Causes of antiislamism in the West

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

Society becoming more diverse increases societal friction and decreases trust, so even without 9/11 anti-islamism in the west would still exist. The fact that western nations are zero or negative-sum economic equations doesn't help either. I'm not overly keen on islam or third world immigration in general, but I like to look at things with more clarity than the neocon talking points.

For proof of this, note the current reactions in the US to latin american immigration despite 1) they're being christian 2) their cultural background is largely western 3) Based on poll numbers, they're not much more conservative than the anglo-american norm socially*. Going by the naive logic of neocon anti-islam types, we shouldn't have any problems with digestion of the newbies from south of the border. A quick look at the situation in any southwestern state or visit to such should be enough to dissuade optimists.

* Compare to the differences in opinion on women, gays, evolution between Turks and Germans.

[Gustaf]

Latin American immigration to the US is on a much larger scale than Muslim immigration to Europe though, right? I mean, especially when looking at the local level.

Also, I think the problems seem a lot smaller in the US compared to Europe and more specifically seem to be about concrete problems like drug smuggling and payment for welfare services to illegals and such things.

[Senator Sbane]

Is the problem really about Islam or just general xenophobia in Europe? Are non-muslim immigrants from India or subsaharan Africa treated or looked at any differently from Muslim immigrants?

[Senator Sbane]

I did find that Dearborn, Michigan had the most Muslims, by percent, among US cities, and in that city, according to Zogby, Muslims claim not to feel isolated.  In fact, more generally, Zogby states that "Unlike Muslims in Europe, American Muslims do not tend to feel marginalized..."   Pew research has similar findings.

That's mostly because Muslim immigrants to the United States are much richer than European Muslims.

And why are they richer?

Because Europe allows more low skill immigration/refugees would be my guess. Class plays a huge role in all these prejudices, and of course middle/upper class people are able to assimilate better and quicker as well. Still waiting for the answer to my previous question. Are non-muslim poorer African or Indian immigrants looked at the same way as Muslims? Of course stereotyping is the order of the day when looking at immigrant groups so it really matters more on how the group is (in terms of behaviors and class)than any one individual.

[Gustaf]

I did find that Dearborn, Michigan had the most Muslims, by percent, among US cities, and in that city, according to Zogby, Muslims claim not to feel isolated.  In fact, more generally, Zogby states that "Unlike Muslims in Europe, American Muslims do not tend to feel marginalized..."   Pew research has similar findings.

That's mostly because Muslim immigrants to the United States are much richer than European Muslims.

And why are they richer?

Because Europe allows more low skill immigration/refugees would be my guess. Class plays a huge role in all these prejudices, and of course middle/upper class people are able to assimilate better and quicker as well. Still waiting for the answer to my previous question. Are non-muslim poorer African or Indian immigrants looked at the same way as Muslims? Of course stereotyping is the order of the day when looking at immigrant groups so it really matters more on how the group is (in terms of behaviors and class)than any one individual.

It depends on what you mean. Sweden don't really have non-Muslim immigrants from India or sub-saharan Africa. We have a fair number of Middleeastern Christians, but those are perceived by most people to be Muslims I think.

[phk]

US Muslims as a whole aren't necessarily richer than the average and in fact are actually slightly poorer.

US Muslim immigrants have the same source countries as Europe does but the big difference is that US Muslims are 20-25% African-American while nothing really comparable exists in Europe. Also it's easy to see that immigrants > native-born in terms of income. Regression to the mean and what not.

[Kuu ülevaade olulisematest]

Black Muslims are of course not considered non-American in the sense that Muslim immigrants are.

[Benwah [why on Earth do I post something] Courseyay]

France's case is interesting because it has had a lot of immigration experiments in the 19th and 20th century (an important Polish immigration, an important Italian immigration, an important Spanish one, a significant Portuguese one) before the 'Muslim ones' (a big majority from Maghreb, and from Western 'Black Africa' to a lesser extent), so you can compare the different ones. And here the Muslim population would be about 10% of the population (figure most often cited, though no official stats about religion/ethnic origin in France), so the argument of 'people don't meet them' doesn't work here.

From all the records I heard, all the 1st generations of those different waves, then those who actually immigrated, have been harshly discriminated, all, from Poles to Portuguese, all. So exactly the same thing than what happened to immigrants from Muslim countries.

But then, the children of those previous European immigrations have been gradually, more and more, and quickly enough, accepted within the society, and now it mainly remains some bashing and you mainly detect origins of someone eventually through its name.

On the other hand, children from Muslim communities, keep undergoing discrimination over and over and over, unlike for European immigrations, it doesn't really improve, while it began 60 years ago.

Then you have discriminated communities, which means communities where unemployment is bigger than elsewhere, where social mixing is lower than elsewhere, where access to leisures is lower than elsewhere, where resentment against the dominating community is bigger than elsewhere, then where social problems are bigger than elsewhere and where criminality is bigger than elsewhere.

So, in the end, it shouldn't surprise anybody if you have more chance to identify such communities to annoying people, and if people eventually have more chance to have 'bad experiences' with people from communities living this.

The point would be: why the discrimination, since it seems to be the starting issue, while so much other communities have been accepted?

Really, dunno, the most obvious answer would be the most basic ones, the most visible ones: cultural differences, and color of skin. Cultural differences that makes that we don't have same traditions, same kind of names, and the color of skin which makes that when your skin hasn't the same color it's kinda written 'you don't belong to here!' on you. Other big European immigrations were all Christians and were even all Catholic, so people could easily adopt a French 1st name equivalent to the one from the country of their family, and we also all had more or less the same big traditions, and once children spoke good French they didn't have to suffer from a much different color of skin from French people, then no, or less, automatic discrimination due to visible things.

And then, if you add colonial wars (which for example imported violence in the homeland with Algeria), and all the resentment that would be born from the colonial era, in which France acted like a civilizational superior power, plus Islamist terrorist in France in the 1980s and 1990s (due in part to French foreign policy respectively with Iran/Lebanon and Algeria), the fact that French (and most of Westerners generally speaking I would say) still feel superior to people coming from Muslim civilizations, and then the US that brilliantly continued the colonial era by other means, also with violence and conviction of superiority, which led to reactions like Al Qaeda, 9/11, and all the stuffs, if you add all of this, don't be surprised that there are some kinds of...frictions between Westerners/Christians and 'Muslims'.

(...and here I haven't even thrown all the fantasies that can exist between both 'communities'...)

And I might have forgotten some stuffs, but it's 5 am, and it might not be sane that I'm still here. So, that will do for now.