ABSTRACT
Farer reflects on the liberal project’s fate in the face of terrorism, growing inequality, rising tension between citizens and recent settlers, and migration pressures. The accumulation of cultural clash and terrorist attacks have led political leaders to declare the multi-cultural approach to integration a failure. Pressure on Europe’s borders is predicted to grow. War and repression are certain to join grim economic forces driving migration. In Germany, Muslim presence became an issue when young men harassed young women during traditional New Year’s Eve celebrations. In Denmark, the 2005 affair of the Mohammed cartoons aroused attacks on identifiably Danish buildings and a boycott of Danish goods. Because illiberal practices are frequently associated with fundamentalist tendencies within the world of Sunni Islam, polemicists concerned with national security rather than morality are divided over immigration policy as well. Both conservatives and liberal public intellectuals have called for intolerance of illiberal practices in the name of liberalism. Questions about cultural as well as economic tests for admission to countries have also surfaced. Farer asks about the choices liberal cosmopolitans must make with regards to who should be admitted, on what terms, how to define and advance integration, and what anti-terrorist measures to support.
