05 September 2011

The trouble with multiculturalism

.... it’s not just Muslims that need to confront the dark elements of their faith, says Raza. Non-Muslim Canadians, too, must recognize their liberal democratic traditions are threatened, and government-sanctioned multicultural policies make it worse.

“When I first landed in Canada and heard the word ‘multiculturalism’ I thought this country was telling me I could enjoy my culture, but at the same time it was my responsibility to adapt and blend into this new culture. It took me a while to realize that official multiculturalism, as promoted by the Canadian government, allowed people to ghettoize themselves. So, I was a multiculti fan until I realized it was doing more harm than good.”

.... “Some of the practices allowed in the name of multiculturalism are fundamentally in contravention of western values,” says Muslim activist and scholar Farzana Hassan, the author of two books calling for Islam’s reformation, Prophecy and the Fundamentalist Quest of Islam, and Islam, Women and the Challenge of Today. “We have this abusive multiculturalism now, and it has become the West’s Achilles heel.” [The Ottawa Citizen] Read more [via International Free Press Society]