Immigrants: fish or cut bait
ARTICLE: Many Muslims in Britain Tell of Feeling Torn Between Competing Identities, by Sarah Lyall and Ian Fisher, New York Times, August 13, 2006.This may come as crude and insensitive, but if you're truly confused about competing identities when living in an adopted country, you should go home immediately.
If you can't adopt the identity of the country you've moved to, then you've made a mistake.
Otherwise you should submerge your old identity within the new one, doing your best to shape that new environment's tolerance for your diversity through the example of your great life.
That's it. That's how it's been done by waves after waves of immigrants here in the U.S. and is still being done today. All that conflicted crap has got to go, or you need to go and let your place be taken by someone who can pull off that difficult pathway because they simply want it more.
And the more "tolerant" you let your system seem, the more losers you're gonna attract. There's nothing wrong with keeping America looking like the New York Yankees ("You can play? Then I don't care where you're from, but you will do things the Yankees way or get the hell out. Cause our strength is our disciplined diversity.").
Hmm. That one probably didn't come from the 8 o'clock mass.
Maybe it was ESPN last night...
The story cited a poll in which over 80 percent of Muslims in Britain said they were Muslims first and British citizens second. To me, that's very dangerous.
I would never cite my faith like that in precedence to my citizenry, even as I value far more, because as soon as I do that, I start putting myself above or beyond or outside the law, and that just doesn't work in a democracy. My freedom to be a Catholic first ends when it makes me a bad citizen. That's your basic John Mills: my freedoms end when they bump against yours. And the essential freedom that's being transgressed here is the notion that if you are a British citizen, you don't get to put your private needs ahead of public safety. Once that happens, religious freedom will go out the door, as we see so often in the Gap.
And yeah, that's where this dangerous stuff comes from.
Comments
I read the article earlier to which Barnette refers and sent to my father with the note that, "This is one of the key, if not THE key, flaw in Barnette's thinking/books I've been talking about for a while."
Believing that raising peoples' standards of living and giving them "things" to lose in a war (such as a house, car, flat screen TVs, computers, and other "toys"), simply won't work here.
This is proven, in part, by the fact that a number of the "radicals" recruited to blow up the jets were actually from middle class families and were going to, or had, attended a university. Thus, unlike Palestinians and other similar groups, these guys had a promising future. These "radicals" came from a country where they are technically, members of the "core." Yet, they still went "radical."
This War is different, but not everyone's accepted that...yet. Simply "shrinking" or "eliminating" the "gap" and making everyone part of the "core" isn't, unfortunately, The Solution that will prevent/eliminate this problem. -T
Posted by: Tom Olson | August 13, 2006 6:39 PM
That's what gets you into trouble, Tom, telling things like they are. You don't care and are not driven by cowering to the "politically correct."
Tom, when you run for President, I am knocking on EVERY DOOR in my town.
Everyone needs to know, hear, and get on board with you.
While I don't speak w/ the technical knowledge of some of your respondents, I am almost finished w/ PNRoadmap. I carry it with me and read portions to others.
Carry on your extraodinary work and thinking!!
Posted by: Mary | August 13, 2006 8:45 PM
Is the problem identity confusion amongst immigrants, or a particular approach to dealing with that confusion? Identity confusion is human, and common even outside the immigrant community; it's the idea that the confusion can be sidestepped or ignored that's threatening Europe.
Posted by: Michael | August 13, 2006 10:17 PM
Tom, it's rather neither fish nor meat. The y o u n g muslim are born in the new country and very often do not even speak the language of the old one.
Posted by: Hans Suter | August 14, 2006 1:58 AM
Unfortunately, this issue is not confined to Britain only...in fact it is evident throughout most of the mainstream "muslim" population in Western Europe. I think this has much to do with the fact that much of this mainstream population is in the 'host' country to make for a better living (compared to what they have /would have back home) and not actually adopting the values/morals of the respective host country. I would tend to say that those who have "immigrated" to the US have done so by essentially leaving everything behind (and by so doing 'adopting' the US) while most of those who are in Europe are there more as "guest workers" (weaving back and forth) rather than outright immigrants and so possibly less likely/willing to adopt the ways of the host...this may not specifically refer to those in the UK, as it seems many are from former British colonial regions.
It always seemed to me that the problem then needed to be resolved within the home country before they decide on a move to the 'country of opportunity' (opportunity being work/money and not necessarily the country of choice's values/morals/benefits for development... but whether this is possible in light of the respective education systems is another matter.
Europe offers many of these people much more in terms of freedoms...basic human rights of speech, of earning and purchasing power and of various ways/means to "get around" and do what it is they do than what they would be afforded in their respective countries; things never provided for, these new found freedoms, combined with a deeply rooted and skewed (present day) understanding of religions (which may easily be radicalised?) seem to be what, effectively, gets blown back in our faces.
Posted by: AHSILERI | August 14, 2006 5:36 AM
Myron Magnet wrote a book called The Dream and The Nightmare a while back. He wrote two chapters on the subject. The Power of Culture and Trashing the Culture. He found toubling when the left aggressively destroys cultural norms and life styles that made that country society successful. Maybe it's time to bring back fox hunting to save the British Muslims.
Posted by: Juan | August 15, 2006 1:42 AM
not sure where i heard this but i think 60 minutes several years ago had a bit on islam and said that muslims worldwide look at themselves as muslims first. so wishing for change there may be like wishing there was no gravity.
doesn't mean militantism can't be stopped.
Posted by: anon | August 15, 2006 11:17 AM
Well, if Mike Lukovich has accurately captured what the Gap’s "adolescents" look like with his latest caricature (August 24, 2006: http://news.yahoo.com/edcartoons/mikeluckovich), then God help us when they reach adulthood… Guess, we’ll see. -T
Posted by: Tom Olson | August 17, 2006 2:33 AM
Although I agree with just about everything else that I read on this blog, I have to disagree with the idea that citizenship comes before religion. Logically, to whom should we owe the highest allegiance, God or the State/Nation. However, to paraphrase John Calvin, being a good Christian (I am Protestant, if the John Calvin reference hasn't already given that away) means that one will be the best possible citizen (Love thy neighbor as thyself, but first Love the Lord your God w/ all your heart, soul, mind, strength).
Posted by: Christopher | August 17, 2006 11:42 PM