Question about American and British Pakistanis/Bangladeshis

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Question about American and British Pakistanis/Bangladeshis
OP - March 28, 2010, 07:11 PM

Why are British Pakistanis and Bangladeshis much more radical than American ones? The Pakistanis at my high school are pretty liberal and they aren't ultra-religious. It might be worth mentioning that most of the Pakistanis at my high school are Ismaili Muslims, but there are also a good amount of Sunnis. Most of the people they date tend be Pakistanis from their respective communities. I always hear from people that a lot of British Pakistanis (not all) are really devout and fanatical.

From people on this forum, a lot of people said that Bangladeshis are not very religious back home. The women wear colorful saris and no hijabs, and take part in many Bengali traditions. When they immigrate to the UK, they start to become more religious and start wearing the hijab and lose some of their Bengali traditions. My cousin in Houston, Texas has a Bangladeshi friend who works/studies (not sure) at UT Austin, and she is married to an Indian Hindu. She has a Muslim name, but it seems that religion isn't a big deal for her. She also has another relative who married a Hindu guy and they had a Hindu wedding. They both have relatives that wear hijab and no one disowned anybody for marrying a Hindu. They still keep in contact with other family members.

I guess my question is actually about American and British Muslims. Why are British Muslims so radical and fundamentalist while the American Muslims are moderate and normal?
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Re: Question about American and British Pakistanis/Bangladeshis
Reply #1 - March 28, 2010, 07:17 PM

I think it's due to the economic class and time period in which these migrants moved to their respective countries. The south asian muslims that came to the UK came as a sort of mass migration, and they all congregated around specific ghettos - they also moved to the UK before the 80s when it must have been harder to 'assimilate' due to more open racism.

Migrants to the US and Canada seem to have come much later and they simply did not move here as a sort of 'horde' but instead were mostly middle-class professional types and America is simply to large to allow for south asian ghettoes on the same level as the UK. I just get the sense that a lot of the people that moved to the UK were far lower income levels and status back in the home country than a lot of us in Canada and the US.

This is just my sense of it, I could be wrong.

Quote from: thinkfree on September 28, 2010, 07:58 PM
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Re: Question about American and British Pakistanis/Bangladeshis
Reply #2 - March 28, 2010, 07:23 PM

Pretty much that. America and Canada ( I think) never allowed a mass migration of South Asians. The ones that did come over were selected though visas, meaning they were usually middle to upper middle class work professionals. As such there never really was enough hard core religionists in one area to form the critical mass to police each others actions. If one didn't like the religious pressure they felt they could simply move to another city sometimes days away by travel time and because of their higher education have a pretty good life.

So once again I'm left with the classic Irish man's dilemma, do I eat the potato or do I let it ferment so I can drink it later?
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Re: Question about American and British Pakistanis/Bangladeshis
Reply #3 - March 28, 2010, 07:29 PM

I think education must be a huge part of it. Because I find south asians in America and Canada tend to be very professionally oriented and not economically tied to their respective ethnic communities at all. Which means we tend to be far more spread out than others.

A good example would be myself, I'm an electrical engineer and due to my focus in a specific field I am sort of forced to work in a rather remote little area. Later on I will probably move to Edmonton and then Vancouver because of the nature of my field and the fact that I want better experience. Eventually I hope to move to the states and maybe work a few years in Asia. This has been my dad's life experience too, hopping from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton etc etc. Having a higher level education means more job mobility and that means you have very little oppurtunity to be tied to down to an ethnic ghetto and it also opens your mind a lot more.

When I see these south asians kids in the UK ghettos I get the feeling they are really economically, socially and culturally tied to their neighbhourhood, that they simply don't have the educational qualifications to move to bigger and better things and staying in that ghetto makes them more insular and tribal perhaps?

Quote from: thinkfree on September 28, 2010, 07:58 PM
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Re: Question about American and British Pakistanis/Bangladeshis
Reply #4 - March 28, 2010, 07:58 PM

High levels of Jamat-e-Islami and Maulana Maududi institutionalised ideology preached inside the Pakistani community.

Ghettoisation.

Self-perpetuation of oppressive practises.

Really its a question of where to begin. This has been an ongoing topic of discussion here since I joined.

Having said that, American and Canadian Pakistanis / Bangladeshis have no reason to be complacent. US / Canadian Pakistanis have been involved in jehadi acts in recent times. Extremism is a virus that can affect any body - North American Muslims are no different.

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Re: Question about American and British Pakistanis/Bangladeshis
Reply #5 - March 28, 2010, 08:04 PM

Quote from: Iblis on March 28, 2010, 07:29 PM
When I see these south asians kids in the UK ghettos I get the feeling they are really economically, socially and culturally tied to their neighbhourhood, that they simply don't have the educational qualifications to move to bigger and better things and staying in that ghetto makes them more insular and tribal perhaps?

Its not 'South Asians'. Indians are the second most successful ethnic group in Britain, slightly behind the Chinese. On a wide range of social indicators, they outperform white people.

Its not even 'Muslims' per se. There is large disparity between different Muslim groups. The problem lies primarily with Pakistani Muslims particularly from specific parts of Pakistan ie: Mirpuris. And with Bangladeshis, the Sylhetis are particularly represented in this kind of scenario.

"we can smell traitors and country haters"

Quote from: arX on May 01, 2011, 03:33 AM
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Re: Question about American and British Pakistanis/Bangladeshis
Reply #6 - March 28, 2010, 08:06 PM

True true. I was implying south asian muslims anyways. Should have been more specific.

Perhaps those specific muslim groups are more tribal and insular than the other muslims? Sylhetis seemed to have migrated to the UK as a giant tribe almost. There's so many of them over there!

Quote from: thinkfree on September 28, 2010, 07:58 PM
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Re: Question about American and British Pakistanis/Bangladeshis
Reply #7 - March 28, 2010, 08:13 PM

Its compounded by the social segregation you see. If you go to the milltowns in the north of England, you see these towns that are basically segregated societies. The level of integration is extremely, extremely low. And in the middle of one of the worst towns for this segregated society, Dewsbury, where the leader of the London suicide bombers was from, is the European headquarters of the Tableegi Jamaat, a reactionary, aggressive dawah propagating, proponents of religious separatism. Its a horrible set of circumstances, the ideological brainwashing mixing in with the self-imposed social separation. Extremism flourishes here.

"we can smell traitors and country haters"

Quote from: arX on May 01, 2011, 03:33 AM
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Question about American and British Pakistanis/Bangladeshis
Reply #8 - April 26, 2015, 10:50 PM

In britain most pakistanis came from a backward area called mirpur in pakistan administered portion of kashmir.Some estimates suggest that anything between 60-70% of pakistanis settled in britain are mirpuris and surrounding areas of mirpur like kotli and bhimber.The first generation nearly all off them came from villages and were all illiterate.These mirpuris are obsessed with their clan loyalties and many still marry their first cousins in pakistan or in britain.In britain they have brought bad name to pakistan and i have heard that even non-mirpuris dont like them.Things like forced marriages,grooming white and other girls,drugs etc are rampant amongst them.

In america pakistanis tend to be more open and liberal because they migrated from urban parts of pakistan and had some education.As for bangladeshis i cant say much about them.

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Question about American and British Pakistanis/Bangladeshis
Reply #9 - April 27, 2015, 02:44 AM

Free Spirit and I figured out that the discrepancies between Pakistani American and Pakistani British has a lot to do with immigration policies between the two countries.
The US mostly has educated Pakistanis because of this, and I have never heard of any issues here like y'all describe there being in Britain.

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Question about American and British Pakistanis/Bangladeshis
Reply #10 - April 27, 2015, 04:10 AM

Quote from: Iblis on March 28, 2010, 07:17 PM
I think it's due to the economic class and time period in which these migrants moved to their respective countries. The south asian muslims that came to the UK came as a sort of mass migration, and they all congregated around specific ghettos - they also moved to the UK before the 80s when it must have been harder to 'assimilate' due to more open racism.

Migrants to the US and Canada seem to have come much later and they simply did not move here as a sort of 'horde' but instead were mostly middle-class professional types and America is simply to large to allow for south asian ghettoes on the same level as the UK. I just get the sense that a lot of the people that moved to the UK were far lower income levels and status back in the home country than a lot of us in Canada and the US.

This is just my sense of it, I could be wrong.

Canadian immigration laws pretty much only allows educated middle class immigrants as individuals. The exceptions are sponsorship in which a sponsor takes all financial responsibility for the sponsored. However they require to prove financial capability for doing so. There are also a number of laws which the sponsor is under if they fail in their responsibilities required to be a sponsor. Many with heavy fines and jail time. So even the sponsor is going to be middle-class. There is also refugee status which has requirements that's life is in danger if returned while most refugees can only claim displacement status. These refugees can be deported once the causes of their status is resolved or no longer present. Immigration laws are very conservative by most standards. There are still religious/cultural enclaves including non-Muslims. However this is due to the nations slow development and settlement which only accelerated after World War 2.
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Question about American and British Pakistanis/Bangladeshis
Reply #11 - April 27, 2015, 07:16 AM

So are ways forward to properly risk assess matters and not use general labels like Muslim or Pakistani or Islamophobia?

What is someone's educational level, and that of their immediate families? Where are they from? What proportion of arranged marriages of first cousins is there?

A list of relevant factors can easily be constructed. Extremist organisations and ideas then become symptoms. Generalisations become redundant.

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Question about American and British Pakistanis/Bangladeshis
Reply #12 - April 27, 2015, 07:22 AM

Quote
Social network analysis (SNA) is a strategy for investigating social structures through the use of network and graph theories.[1] It characterizes networked structures in terms of nodes (individual actors, people, or things within the network) and the ties or edges (relationships or interactions) that connect them. Examples of social structures commonly visualized through social network analysis include social media networks, friendship and acquaintance networks, kinship, disease transmission,and sexual relationships.[2][3] These networks are often visualized through sociograms in which nodes are represented as points and ties are represented as lines.

Social network analysis has emerged as a key technique in modern sociology. It has also gained a significant following in anthropology, biology, communication studies, economics, geography, history, information science, organizational studies, political science, social psychology, development studies, and sociolinguistics and is now commonly available as a consumer tool.[4][5][6][7]

Social network analysis has its theoretical roots in the work of early sociologists such as Georg Simmel and Émile Durkheim, who wrote about the importance of studying patterns of relationships that connect social actors. Social scientists have used the concept of "social networks" since early in the 20th century to connote complex sets of relationships between members of social systems at all scales, from interpersonal to international. In the 1930s Jacob Moreno and Helen Jennings introduced basic analytical methods.[8] In 1954, J. A. Barnes started using the term systematically to denote patterns of ties, encompassing concepts traditionally used by the public and those used by social scientists: bounded groups (e.g., tribes, families) and social categories (e.g., gender, ethnicity)....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network_analysis

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