March 15, 2007
Don't offend the help
The latest efforts by aggressively chauvinistic Muslims to impose their beliefs on the rest of us are accelerating in the Minneapolis area, and John Hinderaker of Powerline has the details.
Some weeks ago, a national news story developed out of the fact that a number of Somali taxi drivers at the Twin Cities airport refused to transport passengers who possessed alcohol, claiming it would be a violation of Islamic law to do so. One curious aspect of the controversy was that the Islamic cab drivers themselves seemed to be split pretty evenly as to whether their religion imposes any such prohibition or not.
We here in Minnesota are on the firing line on these matters of religion. The latest controversy arises over the refusal of some cashiers to ring up sales of pork products:
Beryl Dsouza was late and in no mood for delays when she stopped at a Target store after work two weeks ago for milk, bread and bacon. So Dsouza was taken aback when the cashier -- who had on the traditional headscarf, or hijab, worn by many Muslim women -- refused to swipe the bacon through the checkout scanner.
"She made me scan the bacon. Then she opened the bag and made me put it in the bag," said Dsouza, 53, of Minneapolis. "It made me wonder why this person took a job as a cashier."
In the latest example of religious beliefs creating tension in the workplace, some Muslims in the Twin Cities are adhering to a strict interpretation of the Qur'an that prohibits the handling of pork products. Instead of swiping the items themselves, they are asking non-Muslim employees or shoppers to do it for them.
Once again, there doesn't seem to be any consensus among the Muslims themselves on whether their religion bans scanning the bar code on a package of bacon and putting it in a bag. Somehow, I doubt that the Koran contains anything directly on point.
While most customers have been offended or worse by cashiers' refusal to ring up some of their purchases, others have urged accommodation of the Somalis' customs--or alleged customs, since the Somalis themselves are divided:
Dr. Shah Khan, a spokesman for the Islamic Center of Minnesota in Fridley ... urged people to remember the extraordinary adjustments many Somalis have made in coming to the Twin Cities. "Many of these people are refugees. They may have been tortured. And they came here having never held a book in English," he said. "They're already adapting to our society. We need to adapt to them, too."
Sorry, no.
Refugees who come to America need to learn that if you want to be a cashier in a store that sells food, it isn't up to you to critique the customers' purchases. Likewise if you're a cab driver; you don't get to choose your fares based on your approval or disapproval of the contents of their packages.
That isn't how it works here, and the sooner that immigrants learn that they can't erect a little zone of sharia law around themselves, the better off they will be.
Amen to that. The multi-cultural ideal is a disaster; assimilation, an insistence that immigrants become Americans first and foremost, i.e., the melting pot model that worked for my immigrant great-grandparents, is the only basis for a stable society.
The "America: Love it or leave it" paradigm is entirely appropriate for immigrants. If they don't like the way we live in this country, feel free to return to The Islamic Republic of Suckistan, with all the advantages it bestows upon its denizens, like war, famine, pestilence and poverty.
If they want a piece of the American dream, they can damn well learn to live in the 21st century -- even if 7th century culture and customs are more to their liking.
Posted by Mike Lief at March 15, 2007 12:13 AM
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