Whose values are they anyway?

[English assassin]

A (deliberately) provocative but nevertheless worthwhile article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...982376,00.html

For me personally, where it goes wrong is the assumption that you can only achieve the values she speaks about with a religious input, but other than that there is food for thought here.

I was also struck by a comemnt from a feriend of mine who married an American and joined an American protestant church. After we had explored some of his beliefs, and after I had made my predictable reactions to them, he obserevd that he didn't really believe anything that wasn't mainstream C of E belief 100 years ago. Which is true. I'll spare you my obvious retort, but the same can be said, more or less, for mainstream observant muslims today (with some changes in the details, naturally).

Am I the mainstream, or are they....?

[Rameusb5]

Here's how I see it. If you're going to move to another country, you should integrate YOURSELF into THEIR culture. I'm not going to move India and open a beef slaughterhouse, for example. (Not to say that the Muslims are behaving that offensively).


Most of the problems in our society are caused when people refuse let go of their own traditions or at least accept the traditions of others. The "us vs them" mentality is destrutive and serves no purpose since there isn't any danger of "them" coming over and killing "us" anymore. (I'm speaking in terms of multiple subcultures that live withing a larger community, not the world community, which is still quite "us vs them.")

I know plenty of people who are from Iran and other parts of the Middle East and yet have had NO problems at all integrating into Middle-American culture. I don't really see the point of leaving your own country, flying halfway around the world, and living in the exact same way you could have lived if you hadn't moved at all.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

She has a point about mainstream culture that I gree with, we're on the slide. On the other hand this all began with multiculturalism and political correctness trying to "civilise" our own remaining "barbarian" customs, such as corporal punishment in schools.

Muslims don't have anything to teach us that we don't know, we just need to be brave enough to apply what our parents taught us.

[Del Arroyo]

Here is a reply posted to the article on The Guardian's site:

All Vietnamese, Koreans, Chinese, Japanese and Hindu Indians likewise are more likely to have two-parent families, have extended kin networks and social supports, and rather stern notions of family discipline. This extends both in their homelands and in those settled in the West.

Regarding the Chinese, a century ago many men wore pigtails and the women endured the cruel practice of footbinding. These practices were swept away in the name of modernisation, without anyone claiming that footbinding was an integral part of Daoist or Buddhist or for that matter, Maoist female identity. Chinese, Koreans, Japanese and Vietnamese have adapted to Western dress without sacrificing their kin structures or their sense of cultural identity.

In America, American born Asians have the highest rate of out-group dating and marriage in the country. In fact, in California and New York, more American born Asian women are marrying non-Asians than Asians, yet this has not led to a deterioration in terms of drug abuse etc. In fact, the Asians have higher educational qualifications than whites for similar age groups.

Comparisons of educational qualifications of Muslims, Hindus and East Asians in Western Europe demonstrate that Muslims have lower educational qualifications than whites, the other two groups having similar qualifications or superior. Hence, if the theory that Muslim values were superior, this differential would not exist.

Asian groups which have done poorly are almost entirely refugee groupings where the original community was devastated by warfare : the Hmong, Laotians, Cambodians, and to a lesser extent, the Vietnamese 'boat people' of Chinese ethnicity.

[AntiochusIII]

Muslim values? Bah! What arrogance!

Her description of the so-called Muslim values fit just about every bloody society out there since time immemorial that embraces the value of tradition as law. China for most of its history is actually a far more prominent example than her "Muslim-ness" claims to be. Confucianism, anyone?

As a matter of fact, as someone who came from such a society myself, I found the Western-American liberalism to be, quite honestly, a liberation. Get me back in that cage and I'll topple her nice conformist society with a revolution if need be.

[sarcasm]Children these days, don't appreciate what they have[/sarcasm]

[Mooks]

Keep up the good fight britians.

[JimBob]

^ Following Antiochus's lead, the values she endorses have actually made a number of my friend's what she says it prevents. Strict parents have driven them to be rebellious simply to prove they can.