Cologne Police: Roving Packs Sexually Assaulted Dozens on New Year's Eve

[DFW]

80. The unclear part is how much each side will give and take

Your post deserved more than a three line quip, I thought.

While Christianity is certainly fading, many of the younger Muslim immigrants are discovering that the liberal social traditions of the countries they are coming to are more to their liking than the ones they left. While the boys are having trouble figuring out that women wearing short skits do not necessarily mean they want to be hit on, their sisters are seeing that German girls can go out (or to bed) with German boys and not suffer the wrath of Allah. Third generation Turkish girls in Germany, depending on their family background, might wear a headscarf and get virginity tests, or else be living with their boyfriends in a jointly rented apartment somewhere. The grand cathedrals are more likely to end up as museums as mosques--as, some day, will the mosques (think Córdoba).

Immigration into a foreign culture doesn't always follow one set path. My sister-in-law was condemned to being a bank teller if she stayed in Japan. She followed my brother back home to Washington and ended as vice-director for the World Bank for Asia. The ceiling she ran up against in Tokyo in 1980 was not there in Washington. At the travel agency that does my train tickets in Germany, there are two guys that take care of my account. One is German, the other Turkish. Listening to them talk, you couldn't tell which is Turkish and which is German, and indeed, the Turk WAS born in Germany. He still speaks decent Turkish, but even though he is Muslim by family tradition, he drinks alcohol, eats pork, and does not consider the word of the Koran to be the inviolate word of Allah or anyone else.

Germany is a special case as far as receptiveness to foreign cultures. After the War, Hitler's glorification of German culture brought a huge backlash. The most sought after folk music acts were from Scotland and Ireland. Israelis were welcomed with open arms by the young people, and Jewish music experienced a huge revival. Frankfurt still has a lively Klezmer scene. My wife still remembers her first pizza, and I was the one who introduced her to Asian food. We met at age 22. One of our favorite restaurants in Düsseldorf is called ArabesQ. It is in a former rich man's house that was made over with high ceilings and mosaic walls when it became the Moroccan consulate in the 1930s. But the German identity has experience a resurgence in recent years, too. My kids' generation has told me that the worst thing the Nazis did to them (born 40 years after the war, after all) was to take way their right to be proud of their own culture. Think of how many classical music virtuosi have been people from cultures other than the ones that produced the music in which they are so proficient. SO, Germans, especially modern Germans, are used to being receptive to foreign cultures, with one proviso--it doesn't work if it is forced upon them. That is where Germany must tread lightly, and so must our newest "guests." Opening restaurants, giving concerts, becoming professors, all THAT works. But it takes only one case of a German girl being raped by a mob of young Muslim men to undo a lot of progress. The old attitude of "showing tolerance" won't cut it any more. Not in the internet age. As easy as it was for the Friday The 13th killers in Paris to organize their carnage, that's how easy it would be for some dedicated Neo-Nazis to organize "retaliation" for an attack on a German girl, and they are just as indifferent about getting the right bad guys as the Paris attackers were. The sooner the German government realizes this and dedicates a LOT of resources to educating immigrants BEFORE settling them, the better. Assimilation depends on it.

I can't even imagine Europe in 2066. It sure as hell has changed a lot in the time since I've been hanging out there, and the first time for me was 48 years ago.