Rep. Peter King: There are "too many mosques in this country”
And that's the kind of statement that makes headlines. To say it is to court Nazism, of course; but that doesn't mean the idea is any less foreign to us than the very people he's characterizing.
And that's the kind of statement that makes headlines. To say it is to court Nazism, of course; but that doesn't mean the idea is any less foreign to us than the very people he's characterizing.
Just how many true "foreigners" (people who seemingly despise the culture in which they've chosen to make their livings) can a nation hold without becoming something that nation has ever been. But then, what is nationhood anyway? What does it mean to be an American?--Does anybody have a good answer to that question?
One of the most difficult questions we face as a nation--and Europe even more acutely than we--is whether or not immigrant Islamic people can make the cultural transition into Western-style democracy, where toleration is a required component of peaceful co-existence.
I could argue, and I have, that this college--not long ago vastly Dutch-American in demographic character--has become more "American," now that we play football. We've become less strange, less peculiar--and more like everyone else, more American.
I'll let others argue whether that's good or bad--I was a soft-spoken advocate myself--but the transition I'm talking about is a process by which a people, an immigrant people, become "Americanized." It happens--or has happened--to all ethnic and religious groups, really, including, even, the Jews, many of whom, today, don't quite know what to do about the rapid rate at which their people are "fitting in," losing distinctness, become, well "American."
The as yet unanswered question is, will that process of Americanization happen to our Islamic neighbors. Will they also pick up the toleration required of those who live in a pluralist society? Can they modify their faith to become advocates of a system so alien to their culture, believers in "separation of mosque and state"?
Nobody knows.
Tons of us worry--as I do.
And many wonder just exactly how many mosques this country--and Europe--can tolerate, especially when it's fearfully clear that some of those mosques (the English terrorists have been almost entirely homegrown) don't preach toleration at all.
One of the most difficult questions we face as a nation--and Europe even more acutely than we--is whether or not immigrant Islamic people can make the cultural transition into Western-style democracy, where toleration is a required component of peaceful co-existence.
I could argue, and I have, that this college--not long ago vastly Dutch-American in demographic character--has become more "American," now that we play football. We've become less strange, less peculiar--and more like everyone else, more American.
I'll let others argue whether that's good or bad--I was a soft-spoken advocate myself--but the transition I'm talking about is a process by which a people, an immigrant people, become "Americanized." It happens--or has happened--to all ethnic and religious groups, really, including, even, the Jews, many of whom, today, don't quite know what to do about the rapid rate at which their people are "fitting in," losing distinctness, become, well "American."
The as yet unanswered question is, will that process of Americanization happen to our Islamic neighbors. Will they also pick up the toleration required of those who live in a pluralist society? Can they modify their faith to become advocates of a system so alien to their culture, believers in "separation of mosque and state"?
Nobody knows.
Tons of us worry--as I do.
And many wonder just exactly how many mosques this country--and Europe--can tolerate, especially when it's fearfully clear that some of those mosques (the English terrorists have been almost entirely homegrown) don't preach toleration at all.
How many sworn enemies can a culture gingerly adopt and still live at peace?
The odor of Rep. King's comments smell so much like the stench rising from Auschwitz that most of us hardly dare admit even thinking it. But that doesn't mean his question hasn't arisen within some of us before. I'm one of them.
How, on earth, do we get along with people who have no desire to get along with us? How many sworn enemies can a democratic society tolerate?
It would be easy to dismiss King's question, to villify him, call him an Yankee Eichmann, if it weren't for the fact that some of us at least feel a whisper of the very same notion.
Orhan Pamuk's Snow scared the dickens out of me for a ton of reasons, but one of them was that the radicals were young, like the 9/11 terrorists--and educated, all of them.
On this question, there aren't any more good answers than there is to how on earth we end the mess we created in Iraq.
Still, King's question scares me, just scares me.
1 comment:
It was always going to be a mess...sometimes you have to be torn apart before you can be made better. Iraq disobeyed dozens of rulings against them, and treated agreements as excrement. Many believe that something had to be done sooner than later and so it was. Now, they are establishing their government...a process that took a long time for us and, in part, included our own Civil War.
The question of assimilation and or change is a good one. But if we have a universal belief, then we must stand by that belief no matter where we are. I am always a Christian no matter where I am...assimilation?
By the people, of the people, for the people...or by the Government, of the Government, for the People. That's the primary question. I believe that by blatant mistrust of a Government established under God's Sphere, people are saying every time they find a medium is that we don't trust the people, our audience...we don't trust freedom...we don't trust the people of the United States of America!
It's interesting to note that in most places where socialism has been allowed to flourish, Christianity has faded greatly! Why is that?
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