Impact of Muslim Immigrants on Western Society - Essay Example

Running head: Impact of Muslim immigrants on Western Society (Australia) in cultural, social and political perspectives. Student’s name Institution Course Professor Date Introduction The movement of Muslims to the Western society has become a recent development with a rapid pace. One of the most prevalent development in this modern era of globalization is the rapid flow of persons across the national borders. The intense settlement of Muslim immigrants have posed huge challenges to many European policymakers on how they manage their cultural diversity, maintain social cohesion and able to accommodate minorities. Over the couples of decades ago there has been a heating debate about the perceived costs and benefits of Muslim immigrants into the western societies (Bisin, 2008). The Muslim immigrants have been in the heart of integration in western communities in terms of political, economic, social and cultural perspectives (Georgiadis and Manning, 2009). Australian laws allow immigrants to live according to their own cultures or cultures of their choice. The Muslim immigrants thus have brought different impacts in Australia, which ranges from social, cultural to political impacts. Social impacts According to Gautier and Siegmann (2009) argue that there have been an increasing discrimination against Muslim minorities due to terrorism and have led to detrimental impacts on the health of Muslim immigrants and labour market outcomes. The Muslim community have reported a decline in appreciation of their living in Australia and the social acceptance by the Australia. According to Bisin (2008), Muslim in some countries such as Britain have integrated at a slower phase than other non-Muslims. He measured the integration by the immigrant’s attitudes towards marriage with the locals, the relevance of ethnicity while families choose schools they need for their children and the importance of religion. Issues of terrorists’ related attacks have demonstrated to increase discrimination against Muslims as they have been used to study changes in the attitudes of Muslim immigrants in the west (Gautier, 2009). The Muslims living in isolated urban communities have been alienated from democratic societies thus causing them to develop closer sympathies with extremist Islamist movements. Muslims community in Australia have practice their cultures in regards to their cultural traditions in their individual states. The religious and cultural diversity of Muslims has had its origins in the post-World War II. They entered the Australian society via the cultural mediums of family, community and religion that have deemed to shape their status, employment and residential patterns (Akbarzadeh and Saeed,2001). The Islamic immigrants have pose a unique threat to the entire western society. This is with the view of Muslim religious and culture. As oppose to Christianity, the Islam have been portrayed as an alienating and radicalizing force that is able to galvanize immigrants towards the rejection of western societies. According to Foner and Alba (2008) argue that the immigrant religion has been attributed to be a hindrance to integration thus becoming a fundamental marker of social divide. The majority of immigrants are Islamic and this religion has been observed to generate less solidarity and sympathy among the host populations. Being unfamiliar among natives, Islamic religion became an alien to most of the western societies. Furthermore, immigrants who practiced the alien religion had varied problems in terms of education, poverty and unemployment rates (Foner and Alba, 2008). These immigrants carried many diversities from home to the west. They were Sunni and Shi’a with regional cultural, factionalism and social habits. With their own media in place, they are able to air the culture-clashes that could erupt from the new values and expectations. The western societies have become increasingly socially diverse due to the flow of persons across the national borders making them less homogenous in their cultural heritage, religious faith, historical traditions, language, lifestyles and ethnic composition (Omar and Allen,1997). There has been a concern about social diversity especially with the view to integrate non-EU nationals within their member states. The Muslim immigrants constituted the largest minority religion within the western society. Political impacts The Muslim immigration has brought about a profound consequence to various western societies. In response to these development, the western government had to seek to plan and implement efficient and effective policies that were able to manage diversity, promote inter-faith tolerance, preserve social cohesion and minimize discrimination. The Islamic movements due to their religious orientation rejected the criticism of their opponents. Thus they had to present long –term economic plans by forming coalition with other varied political parties with a view to stay in power (Haddad and Smith,2002). In other instances, their movements had political goals that prompted varied strategies to be put in place so that they could participate in the already existing political systems. Such political parties were the Muslim Brothers and Liberation Party. The Muslims following of the Islamic laws is a threat to national constitution and national principals of Australia. Most of the religion teachings encourage its followers to implement that are contrary to the Australia’s constitution and values. Their teachings especially on women rights, relationships with other groups of people, terrorism among other areas are not in line with those of Australia laws (Suad and Nagmabadi, 2003). These differences have caused both political and legal problems in Australia. Muslim prescribed life in their holy book Quran is extremely difficult to satisfy in the current political system of leadership. The Australian Muslims tries to practice this which in turns makes political leadership hard. This has resulted into strong political anti-Muslim statements in Australia. The immigrants’ religion has consistently provoked heated political debate in Australia in how matters relating to religion should be handled (Fleming,2001). This is despite the Australia’s principals of separating religious matters from the leadership of the country. Consequently, the Muslim immigrants have been a threat to the political stability of Australia given the link between Muslims and terrorism. Muslims are worldwide believed to be the architects of the various international terrorism activities happening in the world. Despite major terrorism activity in Australia in the past years, Muslims continued increase in population is seen as threat to national security. The Muslims in Australia are believed to be funding terrorist groups like al-Qaida, al-Badr. This is done through their outreach organizations and groups like Hizb ut Tahrir (Buijs, Frank and Rath.2002). Cultural impacts The cultural effects of Muslims immigrants have been felt in the western communities. Some of their practices such as forced marriages, domestic violence, polygamy, honor killings, patriarchal beliefs about the traditional roles of women in the family and also the symbolic wearing of the hijab, niqap and burqa. However, these practices conflict with the prevailing liberal social values, secular legal framework and the more egalitarian gender roles in the western societies (Jamrozik,1995). The Islamic immigrants did prove to have a highly conservative on issues that were related to sexuality and gender equality that majored the support for egalitarian roles of women in their homes, workforce and in the general sphere. Indeed, their society are less tolerant towards issues of sexual liberalization as demonstrated in their attitudes towards homosexuality, divorce and abortion. Furthermore, they are strong in their religious values as oppose to their western counterparts who are more secular (Marranci, 2010). Muslims migrants came to western society with less rigidly fixed attitudes thus allowing them to gradually absorb the values prevailing in their respective host society as demonstrated by assimilation theory. With these experiences, the immigrants have been forced to negotiate their cultural identity with the Australian society and state (Humphrey, 2001). The threat of multiculturalism has been witnessed in the Australian society. The Islamic community are marginalized; less than 2%, however, the changes in the Australian that is based on Islamic demands are increasingly becoming common unlike other religions such as Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism (Rane,2010). All the Muslims immigrants from varied national and ethnic backgrounds came up with distinct versions of both cultural and religious traditions making it heterogeneous group in the continent. The religious identities that are deeply institutionalized by western European states struggled to be recognized but mostly of the time came into conflict with Islamic immigrants’ attempts to establish their own religious traditions in the Western societies (Buijs and Rath, 2006). The Islamic religious societies did provided the immigrants with a sense of identity and the resources and tools needed to integrate into the western societies. The conditioning events for the movement of the Muslim population included the ending of the western colonialism and independence of countries hitherto colonies. Western society are more secularized with little knowledge about any religion. Islamic community went ahead to advocate to uphold of traditional values such as family solidarity and community that was weakening each day. They are less willing to integrate with the Australian society (Schirrmacher, 2005). This is attributed to their belief system that assimilation and democracy is impossible under Islamic law. The doctrine of Islam that was based on the Trilogy was significant source of problems in Australia. Indeed, the freedom and democracy cherished by the locals were subverted by the Islam. Consequently, the Australian society were able to welcome diversity and embrace immigrants especially the Muslims (Clancy, 2004). Cultural practices such as force marriages and murders of honor took place within the parallel society in which its members took justice into their own able hands. In conclusion, despite the fact that Muslims population in Australia is slightly above 1%, their migration into Australia has greatly influenced the various aspects of life. They have resulted into many political, social, economic and cultural influences in Australia. The resulting consequences of the immigrants are mainly to the disadvantage to the Australian people than they are of benefit. They have negatively eroded the peoples’ culture, negatively impacted on the social life and a threat to the political stability and security of the country. References Akbarzadeh,S.,Saeed, A.(2001). Muslim Communities in Australia. UNSW Press. Bisin, A., Patacchini, E., Verdier, T., Zenou, (2008). Are Muslim Immigrants Different in Terms of Cultural Integration? Journal of the European Economic Association 6(2‐3): 45-456 bridge or barrier to inclusion? International Migration Review 42 (2): 360-392. Buijs, Frank J., and Jan Rath. (2002). Muslims in Europe: the state of research. Russell Sage Clancy, L. (2004). Culture and customs of Australia. New South Wales: Greenwood Publishing Group. Communities Form Our Newest Citizens. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fleming, L. (2001). Excel Studies of Religion. New York: Pascal Press. Foley, Michael W. and Dean R. Hoge. (2007). Religion and the New Immigrants: How Faith Foner, Nancy and Richard Alba, (2008). Immigrant religion in the U.S. and Western Europe: Foundation. New York City. October 2002. Gautier, P.A., Siegmann, A and Van Vuuren, A. (2009). Terrorism and Attitudes Towards Georgiadis, A. and Manning, A (2011). Change And Continuity Among Minority Communities In Britain. Journal of Population Economics 24(2): 541-568 Haddad,Y.Y.,Smith,J.I.(2002). Muslim minorities in the West: visible and invisible. New York: Rowman Altamira. Halim Rane, J. E. (2010). Islam and the Australian News Media. London: Academic Monographs. Humphrey, M. (1998). Islam, Multiculturalism and Transnationalism. california: I.B.Tauris. Jamrozik, A. (1995). Social Change and Cultural Transformation in Australia. CUP Archive. Kaushal, N., Kaestner, R and Reimers. C. (2007). Labor Market Effects of September 11th on Arab and Muslim residents of the United States. Journal of Human Resources 42(2): 275-308 Levitt, Peggy, (2004). Redefining the boundaries of belonging: the institutional character of transnational religious life. Sociology of Religion 65 (1): 1-18. Marranci, G. (2010). Muslim Societies and the Challenge of Secularization. Springer. Minorities: The Effect of The Theo Van Gogh Murder on House Prices in Amsterdam, Journal of Urban Economics 65(2): 113-126 Omar,W., Allen,K. (1997). The Muslims in Australia. oxford: Australian Government Publishing Service. Schirrmacher, C, (2005).Muslim Immigration to Europe: The Challenge for European Societies – Human Rights – Security Issues – Current Developments, Conference paper presented at Europe/International House, Pecs/Hungary, Nov. 22, 2005 Suad Joseph,S.,Nagmabadi, A. (2003). Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures, Volume 3. BRILL. Thorleif, P, (2008). Muslim immigrants in Western Europe: Persisting value differences or value adaptation? In Mansoor Moaddel (ed) Values and Perceptions of the Islamic and Middle Eastern Publics .New York: Palgrave McMillan Read More

Muslims community in Australia have practice their cultures in regards to their cultural traditions in their individual states. The religious and cultural diversity of Muslims has had its origins in the post-World War II. They entered the Australian society via the cultural mediums of family, community and religion that have deemed to shape their status, employment and residential patterns (Akbarzadeh and Saeed,2001). The Islamic immigrants have pose a unique threat to the entire western society.

This is with the view of Muslim religious and culture. As oppose to Christianity, the Islam have been portrayed as an alienating and radicalizing force that is able to galvanize immigrants towards the rejection of western societies. According to Foner and Alba (2008) argue that the immigrant religion has been attributed to be a hindrance to integration thus becoming a fundamental marker of social divide. The majority of immigrants are Islamic and this religion has been observed to generate less solidarity and sympathy among the host populations.

Being unfamiliar among natives, Islamic religion became an alien to most of the western societies. Furthermore, immigrants who practiced the alien religion had varied problems in terms of education, poverty and unemployment rates (Foner and Alba, 2008). These immigrants carried many diversities from home to the west. They were Sunni and Shi’a with regional cultural, factionalism and social habits. With their own media in place, they are able to air the culture-clashes that could erupt from the new values and expectations.

The western societies have become increasingly socially diverse due to the flow of persons across the national borders making them less homogenous in their cultural heritage, religious faith, historical traditions, language, lifestyles and ethnic composition (Omar and Allen,1997). There has been a concern about social diversity especially with the view to integrate non-EU nationals within their member states. The Muslim immigrants constituted the largest minority religion within the western society.

Political impacts The Muslim immigration has brought about a profound consequence to various western societies. In response to these development, the western government had to seek to plan and implement efficient and effective policies that were able to manage diversity, promote inter-faith tolerance, preserve social cohesion and minimize discrimination. The Islamic movements due to their religious orientation rejected the criticism of their opponents. Thus they had to present long –term economic plans by forming coalition with other varied political parties with a view to stay in power (Haddad and Smith,2002).

In other instances, their movements had political goals that prompted varied strategies to be put in place so that they could participate in the already existing political systems. Such political parties were the Muslim Brothers and Liberation Party. The Muslims following of the Islamic laws is a threat to national constitution and national principals of Australia. Most of the religion teachings encourage its followers to implement that are contrary to the Australia’s constitution and values.

Their teachings especially on women rights, relationships with other groups of people, terrorism among other areas are not in line with those of Australia laws (Suad and Nagmabadi, 2003). These differences have caused both political and legal problems in Australia. Muslim prescribed life in their holy book Quran is extremely difficult to satisfy in the current political system of leadership. The Australian Muslims tries to practice this which in turns makes political leadership hard. This has resulted into strong political anti-Muslim statements in Australia.

The immigrants’ religion has consistently provoked heated political debate in Australia in how matters relating to religion should be handled (Fleming,2001). This is despite the Australia’s principals of separating religious matters from the leadership of the country.

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