[lit-ideas] Re: Oriana Fallaci
- From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 17 Sep 2006 12:25:26 -0400
An alternative view of her pet peeve from the Wilson Quarterly:
The first myth is that there is any such phenomenon as European Islam. This
misapprehension may be the most pervasive, and the most easily exploded,
for, once examined, the various waves and origins of the Islamic
immigration reveal themselves as remarkably diverse. In Germany, although
the immigrants are usually described as ?Turkish,? they include not only
ethnic Turks, but Kurds, who speak a different language and come from a
significantly different culture. Neither Kurds nor Turks can communicate
with the newest wave of mainly Moroccan immigrants in any language but
German. In France, the immigrants are usually described as being ?of North
African descent,? but this is misleading. At least a quarter of the
estimated six million such immigrants and their descendants in France are
Berber, primarily Kabyle and Rif. They are mainly Sunni in their religion,
but few of them speak the Arabic of Algeria or Morocco. Many more, from
Mali and Niger, countries separated from the Maghreb by the Sahara,
identified themselves to me during the French riots of last autumn as
?blacks? rather than ?beurs? (the French slang term for young Arabs).
The rich variety of Muslim immigration is most evident in Britain, where
the ethnic and linguistic divisions among British Muslims mean that they
form several distinct communities whose only common language and culture
(outside the mosque and the Qur?an) is English. According to the 2001
census, 69 percent of Britain?s 1.6 million Muslims come from the Indian
subcontinent, and just more than half of them were born there. The rest
were born in Britain. Recent research at the University of Essex by Lucinda
Platt suggests that the British melting pot is working rather well, and
producing considerable social mobility. She found that some 56 percent of
children from Indian working-class families go on to professional or
managerial jobs in adulthood, compared with just 43 percent of those from
white, nonimmigrant families.
http://wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=wq.essay&essay_id=178659
> [Original Message]
> From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 9/17/2006 12:36:25 AM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Oriana Fallaci
>
> Oriana Fallaci is dead at 77.
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/italy/story/0,,1873911,00.html
>
> Robert Paul
>
>
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