Muslims have plenty of political agency.
Individual Muslims can be quite pushy in raising hell and making demands on their behalf vis-a-vis schools, hospitals, the police, welfare agencies, universities and numerous other institutions.
They have formed a plethora of organizations that lobby on their behalf. And these organizations are entirely run and controlled by themselves. They don’t need liberal Do-gooders to do this job for them.
Jihadists and terrorists have managed to draw the West into wars of their choosing and that will surely end in western defeat and victory for them.
Terrorists instilled fear and widespread self-censorship.
Even muslim street crime is political. It is directed at natives and prompts politicians to privilege moderate muslim community leaders and organizations, hoping that they could solve the problem.
They haven’t started their own political parties yet, but why would they, at this stage? They haven’t gotten far on the Israel issue, but even there they gained some leeway in center-left parties, thanks to their reliable block voting.
The “flood gate” metaphor is incorrect. It is a form of denial and self-deception. Immigrants are not water. They are people with personal and collective motives. Somebody opened the town gates, not some flood gate. Foreigners saw an open door and took advantage of it. They intend to stay and work hard to make sure those gates stay open.
on Houellebecq’s thesis
I haven’t read the book yet, but his thesis that muslim patriarchy is modernity-proof is questionable. Fertility rates have been dropping rapidly in the muslim world. There is rapid urbanization, the spread of higher education, mass media, including porn, etc. Patriarchy could potentially exacerbate the problem:
The number of unmarried Saudi women over 30 reached 33.45 percent in the last 10 years, or 1.52 million of the total population of 4.57 million women, local media reported on Sunday.
Alarm over rising rate of Saudi spinsterhood
Basically, muslim fathers, just like successful western women, have impossibly high standards for their daughters. They don’t give their daughters away until it is to late. And single motherhood is not an option. Cousin marriage will run into trouble if they run out of cousins. Muslims practice FBD marriage (father’s brother’s daugher), so you need two brothers with children of the opposite sex to make this happen.
--
http://www.counter-currents.com/2015/02/michel-houellebecq-soumission/