One Scholar's Solution to Europe's "Muslim Problem": American-Style National Identity

[Irvine511]

What do you mean by it exactly?

The ones here are really centred as well. Particularly some of the suburbs around Toronto, and one in the west in particular. I don't really get the sense Vancouver is more centred with respect to South Asians, but maybe it is with East Asians?

perhaps "centered" is the wrong word, but i mean that Vancouver has more Indians than Toronto and might be to Canada to what New Jersey is in the US -- everyone has a relative who lives there.

i remember being in Scotland and talking with some Canadians and they were talking about the various ethnic enclaves in Vancouver and something about how one side of Vancouver Island is Chinese, and the other is Indian.



it was after a few pints. not really sure.

 

[Irvine511]

It's pretty much the same story here. British Indians tend to be very successful (they tend to be the most successful out of all ethnic groups actually)- it's the Pakistani and Bangladeshi Brits who seem to have more problems.

very interesting. a distinction i was not aware of, but it makes sense.

what role (if any) to you see religion playing in this? could it have something to do with the ease of Hindu assimilation vs. Muslim assimilation? or is it something else?

i ask because we hear a great bit about "Londonistan" in the news over here, especially in the wake of the foiled airplane terror plots.

 

[anitram]

No, I think we have WAY more than Vancouver.

Actually here are the numbers from Wiki:

# 1. Greater Toronto Area (Indo Canadian pop. 345,855)
# 2. Greater Vancouver Area (Indo Canadian pop. 142,060)

 

[TheQuiet1]

very interesting. a distinction i was not aware of, but it makes sense.

what role (if any) to you see religion playing in this? could it have something to do with the ease of Hindu assimilation vs. Muslim assimilation? or is it something else?

Possibly that could be a factor. Certainly Muslims in the big cities do seem to live in very insular communities that might make success in the wider world difficult. But I personally feel that the major major major reason for Pakistani Asians not being as successful as Indians is simply because of where they live. The main British Pakistani communities are often found in the North of England which has only very recently started to recover from the decline of British industry (I'd say the regeneration of the North only really started after the 1996 IRA bomb destroyed Manchester City Centre- I've heard it referred to as 'The best thing that ever happened to Manchester'.) so perhaps simple Northern poverty can account for the differences, rather than it being anything to do with race or religion at all. I bet Pakistanis in the south of England tend to be more successful than their Northern counterparts.

BUT I'm not a British Muslim myself so really I can only guess.

i ask because we hear a great bit about "Londonistan" in the news over here, especially in the wake of the foiled airplane terror plots.

LOL- over here it's all Bradistan (nearly all of the 7/7 bombers had links to West Yorkshire and there's been real concern about the lack of interaction between Asian and White communities in Bradford for decades). London is frequently represented in the British media as being a wonderful melting pot of different races where everyone lives in racial harmony 100 times better than that coca-cola ad. I'm exaggerating of-course but there is a real feeling that London and Scottish cities have got it 'right' where other cities have got it 'wrong'- how accurate that is of day to day life in these cities though, I just aren't sure.

 

[yolland]

Some possibly relevant stats from the 2001 UK Census:



Population of the UK by religion

Population of the UK by ethnicity

Religious populations by geographical distribution

Ethnicity by geographical distribution

Religious populations by ethnicity

Religious populations by country of birth and (self-perceived) national identity

(Self-perceived) national identity by ethnicity

Household data by religious population

Household data by ethnicity

Education stats by religion

Education stats by ethnicity

Unemployment rates by religion

Unemployment rates by ethnicity

Job types by religion

Job types by ethnicity



I'll check the US Census Data, but I don't think it breaks down religious populations into this many categories--if at all. For sure the ethnic categories aren't the same, so tough to compare there.

 

[yolland]

--if at all.

Nope. Pretty much what I was thinking, but I couldn't remember for sure. It's actually illegal for the Census Bureau to require this data, so apparently they don't collect it at all. The closest thing would be this 1990/2001 telephone survey (.xls) of 50,281 people from which they extrapolated to the country in general.

Ethnic data from the Census:

2000 Census Special Report on Asian-Americans, including Pakistani-Americans (.pdf)

2000 Census Special Report on Arab-Americans (.pdf) *most are not Muslim, however*

2000 Census Special Report on Hispanic-Americans (.pdf) (for comparative purposes)

Also, I can't find it on their website (too old, I think), so I have no idea what the methodology was, but a 2004 Zogby International survey found the following (per the Wall Street Journal):

...a plurality of Muslim Americans--about one-third--are of South Asian descent; 26% are Arab and another 20% are American blacks. But until 2001 we had no idea how many Muslims lived in America, and even now the figure remains a matter of intense controversy. All major Muslim advocacy groups put the number at above six million...all independent surveys put the real figure at no more than three million, while the most credible study to date, by Tom Smith of the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center, estimates total Muslim population at 1,886,000. "[It] is hard to accept that Muslims are greater than one percent of the population," he writes.

Whatever the real figure, what's reasonably clear is that Muslim Americans, like Arab-Americans, have fared well in the U.S. The Zogby survey found that 59% of American Muslims have at least an undergraduate education, making them the most highly educated group in America. Muslim Americans are also the richest Muslim community in the world, with four in five earning more than $25,000 a year and one in three more than $75,000. They tend to be employed in professional fields, and most own stock, either personally or through 401(k) or pension plans. In terms of civic participation, 82% are registered to vote, half of them as Democrats.

...21% of Muslim Americans intermarry, according to the 2001 Religious Identification Survey of the City University of New York--close to the national rate of 22% of Americans who marry outside their religion...[A]ccording to Ishan Bagby, a professor at the University of Kentucky who recently made a study of mosque attendance in Detroit, the average mosque-goer is 34 years old, married with children, has at least a bachelor's degree, and earns about $74,000 a year.

 

[Macfistowannabe]

You seem to be making a whole set of assumptions, the principle ones being that a big multicultural melting pot is (1) automatically A Good Thing (2) desired by most Europeans. In my view, it is neither of these things. This is one of the biggest mistake the left are always making.


Re: Trainspotting: haven't read the book I must admit.

Multi-cultural segregation is the exact opposite of a melting pot. They have nothing in common except that they allow legal citizens into the country.