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Amelia Tan, Marcelo Mendes De Souza, Friday 11-12, 17/03/2011

Ramadan, LePen debate: Immigrants need to assimilate by adhering to cultural and social norms and by learning the language

before coming to a European country.

To a certain point, there is a need for immigrants to assimilate into their host countries cultural and social norms. One reason being that if

we do not do that, there is the risk of alienation both from the immigrants and the citizens of that country. This alienation would be because

of the misunderstandings that arise from not being able to understand each persons culture and their history. For example, to take Frances

anti-burqa law, one reasoning that arises from the furore surrounding the law is that the immigrants might not have understood that France

is a secular state. They do not allow religion to dictate their life and they certainly do not allow religion to dictate their politics. Thus, the

main opposition from Muslim groups are that they (the politicians) do not respect their religion. However, the anti-burqa law was in fact a

law that prohibits any conspicuous wearing of symbols related to any faith, and it could refer to the yarmulke, which is a jewish skullcap, or a

huge cross hanging from a persons neck. With this argument, it could be viewed from a non-Muslims point of view that the Muslims in

France are trying to get special recognition for their religion by turning a generic law against conspicuous symbols of religion into a law that

targeted Muslims.

On the other hand, one cannot possibly study another countries culture, social norms, and, potentially language before immigrating to

another country because it is just not possible. Reading about a country and actually living in a country are two totally different things. While

it is possible to read about a countrys cultural and social norms, there would be differences between the different parts of the country. And

the information that one gets about the cultural and social norms about a country would be mainly generic. Also, with regards to studying a

language, it is possible because there tends to be at least one language that is the one that everyone uses. But the question arises that what

if the immigrant is a refugee, how can they study a European language when they themselves do not know that they will be fleeing theirhomeland. In addition, it is just not fair to ask of the immigrants to totally shrug of their mother culture and social norms when they

immigrate into a new country.

With those arguments in mind, I do feel that the statement above, while it does have grains of truth embedded in them, there is also a need

to respect every immigrants cultural background and norms, while adhering to the countrys rule and regulation.

More recently, the large influx of Asian economic migrants to New Zealand in the late eighties and early nineties produced,

among some groups of New Zealanders, a fear that the New Zealand way of life would become swamped by a new and non-New

Zealand way of looking at the world. Did this happen?

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Does the definition of a way of life mean that a civilizations way of looking at things are stagnated, meaning, the way that its

ancestors looked at things a few centuries ago is the same way that the current population would look at things, or is a way of

life fluid, changing as times changes. Does it matter what race the influx of immigrants was? Questions aside, it doesnt rea lly

matter what race the influx was, although race could be a variable in the way a way of life changes. As long as there is

immigration and as long as there is the influence of foreign societies such as the commercialism of the Americans, the food of

the Europeans and such, the way of life would be fluid, constantly changing.

With regards to the topic question, the answer would be yes and no. Yes, because with the large influx of Asian population

migrants, came a population boost. With population boosts, comes more demand for products. More demand for products

mean that peoples perspective of their way of life changes. And with any type of immigration, there is always the potential form

gang and crime related activities, which in this case would be the Chinese triads.

On the other hand, the influx of Asian migrants would, in theory not have really affected the New Zealand way of thinking

because the children that the Asian migrants produce would become assimilated into the New Zealand culture, thereby,

mitigating the problem of getting swamped by a new and non-New Zealand way of thinking. And also, the Asian migrants tend to

stay in their own cliques and groups, which reduces the chances of New Zealand getting swamped by a new way of thinking