• Thanks for stopping by. Logging in to a registered account will remove all generic ads. Please reach out with any questions or concerns.

Hamas invaded Israel 2023

  • Thread starter Thread starter McG
  • Start date Start date
At risk of continuing this tangent, most immigrant experiences change after the 3rd (if you’re counting the folks actually immigrating as 1st) generation.

1st generation: Tied to homelands generally
2nd generation: 50/50, trying to balance “old country” culture and Canadian culture
3rd generation: Pretty much Canadian culture, with smattering of ties to ethnicity

This is why the 2nd generation has a “bridge” mentality and is pulled in various directions - their parents want them to respect and follow the old country traditions, while their peers want them to be Canadian. I am a 2nd generation immigrant and while I can explain it to folks easily enough, it is tough to let go of those ”old country” traditions that may conflict with current Canadian culture.

OK, I’ll stop now.
I think that there is a little more to it than that and the nature of the culture that you come from and go into has a lot to do with that.

My family immigrated from Germany in the late 50's when I was eight years old. My parents had a few cultural ties back to Germany - every Sunday morning they listened to a German language radio program in Toronto, occasionally went to the German club for a night out and we mostly ate German food at home. But that's about as far as it went for them. In all other respects they lived a standard Canadian life.

For me there was no real connection with Germany. I gave up lederhosen and corduroy pants within a few weeks and within three months was speaking fluid English - by six months any trace of an accent was gone. I had absolutely zero connection to Germany although I think that I have a genetic predisposition to well-hopped beer and knackwurst. I knew several other German immigrants my age and they all went the same way. Within six months we were fully Canadianized.

It strikes me that the further your culture is off from what we consider a "standard" Canadian culture, the stronger the ties to that old culture are and the longer it takes to leave it behind especially if many of those cultural mores are routinely practiced at home. I think that may be especially true for visible minorities where there is an outward appearance of being "different" from the adopting culture. I have a niece who has now lived in Japan for over thirty years, married a Japanese man, and still has not been assimilated. She's fully adopted the culture, but still feels very much like an outsider.

🍻
 
It strikes me that the further your culture is off from what we consider a "standard" Canadian culture, the stronger the ties to that old culture are and the longer it takes to leave it behind especially if many of those cultural mores are routinely practiced at home. I think that may be especially true for visible minorities where there is an outward appearance of being "different" from the adopting culture. I have a niece who has now lived in Japan for over thirty years, married a Japanese man, and still has not been assimilated. She's fully adopted the culture, but still feels very much like an outsider.
Agreed. As a visible minority, even if you’re assimilated into Canadian culture there will be instances (good or ill-will, doesn’t matter) that you just “look different”.

As for your niece, lets just say Japan isn’t super interested in assimilating folks who don’t look like them (Japanese). Asian countries have a spectrum of views towards others of different ethnicities, but someone who doesn’t look Asian but can speak the language, etc is more of a cultural oddity. Japanese society will be super interested that she can speak, read, etc Japanese but I don’t think the public would consider her “Japanese”, more “a different-ethnic person who happens to know Japanese”.
 
Background on why many Arab nations have little time for Palestinians:

I saw this first hand in Lebanon nd in North Sinai.

The Palestinian Refugee areas of Beirut were very much containerized by the LAF. Check Points, infrastructure was diverted around those areas, and it was very much a "blight on our landscape" take from the Lebanese. What Israel is doing in Gaza is common place throughout the Levant.

In Sinai, the EAF have been essentially fighting off the Palestinians for decades. They made peace with Israel, got what they wanted (Sinai) in the Camp David Accords, and have found it more profitable to keep the peace. Anything to upset that apple cart is quashed with ferver. North Sinai is an active COIN environment, and the EAF have removed entire towns off the map (El Arish comes to mind) to deter it. Far from the "Club Med" MFO deployments of yesteryear.
 
I have a niece who has now lived in Japan for over thirty years, married a Japanese man, and still has not been assimilated. She's fully adopted the culture, but still feels very much like an outsider.

That has more to do with Japan. The Japanese are very polite, but super racist. Some businesses simply do not allow non-Japanese people, and a lot of people will insist on speaking the most broken English and refuse to speak Japanese to non-Japanese people.
 
I think that there is a little more to it than that and the nature of the culture that you come from and go into has a lot to do with that.

My family immigrated from Germany in the late 50's when I was eight years old. My parents had a few cultural ties back to Germany - every Sunday morning they listened to a German language radio program in Toronto, occasionally went to the German club for a night out and we mostly ate German food at home. But that's about as far as it went for them. In all other respects they lived a standard Canadian life.

For me there was no real connection with Germany. I gave up lederhosen and corduroy pants within a few weeks and within three months was speaking fluid English - by six months any trace of an accent was gone. I had absolutely zero connection to Germany although I think that I have a genetic predisposition to well-hopped beer and knackwurst. I knew several other German immigrants my age and they all went the same way. Within six months we were fully Canadianized.

It strikes me that the further your culture is off from what we consider a "standard" Canadian culture, the stronger the ties to that old culture are and the longer it takes to leave it behind especially if many of those cultural mores are routinely practiced at home. I think that may be especially true for visible minorities where there is an outward appearance of being "different" from the adopting culture. I have a niece who has now lived in Japan for over thirty years, married a Japanese man, and still has not been assimilated. She's fully adopted the culture, but still feels very much like an outsider.

🍻
plus our governments starting with Trudeau Sr. have pushed the post-national concept. You are a global citizen and there is nothing intrinsically unique about being Canadian. I think that attitude is a great part of our problem. Dual citizenships mean you don't belong anywhere, you are not committed. Being Canadian has become a safety valve rather than a privilege.
 
Tell us what you REALLY think, Minister ....
 


IMO Turkey has always been the weakest link in NATO, and their alliance could very well be tested if this spills outside Israel/Gaza/West Bank.
 

Six Members of My Family Are Hostages in Gaza. Does Anyone Care?​


On Oct. 7. I spent the day waiting for news from my family in Israel. My cousin Sharon Cunio; her husband, David; their 3-year-old twins, Emma and Yuli; my cousin Danielle Alony; and her 5-year-old daughter, Amelia, were hiding together in their bomb shelter while Hamas went on a murderous rampage through their kibbutz. The last contact my family has had from them is a WhatsApp message simply saying, “Help, we’re dying.” By evening, my aunt had confirmed our fears: My six relatives were missing from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a community in the south of Israel about three miles from Gaza now known as a scene of brutality and destruction.

An hour after discovering they were missing, I spotted some of my family on a TikTok video. They were being carted away, surrounded by machine-gun-carrying terrorists shouting “Allahu akbar.” The pain I experienced in that moment and in so many after has been so sharp, it follows my every breath. I wake up each morning only to remember again my family is being held hostage by terrorists.

Again and again I hear that Israel is a country of white colonizers and oppressors. So some of my bewilderment is in my very skin. My maternal grandparents, Avraham and Sara, grew up in a tiny rural village in central Yemen. Like other Jews in the Arabian Peninsula, Yemenite Jews were persecuted as second-class citizens through what are known as dhimmi laws — the denigration of non-Muslims before the law. In 1949, after pogroms against Jews in Yemen, my grandparents set out by foot and donkey on an arduous journey to the capital, Sana. From there, they were airlifted during Operation Magic Carpet to the newly formed state of Israel. As refugees fleeing oppression in their birth country, they began their lives in Israel in poverty. Slowly they built a humble but comfortable life and raised five children, among them my mother.

So maybe you can imagine my surprise the first time I heard my Israeli family called “white colonizers.” When did we become white? And how could a family fleeing persecution be perceived as colonizers? I have heard this description for years; perhaps I shrugged it off too easily. But it’s not the catchphrases or even the loudest and most inflammatory voices that have made me feel so betrayed. Rather, it’s those who have remained silent when they otherwise would never be, like the women who lifted up the #MeToo movement alongside me yet now refuse to cry out against even the violence against women or rape reported by an Israeli military forensics team
 
Back
Top