CAN different cultures live together in peace? No says Europe. Yes says India. India is the only country in the world which has managed to create a nearly successful model of co-existence of cultures. And I am not saying it. We have it from a Jesuit scholar.
He says: “The world has a lesson to learn in how the Indian people with many languages, religions and cultures live together.” He is emphatic that “India has an important role to play in shaping the destiny of mankind.”
But the Muslims, it seems, have opted out of the process of shaping human destiny. They prefer to stand apart.
Remember, the Muslims forced the partition of India, of Nigeria, of Cyprus. They said they could not co-exist with the Hindus. Now they can’t co-exist with the Europeans. What is worse, they have taken to terrorism.
The West took no notice of the storm that was brewing up. And when it broke out, the West said there was no storm. India faced the brunt of the terrorist onslaught.
Why? Because the USA and Britain, the main distributors of Arab oil, wanted to appease the new forces of terror.
So, Muslim migration to Europe has become an explosive issue with the Europeans. But there is no easy solution now. So long the migrants returned to their own countries, there was no problem. But some of the migrants stayed back, mostly under the persuasion of their white employers. Naturally, they brought their families and had more children, who became full citizens of host countries. Troubles began when the natives refused to accept these children as full citizens.
An effort to assimilate these migrants was made by Britain (Reminds one of the effort of Macaulay to create a cadre of Indians to serve the empire). It failed as the migrants refused to give up their identity and culture. This is what led to the creation of the multi-cultural experiment. But a nation will expect the migrants to accept the main values cherished by the natives. The Muslims refused to accept any such value. The experiment was thus bound to fail. What was more, the British financial authorities shot down the project because it involved enormous expenditure. Imagine having separate schools for Muslims!
But what led to the abandonment of the experiment was the involvement of the migrants in terrorism. With that even liberal opinion in the West turned against the migrants in particular and against Muslims in general. Today the natives want to expel the migrants from their countries or force them to westernise. If they are going about it slowly, it is because of the fear of repercussions. And yet the process has started. The Americans can never forget the attack on New York.
The French are demanding the Muslims to drop the burqa of their women. The Swiss have banned the minarettes and the call of the Muezin. And the Scandinavians have introduced a series of measures to modernise the life of the Muslims.
Of course, Wahabi Islam is not going to surrender. They are stepping up their jihadism. The world must be ready to face the terrorists and for as long as it takes to do so.
There is a theory that those who refuse to change will be forced by their neighbours to change. This is going to be true. The world is up in arms against jihadism and terrorism. The fight will be to the finish as it was against communism. Communism had its good points, but jihadism has none.
The latest to say that multi-culturalism is dead is the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel. She was forthright on the matter. She asked the 2.5 million Turks in Germany to learn German and imbibe the Christian values to which Germany is tied. And she warned them that “those who don’t accept them shall have no place here (Germany)”. More need be said of the German mood.
Prof. Bikhu Parekh, an authority on migration, says that we have not even begun to grasp the enormity of the problem faced by multi-culturalism. Unfortunately, Indian minorities have not even begun to think on the subject.
