Why the Integration of Muslims has Failed

New English Review 17 October 2010
By Nicolai Sennels

The integration of Muslims into Western society has failed, and will never occur to the extent necessary for them to function successfully in Western society. The reason is that a vast majority of them have not fulfilled all three of the criteria that are necessary for becoming members of, and feeling at home in, our non-Islamic societies:

Wanting to integrate
Being allowed to integrate
Being able to integrate

Wanting to integrate

Firstly, we must ask ourselves: Why should Muslims want to integrate? They're sure to receive all possible welfare benefits, whether they educate themselves, work, learn our language, acknowledge Western values and mix socially with the native population, or not. Lack of integration does not involve any risk of becoming socially or culturally isolated, because there are ample opportunities to live with others in a parallel society where all share the same cultural norms as themselves.

Being allowed to integrate

Secondly, it is important to know that Muslim culture is dominated by extreme social and religious control. Because of the great differences (and often even incompatibilities) that exist between Western culture and the Muslim way of life, it is commonplace for members of the Muslim community to see true integration - including making use of basic human rights and freedoms to freely chose one’s clothing, sexual partners, religion, geographic location, lifestyle, etc - as being forms of religious and/or cultural apostasy.

Muslim defectors risk serious consequences: they are almost certain to be excluded by their family and the Muslim community. Threats, kidnappings, incarcerations and even honor killings are not uncommon methods by which the Muslim community sets examples that entice the great majority to "voluntarily" submit to Muslim culture and Islamic rules – at the expense of integration.

Being able to integrate

Thirdly, integration is difficult for Muslims. The cultural and educational level of our high-tech knowledge society is very high. In the West, we are expected to regulate our own behaviour without having an aggressive God, an unpleasant Hell, all pervading social control, and aggressive male authorities to set the borders of what is and what is not acceptable and to motivate us towards constructive actions.

A Muslim upbringing thus fails to equip those that are exposed to it (and especially the boys) emotionally and socially with the behaviour required to fit into our institutions, schools, and jobs.

The girls are brought up to think that they can only marry a Muslim man (and are ultimately forced to do so if they don’t agree) and, once married, they are squeezed into the Muslim gender roles and family patterns at the expense of their education and jobs.

Aside from learning the host country’s language (both spoken and written), completing our education, keeping a job and refraining from crime, psychological integration has also proven difficult for many Muslim immigrants and their descendants; whilst we in the West see education, career and the ability to control our emotions as the key to economic and social success, religion, honor and the readiness to defend these two aggressively is the most important thing in Muslim culture. Whilst the latter can be a source of profitable relations and social status among Muslims, one does not get far with them outside societies shaped under Islam.

Psychological aspects of integration also impose the requirement that Muslims must deep-down accept such things as the equality of women and non-Muslims, acknowledge freedom of sexuality and speech, and that democracy and secular authorities come before any quoranic or prophetic statements, or anything their imams say. Being brought up with Islamic norms, the jump required for Muslims to embrace our Western lifestyle is too much for most. Socially and psychologically it is more comfortable to stick to what you are told is the right thing from birth.

The solution

All Muslims in the West are filtered through the three filters mentioned above. However, only a small minority is able to accomplish the necessary social, economic and psychological integration. If we want to save our continent from deteriorating into ethnic conflicts, and to prevent our welfare societies from being destroyed by the unbearable burden of failed integration, there is only one effective solution: make failed integration so practically unpleasant and economically unbeneficial that those who can or will not integrate will find repatriation – state-sponsored emigration to their country of origin - the only attractive option.

Cutting the root of the problems also involves paying people in poor in overpopulated countries for having fewer children. Making it more profitable to have fewer children rather than many is the only way to enable the creation of the educated middle class that is the basis for functioning economies and societies and thereby limiting immigration, conflicts and religious fanaticism.

Nicolai Sennels is a psychologist and author of Among Criminal Muslims - [The Experiences of a Copenhagen Municipality Psychologist]

Selected articles by Sennels: