Just some food for thought for Muslims living in Western countries.
An excerpt from Slavoj Zizek’s article on recession and hatred towards immigrants and ethnic minorities and how it’s all similar to the situation of Jews in Nazi Germany:
“The first thing that is striking is how *Breivik constructs his enemy: the combination of three elements (Marxism, multiculturalism, Islamism), each of which belongs to a different political space - Marxist radical Left, multiculturalist liberalism, Islamic religious fundamentalism. The old Fascist habit of attributing to the enemy mutually exclusive features (“Bolshevik-plutocratic Jewish plot” - Bolshevik radical Left, plutocratic capitalism, ethnic-religious identity) returns here in a new guise.”
Another concerning news, hate crimes against immigrants increase in Greece as its economy goes down.
That is not the solution. Solution is to be aware of our situation.
Agree that is not the solution, but one should look for and reach to its country when your country needs you. When Indians are returning India and establishing industries, why Pakistanis just consider fulfilling their duties by saying that they can't stand corruption and all that in Pakistan?
It seems that Indians are more nationalists than Pakistanis who want to live in other countries whatever their status remain in those countries.
Agree that is not the solution, but one should look for and reach to its country when your country needs you. When Indians are returning India and establishing industries, why Pakistanis just consider fulfilling their duties by saying that they can't stand corruption and all that in Pakistan?
It seems that Indians are more nationalists than Pakistanis who want to live in other countries whatever their status remain in those countries.
It's not like all of us here in West own multiple businesses, most of us are employed and have jobs and returning back will only cause harm to Pakistan's own economy. A lot of Mirpuris here in UK are investing money back in Mirpur and are hated by English because of that. Anyway, this is totally a different topic.
It's not like all of us here in West own multiple businesses, most of us are employed and have jobs and returning back will only cause harm to Pakistan's own economy. Anyway, this is totally a different topic.
I do agree to your point for employed people, but again we don't see people ready to return to Pakistan, if they can.
The topic is different, but interlinked. Someone in another thread raised point that the protestors in Pakistan, if given chance to live in USA, they would happily opt for so. Why this situation has arisen? Because we don't own our country and are not ready to return a percentage of what our country had given to us.
I do agree to your point for employed people, but again we don't see people ready to return to Pakistan, if they can.
The topic is different, but interlinked. Someone in another thread raised point that the protestors in Pakistan, if given chance to live in USA, they would happily opt for so. Why this situation has arisen? Because we don't own our country and are not ready to return a percentage of what our country had given to us.
I don't get your point. I mean people have been living here for 4-5 generations now and I don't see how returning back for them is even practical or possible?
I opened this thread for Pakistanis in West to reflect on their situation. We might be living in a safer environment but shouldn't be surprised when the tide turn against us.
I don't get your point. I mean people have been living here for 4-5 generations now and I don't see how returning back for them is even practical or possible?
I opened this thread for Pakistanis in West to reflect on their situation. We might be living in a safer environment but shouldn't be surprised when the tide turn against us.
Ok let me bring this thread on track again :)
4-5 generations are enough period to de-link you from your country, then when a person is not linked with a country, why should he / she be afraid of situation that arises due to actions of people living in the country they are no more linked to?
It seems that immigrants always remain immigrants.
hareem has a point here. In terms of what level of emotional attachment people have to their "homeland" we need to differentiate between Muslims who migrated to the West themselves and those who were born here.
Let's take myself and my dad as an example:
I was born and raised in Austria. I have never lived in Pakistan, only went there on vacation, but I do have very strong feelings for Pakistan. "Apna mulk apna hota hai." But it's nothing compared to the level of attachment my dad has with Pakistan. Despite spending more than half his life abroad, he is as passionate about Pakistan as you can be.
I do not consider myself exclusively Pakistani or exclusively Austrian. To me both countries are my "home". For Abbu Austria has some significance too, but he wouldn't call it his "home".
If I'd move to Pakistan I would have a hard time adjusting there. It would probably not be easy for Abbu either after living abroad for 40 years, but I think he could do it.
4-5 generations are enough period to de-link you from your country, then when a person is not linked with a country, why should he / she be afraid of situation that arises due to actions of people living in the country they are no more linked to?
It seems that immigrants always remain immigrants.
True. My point is, actions of Pakistanis or Muslims around the world should be the least concern to us living here in West when the Westerners have other (more valid in a way) reasons to hate us. We saw it happening in Norway, we're seeing it happening in Greece.
Decades ago Adolf Hitler was able to influence and convince his people about the threath of Jews. It ended in large scale violence, massacres and deportations. It’s not hard to blame a specific group for all or for most of the problems. It would be safe to say that Muslime now became the new scapegoat.
Today we have people like Geert Wilders (a dutch politician) whose primary (I would say only) aim is to convince the world about the “Evil Islam” and how countries should stop this so-called Islamization of the civilized western world. And it’s not just him, lunatics like Breivik put those words into action. That’s quite scary. If it can happen in a peacefull country like Norway, it can happen anywhere else too.
Although I highly doubt that one day the situation in the west will become that worse for Muslims, I do think we are vulnerable. And looking at the world as it is today, one could only pray for the future (and work towards a better future, of course), for the generations to come.
I think it will go sour and it will go quickly. We havent pulled out of the recession and the worst is yet to come, as the incompetent leaders struggle to rebuild the economy; the public is shifting more and more to the right... If not anti muslim then def. anti immigrant. And they wont be difficult to target.
Canada > Ontario > GTA > Mississauga and feel like home .....so much so that you do not want to live in there! :)
and on serious note, these attacks in Greece should also be seen in the light of their economic crises. Everything seem to work well when economics are fine but things normally get tested and are bound to fell apart when times are not good.
Agree that is not the solution, but one should look for and reach to its country when your country needs you. When Indians are returning India and establishing industries, why Pakistanis just consider fulfilling their duties by saying that they can't stand corruption and all that in Pakistan?
It seems that Indians are more nationalists than Pakistanis who want to live in other countries whatever their status remain in those countries.
Do you know that Indians are the largest group of migrants (followed by Chinese) in most of western countries?
I think it will go sour and it will go quickly. We havent pulled out of the recession and the worst is yet to come, as the incompetent leaders struggle to rebuild the economy; the public is shifting more and more to the right... If not anti muslim then def. anti immigrant. And they wont be difficult to target.
The Right in most countries is the problem- against minorities, incorporate their religious dogma into the govt/ public sphere, against fair wages,support tax cuts for the extremely wealthy, be the religious police. A discussion on the Right would be complete if we analyzed the destructive behavior of the Right/fundamentalists and contrast that with progressives who support minority rights etc.
