Liberals are desperately afraid to ask this question, let alone hear the answer.
Face it. Some values work in America, some do not.
If an immigrant comes from India, Honduras or Cameroon with a different culture and religion, America is not going to be a terribly difficult adjustment. There is nothing restricting their customs, and they have no innate antagonism to the typical American way of life.
But there are ‘ism’s in the world that are EXPLICITLY hostile to the traditional American culture and way of life. Communism and Nazism were two that we legitimately went to war over within living memory. Those beliefs are totally incompatible with Our way of life. (Even if many professors have thrown in with Communist ideals.)
Islam is in a unique situation. How should we respond to it? Treat it like a religion, with the associated freedoms, or like a political system that is setting itself as a rival to the American system of laws and freedoms?
That’s the question that THIS speech by Homa Arjomand addressed at Oxford.
An excerpt:
In Islam individuals have no rights or dignity, Islam identifies people and individuals by their religion: Non-Muslim and Muslim. This is a concept that cannot fit to any of modern definitions of citizenship. No civil society can function based on such defining identity. Dividing the society based on such clear-cut identity ultimately creates a society based on discrimination or ghettos. The legal aspect of such a division is beyond comprehension. Identifying groups of people or a country by their religion by default would mean denial of individual’s right and dignity, to place collective “minority rights” above individual rights”.
Women in Islam are degraded totally as individuals, and are treated as slaves. Their position in society is worse than their position in family settings. They are considered either as the daughter of a male, or a wife of a male. She would need that male’s permission to travel, to work, to rent a place and study; without that permission she is denied all her rights as a human being. She is fully responsible to honour her family by keeping her virginity or else she deserves death by honour killing. She must be submissive and allow the male of the family, father, brother, uncle or grandfather, to find her a husband. In some cases when they can not find a husband for the oldest daughter she will be forced to accept a temporary marriage contract (Sigheh), as short as one hour. Formation of a Haramsara: keeping as many wives as possible in one place, or what is now known as Polygamy which is marriage of one man with more than one woman. Child bride as young as 9 years to men as old as her grandfather, are all proofs that Islam is incompatible with the Western liberation. –Read More
Here’s a related conversation with more of a ‘Clash’ flavor to it — if you think you can handle it.
Is Islam incompatible with Western Values?
