Shariah Is for Everyone!
By Henryk M. Broder

The archbishop of Canterbury has proposed a partial introduction of Islamic Shariah law in Great Britain. This is yet another step on the part of the Western world to subjugate itself to a Muslim immigrant minority unwilling to integrate.

In the autumn of 2006, the Dutch were dismayed over a book that had been published by the country's then justice minister, in which he speculated over the introduction of Shariah law in the Netherlands.

"How can this (the introduction of Shariah) be prevented legally?" the minister wrote. "Simply calling it 'impossible' would be scandalous. The majority counts. This happens to be the essence of democracy."

If two-thirds of the Dutch public favored Shariah, the minister argued, its introduction would be unavoidable. Forced onto the defensive, the minister explained that his comment had merely been a reference "to the democratic principle" that a two-thirds majority is all it takes to amend the country's constitution.

At the same time, of course, he criticized the ongoing immigration and integration debate. "I don't like the tone of the political debate," he said. "To say: 'You must conform and accept our norms and values as your own; be reasonable, do as we do,' doesn't conform to the way I think things should be handled.'"

But the minister neglected to explain exactly how he thought things should be handled. His omission only reinforced the impression among many in the Netherlands that what he really meant was that it is not the immigrants who should "conform and accept our norms and values," but the Dutch who should conform to the norms and values of immigrants.

In the summer of 2007, Tiny Muskens, a liberal Catholic and the former bishop of the Dutch city of Breda, proposed replacing the word "God" with the word "Allah." Allah, he said, is a nice name for God and, for this reason, we shouldn't feel uncomfortable about referring to God as Allah.

A short time later, the Social Democratic mayor of Brussels, Freddy Thielemans, banned a rally -- scheduled to take place on the sixth anniversary of 9/11 -- to protest the gradual Islamicization of Europe. He also instructed Brussels police officers not to smoke or eat in public during the month-long Ramadan fast, so as not to offend Muslims. A bit farther south, in Zurich, police officers were asked to acquaint themselves with Islamic culture by voluntarily refraining from eating or drinking for an entire day during Ramadan.

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Pertinent Links:

1) Shariah Is for Everyone!