Terrorism and multiculturalism

[Hachimitsu]

Alright I thought I would have this big flowery post to introduce this interesting news piece, played on the CBC last night. (I was actually going to post this last night but I fell asleep). Basically many people are blaming immigration and multiculturalism as the cause for home grown terrorism. (For those who don't know 17 men and boys were arrested on terrorism related charges in Toronto, all of them were born in Canada or came here at an extremely young age).

The CBC did a piece on this and the reporter went to England and the Netherlands and interviewed quite a few people on the changing immigration and intergration policy toward Muslims in Europe.

I would very much like to discuss it since I have concerns on where Canada is going and I think this piece crystalized things for me.

http://www.cbc.ca/national/ ,
click on "watch the National news online" . Once it starts go to time code 25:00. Real Player required. it's about 30 minutes.

I'll just post a few thoughts here since I don't want to colour too many peoples ideas news piece. I like that they interviewed politicians, average people in towns and some Muslims for this piece. That's it for now.


I would highly recomend watching this today as the newscast gets changed sometime after 11:30pm Eastern time. If it gets posted somewhere else on the CBC site after that I will change the link. (Also if you want to send the CBC a comment I am sure they would appreciate it.)

I would like to have posted something like this for TORC but unfortunately there are 3 seconds of a TOS violation. (I'll see if I can email the CBC on that).

EDIT to fix spelling and gee this was a big flowery post after all.
X-posting with B77.

[Túrin Turambar]

The London bombers were all the children of Muslim immigrants as well, as were the Paris rioters, the Lebanese gangs that caused trouble in Sydney, and IIRC the Spanish train bombers and the killers of Theo van Gough. I’ve read that there are serious issues with this particular group in Europe, although I have to be careful with my sources here. From my personal experiences with the local Muslim community they’ve been quite OK.

Still, this is a topic that must be bought up and discussed IMHO.

[axordil]

Timothy McVeigh.

Multiculturalism is a red herring. Home-grown terrorists can be as Anglo as a Graham-cracker crust and still be alienated enough to turn on their own people. It doesn't matter where they come from, it matters that they don't feel a part of society. That might me more visible in immigrant communities, especially when people look for it, but more common? More potentially deadly?

[Alys]

You can post that in Manwë if you like Wilma, if it makes you feel more comfortable then feel free to say that you cleared it with me.

[Hachimitsu]

I just want to to be sure, have you seen it? I'll most likely post it soon then. Thanks.

[Alys]

I didn't have time to watch it all the way through, just the first 10 mins or so and I don't think that included the possible ToS violations, but it's a serious news programme rather than something offensive, so that'll be OK for Manwë.

And if it isn't, I'll take the rap for it.

[Túrin Turambar]

As I think this topic is worth pursuing, I’ll pose a question.

Are communities of unintegrated immigrants a problem to their host country?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Lord M., I think the simple answer is that they obviously can be. There are too many examples of incidents where such people become violent or otherwise disruptive to the host country. Whether they necessarily have to be is another question. Yet another question is "why do unintegrated immigrants sometimes become a problem to their host country?"

[Jnyusa]

It might be good to ask even before that, "Why do they remain unintegrated?"

Jn

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Lots of good questions, but who has the answers?

[axordil]

I think unintegrated PEOPLE are dangerous. That's where most criminals, let alone terrorists, come from, and they don't have to be immigrants.

With communities, we have different forms of successful integration into the larger society as well...and different forms of non-integration. Compare and contrast:

Lubivitchers in NYC
Amish in PA
Mormons in 19th century Illinois and Missouri
Mexican-Americans in LA
Cuban-Americans in Miami
Puerto Ricans in NYC
Message board users in mainstream society
Chinese-Americans in SF
Japanese-Americans in Hawaii

et al

There are an awful lot of variables here, which, I believe, make blanket statements meaningless. While it is certain that some groups in some host countries in some situations thrive, often quickly, and others do not, it is less obvious that there is a set paradigm for achieving integration that all groups must follow.

[Jnyusa]

Message board users in mainstream society

When I finally blow, everybody better look out.

Seriously, one of the things that I never tire of pointing out is that Mohammed Ata was holed up in a Motel 6 or something like that. All those extra security guards at the Marriott were worth diddly-squat. Terrorism works because there are marginalized communities in which they can hide, and it wasn't the terrorists who created those communities.

Jn

[Túrin Turambar]

[W]hy do unintegrated immigrants sometimes become a problem to their host country?

Language and cultural barriers make finding employment difficult (eg: unemployment rates among young Muslims in France), a struggle to find their own identity can lead people of the second-generation to adopt reactionary ideas, and they may have some very different ideas to the host country, which lead to friction. In all of these cases, I’m usually thinking of Islamic hardliners, given that the topic concerns terrorism.

Why do they remain unintegrated?

Because it is easier to band together, especially if there is no pressure to integrate. This is especially true if large numbers of migrants from the same group come over in a short period of time.

I think unintegrated PEOPLE are dangerous. That's where most criminals, let alone terrorists, come from, and they don't have to be immigrants.

That is a good observation.

Also, keep in mind that the specific topic here – what effect does multiculturalism have on home-grown terrorism? This, naturally, concerns Muslims as their communities are the ones most consistently producing terrorists. This tends to be less of an issue in the US for some reason – the US Muslim community has not caused any trouble as far as I know. In other countries this is often not the case.

To bring up a specific example, there is a lot of discussion on what to do about fundamentalist clerics in the west. For example, there are a couple in Britain who live on welfare and preach terrorism against the Government. Continental Europe also this problem, as does, to a lesser extent, other English-speaking countries such as Australia. These people obviously do not show any allegiance to their new country – they live there for the benefits, but still view it as the enemy. This is problematic.

[Jnyusa]

This, naturally, concerns Muslims as their communities are the ones most consistently producing terrorists. This tends to be less of an issue in the US for some reason – the US Muslim community has not caused any trouble as far as I know. In other countries this is often not the case.

Yes, it depends on whom you take in as immigrants. The Cuban-American community does have its terrorist branch (Scorpio 6) which performs assassinations, interference with the postal service, theft, arms dealing, etc., The post-1948 Chinese immigrants also had their Tong which functioned not as terrorists per se but as organized crime, and then we had the Mafia from Sicily. Because our government sponsors the Cuban terrorists we never hear about it in the news, and the other two groups emerged before suicide bombing was fashionable, and their main interest of course was making money rather than overthrowing this government, but I would argue that their impact on the communities where they settled (as unintegrated immigrants) was just as damaging.

We don't have an identifiable contingent of Moslem terrorists here (yet) because we have never accepted whole Moslem communities at once. Though we have large Moslem communities in the U.S. they came in under the strict rules (not the anti-communist rules) and dribbled in as they obtained visas and brought over wives and parents, etc. just like all our other immigrant groups did. So there was always a mix of cultural integrated and unintegrated immigrants in those communities and that has a leavening influence, I believe.

If you live in a country that colonized Moslem countries, then your immigrant contingent is probably predominantly Moslem ... or if, like Germany, you actively solicited guest workers from Moslem countries ... then your problem is likely to be Moslems, though I haven't heard that the Germans have this kind of problem with their Moslem population, non-integration yes but not organized rebellion. Hobby could report on this more accurately.

So I think that in some cases the problem is self-made.

Jn

[axordil]

If you live in a country that colonized Moslem countries, then your immigrant contingent is probably predominantly Moslem ... or if, like Germany, you actively solicited guest workers from Moslem countries ... then your problem is likely to be Moslems

Part of the difference in how communities function within the context of the larger societies is going to come from the manner and scale of their arrival. Communities that accrete gradually are likely not going to have the same issues as those where there is a sudden mass migration, and even mass migrations are going to be different depending on the specifics. Are the migrants temporary refugees planning on returning when things settle down (some current Bosnians in the US, perhaps), or permanently displaced people without a home they can ever return to (South Vietnamese after the fall of Saigon)? Are they looking to start new lives (various groups) or continue old ones in a new place (Amish in PA)? Are they trying to lay low in their new homes (various groups), or take over (see Mormons in MO/IL, above)?


BTW, the Tongs were active in SF way before 1948. There had been outbreaks of Chinese gang wars going back to the mid 19th century, with an especially nasty period in the 1920's.

[Jnyusa]

the Tongs were active in SF way before 1948.

Yes, I know. It was a carryover from China ... and still exists in China today as I understand, the same way the Mafia continues to function here. I think though that the problem took on a new character when we started to accept mass KMT immigrations.

Jn