PD, I don’t understand what do you mean by, “no emphasis on integration”. There is little emphasis on integration in the U.S. and Canadian societies. IMHO it is coming more from the fact that the mass of British immigrants who initially came from Pakistan (dislocates of the dam project) had absolutely no educational background. Most of them choose to stay that way and forced their ways on to their newer generations as well. The educated Pakistani decent Brits these days live a very different life: are more open and tolerant.
On the other hand, Canadians made a very smart move of accepting only the educated class. A similar situation developed in the U.S. as well. Because of a complete absence of any welfare system in U.S., there were very bleak chances of survival for the uneducated class.
Education brings enlightenment and gives one the ability to understand and appreciate other people’s cultures.
WitchDR, it is about the principles of the melting pot philosophy on immigration vs. the separate but equal philosophy of immigration. the latter produced a two tired society in America with the blacks. ( I understand the difference between slavery and immigration-economic or politically motivated). the sihtty part of life is that people are predisposed to prejudice, be it racial as we see all around the world or religious..multiculturalism is a failure when it comes to providing an integrated society keeping societal prejudice in mind. And it is two sided. I can guarantee that within the muslim community in the UK, there is equal derision towards "them", who are the non-muslims in britain.
Education has nothing to do with it. Socio economics have nothing to do with it. None of these factors drive a person to wrap a belt around their waist and blow their countrymen up. Be it Iraq or the UK.
In the world of cross border flow of skills and capital and information, you cannot be insular in your being. It just won't work. Especially when you are constantly deriding a better preforming system, while your own is simply not up to par. This is where adaptation and integration comes in. You cannot simply take in the economic benefits of migration...similarly, you cannot allow people with rigid exclusionary pinciples to immigrate to your land and not allow them to be a greater part of the society.
Take a look at he Sikh and Hindu communities in the UK. I am sure they also span the socio economic specturm, there is enough scale to make that judgement. Why are they able to integrate so much easier. what is it?
It is possible to integrate into larger society whilst still not assimilating. Multiculturalism doesn’t hinder integration.
If you’re talking about assimilation then that’s never going to happen at least with the Muslim community, our religion and it’s rules are such that we can’t completely assimilate into society and still claim to be true to Islam, by assimilation I mean taking up their ways, Muslims as a community will never accept drinking, premarital sex, revealing clothes etc. for themselves and they shouldn’t have to, there shouldn’t be a uniform way of British life, we can still integrate and have cordial relationships with our country men of different creeds and cultures without assimilating.
I agree Muslims haven’t done all they could to integrate into their new country and most are still living on the fringes of society but religion or faith is not a factor in that, bulk of the Pakistani Muslim population who first came here were from Mirpur, they had no academic background, they didn’t know nothing beyond goat herding, they started on the bottom rung of the socio-economic ladder and because of lack of education they stayed their, their kids born in the ghettos were left unattended to get into drug-violence culture, the fathers worked long hours (up to 20 hours per day/6 days per week) in mills or driving cabs at night and sleeping during the day and still struggled to make ends meet whilst the mothers didn’t know a word of English and stayed in their homes making roti and pigging, going shopping or lazing about gossiping all day at the local park (nothing has changed there) which left their kids without a proper upbringing.
Now Paki kids coming from the ‘polished’ urban families from Lahore, Karachi and even Faisalabad are doing just as good economically and academically as Indians if not better and have integrated just as well and live in predominantly white areas, their first generations had some sort of education so they emphasised on it and pushed their kids in the same direction, but sadly urban background Pakis are a minority amongst the Paki community over here. Even rural background Pathan people whose first generations were uneducated are today academically (and hence economically) more successful than other Pakis, and these guys are more religiously inclined than anyone else, religion doesn’t hinder success, with these guys it’s aided their success, even though the first generation were uneducated themselves and started out in factories like everyone else but trdaitionally they had emphasis on family and community life, gave their kids proper strict upbringing, which has resulted in their kids going to universities and then getting decent jobs, out of all the Pathans I know only one kid is doing ‘awara-gardi’ in a gang of Mirpuri’s, the rest are concentrating on their education (both secular and Islamic madrassah), I’m not putting down Mirpuri’s, my people from Attock who live in Bradford are the same, dealing charas, murdering people..
Or take Islamic faith schools, if you look at the statistics they are doing very well.
And lets not forget North African/Middle Eastern Muslims, the few that I know are very succesful.
The unsuccessful in life are usually those who don’t know anything of their religion beyond a few meaningless Arabic chants… they drink, they do drugs, they steal, date white trash… so Islam isn’t always to be used as a scapegoat.
Now the Bangladeshi Muslims, to begin with they were in the same situation as Pakis as most of them came from rural fishing villages, academically even today they haven’t achieved much but education is not necessary to be successful, they spotted a gap in the market and set up Indian Restaurants across the country and now they are filthy rich, your country got recognition and they go the dollars, their family businesses are blooming, you wont believe how successful they have been of course you can’t always tell by looking at them (except by their cars) because they’re Jewish in so many ways and of course they’d prefer to buy a street of terraced housing over a bungalow or detached house in a white area . they probably could have made even more economic progress if they didn’t have so many wives back home and rat loads of kids to go with them.
Most of the Indian immigrants on the other hand both Hindu and Sikh (and to a lesser extent Muslims) had some sort of academic background and so they only went up in life because there was a whole host of job prospects available for them and their offspring followed the same trend…
There are however some Indians too who like Pakistanis are living on the fringes of society in ghettoised communities, just go to Southhall it’s Jalandhar down there.
. they probably could have made even more economic progress if they didn’t have so many wives back home and rat loads of kids to go with them.
smack: