RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14563/denmark-immigration-integration

How does a society deal with religious institutions that profess values which are the very opposite of the value system of the Western society in which they live?

“When I was in high school, there were around 50,000 people with a non-Western background in Denmark. Today, there are almost half a million. In one generation, our country has changed”. — Lars Løkke Rasmussen, then prime minister of Denmark, January 1, 2019.

The Integration Barometer — which measures the degree of assimilation in the municipality among young people with a non-Western background — showed that almost one third of 18-29 year-olds (31%) believe that “religious and cultural laws must be adhered to, even though they may be contrary to [Danish] law”. The issue, then, is whether these young people believe that Islamic sharia law should take precedence over Danish law…. In addition, the number of youths who view democracy in a positive light has fallen from 86% in 2016 to 79% in 2018.

It recently came to light… that a committee under the government’s Ministry of Church Affairs, which is responsible for formally approving mosques in Denmark, has been handing out approvals for them without knowing “whether they [the mosques] were ruled from abroad, whether women’s rights were suppressed, or there were other problematic conditions”. Formal approval of a mosque means that the mosque becomes eligible for tax benefits and is permitted to bring foreign preachers to Denmark on a special visa.

When the association behind the mosque [asked]… to be approved as a religious community, it had in its statutes a provision saying it operated under the supervision of Iran’s ‘Supreme Leader’, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. At first, this news was a matter of concern for the Ministry of Church Affairs, but then Ahlul Bait simply rewrote its statutes and the ministry gave its approval.

Earlier this year, in his New Year’s speech, Denmark’s prime minister at the time, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, mentioned that religious parallel societies constitute a problem and that immigrants need to learn to “put secular laws over religious ones”.

What, however, if, in the community involved, there seems no desire to do that?

“When I was in high school”, Rasmussen continued “there were around 50,000 people with a non-Western background in Denmark. Today, there are almost half a million. In one generation, our country has changed”.

Just how great are the problems was revealed in a recent survey, Integrations Barometer 2018, published by the municipality of Copenhagen. The Integration Barometer — which measures the degree of integration in the municipality among young people with a non-Western background — showed that almost one third of 18-29 year-olds (31%) believe that “religious and cultural laws must be adhered to, even though they may be contrary to [Danish] law”.[1] The issue, then, is whether these young people believe that Islamic sharia law should take precedence over Danish law. The statistic represents an increase from 2016, when a similar survey showed that 24% wanted sharia law. In addition, the number of youths who view democracy in a positive light has fallen from 86% in 2016 to 79% in 2018[2].

https://www.wsj.com/articles/gulf-states-shrug-as-india-seizes-kashmir-11566255385

The Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir enjoyed a unique status in predominantly Hindu India for more than 70 years. No more. Both houses of the Indian Parliament have approved legislation to divide Kashmir into two “union territories” and allow non-Kashmiri Indians to move freely into the region, open businesses and buy land. Many Kashmiris fear the result will be a wave of migration that ends any hope of Kashmiri independence or autonomy.

Pakistan, which has fought three wars with India over Kashmir, reacted with rage, but it isn’t getting much support from its purported Muslim allies in the Persian Gulf region. As hundreds of Kashmiri intellectuals, journalists and activists were arrested, and as telephone and internet service to much of the state was cut, Saudi Aramco announced a $15 billion investment in an Indian oil company. On Sunday evening, after stone-throwing crowds confronted security forces in Srinagar, Kashmir’s capital, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs announced that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will travel to the United Arab Emirates next week to receive the country’s highest civilian honor. From the U.A.E., he will travel to Bahrain on the first-ever visit to that country by a sitting Indian prime minister.

Civil libertarians and human-rights activists in India and around the world have condemned the crackdown in Kashmir, but a recent opinion poll found 57% of Indians wanted Kashmir to lose its special status. Sixty-five percent said they thought Mr. Modi could solve the Kashmir problem in five years.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/britain-pays-the-price-for-corbyn-11566248428

Blame for most political failures surrounding Brexit rests with Britain’s ruling Conservative Party, but the past week has cast a new light on the ways the Labour opposition also is guilty of dereliction of duty. With the country in the grip of a once-in-a-generation governance crisis, Labour has opted out of serious participation.

That’s the meaning of a remarkable series of events in recent days in which even the politicians most staunchly opposed to Brexit have concluded that Brexit would be better than letting Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn become Prime Minister. Mr. Corbyn last week urged pro-Remain members of other parties to oust Boris Johnson ’s Tory government, which has a single-seat majority. The parliamentary putsch would install Mr. Corbyn as caretaker Prime Minister for long enough to delay Brexit and organize a general election. Yet no one took Mr. Corbyn up on his offer.

It’s hard to blame them. Mr. Corbyn can’t lead a “national unity government” when his economic platform is the most radical Britons have seen in two generations and his tolerance for anti-Semitism within Labour continues to shock voters. His personal views on Brexit, and Labour’s Brexit platform under him, are so confused that Remainers distrust him to lead. It’s not even clear that Mr. Corbyn, steeped as he is in the tactics and ethos of the radical left, could be trusted to relinquish power quickly under an anti-Brexit parliamentary maneuver if he became Prime Minister.