by Herbert I. London
In an odd form of social suicide, rather than increasing efforts to integrate Muslims into German society, German students will be taught about Islam. In a sense, German educators will be engaged in proselytizing for Islam.
The German state of Lower Saxony will start including Islam in its schools' core curriculum as part of an initiative to counter growing anti-Islam sentiment in Europe. Dr. Bernad Althusmann, Minister of Education in Lower Saxony announced that schools there will start including Islamic education in their main curriculum, saying, during a visit to an elementary school in the city of Hanover which offers an Islamic education class, "I think we will be able to start implementation by the academic year after the next," said
Justifying this approach, Juergen Zoeliner, Berlin Minister for Education, Science and Research, notes, "For years, society and schools have been faced with a variety of new duties and challenges. One of these big challenges is to have people from different traditions, cultural and religion affiliations living together peacefully and respectfully." .
One might assume that Muslims in the West should come to know and appreciate Western Civilization. Students who are not versed in the history and customs of the polity they find themselves in will be handicapped. Yet integration -- once the overarching strategy for dealing with immigrants -- has been replaced in Germany, and throughout Western Europe, by efforts to bend over backwards to accommodate the Islamic population. In the process, this effort produces results that counter good intentions. First, the Islamic population believes, with considerable confirmation, that Europeans do not possess the will to assert the importance of their own culture and traditions. Second, the insertion of Islam into German schools suggests tacitly that Islam is on the rise and cannot be denied even in non-Islamic nations
"Diversity education" is predicated on the belief that we in the West have on obligation to understand Islam -- however, the converse does not follow.
Of course, whether the program ultimately leads to a peaceful result is questionable. Why did the armies of Europe turn back the Turks at the gates of Vienna 500 years ago when programs, like these instituted in Germany, are handing Islam the keys to the future?
Although German shame over Nazi atrocities has made Hitler's heritage the end of German history and identity, should this shame be replaced by preemptive capitulation to a religion with a relentless imperial impulse?
To be sure, the Salafists, with Saudi funding, will follow up on their efforts in the schools. But will the full story of Islam be told including the stoning of adulterers, the execution of homosexuals, polygamy, apostasy as a capital offense and the belief that Jews are the offspring of apes and pigs?
Preemptive capitulation is nothing more than a form of defeat, and Islamic leaders recognize it in this way. The aggressive stance taken by Islamic leaders in Europe is based to an extraordinary degree on the flexibility and weakness of those who could defend the West.
G.K. Chesterton once noted that "an open mind, like an open mouth, should close on something." As I see it, that something should be the traditions of the West, the Judeo-Christian principles that gave birth to our civilization. If people want to live in this civilization, that is what they should be obliged to learn.
http://www.hudson-ny.org/1725/german-schools-embrace-islam
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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