Setanta wrote:McTag wrote:Some southwest asians DO wilfully avoid assimilation,not least because their religion, or some of its more outspoken mullahs, asserts that western culture and values are corrupt.
That's not particularly new, some Jewish and other religious sects living here have also done that. But they didn't try to blow us up, or demand to live under their own laws.
It's a knotty problem.
I'm not convinced that there actually is a "knotty problem." The Gurkha's have served first John Company and then the English army for almost 200 years. They served with distinction alongside the English during the Great Mutiny in 1857, and fought for England in both World Wars. After Indian/Pakistani independence, a brigade of Gurkha's was formed, which has served with the English army in all of England's wars and "police actions" up to an including the war with Argentina and the action in Sierra Leone. The Gurkha's are not assimilated. For obvious reasons, they learn English to a certain extent--but they not only retain their ties to Nepal and northern India, they have special leave provisions to return there to be with their families. They continue to primarily speak their native language, they practice their native religion and they remain the sons of their native culture. Nevertheless, the lack of "assimilation" has never lessened the value of the Gurkhas to the English army, nor their loyalty to that army, and their willingness to serve, and if necessary to make the ultimate sacrifice.
During the American civil war, Germans, Poles and Irish in their thousands literally stepped off the boat and into the Federal Army. There were so many Germans and Poles in the Army of the Potomac that the XIth Corps was comprised almost exclusively of them. Louis Blenker and Franz Sigel were, perhaps, "assimilated," having emigrated to the United States after the 1848 uprisings. But the men who served under them were overwhelmingly new arrivals, who'd had no time to assimilate. Officers such as Adolf von Steinwehr and Alexander Schimmelpfennig commanded these men who spoke no English, but who nevertheless proudly served Mr. Lincoln and were willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. The Irish Brigade fought with sufficient devotion that by the time of the battle of Gettysburg their brigade was reduced to hardly more than 600 men, not enough for a full-strength regiment--their priests celebrated the mass for them, and they marched off into oblivion and military immortality. All these men who sacrificed their lives were "unassimilated."
Consider also, if you will, the case of Cat Stevens, now Yusuf Islam. He was certainly "assimilated," and is a native of London. That did not prevent him, however, after his conversion to Islam, from speaking in favor of the
fatwa calling for the death of Salman Rushdie--despite his high profile and genuine efforts to work for peace in so many places in the world. The Provos who set off bombs in Ulster and right across England were assimilated--they were born in the UK, spoke the language as their mother tongue, attended the school system of the UK, and moved comfortably in a culture in which they were fully assimilated. And they killed thousands with their bombs.
Assimilation does not assure that anyone is peaceful and harmless, and the lack of assimilation does not prevent anyone from serving an alien culture loyally.
Amidst all this cut and paste historical detail from Wikipedia is really no sensible point at all.
The Gurkhas are professional warriors, not immigrants. Their experience within Britain is entirely meaningless to the topic at hand, and even if we stretched the meaning of immigrant beyond reasonable bounds, and included Ghurkhas among their ranks, they number about 3,000. If, for the sake of discussion, we assume that each Ghurka soldier brings his family with him to the UK, and that each averages 5 children, we are left with 21,000 "Ghurka immigrants" in a total population of 61 million.
Similarly, your reference to immigrants who immediately joined the Union Army is so narrowly focused as to be also meaningless.
I don't believe anyone has or will argue that there is an expectation of immediate assimilation upon entry into a new homeland, or that singular failures or refusals to assimilate perforce represent danger. You insist upon arguing your point around the fringes.
Assimilation takes time, and there is a significant difference between immigrants who take time to assimilate and those who refuse to assimilate.
Finally your reference to Cat Stevens is truly ridiculous.
Stevens is a native born Brit. His parents were, respectively, Greek and Swedish. I know you are the self-styled historian of A2K, but I doubt even you can make an argument that the Greek/Swedish immigration experience remotely represented that of southern asians. Even if you could, your premise remains hollow. A single individual's actions tells us absolutely nothing about the importance or irrelevance of assimilation.
If you are going to make the argument that assimilation by immigrants is unimportant, you will need better examples.
