Mark & Derb, I’d only add that it’s one thing to find yourself in Quebec where, for various historical reasons, the two solitudes find themselves side-by-side. The unique problem with Islam is that the creation of Muslim enclaves — what the Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual guide, Yusuf Qaradawi, calls “voluntary apartheid” — is an intentional, long-term jihadist strategy to, as Sheikh Qaradawi puts it, “conquer America” and “conquer Europe.”
There is much to and fro’ing over the meaning of “jihad”: Is it a forcible struggle? (Yes, but not necessarily.) Or is it the internal, personal struggle to become a better person? (No, that’s a revisionist fiction.) But there is very little discussion or understanding about the purpose of jihad. It is to implement sharia, the Muslim legal code. That is the necessary precondition for Islamicizing a society. By allowing the establishment and expansion of Muslim enclaves where sharia is the law, a Western society not only undermines civic cohesion; it legitimizes sharia as part of its legal framework — notwithstanding that the theory of sharia and many of its core provisions are antithetical to individual liberty and reason.
The creation of parallel Muslim societies is not just an incidental by-product of living in a dynamic, mobile world. It is a jihad — and, compared to blowing stuff up, it’s a damned effective one.
In 2007 — even as Yorkshire, Malmo, and Rotterdam were being transformed before our very eyes – David Millibank, the British foreign secretary, proposed expanding the EU to include the Muslim Middle East and North Africa (as well as Russia, Turkey, etc.). French president Nicolas Sarkozy has a similar scheme, dubbed “Club Med,” to create a confederation between the EU and Islamic nations bordering the Mediterranean Sea. Never in his wildest dreams, I imagine, did Qaradawi think the West would voluntarily hand him what he’s been urging Muslims to take in gradual steps.