This story is a good example of how assimilation is only possible when dealing with similar people. Our rulers are terribly vexed as to why so many Western born and raised Muslims are heading off to jihad. The story of Jihad Johnny is familiar.
The Kuwaiti-born Emwazi, in his mid-20s, appears to have left little trail on social media or elsewhere online. Those who knew him say he was polite and had a penchant for wearing stylish clothes while adhering to the tenets of his Islamic faith. He had a beard and was mindful of making eye contact with women, friends said.
He was raised in a middle-class neighborhood in London and on occasion prayed at a mosque in Greenwich.
The friends, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation, believe that Emwazi started to radicalize after a planned safari in Tanzania following his graduation from the University of Westminster.
Less than 1% of Western Muslims decide to go on jihad. Polling says that about a quarter of Western Muslims think killing infidels is a great idea. Those poll results are typical of others done over the last two decades. Given the nature of polling, it is probably fair to say the real numbers are significantly higher. When asked, people tend not to admit to opinions the general public has deemed wrong. Even so, my guess is the majority of Muslims in the West just want to live quiet, prosperous lives.
But, a large minority don’t want to live quiet lives. Therein lies the problem facing the West. If we suddenly found that 25% of men with red hair would one day run amok and start murdering people for no reason, we would not let men with red hair walk free. No society could tolerate such a risk. Obviously, long before now we would have either euthanized all red haired babies at birth or maintained a place to exile for all red heads, like an isle of misfit toys. Ginger Island.
Obviously, the Muslim problem is both an old problem and a new problem. The old problem dates back to the 7th century and the Muslim conquests. The answer to that problem was discovered in the 8th century.
While Abd ar-Rahman was pursuing Odo, he decided to despoil Tours by destroying its palaces and burning its churches. There he confronted the consul of Austrasia by the name of Charles, a man who, having proved himself to be a warrior from his youth and an expert in things military, had been summoned by Odo. After each side had tormented the other with raids for almost seven days, they finally prepared their battle lines and fought fiercely. The northern peoples remained as immobile as a wall, holding together like a glacier in the cold regions. In the blink of an eye, they annihilated the Arabs with the sword.
-The Mozarabic Chronicle of 754
The old problem, in other words, was solved by coming up with this idea of separate countries for Muslims and non-Muslims. Islam is a religion of the sword, according to the people who created the religion. Their mythology claims there will be a great final conflagration and Islam will win the final battle at the end times. There’s no reasoning with that so it is best to keep them penned up in their own lands, which has been the policy of the the world for over a thousand years.
The new problem is not so much a Muslim problem as a Western problem. The new problem starts with the new religion of the West. The religion we call multiculturalism. This religion requires Western government to invite the people of the world to move to their lands and mingle with the locals, but not accepting the culture of the locals. They imagine the nicer parts of London as the ideal utopian future, with cultured restaurants full of young, educated hipsters.
Some portion of those swank young hipsters, however, will decide to strap on a dynamite vest and walk into that “Shoreditch bohemian” hangout. So far, the single thread running through every incident is Islam. It has either been a Muslim immigrant, a man raised in a Muslim home in the West or a convert to Islam. Multiculturalism has strict rules against noticing, but it is hard not to notice when a man yells “Allahu Akbar” and then blows himself up in a crowded restaurant or starts shooting patrons at a Jewish deli.
That’s the problem the West faces. If they notice that Muslims tend not to play well with others, that means diversity may have its limits. If there is some limit as to how much diversity a society can tolerate, then there has to be a debate about where that limit lies and why. In other words, noticing the Muslim problem puts the whole project up for debate. The only “rational” response is demand everyone not notice the exploding man yelling “Allahu Akbar.”
That’s also why the West seems obsessed with discovering what mysterious force causes good Muslims to go bad. Mr. Emwazi, the fellow at the start of this post, was provided with everything one can hope from life in the West. Yet, he is described as having been “radicalized” like some sort of rage zombie, infected by a virus. They allude to his having been discriminated against or, gasp!, profiled by authorities as being the cause. This hunt for a cause, presumably, is intended to find a cure. Perhaps a vaccine at birth that prevents Muslims from going bonkers as adults.
Like so much of the late Rousseau-ist project, the true believers are scrambling around to find a suitable solution other than the ones learned over generations of trial and error. Discarding the traditional institutions that serve as the storehouse of history means relearning all of those lessons painfully learned the first time. Our rulers better be quick studies. What was once a speck on the horizon is now a short boat ride away. This will not end well.
