Islam: Why We Culturally Profile It

(We are offline due to a much-needed research period at the moment, so we've decided to re-publish some earlier pieces you might have missed the first time.)

Paris, Nov. 13, 2015: The Indian summer meant many were enjoying a meal out on the patio

Four years ago this week, France experienced its "9-11": The Bataclan terror attacks. Shortly after, we published this body of data on why, exactly, Europeans are becoming so wary of the mass of Muslim immigrants streaming into their countries.

We publish it again on this terrible anniversary, with the footnote that all of the tendencies described therein have only intensified in the intervening four years.

We hope you appreciate this food for thought.

The Europe to come?

[Re-post, original post here.]

At the height of the Trayvon Martin affair, we met a young Afro-Canadian who strongly objected to being racially profiled. Drawing on the pool of data at our disposal, we presented, to the best of our ability, the reasons such profiling exists.

Today, as hundreds of thousands of Muslim migrants pour into Europe to claim asylum, profiling again rears its ugly head. Not racial/ethnic this time, but religious:

At least five European countries have signaled that they prefer to grant asylum only to Christian refugees flooding the continent from the Middle East, not to Muslims.

“I think we have a right to decide that we do not want a large number of Muslim people in our country,” Hungarian Prime Minister Orban said.  ... “Refugees from a completely different cultural background would not be in a good position in the Czech Republic,” said Czech President Milos Zeman.

 Lodz, Poland, September 2015

On what are these fears based? Ignorance, prejudice? We have been told for years that immigration is a gift, an economic boost, an injection of fresh blood, and that our new guests will culturally enrich our lives with their differentness (all while assimilating seamlessly thanks to their sameness). We at TWCS have thus decided to take a deeper look at the data.

But is Islam a religion, a culture, or a civilization? Has it genetically changed its adherents over time like Christianity has (cousin marriage enforced vs. forbidden)? In the absence of any genetic connection, does it culturally push its believers to certain behaviors? Could these beliefs and behaviors really, as the critics charge, prevent their assimilation into the West?

In a word--is this cultural profiling of Muslims based on fact or fantasy?

So, Where Does Multiculturalism Work?

Englischer Garten, Munich

Today's progressives have a seemingly unshakeable belief in the doctrine of Multiculturalism. All societies should be a zesty mix of different melanin levels, languages, religions, and cuisines. Anything else would be not only immoral, but boring.

Despite Putnam's evidence that diverse neighborhoods make everyone living in them less happy, this unflappable belief in the tonic effects of diversity seems to have gripped the modern leftist with claws of steel. 

U.N. Migration Representative and diversity evangelist Peter Sutherland

So we ask him: What is an example of a diverse society that actually works? To which we in the West may aspire?

Rue Polonceau, Paris, 2015

As it turns out, Multiculturalism is not such an easy beast to wrangle.

But we aim to try, to once and for all get our harpoon into that elusive animal: the Diversitopia on which we, in the West, may model ourselves.



Where to find it?

Weapons of Mass Migration: Are You a Target?

Reaction to Trump's threat to turn off the migrant tap

Donald Trump's proposed immigration policies--though moderate by the standards of any other era in U.S. history--are spurring an unprecedented wave of outrage.

The immense waves of migrants (legal and illegal) pouring into the U.S. and Europe are, say his opponents, a blessing, a gift, even the only way to survive.

Image source

Is it true? 

Today there are a quarter of a billion people living outside their home countries--the most ever recorded in human history. But these mass movements aren't happening by chance-- far larger forces are at play.

Image source

We live in an era where demographic weapons are in fact being lobbed around the globe, disturbing the fragile ecosystems of human societies, in some cases threatening to topple them. 

Who is in the line of fire? Can one make oneself less of a target? 

Africans flood into Europe;  Latin Americans flood into the U.S.

How? 

Why We Culturally Profile

The Europe to come?

At the height of the Trayvon Martin affair, we met a young Afro-Canadian who strongly objected to being racially profiled. Drawing on the pool of data at our disposal, we presented, to the best of our ability, the reasons such profiling exists.

Today, as hundreds of thousands of Muslim migrants pour into Europe to claim asylum, profiling again rears its ugly head. Not racial/ethnic this time, but religious:

At least five European countries have signaled that they prefer to grant asylum only to Christian refugees flooding the continent from the Middle East, not to Muslims.

“I think we have a right to decide that we do not want a large number of Muslim people in our country,” Hungarian Prime Minister Orban said.  ... “Refugees from a completely different cultural background would not be in a good position in the Czech Republic,” said Czech President Milos Zeman.

 Lodz, Poland, September 2015

On what are these fears based? Ignorance, prejudice? We have been told for years that immigration is a gift, an economic boost, an injection of fresh blood, and that our new guests will culturally enrich our lives with their differentness (all while assimilating seamlessly thanks to their sameness). We at TWCS have thus decided to take a deeper look at the data.

But is Islam a religion, a culture, or a civilization? Has it genetically changed its adherents over time like Christianity has (cousin marriage enforced vs. forbidden)? In the absence of any genetic connection, does it culturally push its believers to certain behaviors? Could these beliefs and behaviors really, as the critics charge, prevent their assimilation into the West?

In a word--is this cultural profiling of Muslims based on fact or fantasy?

Crashing the Gates: A Crash Course

Storming the Hungarian border at Hogros, Serbia, September 16th, 2015

(Or, The European Migrant Crisis: A Reader.)

From the Pope to the E.U. to the U.N., the narrative has taken shape: 'Millions of refugees fleeing war-torn regions are flooding into Europe, and we must take them all in.'  If one doesn't embrace it whole-heartedly--and many Europeans do not--one is 'vile,' 'shameful,' and 'spreading hate' (to quote German chancellor Angela Merkel).  Such closed-minded bigots need to open their hearts and homes.

We here at TWCS argue that there is much more to the story. From our privileged perch here in continental Europe, we enjoy access to scores of local news stories which haven't seeped into the international media. So as with the Charlie Hebdo massacre, we're taking a slight detour from our normal blogging in order to give a press round-up we hope some may find useful. From our seat in the very front row, we humbly invite you to join us on a tour of the less-reported sides of this epochal event. But kindly buckle up first.

Why Re-Colonization? Commonweal Orientation

Driving in Varanasi, India

(Part II of two)

Europe and the U.S. are both being overrun with illegal immigrants from the South. We recently asked the question, 'Why?' One answer, we've found, could be the former's higher levels of Future Orientation. This ability to fully conceive of and plan for the future creates societies that are the envy of the world.

 Africa's illegal aliens flood into Europe;  Latin America's flood into the U.S.

But we also argue that a second quality is drawing the masses to Euros' doors. We call this trait Commonweal Orientation. Where it is found in abundance, safe and prosperous societies seem to flourish. So what is it, and why has it been so unevenly distributed on Planet Earth?

Arab Autumn?

Image source

The Arab Spring, eighteen months on.  Has a passion for freedom of speech, separation of religion and State, and the 'free marketplace of ideas' seized the Arab world?  Two weeks ago a Coptic Christian living in California,  in no way affiliated with any U.S. government entity, published a comically low-quality 13-minute film trailer ridiculing Mohammed and Islam.  The Arab world's reaction?

In Egypt:

In Lebanon:

In Kuwait:

In Palestine:

In Tunisia:

In Yemen:

What about the Muslim world generally?

The Voice of the People II: Arab Democracy

Image source

We have wondered, will any democracy taken up by Arab Muslims inevitably become authoritarian?


One might well ask it of Russians. Twenty years after the wall crumbled with a whimper and the West's Democracy 101 knights rode in, where are they?

[International observers of the 2008] elections concluded that they were "not fair and failed to meet many OSCE and Council of Europe commitments and standards for democratic elections." [...] Frequent abuses of administrative resources, media coverage strongly in favor of United Russia, and the revised election code combined to hinder political pluralism.

[...] A law enacted in December 2004 eliminated the direct election of the country's regional leaders. Governors are now nominated by the president [...] The judiciary is not independent, is often subject to manipulation by political authorities,...

... The government uses direct ownership or ownership by large private companies with links to the government to control or influence the major media outlets, especially television, [...]  Unsolved murders of journalists have increased the reluctance of journalists to cover controversial subjects...

The Economist Intelligence Unit's World Democracy Index (1 - 10, 10 being 'most democratic') lists four categories--'Full democracy,' 'Flawed democracy,' 'Hybrid regime,' and 'Authoritarian regime.'  Cut-off for this fourth category is a score of 4.00 or lower; Russia misses it by a hair at 4.26.

Perhaps not exactly what Francis Fukuyama had in mind.

But little matter.

Moscow street protests seen round the world (thank you Facebook) have roused the true believers from their slumber.  English Liberal Democracy is coming to Russia, for real this time, after twenty years of Some Other Kind of Democracy.  Just as it has come to the Middle East in 2011, after sixty years of Some Other Kind of Democracy.


Or is it.


In 1915 Nikolai Berdyaev wrote,

The Russian people does not want to be a masculine builder, its nature defines itself as feminine, passive and submissive in matters of state, it always awaits a bridegroom, a man, a ruler.  ...  The state ruling authority always was an external, and not an inward principle for the non-statist Russian people; it was not created by her, but the rather came as it were from the outside, like a bridegroom to the bride.

And so often therefore the ruling power has provided the impression of  being foreign, ... the state -- is "they" and not "we".

'They' and not 'we.'

Whither the demos?

The Voice of the People

Image source 

The Arab Spring one year on: Switzerland on the Sahara and Norway on the Nile have yet to materialize.

“I remind all media that they have to be accurate; we are not celebrating the first anniversary of the revolution; we are reviving the revolution in its first anniversary,” tweeted well-known writer Ayman El-Sayyad.

Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians thronged Cairo's Tahrir Square Wednesday morning, renewing the atmosphere of mass protests witnessed in the country a year ago, Ahram online reported.

“Down, down with military rule,” they chanted.

Though the house of Mubarak was no more, the shadow of his legacy still lives on in the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which took power after Mubarak’s resignation, pro-democracy protesters say.

But materialize they shall.  Thomas Friedman says so.  So does The Council on Foreign Relations. So does Hillary Clinton--and she's ready to put your money where her mouth is:

Three weeks ago, the State Department's Middle East Partnership Initiative sent Congress what's known as a "congressional notification," requesting permission to shift $29 million in funds from other programs in the region. State wants to shift $20 million to democracy promotion efforts in Tunisia and around the region. Another $7 million would go supporting rule of law and political development programs in the Middle East. $1 million would go to youth councils in Yemen.

Spending our hard-earned dollars on 'democracy promotion' has always had its fans.  Traditionally, U.S. policy has been to push democracy where it serves her strategic interests, and to crush it where it does not.  The Middle East, your blinking gas gauge reminds you, falls under door #2. But throngs pouring into the streets over a young Arab who had immolated himself in despair could not be ignored, and the about-face was total: Out with dear friends Mubarak, Gaddafi, and Ben Ali; in with...

...democracy?

'Jasmine Revolution'

Tahir Square, Cairo, 29 July 2011 

 'Instead of "Peaceful, peaceful," which demonstrators have chanted during confrontations with security forces, they repeated "Islamic, Islamic"... '

[In light of current bumps on the road to English-style liberal democracy in the newly 'free' Arab world, we here re-visit  '"Democracy promotion and the 'Jasmine Revolution'" (6-11-11).]


The 'Arab Spring' seems to have taken the Middle East, and everyone else, a bit by surprise.  While the Pentagon sweats at the thought of a North Africa full of little Irans, the State Department clicks its heels and throws on its apron, anxious to get in the kitchen and start cookin' up some democracy:

In the wake of the democratic revolutions sweeping the region, the State Department is rapidly trying to reevaluate its approach to Middle East democracy promotion. But without a budget for fiscal 2011, and with no idea of what awaits their budget in fiscal 2012, State is being forced to move money around to speed funds to the Arab countries that are trying to make the difficult transition to democracy.

'Democracy' is what they have now.  'Some other kind of democracy' is what the author maybe meant, but perhaps he had a word limit.

In any case fear not, brave tax-payer, you'll do your bit to help the Arabs get 'some other kind of democracy.'  In fact, you already are: