Major trends creep up slowly on the unaware.

The signs might have reached the inattentive only in the form of odd and frequently annoying, news. When added up, the bits prove to be mosaic pieces of a larger, yet incomplete, picture. In themselves, the news could be filed as bizarre but ultimately of little portent. Like in a child’s drawing by numbers, the points need to be connected. With that done, the total image appears.

The message found in the transpired picture differs from person to person. Usually it is difficult to identify the big story when it begins to unfold. Few of us detect the future in the tealeaves that the present offers us. Accordingly, hardly anyone got up to cheer, “the middle ages are over, the Renaissance has begun”. Nor did those that heard of Columbus’ voyage exclaim, “Finally, we have entered the Age of Discoveries”. 

There are cases when those that initiate the actions that in their aggregate become irreversible forces can know the likely outcome. It is seldom given to the contemporary to foresee what is allowed to pass by those that he had elected to protect the common veal. 

One of the hardly noticed, and if pointed out derisively received, warnings is the consequence of an immigration that certain types exploit. Here, –but not exclusively- the accommodation of Islamists is meant. In part strong parties that refuse to make certain distinctions cause the problem. Such as by refusing to differentiate between enlightened Muslims and Islamist radicals. Or between genuine refugees –those persecuted by tyrannies that are often run by Islamists – and infiltrators that are drawn by welfare and who shrewdly avoid settling where their more frugal kind rule. 

The ideologues in open societies have a blind eye for what does not fit their illusions and replace reality by distorted constructions. This benefits the enemies of the host so that one suspects a silent suicide committed with open eyes. Islamists come “here” claiming to flee dictatorship. However, once admitted and protected, they proceed to take away “our” freedom. 

Good reasons exist for the apparent contradiction. The militants enter advanced countries not regardless of what they dislike there but because they hate their host. For the adherents of the “religion of peace” their spreading presence in other cultures is a missionary project. Relocation serves as a form of warfare that is held to be the natural relationship of religions. Peace is only due to those that submit to the Faith. The commitment to freedom is also a question of semantics. To the fundamentalist, freedom is to choose the correct way. There is freedom of religion if Islam is chosen. Thereafter freedom is to conform to the faith’s decrees. This excludes pluralism as an insult to God, even if the Jihadists have benefited when they asked the original majority for the tolerance they deny on their own turf. With this coexistence and gratitude for succor is excluded.

Two factors support this strategy. First, pluralistic host societies live under the yoke of their own paralyzing PC rules. Second, radical Muslims are immune to the influence of the ways of the countries that they have chosen.

Especially in Europe, Muslims tend to resist their integration into the existing body politic; to respect the value system which governs it; finally, they avoid education and with that their inclusion into the economy. A study tells that a quarter of young Muslims are unwilling to be integrated in German society. This defies the logic that has moved traditional immigrants. Nevertheless, such self-isolation is a “paying proposition”. The welfare system supports outcasts even when these have knowingly opted for their condition. 

The recalcitrant’s war against freedom is aided by the moral disarmament of the held-in-contempt victims. PC, multiculturalism as a one-way street, substitutes facts with theories. This obstructs self-protection that would resist foreign racists. Here we may add a further myth. It is that only advanced societies can be “racists”. Those from other –not necessarily only Muslim- cultures, cannot be racists. At most, these simply demonstrate “pride” that must be “respected” and accepted as a folkway. 

This tolerance causes the confusion that explains why, while politely ignored, the Sharia seeps into societies in which it is not only alien but also a subversive violation of the basic law and customs. 

The symptoms are numerous enough to enable everyone to cite examples. Just recently, a school in the US state of Wisconsin had to remove a small cross from its ball-team’s helmets. Who is offended by such a display of commitment when wearing a burqa must be tolerated? Or take the 2011 case in which a Catholic university came under pressure because the crosses and paintings in the room made available for prayers insults Muslims. This amounts to accusing the Catholic school of being Catholic. Regardless of the threat of ostracism, one is inclined to suggest that those offended by Catholicism should avoid Catholic institutions. 

Other examples abound. Take immigration policies that unite polygamous families that are created after immigration into countries that forbid the practice. Or when involuntary marriages are illegal but are accepted if its residents conclude them abroad. Following that, the generally male spouse is admitted as a resident. The enforcement of the prohibition of female circumcision is equally lax and officialdom is grateful if unconvincing excuses permit it to overlook the crime. The same applies to pleas that courts begin to consider. As an, at least partial, excuse of the perpetrators of, let us say, honor killings, the claim is raised that his traditions have forced the murderer to act. 

Those that sing us lullabies might call comparable accommodations to be a wise policy. Does flexibility not further integration and the accommodation of cultural peculiarities? At the end of the open-ended process, we can discern the loss of liberties and the voluntarily consented surrender of our way of life. Therefore, what we witness is not what is claimed to be a policy, but sedation before amputation.