Fukuyama on European Islam
Francis Fukuyama argues that terrorism is not just (or at all) a problem of dysfunctional Middle Eastern societies and polities. Many terrorists live or came of age in Europe. Their Islamism, Fukuyama argues, is a response to their failure to integrate into their new home countries. And that failure can be traced to misbegotten mulitculturalism and labor policies. Here’s the core of Fukuyama’s conclusion:
The real challenge for democracy lies in Europe, where the problem is an internal one of integrating large numbers of angry young Muslims and doing so in a way that does not provoke an even angrier backlash from right-wing populists. Two things need to happen: First, countries like Holland and Britain need to reverse the counterproductive multiculturalist policies that sheltered radicalism, and crack down on extremists. But second, they also need to reformulate their definitions of national identity to be more accepting of people from non-Western backgrounds.
The final recommendation, by the way, amounts to an elevation of the American example: a "nationalism of principle" can ultimately accommodate and integrate immigrants much better than can one that focuses on ethnicity.
Update: Andrew McCarthy responds to Fukuyama, but without engaging what I take to be his most interesting conclusion. McCarthy seems to assume that what Fukuyama wants is more better multiculturalism, and a weakening of various European national identities. I don’t think so. What he seems to want is a reconception of national identity in terms that don’t depend upon ultimately illusory conceptions of ethnic homogeneity.
