Separate and Dissimilar by Design: When Integration is Made to Fail. Part 1.
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There is a reward to working for the The Americano. Initially, the writer feared a shortage of topics. Unexpectedly, the challenge is to make a choice out of an expanding list of subjects. My topic of migration makes me cognizant of the importance of the project for the nation and its peoples for which the “paper” stands. The immigration experience that is shared with most of the readers, unties the tongue. Therefore, the file with “ideas-to-handle” is expanding while unplanned items sneak ahead of the queue. Today’s double-barrel idea is a typical example.
In advanced economies, the accommodation of immigrants causes no major problem while these trod the natural path from “alien” to “citizen”. Here intentionally the term “advanced” and not “Western” is used. The correlation between “Western” and “advanced” is weakening because much of the world is rising from the poverty of static societies. You can regard this process as expressing a form of integration. It takes place not within a nation between classes and ethnicities, but on the international level where it involves countries. An interrelationship exists between development and the ability to receive and to integrate. This is not accidental. Growth creates “space” by expansion and, therefore, also generates opportunities. Stagnant societies will tend to be politically rigid. Furthermore, they will, by definition, fear the “new” so that they tend to close themselves even when an opening would be of advantage.
As we discuss the ability and the will to receive, we should remember the other side of the coin. The ignored face of the medal is the will of the entrants to adjust to their chosen environment. This adaptation, a precondition of the ability to exploit new opportunities, is the basis of personal success and contentment. If we accumulate personal achievements, we assess the force that leads to the mutual acceptance by groups that, together, form a society.
In the case of Europe too, numerous and dispersed groups come to mind. Their integration, even their living side by side with the majority, is exasperatingly failing. The cases are presented regardless of the implicit North America emphasis of The Americano. Analogies, whether pronounced, latent or missing, allow us to approach a local topic from a perspective enhanced by distance. Doing so helps to discover contours that would, from close up, remain murky details.
One of the groups alluded to are the Muslims and the other one is the Gypsies. Whatever is said about either, one should be cognizant that these terms are amorphous; the sub-groups differ significantly from the prevailing generalized image.
The collective success or the failure of migrant groups is of great importance: This applies not only to their members but also to the majority. Social peace and the ability to focus the commonwealth’s energies on its explicit goals are determined by it. In both cases to be discussed, we encounter groups that have proven to be integration resistant. Accordingly, they are examples of sub-societies that have missed out not only on integration but also under-achieve if compared to the majority or to other ethnic immigrations. Instinctively, this writer associates migrant backgrounds with success. Indeed, according to this model, newcomers surpass the levels they find upon entry. The reader will probably find examples that prove the thesis.
This posting will take up the case of Muslims. It is to be followed by a piece depicting the Gypsies’ case.
Two explanations emerge as one tries to investigate the dearth of Muslim success. One is that its poster-members loudly emphasize an unbending attachment to every detail of their imported subculture. These opinion makers assert that rising from the bottom, where migrants generally begin, to the top is hindered by rejection. Thereby, the majority hosting a culturally alien and pre-modernized minority is blamed for the refused integration. Here to be inserted is that having a “carried on board” background and the retention of its constructive components is not a disadvantage. In fact, being able to retain, to abandon and to learn to amalgamate rationally the old and the new, correlates with success and recognition. The servile personality that claims to have jettisoned his old self to prove he has fitted in, is to be doubted. Those proving loyalty by denying their self, might exploit in the future changing situations with equal dexterity.
The holding on to parts of an identity such as expressed by language, religion, and way of life is understandable. However, once this is done demonstratively to signal that one stands apart in a manner that amounts to a declaration of a war of cultures, will provoke any host. Especially so when originally the immigrant had asked for protection as an asylum seeker. Endorsing, or advocating the introduction of key components of the system from whose excesses one claims to have fled will perplex and anger. At the same time, the sincerity of the motive for immigration will also be doubted. Furthermore, the purpose for settling becomes in the case of Muslims suspect as a silent reverse “Reconquista”. The reaction provoked amplifies what radicals wish for. In any case, the upshot will be a parallel society.
An impression will arise by building a state-within-the-state through self-isolation. It is that this might be followed by the imposition of an imported system such as the Sharia, upon an otherwise tolerant society. Muslim spokesmen have an irritating tendency to invoke a religion-based argument to plead their immunity from the local law of the infidels. They claim that the freedom of religion, which is a principle of the host -and that is rejected as a code where Muslims rule- allows them to do anything that the Imams justify by an extremist interpretation of the faith. Reminders that freedom does not include the right to violate the laws of the land regardless of whether you are an immigrant or indigenous, are conveniently decried as racism. Approval only comes from the Left, the Greens and those liberals whose only principle is to bend the wind’s way. Concurrently, the hosting people‘s self-defensive reaction is proclaimed to be “apartheid”. (An illustrative minor case tells of abuses that can become legalized. A Muslim marries a related child-bride. He stays in Europe. His father represents him during the ceremony. The new wife is allowed to settle to unite the family. Presumably her relatives will be allowed to follow.)
The conflict that mutes into a clash over the rights of guests vs. the house’s owners, is a barrier. Its function to separate is enforced by a ditch dug alongside it. To the degree that they isolate themselves in hostility, Muslims form an underclass. The intolerance shown for the way of life that had been implicitly accepted by immigrating has a price. The sabotaged secular education, the resulting lack of economically valued skills, the boycott of social activities and of contacts to the faithless has consequences. They lead to unemployable people and to low wages. The result is the enforcement of religious-social dividing lines by a cemented economic separation and the frustration of failing to share the wealth. As a result, negative perceptions have a way of becoming lived reality.
George Handlery was born in Hungary. After 1956 he lived and studied in the United States. There he earned a Ph.D. and received Tenure subsequently. Since 1972, he has been working in different countries as a researcher, writer, lecturer and teacher.
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