At The National Interest Leon Hadar weaves together the Whig theory of history, politics, and present immigration to ask an interesting question:
We are told to remember that the granddaughters of the families who emigrated from highly stratified, patriarchal and religiously oppressive Italy’s south now wear a bikini when they go to the beach. As do the granddaughters of the ultra-Orthodox Jews who immigrated to America from the shtetl in eastern Europe. Why shouldn’t that happen to the granddaughters of the Muslim immigrants from Egypt?
But wait a minute. Why do things seem to be happening in reverse in the case of many young Muslim immigrants in Europe and the United States? Their grandmothers, growing up in the 1950s in, say, Alexandria, actually looked “like us,†wearing the latest European fashion and a spiffy swimsuit on the beach. It’s their granddaughters who are now wearing veils, the hijab and the burkini to make sure that they don’t look “like us.â€
What if becoming increasingly secular isn’t seen as progress?
Hmm, what if modesty and chastity become the new secular normal? Pendulums swing.
What if becoming increasingly secular isn’t seen as progress?
Women believe in progress. Regardless of feminism, how many women would choose, if they had the choice, to be a woman three/two/one hundred years ago rather now?
Clearly, the answer is “some”. How else to explain the girls from the U. S., U. K., etc. running off to DAESH?
To wax philosophical, donning the hijab, seeking a Daesh husband, etc is a result of a quest for order and structure amidst existential angst and ennui. Or to get all pop-psych, daddy issues ….
Remember, we were told during the Olympics that Americans women in hijabs was progress.
One of these things is not like the other:
“highly stratified, patriarchal and religiously oppressive” Italians
“ultra-Orthodox” Jews
Muslims
It appears that he is comparing the very fringe, with a relative fringe with a mainstream group.
I would suggest that many immigrant groups have relatively conservative views, particularly clothing styles, that disperse by the second generation because style and attitudes are fluid and not religiously re-enforced.
Part of the reason/justification for religious-prescribed clothing is to prevent assimilation and create community identities in opposition to social norms. I would identify certain Jews as quite similar to Muslims in this respect.
However, that subset of Jews tend to be more similar to radical Christian groups like the Amish, who believe larger society is ill and to be avoided; pray for it, but don’t seek to transform it. That is not how the Muslim fringe sees society; the book says society can and must be transformed, and the effort to fight the infidel carries rewards in the next life.
I am focusing on the first paragraph; I think the second paragraph points to something difficult to grapple with. We have pictures across the Muslim World before the collapse of the USSR in which women are wearing clothing that would get them killed today. I’m not sure these events are unrelated.
I was thinking about something George W. Bush use to say often, also quite a few songwriters, that people every where just want to be free.
That just is not true. Some do, others prefer peace, order, stability, safety, security, and the feeling of belonging to a group identity.
For some people, belonging to the military provides this, for others, it’s prison, and for some it’s Sharia.
As you said before the problem for westerners is that Sharia just won’t let the rest of us be as we are.
I think it’s true but there’s no general agreement on what it means. For some it means freedom to enslave others or kill them. Freedom to enforce their own particular brand of conformity. Freedom for me but not for thee.