On a brief return to Britain, I was concerned to see that London has undergone a dramatic demographic change. The city of my birth is visibly more Muslim than it was even four years ago. On the Tube, I saw more hijabs than baseball caps. The Muslim niqab— with its full face covering—is no longer rare.
For decades, Brits have not been allowed to question the wisdom of importing large numbers of people into a Western society who do not share Western values. (Brits that do so on social media risk going to prison). Instead, there was a lazy assumption that Muslim immigrants would eventually integrate. Rather than culturally converge, many Muslims living in Britain have culturally diverged.
Forty three percent of British Muslims now want “the introduction of Sharia law”. Support for Sharia was even stronger among Muslims in London (49 percent), where Muslims now make up 15 percent of the population. More British Muslims fought for ISIS than currently serve in the British army.
The United States has long been a melting pot, with a wonderful history of people from all over the world moving to America and becoming American. As an immigrant myself, I love the idea of people moving to America in order to become American. And becoming an American is about a lot more than getting a U.S. passport.
We need to recognize that some parts of the melting pot might not melt. The U.S. needs to act now to ensure America does not make the mistakes that Europe has made when it comes to mass Muslim immigration. The religion of progressive America is cultural relativism – the creed that insists all cultures are of equal worth. The truth is that Western culture is deeply distinctive.
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Western societies are WEIRD; that is to say they are Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD), as described by psychologists Joseph Henrich, Steven Heine, and Ara Norenzayan in their seminal work The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous.
Western people are a psychological and cultural outlier, exhibiting traits and behaviors that diverge significantly from those found in most other cultures, particularly those traits in Muslim societies. WEIRD individuals tend to prioritize individualism over collectivism, analytical reasoning over holistic thinking, and impersonal trust over clan-based loyalty. WEIRD Westerners are more likely to cooperate with strangers and punish unfair behavior, even at personal cost, compared to participants from other cultures. These traits are not universal norms.
Henrich and co suggest Western cultural distinctiveness owes a lot to the teachings of the medieval Catholic Church, which prohibited cousin marriage. Personally, I think Western WEIRDness owes a lot to our inheritance from three cities of antiquity; Athens, Jerusalem, and Rome.
From Athens, the West inherited Greek philosophy, which introduced the idea that reason can unlock the mysteries of the world and that natural laws govern its workings, accessible through rational inquiry.
From Jerusalem came the profound idea that each person is created b’tzelem Elohim—in the image of God. In Judeo-Christian thought, this imbues every individual with inherent worth, forming the foundation of individualism. It also suggests that each person possesses free will, with the capacity to align with or diverge from the divine will.
From Rome, the West received its framework of law, interwoven with echoes of Greek philosophical ideals.
Western cultural norms are not global norms. We need policymakers to wake up and recognize this – and to do so fast. It is time for a significant shift in U.S. immigration policy, and for the U.S. government to act against anyone promoting murderous leftist ideology on university campuses.
Douglas Carswell is the President and CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy
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