The futility of multiculturalism

The agreement between hard-line Unionist Ian Paisley and revolutionary Republican Martin McGuinness may or may not prove durable. What it does suggest, however, is that in situations of sharp polarization, only the leaders of the radicals in each camp can make peace.

The reason for this is not hard to grasp. People in each of the warring camps are mortally scared, and with good reason, of what their enemies might do to them. They will therefore not take negotiations with the enemy seriously if these are undertaken on their behalf by people who might sacrifice their particular capacity for self-defence to the general higher interests of peace. Only deals made by people trusted not to sell out, "hardliners", can win the necessary acceptance in the individual camps.

It is for this same good reason that efforts by the “international community” to resolve national and religious conflicts such as those in Bosnia and Kosovo are doomed to failure. Bosnia for example, which has been under international control since 1995, remains divided between a Serb Republic and a Muslim-Croat Federation, whose unity is itself largely imaginary. The three camps – Serbs, Croats and Muslims, regularly vote for "hardline" politicians (although in the Muslim case this is concealed by the fact that their nationalist politicians call for a united Bosnia in which the Muslims are a majority, while Serb and Croat nationalism takes a separatist form). The international community has now spent over a decade trying to undermine the “extremists” and bring forward “moderates” willing to make Bosnia a single multiethnic state. But that time has been wasted. The voters go on supporting the “extremists”.

The false assumption underlying the futile endeavours of the internationals is that the clashing identities of Serbs, Croats and Muslims are mere illusions that can and must be subsumed into a new supranational “European” identity. As a result no progress at all is being made in the only direction in which it is in fact conceivable: through getting the three groups to accept the existence of, and achieve some level of respect for, the identities and historical aspirations of the others.

Progress in this direction would be immensely difficult to achieve and even if it were achieved would lead to what are, from a multiculturalist point of view, imperfect solutions –permanent communal separation rather than a multicultural paradise. But one day the internationals will have to go home and then the only thing sustaining peace will be the degree to which the parties have achieved real mutual acceptance, not their opportunistic willingness today to spout the multicultural pieties their temporary international overlords like to hear.

Is Mustafa Ceric, Grand Mufti of Bosnia, a moderate?

Today’s Jihad Watch has a long post by Robert Spencer on one of my great obsessions: what is a moderate Muslim?

What, for example, should we make of a figure like Mustafa Ceric, the Grand Mufti of Bosnia, with whom Prince Charles once spent a morning “debating the future of Islam and the West”?

According to the website of the Clinton Global Initiative, a global gathering of worthies chaired by the former American President,

“Dr. Mustafa Ceric is the Raisu-l-Ulama of Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Grand Mufti of Bosnia since 1993. He is also the Grand Mufti of Sanjak, Croatia and Slovenia. He served as an imam in Chicago and Croatia and professor in Bosnia, Malaysia, and the U.S. He is the co-recipient of the 2003 UNESCO Felix Houphouet-Boigny Peace Prize for Contribution to World Peace and recipient of the International Council of Christians and Jews Annual Sir Sternberg Award for exceptional contribution to interfaith understanding. He has delivered numerous lectures and led several workshops on inter-religious and interfaith issues at local and international conferences. Dr. Ceric is a member of several scientific organizations and societies, including the Inter-religious Council of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Council of 100 Leaders of the World Economic Forum, the European Council for Fatwas and Research, and the World Conference of Religions for Peace”.

But what exactly does he want?

A writer for the Bosnian daily Oslobodjenje claims that Ceric owed his job to the former Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic and that,

“Misunderstandings began when Ceric started to assume the role of arbiter in all spheres of life. He demanded the introduction of religious education in schools, and said that Muslims had to reject "European trash" - alcohol, drugs and prostitution. He launched a campaign against ethnically mixed marriages. He prohibited the sale of pork in Sarajevo - an order taken by the Western media as proof that Islamic fundamentalism was penetrating the heart of Europe. After the fall of Srebrenica - a Muslim enclave officially under the protection of the UN - Ceric accused the West of slaughtering Muslims: "We are being killed by those who claim to be Christians." He has suggested that Bosnian Muslims should follow the example of the world's 1 billion Muslims and reject western secular society.”

According to Ceric himself, Bosnia today is a halfway house between the House of Islam (Dar al-Islam) and the House of War (Dar al-Harb). In this halfway house, known as the Dar al-Sulh (House of the Truce), “Islam or the shariah cannot be implemented fully, but the government should endeavour to put it into practice as much as possible”. [So in Bosnia] “it is unrealistic to expect us to implement shariah completely. That’s what I want, of course, but it will not happen just like that.”

On interfaith dialogue, Ceric has this to say: “Muslims who want to meet people of other faiths have every right to do so but it is wrong to accept much from such forums (…) Islam is the religion of God and it is the best way forward known to man. In it lies the salvation of humanity, dignity and all that is required for a creature to be classified as a human”. [incidentally does the last bit mean that non-Muslims are non-human creatures?]

In Europe, as Ceric explained to the BBC’s Dominic Casciani in February 2005, “governments must essentially buy the trust of Muslims by institutionalizing their faith – giving it state sponsorship through schools, official bodies and so on. Resistance [by Muslims] is a 'tribal mentality' that allows others to present Muslims as alien outsiders”. He also calls for the establishment of a unified European representative Muslim agency at European level. Thus, according to Ceric, the way for Europeans to integrate Muslims is to allow – or even force them – to live under an Iranian-style system governed by authoritative figures such as himself in the very heart of Europe.

In interviews with Western journalists, Ceric gives replies of the utmost obscurity, hoping that our fervent desire that there should be no “Muslim threat” will lead us to hear what we wish to hear.

But the Mufti dissembles. “At a dinner to honour the [British] foreign guests who attended Mustafa Ceric's installation as Ra'is al-Ulama”, writes a British Muslim who was there, “Dr Ceric, remembered by many in Britain as the man whose discourse at the Muslim Parliament had reduced people to tears, (…) spoke brilliantly, totally at ease, free of the constraints that the presence of non-Muslims had imposed elsewhere.”

Nevertheless, it takes only a little time on the Internet to establish what the Mufti’s real agenda is.

Ceric shares the goals of the Iranian mullahs and al-Qaeda. Where he differs is on the appropriate methods. Rather than violence, he proposes that the cause of Islam be advanced through a “long march through the institutions”, in which Muslims living in the West arre to play a leading role. In fact, whatever Ceric may say on the subject, terrorism and violence are essential to the success of this approach, since it is only by making themselves a danger to their non-Muslim neighbours that western Muslims can create the very “problem of integration” to which Ceric has the answer.

Truly moderate people - Muslim or not - will reject this whole game.