Posted on 07/13/2004 2:21:44 PM PDT by Isara
Europe: The Continent is beginning to notice it has an identity problem with no easy solution in sight. The U.S. shouldn't gloat. It may be seeing its own future.
It's not often that we feel sympathy for Jacques Chirac, but we must admit the French president has real social and cultural trouble on his hands. So do other leaders in Western Europe.
What they're facing is a crisis of integration and identity. On one hand, they're hooked on immigration for economic reasons — low birthrates and an aging population that must be supported by younger workers. On the other, they're learning they can't simply trust new arrivals to fit in.
It's clear that integration will occur with conscious policy and some limits on self-expression (such as the French ban on Muslim head scarves at schools). But that leaves the question: integrated into what? What does it mean to be truly French, British or European these days?
It's fine to say that being French or "Western" means believing in values such as freedom, democracy and tolerance. But what if radicalized immigrants (or their children) believe in none of those?
Recently the newspaper Le Monde leaked a government study concluding that hundreds of suburban communities had become separate ethnic ghettos, where residents reject mainstream French society and cling to old country practices, even polygamy.
The report is all the more disturbing because these suburbs are mainly North African and Muslim. Their alienation makes them ideal breeding grounds for radical Islam.
The immigrants have been victims of some discrimination by the native-born. But the latter have also insisted too little on real assimilation. When it comes to insisting on certain social norms, Europe has been tolerant to a fault, making it fertile soil for the ideology of multiculturalism, which judges immigrant cultures by one standard and applies a higher one to the mores of the native-born.
It would not be surprising if the French sense they are losing control of their country. They may indeed wake up to find it unrecognizable, as it is already in many Parisian suburbs, unless they regain a surer sense of their national identity and a willingness to make newcomers adopt it.
This goes for other European nations, which tend to be too timid about recognizing and defending their great traditions.
The U.S. has been relatively lucky with its immigration, which is mostly from places with compatible religions or cultures. But its intellectual elites have caught the multicultural bug, and it, too, faces the economic vise of falling birthrates and aging demographics. Europe is far down the road this country could be on soon.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
Yes,the names are definitely leaning toward the Latin side in baseball but,then again,isn't baseball really a meritocracy?I doubt very much many black or white potential superstars are kept from the Majors by some sort of bizarre Hispanic affirmative action program!
Riverman
Is there is any particular reason we should care that Eurabia is being destroyed ?
I could never understand why the GOP so cheerfully goes along with every increase in the number of immigrants proposed, as I would guess that the percentage of foreign born that vote reliably Republican cannot exceed 45%.
That spells political extinction by anyone's calculation. As pathetic a representative of conservatism the GOP has become, at least its a voice.
If I'd wanted to talk tongue in cheek I would've said "gnaib buag hgiaa", but it's the irony that's knocking me over. There's lots of differences. The American immigrants in the 1820's
complied with all Mexican immigration laws --even the part that required them to become Catholics
put so much effort into assimilating that they took up the local language, customs, and they intermarried.
they immigrated in response to a request by the Mexican government to settle an area where Mexicans didn't want to live
they never renounced rule of law-- they fought the military dictator who'd rescinded the Mexican constitution so they could restore constitution-- when that failed they settled for just restoring the rule of law.
The only similarities that early Mexico has with present day Germany and America are the unintended consequences of gov't programs run amuck.
Yeah, wow! Thank god our baseball teams aren't anything like that! Matsui, Contreras, El Duque, etc...! And that's just one team. Hrm....
I thought I'd never see the day when the US Men's National team would have more native players than the typical MLB baseball team.
Excellent synopsis.
Does anyone here have a link to the actual article. .....in full? I can't seem to find it on the IBD website.
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