\n<\/p>\n
Ordinarily, when a man affirms that American culture and Islam are mutually exclusive, that Muslims cannot assimilate because their allegiance to Sharia law trumps everything else, and that their religion will \u201cmake people feel uncomfortable,\u201d you can assume he\u2019s making a case for immigration restrictions.<\/p>\n
Then along comes Shadi Hamid, a Muslim Washington Post<\/i> columnist who happily asserts all these things in an ostensible effort to make the opposite case: reassure Americans that these are qualities they should embrace.<\/p>\n
In reality, of course, Hamid\u2019s arguments are likely to have the opposite effect, repel even those who harbored hopes that Muslim immigrants and their descendants would be assimilable. Indeed, he spent a great part of Wednesday dealing with the hornet\u2019s nest that his op-ed kicked off online.<\/p>\n
But there is a clue that Hamid must have known he was being disingenuous. He made sure to throw in a caveat: his co-religionists are American now, at least in what he claims is a vague \u201cconstitutional\u201d sense, and aren\u2019t going anywhere anyway.<\/p>\n
Hamid, it is important to add, is not just anyone. He is a bona fide member of the establishment.<\/p>\n
He is not just a columnist at the Post<\/i>, where he published the piece<\/span><\/a>; he is also a senior fellow at Georgetown University\u2019s Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, a former fellow at Stanford University, a former senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and the director of research at its Doha Center.<\/p>\n In other words, Hamid has shaped the thinking on Islam\u2019s place in America from the highest of ivory towers and now popularizes it through a regular gig at one of the country\u2019s most prominent newspapers.<\/p>\n And yet, rebutting his claims is not hard. Some are untrue (he wrote that most American Muslims were \u201cborn and raised here,\u201d earning an X community note<\/span><\/a> showing that 58% are actually immigrants), other claims are only partly so, and still others are just downright specious.<\/p>\n Among the main arguments were the following: America no longer has a unifying culture to conserve; assimilation means secularization, and thus degradation; and Republicans should ally themselves with unassimilated Muslims because they have anti-gay views (yes, he really makes this argument).<\/p>\n In his piece, Hamid writes that \u201cAmerica was not founded on the assumption that its citizens would eventually come to agree on foundational questions.\u201d<\/p>\n The Founders would like to have a word. They created the new country precisely on the premise that, if it took in immigrants, they would have to, as Alexander Hamilton put it, \u201cget rid of foreign and acquire American attachments.\u201d<\/p>\n Not for nothing did they make E Pluribus Unum \u2014 out of many, one \u2014 the country\u2019s motto. The evidence is far too large to go through in a piece of this size, but numerous quotes from many of the Founders to this effect can be found in this comprehensive study<\/span><\/a> I authored more than a decade ago.<\/p>\n But let\u2019s quote at least George Washington, who wrote to John Adams that his hope with immigrants was that \u201cby an intermixture with our people, they, or their descendants, get assimilated to our customs, measures, and laws: in a word, soon become one people.\u201d<\/p>\n On the question of Sharia, Hamid avers that \u201cpracticing Muslims \u2014 despite being repeatedly asked to \u2014 can\u2019t disavow \u2018sharia\u2019 even if they wanted to,\u201d because it \u201cincludes guidelines on how to pray, fast and otherwise observe what it means to submit to God.\u201d<\/p>\n But Sharia is a large system derived from Muslim sacred texts and their interpretation.<\/p>\n Many Muslim countries and clerics have interpreted things in ways that severely disadvantage more than 50% of society, women. Sharia is invoked to impose oppressive rules from dress codes to rules on inheritance, testimony, mobility, etc. I dare Hamid to show any evidence of conservative support for any of this.<\/p>\n Sharia is even invoked by some Muslim states in the punishment of homosexuality. Some American conservatives will rail against LGBTQ ideology when pushed on minors. But all conservatives would find the notion of throwing gays off buildings stomach-churning.<\/p>\n Thus, though Hamid is disingenuous throughout his arguments, he is particularly so when he says that \u201cYou\u2019d think Republicans would sense an electoral opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know about Republicans, but the conservative \u201ccrusade\u201d as I understand it \u2014 and as President Donald Trump has pursued it, with universities, museums, etc. \u2014 is to conserve the unified American culture that Hamid not only repudiates but claims no longer exists (he writes in a tweet<\/span><\/a> \u201cThere is no longer any unified culture or set of supreme values that enjoy a consensus. We can lament this, but it\u2019s a fact\u201d).<\/p>\n First, as the X poster Noah Smith pointed out<\/span><\/a>, there is plenty of evidence that \u201cwe actually agree on a lot more than politics suggests.\u201d<\/p>\n But it is the Left \u2014 which denigrates this culture as much as Hamid \u2014 that has made a wartime alliance with political Islam. They sense that they both seek to deconstruct Western culture. In Europe, this is called \u201cthe Red-Green Alliance.\u201d<\/p>\n To be sure, each side senses they will fall out with each other as soon as they destroy the unified culture. But medium-term alliances win wars, as World War II attests. (My money is on the Islamists crushing the silly Leftists if this dystopia ever came to pass).<\/p>\n The fight to save the West \u2014 against secularism, family breakdown, and the atomized individual \u2014 is real. But it presupposes that we save the unifying culture, which may be on life support yet still redeemable.<\/p>\n And for that I can quote evidence from one Shadi Hamid, who left no doubt in a 2016 Atlantic<\/i> piece<\/span><\/a> on the Ottoman Empire that he understands that \u201cspiritual unity\u201d was foundational if there is a hope of establishing a legitimate political order.<\/p>\n That is why assimilation remains an indispensable condition in any land that takes in immigrants. Islam is one of the world\u2019s great religions, but its practitioners don\u2019t get a pass.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Mike Gonzalez is the Angeles T. Arredondo Senior Fellow at The Heritage Foundation. His book \u201cBLM: The Making of a New Marxist Revolution\u201d is now available<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n