Immigration in Europe follows a different pattern from the US.
The US is a country founded on immigration. Most often a one way ticket from the old country to a new life, often obtaining a new identity in the process. The American dream was a compelling proposition for many people fleeing poverty and persecution.
In Europe there were no such grand ideals involved, just political and economic expediency. Immigration was a device to solve a labour shortage. Once the devastated economies of Europe began to grow, there was a massive labour shortage across much of western Europe.
Given that many western European countries had colonies, that is where they recruited a labour. The UK advertisements were placed in newspapers across the English speaking Caribbean and Africa for workers for 5 year contracts to work for the railways, the buses, the London underground. Then to India and Pakistan to recruit textile workers from the cotton producing areas. Some were Hindu, many were Muslim.
France looked to its nearest colony, Algeria for an immigrant workforce. During the long and bloody battle for Algerian independence huge numbers of refugees crossed the Mediterreanean to France. These were a mixture of French settlers and others who feared persecution for their association with the French colonial authorities. This accounts the bulk of the Muslim population in France. Germany, lost its colonies and was itself split in two. West Germany invited Turkkish immigrants to fill its labour shortage. There is a similar story with other Western european nations.
Predictably, this short term measure became long term and many immigrants settled in European countries and brought their families over. The economic boom of the sixties, gave way to economic recession and with it came a progressive tightening of immigration rules.
There was also a lot of social issues to deal with. Having a lot of people from the other end of the world who look and talk differently and suddenly become your neighbour was a bit of a cultural shock. Throughout the 60s and 70s in the UK, there was a lot of agonising about what to do about the immigrant question.
UK politicians looked to the US and saw just how inflamed racial tensions could get if the matter was not handled delicately. There was a cross party consensus to limit further immigration and pass laws to promote race relations. This got built into public policy and became the multiculturalism we see today. This addressed the civil rights issue. No-one wanted the Hell that the US was going through.
From the perspective of the immigrant communities it looked rather different. Unlike the US, there was not that compelling proposition to join the broad American middle class if you work hard and prosper. There was no British dream to entice immigrant communities to integrate. There was, however, a free state education system and ambitious immigrants tried their darnedest to encourage their kids to get a good university education and join one of the professions or go into business. Or they worked for big state employers like the National Health Service.
How integrated they become, depends to a large extent on the cultural background. There is the familiar pattern of the first generation earning some money and making a big show of it on their visits to the old country often building a big house. The second generation getting educated and reluctantly going on holidays to the old country. The third generation thinking ‘what is the point, I have nothing in common with these people’.
How soon this happens depends on how socially mobile they are. Some communities who went together from some small village in the cotton areas of India or Pakistan to another village in Yorkshire or Lancashire can be quite insular. This was were some of the UK born bombers came from. Socially isolated and marginalised, they were an easy target for religious radicals recruiting fighters angered and enraged by the war that the West visited upon their ancestral home. It has taken a while for the authorities to deal with this threat and I don’t doubt that the intelligence services get a lot of information from the mosques. The Muslim communities in the UK are very fearful that all they have worked for is threatened by some sections of disaffected youth who dream of becoming a great Rambo for their religion.
That phase of ‘British Commonwealth’ mass immigration is now past. Most immigration into the UK is from the countries of the EU and it is quite different, because the cost of coming to the UK is just a cheap air ticket. People go back and forth all the time, in a similar way to how people move around within the US. This is less of an issue, maybe because they don’t look much different.
I cannot see any evidence of a great cultural clash with Muslims in Europe…
We have been there…done that…back in the Age of Empires.
