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Re: Re: Re: Re: Canada - Arab group vows to sue over cut in fed funding
| quote: | Originally posted by jerZ07002
This is an issue the US has been dealing with on a large scale for more than a century, and one in which western Europe is really struggling today. I see the relevant questions being: to what extent is it ok for immigrants to retain their culture? to what extent should immigrants embrace the culture of their new land? to what extent should people be expected to modify behavior to accomodate immigrant populations?
I believe it is perfectly fine for immigrants to retain most aspects of their culture (and even try to influence changes in the culture of their new land), but they must also fully embrace their new culture. Additionally, I think it is wrong for immigrants to expect the people of their new country to modify their behaviors to accomodate the immigrant populations. Being sensitive to the immigrant culture is fine, expecting behavioral changes is not fine. An example that really bugs me is when muslims in france (or england) demanding that school rules be changed to allow muslim women to wear their head scarfs. In my view, immigrants have to weigh these options prior to moving to a different country. After all, something attracted them to their new country!
In my view, Chinese (and other east asian countries, i.e., Japan, Korea, Taiwan) and African immigrants display the best qualities of immigrant populations. They don't expect people to change for them. They embrace the new culture (maybe not as openly as some would wish, but all the chinese immigrants I know change their names to english names so it is easy for us to communicate with them). Most importantly (for me), it seems most members of those immigrant groups truly want to be in their new countries. Unfortunately, the way I view the things, it appears to a large extent, arab muslims make for a terrible immigrant population (which isn't to say that arab muslims are bad people - because i don't believe that to be the case). I know this is going to draw some critism, but, to a certain degree, they don't fully embrace our culture, they expect us to modify our behaviors for them, and I'm not convinced they really want to be here. For me, those are some shitty qualities for an immigrant population. |
Well said.
It's been interesting to note the similarities in my multicultural living experiences (Toronto, Montreal and now Amsterdam). I know that for immigrants here, they have to go through language and social sensitivity courses (accepting nudity on tv, gays, prostitutes and pot for the most part) but it's their kids that grow up here that I think are more the issue. Yes, they integrate by learning the language, but they grow up with this huge chip on their shoulder believing that they are marginalized by everyone so they should just be a punk instead. It's sad to see, but I don't really know enough about the specific causes of it.
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Paul
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