Culture Clash

The Minnesota Star-Tribune has published a series of articles about the culture clash between Minnesotans and its (mostly Somali) Muslim immigrants. It's going to be interesting to see if America can offer a better solution than Western Europe's lame attempts at "tolerance" through a dilution of its liberal principles.

The piece focuses on Muslim immigrants who accept jobs in the States, but refuse to do parts of their job that conflict with their religion. There is the supermarket checkout clerk who refuses to scan bacon: "I'm going to say 'no' and stick to my religion and not change who I am for $7 an hour," says the girl. Muslim cabbies at the airport refuse to pick up people that are carrying alcohol.

The government response, of course, has included both carrots and sticks. Check out this example of accomodation:

"Minneapolis Community and Technical College is poised to become the state's first public school to install a foot-washing basin to help the school's 500 Muslim students perform pre-prayer rituals. 'We want to be welcoming,' MCTC President Phil Davis said, noting a student was hurt trying to wash in a regular sink."

Just for a second, imagine what would happen if a similar attempt at religious "tolerance" was placed in a public school for, say, Catholics. The ACLU would be up in arms, screaming about the church-state divide, and politically correct liberals nationwide would be moaning about our descent into theocracy. But these are Muslims, and so we're going to treat them differently -- and it's going to give a lot of supposedly open-minded liberals a warm, fuzzy feeling inside.