Anonymous wrote:Why is this the case? Isn't Europe the Utopian example of what all the liberals want in this country (Open borders, cultural inclusively, no guns, liberal do whatever you want values) ?

If so how come they continue to get attacked and Brussels is the most open border country in Europe.

You at dealing with a culture that the majority in polls support sharia law and genital mulilation. In fact via nor and CNN reports, genital mutilation is being seen in young girls in the US now that are only Muslim. Major difference in cultures and they may never integrate with the exception of Persians whom I am friends with many and they do lot practice religion or believe in sharia law.

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Anonymous wrote:Muslims are herded into ghettos like Molenbeek where they are easily radicalized and retaliate against the hand that feeds them.

It's not so much "the hand that feeds them" - many are in fact hard working people, who are the cleaning crews, maintenance staff, et cetera... similar to the work given to illegal immigrants in the US.

They get herded into ghettos because the rest of society rejects them. Same thing in Germany, where Germans won't speak to or associate with "Gasterbeiter" - therefore very separate ghetto communities, i.e. Turkish ghetto in Berlin, et cetera. Also, they generally don't support building of mosques, which means the religious faithful gather in private homes which opens the door toward radicalization as well.

Again, I say this because I grew up in Europe and have seen and experienced a lot of it firsthand.

Americans forget that Europe colonized many African countries. We are in a completely different situation. It's like the ignorant people on this site who keep asking why Black people can't get over slavery. When you are the one being discriminated against constantly, it's kinda hard to get over it.

I was an exchange student in Belgium in high school. I am AA. I remember that people were so awful and rude to the Africans and Middle Eastern people. I was ok as soon as I opened my mouth, but when they assumed that I was African, they treated me like shit.

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Anonymous wrote:First of f all, they are closer to the Middle East and are a better target of opportunity.

Secondly, your assumptions are wrong.


They have more immigrants, but they are less successful at integrating them. In the U.S., we expect that the children of Muslim immigrants will be Americans AND Muslim with no contradiction. I had an argument with a German guy about how immigrants to Germany could never really be German and neither could their children. And Germany is probably better at integrating them than other countries.

A lot of Muslim immigrants to Europe are poor. A lot of Muslim immigrants to the U.S. are professionals and business owners. Professionals don't have time for that.

This pp nailed it. This is something that many people don't realize about the United States. While we still have racism here, our emphasis is on assimilation. We expect immigrants to be part of our society and to live wherever they want. In many European nations, immigrants are expected to remain outside of the mainstream culture, and remain geographically and economically isolated and impoverished in poor suburbs. This breeds anger and alienation. This is one of the reasons we've had fewer problems with terrorism.

That's why it's laughable that Ted Cruz and Donald Trump want patrols in Muslim neighborhoods. Yes, there are some in the United States but most Muslims do not live ghettoized in Muslim neighborhoods. Are they going to send cops around to knock on the doors of the individual Muslim family living down the block?

I'm the PP who you said nailed it. I am flattered, but I don't think you understood what I said, or perhaps I didn't express it clearly. It's not that the emphasis in the US is on assimilation; in fact, there is very blessed little of it. It's that in the U.S., assimilation is possible. It is possible because to be American, you do not have to look a particular way, worship in a particular way, read certain things, eat certain things etc. As long as you speak English passably, obey the laws and subscribe to a minimal set of common U.S. values, you have a shot at being American, and "mainstream" America expects nothing else of you.

In Europe, the assimilation standards are not achievable because no matter how well one speaks French, one is not and can never become French unless one is born that way. The European cultures are much more demanding of potential Europeans, and Europe is only now asking itself what it really means to be European, because just one generation ago the answer to this question was plain, obvious and cast in stone - you have to be French, Italian etc.

This is complete nonsense. I'm French, born and raised in the Middle East until I moved to France sometime during elementary school, of Muslim ancestry and now living in the US because my husband is American. My family is secular but my parents have always spoken French with a heavy accent and my mother's French is less than polished. We never hid our origins. Nonetheless, we were never, ever made to feel like outsiders because we loved living in France and assimilated willingly and our French friends "de souche" (meaning native born) never cared one way or another--except maybe when they celebrated our awesome Middle Eastern food. To this day my deepest friendships and fondest memories come from my years in France. I consider myself French and I'm teaching our children the language.
The people who commit these atrocities are by and large a bunch of unreformed thugs who have grown up in the ghetto, start as high school dropouts and discover they can't find work as high school drop-outs(duh) in countries that have double digit unemployment rates, start scapegoating the system and find a new source of belonging and inspiration in terrorism, like gang members magnified ten thousand times. France has an unbelievably generous welfare state that supports all residents from cradle to grave without regard to religion (the principle of "laicite", meaning secularism in public affairs is deeply entrenched in the culture). Your idiotic statements do a huge disservice to the nearly six million Muslims in France who consider themselves French, are considered French by others and go about their daily business in an honest and upstanding manner.

It's sort of ironic how your post confirms what I said in so many ways. Let's take it line by line.

First of all, I'm sorry to say, you are not French. You have a French passport and are a French citizen, I assume, but you are most assuredly not French ethnically. You confuse American notions of nationality and citizenship with ethnic identity. If you were born and raised in the Middle East, then unless you were born to the French expatriate family, you are not French ethnically. You can be a French citizen, yes, a member of that society. But you are not a French person and never will be. That dice was cast when you were born.

You say you assimilated willingly. My dear, you started from a place of not holding on to your identity. You clearly do not identify as a Middle Easterner, and if you "assimilated willingly", that means you were eager to shed your Middle Eastern identity. How else to explain that a person born and raised in the Middle East does not relate to the Middle East? Your family is secular so you do not share in pull of Islam. If you come from a family of Lebanese Christians or Armenians (because no one is historically secular in the Middle East), you already have a leg up on assimilation because you and the French share historical religious roots. Are you white? Do you think a dark-skinned, religious Muslim Middle Easterner would easily tread the same road? Yes, I'm sure you still love your kebabs and your baklava, but that's a Disneyland version of the Middle East that doesn't really threaten Europe.

The final irony is that you, a person born and raised in the Middle East, who most assuredly didn't speak French on your mama's knees, are teaching your children French. FRENCH. Not Arabic, not Armenian, not Berber or whatever language you grew up with. Losing your language is the ultimate loss of identity. That you prefer to identify as a French speaker, not an Arabic speaker, tells me you had to turn your back on your Middle Eastern roots behind to feel French. This is not a diss against you; I'm sure you did what you had to do to succeed in France, as did your family. But it is very, very illustrative that in order to do so, you had to stop being Middle Eastern. I'm sure this is very uncomfortable for you to read, and rest assured I don't mean to hurt your feelings, but you have to realize that your version of assimilation is not really assimilation, it's a complete erasure of identity into which you were born. Why did you have to do that to feel that you belong in France?

Why don't French high-school dropouts who can't find jobs turn to terror? I'm sure double-digit unemployment can't all be attributed to the ethnically non-French, can it?

I didn't say that six million Muslims in France don't go about their business in an honest and upstanding manner. Just that there are deep structural reasons why assimilation in Europe is very different from assimilation in the U.S., and that European immigrants walk a very different path from the American immigrants, with very different challenges inherent to societies where identity is ethnically rooted.

Anonymous wrote:And what of the radical Muslims in other parts of the world that are involved in terrorism? Muslims that are completely assimilated into the culture, yet preach and teach jihadist radicalism in their madrassas and mosques?

We can keep excusing this behavior with reasons such as assimilation or economics while completely ignoring the fact that there are other minority groups also throughout Europe that have similar economic disadvantages yet are not violently acting out.

There have been 23 Islamic terrorist attacks around the world in the last 30 days. Around the world. But let's keep deluding ourselves to believe that this is a European problem, that this is an assimilation problem, that this is a geographical problem, etc...

No one said that radical Muslims aren't a problem but the OP asked why the supposedly liberal Europeans were having this problem. Lots of pps have explained that European notions about race and ethnicity are hardly liberal. That doesn't excuse anything that has happened.

Anonymous wrote:Why is this the case? Isn't Europe the Utopian example of what all the liberals want in this country (Open borders, cultural inclusively, no guns, liberal do whatever you want values) ?

If so how come they continue to get attacked and Brussels is the most open border country in Europe.

The answer may plainly be logistics. Europe is closer to the countries that currently are fomenting ISIS.

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Anonymous wrote:And what of the radical Muslims in other parts of the world that are involved in terrorism? Muslims that are completely assimilated into the culture, yet preach and teach jihadist radicalism in their madrassas and mosques?

We can keep excusing this behavior with reasons such as assimilation or economics while completely ignoring the fact that there are other minority groups also throughout Europe that have similar economic disadvantages yet are not violently acting out.

There have been 23 Islamic terrorist attacks around the world in the last 30 days. Around the world. But let's keep deluding ourselves to believe that this is a European problem, that this is an assimilation problem, that this is a geographical problem, etc...

No one is saying terrorism isn't a problem, or that terrorism is justified. This discussion is about the assimilation of Muslims in Europe vs. the U.S. It IS possible to discuss this without bringing up terrorism.

There is no such thing as an "Islamic" terrorist attack.

Really? This is just a random thread on Muslim assimilation in Europe and any correlation to terrorism need not be brought up?

Well there is another grand way of trying to shut down the TRUE conversation. This would not be a political topic then huh?

Any time the words Islamic and terrorism are brought up its like the gigantic elephant in the room that everyone tries to avert their eyes from along with others screaming 'there is no giant elephant in this room, you see it but it's not there'.

Since the topic is assimilation and whether the lack of assimilation leads to terrorist activities, my comment on the fully assimilated radicals into other countries yet stiil commit acts of terror statement is 100% valid to this discussion.

It's not something unique to the situation in Europe.

I'm a liberal American currently living in southern (Francophone) Belgium, and was formerly married to a French man, and was close with a group French expats in DC as a result.

Many policies here are liberal and progressive. However, racism/nationalism is strong. Many Southern Europeans emigrated to southern Belgium in the mid-1900s and there's a residue of racism from "whiter" Belgians that affects the children and grandchildren of those Greek and Italian immigrants today. Arabs and Africans? Forget it.

I can see your point in that there are nutters regardless of the religion. Nonetheless, it remains that between the two major religions, Islam and Christianity, Islam is far more the violent one in today's world with significant terrorism in many parts of globe and many countries. Trying to justify it by pointing out one or two insignificant Christian nutter groups doesn't work. Being relative here doesn't work. And I suspect you've probably never read the Koran or studied early Islamic history because if you did you'd understand that the core essence of the two religions, which boils down to Jesus Christ and Mohammed, are quite different. There's overlaps in what they preached but there's no disputing that Mohammed preached a much harder, much more intolerant message that had undercurrents of violence, or acceptance of violence against non-Muslims in his message. Apostasy, for example, is punishable by death in Islam (this is explicitly stated) whereas apostasy is not a theme of note in Christianity. Jesus was far more the tolerant and peaceful of the two figures. Jesus never called for someone's death and his message was based on forgiveness and tolerance.

Then there's the early histories of the two religions. Christianity spread through word of mouth conversion among the poor and peasants and slaves of the Roman empire for hundreds of years before it grew into a sizable political state force. Islam initially spread because Mohammed's followers took their armies and burst out of Arabia and invaded countries and sacked cities. That doesn't sound very peaceful to me.

I'm an atheist. I don't like religions in general but I've studied them and I'm the first to acknowledge that all religions evolve and change from their origins, both in good and bad ways, but it's undeniable that the call for punishment, death, violence against non-believers or those who "betrayed" Islam by not being Islamic enough is supported by origins in early Islam and the message preached by Mohammed, whereas whatever violence associated with Christian history (and there's plenty of that, oh yes) is in complete contradiction with what was preached by Jesus Christ. I once heard someone say that ISIS is the closest reincarnation of the early Islamic followers since then and there's probably truth to it. The idea that Islam can evolve and grow out of its current radical phase is something that I don't think is ever going to happen because of the way the religion is structured (it is much more intolerant and hardcore than Christianity - look at this way, the Catholic and Protestant churches battled each other for a few hundred years between circa 1500 and circa 1800 before effectively becoming tolerant of each other. The Shias and Sunnis have been battling each other for over a thousand years with no end in sight).

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Anonymous wrote:Because jihadists aren't liberal and have no interest in a multicultural society. So, you have that much in common with them, anyway. They, like you, have a hatred of cultural inclusiveness, banning guns, liberal do whatever you want values.

So, I guess you're more like a terrorist than you thought, eh?

I'm cool with whatever but when you got violence built in to a religion that's not cool

Islam doesn't have violence built into it any more than Christianity. It only takes a few nut jobs in any faith to misappropriate the teachings.

Yes Islam does and the way it is written spurs extremism. When did the last Hindu or Christan tertiary attack occur?

No response, of course. Interesting.

Look, no response because we have better things to do than Googling stuff for you. There are plenty of Indu attacks, often on Christians and Muslims in India. As for Christian terror, what about the Lord's Resistant Army in Uganda. Anti-Balaka Christian militias in the Central African Republic massacred thousands of Muslims in 2014. The fact that these groups do not operate in the US does not mean they do not exist. Google Spanish Inquisition and you will see what was done in the name of the Christian Lord. Christianity was not inherently violent but plenty of atrocious violence has been done by Christians throughout the centuries allegedly in the name of God. A pope threatened to burn Galileo at the stake if he did not retract a scientific theory (Galileo did it, to save his life). Another Pope apologized centuries later. The Catholic Church and doctrine is the same, the Bible is the same, the time and people are different.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First of f all, they are closer to the Middle East and are a better target of opportunity.

Secondly, your assumptions are wrong.


They have more immigrants, but they are less successful at integrating them. In the U.S., we expect that the children of Muslim immigrants will be Americans AND Muslim with no contradiction. I had an argument with a German guy about how immigrants to Germany could never really be German and neither could their children. And Germany is probably better at integrating them than other countries.

A lot of Muslim immigrants to Europe are poor. A lot of Muslim immigrants to the U.S. are professionals and business owners. Professionals don't have time for that.

This pp nailed it. This is something that many people don't realize about the United States. While we still have racism here, our emphasis is on assimilation. We expect immigrants to be part of our society and to live wherever they want. In many European nations, immigrants are expected to remain outside of the mainstream culture, and remain geographically and economically isolated and impoverished in poor suburbs. This breeds anger and alienation. This is one of the reasons we've had fewer problems with terrorism.

That's why it's laughable that Ted Cruz and Donald Trump want patrols in Muslim neighborhoods. Yes, there are some in the United States but most Muslims do not live ghettoized in Muslim neighborhoods. Are they going to send cops around to knock on the doors of the individual Muslim family living down the block?

I'm the PP who you said nailed it. I am flattered, but I don't think you understood what I said, or perhaps I didn't express it clearly. It's not that the emphasis in the US is on assimilation; in fact, there is very blessed little of it. It's that in the U.S., assimilation is possible. It is possible because to be American, you do not have to look a particular way, worship in a particular way, read certain things, eat certain things etc. As long as you speak English passably, obey the laws and subscribe to a minimal set of common U.S. values, you have a shot at being American, and "mainstream" America expects nothing else of you.

In Europe, the assimilation standards are not achievable because no matter how well one speaks French, one is not and can never become French unless one is born that way. The European cultures are much more demanding of potential Europeans, and Europe is only now asking itself what it really means to be European, because just one generation ago the answer to this question was plain, obvious and cast in stone - you have to be French, Italian etc.

This is complete nonsense. I'm French, born and raised in the Middle East until I moved to France sometime during elementary school, of Muslim ancestry and now living in the US because my husband is American. My family is secular but my parents have always spoken French with a heavy accent and my mother's French is less than polished. We never hid our origins. Nonetheless, we were never, ever made to feel like outsiders because we loved living in France and assimilated willingly and our French friends "de souche" (meaning native born) never cared one way or another--except maybe when they celebrated our awesome Middle Eastern food. To this day my deepest friendships and fondest memories come from my years in France. I consider myself French and I'm teaching our children the language.
The people who commit these atrocities are by and large a bunch of unreformed thugs who have grown up in the ghetto, start as high school dropouts and discover they can't find work as high school drop-outs(duh) in countries that have double digit unemployment rates, start scapegoating the system and find a new source of belonging and inspiration in terrorism, like gang members magnified ten thousand times. France has an unbelievably generous welfare state that supports all residents from cradle to grave without regard to religion (the principle of "laicite", meaning secularism in public affairs is deeply entrenched in the culture). Your idiotic statements do a huge disservice to the nearly six million Muslims in France who consider themselves French, are considered French by others and go about their daily business in an honest and upstanding manner.

Anonymous wrote:Muslims are herded into ghettos like Molenbeek where they are easily radicalized and retaliate against the hand that feeds them.

It's not so much "the hand that feeds them" - many are in fact hard working people, who are the cleaning crews, maintenance staff, et cetera... similar to the work given to illegal immigrants in the US.

They get herded into ghettos because the rest of society rejects them. Same thing in Germany, where Germans won't speak to or associate with "Gasterbeiter" - therefore very separate ghetto communities, i.e. Turkish ghetto in Berlin, et cetera. Also, they generally don't support building of mosques, which means the religious faithful gather in private homes which opens the door toward radicalization as well.

Again, I say this because I grew up in Europe and have seen and experienced a lot of it firsthand.

Muslims are herded into ghettos like Molenbeek where they are easily radicalized and retaliate against the hand that feeds them.

Anonymous wrote:Europe had 2000 years to assimilate the Gypsies and it did not happen
Europe is not a country, but a continent
A continent has a number of independent nations.
French and Latvians and Swedes and Italians, Romanians are European, because their country is located on a continent named Europe.
The muslims that do live in Europe are more educated than the middle east muslims.

You sound like my third grade teacher.

I grew up in Western Europe. No, they aren't all that religiously tolerant.

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Anonymous wrote:Hello, no. Europe is a way, way crappier place to be as an immigrant than the US. I've lived in both and can attest that in terms of opportunity, treatment, rights, etc. the US is way, way better.

Yes, there's a safety net and school is free. But there is a lack of access that non-native citizens face in Europe that doesn't exist in the US. Employers can discriminate on the basis of national origin in Europe. They can't do that here. Housing discrimination? Fine in Europe. Access to education -- terrible in both places, but at least in the US there's a glimmer of a shot of educating your kids because of civil rights laws requiring language access. Europe, just generally, in my view is a crappy place as a immigrant or refugee. And i say this as a Muslim woman.

The US is tougher in the sense that you have work hard to make a basic standard of living. You get the bare essentials in Europe. But in the US you can make much, much more of your life in terms of starting a business (like my family did) or getting an education (like I did). We are upper middle class and fairly successful. If we had stayed in France, I can guarantee our lives would have been much worse. That's why I love this country so much I literally work at the VA as a nurse practitioner. I love this country and helping its soldiers heal is the least I can do to express my gratitude.

You omitted a few more factors that explain the difference.

1. The U.S. - unlike European countries - does not have a single, consistent ethnic culture, around which the national identity is built. You do not have to change any of your looks, religion, and habits to become American. Yet you can never become French, no matter how much you try. It is understandable that a French, Italian, German, Dutch person may feel uneasy with the rapidly changing character of their country. The U.S. never had that to lose, so they don't get it. When a country acquires a chunk of population that isn't privy to its ethnic culture and isn't in much of rush to share it, people feel uneasy.

2. The U.S. never opened its borders to Muslim immigration by right (unlike, say, Germany with Turks or France with the Maghrebis). Consequently, the U.S. never had to deal with thousands of poor, angry Muslims. The American Muslim immigration has always been tiny, mostly employer- and family-based, well educated, and affluent. They do not share the struggles of the European Muslims because they come from a different segment of society.

3. Because of #2, the U.S. never had Muslims living compactly in single-ethnicity communities. With the exception of Michigan and Minnesota, American Muslims are spread amongst other Americans and have no particular urge to live close to each other. This makes them less vulnerable to propaganda, and because they are mostly affluent, there is no groundswell of anger into which one can tap.

Yep. You are absolutely correct.

I heard a segment on NPR this morning discussing the three points made by the PP. The speaker also commented that while the US has radicalized *individuals,* we do not have radicalized *communities* like a number of European nations. Big difference.

While European countries have a strong social safety net they are not "liberal" in the American sense.

When I've travelled there, I'm always struck by how Republicans would identify with Europeans more because they they are not PC at all. They are blunt and say what they mean. They do not go through hoops & bounds to protect the rights of others. They are very common sense. They desire personal rights & hands-off government when it comes to those rights (smoking). There is no government telling you how to cross the street. No government ticketing you for speeding. Or leaving your baby sleeping on the sidewalk. In the countries I've travelled I've always felt there was a great freedom... and far less laws than we have here.