Is Multi-Culturalism Failing in Europe?

Cherif and Said Kouachi



Amedy Coulibaly

At first glance, Europe seems to have a different kind of “jihadist problem” than the USA does. Far more Muslims seem to be radicalized in places like London, Paris, Denmark and Belgium than in the U.S. and Canada.

But, perhaps the most recent “jihadist” phenomenon isn’t as much about “radicalization,” as it is about social, cultural and moral alienation.

That was highlighted in a 60 Minutes piece that aired last Sunday (February 15^th, 2015).

Interestingly enough it highlighted the suburban ghettos surrounding Paris as (unofficial) “No-Go Zones,” places where tourists are warned away from and French Police rarely patrol.

Our own national media embarrassingly enough, played dumb (OK, maybe it wasn’t “playing,” it’s not that much of a stretch for many of them anyway) a short time ago, feigning incredulity over such “No-Go Zones,” as if we haven’t had and still HAVE them here in the USA. Tourists to New York certainly ARE warned away from specific neighborhoods and as recently as the 1970s, there were entire Brooklyn neighborhoods where the NYPD rarely patrolled and into which outsiders rarely ventured. Those were unofficial "No-Go Zones."

The sad fact is that “multi-culturalism” appears to be failing in Europe...and perhaps throughout the entire West.

Fact is moralities differ around the world and two of the most discordant moralities are the Sharia moral code of Islam and the Judeo-Christian moral code of the West. Sharia morality is unalterably opposed to “gay rights” of any kind, opposes any kind of gender equality and prescribes public executions and amputations for a wide variety of crimes from the most violent criminal acts to adultery (mostly for female adulterers) and homosexuality, as well as “Honor Killings,” where male family members must kill, or throw acid in the faces of female family members accused of adultery to “cleanse the shame from that family’s name.”

Just as strict Islam is horrifically intolerant and indecently violent to Westerners, Western culture is hopelessly and relentlessly decadent and corrosive to the eyes of those steeped in Sharia’s morality.

Much of the terrorism we witness in the West today, especially recent European terrorist events like the Charlie Hebdo massacre and the recent terrorist shootings in Denmark come down more to a clash between two incompatible moral codes than anything else.

That DOES NOT bode well for either the future of Western anti-terrorism, nor for multi-culturalism either. Some cultures simply aren’t miscible. Not every difference can be paved over with good intentions and “honest dialogue.”

French criminologist Xavier Raufer describes the phenomenon of this “new kind of terrorist,” as “hybrids.” They are career criminals who’ve often become radicalized in prison. Raufer notes, “Of course. Those are the only ones that are left. You know, jihad as an ideal has degenerated along the last 10 or 20 years. Fifteen, 20 years ago the bin Laden type. Now you have common criminals and thugs. One day they drink beer, the next day they smoke pot, the third day they are in a mosque. So, those are totally unstable people. They are human bombs, you know. They can explode any time.

“Cherif Kouachi is a perfect example of that hybrid phenomenon. He and his brother Said were orphans of Algerian descent who ended up in foster care. As a teenager, Cherif was more interested in rap than religion. This video, shot by his friends, documents that period in his life when was he smoking pot and chasing girls. He worked as a pizza delivery boy, but his life changed in 2003 when he became radicalized by a group of young Muslims in this Paris neighborhood. They were angry about the American invasion of Iraq and set up a recruitment ring to send young French Muslims to fight jihad against U.S. forces. But Cherif was arrested the day before he was due to fly and he served 20 months in jail for his part in the conspiracy.”

Vincent Ollivier was Kouachi's lawyer at the time. He said that his client was a bit of a coward who was actually glad to be caught. Ollivier claims that Kouachi “was a lost and confused young boy. And he talked to the judge to me and to the court later that he was relieved of being arrested because he was afraid to go to Iraq and he thought that it - wouldn't come back - at least in one piece. So he was kind of relieved to be arrested, yeah.”

One investigator involved in the case told 60 Minutes that, “Cherif and his associates were dismissed as "mad dogs and morons" who posed no serious threat.”

Without question, there ARE more secular Muslims, who regard religious dictates about as strictly as most “Reformed,” or more secular Western Christians and Jews, but all devout Muslims adhere to Sharia law, THAT is their moral code and it would appear that Sharia’s morality is simply incompatible with the modern Western moral code.

One thing overlooked by both Raufer and Ollivier is that such “hybrids” are, most likely, so easily “radicalized” because they were born into an alien morality (alien to the Western moral code, at any rate) and so predisposed to be extremely conflicted about living within such toxic, decadent cultures.

That prospect is overlooked because it HAS TO BE overlooked by those who desperately want to believe that the Western ideal of multi-culturalism can be preserved, no matter what.

Recent developments cast some serious doubt on that Western presumption.