[extropy-chat] EU: What is going wrong?

[Steve Davies]

Mike Lorrey said

> Nope. They're bombing synagogues, assaulting jews, and marching to
> demand sharia across europe. Sounds to me like muslim values are what
> they are after...

Bit more complicated than either that or Samantha's view imho. What we have
is the classic pattern that you get with a migrant group. The initial
migrants are mainly motivated by economic concerns, they want to improve
their economic condition. They also keep their traditional beliefs and
values, so they aren't ideological refugees, but they aren't particularly
interested in proselytising. The difficulties arise in the second and third
generations. Here a split emerges. Some become assimilated to one aspect or
other of the host culture. So for example the majority of second generation
British Muslims (mainly of Pakistani or Bangladeshi origin) have little or
no knowledge or understanding of their religion and in fact pretty much
ignore it (most of the young men are devotees of the religion of hip-hop). A
substantial minority however define their identity in opposition to the
culture around them by asserting a very militant and traditionalist form of
their ancestral culture. They are typically more traditionalist and militant
than either their parent's generation or the population back in the country
of origin. This is a typical response in the second and subsequent
generations of a migrant group. This means inter alia that organisations
like Al Queda have more chance of getting motivated recruits in Europe than
they do in the Middle East or Pakistan because it's amongst migrant
populations that you find self-conscious and militant believers in larger
numbers. Still a minority but a substantial one. Almost all of them are men,
and my own suspicion is that a lot of this is driven by sexual politics and
a reaction on the part of young men to the way modernity undermines their
traditional position vis a vis their female relatives.

> What is happening to 'tolerant' europe, though? Why are you so upset
> over the murder of one film maker who obviously asked for what was
> coming to him in making racist, running-dog imperialist films presuming
> to just muslim society by infidel european values?

Interesting isn't it? There's a number of reasons imo. One is that freedom
of speech is something the Dutch take VERY seriously. Another is that Van
Gogh, despite his self-defined 'gadfly' persona, was very much a member of
the Dutch establishment. Also, he made this movie with a Dutch MP of Somali
origin and this highlighted for many Dutch something that hasn't got much
attention in the coverage outside the Netherlands, the contrast between
different groups of immigrants and their degree of assimilation. The
Netherlands has had a lot of immigration from Indonesia and Surinam (for
obvious reasons) and they have generally assimilated - the Indonesians of
course being overwhelmingly Muslim). The difficulty has arisen with Arab
migrants, particularly Moroccans. The assasin was a second generation Dutch
citizen of Moroccan origin - see my point above. One thing I'd say - the
Dutch are fearfully nice and polite but you really don't want to piss them
off. More generally, there's an increasing tendency as events like this take
place to define a set of common 'European' (actually enlightenment) values
against the values of the conservative or militant Muslims.

> Tolerance isn't entirely gone, I suppose. Some reporters referred to
> the van Gogh murderer's use of an 8" dagger plunged into his chest to
> afix a note as 'pinning'. If the killer had skinned van Gogh, do you
> think the reporters would have called it 'exfoliation'?
>
> --- Samantha Atkins <samantha at objectent.com> wrote:
>
> > Hmm.  Many of the people I know from Muslim countries immigrated to
> > escape so-called "Muslim values".     It takes a pretty wide brush to
> >
> > paint over 1.2 billion people.
> >
> > - s
> >
> > On Nov 19, 2004, at 11:09 PM, Spike wrote:
> >
> > >
> > >> Mike Lorrey
> > >>
> > >> EU officials implore new immigrants to learn 'European values'...
> > >
> > >
> > > I don't think the EU officials get it.  The immigrants
> > > are not interested in adopting European values.  They
> > > want to transform Europe to Muslim values.  They come
> > > as Muslim missionaries to convert the heathen.
> > >
> > > spike
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > extropy-chat mailing list
> > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > extropy-chat mailing list
> > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
> >
>
>
> =====
> Mike Lorrey
> Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH
> "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
> It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
>                                       -William Pitt (1759-1806)
> Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today!
> http://my.yahoo.com
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat