Who we are is largely defined by our upbringing and the culture we absorbed as children. Culture consists of such factors as shared language, ethnicity, arts, myths, dress, food, history, traditions, politics and values. When people of one culture enter the domain of another culture, they bring along many of those factors, enriching to some degree, the host culture. But those factors that are absorbed are readily adoptable because they don't threaten the values of the dominant culture. It's when values are diametrically opposed that conflicts arise.
Human beings prefer the known to the unknown and are naturally suspicious of those whose personal and cultural traits seem odd. The greater the distance between cultures, both geographically and ethnically, the more distrust must be overcome. Likewise, people feel most comfortable in their own culture and typically resist its forcible change. People can tolerate small additions to their culture, such as a wider range of food choices, music and dress, provided such innovations when concentrated remain confined to small pockets of immigrants. The wholesale imposition of one culture on another may generate conflict unless the imposing culture has the use of force. For example, when Americans occupied Japan after the Second World War, the Japanese had no choice but to accept Western versions of civics and governance. But they also adopted some features of American culture, such as Baseball, as an enrichment of their own.
In the United States, there's a dominant culture and an assortment of subcultures. A white middle-class American may have more in common with a black neighbor who shares the same culture than with a poor, rural white person in, say, Appalachia. Likewise, the black middle-class American may have more in common with a white neighbor than with black people living in an urban, poor ghetto. That's why what some term racism is more about culture than race.
The difference between cultures can be overcome to live in peaceful coexistence unless there are fundamental differences in values. Despite that, those who espouse the notion that all cultures are equal and that multi-culturalism must necessarily improve a society fail to recognize that some values will not mesh. To accuse those opposed to the introduction of values inimical to their own as racist is to miss the point. To remain stable, a society must believe their values are worth defending and must resist the importation of values that destroy a society's social fabric.
When a nation's sovereignty is diminished and its borders opened to the influx of immigrants with values that can't be assimilated, there's a prescription for conflict. If control of a section of the country is lost to a migration of foreigners with a different culture then that section is no longer part of the nation and will be lost eventually to a separatist movement. Even Canada experienced a separatist movement in Quebec until an effort was made to institute bi-culturalism in that country. In Serbia, the province of Kosovo, considered the heart of Serbia, was lost to a large influx of Albanians. The influx of foreign workers from third world countries into the wealthy nations has been an ongoing process for decades. But so long as those workers were a small minority, their impact on the host country's culture was minimal.
The Western world is now experiencing a new phenomenon. Islam has become a threat to the cultures of many nations primarily because of large migrations, Wahhabism and the intransigence of Islamic values. Muslims in many European nations and even in some parts of the United States have set up zones or communities of believers who have transplanted their original culture intact and who resist if not actively fight the dominant culture. Moreover, there has been increasing violence against host country nationals by some Muslims who regard these "infidels" as their enemy. Hence, acts of violence and terror by Muslims are a feature of life in many countries around the world, including even some in the Far East such as Thailand and the Philippines.
Islam calls itself the "Religion of Peace", despite a record of conquest and terrorism stretching back hundreds of years. Yet, as those who extol multi-culturalism insist, not every Muslim is a terrorist and it's unfair to condemn them all because of the actions of those they claim are not really Muslims. There is, however, a difference between holding values and acting them out. Not every Muslim is a terrorist, yet a large percentage of Muslims hold values that terrorists insist are their very rationale for butchery. In fact, it may take a certain mental pathology to be so devoid of humanity as to kill people in the name of religion and fortunately, most people aren't that insane. Moreover, there are, undoubtedly, Muslims who are moderate by their very temperament or who are members of subcultures or Muslim sects that eschew jihadist violence. For example, followers of the Aga Khan are quite moderate in their views. Mystical Sufis are similar to Hindus in many of their beliefs. Iranian Shia are influenced by Zoroastrianism (which was influenced by Hinduism) and are more mystical than Sunnis. Ahmadiyya Muslims are also quite moderate, but are persecuted in Pakistan. In fact, all of these groups are considered heretics for Sunni true believers and all have been subjected to martyrdom, especially by Salafists. Those are the Muslims who believe in practicing Islam just as Mohammed practiced it in the 7th century. In general, where Islam, through conquest, is an overlay of a previously established religion or culture, it is modified to some degree. But more than that, there's a fundamental difference in how Sunni Muslims view their own religion.
The Koran has been called two books by scholars. One book was written while Mohammed was in Mecca. The other was written in Medina after Mohammed and his followers were expelled from Mecca. The Mecca book is stylistically different as is its content from the Medina book. In Mecca, Mohammed dictated passages called Suras that are short and pithy, having to do with spirituality, mysticism, ethics and morality. Mohammed took many of his ideas from Christians and Jews and so the Mohammed of Mecca was not too different in his values from what modern people would find tolerable. However, that Mohammed was a failure, especially after being ejected from Mecca and finding his way to Medina. He didn't convince the people of Mecca that he was a prophet and his followers were few. The Sura's from Medina are long, sometimes a bit incoherent, and have to do with governance because as his power grew, he became the government. Mohammed's Sura's increasingly were about himself as the great prophet while in Medina, which is something he didn't do in Mecca.
Moreover, to support his followers, Mohammed resorted to raiding caravans and robbing them of their goods. His revelations from Allah became increasingly self-serving and criminal. He gave his followers instructions to kill, plunder, enslave and rape, all of which made him popular with those who were suddenly given divine permission to behave immorally for their own self-aggrandizement. So his following grew exponentially. With his plundering of neighboring cities and tribes, especially Jewish ones, Mohammed became a war lord, continually battling and butchering his enemies.
As for the pronouncements he made in Mecca, those were abrogated by those he made in Medina. Mohammed said that his later revelations take precedence over any earlier ones. Since the Koran is not chronological, scholars look to the style of his Sura's and the words of those who knew Mohammed (the Haditha), to determine what passages are current and which were abrogated. In general, the Sura's of the war lord Mohammed are to take precedence over those of the mystical Mohammed.
Today, there are now two kinds of Sunni Muslims, i.e., what I call the Mecca Muslims and the Medina Muslims. (The difference between Sunnis and Shi'a Muslims has to do with a succession dispute after the death of Mohammed.) The Mecca Muslims cite the words of a Mohammed who preached tolerance and peace. The Medina Muslims cite the words of the war lord Mohammed who preached conquest (jihad), hatred and immorality. The Medina Muslims regard those who adhere to the teachings of Mecca Mohammed as ignoring Mohammed's Doctrine of Abrogation. So, to them, those Muslims who want to live in peace with their "infidel" neighbors and who fail to perform jihad are essentially apostates and should be killed. Most of the Mecca Muslims live in societies that value tolerance and are in close contact with other religions and cultures. Probably most American Muslims who have been in this country for a long time are Mecca Muslims. The Medina Muslims are more likely to come from primitive cultures that are not only genetically inbred (cousins typically marrying cousins), but are culturally isolated. Not all Medina Muslims are Jihadists, of course, because, like people everywhere, most prefer to live peacefully and just make a living. But they support, to one degree or another, the most pernicious doctrines of Medina Islam. In other words, there's a civil war going on in the Islamic world, not just between Shi'a's and Sunnis, but between Mecca and Medina Muslims.
Some people, especially on the left end of the political spectrum, believe it's compassionate and enlightened to treat all Muslims as equal in their values to those of Western Civilization. They fail to make a distinction between the different world view of the Mecca and Medina Muslims. They also fail to recognize that any Mecca Muslim can become "radicalized", that is, converted to the only legitimate form of Islam, that of the Medina faction. As the President of Turkey explained, there is no "moderate" versus "radical" Islam. There is only Islam and that is dictated by the Koran.
When the Saudi Arabian monarch, Mohammed bin Saud, formed an alliance with the puritanical salafist Mohammed ibn Abd al-Wahhab in the 18th century, they set a model for future generations to emulate. And when the Saudis became rich with oil revenues, they were in a position to propagate their version of fundamentalist Islam by funding Mosques and Wahhabist preachers worldwide. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has become the propagator of the most literalist version of Medina Islam and as such, has generated such organizations as the Muslim Brotherhood and such terrorist gangs as al-Qa'ida and the Islamic State (ISIS). In fact, ISIS precisely uses the example of how Mohammed expanded his following and conquered territory. That is, they follow his example exactly. And to ISIS, anyone who doesn't follow Mohammed's example exactly is an apostate Muslim to be justifiably killed.
As it stands now, there's no way to discern a Mecca Muslim from a Medina version. The Medina Muslims, mostly Arabs, far outnumber the Mecca Muslims and even if not engaged in Jihad, will not do anything to oppose it. Nor will they assimilate into Western cultures in the short term. To bring these people into a modern society and a culture based on Western values, and then expect them to relinquish their own religious dictates, has been demonstrated to be a failure. Trotting out the few Mecca Muslims who oppose the savagery and barbarity of the dominant faction and calling them the real Muslims while labeling the terrorists as non-Muslim is patently dishonest. Moreover, under the Islamic doctrine of Taqiya, Muslims are allowed to lie about their faith and intentions to avoid detection or persecution. So any Medina Muslim can claim to be a tolerant and peaceful Mecca Muslim while plotting terrorism.
Islam is, as many have said, not so much a religion as a totalitarian ideology. That's because Mohammed wasn't a mere religious preacher. He was a con artist that evolved into a war lord who set up a social and political system that gave him total control over his followers and their way of life. And that ideology was based on values prevalent in his 7th century world (such as the treatment of women) and the need to expand to plunder resources. It was a system based on caravan raiding and war, not production. In fact, even agriculture was demeaned. So Islam relied on conquest and plunder to keep it going and to satisfy its followers. That tradition is being followed by ISIS.
Today, Islam divides the world into Dar al-Salam, the House of Peace, and Dar al-Harb, the House of War. The so-called religion of peace pertains only to the Dar al-Salam since Muslims are supposed to be at peace with one another. The rest of the world not controlled by Islam is the Dar al-Harb and is considered to be unclean until annexed into the Islamic empire. Islam uses any number of techniques to perpetuate its conquests. Those include the doctrine of Dar al-Hudna, which is a temporary truce intended to provide time for Islam to build up its forces until war can be successfully waged, and Dar al-Dawa, which is a country where Islam has been introduced and is being set up for conquest. The mass migrations of Islamic military-aged men into Europe is an example of transitioning from Dar al-Dawa to Dar al-Harb.
Those who think it's compassionate to bring Islamic immigrants into America fail to understand the future ramifications. Syrian refugees, for example, have been polled by other Arabs and it was found that about one-third of them actually support ISIS. Even a majority of Muslims who have been living in America favor Sharia law over American jurisprudence. Theirs is a culture that resists assimilation and an ideology that values conquest. The repeated attacks by so-called "radicalized" Muslims on the West have belied the fiction that most Muslims are not, at heart, enemies of Western Civilization. True, most Muslims in America are not likely to become terrorists because, like people everywhere, they want to live. But a survey of Mosques in America found that a majority were preaching fundamentalist versions of Islam, including the importance of Jihad. And while some Muslims will slowly adopt American values to the extent that they won't act out the worst traits of Islam, such as honor killings, genital mutilation of women, and raping any woman deemed a harlot because she isn't veiled, many will not. After all, many Muslims recently transplanted from cultures where these barbaric practices are normal will not simply change into Westerners, especially if confined to Muslim communities. We see that all the time as Western countries deal with the depredations of Muslims who deem their religion and culture superior to that of the Infidel.
Islam is an ideology that, like communism and fascism, represents a threat to Western Civilization, our values, our liberty and our lives. We will not transform it by our example. We will not transform it by conversion. And we will not transform it by killing its adherents. But we can protect ourselves from the threat by isolating Medina Muslims and watching the Mecca Muslims for signs of "radicalization", that is, becoming an authentic Muslim. In the meantime, importing thousands of Muslims, even so-called refugees, will create future conflicts in America just as are occurring in Europe. Most Americans realize the danger. Unfortunately, the left doesn't comprehend it, or doesn't care.