I believe strongly that people have a right to their own cultures. However, I tend to define such a right along the lines of jus sanguinis rather than jus terra—I think it belongs to the people rather than to the country they happen to be in. It’s one of the reasons I’m so insistent on gradual immigration rather than mass immigration. I think that if what I think of as “my culture” is to survive it will need to assimilate new immigrants relatively slowly, acculturating them over time.
The incident in Cologne on New Year’s Eve was criminal activity but it wasn’t merely criminal activity. It was a cultural clash. Germany now has a significant number of people who believe that unaccompanied women are fair game for harassment and abuse, even rape.
That’s not as extreme as you might believe. Many people in this country believe that if you find a $20 bill in the street taking it isn’t stealing. The basic difference is whether you think of women as property or not.
IMO the reality is that cultures are in fact drastically different and drastically different cultures can’t coexist in the same space. One will dominate; the other will be subordinated and ultimately disappear. “Ultimately” can be a pretty long time if you’re a woman who’s afraid to walk down the street you could walk down without fear last week.
Michael Yon sums up the cultural angle succinctly by writing “some fish can’t be in the same aquarium,” or words to that effect. I’m paraphrasing.
I’m not sure if the incident in Cologne is a clash of cultures, as much as an alienation of a group from the culture in which they live. Perhaps a subtle difference, but I don’t believe this type of violence and crime has a specific basis in any opposing culture. Particularly if it turns out these acts had some level of coordination, in which case I see these more as attacks on targets of opportunity. People, particularly women, accustomed to a system of laws and social cohesion that gives them freedom of fear, have barbarians within the gates. Perhaps coordination implies at least some level of cultural solidarity, but it’s at a very base level.
I don’t know that it makes a difference to the point I’m making, PD. Perception can be reality.
Europeans were never the multiculturalists that the Americans assumed them to be. Europeans are snobs and chauvinists. They believe all cultures are equal, but their culture is more equal. They do not want anybody assimilated into their culture. German culture is for the Germans, and French culture is for the French. All others need not apply.
American culture will eventually absorb parts of other cultures. Usually, it is the better parts, and it might take one or two generations.
One element that is probably a major factor for American’s acceptance of other cultures is their mobility. Moving from one city to another forces one to adopt the local culture. The new comers may contribute to the local culture, and when somebody from that place moves, they will take this new mix with them.
Another factor is the lack of long term history, but this is becoming a problem. One hundred years ago, there was not as much historical culture. It was more traditions and customs. Even today, American culture is mostly post-WW2 or Great Depression with some of the founding principles and Puritan work ethics thrown in.
Historically, the US has not attracted people who would bring the unwanted portions of their culture. Usually, it is those unwanted portions that have caused them to flee, and the people who benefit from the unwanted portions usually have no reason to leave.
I think I might want to phrase that differently. Maybe “emigrating to the US has either been too expensive and final or too harsh and provincial to garner people who would cling to the portions of their cultures we might not want to appropriate (depending on whether they were rich or poor)”.
Perceptions can certainly be as important as reality. One of the things I’ve noticed is that there appear to be a number of Islamic converts with entirely Western backgrounds that have become Muslim because of the appeal of violent jihad. My sense is their numbers are small, but the religion of peace has a serious branding issue.
There is no such thing as an evangelistic religion of peace. Christianity and Islam were both spread by violence, and there’s been ongoing violence by factions within each religion. The main reason Christianity is no longer evangelizing-by-bullet is that secular government has put a saddle on religion in the West. (Now we kill people for democracy, which is way better, unless you’re the one we’re killing.)
The “something wrong” in Islam is the absence of secular authority to provide another path for citizens, and the absence of a pope-equivalent to lay down some more rational parameters. I don’t think Islam is inherently crazier than Christianity, but Christianity comes complete with politicians and bureaucrats and business and constitutions and whatnot, all of which have the effect of keeping the Christian lunatic fringe under control.
The question is whether the corrupt and depraved monarchs and generals and dictators in the Muslim world can ever achieve a position of genuine authority and rein in the loonies. So far, no, and I don’t see any rising Abdul Washingtons on the horizon. Islam needs an Ataturk, hopefully with less genocide.
Note that the core power base for both fundamentalist Christians and fundamentalist Muslims are country bumpkins and the urban poor.
And in other uplifting news……
“The main reason Christianity is no longer evangelizing-by-bullet is that secular government has put a saddle on religion in the West. ”
I think it’s the other way around. Most Christians subscribe at least partly to the “render unto Caesar” doctrine in politics. Islam is inherently less compatible with secular government than Christianity and it is becoming even less compatible with the growth of more radical ideologies like wahhabism. If you look outside the West there are few cases where Christians commit anything close to the kind of organized religious violence that Muslims do. The one exception off the top of my head is the Lord’s Resistance Army, but even that is as much a political conflict as it is religious. Also consider the considerably lower level of violence between Christian sects compared to violence between Muslim sects.