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[RoadHazard]

Yeah that is not going to happen. Sorry imam, no pedophilia allowed.

Yeah, fuck that guy. Your superstitious beliefs and cultural backwardness do not take precedence over law. You will adapt to our laws, or you will get thrown in jail or out of the country. That's just how it is, and how it's gonna stay.

 

[Pusherman]

I was not talking just about Islam - although I think it contributes to certain worldviews that get in the way of a successful life in Western society if followed too strictly like some fundamentalist do, and there are some dangers in having fundamentalists preach their ways and allowing that.

Nobody is saying you shouldn't have the same rights as the native population. But people arriving here will need to adapt to some extend, since they are simply arriving in a different society and will need to function there. That is not something strange. And if they don't, that will lead (and has already led) to communities that are placed outside of society. If you move somewhere, you need to adapt and find your place, not expect the place to change for you.

And yes, those over representation are also in education unemployment and other things. Like I said: crime and economic statistics. They go hand in hand up to a certain point, so both need to be solved. And that will also have to come from the people themselves, instead of pointing at the "scared white people" for it. How do you expect those people to fix your problems?

But a very large problem is that the people causing trouble don't feel like they are part of the country and society. They place themselves outside of it and somehow feel more attached to the country of origin of their parents. Nothing wrong with being proud of that, but this also leads to a distance from the country you reside in. And there those rights and duties come into play. Because you can't demand all those things of a country if you don't even consider yourself a part of it.

I dislike making this comparison because in the end no minority can claim to have experienced similar things to African Americans but I think there are some interesting and telling differences in how the problems of minorities are discussed in America vs Europe. Most people understand that the ghettoization of African Americans, their overrepresentation in criminal statistics and their underperformance in education are not their problems. They are problems of the society as a whole and can often if not always be traced back to deliberate policy meant to segregate blacks. But when it comes to migrant communities in Europe the migrants themselves are almost always pointed out as the cause of any problems. I've done a class on migrant history and though I'm no expert what struck me most in my readings was that 1) the 'problems' often seen in the media are often been gross misrepresentations of the facts and 2) that the scholars often turned to policy as the main reason for any actual problems in integration, instead culture or religion. Now, I'm on an old-ass ipad and can't cite any resources but one of my professors, Leo Lucassen, has written extensively on the subject. The actual statistics do not paint the bleak picture of problematic communities that is sometimes cited in the media and on Gaf. Often, the language, including in your posts, is deliberately vague or uses very extreme outliers as pointing towards a trend. For example, an iman supporting child brides probably says even less about muslim migrants than the actual dutch pedo group MARTIJN, which sought to decriminalize sexual relations between adults and children in 2012, says about Dutch people.

 

[Hypnotoad]

Speaking as the son of an African Muslim refugee: these countries are ours now just as much as they are of the white natives. We can wear whatever we want to wear, worship whoever we want to worship and speak whatever language we want to speak. Not only do we have the right to exercise our freedoms; we also have a right to all the legal protections others have. The right to special religious schools, the right to not be discriminated against for our faith at work, the right to challenge those that wish to insult us, the right to not be racially profiled. Migrants and their children acting like they own the place is for many Europeans the greatest nightmare but we do, just as much as they do. We don't have extra duties, we don't need to be grateful or apologize for the most conservative among us and we sure as hell don't have to change in order to appease scared white people.

You (be it a individual or a group/community) can do that, sure. But don't expect every cultural practice to be accepted or jugded as equal by the native population or to reap the same economic and social rewards as immigrants who choose to fully integrate into their new country and adopt the practices that make European societies function.

 

[mnz]

I'm not European so I personally wouldn't know but what makes Middle eastern Muslims specifically so hard to integrate versus other groups? Especially considering other Muslim groups like Pakistanis in the UK or Turkish people in Germany have been able to integrate much better. As an outsider this leads me to believe that it's something else that's the route of the problem as oppose to any inherent fault towards the migrants. Of course again I'm not European but I am interested to know.

Turkey has a very different history. It was founded as a secular country by Kemal Atatürk who hated religion and had a deep love for democracy and European culture. Maybe read some quotes of his to get an understanding.
These Turkish immigrants came as workers, not refugees. Not that this means immediate integration, but they were selected to be able to do their job and they came with a purpose, brought their families, had native colleagues and every school or activity back then basically forced you to integrate.
One of the crazier developments is that some of the children and grandchildren of those first wave of immigrants are now more nationalistic and religious than their ancestors, more likely to wave a picture of Erdogan than Atatürk.

The generalisation of Middle Easterners isn't working either. Syrians are actually doing very well by any statistic I have seen. Note that these often don't include the last year yet, though.

 

[Fudgepuppy]

Denmark doesn't have to look further than Sweden to see how it can all go wrong. Not surprising there's such sentiments.

In what way?

As a Swede, I'm wholly skeptical to the arguments thrown against immigrants and refugees, as Sweden as a whole, grew from the immigration during the 90's.

 

[ClosingADoor]

I dislike making this comparison because in the end no minority can claim to have experienced similar things to African Americans but I think there are some interesting and telling differences in how the problems of minorities are discussed in America vs Europe. Most people understand that the ghettoization of African Americans, their overrepresentation in criminal statistics and their underperformance in education are not their problems. They are problems of the society as a whole and can often if not always be traced back to deliberate policy meant to segregate blacks. But when it comes to migrant communities in Europe the migrants themselves are almost always pointed out as the cause of any problems. I've done a class on migrant history and though I'm no expert what struck me most in my readings was that 1) the 'problems' often seen in the media are often been gross misrepresentations of the facts and 2) that the scholars often turned to policy as the main reason for any actual problems in integration, instead culture or religion. Now, I'm on an old-ass ipad and can't cite any resources but one of my professors, Leo Lucassen, has written extensively on the subject. The actual statistics do not paint the bleak picture of problematic communities that is sometimes cited in the media and on Gaf. Often, the language, including in your posts, is deliberately vague or uses very extreme outliers as pointing towards a trend. For example, an iman supporting child brides probably says even less about muslim migrants than the actual dutch pedo group MARTIJN, which sought to decriminalize sexual relations between adults and children in 2012, says about Dutch people.

Getting even more comparisons in the discussion between the US and Europe is not really that useful I think. The history, politics, social programs and immigration policies are so different it can not be compared directly.

Yes, part of the problem can be blamed on lacking policy over the years. This is also a reason we see the rise of Wilders in Holland here right now, since people simply don't think any of the traditional parties will take a "tough" stance on immigration no matter what they say. Sadly, this will create even more trouble, so we'll see how it goes with the next elections coming up.

And yes, of course not the whole group should be blamed for the actions of a few. The thing is, that a not insignificant part of those communities are causing problems, display troubling behavior on the streets, are committing crimes and having views that we as a society should not accept, that it becomes a large enough problem we can't ignore. Even local Muslim councilmen here in Amsterdam agree with that and are troubled by the fundamentalist views being preached behind closed doors towards youth we are more easily influenced by such things.

Like you said: millions of Muslims have integrated fine in Europe. So why can't the remaining group that are causing disproportional troubles relative to the size of the group? Part of it is policy, but a large part is also simply on the people themselves I think.

I don't think I am being that vague, that is more a result of these things being so complicated and large in scale that you can't detail everything easily in a forum like this. And I certainly would have a thing to say also about Dutch people themselves if it comes up somewhere, since we are also certainly not without fault. Far from it. Including problematic organisations like you mentioned and disgusting displays of far right bullshit lately.

 

[Stereogatari]

To be fair this depends on the demographic of people immigrating.

Let me take my ethnic group as an example.

I know Turks that are sophisticated university educated and English speaking, they are pretty much Western people no difference to sophisticated university educated Europeans. They all want to migrate to Europe. These type of people migrating to Europe will easily assimilate because they will find themselves in the mainstream strata of society and not on the margins. Not only that but they won't feel comfortable among the "lower class" ethnic enclave Turks, because those are the same types of Turks they don't even rub shoulders with back home.

Whereas lower class Turks immigrating will barely have a grasp of a European language and because they aren't educated or very international/globalised in their outlook/lifestyle choice, they will automatically find themselves attached to enclave communities which can serve as a support network as well. The educated European looking Turks don't need to stay in an enclave or have a support network, because their qualifications, international outlook and skills mean they will find it easy to rub shoulders with the ethnic majority of the country they are going to.

 

[RoadHazard]

Speaking as the son of an African Muslim refugee: these countries are ours now just as much as they are of the white natives. We can wear whatever we want to wear, worship whoever we want to worship and speak whatever language we want to speak. Not only do we have the right to exercise our freedoms; we also have a right to all the legal protections others have. The right to special religious schools, the right to not be discriminated against for our faith at work, the right to challenge those that wish to insult us, the right to not be racially profiled. Migrants and their children acting like they own the place is for many Europeans the greatest nightmare but we do, just as much as they do. We don't have extra duties, we don't need to be grateful or apologize for the most conservative among us and we sure as hell don't have to change in order to appease scared white people.

Once you are a citizen of the country you moved to, then yes, of course it's "yours" as much as anyone else's. But that does not mean you have the right to impose your cultural or religious values on those who were there before you (for example, the not insignificant number of people who have expressed a wish to implement sharia law in European countries, and have even managed to do so in smaller areas), to put your own values above the law of the country you're now in, etc. Like that imam who wanted guys with child brides to get to keep them, to make the transition easier or whatever. Nope. Not happening.

Of course you're free to continue practicing your religion without being discriminated against for it, but you also have to not discriminate based on your beliefs. For example, how women, gay people, etc, are treated in some Muslim cultures is horrifying to us secular westerners. That's not acceptable here. You have to adapt to our views on equality here, not the other way around. And you have to accept that our society is secular. Religion is a private matter. Also, religious schools of all denominations should be banned IMO, since I don't believe children should be indoctrinated with these ideas at such a young age, but alas, that's a dream for now.

And you do have a responsibility to try your best to contribute equally to society. Just retreating into a lifetime on welfare, which all too often happens, is not OK. There need to be stronger regulations here, IMO. Welfare should be there for those who need it, not for those who could do perfectly fine without it. This goes equally for both native citizens and immigrants, obviously, but for immigrants it means making a great effort to integrate and become part of the society, because otherwise you'll never get into the job market. Far too many people never make this kind of effort at all, and that's not acceptable.

So while you're right about your base argument, you can't just say "accept us exactly as we are", because in some respects we just cannot do that. If you come from a very regressive culture you have to change some things in order to function in our (your new) society. If you refuse to do that, integration becomes impossible, and you become a liability for the rest of us. It's the simple truth.

 

[kruis]

I very much doubt that has been a reason as of recently. Politicians are very much aware that they need skilled immigrants to solve these issues, not unskilled immigrants.

Politicans think we're idiots. First they say that Syrian refugees were highly skilled. They tell the press that this is a golden opportunity for Europe since these are educated people from Syria's middleclass, many of them doctors, teachers, engineers ... And a couple of months later we find out that two thirds of them can barely read and write. And that's reading and writing Arab, their native language.

 

[Henkka]

In what way?

As a Swede, I'm wholly skeptical to the arguments thrown against immigrants and refugees, as Sweden as a whole, grew from the immigration during the 90's.

Well some people exaggerate it like Sweden is collapsing or whatever, I'm not one of those people. But clearly, there are problems. This was reported in Finnish newspapers some days ago, here's an English article...

edit: English article blocked here, Finnish article just for subscribers... :/ argh http://www.hs.fi/ulkomaat/a1472708422740

Basically there's a lot of car burnings happening in Malmo, apparently over 70 incidents since July 1. In the Finnish story, they interviewed firefighters about it who said they're worried about the possibility of grenades in the cars, which have become common among criminal gangs there. It's not like there's riots over police brutality or something, the burnings seem to be totally random. Looks to be just frustrated teenagers, not integrated into society, taking it out on random property.

 

[ClosingADoor]

Well some people exaggerate it like Sweden is collapsing or whatever, I'm not one of those people. But clearly, there are problems. This was reported in Finnish newspapers some days ago, here's an English article...

edit: English article blocked here, Finnish article just for subscribers... :/ argh http://www.hs.fi/ulkomaat/a1472708422740

Basically there's a lot of car burnings happening in Malmo, apparently over 70 incidents since July 1. In the Finnish story, they interviewed firefighters about it who said they're worried about the possibility of grenades in the cars, which have become common among criminal gangs there. It's not like there's riots over police brutality or something, the burnings seem to be totally random. Looks to be just frustrated teenagers, not integrated into society, taking it out on random property.

Is this some kind of new hobby for bored people in Europe? We had 130 cars burning down here in Amsterdam this year. 50 of them centered in one neighborhood. No arrests made as far as I know.

 

[Trojita]

Omar Mahmoud, 34, an Iraqi engineer who entered Denmark a year ago and lives in a refugee center in Randers, a city of 60,000, is trying his best to fit in. He and his wife are taking Danish classes, and their three children are learning the language and making Danish friends in school. They are Muslim, but attend church to learn about Christianity, and he said he was not opposed to his son’s eating pork, a staple of the Danish diet, though it is forbidden in Islam.

Mr. Mahmoud said his family had not encountered direct insults or threats, but was frightened by the anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim tenor in the public discourse.

“It’s like foreigners are put in a special clan, separate from the Danish people,” he lamented. Still, Mr. Mahmoud said that “some of the Danish people are angels” and that he was relieved to be far from the violence of Iraq. “I’m in my heaven now.”

Dude is full on integrating. I hope this dude doesn't get backlash from people coming from his own region.

 

[Erevador]

Speaking as the son of an African Muslim refugee: these countries are ours now just as much as they are of the white natives. We can wear whatever we want to wear, worship whoever we want to worship and speak whatever language we want to speak. Not only do we have the right to exercise our freedoms; we also have a right to all the legal protections others have. The right to special religious schools, the right to not be discriminated against for our faith at work, the right to challenge those that wish to insult us, the right to not be racially profiled. Migrants and their children acting like they own the place is for many Europeans the greatest nightmare but we do, just as much as they do. We don't have extra duties, we don't need to be grateful or apologize for the most conservative among us and we sure as hell don't have to change in order to appease scared white people.

But you see, there is a rather difficult complication here. These appeals to the necessity of minority rights are unavoidably tarnished by the ready awareness that when Islam becomes the majority in an area, it is often true that other minorities suffer very harshly. Why are Jews flooding out of various areas in Europe? Why are they pulling their children out of the schools in which they are unsafe among the student body? Why are Jewish schools sometimes guarded by the French army? There must be some reason...

EVEN Mehdi Hasan, one of the most persistent apologists for theocracy, admits that outlandish conspiracy theories about (and hatred for) Jews are utterly commonplace among British Muslims. Polling tells us that the majority of British Muslims believe that homosexuality should be illegal. Not anti-gay marriage, mind you, they believe it should be illegal to be gay. There was rather an interesting discussion on GAF awhile back with a fellow who himself admitted that (though he thinks it would be hard to prosecute, and unlikely to occur) he believed the proper punishment for homosexuality was stoning. His views would be commonplace in many Muslim communities in the west. Likewise, we know that a quarter of British Muslims felt that the killing of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists was an act with which they had "some sympathy."

You speak of not wishing to apologize for the "most conservative among us," and of course you are right in saying that is not your responsibility. But you can't ignore the fact that what you refer to as "conservative" is a very extreme kind of "conservatism" by the standards of Western Europe, and also that it is truly widespread within these communities.

This is why all of this presents such a problem for the ultra-tolerant societies of Western Europe. The people wish to be tolerant of minority rights, but they are noticing that, increasingly, the minority rights of others within their country are being violated by a particular subset of their society.

 

[hydrophilic attack]

And you're basing this on..?

This is true in large parts of the country, not including Copenhagen though.

I'm basing this on Sweden where no one would wait around for the green man at a crossing if there are no cars around wtffffffffffff.

I thought out of Sweden and Denmark, Sweden was supposed to be the country full of dull and non-adventurous people. But I guess I was wrong, and Denmark is full of the kind of people who would wait at a crossing when there are no cars around lmao

 

[Keasar]

Not sure about Denmark. In Sweden, I often saw parents with their kids wait when the light was red, and in that case I also waited. In Germany, you most definitely stop - police could fine you and others will look at you if you don't even if there's no car at all. Only city where this probably isn't the case is Mannheim; the traffic lights in that city were garbage.

Right, I can understand with kids though cause you wanna imprint on them to respect traffic lights and general traffic rules. As you get older and you can control your impulses like for example not chase the ball you kicked onto the highway, most here in Sweden seem alright with you making effective decisions if it doesn't harm anyone, like crossing a street when there are no cars.

 

[Pusherman]

Discussing the experience of Muslims in Europe on Gaf is extremely difficult. To bring up the comparison to the black experience again, there are luckily enough black americans on Gaf and the discussion is familiar enough to counteract vague blame on black culture and dogwhistle language. That's sadly not the case for discussions about Islam. This thread has copious amounts of references to 'big problems', failed integration and even the muslim equivalent of welfare queens without any real evidence or statistics to back them up. It's become politically expected to say muslims have failed to integrate even when reality is quite different. Looking over from here in Europe it's very easy to see that Trump has run a campaign based on lies and exploiting the fears of scared white people but we seem pretty blind to the same things happening in Europe. Our rightwing politicians and the media outlets that support them lie just as much as Trump and Fox News. Just an example from my home country, The Netherlands, again: a paper called Trouw did a huge expose on the Schilderswijk, the closest thing The Hague has to a ghetto, claiming there existed a Sharia Triangle with extreme social control. Of course, it was all made up and they had to apologize. Another one, on one of our most watched talk shows, DWDD, a common guest misrepresented a study on refugees and the professor I mentioned, Leo Lucassen, had to come on the next day to explain the reality of the situation. That was one of the few times that an actual academic had the chance to explain migration and integration on such a large platform. Usually, Politicians and laymen just propagate the same handful of political myths about integration and muslims without anyone checking the claims for misrepresentations, mistakes and lies. Much of the discourse surrounding muslims, refugees and migrants in Europe is, just as with the politics of Trump, fueled by xenophobia, islamophobia and racism. I don't want to call anyone out in this thread, I know how pervasive these myths have become throughout Europe, but I would encourage anyone with an interest in the issue of integration to read up on the existing academic literature. The problems migrant communities in Europe face are often more painful for themselves than for their white neighbors. A muslim girl growing up in the Netherlands is more likely to miss out on work or a study-related internship because of employment-related racism than because of an overbearing father.

 

[TTOOLL]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/06/world/europe/denmark-migrants-refugees-racism.html





This brings a very, very interesting question: Should the MidEastern migrants defer to their host country's norms, or should the host country defer instead to Middle Eastern norms in order to show "tolerance and understanding? Or perhaps, should both sides attempt to "meld" their cultures together and create a new one that is less stringent than the old Danish one yet more rigorous and tamed than the Middle Eastern one?

Is that even a queation nowadays?
If I go to a place I must adapt, not them.

 

[Replicant]

Oussama El-Saadi, a high-profile imam from a mosque in Aarhus, is urging the Danish government to reconsider its decision to separate child brides from their husbands when the couples arrive as refugees in Denmark.

El-Saadi said the practice is part of the culture of many of the refugees arriving in the country and that child brides should be looked at from a “different perspective”.

“It is an extraordinary humanitarian situation, and I think you have to take care of these families,” El-Saadi told Metroxpress.

This is so fucking gross, I can't believe he's dumb enough to say it. This and their hatred towards gays are some of the more unpleasant 'cultural differences' that I can live without.

 

[RoadHazard]

Right, I can understand with kids though cause you wanna imprint on them to respect traffic lights and general traffic rules. As you get older and you can control your impulses like for example not chase the ball you kicked onto the highway, most here in Sweden seem alright with you making effective decisions if it doesn't harm anyone, like crossing a street when there are no cars.

Yeah, people definitely do that all the time here (Sweden). I do. It's technically forbidden, but there's no fine for it (you can in theory be fined for being reckless in traffic by doing it, but I'm pretty sure that's extremely rare). But yes, when I was a kid I was taught very well not to do it, for good reasons. As you get older, you learn when it's fine to do so, but as a kid it's clearly better if you're taught not to do it.

I was recently in Poland, and there it's very different. There you can get fined for it, and the locals I was with even told me that sometimes the police will be in hiding near street crossings to catch people doing it. So people there simply do not walk against a red light, even if there are no cars anywhere.

 

[verbatimo]

Here are few regarding Sweden

Honor culture and gender separation
http://www.expressen.se/ledare/sakine-madon/fritidsgardar-for-tjejer-cementerar-fortryck/

Groving fundamentalism over Husby
http://www.svd.se/feodal-machokultur-rader-i-fororten/om/ledare

Women should be able to move around in public areas, sit in cafes and bars, bike through residential areas but because patriarchy from different countries have merged into a suburb of culture, where religious influence is great, that's not possible.

Expressen article about LGBT harassment in suburbs
http://www.expressen.se/nyheter/lon...btq-hatet-de-sa-att-de-skulle-valdta-oss-ratt

 

[Milly Osworth]

Religion is to blame. Without religion us europeans wouldn't have to worry our freedom is threatened by refugees from the middle east. But most of the refugees believe being gay is wrong, women are worth less than men and freedom of speech is secondary to what is written in some fantasy novel.

 

[JaggedSac]

I think it's a good idea to wait for the proper traffic signal before walking across the street lol.

 

[Minamu]

This probably comes up in all threads like this one but I wonder how Danes would react if the situation was reversed and Syria had to accept tens of thousands of Danes. I doubt a majority would even bother with learning arabic or assimilate Syrian culture, so the constant talking about learning the language of the country you come to seems like bs to me. If anything, Denmark ought to change their language in the first place, considering how despicably ugly it is :lol Not that me being Swedish has anything to do with that

Point is, I'm having a real hard time believing that just about any western country and its immigrants would accept having to relearn a whole life's worth of culture and restart in let's say an islamic country without extreme whining (granted, things such as equal rights are worth complaining about no matter where you are, but still). So far, it seems to me that the current influx of immigrants into Europe have done a tremendous job trying to fit in, compared to how we would fair if we were in their shoes.

I find it really hard to believe that all Danish women would just accept and start wearing burkas over night if they had to flee to Syria for whatever reason; this whole "assimilate the culture you live in" is only applicable to others, I'd say.

 

[Nervous Sausage]

This probably comes up in all threads like this one but I wonder how Danes would react if the situation was reversed and Syria had to accept tens of thousands of Danes. I doubt a majority would even bother with learning arabic or assimilate Syrian culture, so the constant talking about learning the language of the country you come to seems like bs to me. If anything, Denmark ought to change their language in the first place, considering how despicably ugly it is :lol Not that me being Swedish has anything to do with that

Point is, I'm having a real hard time believing that just about any western country and its immigrants would accept having to relearn a whole life's worth of culture and restart in let's say an islamic country without extreme whining (granted, things such as equal rights are worth complaining about no matter where you are, but still). So far, it seems to me that the current influx of immigrants into Europe have done a tremendous job trying to fit in, compared to how we would fair if we were in their shoes.

I find it really hard to believe that all Danish women would just accept and start wearing burkas over night if they had to flee to Syria for whatever reason; this whole "assimilate the culture you live in" is only applicable to others, I'd say.

Because people from those western countries can see how objectively shit an Islamic culture is in comparison, so I think refusing to adopt those values is warranted in this scenario. Their culture is basically what's ruined the place they're fleeing from in the first place.

 

[Hypnotoad]

This probably comes up in all threads like this one but I wonder how Danes would react if the situation was reversed and Syria had to accept tens of thousands of Danes. I doubt a majority would even bother with learning arabic or assimilate Syrian culture, so the constant talking about learning the language of the country you come to seems like bs to me. If anything, Denmark ought to change their language in the first place, considering how despicably ugly it is :lol Not that me being Swedish has anything to do with that

If some day the Danish have to flee their home and pass through half a dozen and more safe countries because they just want to get into the prosperous states of Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, then yes, they should adapt to their hosts' demands.

 

[Dalibor68]

I find it really hard to believe that all Danish women would just accept and start wearing burkas over night if they had to flee to Syria for whatever reason; this whole "assimilate the culture you live in" is only applicable to others, I'd say.

Because that is totally the same. Speechless.

(also I what does the burqa have to do with syria?)

 

[mnz]

You don't have to wear burkas in Syria, unless you're in ISIS territory Are you saying they will win??

 

[d00d3n]

This thread has copious amounts of references to 'big problems', failed integration and even the muslim equivalent of welfare queens without any real evidence or statistics to back them up. It's become politically expected to say muslims have failed to integrate even when reality is quite different.

How about the statistic from the NYT article referenced in the OT:

Perhaps the leading — and most substantive — concern is that the migrants are an economic drain. In 2014, 48 percent of immigrants from non-Western countries ages 16 to 64 were employed, compared with 74 percent of native Danes.

Please explain how this statistic is fraudulent and how "reality is quite different".

 

[Erevador]

This probably comes up in all threads like this one but I wonder how Danes would react if the situation was reversed and Syria had to accept tens of thousands of Danes. I doubt a majority would even bother with learning arabic or assimilate Syrian culture, so the constant talking about learning the language of the country you come to seems like bs to me. If anything, Denmark ought to change their language in the first place, considering how despicably ugly it is :lol Not that me being Swedish has anything to do with that

Point is, I'm having a real hard time believing that just about any western country and its immigrants would accept having to relearn a whole life's worth of culture and restart in let's say an islamic country without extreme whining (granted, things such as equal rights are worth complaining about no matter where you are, but still). So far, it seems to me that the current influx of immigrants into Europe have done a tremendous job trying to fit in, compared to how we would fair if we were in their shoes.

I find it really hard to believe that all Danish women would just accept and start wearing burkas over night if they had to flee to Syria for whatever reason; this whole "assimilate the culture you live in" is only applicable to others, I'd say.

This is a mindbogglingly worthless thought experiment.

 

[EdwardTeach]

I'm not European so I personally wouldn't know but what makes Middle eastern Muslims specifically so hard to integrate versus other groups? Especially considering other Muslim groups like Pakistanis in the UK ...have been able to integrate much better. As an outsider this leads me to believe that it's something else that's the route of the problem as oppose to any inherent fault towards the migrants. Of course again I'm not European but I am interested to know.

Why do you think Pakistanis have been well integrated in the uk? As a group they are very poorly integrated, living in separate communities, importing spouses from the motherland and generally have values which strongly conflict with those of the mainstream population of the uk. They also have levels of educational attainment and financial attainment far below that of other immigrant groups (eg Indians/Chinese, Africans).

 

[Hypnotoad]

How about the statistic from the NYT article referenced in the OT:

Please explain how this statistic is fraudulent and how "reality is quite different".

Or this one, about the Netherlands (data from 2008) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/28/AR2008042802560.html

Research by the Open Society Institute, an advocacy organization, shows that in the Netherlands 20 percent of adult prisoners and 26 percent of all juvenile offenders are Muslim; the country is about 5.5 percent Muslim.

And according to the Islamic Community in Germany, 90% of prison inmates in Berlin are Muslim. (http://www.trendings.de/trending-topics/berliner-haftanstalten-90-prozent-moslems-422)

 

[JP_]

Just yesterday I listened to a podcast episode of Invisibilia about how young Muslims in Denmark felt racially profiled, ostracized, and generally unwelcome -- leading them to radicalization. Until a local police force changed their approach to helping them instead -- hooking them up with jobs and other resources to help them integrate. They severely reduced the number of people going over to Syria from that neighborhood and it's largely attributed to this change in police tactics.

http://www.npr.org/programs/invisibilia/485603559/flip-the-script

 

[Kayhan]

And according to the Islamic Community in Germany, 90% of prison inmates in Berlin are Muslim. (http://www.trendings.de/trending-topics/berliner-haftanstalten-90-prozent-moslems-422)

That is an absolutely nuts statistic.

 

[Dalibor68]

Just yesterday I listened to a podcast episode of Invisibilia about how young Muslims in Denmark felt racially profiled, ostracized, and generally unwelcome -- leading them to radicalization. Until a local police force changed their approach to helping them instead -- hooking them up with jobs and other resources to help them integrate. They severely reduced the number of people going over to Syria from that neighborhood and it's largely attributed to this change in police tactics.

http://www.npr.org/programs/invisibilia/485603559/flip-the-script

Of course a more constructive approach is good and welcomed. But what bothers me is how some people seem to just accept this as a norm. It's absolutely NOT normal that young poor people become radical and massacre innocents. They are not victims and that is not some unchangeable destiny. Poor yugoslavians didn't form orthodox terrorgroups here, poor indians didn't form buddhist terror groups in europe, the vietnamese in germany didn't become radical atheist terrorists. That alone shows that something obviously has to be wrong with some aspect of Islam and/or the culture. And it makes it even crazier to me how the first reaction of some people can be "This is the majority societs fault, they didnt do enough!".

 

[MistakenMobius]

In France for the moment,
The Chinese community complains about the lack of actions from the authority and anti-racist groups regarding anti Chinese racism by young Maghreb and African people.

One of the reason they say is that they are not breaking everything and are quite well integrated and so they can be ignored.

 

[BrassDragon]

Is this some kind of new hobby for bored people in Europe? We had 130 cars burning down here in Amsterdam this year. 50 of them centered in one neighborhood. No arrests made as far as I know.

The lowlives like it because it's a huge distraction to police - the chemical/explosive risk means that first responders go straight into firefighting, disregarding the perpetrators even if they're right there. After sunset, a huge ball of light also makes it easier to blend into the shadows and disappear.

We often see car fires in response to police trying to retake the street from a gathering of youths or to retaliate against citizens calling the police on them. Means they can run around unchecked for a little while longer. It also requires painstaking forensic work to make a legal case against the scum, with no guarantee of success because fire destroys evidence. On top of that, it intimidates the neighbourhood something fierce so witnesses and reports are hard to come by.

It's infuriating to deal with tbh.

 

[Hypnotoad]

In France for the moment,
The Chinese community complains about the lack of actions from the authority and anti-racist groups regarding anti Chinese racism by young Maghreb and African people.

One of the reason they say is that they are not breaking everything and are quite well integrated and so they can be ignored.

When I lived in Berlin, I witnessed Arab youth in groups harrassing Chinese immigrants with racist insults several times, so this doesn't come as a surprise.

Btw. my best friends in kindergarden were Iranians whose mother had fred from the Islamic revolution. They proudly kept their Persian heritage while in Germany, but at no point did they think about not integrating. The kids spoke fluent German by the time they entered elementary school, and the sister later went on to university.

I also know some Turkish immigrant children who you could never tell were they come from, since they have adopted German mannerisms and lifestyle to a larger degree than alot of natives.

They all have adopted Germany as their home, and don't have many bonds remaining with their parents' countries. Religion is non-issue for them, and it helped them integrate.

 

[MistakenMobius]

The lowlives like it because it's a huge distraction to police - the chemical/explosive risk means that first responders go straight into firefighting, disregarding the perpetrators even if they're right there. After sunset, a huge ball of light also makes it easier to blend into the shadows and disappear.

We often see car fires in response to police trying to retake the street from a gathering of youths or to retaliate against citizens calling the police on them. Means they can run around unchecked for a little while longer. It also requires painstaking forensic work to make a legal case against the scum, with no guarantee of success because fire destroys evidence. It also intimidates the neighbourhood something fierce so witnesses and reports are hard to come by.
It's infuriating to deal with tbh.

France is leading with thousands of cars burned every year

 

[JP_]

Of course a more constructive approach is good and welcomed. But what bothers me is how some people seem to just accept this as a norm. It's absolutely NOT normal that young poor people become radical and massacre innocents. Poor yugoslavians didn't form orthodox terrorgroups here, poor indians didn't form buddhist terror groups in europe, the vietnamese in germany didn't become radical atheist terrorists. That alone shows that something obviously has to be wrong with some aspect of Islam and/or the culture. And it makes it even crazier to me how the first reaction of some people can be "This is the majority societs fault, they didnt do enough!".

Eh, I think it's mostly just a human thing. You had Jewish extremists bombing British targets and assassinating British officials leading up to Israel becoming a Jewish state. In the Late 1800s, anarchists were bombing people in the west. Buddhists have been killing lots of Muslims in Myanmar, driven by nationalism and a desire to assimilate them. Terrorism has been adopted by all sorts of cultures and religions for various reasons -- Muslim terrorism is just what's going on now, but it's not like this sort of thing is unheard of in other groups of people.

But essentially, I presented a promising approach that has preliminary but still very positive results, and you respond by arguing for escalation in force and further antagonism by trying to paint Muslims as uniquely flawed.

 

[ClosingADoor]

Discussing the experience of Muslims in Europe on Gaf is extremely difficult. To bring up the comparison to the black experience again, there are luckily enough black americans on Gaf and the discussion is familiar enough to counteract vague blame on black culture and dogwhistle language. That's sadly not the case for discussions about Islam.

This thread has copious amounts of references to 'big problems', failed integration and even the muslim equivalent of welfare queens without any real evidence or statistics to back them up. It's become politically expected to say muslims have failed to integrate even when reality is quite different. Looking over from here in Europe it's very easy to see that Trump has run a campaign based on lies and exploiting the fears of scared white people but we seem pretty blind to the same things happening in Europe.

Our rightwing politicians and the media outlets that support them lie just as much as Trump and Fox News. Just an example from my home country, The Netherlands, again: a paper called Trouw did a huge expose on the Schilderswijk, the closest thing The Hague has to a ghetto, claiming there existed a Sharia Triangle with extreme social control. Of course, it was all made up and they had to apologize. Another one, on one of our most watched talk shows, DWDD, a common guest misrepresented a study on refugees and the professor I mentioned, Leo Lucassen, had to come on the next day to explain the reality of the situation. That was one of the few times that an actual academic had the chance to explain migration and integration on such a large platform.

Usually, Politicians and laymen just propagate the same handful of political myths about integration and muslims without anyone checking the claims for misrepresentations, mistakes and lies. Much of the discourse surrounding muslims, refugees and migrants in Europe is, just as with the politics of Trump, fueled by xenophobia, islamophobia and racism. I don't want to call anyone out in this thread, I know how pervasive these myths have become throughout Europe, but I would encourage anyone with an interest in the issue of integration to read up on the existing academic literature.

The problems migrant communities in Europe face are often more painful for themselves than for their white neighbors. A muslim girl growing up in the Netherlands is more likely to miss out on work or a study-related internship because of employment-related racism than because of an overbearing father.

You need to start using paragraphs to make it a bit more readable.

I think you are a bit right, and a bit wrong. Yes, there is a lot of nonsense flying around and people need to be called out for it. But there are actual problems that have been ignored for far too long also. And those things do have proof in the statistics and need solutions to solve them (like for example the higher crime, lower education, more poverty, more welfare, etc). However, here in the Netherlands we are now stuck between parties who are happy to kick the can further down the road and are not coming up with answers to these things, and one that basically says "fuck em, throw them all out." Both are not solutions (although the latter is a lot more disgusting then the former) the population can actually do something with.

The media does talk more about immigration problems and crime. But keep in mind that for years these things were mostly not talked about. And even now bringing it up and just talking about actual problems going on in those mostly immigrant neighborhoods is still sometimes called out as racism, while you first need to identify a problem to fix it. If you are not allowed to talk about the problem, there can be no solution also. In previous threads I have shown the local CBS statistics showing crime and unemployment with for example Moroccan immigrants, which are not looking good compared to other groups. But talking about that and seeing a problem with it is not racism or xenophobia.

Dutch media overall is pretty good I think, while some are more populist then others (eg Telegraaf) a comparison to Fox News simply can not be made. Most media here are more often then not seen as left wing instead of right wing. The situation is nowhere near the same. Media here don't even mention ethnicity or background when talking about crime if they can help it, which actually leads to more distrust towards them because of it. And you mention two cases, both in which the outlet apologized and rectified the situation, which is a good thing to do.

 

[BrassDragon]

France is leading with thousands of cars burned every year

Is that all caused by delinquency though? I remember reading a lot protests in France also have car fires in their wake - still a problem, to be sure, but separate from the link with ghettoization.

 

[krazen]

If you are not allowed to talk about the problem, there can be no solution also. In previous threads I have shown the local CBS statistics showing crime and unemployment with for example Moroccan immigrants, which are not looking good compared to other groups. But talking about that and seeing a problem with it is not racism or xenophobia.

Help me with this; wouldnt the unemployment have to do directly with the bias the migrants have seen? Which would then lead to crime? (American here btw)

 

[gutter_trash]

building enclaves is a mistake, putting all migrants in one part of the city only is a mistake.

the best way to integrate is to NOT place them in housing apartment projects of just migrants

you got to mix them up with general population to get integration to work

the European model is a failure when they repeat the French mistake of suburb apartment complexes away from the city center

 

[MistakenMobius]

building enclaves is a mistake, putting all migrants in one part of the city only is a mistake.

the best way to integrate is to NOT place them in housing apartment projects of just migrants

you got to mix them up with general population to get integration to work

the European model is a failure when they repeat the French mistake of suburb apartment complexes away from the city center

Those apartments complete where supposed to be middle class place.

 

[Drazgul]

building enclaves is a mistake, putting all migrants in one part of the city only is a mistake.

the best way to integrate is to NOT place them in housing apartment projects of just migrants

you got to mix them up with general population to get integration to work

the European model is a failure when they repeat the French mistake of suburb apartment complexes away from the city center

Assuming they're on welfare; give them housing from the wealthy parts of the city, where rents are considerably higher? That wouldn't be at all fair for native citizens on welfare (or even the taxpayers who pay for it) who'd be stuck in the crappy part of town - the rules absolutely need to be the same for everyone. Preferential treatment would only lead to resentment.

 

[gutter_trash]

Assuming they're on welfare; give them housing from the wealthy parts of the city, where rents are considerably higher? That wouldn't be at all fair for native citizens on welfare (or even the taxpayers who pay for it) who'd be stuck in the crappy part of town - the rules absolutely need to be the same for everyone. Preferential treatment would only lead to resentment.

it's about wealthy parts of the city, it's about not hunkering all of them down into ONE building complex.

that is a proven failure.... = France

 

[Maedre]

building enclaves is a mistake, putting all migrants in one part of the city only is a mistake.

the best way to integrate is to NOT place them in housing apartment projects of just migrants

you got to mix them up with general population to get integration to work

the European model is a failure when they repeat the French mistake of suburb apartment complexes away from the city center

And how do you think is this realizable? Sure if you are only let a few thousand in your country its easy (like canada or the US), but not when you country got Migrants 2% of its population.

 

[BrassDragon]

it's about wealthy parts of the city, it's about not hunkering all of them down into ONE building complex.

that is a proven failure.... = France

People aren't pawns you can just move around the board - these are fully fledged citizens in free societies who can live where they please.

The combination of higher birth rates, the effect of family reunions, the tendency to import spouses from the country of origin and white flight means a mixed neighbourhood quickly becomes ethnic despite the efforts of policy makers to fight this trend.

In the Netherlands (already straining under a very high urban population density), we have huge struggles to prevent exactly this problem and all policy instruments/regulations/incentives seem inadequate to the task or too slow to combat demographic trends.

It's easy to post on GAF saying we shouldn't have ghettos - reality doesn't care about good intentions.

 

[Dalibor68]

building enclaves is a mistake, putting all migrants in one part of the city only is a mistake.

the best way to integrate is to NOT place them in housing apartment projects of just migrants

you got to mix them up with general population to get integration to work

the European model is a failure when they repeat the French mistake of suburb apartment complexes away from the city center

You forgot the part where many also WANT to move near places where relatives already live or where there is a sizeable syrian/turkish/etc community (which often happen to also be the poorest places). It's not some old racist bureacrats saying "Ha, settle them to the others".

 

[ClosingADoor]

Help me with this; wouldnt the unemployment have to do directly with the bias the migrants have seen? Which would then lead to crime? (American here btw)

Well, that's the issue. It's a bit of a cycle by now. Yes, part of it is discrimination, there is no denying that. But to break that cycle you need effort from all sides and you can't blame it all on racism and discrimination, considering other groups are more successful with this (for example the earlier mentioned Iranians in this thread). How you break that cycle is the big question, but if you can't honestly talk about the problem without getting into a debate about racism, then the solution is not getting any closer.

To give some of the stats: people with Dutch origins are suspect of a crime at a rate of 83 out of 10.000 people in 2015. For Moroccans that would be 464, while Turks are at 253. Other large groups would be from the Dutch Antilles (506) and Suriname (343), so it is not an exclusive thing towards just those groups.

In 2008, 52% of Moroccan youth between 15 and 25 have been suspect of a crime. Note that I am talking suspects, since in the Netherlands ethnicity of convicted criminals is not public as far as I know, so these are the numbers the media and research has to do with.

It's a tough issue, but the current public debate going on talks mostly in extremes (either you are racist wanting to throw anyone out, or a left wing nut wanting to give everyone free money and looking away). It's not a healthy debate anymore, so I don't see much coming out of politics in terms of solutions to fix these things.

Do keep in mind that social services in the US and Europe are a bit different. Over here in Holland you seriously don't need to do any crime if you are unemployed. The social systems are there to keep a roof over your head and food on the table.