Unexceptionable commonplaces aside, David Galchinsky’s opinion piece, “Multiculturalism And the Lessons from Norway” by David Galchinksy (Aug. 5) is fatally flawed. Factual errors abound, including dismissing the unprecedented anti-Semitism of the ascendant Muslim demographic, which has revitalized latent anti-Semitism within Europe’s largely post-Christian cultures.
Galchinsky’s complacency is contradicted by widely available data from the Pew Research Center, the Jewish Agency for Israel and other prestigious think tanks, which find anti-Semitism in Europe at its highest level since World War II.
Galchinksy also omits enormously important inconvenient truths, failing to acknowledge Europe will have a Muslim majority before the century’s end, placing its Jews under the sociopolitical domination of the world’s most anti-Semitic demographic. Faulting European societies for failing to integrate immigrants, he won’t admit acculturation isn’t the goal of a large segment of the Muslim population, which aspires to Islamize Europe.
Employing Orwellian double-speak, Galchinsky never defines “multiculturalism,” inviting his readers to believe it’s synonymous with “tolerance” while he promotes another version. Leftist multiculturalism isn’t pluralism. Regarding national cohesion as dominant culture hegemony, it supports identity politics, which can fracture societies. Slaying the chimera of monoculturalism, it has balkanized Europe, as European leaders now acknowledge. The solution is American-style pluralism, expressed by the iconic phrase “E Pluribus Unum.” Difference should be honored — not “tolerated” — but only if a greater sense of national belonging predominates.
Most insidious is Galchinsky’s conclusion: it exploits foreign horror to demonize American opponents on domestic policy. Opposing illegal immigration or tax increases somehow makes one an accomplice of the Norwegian madman. Though he sanctimoniously condemns demagoguery, he practices it.
The writer is senior policy analyst at the Center for Immigration Studies.
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