Minority Report
Last year's London bombings revealed that the British model of integration -- which was held up as an example to Europe -- isn't working. In a controversial new book, Londonistan, British journalist Melanie Phillips explains what went wrong and warns that these developments may threaten the very future of Western values.
Foreign Policy: The West is in a religious war, you argue. How does it win?
Foreign Policy: The West is in a religious war, you argue. How does it win?
Melanie Phillips: The first thing to do is to actually accept and acknowledge that it is a religious war…. We are dealing with a set of ideas that kill.
FP: So what should European countries do to integrate their Muslim populations?
MP: We have to draw a distinction between accepting and welcoming Muslims as immigrants who add — as all immigrants do — greatly to a nation, but nevertheless insisting, like all minorities, that they play by the rules of the game. They are free to practice their culture and religion in private, but where their values conflict with the values of the majority culture, they must give way. We’ve gone down the road of multiculturalism, which ostensibly says that all minorities have equal status to the majority. The result has been that we have handed minorities a stick with which to beat the majority.
FP: Do you think a measure like the recent French ban on headscarves is sensible?
MP: The French have a particular way of dealing with minorities, which I don’t particularly approve of. It’s a very intolerant approach, which doesn’t lead to integration at all … sort of a militant secularist state which requires everybody to adhere to its own secular values but then ignores the festering problem that it’s creating.
FP: Will any European country permit the use of sharia in the next decade?
MP: It’s already creeping in. In Britain, it’s being tolerated. It’s part of the salami slicing that’s going on, so the bits — like Islamic banking — that don’t appear to cause a problem to the majority are being encouraged.
FP: How long do you think European countries have to take on this ideology?
MP: There are people in Britain who think that within 10 years, we will have enclaves where there will be sharia, a kind of separate, parallel jurisdiction. There are others who think that across Europe, it’s 20 years, 30 years before France becomes an Islamic country…. If we all continue the way that we are, then we will have an increasing Balkanization of our national culture.
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