November 11, 2005
As
Ramadan Ends—Can We Really Assimilate Muslims?
By
Joe Guzzardi
This week, Muslim students returned
to my English as a Second Language classes
after a month off for Ramadan.
As I do every year, I asked them to
share with the class the origin of
Ramadan as well as the Islamic requirement that
Muslims fast during the one-month period.
Since one of my goals as an
instructor is
to encourage English-language conversation, I look
for topics that generate enough interest to get my
students to speak out.
And among the Muslims that subject
is religion.
Of course, the students
unquestioningly endorse fasting as one of the
Five Pillars of Islam mandated by the
Qur’an and as an essential step to gaining Paradise.
But, as a
non-believer, I am skeptical of symbolic religious
ceremonies of all faiths. And regarding Ramadan, I
question the whole concept and purpose of fasting.
How can I put it delicately? Muslim
“fasting” doesn’t impress me any more than my
(former) fellow-Catholics
who ate fish sticks on Fridays.
In the first place, as I point out
to my students, the Muslim definition of fasting is
certainly not what most Americans would define as a true
fast.
During daylight hours,
Muslims cannot eat, drink smoke or have sex. And
while this is no doubt inconvenient, when the sun goes
down, Muslims can eat all they want.
In fact, the typical pattern is to
eat at sunset, continue eating throughout the night, and
wake up before sunrise to eat again.
Fast by day; gorge by night. I
don’t think we have a single word for that in English.
But I do know that the word isn’t “fast.”
What I find most objectionable
during Ramadan is that Muslims use fasting as a hammer
to show that they are holier—if that is the right
word—than the rest of us.
At play is this sort of attitude:
“I’m
fasting, you’re not. Ergo, I’m better than you.”
So much is made by Muslim
leadership, most notably
Council of American Islamic Relations, about how
fasting represents a period of introspection, spiritual
peace and a time for more generous donations to the poor
that it all makes me very nervous.
If fasting is what you want to do,
be my guest. But spare me the lectures.
The reality is that all the fuss
about the ancient 6th Century custom of
fasting may be bad public relations.
As the
free world frets about Islamic “fundamentalism,”
maybe Muslims shouldn’t be so outspoken in their
dedication to the practices of
1500 years ago.
What strikes me as more in tune
with the 21st Century, and represents the
kind of thinking I would like to see more of, is this
opinion I found on a
blog site:
“My
father comes from the Muslim faith and is currently
fasting for Ramadan (he thinks I’m fasting- but I’m
not). I’ve come to the conclusion that fasting is
absolutely useless in this day and age. Maybe 1,400
years ago when there weren’t many direct ways in helping
the starving they felt that fasting was a good way to
purify one’s soul and feel what its like. Yet nowadays
to see people fasting… I don’t know; I don’t see the
point.
You know why? Because we KNOW we're going to be eating
at sunset- we KNOW we will have dinner prepared and made
out and we will pig out after that. How does this ‘help’
the poor or even ‘purify’ ones soul? I've made a deal
with God- that is I will NOT fast but to compensate I
will give to charity instead. This is the NEW AGE way
for any Muslim to directly help the poor. I see the idea
of fasting as a pretty nice one the whole purifying of
ones soul, no food or water or dirty thoughts- it’s
nice. But is it pointless?”
The other major problem with the
supposed peace inducing benefits of fasting is that it
doesn’t jibe with
what is going on in the real world.
The
Paris rioters, the Iraqi car bombers, the
anti-American imams deported from Lodi earlier this
summer—all dedicated, I’m sure, to fasting and daily
prayer.
So whenever I listen to my
students, I have mixed emotions.
No doubt they are sincere and
devoutly religious. But, even if they attain
citizenship, will they ever
really be Americans?
I recalled a 2001 post-9/11 meeting
I had with Hudson Institute Senior Fellow
John Fonte.
During our visit, Fonte referred me
to a study titled,
Competing Visions of Islam in the United States
based on research done in Los Angeles. The
author, an Iranian doctoral candidate at Harvard
University, found that
12 of 15 Muslim immigrants have a primary allegiance
to a country other than the United States.
Frankly, judging by my collective
classroom experiences over nearly two decades, I’m
surprised that even three of the subjects identified
more strongly with America than their native
country.
According to
Fonte, what has to replace
growing separatism is the United States is what he
calls
“patriotic assimilation.”
What’s important, stresses Fonte,
is that immigrants must share the principles of freedom,
justice and loyalty and understand the serious moral
commitment they make when they come to the America.
This might seem like a lot to ask
from
our broken immigration system at this stage of the
game.
But it isn’t…or at least it
shouldn’t be.
In fact, looking at (and hopefully
learning from)
what is happening in France, the federal government
needs to realize that stakes are higher than ever.
We can’t continue to
compound our immigration mistakes…that is, unless
we’re willing to accept the possibility of our own
version of the
Paris riots set, say,
in Los Angeles, between disaffected Mexicans and
displaced Americans.
The government needs to demonstrate
that it is serious about integrating immigrants into the
national fabric. No more
embracing diversity or bowing at the
altar of multiculturalism.
If we insist on patriotic
assimilation from all our immigrants starting today,
perhaps we can restore the hallowed concept of
“the American way of life.”
Joe Guzzardi [email
him], an instructor in English at the Lodi
Adult School, has been writing a weekly newspaper column
since 1988. This column is exclusive to VDARE.COM.
