Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Muslim?

In last week's Assorted Links, a rather impolite creature left some odd comments whose full meaning, gentle reader, I will leave for you to decipher.  The essence of his, her or it's comments was that Old Publius was a closet advocate of open Muslim immigration.  My response in the comments section is reproduced below.  I have received some more comments regarding my pro-open immigration policy, many not too sympathetic.  Defense, culturally or militarily, is the worst offense and closing our borders is the cultural equivalent of the Maginot Mentality.  Radical Islam, or Islamism or Islamo-Fascism, or whatever you wish to call it, is not the danger.  It's the multicultural Left, which is now beginning to come under attack - witness the reaction to the Archbishop of Canterbury's calls for limited Sharia - that constitutes the real danger to western civilization.  As so often in the past the problem isn't the Other, it's the pathologies that lurk within our own society. 

No closet here, I'm 100% in favour of open immigration. Even of Muslims. The more the better frankly. The overwhelming majority of conservatives are afraid of immigration, they want to close the door. This is a confession of weakness and fear, though understandable given the state of the culture. Faced with a similar intellectual pathology to Islamism the Canada of 50 years wouldn't have blinked. Islamism is a terribly weak ideology, relying upon the hand me downs of the dregs of western philosophy, like fascism and communism.

To win the war against Islamism we need only be ourselves and proclaim it loudly. At every turn denounce the violation of liberties and basic humanity. Every author censored, every women beaten, every daughter denied an education, in Karachi, in Tehran and in Mississauga. Speak loudly, speak boldly, have no fear of causing offense. The truth will set us and them free.

"And the obsession with Muslims is notable in that we must infer you are OK with the state of integration as well as immigration levels of Jamaicans, Bangledeshis, and Poles. That's you: Big Immigration Lover, totally cool with immigration as long as it is not Muslim. Which is stupid, by the way, because statistically Muslims do a hell of a lot better than Jamaicans, for example, on about any indicator you can name."

Quite right. Muslims make excellent immigrants, which is why I think we should have more of them. Let them come. Even in our weakened cultural state the most fanatical elements among the Muslim community fear the West. They know that once their daughters and sons understand our freedoms they've lost. Their dogmatic style of rhetoric reflects a grave weakness.

The great advantage of Muslim immigration to a nation such as Canada is the potential feedback effect. If we can create a rational and liberty minded group of Muslims, when they return "home" on vacations and trips they will spread their ideas and attitudes. The power of ideas cuts both ways. This is one of the ways in which the fascist dictatorships of Portugal and Spain were weakened in the 1960s. Immigrants to France, Belgium and Canada returned home with word about how free peoples lived. 

"Don't point fingers at Muslims. They only came here at your invitation, back when you were bashing anyone who looked sideways at multiculturalism as unenlightened, redneck, or worse."

Whoa. You talking about me? Old Publius? Or is some straw-man you saw somewhere else? I have, as far back as I can remember, opposed the ideas of multiculturalism. The notion that all cultures - and therefore all ideas and values - are equal is appalling. It is at best moral equivalence and at worst plain racism under an "enlightened" guise. I also don't remember inviting any Muslims into Canada, I have invited some Portuguese relatives - any country could always do with more Portuguese people, especially Portugal which seems to have gone all Belgian in the last twenty years.

As for inviting Muslims, I wouldn't mind doing that at all. In doing so I'd just remind them that they are living in Canada now, and if they'd like to stay they must be loyal to ours laws, our values and our Queen. There are over 200 countries in the world, we are objectively one of the best. If you are honest enough to understand and admit this, act accordingly. Like the old British official who promised to hang widow killers, we should stand ready to do the same.

I would like to add to the above only this, a humanitarian consideration.  Do you really think our society is so weak and incapable of cultural self-defense, that it requires us to close the borders?  Before you answer that question please keep in the mind the price to be paid, not by Canada, the United States or Great Britain, whose immigration departments are flooded with worthy applicants from through out the world, but to those you will refuse entry.  What fate do you leave them to?  What happens to girls like Ayaan Hirsi Ali who are still left behind?  Is their fate worth your fears?