E.R. Campbell said:
But, my personal experience is that my East and South Asian colleagues and friends seemed to have fewer community problems than my Arab/Middle Eastern colleagues; one of my Arab-Canadian friends told us that he had withdrawn almost completely from any Islamic community organizations, cutting himself off from some of his own famiuly: he has three daughters and he explained that they could not grow to their full human potential if they were exposed to the influences of mosques and community organizations. I don't recall any of our Chinese or Indian colleagues saying anything similar, ever, not even about Hindu-Sikh problems.
What you describe is a troubling aspect of how some Islamic organizations have evolved. Islam is due for a Reformation, but I don't know if it'll get worse before better. An Iranian gentleman of my aquaintance (a settled refugee from the Ayatollahs' regime) made similar comments about certain areas of Ottawa "look like Saudi Arabia."
There are similar community tensions in the South Asian and Asian communities. A different sort of extreme, perhaps, but it's there. You may remember the tea kettle bomb in BC some time ago.
I'll have to ask my wife when it was dropped, but there used to be a section of an immigration file called "adaptability." It was an entirely subjective entry made by the immigration officer, which may be why it was dropped, but it helped screen out immigrants who held views or participated in practices that are against what are generally held as our Canadian values. In at least one case that she described to me (without specifics) she explained how she was able to "mark down" a Syrian gent who demanded to "see the
man in charge of my file" when my wife insisted he stop answering questions for his wife who was in the interview booth with him. She gently explained that she was the
man in charge of his file, and that he would have a great deal of difficulty living in Canada where he could find himself subordinate to a woman.
I think the current issue with refugees is one of approach. We have, in the past, taken refugees without the promise of citizenship. In fact, not all want it (the man who lost is family is returning to Kobani - Canada was a place of safety for his wife and kids, not home). Many Lebanese returned as soon as the Taif Accord was inked. I don't know how it would hold up legally, but perhaps we need to create some sort of status that provides for equality, but is forfeit when the refugee returns home. Anyone wanting to stay has to go through the regular immigration application process.
The other analogy posted above, about firefighters holding nets for people to jump from the buring building
or fighting the fire is a false dichotomy. Ask a firefighter - they do both. So can we. We don't have to take them all (that would be absurd), just as we don't need to be the only "firefighters" trying to put out the flames.
Merkel has said Germany could absorb 800,000 of the refugees
. That's nearly 1% of their population. By that metric we should be able to absorb 300,000, though I would suggest we could absorb 50k without even noticing. Yes, refugees are harder to integrate than those who want to come here, but it's not impossible.