Selwyn Duke, American Thinker, July 1, 2017

You can’t make this stuff up. In a news article, migrant hair stylist Mohammad Hussain Rashwani was hailed as a shining example of integration in Germany. Ten months later, which was just a few days ago, an article bore the headline, “Herzberg: Syrian hairstylist slits boss’s throat.”

Yeah, it was Mohammad.

He apparently didn’t go the full Mohammad, since his boss is still alive. But here’s the title and crux of the first piece:

Syrian Hairstylist finds employment in Herzberg Salon owner Ilona Fugmann is amazed by his skills [Yes, he was especially adroit with a straight-edge razor] August 31, 2016 In early September, Ilona Fugmann will give the Syrian Mohammad Hussain Rashwani a permanent position in her hair salon in Herzberg. The 38-year-old’s skills immediately convinced her. Mohammad Hussain Rashwani is an example of how well integration can work out.

The article, all of which can be found at Gates of Vienna, goes on to explain Mohammad’s sterling qualities. He “had an excellent command of his craft” and “gets along well with the two female colleagues…. ‘The chemistry is right. Admittedly, Mohammad is a proud person, but very attentive and prudent. He even helps with the clean-up,’ says Ilona Fugmann.”

Of course, “proud” is a euphemism for “prideful,” which reflects a sin (though Muslims don’t see it that way) and basically means Mohammad had more ego than brains and was easily “triggered.” Speaking of which….

Fugmann is quoted as mentioning the difficulty in finding good help and asking, “Why shouldn’t I give him a chance?” I’m guessing her question has been answered, which brings us to the second piece:

Herzberg: Syrian hairstylist slits boss’s throat …June 29, 2017 HERZBERG A bloody deed horrified Herzberg (Elbe-Elster) on Wednesday. A salon owner was attacked by her Syrian employee, and gravely injured. He was regarded the paramount example of successful integration. The Syrian Mohammad H. (39), a master hairstylist who had fled his homeland, started a new life and found work in Herzberg. He was appreciated and popular in the salon of Ilona F. (64). This makes what happened yesterday, Wednesday, even stranger.

Yes, strange, unfathomable, unprecedented! Who could’ve seen this coming? And if you suggest otherwise on social media, the German government will arrest you and fine the “Islamophobia” out of the social-media company. You will be absorbed.

In fact, the only successful integration going on is that of many Germans, who’ve been integrated into delusion. All people are the same, you see, and our strength lies in our diversity, I tell ya’. “I’m smart! Not like everybody says… like dumb….!”

Except it is dumb believing that all people — and peoples — are the same. We can argue the reasons for the differences, but we ignore them at our peril. As Col. Ralph Peters put it in the excellent little piece “Taliban from Outer Space,”

“In my years as an intelligence officer, I saw colleagues make the same blunder over and over: They rushed to stress the ways in which the Russians, the Chinese or the Iranians were ‘just like us.’ It’s the differences that kill you, though.”

He later wrote,

“[W]e still hear the deadly cliché that ‘all human beings want the same basic things, such as better lives and greater opportunities for their children.’ How does that apply to Afghan aliens who prefer their crude way of life and its merciless cults?”

What’s deadly here is something I often warn of: projection. This is when we ascribe our mindset, priorities and sense of virtue to others. It’s natural. We behave in certain ways because we think it makes sense, so it must make sense to others, too. Thus are the self-serving cynical, believing everyone is just “out for himself”; thus are innocent little children gullible, thinking everyone well-meaning — and thus do secular Westerners believe that, well, of course these new arrivals will embrace secular “values.”

And that’s the ideological chauvinism lurking in the hearts of the oh-so open-minded, who once warned of “ethnocentrism.” But why would others adopt “secular Western ‘values,’” including confusion over marriage, sex and right and wrong (Truth) itself? Because they’re so self-evidently true?

Realize that some people have an alien sense of virtue (Western leftists are a good example). Some really do believe that slaughtering innocents in Allah’s name is good — that burning people alive, baking them in ovens, drowning them in cages and feeding children into a dough kneader — wins you Paradise.

Remember, our weakness lies in our diversity.