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COMMENTS:
"I come from quite a large family," said Bhatt, who grew up in Manchester, England, and studies in London. "My aunt and uncle are seen like my mum and dad, and my cousins are brothers and sisters. I remember at school, friends who were not Asian found that type of relationship weird. In high school, I remember my friend turned 16 and said she was going to start paying her mum and dad rent. I found that really weird."
Many youths said that deep down their strongest attachments were to their family homeland.
Amira Tellissi, a 21-year-old Tunisian university student, grew up in the countryside outside Rome where her mother works at a riding stable. She is thinking about applying for Italian citizenship, has never mastered reading and writing Arabic, and says that if she ever left Italy she would miss mozzarella cheese and the subway.
But her heart is in Tunisia.
In Italy, "I can explain my thoughts; in Tunisia I can explain my feelings. Here I have friends; there I have brothers," she said.
"We don't have the same perspectives. They don't think of marriage, they live day by day," she said. "Westerners want to live their lives, have fun. I see having a family like something more immediate."
Mohammed Mazahaf, a 23-year-old Moroccan student who runs a youth center in Amsterdam, feels deep discomfort with Europe's abundance of choice.
"I don't want the freedom of Europe — to drink, tell my sister to go out and have free sex before marriage. I want to have rules," he said. "I accept the rules of democracy, but I'm living the rules of Islam."
One Muslim Dutchman, Mohammed Bouyeri, had a warped interpretation of Islam's rules: Angered by Van Gogh's criticism of his faith, he murdered the filmmaker in a busy Amsterdam street, slitting his throat and leaving a letter threatening jihad, or holy war.
Most young Muslims may have no connection with that kind of extremism, but they often have strict views on Islam and have grown up more devout than their parents, perhaps rebelling against the West's unkept promise of equal opportunity.
Others are completely at home in Western culture.
"I consider myself a coconut: brown on the outside, and white on the inside," said Shereen Sally, a 19-year-old university student from Greenhithe, southeast of London, whose parents are Sri Lankan. "I never have been typically Asian."
With a Catholic mother and Muslim father, Sally navigates her cultures with agility. "I have been baptized and had Holy Communion, but I do Ramadan as well," she said.
Still, she says, most of her friends are South Asian like her.
"I used to think it was bad the way Asians segregated themselves but coming to university has opened my eyes. You go to your own kind because you feel comfortable with them," she said.
Ramani, 20, has platinum blond curly hair, big silver earrings, and a revealingly tight top. She smokes, dates a Moroccan man and frequents discos.
And yet she expresses an almost painful longing for her family's Islamic traditions, a sense that life in the West has deprived her of something more spiritual.
"I wish I had been born into a strict family of Muslims who made me wear the scarf and had a father who took me to the mosque once a week," she said. "I'm jealous of girls who have that."
Ramani's friend Halima Sakkali, 21, is more conservative, and considers herself more of "a real Muslim." Sakkali considers herself well integrated, but at times feels pressure to hide her religious identity in a Dutch society that is increasingly adamant about assimilation.
"I do my best to be Dutch," she said. "I say I just have another religion, but they don't accept it. They keep saying it's freedom, and you can choose what you choose. ... They don't let me wear a scarf."
"If they didn't look at me as a terrorist I'd wear one," she said.
Indeed, Europe's soul-searching runs from discussions about how to change mind-sets to the question of what Muslims should be allowed to wear or eat. After 20 years of eagerly promoting multiculturalism, some prominent Europeans have swung the other way.
Former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw recently created a stir when he said he wants Muslim women to abandon their veils — a viewpoint that was backed by Prime Minister Tony Blair. The Dutch government announced plans this month for a law banning the all-encompassing burqa.
And a debate has erupted in Holland over Islamic halal meat after a major supermarket chain introduced it in their stores. Animal rights activists complained the animals are slaughtered inhumanely.
Perceptions that Muslim Europeans are halfhearted in condemning terrorism — or even try to justify it — have swung much of public opinion against the Islamic minority and caused people to question whether its values are compatible with the West's. The fact most of the perpetrators of last year's London transit attacks were homegrown Muslims has fueled the backlash against cultural tolerance.
Many views once limited to the far-right have become mainstream. In the Netherlands, a strict new immigration law requires people seeking citizenship to undergo assimilation training and pass a test on Dutch culture and language. In France, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, the center-right's leading presidential candidate, seemed to echo the extreme-right National Front's love-it-or-leave-it rhetoric last month when he declared his country "doesn't want those who don't love it."
A Dutch poll released in June found that half of Dutch people dislike Muslims, though the numbers shrink sharply when the questions get specific — only 10 percent consider themselves smarter than immigrants, while 17 percent said immigrants tend to be criminals, rude and lazy.
Experiences of racism were widespread among the young people interviewed for this story — and the strategy of most is stoicism.
"It doesn't happen frequently, but when it does, I shut my mouth — I don't answer back," said Shen Li, a 24-year-old Chinese law student in Madrid who arrived in Spain a decade ago.
Meantime, many minority youths complain of discrimination in the job market. Berrouba, 26, recalled being rejected for a hairstylist's job when she was 17.
"The owner said, 'I don't want to hire you, because we're looking for someone who doesn't look like a North African,'" she said. "He was very apologetic, upset, and asked me for a thousand pardons. But that's just the way it was."
When a bit older, she applied at a more luxurious hair salon.
"My hair was too long and looked too Arab, so I cut it and dyed it blond — and I got the job!" It was a new lease on life. "Even for nightclubs, I was able to get in everywhere," she said.
Ozturk said his job prospects are uncertain in Germany despite his excellent grades.
"My father wants me to go abroad, to America or England. He says I have a better chance if I'm an Oxford or a Harvard graduate," he said.
In France, an upcoming report from a newly created anti-discrimination agency says that for young jobseekers, "It's better to be named Alain than Mohamed." Other official reports in France have made the astonishing observation that some temporary jobs agencies classify white applicants as "BBR" — a French acronym for the Blue, White and Red colors of the national flag.
The fact that such policies are illegal, and that an anti-discrimination agency exists, demonstrates that France is taking at least some measures, as have other European countries.
In Germany, a law took effect in August outlawing discrimination based on gender, age and religious affiliation in the workplace.
Paris' elite Sciences Po political university is actively recruiting immigrant youths while Sarkozy, despite his hard-line stance on illegal immigration, has implemented a pilot affirmative-action program in the police force.
Across the European Union, several countries have been working to implement EU guidelines against discrimination.
Europeans say their societies are not a U.S.-style melting pot, and their citizenships are inherited and not easily acquired by naturalization. And most of the young people interviewed didn't seem keen on the melting-pot idea either, expressing a preference for marrying within their own ethnic background and religion.
Ozturk, a Muslim, recently broke up with a Catholic Peruvian girlfriend; he is now dating a Muslim Turk.
"I always thought it wouldn't matter what religion one has when you're in love, but ... I think that if I was married to a non-Turkish woman, we could have problems raising our kids," he said.
Many Muslims said the terror threat has put them under scrutiny they find stifling.
"When I'm asked what my ethnicity is on an application form, I say Egypt," said Ali el Hamamy, a 19-year-old student of Egyptian origin at London's City University. "Before, I used to say Arab. Arab now is a term used for terrorism. Egypt is a holiday destination."
by aya on Sun Jan 21, 07 4:52pm
[+]
Probably a more scrutinized system of selection of immigrants and the end of ghettoization.
Adopting the american melting pot system seems a bit simplistic since many of the youths blamed the west and not just europe for their feeling of displacement.
I got to say though, some of the complaints made by the interviewees are absurd. ""I can explain my thoughts; in Tunisia I can explain my feelings. Here I have friends; there I have brothers,"; ""I don't want the freedom of Europe — to drink, tell my sister to go out and have free sex before marriage. I want to have rules," he said. "I accept the rules of democracy, but I'm living the rules of Islam."; "I wish I had been born into a strict family of Muslims who made me wear the scarf and had a father who took me to the mosque once a week," she said. "I'm jealous of girls who have that." Whims and silly moans! These people want to replicate the modus vivendi of their native countries in Europe, which fortunatelly will not happen. Besides they are old enough to pack their bags and leave in search of what they yearn for their lives...
"probably *implement*"
I think a lot of the burden needs to fall on the immigrants themselves. They need to work to integrate themselves, distance themselves from radicals, reassure everyone that they're there for good reasons and have no ulterior motives, and that they support their new homelands.
Many immigrants in europe have chosen to segregate themselves, which will only lead to conflict in the long run.
So how does that account for racism? You know racism, right? That problem that doesn't just affect poor, White males? What about the immigrants who want to succeed in Europe, like Straight-A student Gokboru Ozturk, but ultimately find barrier to upward social mobility?
by aya on Tue Jan 23, 07 11:00am
[+]
Aya; every new immigrant faces discrimination, every single one. The irish, indians (asiatic, not american), chinese, italians, etc. Every one faced discrimination, and yet they overcame it by hard work, a commitment to education, and joining their new community, without necessarily giving up their own heritage.
Why are Muslims so different? WHy is it impossible for them to integrate, but routine for other non-white, non-Christian immigrants?
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