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 As
France Burns
Immigration Rears Its Ugly Head…
[by Mac Johnson] 11/9/05
For 12 nights
now, France has burned and spun. The fire has been provided
by rioters, but the spin has been provided by the French government
and the mainstream media, both in Europe and in North America.
At first
the riots were ignored, then portrayed as typical French-style
protest, then as understandable acts of anger by an underclass
made desperate by poverty, and finally they are being reluctantly
described for what they are: race riots.
Gangs of
Arab and African Muslim men, the children and grandchildren
of immigrants accepted into France following the collapse of
her African empire, are conducting an intifada in the midst
of Europe. It has escalated from shoving and shouting to stone
throwing, then to arson of thousands of parked cars, then to
assaults on civilians, firemen and paramedics, and finally,
as of Sunday night, to shootings of police officers. The intifada
is increasingly organized and has spread to dozens of cities
throughout France.
Contributor
Mac
Johnson
Mac
Johnson is a freelance writer and biologist in Cambridge,
Mass. Mr. Johnson holds a Doctorate in Molecular and
Cellular Biology from Baylor College of Medicine. He
is a frequent opinion contributor to Human
Events Online. His website can be found at macjohnson.com [go
to Johnson index]
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Apparently,
while the intellectuals of Europe have moved past thinking
of the
world in terms of “us” and “them,” a
lot of the immigrants they have recruited to their homelands
have not. As a result, “assimilation” is suddenly
more than just an SAT word in media analyses the world over.
Obviously,
the spontaneous army of Muslim “youths” burning
Peugeots and nursery schools in France has not been properly
assimilated, it is reported. Following this astute observation,
it is usually added that France does not have America’s
long history of successfully assimilating immigrants and that
the French government needs to do something about that. Preferably,
it should do something teary-eyed, big-hearted and expensive—like
build the vandals newer housing projects, expand the already
gargantuan French welfare state and celebrate Ramadan with a
culturally sensitive postage stamp.
This is,
however, among the dumbest combination of observations I have
ever encountered,
since America’s successful history
of assimilation has absolutely nothing to do with any major government
action on our part.
So how is it then, that America has successfully assimilated
so many millions, without any special government-run assimilation
centers or acculturation projects? What have we learned that
Europe needs to know? And more importantly, have we forgotten
a few things ourselves?
What follows is simply my opinion on this rather understudied
and important topic. It is not a 500-footnote thesis and it is
not in any way incontrovertible. But it is a considered opinion
based on my reading of history, my family experience and my personal
observations after having lived in many different parts of America.
Consider this an invitation to further thought if you do not
agree with it, because this issue will determine the future,
if any, of the Western world during the next hundred years and
thus begs for further thought.
A number of historical factors have favored immigrant assimilation
in the United States. Many of these have since changed, but others
have not. Likewise, some can be made to apply in Europe, while
others cannot. The most important of these factors, in my estimation
(along with comments), are:
1) For much of our history, admission into America was regarded
as a very rare and generous gift. This was primarily because
it was a very rare and generous gift. Most of the world did not,
at the time, accept immigrants, or else accepted them only as
part of a servant underclass, never to be treated as equals.
America, by contrast, allowed entry to millions, and made obtaining
full and equal citizenship a simple and straightforward process.
This was striking to most immigrants, who came from lands where
the connection between blood and soil was centuries old and nearly
immutable. This contrast inspired a sense of wonder and gratitude
in many immigrants to America that motivated them towards adopting
the ways of their new homeland.
Today, admission into the U.S. (or another Western democracy)
is regarded by many as something between a civil right and an
entitlement. Indeed, many seem to believe that the host population
should be grateful to them for having arrived. Mass immigration
is taken as a given. Little gratitude is thus inspired for new
lives given so freely. Many immigrants, therefore, arrive as
colonists, wishing only to set up a slightly wealthier version
of their homeland.
The idea
that admission into another people’s homeland
is an act of nearly unbelievable trust and generosity needs to
be restored, perhaps by announcing it as such to new arrivals
and deporting those who fail to acknowledge this.
2) America’s immigrants came from many different nationalities.
Devolving into a worldview of immigrant vs. native was, therefore,
not possible for any single immigrant group. “Us” and “immigrants” were
not synonymous. The introduced nationalities were each small
in comparison to the host culture of native-born Americans, even
though all immigrants combined were a large category. The children
of Swedish and Italian and German and Irish immigrants thus had
to choose to join the mainstream culture or else live in the
relatively small world of their ethnic group.
In France, immigration has been heavily skewed toward Arab North
Africans, who thus achieved the critical mass needed to form
large self-contained cultural colonies within France.
3) America’s frontier mixed various ethnicities into new
physical communities. Assimilation is favored by physical mixing.
The many immigrants that disappeared into America’s frontier
lands were assimilated within a single generation in most cases,
because the children of immigrant and native-born grew up together
as a single community. By contrast, those immigrants that remained
in ethnic ghettoes in large coastal cities assimilated much more
slowly.
Neither Europe nor modern America has such a force favoring
rapid juxtaposition of newcomer and native-born. There are no
more frontiers. America, however, has such a vibrant pattern
of land redevelopment and internal migration that considerable
involuntary mixing is still encouraged.
In light of this observation, the practice in France (and elsewhere)
of building huge subsidized housing projects for the concentrated
settlement of immigrants in distinct enclaves thus seems very
unwise, if assimilation is the eventual goal.
4) English
as a lingua franca, then and now. Both factors 3 and 4, above,
encouraged
people to not merely learn English quickly
but also to forget the old language in only a generation or two,
thus removing a major source of self-segregation. America’s
assimilation has been a one-way street, in part, for this reason.
The preservation of the ancestral language encourages self-segregation
based on shared ancestry. Today, in all countries, Satellite
TV in every language imaginable and easy travel back to an immigrant’s
home country slows this process. Also, in the case of Europe’s
Arab immigrants, there is a strong religious tie to the ancestral
language, further encouraging linguistic identity to be preserved.
On the other hand, the proliferation of English overseas, via
television and movies, probably accelerates integration of some
immigrants to the US, Britain, Australia, and Canada, who arrive
already knowing English and some customs.
5) America was not really so diverse as we now remember. Until
the mid-20th Century, immigration to America occurred from a
very restricted pool of nations. For all our celebration of the
great melting pot, America was mostly melting European peoples
in that pot. These peoples shared a great deal of cultural inheritance
before ever setting foot in America. The gaps we formerly needed
to bridge were thus relatively small. Religious differences consisted
primarily of differences in various Christian sects. As much
as it sometimes hurts to say it, a Frenchman and an American
have most things in common, as do most other European nationalities.
It is only recently that the West has begun experimenting with
mixing peoples from opposite sides of the Earth, with basic cultural
incompatibilities and little shared experience. It can be done,
especially where two geographically distant cultures have evolved
convergent beliefs. But it can also present problems on a scale
that no nation has had much experience in resolving.
A consequence
of the fact that most American immigrant groups were drawn
from the
same single continent is that they were not
capable of being identified as “foreign” stock after
being assimilated linguistically. Forced cultural segregation
was, therefore, usually not practical. The one major exception
to this rule—the easy physical identification of people
of African descent in the country—facilitated segregation
by the predominant culture. In Europe, most descendants of immigrants
are readily identifiable racially, encouraging both self-segregation
and forced (though not legal) segregation via social exclusion.
6) The (now
defunct) emphasis on individualism and limited government in
American
culture discouraged ethnic identity and political
identity from merging. Ethnicity has always played a strong role
in America’s political life. But the spoils nature of modern
welfare states and the rise of identity politics has made ethnic
identity and political self-interest intimately linked as never
before. Democracy can easily degenerate into a demographic team
sport in which collective effort is rewarded, encouraging ethnic
balkanization and discouraging assimilation.
These factors
demonstrate that America’s ability to assimilate
millions of immigrants over two centuries was not a result of
sweeping government assimilation policies and projects. Neither
was it a magical result of some pro-assimilation impurity in
our drinking water. It occurred for specific, if often fortuitous,
reasons. Study of these reasons can allow a society to encourage
cultural assimilation and unity, if it so chooses. But because
some of the reasons are politically uncomfortable to discuss,
I believe they will continue to be ignored.
If you want
to admit and assimilate large numbers of immigrants into your
country,
it can be done. Begin by choosing an immigrant
pool as much like your existing culture as feasible. Do not admit
too many immigrants from a single source. Disperse the immigrants
into the general population—avoid ghettoes. Encourage a
single language. And remind newcomers that admission into your
country is a gift, not a right, and the gift carries with it
certain obligations born of gratitude. -one-
copyright
2005 Mac Johnson
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