Let's Assimilate

Fire of Liberty

Andrew C. McCarthy has a good piece over at National Review Online critiquing a recent Op/Ed by Francis Fukuyama in the Wall Street Journal, in which the Johns Hopkins professor notes that Democracy is not the solution to radical Islam in the short run and that in order for immigrants to adopt to an established Democracy they must whole-heartedly assimilate. Now I disagree with the argument that Democracy is not a solution(Fukuyama is a too much of a realist for me.) but I'm in full agreement with him on the argument for assimilation, the only problem is that Fukuyama adds a caveat to assimilation which is that the state should be willing to changes more in-line with the folks that are moving in from a entirely different society and culture. Thankfully, McCarthy has pretty much torpedoed this vessel that Fukuyama launched in his Op/Ed. Take a look:

First, Fukuyama rightly contends that this assimilation must begin with an end to fractious multiculturalism. He concludes, however, that this means the societies themselves must change, if not fundamentally than at least significantly. Countries, he declares, "need to reformulate their definitions of national identity to be more accepting of people from non-Western backgrounds."

I'm all for acceptance, but I respectfully disagree. Immigrants presumably come to a new place because it is attractive to them as is, not because they seek to reform it. More desirable would be real gate-keeping immigration policies that admitted only those of a mind to assimilate to the home culture, not the other way around. If that means people who would otherwise emigrate end up remaining in their home countries, is that such a bad thing? As Fukuyama posits, in those places — if they are Islamic countries — — a social-support system exists that tends against mass radicalism (even if, as history has shown, it has not been able to prevent pockets of radicalism, and, occasionally, dominant radicalism in places like Sudan and Afghanistan under the Taliban).

So if you going to become a Frenchman or an American you've got to learn the history, culture, language and abide by the nation's laws. Now no-one is arguing that these immigrants should disgard their religion our history but they have to realize that they are moving somewhere new and can't pick up the ways of their mother country and plop it down in their new home. When you allow this and embrace the doctrine of multiculturalism, you end up with cars, homes and stores burning in the suburbs of Paris.