Woke American Ideas are a Threat, French leaders say

[Former President tack50]

I agree with Macron there. France is not the US and it should never be; nor should it ever import its ideas on race and what not that are fundamentally incompatible with French societal expectations.

Something like laicite would be unthinkable in the US but it is what France stands for for example

[Former President tack50]

Yes, it stands to reason that policies intended to erase a group's identity provide evidence of superior "integration" if "integration" is defined specifically as the erasure of group identity. As a Muslim with no desire to marry outside my religious group, I suppose I am an example of the failure of integration.

Yes. This, but unironically. You are indeed a failure of integration for that

I would indeed define successful integration as you know, "behaving French", adopting French customs, speaking French at home, etc. There are definitely tons of different ways of "being French", but looking at urutzizu's statistics I would indeed consider that France is doing a much better job at integrating its muslim population than the UK; though I am open to statistics that show the opposite.

And no, it is not white nationalism to suggest that. To bring an Spanish example, there is a reason why black Cubans, Dominicans or Colombians are often considered to be better integrated than much whiter Moroccans. It is not a matter of race, it is a matter of culture technically.

[Former President tack50]

I would indeed define successful integration as you know, "behaving French", adopting French customs, speaking French at home, etc.

Why is this desirable?

Like Red Velvet says, it helps with national cohesion and what not. I will recognize that from the immigrant's perspective it is very tough, particularly when the cultural and values gap is so big but it is still an objective that should be pursued.

Not going to lie, the "I would not marry a non-muslim" is one very disturbing to me. That is exactly how you end up with ghettos and discrimination. I know we all have our preferences, but there is a reason why when people see an integrated group of people that has a healthy mix of white French and immigrants they don't really care; while when they have an exclusively immigrant group segregated from French society (to the point of not even speaking French properly!) you start getting people to be supportive of Le Pen style policies.

I would indeed define successful integration as you know, "behaving French", adopting French customs, speaking French at home, etc.

Please define.

Yeah fair, perhaps I went a bit too broad there. Still, urutzizu's statistics all show very good metrics of success and failure in integration; with perhaps the best one to me being the "interfaith friendships" one; as well as the more simple "religiousness" one (most ""white"" Europeans are extremely secular and so shoudl immigrants).

What I will say is that the idea that there is an inherent contradiction between the idea "I identify with the culture of my parents' homeland" and "I feel like I am a part of the society of the country I grew up in" is an unfathomably depressing, and actually downright scary, one. And I have a migration background, so I actually know what I am talking about here.

I mean, for early generations of immigrants I get your point, but in countries like the UK or France they've been there since the 1950s, so the idea is genuinely contradictory?

In my mind for first generation immigrants such an idea is not contradictory, and even for their children it is hard but I guess passable. However the grandchildren should definitely identify with the country they live in as they are literally the same as any other person, just with a weird surname maybe.

For your own example, your parents could identify with their country they were born in, you (and your siblings) only 50%; and any kids you have should identify as exclusively Swiss for instance.

[Former President tack50]

@tack50 literally what the f**k

1. Wait you're serious about Xahar's life choices? Wanting to marry within one's faith group is... standard religious practice. That in itself has little to do with self-ghettoization or whatever.

2. Religiousness is for the most part irrelevant. Most "native" Europeans are largely secular... and so? Do you believe that those who aren't are less 'integrated'? Of course you think immigrants 'should' be secular, that's what you think about people in general!

3. I mean, what are you even talking about? So you think e.g. Sprouts should not identify as Italian American? Your phrasing sounds almost like "hey erasing identities is good, actually".

4. I think instead parochial boy's eventual kids should do the f**k they want.

1) Yeah, I'll apologize if it comes off as too judgemental of life choices which was not my intention (same goes with parochial_boy). I am aware it is standard religious practice but it is one that does still lead to ghettoization and marginalization? Being standard practice does not mean it is good practice. If all muslims marry among each other, well, that creates an "us vs them", "in vs out group" dynamic very fast.

I hope I don't have to explain why such dynamics are bad.

2) I am not going to lie; I would genuinely give religious Christians a "free pass" or at least condemn that less because European countries have all been historically Christian. It is far from ideal and may make me seem a bit of a hypocrite but whatever.

Of course, France is a country that makes secularism by far a huge part of its national identity; so part of "being French" certainly involves leaving religion at home (which includes not wearing christian necklaces, or head veils, or turbans, etc).

3) The US have a very different approach to immigration than European countries and I am not sure of what Sprouts family history is.

However, assuming he has the "standard" parents came home in the early 1900s and does not have anything Italian about him other than perhaps a surname; yes, I don't think he should really identify as Italian-American.

I am not fully against hyphenated identities for people who came as kids, or who have both parents born abroad, but by the time you get to grandchilcren, shouldn't they identify fully with the country they were born and raised in, instead of a country they have literally nothing in common other than a surname (and often not even this!) and having very distant relatives?

In general, I think "When in Rome, do as Romans do" is a good policy to have.

[Former President tack50]

I would indeed define successful integration as you know, "behaving French", adopting French customs, speaking French at home, etc.

Please define.

Eating frogs and being "romantic with women" of course, much like adopting Spanish customs means learning Flamenco and being into corridas de toros.

Well, I chat a lot with Spaniards about politics, and Tack positions don't surprise me in the slightest. Is almost amusing how much hate some people have for things like regional languages, and those are things that are, you know, from Spain itself. You can guess their opinions about inmigration.

Ironically I am very much in favour of regional languages and regional autonomy

I think a model like the Basque one is the ideal one (where parents can choose what language do they want their kids to have classes in). But this is offtopic.

"Behaving French" is an extremely tough thing to describe, but I imagine it would involve having a healthy mix of (ethnically) French friends for example; which was one of the things urutzizu's poll measured. I hope I don't have to explain why ghettos and lack of interaction between ethnic groups are bad!

[Former President tack50]

3) The US have a very different superior approach to immigration than European countries.

This is the real problem here. Just copy us, lol.

I will recognize that the US are far superior on this aspect, but the European people are not Americans I wish it was that easy lol

Basically the US (and actually, no country in the America were never founded as the explicit "homeland of the Americans" in the same way that many European countries were founded by nationalist movements in the 19th and 20th centuries as the "homeland of the Germans", "homeland of the Czechs", "homeland of the Italians", etc.

I am not sure to what extent this historical argument applies and it is definitely not an insurmountable barrier. However I do think that all things equal, the pressure to conform or soft "civic nationalism" will always be bigger in Europe than the US.

Certain Americans who like to feel superior often talk about how racist and casually xenophobic Europe and Europeans supposedly are, but in my experience it’s not often you get a nice guy FF red avatar saying that people should stop identifying with their grandparents’ culture and that Christians shouldn’t have to follow the same social rules as Muslims (as if the very existence of Muslims or immigrants wouldn’t create an out-group dynamic for some people) because Spain is part of Christendom or whatever.

If it serves as consolation I will say that I do agree with those Americans and Europe on average is definitely more casually racist (I could play the "islam is not a race" card but I won't cause even I recognize it is a bad faith argument). I am pretty sure that there are multiple polls that confirm this by the way.

And I don't think I have ever hidden I lean conservative on the very broad issue of immigration and integration. As for the rest, yes, I do recognize that makes me hypocritical and I even pointed it out.

To be honest forced conversions or forcing people to abandon their religion are very bad and I would never endorse them (and I apologize if it came off that way).

However, my argument was was with regards to one of the polls posted before; and I do genuinely think that children of non-Christian immigrants abandoning the religion in general is a good sign that they are well integrated. I would never force anyone to abandon their religion, but generally immigrants who are better integrated do tend to be non-religious.

Correlation definitely does not equal causation, but the correlation is there.

[Former President tack50]

Tack's comments here remind me of a conversation i had with someone irl who had a novel solution for solving the israel crisis: simply mandate (or heavily subsidize) marriages between Jews and Arabs and sponsor a new syncretic religion that could bind them to create a new ethnicity that could share the territory together. Almost too simple when you think about it!

For what is worth I also have a very big brain take sometimes on the Israel-Palestine issue; with said solution being that since both sides have failed to reach a reasonable accomodation after 70 years, the UK should take control back with the area becoming a British colony again in perpetuity (or alternatively some sort of UN mandate, don't care too much on the exact specifics other than neither Israel nor the Palestinian Authority would have any sort of sovereignty over the area anymore)

I personally like to call it a "zero state solution".

I also had once a more similar take to your irl friend; where Israel (and Palestine) would have open borders for Christians only and heavily subsidize Christian immigration; essencially splitting the difference between muslims and jews and calling it a day. (of course Arab Christians excluded as they would count as Palestinians, I am thinking of Europeans and people from the Americas here; with perhaps non-muslim Asians allowed too)

Again treat the Israelis and Palestinians like little problematic children. If they can't behave, screw both equally

Needless to say neither would work, but hey, these zero state solutions would get the aim of pissing off both sides equally.