shari’a law in a case where a Muslim husband stood accused of raping his Muslim wife. Since Islamic law demands a Muslim wife submit to her husband’s desires, thus sanctioning rape, the judge ruled the husband lacked the proper guilty mind to commit rape.
It is important to foster an environment that promotes the equality of all mankind. We fail to do so. In Guantanamo, for example, guards carry Korans to Muslim prisoners, but must first don gloves. Since non-believers view believers as unequal, a non-Muslim’s touching of the Koran desecrates it. But by requiring our guards to wear gloves while handling the holy book, we only promote this perception.
Similarly, US servicewomen in Afghanistan are pressured (as they cannot be ordered to do so based on a 2002 US law) to wear headscarves when on patrol or engaging local civilians. Such an act suggests acceptance by American women of Islam’s subservient role to men.
Pastor Terry Jones—after threatening earlier to burn a Koran and being talked out of it—apparently missed the media attention, burning one on his grill last month. To its credit, the US media paid little attention to the incident, until Afghani officials gave the story wings, causing riots. A UN compound in Afghanistan was attacked and seven employees killed. US legislators were infuriated by Jones’ action, one suggesting limits be placed on free speech in order to protect US forces on the ground.
As atrocious and irresponsible as Jones’ actions were, we simply cannot allow the intimidation Muslims generate with their knee-jerk violent reactions impact upon our own constitutional rights. Doing so only empowers Muslims—and in this case not even those residing in the US—to contribute to reverse assimilation.
Islamization is firmly entrenched in Europe and now spreads to the US. As happened to the homeowner above, this should give us pause to reflect on how “terminal” political correctness can give rise to reverse assimilation and, ultimately, lead one to surrender a personal lifestyle, and possibly one’s life, to a guest invited into the home.
Family Security Matters Contributing Editor Lt. Colonel James G. Zumwalt, USMC (ret) is a retired Marine infantry officer who served in the Vietnam War, the US invasion of Panama and the first Gulf war. He is the author of "Bare Feet, Iron Will--Stories from the Other Side of Vietnam's Battlefields" and frequently writes on foreign policy and defense issues.
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