Dogs at play
The Igbo believe that there is a standard rule of play which dogs observe when two of them are at play: When one dog falls on its back the other dog knows without any other prompting that the next time is his turn to fall too. In this way, the play does not turn into a fight and will last longer. The lesson here is that when I fall for you and you in turn fall for me, the world goes around and becomes a more peaceful place where we all work, play and prosper in the spirit of give and take.
A Muslim becomes the Mayor of London
On May 9, 2016 the new Mayor of London Sadiq Khan was heralded into office with a fanfare and much jubilation. By any stretch of the imagination the election of Khan, a Muslim whose parents were recent Pakistani immigrants to Britain was historic. For the next 4 years Khan will preside over the affairs of one of the greatest cities of Christendom and Western civilization – London England. London, a Christian English city is only 60 miles from the famous cathedral in Canterbury where the revered Archbishop of Canterbury who is the global head of the Church of England lives. So, as well as being an important Western civilization’s cultural center, to many members of the Anglican Communion, Wesleyan Methodists and many other Christians, London can also serve as a holy city comparable with any other religions’ “holy” cities anywhere else.
For some people, especially the liberal politicians, the result of the London mayoral election was just the way it’s supposed to be. Such liberal thinkers argue that this is 2016 after all, and the world has come a long way in its journey towards tolerance and the integration of world’s diverse cultures and peoples. That notwithstanding, and given the prevailing realities of Islamic terrorism and violent jihad being unleashed by radical Muslims throughout the world, there are a large number of conservatives, including some moderates, who were shocked at Khan’s election as the new Mayor of London. Nevertheless, many have compared his election in London in some ways, to the 2008 election of Barack Obama into the White House as the President of the United States of America.
But, as some people have observed; in Obama’s case, he had to make an extra effort to assert and defend his Christian faith. While in Khan’s case, the people of London went a step further than the Americans; Sadiq Khan did not have to disguise his Islamic faith in his bid to become the Mayor of one of the most important Christian and Western cities in the world. In this regard therefore, Khan’s election became both a personal as well as a collective victory. The collective which won alongside Khan are all those who have campaigned to see a world where the populations of societies everywhere are more plural and diversified than closeted and mono-cultural. In this regard, the Western culture and education as represented by the city of London leads the way and has become the epitome of tolerance and liberty of the 21st century. London is now a city on the hill to which any other elsewhere that is eager to exhibit tolerance and integration will aspire to copy
The dangers of Muslims resisting assimilation
However, and unfortunately so, judging from current events and experiences in Europe and other Western societies, it shows that it is not enough to create multi-cultural societies through open liberal immigration policies. What is even more important is that recent immigrants should be encouraged to integrate with the native populations to which they emigrate. It is of primary importance that new immigrants should accept the ways and practices of their host communities. Sadly and very troubling too, most Muslim immigrants to Western societies have continued to resist assimilation into their host Western societies. This resistance therefore has continued to breed unnecessary social tensions and cultural clashes. Apparently and very absurd also, the Muslim immigrants are fighting to destroy the very cultural foundations and social practices that sustained the host societies and made them attractive to the newcomers to want to emigrate to them.
Since the last few decades collective human civilization and progress have come under severe attack and threatened with real danger by unholy heat from radical Islam. And very disturbingly, this heat is fueled by these Muslims’ deep-rooted hatred and intolerance of other people’s views and cultures. Going by the Biafran experience, the danger of such antisocial behaviors as being displayed by these radical Muslims can be terrible and far reaching. When these excesses go unchecked for too long, they end up producing very serious crimes like complete social breakdown, genocide and other forms of crimes against humanity and civilization.
Radical Islam was responsible for the Biafran Genocide
As some readers may recall, it was the same intolerance and hate that led the Muslim dominated government of Nigeria, between 1966 and 1970, to commit the genocide of the Igbo in which more than 3.1 million Igbo perished. This heinous crime of genocide against the Igbo has so far gone largely unnoticed and unpunished, and as a result fifty years after, the world is witnessing an increased widespread impunity where the same group of people is committing the same atrocities against other populations. This world belongs equally to all the people here and no single group should lay claim to an exclusive right to control it and dictate for all others how they should live their lives.
The people of the world should come together to save the world
In 2016, fifty years after Biafra or Igbo Genocide, Muslim extremists have continued to pose real danger to not only Igbo people in Nigeria, Western civilization and its peoples, but also to all humanity, its civilizations, peoples and every progress that the collective humanity has ever made. And rather than continue to live in denial, human beings everywhere should now assume the responsibility by coming together to stop this bent by radical Muslims to destroy the world civilization as we know it. The international community must come together to fight this Islamic monster to a halt. The international community, led by the United Nations must declare a global state of emergency against intolerance, hate, violent Islam, sharia and jihad. Honest, sincere and practical steps must be taken collectively by the international community now to stop this madness or everything the world had ever held dear and all progress made by human beings will be doomed. The continued survival of the human race and their civilization is the collective responsibility of all people everywhere and the people must come together to save themselves.
Extending London-example to Islamic societies
Apart from the immigrants accepting, and in some cases willingly adopting the ways and cultures of their host communities, to accelerate the rate of integration of world’s cultures and populations, other cities and societies around the world need to follow in the path which the city of London has gone. In this regard it is necessary to particularly call out the traditional Muslim cities and societies. Tolerating and integrating with other cultures and peoples cannot be a unidirectional river that flows only from the West and other free societies toward the Muslims. Going back to the dogs’ rule of play with which we started this discussion; all Islamic countries and other societies which hitherto had been bent on remaining exclusive and intolerant of other cultures and worldviews must look up to London’s example and update their societies to the 21st century London-standards.
In this same spirit of tolerance, it will be proper to see in no distant time, probably within the next decade, a Christian or Jewish man or woman become the mayor, emir or its equivalent of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia. Within the next ten years there should be a Christian or Jewish man or woman born by recent Christian or Jewish immigrant parents elected to become the mayor or emir of Tehran. Also, as the West has shown through the election of a Muslim into the mayoral office in London, such Islamic terrorist groups like al Qaeda, Islamic State, Boko Haram among others which are bent on destroying everybody, all cultures and views that are different from theirs must reconsider their unholy barbarous campaigns and start working toward tolerating and accepting other people and cultures. They must accept and practically demonstrate that 21st century world and civilization have moved far away from the 7th century intolerant Arab barbarism on which Islamic sharia and jihad are based.
