There's an interesting Foreign Policy article on arab immigrant success challenging cultural notions about the backwardness of arabs. It's interesting, if incomplete. What's unexamined is that part of arab culture is the culture of creating and supporting a political class to rule their own societies. That part of arab culture is indisputably backwards and in desperate need of reform.
Comparing US arab immigrants to EU arab immigrants points out another ruling class culture issue. Both EU and US elite cultures create advantages for arabs over their home states, thus both have rising arab populations. The differences are striking when you compare these immigrant populations to each other. The US arab immigrants actually are slightly better off than the general US level across several key statistics of income and education while the EU populations do significantly worse than average for their own population.
This EU inability to foster conditions for thriving minorities would not matter much if native population fertility would be sufficient to maintain numbers or grow. Sub-replacement level fertility means that immigrants have to be welcomed and integrated. Here, the US has it all over our european friends and the arab statistics tell the tale.
Posted by TMLutas at May 5, 2005 12:12 PM