Geert Wilders & defaming Islam

Where do you stand on the Rwandan "hate radio" then?

Allow under freedom of speech or protect minorities?

seeing as i don't expect muslims to be rounded up and slaughtered in the hundreds of thousands in europe within the next decade i think it's a pretty irrelevant analogy. re: speech, i come pretty much as close as i can to being deontological as opposed to consequential, but i can accept that there are extreme cases where limits may be warranted (though again, in a situation like rwanda the speech angle is the least of one's worries). in the particular case of "islamophobia" concern in europe i think it's pretty obviously in part being used to insulate primitive & idiotic beliefs from critique, as well as solidifying the mediator status of "community leaders" in an incipient millet-arrangement. of course there's prejudice in europe of various sorts, but these laws won't do jack to prevent that (even the holocaust denial laws have less to do with dampening anti-semitism than they do with giving a nod to the genocide against the jews during world war ii). in fact, i suspect that consequentially these sorts of anti-speech movements are simply going to exacerbate the back lash when it does arrive.

Allow under freedom of speech or protect minorities?

btw, i don't give a shit about protecting minorities per se. i care more about individual rights. but stuff like canada's compromise on the language issue to protect quebecois identity, and now extension of this principle to visible minority cultures, isn't something i think is necessarily a good thing anyway. note that i think languages going extinct is fine.

I don't think its irrelevant at all because it goes to the deeper point: do we have a quantitative standard for free speech, and if so what is and isn't within the bounds of acceptability.

The minority tag I only use because I think we can generally see that, in the west at least, majority groups have pretty good representation and can more than defend themselves.

It strikes me that Holland is a test case for how we in Europe deal with religious and ethnic bigotry: we can take the American approach and accept it (whilst letting it fester and increase), or try to legislate and deal with it.

As stupid as I believe religion to be I'd still rather live in a country where people protest against forms of media that spread hatred and purposely incite offence/anger/outrage.

"It strikes me that Holland is a test case for how we in Europe deal with religious and ethnic bigotry: we can take the American approach and accept it (whilst letting it fester and increase), or try to legislate and deal with it."

Oh please, there is a vast gulf between not legislating against certain expressions and "accepting bigotry".

"As stupid as I believe religion to be I'd still rather live in a country where people protest against forms of media that spread hatred and purposely incite offence/anger/outrage."

You can protest against them to your hearts content in America, they only maintain a legal right to be free from state censorship.

You can argue for these laws all you want, but I'd at least appreciate some honesty about what you want legislated.

Do you know anything about the political climate of the Netherlands? Or indeed, Europe in general?

Wilders is another of these frighteningly right wing European "personalities" whose domestic popularity continues to rise much to the chagrin of anyone who isn't actually utterly stupid. They stand by policies that are very close to the dark days of old. In particular to the Dutch situation, he is just another BNP-like piece of crap looking to ride the domestic wave of bigotry to try and raise his own profile.

Wilders is another of these frighteningly right wing European "personalities" whose domestic popularity continues to rise much to the chagrin of anyone who isn't actually utterly stupid. They stand by policies that are very close to the dark days of old. In particular to the Dutch situation, he is just another BNP-like piece of crap looking to ride the domestic wave of bigotry to try and raise his own profile.

And your alternative is to have the government constrain what a person can and can't say. Europe does indeed seem headed towards the bad days of old.

See Fitna here and the multiple response on this site

Geert Wilders anti-Quran film. Silence will be the best response

Duth and Geert Wilders should ban these holy books too

Europe: Muslim Integration and separatism lessons learned from the British Raj

Send Tulips

Muslims support SOIEs efforts to eliminate Islamic influences from Europe

"Fitna" Rebuttal to Geert Wilders. Refuting the Dutch Nazis

It strikes me that Holland is a test case for how we in Europe deal with religious and ethnic bigotry: we can take the American approach and accept it (whilst letting it fester and increase), or try to legislate and deal with it.

The assumptions behind this statement fascinate me. The poster seems to be asserting that leaving a problem alone necessarily means it will get worse, while passing legislation to try to eliminate the problem through force of law is a solution.

I am not certain that I can understand the confusion of ideas that makes such a statement possible.

Europe deal with religious and ethnic bigotry: we can take the American approach and accept it (whilst letting it fester and increase),

And do you have any evidence that ethnic bigotry in America is "festering and increasing" and doing the opposite in Europe?

For example, take anti-Semitism. Pre-WWII, it wasn't quite as bad in the US as it was in some European countries, but it was still there, common and in plain view. After WWII, some European countries did basically nothing about anti-Semitism, some adopted strict laws against it and some ended up authoritarian socialist with no other opinions allowed except the most vigorously anti-Nazi ones.

The prediction, then, should be that if allowing free speech makes hatreds "fester and increase", the United States has only grown more anti-Semitic since pre-WWII times (it should probably have turned Nazi by now), those European countries that didn't do much on anti-Semitism should have plenty of anti-Semitism, those European countries that have strict anti-Nazi laws certainly wouldn't elect people like Le Pen and those that turned into super-anti-Nazi authoritarian states should have the least anti-Semitism.

The pattern is, of course, completely opposite. There are many obvious ways in which hate speech laws radicalize bigotry and grant legitimacy to genuinely nasty hallucinations. Not surprisingly, hatred has festered in most Europe, grown in socialist Europe and reduced in the United States.

Wilders is another of these frighteningly right wing European "personalities" whose domestic popularity continues to rise much to the chagrin of anyone who isn't actually utterly stupid.

Yeah, we should probably cancel democracy, since the voters seem to refuse to follow the commands of the self-proclaimed "not utterly stupid" people. Hmm, or perhaps the other parties could actually start acknowledging the issues that worry Wilders' voters so much? Like, wimping out and instantly submitting to religious tyranny if taking a stand might have actual consequences? It's not even a question of Islam, it's much more general: once the Christians/nationalists/environmentalists/whateverists realize that simply killing some people and credibly threatening everyone who speaks out is enough to make much of Western civilization "respect" your ridiculous dogmas, why wouldn't someone try to imitate the Muslims?

It strikes me that Holland is a test case for how we in Europe deal with religious and ethnic bigotry: we can take the American approach and accept it (whilst letting it fester and increase), or try to legislate and deal with it.

are you a visible minority, or do you have many close friends/family who are visible minorities on both sides of the pond? a great deal of the disagreement between us is likely due to upstream differences in norms and factual assumptions. but this sort of contention seems to bespeak a lack of familiarity of the general shape of race relations on both sides of the pond. from my own familial experience and what i have heard from other colored people is that racism is on average more salient in europe than in the united states. i am careful here to not over generalize; germany is different than the UK, and for black americans the experience might be inverted. but to give a typical example i would be less excited about spending a summer in prague than my white american friends perhaps because i'd be worried about racism due to my "gypsy" appearance. this is not to deny that prejudice against gypsies in eastern europe doesn't have a real cause; they're a parasite culture in a lot of ways, and some of their values re: women and children are really bizarre and out of place in the modern world. but it makes me skeptical of the nuance of your model of the world if you didn't consider that perhaps from the perspective of many colored people america is far more congenial than much of europe (i have relatives in the UK, several of my uncles studies at german engineering schools, and others have worked for multinationals in sweden and switzerland and so on. all agree that perhaps aside from the UK "otherization" is more advanced in europe than in the united states despite our real problems with race relations [remember that the USA is only 70% non-hispanic white, no european nation is so colored]).

My two cents. Wilders is a very local political development. He belongs to a list of populist politicians which made waves the last 10 years. Reason? Simple, the poor integration and high crime rates of Turks and Morocans.

Holland has about 2.5 million people who are immigrates out of about 16.5 million. Most of those 2.5 milion are not Turks, Morocans and muslem. These non-moslem immigrant are pretty much well integrated, as far as integration goes. It is for instance quite normal for a black person to marry a white person, which in the USA is still a taboo.

Turks and Morocans didn't and show up high in the crime rates (so do african-caraibians, but we can get along quite reasonable and they tend to show progres). Wilders blames Islam for this poor integration. The only thing he wants is that moslems adapt more and better to western society.

Nobody has proven Wilders is a racist who wants to kick all moslems out of Holland (neither wanted Pim Fortuyn or does Rita Verdonk, if the last name doesn't ring a bell, you don't know anything about Dutch politics).

I don't vote Wilders because he is a clumsy populist, but I respect his freedom of speech. Because his freedom of speech is now exercised and the result of Fitna is a bit of a "dud", Wilders will loose his attractiveness. In one of the polls he already down.

1. To Caledonian: The automatic reply would be- civil rights laws. A perfect example of law doing what leaving a problem alone could not.

2. To jaakkeli: The only variable you miss out from your example is Jewish population within those countries. Surely the millions of jews in America, increasing interactions between semites and non-semites, plays a role in reduction of bigotry?

In the latter part of your reply you seem to go off on one about religion as if I'm claiming for outrageous protection for religious views. I'm not. I simply think that films like this aim are aimed at people with pre-conceived negative views on muslims and immigrants, it serves no educational purpose, and incites further ignorance and hatred. Perhaps I went over board in saying there should be legislation against, but you aren't having to deal with this far right anti-immigrant, anti-muslim, nationalist BNP types. I don't think they are particularly dangerous in terms of gaining serious political power, but more so in the day to day relations (for us in London, a return to "paki bashing" that the NF and BNP helped promote in the early 70s and 80s).

3. To razib: my experiences/observations are based on those of friends yes, although I dare say the examples of your own family are more informative considering I can only comment on England as opposed to wider Europe. The thing with the mainland is that immigration of "coloured" peoples is relatively new, and as history has shown the automatic reoccurring reaction is bitterness and ignorance. Although it has to be said it is quite amusing that in eastern Europe they are resistent to coloured faces, but think nothing of emmigrating to Britain on mass.

If you look at the UK, where immigration was massive following the second war, there were decades of this type of bigotry that I think it's fair to say is now generally pretty low. Of course the "Muslim problem" gets stirred up by some of our more careless media sources, and in certain parts of say Burnley or east London, the likes of the BNP do get support. But as a general rule, with London as one of the great centres of multiculturalism, I think we are in much better situation than those non-whites in America. Although there are distinct problems with black communities over here, the levels of violence and such are still much lower than you find in America. That is a particular element I find hard to reconcile with America being this example of how race relations should be done. You look at somewhere like my old University, Queen Marys college in east London- part of the University of London, and the numbers of non-white students are sky high. Is there a comparable situation at a good University in America?

The only variable you miss out from your example is Jewish population within those countries.

Easy to include. Most of post-WWII continental Europe doesn't have that many Jews (duh), so we just have to leave out the US. Ex-communist countries are the most anti-Semitic: they have neo-Nazis even in areas where Jews were utterly wiped out. West Germany has far fewer neo-Nazis than East Germany. Finland may be the only country in Europe were Nazis have been allowed to run in elections post-WWII and Naziism is a joke. Countries like France with strict anti-Nazi laws elects Le Pen. Austria wants to put a man in jail for three years for his opinions (that's more than most European countries give for child rapists) and they elect Haider. We simply don't have people like that, apart from joke candidates that get a few hundred votes.

Undoubtedly, though, we're going to get some nasty racist politics now that we're going along with punishing people for wrong opinions on race and immigration. Authoritarianism breeds authoritarianism.

I simply think that films like this aim are aimed at people with pre-conceived negative views on muslims and immigrants, it serves no educational purpose, and incites further ignorance and hatred.

Yes, once again, it's "ignorance" to know something about Islam. I didn't actually see any errors or lies in the film. Of course it's propaganda - but it doesn't lie. It doesn't have to. It doesn't have to promote ignorance. It's enough to promote knowledge.

And once again, negative views of immigrants are automatically "preconcieved" and "ignorant", while the opposite never happens. Oops, no. I, for example, was pretty eagerly pro-immigration when I lived in a town that had three immigrants. Once I moved into the city and traveled a little, my preconcieved idea that all peoples are the same with just aesthetic differences like colour and languages started getting some serious challenges.

Once I started getting convinced against Third World mass immigration, I talked about it with the people I knew, from people who have hardly been abroad to people who've spent years in TW countries. Strangely, the more familiar people are with the potential immigrants, the more likely they are to think that TW mass immigration is a profoundly bad idea. And not because they "hated" the people they met. It's about whether we can insert a large minority of people who would kill their own daughter for falling in love in the world's most liberal countries and expect it all to work smoothly.

Perhaps I went over board in saying there should be legislation against, but you aren't having to deal with this far right anti-immigrant, anti-muslim, nationalist BNP types.

The reason we haven't had to deal with nasty "BNP types" so far has been that we haven't excluded anti-immigration sentiment and nationalism from respectable circles. The reason you have nasty BNP types is that you have declared things like anti-immigration opinions held by a very large proportion of the public nasty and unacceptable. If you spend a lot of effort demonizing anti-immigration opinions, you shouldn't be surprised to find out that only demonic politicians will come up to discuss immigration - or that a lot of good people will vote for those demonic figures because they're the only ones daring to address the issue.

You have the BNP because you deserve it.

Still, we seem to be eagerly dumping this integrationist, inclusive attitude on anti-immigration and nationalist sentiment and moving towards demonizing and excluding people. It's funny how the same people who can be terribly worried about what some short propaganda movie will do to alienate and radicalize Muslims are utterly unable to see how the massive propaganda against people who simply hold anti-immigration views might also alienate and radicalize a good chunk of your native population.

Surely the millions of jews in America, increasing interactions between semites and non-semites, plays a role in reduction of bigotry?

how does this make sense to you? do you even run through your assertions to do a quick "fact-check." familiarity does not necessarily (usually) breed amity. the areas where blacks and whites, or latinos or non-latinos, or asians and non-asians, are the most balanced in numbers are those areas where racial/ethnic tension is most salient.

Of course the "Muslim problem" gets stirred up by some of our more careless media sources, and in certain parts of say Burnley or east London, the likes of the BNP do get support. But as a general rule, with London as one of the great centres of multiculturalism, I think we are in much better situation than those non-whites in America.

a few points

1) i am to understand britain has greater, not less, speech than most of the continent

2) interesting that you assume race relations are better in the UK when native ethnic minorities (muslim pakistanis) have engaged in terrorist acts within the past few years and you have a homegrown white nationalist party of some note (we don't have one in the USA, note that even the anti-immigrant swell in the USA couldn't prevent john mccain, a pro-immigration republican, from being nominated).

3) as bert alluded to above, the muslim situation is different than the non-muslim situation. in all nations with large muslim and non-muslim colored minorities the muslim-majority relations have been far more fraught and muslims are, usually, more socially retarded than non-muslims. perhaps you might consider that not all non-whites are the same and that they bring their own baggage exogenous to the influence and impact that the majority white society has upon them? (i always find it interesting how racists tend to give non-whites more agency than anti-racist whites)

Finland may be the only country in Europe were Nazis have been allowed to run in elections post-WWII and Naziism is a joke.

Let's hope the Finnish Islamic Party works the same magic, then...

The Civil Rights movement was mostly about getting existing laws - the ones that required equal treatment -enforced. The laws passed with the intention of bringing about the goals of the movement by establishing protected classes have pretty much been failures.

And isn't that really what's happening here? Muslims are being declared a protected class, a subgroup with special rights and privileges that don't accrue to normal citizens.

I'm sure that will turn out well.

Muslims are being declared a protected class, a subgroup with special rights and privileges that don't accrue to normal citizens.

criticizing the health side effects of ubiquitous cousin-fucking is islamophobia! :-)

The Neonazis are not a problem in Europe, outside of East Germany.

Here in Denmark, we have more trouble with Hizb ut-Tahrir and with the radical left than we do with the 50-odd Nazis.

There's been a few terrorist bombings over the years, some by foreign Moslems against our Jews, some by "border crossing" terrorists against embassies from countries they don't like. Targets have been Turkey, Greece, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, amongst others.

All the recent homegrown civil unrest and bomb attacks, planned and actual, have been caused by Moslems and radical lefts.

(And most of the racism here is directed /from/ (recent) immigrants towards /other/ (recent) immigrants or ethnic Danes. Not that ethnic Danes can't be racists but they are NOT the main problem here.)

here's a hypothesis peter, some people can never weight the number of hostile colored people with hostile white people. IOW, i think to some extent many people have a reflexive assumption that 50 neonazis is way more terrifying than tens of thousands of colored people because neonazis are so powerful because they are white. i'm not saying this is empirically correct, but it think that's the underlying psychology. inversely, there are others who will overestimate the number of muslims in europe (there are about 15 million in he EU of 300 million, generally assuming that all people of muslim origin are actually religiously identified muslims) in their minds; the same phenomenon occurs in the united states where surveys regularly show that whites in mostly white areas tend to way overestimate the number of jews, blacks, etc. in the USA (e.g., the estimate for jews is on the order of 10% instead of 3%, blacks is 25% instead of 10%, and so on).

Ah, too bad here in the United States we aren't as progressive and liberal as those Europeans.

When I used to read and listen to Noam Chomsky's political stuff, I recall people asking what he thinks is good about the US, and that he frequently mentioned "free speech," and how awful the speech laws are outside of the US.

One time he tried to speak in Switzerland (probably on something anti-corporate, which Swiss industry wasn't too happy about), and was prevented.

British libel laws are notoriously bad too.

Of course, here we have something as bad, maybe worse -- the mainstream media has more control than the government over what people know. It's awful that anti-free speech protestors want to silence Dutch politicians, but that doesn't happen here because there is no American version of Geert Wilders.

What if our media allowed more understanding to get through, and someone like Steve Sailer got elected to a non-meaningless political office? We have stronger free speech laws, but the outrage would be similar to the Dutch case, I think. In the US, we cut off the outrage by not allowing an anti-illegal immigrant conversation to really develop, let alone get into office. In Europe, they let the outrage develop past this point, but then choke it off with anti-free speech legislation.

It's more seamless here.

I think. In the US, we cut off the outrage by not allowing an anti-illegal immigrant conversation to really develop, let alone get into office.

i think the second more than the former. see lou dobbs.

how does this make sense to you? do you even run through your assertions to do a quick "fact-check." familiarity does not necessarily (usually) breed amity. the areas where blacks and whites, or latinos or non-latinos, or asians and non-asians, are the most balanced in numbers are those areas where racial/ethnic tension is most salient.

I find it somewhat strange that assertions of opinion, neither of us is providing quantitative data/evidence, in my case is seen as being baseless and ridiculous yet your own is automatically viewed as being correct. A lot of problems related to religion-race-immigration in my opinion are due to insufficient understanding and not enough interaction with said "other" groups. I don't see why it is so outrageous to say that potentially the general lack of anti-semitic attitude in America may be linked to the fact that Jewish people are actually there, in your workplace, schools and in your favourite tv programs and films. You point to equal mixed communities as being those with greatest problems, although I'd wonder whether you would need to take into account the increased number of interactions as a factor (just as you take population size into account with crime stats, wouldn't "racial incidents" also be connected to population dynamics?).

2) interesting that you assume race relations are better in the UK when native ethnic minorities (muslim pakistanis) have engaged in terrorist acts within the past few years and you have a homegrown white nationalist party of some note (we don't have one in the USA, note that even the anti-immigrant swell in the USA couldn't prevent john mccain, a pro-immigration republican, from being nominated).

3) as bert alluded to above, the muslim situation is different than the non-muslim situation. in all nations with large muslim and non-muslim colored minorities the muslim-majority relations have been far more fraught and muslims are, usually, more socially retarded than non-muslims. perhaps you might consider that not all non-whites are the same and that they bring their own baggage exogenous to the influence and impact that the majority white society has upon them? (i always find it interesting how racists tend to give non-whites more agency than anti-racist whites)

The terrorist point is a trivialone. The actions of 10 people do not directly relate to a 2 million person group. To say that the actions of a tiny percentage of a population relate to a wider sociological context is just absurd. Regarding the nationalists, they are fringe mentalists but are so far from getting into power to make them nearly irrelevant (they simply can't get a member of parliament with their support). The mainland however.... look at Poland and Austria, they have had some incredibly extreme types not just in government but at times threatening to be elected to the centre stage.

3) as bert alluded to above, the muslim situation is different than the non-muslim situation. in all nations with large muslim and non-muslim colored minorities the muslim-majority relations have been far more fraught and muslims are, usually, more socially retarded than non-muslims. perhaps you might consider that not all non-whites are the same and that they bring their own baggage exogenous to the influence and impact that the majority white society has upon them? (i always find it interesting how racists tend to give non-whites more agency than anti-racist whites)

I'm fully aware that there isn't a one size fits all situation for all immigrant or non-white groups.

What is particularly interesting over here is the direction different cultural groups have gone in. The hindu-sikh Indian communities for example have integrated and excelled in business, academia, etc. Your Caribbean black communities struggled through the 70s and 80s, with a weird mix of those doing well and endemic problems with gangs, drugs, violence, absent fathers in the inner city urban parts. Then the bangladeshi muslim community is in disarray because of a lack of integration, religious extremism, problems with the younger generation (esp. drink and drugs).

Muslims are being declared a protected class, a subgroup with special rights and privileges that don't accrue to normal citizens.

The thing that worries me is that we are targeting Muslims for criticism that other groups would not attract for no other reason than outright bigotry.

Here in Denmark, we have more trouble with Hizb ut-Tahrir and with the radical left than we do with the 50-odd Nazis.

There is absolutely no doubt that the fundamentalist groups are a danger, a big danger, but I wonder how the tally would look if we put together casualties from racist violence compared to religious inspired violence.

You have a first-past-the-post system which is pretty effective at cutting radical minority opinions from politics. European politics has much more diversity of opinion. The fuss is about anti-immigration people, but the left has people that would also shock the hell out of the average American.

I don't see why it is so outrageous to say that potentially the general lack of anti-semitic attitude in America may be linked to the fact that Jewish people are actually there, in your workplace, schools and in your favourite tv programs and films.

you don't see why it's outrageous because you don't know much about jewish history. anti-semitism crops up where jews are a large and prominent presence. e.g., spain, poland, the ukraine or classical alexandria, and so forth. your assertion indicates you don't see this pattern because you don't know it.

The actions of 10 people do not directly relate to a 2 million person group.

of course they do. they're the tail of the distribution. if muslim communities in britain where totally quiescent there wouldn't be a danger of political radicalism. similarly, very few irish britons were involved with the IRA, but the terrorism from this segment was a reflection of broader dynamics of alienation and feelings of embitterment.

What is particularly interesting over here is the direction different cultural groups have gone in. The hindu-sikh Indian communities for example have integrated and excelled in business, academia, etc. Your Caribbean black communities struggled through the 70s and 80s, with a weird mix of those doing well and endemic problems with gangs, drugs, violence, absent fathers in the inner city urban parts. Then the bangladeshi muslim community is in disarray because of a lack of integration, religious extremism, problems with the younger generation (esp. drink and drugs).

if you want to get specific, you need to break down the "indian" communities. the secondary immigrants from east africa are different in SES from the sikhs and hindus who are direct migrants from south asia (not surprisingly the east african muslims, mostly ismailis, are similar to east african hindus). as for bangladeshis, i'm curious that you point to this group of muslims since unlike pakistanis they're mostly an immigrant community.

"you don't see why it's outrageous because you don't know much about jewish history. anti-semitism crops up where jews are a large and prominent presence. e.g., spain, poland, the ukraine or classical alexandria, and so forth. your assertion indicates you don't see this pattern because you don't know it."

I was talking about it in a context of the last century. Clearly if we go back through jewish history its a succession of pogroms and exiles, but what about the past hundred years? Prior to the second world war, shit even during it, Britain was actively anti-semitic and had a ban strict bans on refugees for a long while. But that anti-semitism has fallen drastically since then (although there are still an unacceptable number of attacks)- especially when you compare it to the anti-semitism present in parts of east Europe.

"of course they do. they're the tail of the distribution. if muslim communities in britain where totally quiescent there wouldn't be a danger of political radicalism. similarly, very few irish britons were involved with the IRA, but the terrorism from this segment was a reflection of broader dynamics of alienation and feelings of embitterment."

The IRA had massive local support, still does, but these violent fundamentalists? I'm not so sure.

"if you want to get specific, you need to break down the "indian" communities. the secondary immigrants from east africa are different in SES from the sikhs and hindus who are direct migrants from south asia (not surprisingly the east african muslims, mostly ismailis, are similar to east african hindus). as for bangladeshis, i'm curious that you point to this group of muslims since unlike pakistanis they're mostly an immigrant community."

The Bangladeshi immigrant community is the chosen example as it's the one I'm most familiar with (having lived for nearly three years in the biggest Bangladeshi community outside Bangladesh). Not to mention, I think the British-Pakistani community over here is more diverse politically and socially.

Oh yeah and this silliness again:

A lot of problems related to religion-race-immigration in my opinion are due to insufficient understanding and not enough interaction with said "other" groups.

Is the support for immigration among the native population higher in regions with a larger immigrant population or not? Even if they haven't done surveys, you can look at the level of support for anti-immigration parties. Is their support the highest in areas without a large immigrant population or not? Over here, it's consistently the opposite: the more interaction people have with Third World immigrants, the more they oppose further immigration. Everyone knows the far right gets the votes in those neighbourhoods that have Third World immigrants.

Naturally, the political establishment is totally baffled by this. "You'd think that people who live among the immigrants would be less prejudiced". Of course, most of those politicians are old people who live in their wealthy areas with few immigrants and no dysfunctional people of any colour, so all they have on the immigrants is their prejudice - which is that those Third Worlders are just exotically coloured Finns.

Besides, what are we going to do about immigrants and refugees who refuse to interact with the rest of society? A lot of Muslim groups refuse this to the women, half of the whole group, and the young men mainly "interact" with us in gangs. The worst of the groups has an 8 % employment rate, largely because they simply don't want to have anything to with our society. Now what?

Clearly if we go back through jewish history its a succession of pogroms and exiles, but what about the past hundred years? Prior to the second world war, shit even during it, Britain was actively anti-semitic and had a ban strict bans on refugees for a long while. But that anti-semitism has fallen drastically since then (although there are still an unacceptable number of attacks)- especially when you compare it to the anti-semitism present in parts of east Europe.

british anti (and philo) semitism has a complex history, but don't you observe that when the british jewry was a small group of sephards it was not viewed so hostility? it even produced disraeli. the rise of anti-semitism was partly fueled by the waves of ashkenazi migrants which were prominent in the east end.

attitudes to immigration
http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=258

so why do most ivorians really want to restrict immigration and south koreans not? i think you can guess why... (and it doesn't have to do with south korea not being a major receiving nation ;-)

attitudes toward immigration in europe
http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~hiscox/EducatedPreferences.pdf

"Is the support for immigration among the native population higher in regions with a larger immigrant population or not? Even if they haven't done surveys, you can look at the level of support for anti-immigration parties. Is their support the highest in areas without a large immigrant population or not? Over here, it's consistently the opposite: the more interaction people have with Third World immigrants, the more they oppose further immigration. Everyone knows the far right gets the votes in those neighbourhoods that have Third World immigrants."

The most deprived areas that have very recent immigration have the most extreme right sympathies, but generally throughout the London boroughs there is very little far right support. Places like Bradford are an example that would support your point, but there are numerous london borough's that would contradict.

"Naturally, the political establishment is totally baffled by this. "You'd think that people who live among the immigrants would be less prejudiced". Of course, most of those politicians are old people who live in their wealthy areas with few immigrants and no dysfunctional people of any colour, "

Whilst not disagreeing with you, my experience has been of the born and bred white british as being more dysfunctional and dangerous than coloured brothers from 'nother mothers.

"Besides, what are we going to do about immigrants and refugees who refuse to interact with the rest of society? A lot of Muslim groups refuse this to the women, half of the whole group, and the young men mainly "interact" with us in gangs. The worst of the groups has an 8 % employment rate, largely because they simply don't want to have anything to with our society. Now what?"

The major problem you are getting at, of anti-social behaviour, low unemployment, etc. is not a muslim or immigrant or non-white problem over here, but much more a social/economic problem. For example, I don't believe that poor communities have higher unemployment because of higher rates of lazyness.

The major problem you are getting at, of anti-social behaviour, low unemployment, etc. is not a muslim or immigrant or non-white problem over here, but much more a social/economic problem.

what is this supposed to mean? since when is religion, race, etc. not part of social and economic dynamics? the relative success of sikhs vs. pakistani muslims in britain has many upstream parameters, but do you totally discount the possibility that pakistani muslims from mirpur have become attracted to a more adversarial cultural outlook vis-a-vis the white majority as compared to the sikhs perhaps due to the religious difference? (i.e., 2nd gen pakistan muslims idealizing and identifying with an ummah which they conceive of as antipodal to the west)

(though the riot at the theater a few years back shows sikhs can be pretty savage primitives too when their "religious sensibilities" are aroused)

The major problem you are getting at, of anti-social behaviour, low unemployment, etc. is not a muslim or immigrant or non-white problem over here,

And "anti-social behaviour" is much higher among Muslims and certain other immigrant groups. The issue doesn't go away no matter how many times you rename it.

Let's try an experiment. I'll tell you about three randomly selected immigrant groups without naming the ethnicities. We have

A) a group that has a lower unemployment rate as the native population and consistently lower crime rates than the natives

B) a group that consistently has an unemployment rate 2-3 times that of the natives and serious overrepresantation in minor property crime but practically identical rates of rape, murder and other serious crimes as the natives

C) a group that is practically not working (only 8 % work and obviously much of those that do are government-paid jobs like translators and religious leaders that are now considered essential to integration and also paid by the government), overrepresented in almost all forms of crime and especially staggeringly overrepresented in pedophilia and rapes

If I told you that these groups are, in a randomized order, Russians, Somalis and Chinese, would anyone have trouble guessing which one is which? Of course not. The same patterns are repeated rather consistently around the world - the A group almost always succeeds spectacularily (and is frequently persecuted for it by the natives) while group C always fails spectacularily. Why? I don't know. Race, religion, whatever, all we know is that it has to be something about them, since the pattern gets repeated wherever they go.

From my experience, though, I do know that most or all members of the worst group seem to loathe Finns and Finland and the ones in Sweden loathe Swedes and Sweden... in fact, they hate everyone else, having frequent gang fights with other immigrants regardless of race or religion. Why are they like that? How should I know - and why would I care? Obviously, we should just start importing some other group.

but much more a social/economic problem.

And why do the "social/economic problems" of immigrant groups vary so widely?

Jaakkeli,

I hope you guys will find he courage to deal with the "3rd group". No country deserves to be wrecked by those people who don't seem to respect anyone else but themselves. Could you believe that even in africa they have a terrible reputation ? A congolese-born colleague told me about how they (always refugees !) were known to be extremely clannish, violent and totally untrustworty in countries like Kenya, Tanzanya and the Congo.

We now know that culture and society actually shapes people all the way down into their genome. What i know of somali society doesn't make me think that civic minded, altruistic , reserved , shy people are to be commonly found among them. Why should the Finns be forced to live with people who will be as predators among prey ?

To paraphrase Voltaire:
I do not agree with what he has to say, but I'll defend to the death his right to say it.

That said Wilders achieved his goal when the world went nuts after he announced his goal of making this movie. Protests, threats, debates about muzzling him. It would be good for us (that is the Dutch) to talk about why we reacted this excessively before the world had even seen the movie.

That won't happen though seeing the schizophrenic approach towards Islam. On one side there is a lot more criticism allowed (a protester took a screed penned by Wilders then changed all references to Jews and Judaism and was promptly arrested for being an anti-semite), on the other hand criticism like the movie (nothing more then a bad version of Expelled) isn't allowed.

"but I'll defend to the death his right to say it."

this is really stupid. who would DIE for 'free speech'. you die for family or something, not an abstract concept. idiots die for shit like that. i prefer galileo, fine, you're right, whatever, where do i sign, now let me get on with my fucking life.

"what is this supposed to mean? since when is religion, race, etc. not part of social and economic dynamics? the relative success of sikhs vs. pakistani muslims in britain has many upstream parameters, but do you totally discount the possibility that pakistani muslims from mirpur have become attracted to a more adversarial cultural outlook vis-a-vis the white majority as compared to the sikhs perhaps due to the religious difference? (i.e., 2nd gen pakistan muslims idealizing and identifying with an ummah which they conceive of as antipodal to the west)

(though the riot at the theater a few years back shows sikhs can be pretty savage primitives too when their "religious sensibilities" are aroused)"

My point was purely supposed to be that Muslim immigrants are not the only groups who have had problems integrating. Funnily enough Pakistani Muslims communities, at least those that have been around for a while (and aren't full of new immigrants), actually do pretty well over here. It's the new immigrants who tend to be more ignorant, separate, etc. Then again they (esp. west Pakistani) often have a lot more money than other Muslim groups....

"And "anti-social behaviour" is much higher among Muslims and certain other immigrant groups. The issue doesn't go away no matter how many times you rename it."

You are getting dangerously close to immigration based on race aren't you? Regarding Somalians, I've noticed that for two areas of London (Southall and Whitechapel) the two groups are completely different. The first very violent with major crime problems, the second not at all. Also, an Ethiopian told me something that contrasts to your Congolese friend: that Somalians are better known for financial crimes than violent ones. Not sure if I believe him on that, it struck me as a bit daft.

"And why do the "social/economic problems" of immigrant groups vary so widely?"

A lot of Somalians have endured warfare in their upbringing, don't you think that might affect their immigrant communities and behaviour?

I think it's better to try and understand and solve a problem rather than just label it a racial-genetic thing and ignore it (or "send them home").

"To paraphrase Voltaire:
I do not agree with what he has to say, but I'll defend to the death his right to say it."

To be honest I don't know why I got so riled up in the first place, I'm just fed up with the amount of Muslim bashing (in particular for us from the daily mail group). Clearly you can't legislate free speech, the best way to deal with this sort of nonsense is to not turn up to watch the film.

I'm just fed up with the amount of Muslim bashing (in particular for us from the daily mail group).

does christian bashing bother you as much?

"does christian bashing bother you as much?"

There is nowhere near the same ignorance, media bias, etc. to the christian groups over here, as you well know.

A lot of Somalians have endured warfare in their upbringing, don't you think that might affect their immigrant communities and behaviour?

No. The ones grown up in Finland are not better. Besides, Finland has absorbed a bigger refugee population than any Western state. Many of my older relatives are refugees. Strangely, warfare and ethnic cleansing did not magically turn them into criminals and no one would've swallowed that excuse, even though they had obvious traumas that had transformed their personalities.

I think it's better to try and understand and solve a problem rather than just label it a racial-genetic thing and ignore it (or "send them home").

It's not merely a racial thing: Africans from other regions are doing much, much better.

Still, the largest problem in this isn't the Somalis, it's the spineless response of the state and the left-wing human rights wackoes. It's even worse in Britain, but the facts get drowned in the news in a larger country. It's so bad that the Americans reading this will likely never believe it. Here's an example: the career of a Somali man called Abdigadir Osman Hussein who arrived in Finland in the early 1990s.

His first exploit in Finland was to rape a 13-year-old girl at knifepoint. Now, you might think that we're some barbarian country that puts him in jail for a long time or maybe even deports a foreigner, but no, we're nice and civilized, so he got the usual slap on the wrist. Of course the fascist police tried to deport him, but it was gloriously blocked by the good human rights people (who of course never fight the deportation of a white person).

His second exploit was to mutilate a 15-year-old girl (a friend of someone I used to know, so I heard the details) with a knife in broad daylight. The girl died. You'd think that we'd get all severe on him, maybe even deport him, but, again, we're so nice and civilized. Of course the fascist police again tried to deport him, but the deportation was again gloriously blocked by human rights people (who of course never fight the deportation of a white person).

Sadly, he has spent a lot of time in prison since then, but since we do not live in a barbarian state, we allow him a vacation every once in a while. Of course, on his latest unsupervised vacation from prison, he did rape a 4-year-old, so many bigots and fascists again might want to deport him, but now he's safe, because he has been granted citizenship.

I'm so glad we don't live in a bigoted racist-fascist state like America. Did you know that in America they actually punish criminals with sentences that last much longer than a year or that they deport foreign pedophiles? I've heard that sometimes the Americans even refuse to grant citizenship to murderous pedophiles in prison. The savages! I'm so happy to live in a liberal state that's nice to everyone.

Some nasty fascist might suggest that one major reason Europeans are so hostile to foreigners is that our states are actually obsessed with being extra nice towards foreign criminals. Hussein's protected race guaranteed from the start that he was impossible to deport and impossible to keep in prison. Of course, many evil racists suggest that the Americans accommodate immigrants better precisely because Americans don't try to accommodate hopeless foreign criminals. In the US, his spree would've been stopped by deportation or maybe even the death penalty. Can you imagine?

We practically *collect* scum like Hussein. Most of Europe is the same. We have to avoid the foreigners with special skin colour, because we know that our states do very little to repeat foreign criminals if they have the special colour protection.

Let me guess, Finn's don't do crime either?

Being half-icelandic I am more than aware of the failings of the liberal criminal justice system, but paedophilia, rape and murder were present long before the immigrants.

Let me guess, Finn's don't do crime either?

Are you going to throw me every inane bit of illogic I've ever seen from the multicultist loonies?

Actually, in addition to the mere spike in crime, we've also imported crimes that Finns just didn't do, like gang rapes involving mutilation. It didn't happen, now it happens. Guess who's doing it? Hint: it's not the Chinese or the Russians. These are the kinds of incidents that we would've been speaking about for a century as notorious, rare cases if they had been done by Finns. Now we try not to talk about them.

Being half-icelandic I am more than aware of the failings of the liberal criminal justice system, but paedophilia, rape and murder were present long before the immigrants.

Yet certain immigrant groups are vastly overrepresented in pedophilia, rape and murder. The overrepresentation in rape is so especially staggering that the small number of immigrants from the Middle East and Africa are now responsible for most of the rapes in many northern European countries. Over here, we're only up to 40 %, with our tiny immigrant population that's largely made up of Russians who only have the same rate of rape Finns have.

Could it *possibly* have something to do with immigrants from extremely patriarchal countries seeing simply nothing wrong at all with raping independent Western women? I've tried discussing this with some Muslim men. Some are more enlightened... and some are worse than medieval. They prevent premarital affairs by cutting and sewing up women. They marry by arrangement: the idea of a woman's consent is alien to them. They believe that Westerners make women fair game by allowing them all this liberty, you see. Somalis have in fact campaigned as a community against punishment for rapists. Since they don't see anything wrong with raping Western women, punishing Somalis for rape is, of course, Finnish racism!

Similarily, we've seen Somalis insist that the Finnish justice system is oppressively racist because Somalis who beat up their wives and daughters for getting the wrong ideas are actually punished (even if it's just the usual slap on the wrist). They say it's just normal in Somali culture: keeping women in line is essential to them. We hear all this from the Somalis themselves. The smarter ones among them realize how this looks like to Finns, but they can't shut up the rest. It's all out in the open if you follow something other than government news (and many left-wing Finns only follow government TV, of course, since it's not at all like the crass American-style private media that actually reports incidents that don't fit the party line).

Could the explosion of rapes and violence against women *possibly* have something to do with this?

How about the explosion in violence and intimidation against Jews and gays in many European countries? Could it possibly have something to do with the attitudes of some immigrant groups documented in, for example, Wilders' silly little film?

Could European "racism" possibly have some understandable and simple "root causes"?

Let me guess, Finn's don't do crime either?

You're throwing up a strawman. No one is saying that Finns (or members of any other European group) don't commit crimes. The issue is one of disproportionality.

I think it's better to try and understand and solve a problem rather than just label it a racial-genetic thing and ignore it (or "send them home").

But what if part of the problem is based in race and genes? We know there's a significant inverse correlation between IQ and crime (i.e. the lower the individual's IQ, the higher his odds are of commiting a crime). We know that IQ is largely hereditary among individuals. We know that African-Americans score about one standard deviation lower than white Americans on IQ tests, and that this gap persists across all socioeconomic levels and even in cases of transracial adoption where black kids are raised from the ages of 1 or 2 by white parents. It isn't a huge stretch from what we know to supposing that rates of criminality are going to vary among ethnic groups because of innate differences in intelligence.

You can't talk about understanding a problem then completely dismiss part of the equation as "racist" and beyond the pale.

Uh... if I'm starting to sound like a cranky racist, it's because I'm starting to feel like a cranky racist.

Given what's going on, how can I not feel it? The desire to just declare "screw it, I'm through with understanding, let's fight" is great when all your attempts at understanding are met with demonization and dismissal by people who think "natives commit crime too" makes a reasonable argument. If I speak of the issue, I'm a racist anyway, so what is the motivation to strive for understanding and moderation? There isn't any.

That's just what applies to Wilders: why would he bother being any more considerate? He'll be considered a far right provocateur no matter what he does. Someone more civil who would address the same issues would be demonized just as eagerly, so such people just don't appear. Yet these are feelings that we all feel. All normal people feel the nasty impulses when they hear of these events. When I heard of 9/11, I wanted the West to go smash these people really bad in righteous anger. When I hear of immigrants like the one I mentioned above, my reaction is similarily unprintable.

The current schizophrenic politics in the West comes much from a fantasy that we could somehow deny these feelings and engineer them out from our societies. People like Wilders get the nasty reaction because they break the fantasy by refusing to go along and pretend. People like me who are too socially inept to go along with what we're supposed to feel the call of radicalism, because, well, why not? They all think I'm a radical anyway.

Is crime disproportionate for ethnic groups or for poor groups?

For race and IQ, is it possible to separate money and environment from ethnic groups?

I see a lot of students from private and state schools: the former get better A-level grades (pre-college taken at 18) but is that because they are all cleverer, or because they tend to come from richer families who pay for private education and private education allows for smaller classes, more one-to-one time with students, better facilities, etc. which leads to better grades?

This leads back to the crime thing: why are some immigrant populations better at integrating, or being "successful", whilst others seem prone to violence? You could argue money isn't the issue but its ethnic/genetic, or vice versa, or indeed accept it for the incredibly complex thing it is that has multiple interacting factors.

Jaakkeli

Out of interest how are the Polish immigrants settling in? Same problems as the Somalians?

This is why argument is pointless, it truly NEVER GETS ANYWHERE. No-one is ever convinced. I prefer Razib's opinion of what constitutes a conversational thread - something along the lines of a general increase in knowledge about the subject at hand, not an endless circle of blather.

Not many people know as well as me where Wilders gets his artistic ability from.

You see I am an 84 year old man and I used to know Wilders' mother who gave me many hours of pleasure with her lips and tongue and I did miss her so much until I found someone else who could fill the void that was left from the lack of her presence.

I don't mean to cause offense but it's important for the world to know the facts and that I should be able to express myself without fear.

Also I don't hate Wilders, I just hated his father who provided the genes that resulted in this mass of protoplasm that couldn't find anything better to do with his life

Then either we need an explicit set of standards by which everyone agrees to judge arguments, with arguments that fail to measure up being discarded... or we need to start excluding the proponents of positions from our discussions.

That's assuming we want to have discussions on the topic. Since our collective societies will collapse unless some group of people is capable of determining the truth on these matters, if everyone decides to avoid the issue, all is lost.

Monkeyman,

You're avoiding the question, which is really quite simple: Given that blacks score, on average, 15 points lower than whites on IQ tests across socioeconomic levels, and given that low IQ is a very strong predictor of criminality across socioeconomic levels, is it reasonable to predict that blacks will have, on average, a higher rate of criminality than whites?

It's a yes or no question.

And before you go on about how complex the issue of criminality and ethnicity is, I'm not trying to encapsulate the entire issue in this one question. I'm asking you to focus on ONE facet of this complex issue.

I could be wrong Marc but I'm not sure the work you are referring too is as cast iron as you are making it out to be. Are we talking about work published by Satoshi Kanazawa?

Out of interest how are the Polish immigrants settling in?

There are only about a thousand Poles in Finland (if you ask me why, you'll get another very long very off-topic rant about our idiot politicians) and they apparently don't have the crime statistics for such small groups on the net. But it should be easy to guess:

Same problems as the Somalians?

Eastern Europeans tend to repeat the same crime statistics: they're overrepresented in such things theft, but they're mostly the same as Finns in violent crime or sex crime. This is easily predictable: they're poorer, so the temptation is greater, but they have largely the same values regarding violence and sexual relations. Their unemployment rates are nowhere near Muslim levels.

Really. It's not that hard. In some countries, they punish women who get raped. Clearly, they have some very different ideas on relations of the sexes (which are also not that hard to understand if you try - not that understanding makes me any more accepting). Mixing people with such a background with some of the world's most liberal societies is pure trouble - and that works both ways: if we inserted a large population of Finns into these countries, they would not fit in and they'd be hated by the locals for acting like Finns.

(The left thinks that we can solve this by "education on women's rights". The answer to this is to ask whether Westerners who move to these countries could be "educated on women's non-rights"? Of course not: they might learn to follow the laws, but they'd still despise the laws and the society that respects them. This works both ways.)

Understanding these patterns is really not very hard at all.

I truly hope that one day those backwards societies will start moving towards civilization. If so, *then* I would welcome migration from these countries. In fact, there are many Third World countries who have made moves towards abandoning even their most fundamental traditions that have turned counterproductive - for example, India has been working to abolish the caste system, no matter how much the assault on traditions insults the rural population. They've realized that it's partly their culture that keeps them down and they're trying to dump the traditions that no longer make sense. For that reason alone, the future of India looks much, much brighter than the future of Pakistan, considering how hard it is to reform Muslim countries. That's hardly a racial thing.

Islam, for whatever reason, is particularily likely to resist modernization. Why? I don't know for sure, but I know for sure that it's true. As long as it remains so, it is simply not a good idea to import Muslims in masses (and of course there are differences between Muslim countries, so we could open up migration from them as they progress). I hope that Islam can change on that - but until it does, I think it's necessary to resist immigration.

Monkeyman, will you please just answer the question? I'd prefer to know whether you agree that it's reasonable to assume higher criminality among blacks than whites given the conditions outlined in the question before discussing whether the research supports those conditions.

I could be wrong Marc but I'm not sure the work you are referring too is as cast iron as you are making it out to be. Are we talking about work published by Satoshi Kanazawa?

it's an old robust finding. you can disagree as to what it's causal origin is, but the 10-15 difference is well known (somewhat smaller in the UK).

Jaakkeli, thanks for that post. It's an interesting one. I asked about the Polish because I notice in Iceland they are getting very worried about Polish (and Lithuanian) immigrants and crime, but I take on board what you are saying.

Marc, until you separate between cause and effect with IQ then this discussion is redundant. You seem awfully over excited to be able to link race, IQ, and criminality. Well its one thing if you can do that with a strong scientific method that also considers all these extra (socioeconomic) factors, but I'm not aware that this is the case with current knowledge.

Razib- I'm aware that the data shows that, but I'm also aware that poverty, education, etc. are going to interfere with any correlation which is one of the main reasons so many people are reluctant to take the whole thing that seriously.

TheMonkeyMan clearly believes that all humans are the same, and that any differences between them are externally imposed. Any difficulty with getting a particular subgroup to fit into a society clearly cannot be due to any properties they have, but because society is either not taking advantage of the universal human malleability or is molding people counterproductively.

The more failure there is, the more society as a whole must be restrained, with only the proper methods permitted, to ensure that things work they way TheMonkeyMan is convinced they can and will.

I accept that there are differences between groups, but for big things like intelligence & crime if you are linking "race" to one of them then the evidence has to be very strong. It is purely good science to account for external factors that could have an effect on results.

It strikes me you are getting awfully close to (attempting to)explain social and behavioural traits with purely genetic determinism arguments.

Jesus, you people have me sounding like a fucking social anthropologist now.

there's no need for racial determinism, that's why i brought up the example of the sikhs vs. mirpuris. these are two groups which are basically racially indistinguishable, like the difference between bavarians and austrians in terms of genetics. but their outcomes and relationship to the rest of society has varied. why? i think the nature of islam at this point in history explains at (as opposed to the nature of sikhism). perhaps you are interested in banning hate speech which is purely scurrilous, but many muslims are not. they want to ban insults to their religion broadly construed. you seem to be not inclined to err on the side of speech in this case, but i certainly am.

consider the assimilation of greeks vs. turks in europe. what's the difference? genetically not so much. they don't even look that different to most northern europeans. the difference is that a subset of turks identify with a religion where a large proportion seem themselves in an adversarial relationship to "immoral" western culture. femnists and leftists talk about patriarchy justifying the objectification of women, but they don't seem to place appropriate pressure upon the norms which are extant within the muslim communities now resident in the west.

To be honest I spoke to rashly in the first instance, as the arguments for free speech are strong and forms of protectionism for certain groups (in this case Muslims) probably won't help anyone. The racial determinism was more in reaction to the intelligience-IQ-race stuff.

The argument regarding Indian Sikhs-Mulsims or Greeks-Turks is certainly a strong one. The only group that automatically springs to mind in terms of contradicting it would be the Kurds and Albanian Muslims, the first integrating well over here and the latter being not quite as bad as some of the other Balkans radiations. But generally, yes there is clearly a problem that requires addressing.

Albanian Muslims

should be albanian "muslim." after all, this is a very secular group. in any case, 20% of albanians are of xtian origin, it would be interesting to compare the two groups. in the USA i'm pretty sure christian south asians (a large minority) are WAY MORE likely to be republican than non-christian south asians.

The Finnish Somalis seem to be a much worse bunch than the Danish Somalis :(

Ours are generally nice, sweet, and polite. They also don't work, can't read, don't bother to learn Danish or English, have no ambition, stick to themselves, get an enormous gaggle of kids, etc.

Or at least, that's how the second, huge influx of Somali immigrants (refugees) are. They generally have a background as shepherds with a few years of school, if even that.

The first one was much smaller and happened 20-30 years ago and consisted of people from the cities who usually had something like a high school background. I am not aware of any problems with those.

There does not seem to be a massive rape problem with any of our Somalis (outside of arranged/forced marriages, of course) and the "circumcisions" of their daughters seem to have mostly stopped due to 1) a law that explicitly made it illegal and 2) the people of the first wave spending lots and lots of time and energy educating those of the first wave. That and HIV education seems to be the top priorities of the Danish Somali organization (headed by a first-waver).

The guy even has his own Wikipedia page: Abdigadir Osman Hussein.

Unfortunately, I don't read Finnish (and neither does anybody else, statistically speaking). Any chance of a translation?

How old is the bastard? If he was below 15 when he did his first crime he wouldn't have been put in jail here, either, but he would have been locked up. It would just happen in another system, outside of the courts and the criminal system. And although our laws were more lenient stupid back in the nineties, I don't see how he would have gotten citizenship here. He would not have a snowball's chance in hell of receiving citizenship today -- but I don't think we could deport him, however much we would want to.

(Or alternatively, put North Eastern Greenland to good use...)

He most likely has refugee status and the grounds for that are still valid (they still fight in Somalia) + even if Somalia were peaceful, his life could be in danger if he was shipped back, precisely because of his crimes + neither Somalia (or the UN representatives there) nor Somaliland (where there's actually peace) would agree to take him back.
Even he weren't scum, they probably wouldn't take him. We have been trying for quite some time to send back Somalis whom we did not grant asylum.

I'm afraid you are bound by all sorts of human rights conventions to keep him :(

(We would. They have been incorporated into Danish law almost on the same level as the constitution. They are no longer just treaties, they are actually law that all other laws must comply with.)

ok...the value has been extracted from this thread. i'm closin' (oh, don't worry, we'll revisit this topic, inshallah).