Mark Steyn: Multiculturalists are the real racists

Last Thursday, in Sydney, the pack leader of a group of Lebanese Muslim gang- rapists was sentenced to 55 years in jail. I suppose I ought to say "Lebanese-Australian" Muslim gang-rapists, since the accused were Australian citizens. But, identity-wise, the rambunctious young lads considered themselves heavy on the Lebanese, light on the Australian. During their gang rapes, the lucky lady would be told she was about to be "f- --ed Leb style" and that she deserved it because she was an "Australian pig."

But, inevitably, it's the heavy sentence that's "controversial." After September 11th, Americans were advised to ask themselves, "Why do they hate us?" Now Australians need to ask themselves, "Why do they rape us?" As Monroe Reimers put it on the letters page of The Sydney Morning Herald:

"As terrible as the crime was, we must not confuse justice with revenge. We need answers. Where has this hatred come from? How have we contributed to it? Perhaps it's time to take a good hard look at the racism by exclusion practised with such a vengeance by our community and cultural institutions."

Indeed. Many's the time, labouring under the burden of some or other ghastly Ottawa policy, I've thought of pinning some gal down and sodomizing her while 14 of my pals look on and await their turn. But I fear in my case the Monroe Reimers of the world would be rather less eager to search for "root causes." Gang rape as a legitimate expression of the campaign for social justice is a privilege reserved only unto a few.

Mr. Reimers, though, will be happy to know his view is echoed across the hemispheres. Five days before 9/11, the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet reported that 65% of the country's rapes were committed by "non-Western" immigrants -- a category which, in Norway, is almost wholly Muslim. A professor at the University of Oslo explained that one reason for the disproportionate Muslim share of the rape market was that in their native lands "rape is scarcely punished" because it is generally believed that "it is women who are responsible for rape."

So Muslim immigrants to Norway should be made aware that things are a little different in Scandinavia? Not at all! Rather, the professor insisted, "Norwegian women must take their share of responsibility for these rapes" because their manner of dress would be regarded by Muslim men as inappropriate. "Norwegian women must realize that we live in a multicultural society and adapt themselves to it." Or to modify Queen Victoria's wedding-night advice to her daughter: Lie back and think of Yemen.

France? Well, I can't bring you any ethnic rape statistics from the Fifth Republic because the authorities go to great lengths not to keep any. But, even though the phenomenon of immigrant gang rape does not exist, there's already a word for it: the "tournante" -- or "take your turn." Last year, 11 Muslim men were arrested for enjoying a grand old tournante with a 14-year old girl in a cellar.

Denmark? "Three quarters of rapes are carried out by non-Danes," says Peter Skaarup, chairman of the People's Party, a member of the governing coalition.

Well, you get the idea. Whether or not Muslim cultures are more prone to rape is a question we shall explore another day. What's interesting is how easily even this most extreme manifestation of multiculturalism is subsumed within the usual pieties. Norwegian women must learn to be, in a very real sense, less "exclusionary." Lebanese male immigrants, fleeing a war-torn wasteland and finding refuge in a land of peace, freedom and opportunity, are inevitably transformed into gang rapists by Australian racism.

After September 11th, a friend in London said to me she couldn't stand all the America-needs-to-ask-itself stuff because she used to work at a rape crisis centre and she'd heard this blame-the-victim routine a thousand times before. America was asking for it: like those Norwegian women, it was being "provocative." My friend thought the multiculti apologists were treating America as a metaphorical rape victim. But, even so, it comes as a surprise to realize they do exactly the same to actual rape victims. After the O.J. verdict, it was noted by some feminists that "race trumped gender." What we've seen since September 11th is that multiculturalism trumps everything. Its grip on the imagination of the Western elites is unshakeable. Even President Bush, in the month after September 11th, felt obliged to line up a series of photo-ops so he could declare that "Islam is peace" while surrounded by representatives of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an organization which objected, on the grounds of "ethnic and religious stereotyping," to the prosecution of two men in Chicago for the "honour killing" of their female cousin.

On this "Islam is peace" business, Bassam Tibi, a Muslim professor at Goettingen University in Germany, gave a helpful speech a few months back: "Both sides should acknowledge candidly that although they might use identical terms these mean different things to each of them," he said. "The word 'peace,' for example, implies to a Muslim the extension of the Dar al- Islam -- or 'House of Islam' -- to the entire world. This is completely different from the Enlightenment concept of eternal peace that dominates Western thought." Only when the entire world is a Dar al-Islam will it be a Dar a-Salam, or "House of Peace."

On the face of it, that sounds ridiculous. The "Muslim world" -- the arc stretching from North Africa through South Asia -- is economically, militarily, scientifically and artistically irrelevant. But, looked at through the prism of Norwegian rape or French crime, the idea of a Dar al-Islam doesn't sound so ridiculous. The "code of silence" that surrounds rape in tightly knit Muslim families is, so to speak, amplified by the broader "code of silence" surrounding multicultural issues in the West. If all cultures are of equal value, how do you point out any defects?

As I understand it, the benefits of multiculturalism are that the sterile white- bread cultures of Australia, Canada and Britain get some great ethnic restaurants and a Commonwealth Games opening ceremony that lasts until two in the morning. But, in the case of those Muslim ghettoes in Sydney, in Oslo, in Paris, in Copenhagen and in Manchester, multiculturalism means that the worst attributes of Muslim culture -- the subjugation of women -- combine with the worst attributes of Western culture -- licence and self-gratification. Tattoed, pierced Pakistani skinhead gangs swaggering down the streets of Northern England are as much a product of multiculturalism as the turban- wearing Sikh Mountie in the vice-regal escort at Rideau Hall. Yet even in the face of the crudest assaults on its most cherished causes -- women's rights, gay rights -- the political class turns squeamishly away.

Once upon a time we knew what to do. A British district officer, coming upon a scene of suttee, was told by the locals that in Hindu culture it was the custom to cremate a widow on her husband's funeral pyre. He replied that in British culture it was the custom to hang chaps who did that sort of thing. There are many great things about India -- curry, pyjamas, sitars, software engineers -- but suttee was not one of them. What a pity we're no longer capable of being "judgmental" and "discriminating." We're told the old-school imperialists were racists, that they thought of the wogs as inferior. But, if so, they at least considered them capable of improvement. The multiculturalists are just as racist. The only difference is that they think the wogs can never reform: Good heavens, you can't expect a Muslim in Norway not to go about raping the womenfolk! Much better just to get used to it.

As one is always obliged to explain when tiptoeing around this territory, I'm not a racist, only a culturist. I believe Western culture -- rule of law, universal suffrage, etc. -- is preferable to Arab culture: that's why there are millions of Muslims in Scandinavia, and four Scandinavians in Syria. Follow the traffic. I support immigration, but with assimilation. Without it, like a Hindu widow, we're slowly climbing on the funeral pyre of our lost empires. You see it in European foreign policy already: they're scared of their mysterious, swelling, unstoppable Muslim populations.

Islam For All reported the other day that, at present demographic rates, in 20 years' time the majority of Holland's children (the population under 18) will be Muslim. It will be the first Islamic country in western Europe since the loss of Spain. Europe is the colony now.

Or as Charles Johnson, whose excellent "Little Green Footballs" Web site turns up dozens of fascinating Islamic tidbits every day, suggested: "Maybe we should start a betting pool: Which European country will be the first to institute shari'a?"

Steyn is as brilliant as usual here. But the great and terrible question behind this essay is: Why do these points need to be raised at all? Why isn't it evident to everyone by now that no "oppression," no "religion," and no "cultural difference" could possibly justify this savagery or exculpate those who practice it?

When it's necessary for a great talent like Steyn to put his time to reminding people that rape is wrong, it's time to be afraid. Very afraid.

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit The Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com

Excellent article, and quite true indeed. We need to regain our confidence and reassert the intellectual and cultural primacy of Western values. Anyone who wants to live in the West must do so on Western terms, or pay the price.

What we've seen since September 11th is that multiculturalism trumps everything. Its grip on the imagination of the Western elites is unshakeable.

This latest commentary is Steyn at his greatest and most penetrating. He sure does know how to knock down the shibboleths!

Forget that leftist apologetic book, "Understanding The Q'uran", now required reading at UNC. Steyn's columns should be the required reading for incoming freshmen if they want to learn something worthwhile and get a grip on reality!

The big question is, is anybody listening and paying attention (besides FReepers and a few unreconstructed Colonialists)? From the looks of the daily newspapers and TV media, not many! The Liberals have slowly pushed this critical discussion back into the web of their comfort zone and twisted assumptions.

I hope that America will be able to stand as a citidel of the West as Europe sinks under Islam. I hope. But it will depend on many factors which are in doubt.

Radical Islam is an insane murder cult, "moderate" Islam is its Trojan Horse in the West.

If the Neo-cons want their "Clash of Civilizations" they will need sterner stuff than this Steyn article, but it is a step in the right direction. The magazine "Chronicles" has been a constant critic of Islam for years and all the neo-cons did was shout them down for doing so, but we do take converts.

A British district officer, coming upon a scene of suttee, was told by the locals that in Hindu culture it was the custom to cremate a widow on her husband's funeral pyre. He replied that in British culture it was the custom to hang chaps who did that sort of thing.

American culture might prefer the judicious discharge of a firearm to the use of a rope, but the sentiment is common to both cultures.

The "Muslim world" -- the arc stretching from North Africa through South Asia -- is economically, militarily, scientifically and artistically irrelevant.

Got that right!

I seem to remember a thread being posted a while back that linked to this site. It was subsequently deleted.

It might have been the one with the kitten dressed as a suicide bomber. There were some great comments on LGF that got copied here.

"Both sides should acknowledge candidly that although they might use identical terms these mean different things to each of them," he said. "The word 'peace,' for example, implies to a Muslim the extension of the Dar al- Islam -- or 'House of Islam' -- to the entire world. This is completely different from the Enlightenment concept of eternal peace that dominates Western thought."

Only when the entire world is a Dar al-Islam will it be a Dar a-Salam, or "House of Peace."

Good grief! When are we in the West going to get it?

Why are our most learned scholars and middle-east experts not getting this across to the media and the rest of us? Must we find out the hard way what the moslems are really all about?

"Why?" indeed!

Perhaps because hypocrisy pays better than honesty?

Too easy, I know; but so long as careerists in government direct our affairs, we are mere ciphers in their fatally naive calculations.

They are sure that their pensions will be in place, when they retire from a long and devoted life of public service.

Like children, they have no idea of the true weight of these issues. And yet they presume to lead.

An historical moment is approaching.

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