March 12 - A New Immigration Problem

A couple of days ago marks one full month of a post per day. I honestly didn't think I'd stay with it, this long. Please pardon this brief moment of self-congratulatory hubris. There. Done.

Immigration always is a balance between cost and benefits. The benefits are usually financial. For instance, the illegal Mexican immigrants provide an apparently much needed work-force while the cost is increased social services and lawlessness. In the ideal case this cost/benefit is balanced. In some cases, such as accepting refugees, it is not, but the hope is that in the long-term it becomes balanced. The benefit we see in such cases is that refugees will adopt our way of life and, at least, become productive members of society or, at most, someday help to spread our way of life back to where they came from.

"Our way of life." Integration is at the heart of many social ills in this and other countries all over the world. This country is better than most at integration. This is because it is so young and was, from the beginning, multicultural. This country has a very high degree of tolerance for cultural differences so long as you believe in freedom, "Our way of life." Take this in comparison to say, the U.K., where up until quite recently, people still died over the difference between Catholic and Protestant. The U.S. is very tolerant with the simple cost that you be a law abiding citizen and respect bounds established by the constitution, "Our way of life."

Where the U.S generates social ills for itself is when it relaxes that restriction. More rights for criminals, lesser sentences, liberal interpretation of the law and, in some cases, sanctioned complete disregard for the law all contribute to un-rest. Where is really falls down on the integration matter, though, is with inequitable application of the law across different cultural groups. Some cultures are encouraged to express their culture while others are repressed. Whatever side you fall on any of the many debates in this area, there are anecdotes supporting both sides.

Emphasizing the differences between Americans has the tendency to create multiple social groups. When these social groups identify with each other more strongly than they identify with the country they live in, it weakens the country. When a leader steps up to speak to the people, that leader should say something like "We are all Americans, striving for freedom and prosperity, yada, yada" instead of the usual "We are all Americans, whether black, white, rich, poor, Christian or Muslim, yada, yada." The candidates who see "two Americas" fundamentally don't get this.

The 1990's in Yugoslavia illustrated what happens when the solidarity of a nation breaks down and is replaced with multiple cultural units. People have a strong need to be nationalistic. A couple of genocides, failed war crimes tribunals and a multi-year war later and finally folks have sorted themselves out and retreated to their corners. Multiple corners. You do not see the various culture living in harmony, there, as you largely do in the U.S. Nope. They each have to have their own country.

In Europe, for the last, I'd guess 30 years or so, North African Muslims have been coming to live. I remember first getting an understanding of this about seven years ago. On that tragic day, the Concorde hit a small piece of shrapnel on the runway at takeoff from Charles DeGaule International airport. Shortly thereafter, the airplane hit a hotel described at the time as residence for Algerian Muslims most probably on state assistance.

The only notable thing that occurred to me at the time was that France had a similar situation to what the U.S. has with Mexican immigration. More recently, the ramifications of this have become more apparent. Possibly to us all. For all of Europe's liberal policies, Europeans are still very culturally conservative. Ask a German about an Italian, an Italian about the Swiss, anyone about the French, or a Dane about anyone at all and you will often get vitriol you might expect from a redneck with a confederate flag in the rear window of his truck when asked about Black Americans, 30 years ago. To an American, hearing it for the first time, this would be shocking.

As a result, as these immigrants have poured in from North Africa, they have been the subject of unequal treatment and have tended gather into communities. These immigrants have very strong cultural bonds, both racial and religious. They have not been encouraged to assimilate the culture of their new country. The result is an astounding problem. Europe is developing nations within their nations. Last year, the youth riots in France over labor laws, if you dug a very little deeper, were easily discovered to be Muslim riots. In countries all over Europe, in predominantly Muslim neighborhoods, non-Muslims are having to adopt Muslim practices to avoid abuse (such as head-scarves for women.) Even today, news comes out of Europe where communities are asking for Sharia law to be legitimately recognized inside of Muslim communities.

The natural extension of this is when the Muslim populations get large enough, they will ask for Sharia to become the law of the nation. And, yes, the populations will get large enough. Europeans have a very low birth-rate, so immigration is the dominant source of population replacement and growth. Further, immigrants tend to have a higher birth-rate than natural born citizens. A sign that this progression is occurring will be when, I predict within the next 10 years, we start seeing an increase in immigration from Europe to the U.S.

Lets hope that when this happens, The U.S. is smart enough make sure these immigrants share our values and are encouraged to integrate.