Why are young Muslims becoming anti-Western?
After 26 years as a member of the Social Democrats, Karen West left the party in 2013 and switched to the party which refers to itself as the most liberal in Denmark, Liberal Alliance (LA). In addition, West is a leader in the cross-party association Danish Equality which works to preserve the existing economic, social, legal and sexual equality of Danish women and men. But it doesn’t stop there:
The association will make visible and counteract Islamic, reactionary and identity political oppression of free, equal, democratic citizens in Denmark.
If this association had existed in Norway, it would probably be in danger of being banned.
Islamic worldview
West opens his chronicle in Berlingske with praise for Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen (S) who recently announced that not all values are equally good, with a reference to a new Danish history textbook written by Iman Hassani (previously mentioned by us here). Another historian, who is himself a Muslim, tells West that «the author has an Islamic world view». As West points out: «It can probably be said as briefly and correctly.»
It is precisely the Islamic worldview that worries the West, because it has been created in society. She shows, among other things, that Imam Mohammad Khani, in the Shiite Imam Ali Mosque in Copenhagen, will not refrain from the assassination of Salman Rushdie (on the contrary, he reacted with a long tirade on Facebook about Western abuses against Muslims and the demonization of Islam), in in addition to students at the universities becoming anti-Western. The latter is connected to academic environments subjecting themselves to the narrative of “the racist and Islamophobic agenda of the Danes” which promotes a political, religious identity among Muslim students, says cultural sociologist Mehmet Ümit Necef have argued for. She also points to integration consultant Henrik Kokbog, who has assumed that “young anti-Western, powerful Muslims act as a mouthpiece for all Muslim minorities”.
West sits back thoughtfully: Why doesn’t this new generation of well-educated, powerful Muslims become part of our free, equal and secular democracy?
Anti-democrat
She finds the answer not least in what she refers to as the “integration industry” which has employed Muslims for years – without being critical of how much power they have to influence children and young people with their Islamic values. On the contrary, says West, both state and municipal institutions believe that it is good that it is the minorities themselves who are responsible for the integration of Muslim children and young people in democracy.
This, West believes, is a fundamental betrayal because what it failed to demand when the country accepted refugees and family reunification was assimilation.
West points out that we thus ended up measuring the success of integration based on two parameters: work and language. “Precisely the two successful integration parameters that today appear in the political, anti-Western Muslims”, she points out, and states that we are therefore today faced with some young people who have never learned democratic education, who never became democrats and who now openly turn back. against our hard-fought liberal democracy.
The solution believes that West is ungrateful for integration consultants, social workers, pedagogues, teachers and lecturers who either don’t care or want to see Muslim children and young people develop their religious identity. Only in this way can we preserve our free democracy and be sure that Muslim children and young people will be democratised, she says.
Assimilation
That Muslims who work with children and young people can pass on, not impose, their Islamic values on them, should not surprise anyone. We have a number of examples of this. But what may surprise is the absence of this debate. What did we think? That Muslims with a completely different set of values from our freedom values should be able to integrate children into democracy? Don’t we see how hopeless this is?
The betrayal of not demanding assimilation is a central point of West’s, but that acknowledgment comes too late. This is understandable, because when the debate about assimilation was high on the agenda, a number of Muslim self-appointed spokespersons knew how to use a well-known tactic: demands for assimilation were to deprive minorities of their identity. This argument was used as a “weapon” to precisely reject values that do not fit into an Islamic value system. And our leaders bowed out – again. This is also why Prime Minister Frederiksen is to be commended for now admitting that all values are not equally good.
Almost 20 years ago, in 2003, HRS spoke up assimilation. We did this in an article in the Danish newspaper Berlingske and immediately afterwards with the same article in Klassekampen. The chronicle, penned by Hege Storhaug, was published just before we were to have a meeting with the then Minister of Immigration and Integration Bertel Haarder. We were used to his reaction, because the chronicle was written after a long period of doubt. The worry was that we could be subjected to a witch trial, since everything at this time was about the idea of the multicultural society – and hardly any concepts were more taboo and assimilation. But we beat that time quickly:
But precisely assimilation is completely determined to achieve the goal of a democratic and well-functioning multi-ethnic society. Non-Western immigrants must be assimilated into the basic pillars of democracy: the principles of equality, equality, freedom of religion and freedom of expression.
And we continued:
Assimilating new population groups into these servants is probably the greatest gift we can give both them and ourselves, and thus also the opportunity to keep a democratic and harmonious Scandinavia. For Pakistanis, such assimilation will mean the brutal, fascist and un-Islamic caste system perpetuated here, thrown on the dustbin of history. For the joy of young and old, women and men.
For Somalis, it means a long-awaited goodbye to clan identity and hence rivalry and strife, injustice and abuse. For Gambians who belong to the Mandinko tribe, this means that the girls get to keep their clitoris and internal genitalia – even when they are born in Copenhagen.
In a multi-ethnic democratic society, there is no tolerance for oppressive cultural and religious practices. Everyone must be treated equally and have the same value – regardless of origin. All are Democrats. Loyalty is thus to democracy, not to cultural origin or religious affiliation.
We proceed quickly the following:
In a humanistic light, today’s Norwegian culture is superior to, for example, democratic Pakistani, Somali, Moroccan and Kurdish culture. This must mean that we do not want undemocratic and inhumane cultural elements from the aforementioned areas to establish themselves here. Therefore, everyone must be assimilated into our democratic and humanist basic values.
You can read the entire chronicle here
So how was it received? Yes, in Norway the expected witch trial started, while Minister Haarder was reluctantly excited – because he also perceived it as very bold. The Danish government at the time had strongly changed course in immigration and integration policy, so Haarder immediately caught the potential in the message. In retrospect, it has also left its footprints in Danish politics. I don’t think he ever used the term assimilation, but I have no doubt that he was more concerned with both values and Islam.
Then it’s just a matter of finishing as we did in the aforementioned chronicle:
We do not want a multicultural Norway or Denmark. We want a colorful multi-ethnic society based on likeness, equality, freedom of religion and freedom of expression.