http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20507765-7583,00.htmlTaxi rank offenceMinneapolis's Muslim cabbies show multiculturalism's mythsFLYING to Minneapolis-St. Paul in the US any time soon? Unless you wish to add some drama to the trip, don't swan out of the terminal swinging a sack of duty free alcohol and expect to hop into a waiting taxi. Chances are the first cab off the rank will be driven by a Muslim immigrant from Somalia who will refuse the fare on the grounds that alcohol is forbidden by his religion and therefore in his vehicle. And that the driver will tip off his mates to your infidel ways, making you wait that much longer for a ride home.
It is a situation which both demonstrates the global nature of the debate on values and which presents a textbook case of how not to deal with Islamic fundamentalists in the West. Rather than threatening such cabbies with fines or loss of licence for refusing to carry fares, the Metropolitan Airports Commission has proposed special colour-coded lights to indicate which taxis are driven by non-Muslims and those willing to tote alcohol and those where sharia applies bumper to bumper.
This is exactly the wrong solution. It opens moderate Muslim taxi drivers who are willing to carry passengers possessing alcohol open to harassment from their more radical co-religionists. It violates the long-enshrined legal principle that taxis are a public conveyance open to all. And it uses a particularly strict interpretation of Muslim sharia law to create second-class citizens who are forced to endure hassles and delays because they have offended Islamic sensibilities - in the heart of the American midwest.
What is happening at the airport in Minneapolis-St. Paul is just as much of an indictment of multiculturalism as other incidences of self-censorship and self-flagellation that occur on a near-daily basis among Westerners seeking to avoid or atone for offending the most prudish or outlandish of Islamic sensibilities.
And it shows what can happen when a culture allows immigrants to behave as conquerors, instead of politely but firmly suggesting that newcomers who wish to impose their theocratic ways on a secular community try their luck elsewhere.One wonders what Minneapolis's cabbies will demand next. The right not to drive passengers home from the supermarket if they are carrying bacon? That couples present a marriage licence before holding hands in the back seat? (In that case, perhaps Margaret Whitlam could get a retirement job driving taxis in the Twin Cities.)
All this suggests the present debate on Australian values could not be more timely. Contrary to the shock and horror of inner-city postmodernists and progressives, there are core values that make Australia what it is and is not. Individualism, freedom to speak and even offend, equality of the sexes, the rule of law, the primacy of secular democracy and loyalty to all of the above are all part of this equation.
John Howard has been right to stand up for these concepts, and the cultural confidence this demonstrates has prevented the widespread ghettoisation of Muslims that has plagued Europe with violent results. And the electorate agrees. A recent Newspoll found 77 per cent of respondents backed a citizenship test on language, Australia and our way of life. Immigration is largely a success story in the West. But it will only remain so for as long as newcomers continue to assimilate - rather than the other way around.
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