Arab Refugees In Europe

Arab refugees’ migration to the west has raised questions of how they have adapted and fitted in Europe and Us Western cultural values. The Arabic world consists of several ethnic, cultural, and geographic populations. The Arab population has increased rapidly in Europe and North America in the past 20 years. There is a relatively growing Arab population in the United States, although a large proportion is urban based. Towards the 20th century, there were approximately thirty-five million Arabs in Europe and North America.

Arabs find adapting to other cultures very hard and therefore they have not been satisfied by the strange culture .Therefore they have not been adapting to new western culture with ease As a result, some Arabs who are Muslims have been fighting to claim some portion of cultural ownership in Europe and US. Muslims have different religious traditions but use a common language which is Arabic.

They also have similar religious beliefs according to Koran .The most fundamental forms of these common beliefs are pilgrimage, prayer, fasting, alms-giving, and profession of faith.

The cultural challenges Arab refugees got on entry to Europe and US When the Arabs arrived in Europe and US, the westerners wanted to secularize the Muslims culture and then the Muslims disagreed about the western making their culture secular. This is to mean that the Muslims stood firm for their culture. This involved a group of new Muslim intellectuals rising up and defending their culture by citing ideologies with regard to Koran that were against the western culture ideologies.

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The intellectuals are so strongly opposing westernization until a time when the whole defensive mechanism was named as “a holding operation against modernity” This raised an uproar since this declaration implied that Muslims were not modern in their religion and they felt despised.

At the same time, majority of the Europeans and the US people were not ready to cope with the developing Muslim culture of Arabs. Since Europe and US were the host and they had resources, they distributed the resources unevenly especially to population that had majority being Arabs as a way to discourage Muslim culture and encourage the western that majorly practised Christianity beliefs. These differences led to great hostility and war between the host countries and the immigrants with an aim of reaching a consensus. None of the two groups was willing to cope with the religion of the other. This has led to a lot crises resulting from the Arab refugees entering the Europe and the US. One french catholic historian called Jaques cautioned the Christian on the prevailing stories from islams declaring islam as the only true religion in the region.Jaques said that this was just an illussion that ws being put in place to lure the people of Europe and US from their staunch christian beliefs.

Some other Islam leaders have also been fighting to make their religion an international or global religion. Recently some leaders like Mufti and Nasr Fareed Wasil of Egypt said affirmed that Islam should not be barred from being made global. Therefore this was an implication that all Europe and US residents were required to comply. More recently, Egypt’s Sunni leader or Mufti, Nasr Fareed Wasil, affirmed that Islam should not be reticent in developing its case for globalization. It was also argued that Muslims should not fear to globalize Islam as a religion. This was to make sure that Muslims benefited from all the progresses in science, economics and wealth of the Europe and the US. All these efforts were made by Muslims to make sure they do not dissolve in the world and lose their identity in terms of culture. Away from all the above discussions, Muslims and western people have been having dialogues quietly that are aimed at solving the cultural differences.

In that connection, it follows that the success or failure to reach a consensus will determine whether the two cultures will be blended together to form one. Some strategies may also be formed to see how the two cultures can coexist in the west. The two antagonistic beliefs here are the Western secular model that privileges a rational, reasoning mind in the pursuit of individual and collective fulfillment; and Islam’s model emphasizes justice and tradition as the basis of a legitimate community and family life. How people of Europe and the US refereed the refugees Islam culture as demonic The messages and images shown by the western media in Europe and US perceived as cultural invasion Muslims criticized the western media because of their invasiveness. This is because the contents were so much demeaning to the culture. Of Muslims .In this connection, one time it was argued in the communication technologies that a Muslim is as disgusted just the way he is confused with his inability to shape reality around him.

It was also added that a Muslim no longer challenge what is re al and unreal and also it was said that he cannot separate reality from the illusion of the media. Some Muslims have also developed ,through struggle their own means of mass communication to counter the western theories of communication. This has not been welcomed by the western people and it has caused more struggle. The people of west do not want acculturation of ethnic groups but they have been aiming at making their culture dominant in the region .What leaders from the Muslim feared was now that media had succeeded in painting Islam religion negative images, it would go ahead and even change the Muslim character. There are two levels that Muslims have been demonized by the western people, They are regarded in media programs as religious zealots, terrorists, or, fundamentalists. Another level is that some Western cultural practices, including, gambling, permissive sexual activities , drinking alcohol and are very much against Muslim moral and ethical values.

Television was highly condemned by Muslims because it highly conveyed the then said modernist messages in the most enticing ways directly to Islamic homes. According to Islamic beliefs, This encouraged poor morality and urgent satisfaction by portraying love and its pleasures highest in rank. Americans produced books like the one called the Parents Manual to guide the Islamic parents on American customs so they the parents and their children do not go contrary to American customs. In the book, instructed not to celebrate birthdays because they are a sign of selfishness to the individuals holding the celebrations. Although most American holidays have been secularized in the book, some like Christmas and Easter assist manufacturers and merchants to earn a lot of dollars because the American culture allows the exchange of gifts.

Again, in the same book, mixed gender activities such as dating, dancing and swimming were regarded as sexual permissive activities. Among the harmful television programs that were to be avoided by Muslim children and adults were like illicit sex themed programs to do with sex ,inclusive of comedies, crime, sadism, depravity and any other that was thought to be lowering the worth of religion, morality and dignity of humans. Recently, Europe and US have started Western values classes to teach the Arab immigrants about their culture so as to cope with the new habitat .However a dialogues between Muslim leaders and Western leaders is being done to see whether to make these classes for Muslims compulsory or not. If agreed to make the classes compulsory then all the immigrant Arab refugees will be forced to drop their culture and follow western culture without fail. Incase no consensus is reached then culture conflict will persist .

References

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