The latest
to join the anti-immigrant, charge-of-the-bile-brigade is Switzerland’s
Christoph Blocher. Pressing all the right paranoia buttons, Blocher,
with hard money and hatred to burn, catapulted the SVP (Swiss
People’s Party) into the biggest block of seats in Switzerland’s
coalition government. He signs on with France’s Jean-Marie
Le Pen, Austria’s Joerg Haider, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark
and Italy in blame-the-immigrant for every woe on the block.
And we’re
not talking about immigrant Koreans, Fins and Hungarians.
The fingers
(on the trigger) mentioned above are pointed at Islam, especially
at Arabs from North Africa. It seems that with every passing election
more and more of our (Europe’s) best are falling prey to
the virus of ‘immigrantitis’ because we don’t
like the way Arab immigrants treat our virtuous (thong-accomplished)
womenfolk, or their own (clitorectomied) women for that matter,
turn our erstwhile safe streets into terror zones, and remain
medievally unwilling to look and act like us – the good
guys. And however true some or none of this may be, it’s
an axiom of politics that the pointer, the j’accuser,
almost invariably misses the point.
So let
me introduce you to Mohammed Abdelwahid, a Saudi as proud as his
country is large and prosperous. The great grandson of Mohammed
III, a desert geologist who as a matter of course perfected his
unsurpassed hygiene with the assistance of the ‘lone and
level sand,’ Mohammed has been raised to expect his women,
at the onset of puberty, to be clothed from head to foot and to
keep their faces hid from public view for their entire lives.
He has always understood that women are forbidden to vote, drive
automobiles, attend university classes taught by men or participate
meaningfully in Saudi life. Mohammed is not allowed to consume
alcohol, is supposed to pray to Allah five times a day, has been
taught to mistrust the infidel, especially the Jew. This is how
it has been since the time of the Prophet, this is the world view
that has been imposed on him since birth, so we shouldn’t
be surprised that when he arrives on our shores he comports himself
as described above. How could it be otherwise?
When
Canadians -- for whom principle finishes runner up in pursuit
of tax-free lucre -- come to pitch tent in Mecca, the prescient
Saudi plutocracy recognizes that cultural differences are so incommensurate,
it wouldn’t be prudent to allow them to mingle among the
host population. Accordingly, they are quasi-confined (albeit
happily) to compounds where they can partake of drugs and alcohol
and practice 
their
47% divorce rate with impunity.
The reason
we don’t grant students the license to practice medicine
until they have undergone a long and arduous study and internship
is self-evident: no one is born a doctor, one must become one.
And yet immigration authorities insouciantly grant landed immigrant
status to applicants despite their not having been taught how
to be Canadian, or Swiss, or French or Italian. The homeland conceit
that underwrites the expectation that the immigrant Pakistani,
for example, should (will) act like a Canadian when he has been
a Pakistani his entire life beggars the imagination. Then, when
set free as an equal among us, we blame and scapegoat him for
simply being himself, the inevitable product of the culture in
which he was born and raised. We would never condemn Canadians
for being themselves outside Canada. How could they be otherwise?
The double
standard exists because the brain t(rust) that presides over immigration
policy hasn’t even considered the possibility that neglecting
to properly educate the new arrival is the root cause of the anti-immigrant
rhetoric that has profaned especially Europe’s political
discourse. The authorities assume that the granting of landed
immigrant status is tantamount to educating immigrants to the
way of life of the host country, all of which suggests the least
qualified people are running their departments – into ignominy.
As for the opportunistic politicians (the Blochers, the Le Pens)
who scapegoat the immigrant for their own ends, it is doubtful
that a lifetime of schooling would save them from their incorrigible
hate-mongering.
Most
immigrants will do almost anything to be accepted by the host
population. Not fitting in (the cause and subject of much of our
best recent literature) is often a lifelong source of anxiety
and low self-esteem. Offer immigrants the opportunity, the educational
tools on how to adapt to a host country’s way of life and
you can be sure the majority will seize the occasion to its fullest.
That immigration departments systemically fail to offer the basic
adaptive tools reveals a disturbing lack of vision, the result
of which has become an embarrassment to nations that purport to
support the causes and principles of humanitarian values.
Just
as any host population looks to the immigrant to enrich (culturally
and economically) life at home, the immigrant looks to improve
the quality of life in his new environment. Neither side wants
to be blamed for the cultural and/or economic destabilization
caused by flawed policy. Because it has always been an unquestioned
assumption of immigration that the onus is on the applicant to
adapt to the host nation’s way of life, perhaps we should
seriously consider removing the arbitrariness from the process,
especially if the hysteria that is turning Europe into one of
the world’s worst intolerance zones is to be defused? If
it’s a quantifiable fact that the system rewards especially
immigrants who abide by home turf rules – to the benefit
of everyone -- shouldn’t we be providing the means (the
instruction) to facilitate that process of acculturation?
The time
has come for immigration authorities everywhere to hold themselves
up to scrutiny and make their own assumptions that which most
needs to be called into question, for if the reforms upon which
successful immigration policy depend are not seized upon, what’s
bad in countries disgracing themselves on the backs of immigrants
is only going to get worse.
